interesting article

Now here's an interesting article:

Depression's Upside

which i actually haven't read fully yet because my mother is sitting here talking talking talking to me. But i hope to finish it later...after i go clean my disasterous house.

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OK, i read it through now. Interesting theories, some good quotes in there too, but the article is kind of poorly written, actually. For one BIG thing, depression does not equal sadness. They are rather two different things. And for me, as i suspect for many people, depression does not aid creativity/work/thinking. In fact, it seems to make it impossible for me to do those things. Hence, seeking treatment -- because if i were just sad/unhappy/morose, i wouldn't seek treatment....these things are part of the human condition. But not functioning...that is not part of the human condition. That is something wrong.

Day 9 -- anemone 'honorine jobert'

or a leftover leaf, anyway.

And yesterday we got even more snow. Sigh. This is the time of year that i begin to believe that spring will never come.

AD's, revisited...and other random stuff

OK, i've decided to try another antidepressant. Honestly, i am becoming borderline nonfunctional, too stupid even to teach these days. Which is not really good for anything. I'm guessing that depression is a more fitting diagnosis for my various whiny malingering depressed symptoms than, say, a brain tumor. Which would be very dramatic indeed! But, probably, not the case. So, i am going to the pharmacy to fill my new script now, though i have been resisting it for the past three weeks.

In other completely uninteresting news, i've decided not to buy myself a digital SLR, mostly because once you add the cost of several lenses (and why would i even get a better camera if i didn't get a macro lens??) it cuts rather a lot into my shoe-and-yarn budget. Like, WAY lot. Instead, i will get a new point-and-shoot, and that might be enough. If it isn't, i will save up for the SLR.

I decided to take a spinning class next month. I'm really just the decider these days, aren't i?

My mother won't let me get a dog. I am thirty-seven years old and my MOTHER won't LET me get a DOG. WTF???

(i wanted to adopt a rescue greyhound & the rescue group i am looking at won't let you adopt unless all adults in the home agree. Which as a policy is fundamentally sound and i absolutely support it. Except......argh.)

When we're driving and stop at a red light, T. says "tur gween o pwease wed", which translates to "Turn green on please, red." Then both boys repeat their polite request, until red obliges.

Day 8 -- Hinoki

Day 7 -- luscious hand-dyed yarn

knit up into a scarf for me! heh heh



The pattern is Clapotis, though i had less yarn & so did a scarf rather than a shawl. The yarn is from Urban Fauna Studio in San Francisco. This is a fabulous store, i was so lucky to get to visit! Very small -- his wife dyes the yarns & he sells them. They are in absolutely gorgeous colors & fibers (which my crappy camera does not quite capture). It's too bad he doesn't have his website up properly yet, because even though i dropped nearly $100 there, i want to buy more.....

We were sitting in the urgent care waiting room last night, and C. was coloring in an old coloring book of A's -- 'History of the Sword'. Ramses' sword was becoming pinker-by-the-minute.

C: 'I don't want him to have a boy sword, i want him to have a girl sword.'

Me: 'I don't think swords have genders.'

C: 'Well, THIS one does.'

Ya, evidently.

Day 6 -- Bubbles

Did you know that if you blow bubbles outside in the winter, they freeze a bit? I didn't know this, having never thought to try bubbles in winter. They last a really long time, and when they pop you can see their little skin floating down like a tiny deflated balloon. C. had them bouncing off walls. It was awesome.

What a discovery!

(oh, please don't notice the horrid hat...that's just some proof that not everything i knit turns out well.)

Day 5 -- Colorado snowfall, 7 am

A beautiful way to wake up.

irony. um, yeah.

The Depressed Person by David Foster Wallace...

....who hung himself about 10 years after this was published, by the way.

Right. OK. Maybe i'll just go knit something, because that's just too much shit for me to deal with.

Day 4 -- Mardi Gras

Again, not beautiful in the strictest sense....though apt, and there is certainly something very beautiful about a nice cocktail at the end of a hard day.

back...

we are back from my dad's in Colorado....and i had a relaxing time. The kids really enjoyed themselves. I suppose there was too much to do to allow for any actual talking about any family issues, which is probably the best way to run these things. Now we just have to make it through the inevitable fallout from my mother...though she currently is playing nice so we will see how long that lasts.

I hope i got some good pictures, i will try to get them off the camera & post later. In the meantime, hours and hours of grading seems to have magically appeared on my desk, as well as plenty of other piles of crap that MUST BE DONE RIGHT NOW. So, um, ya. Perhaps the photos will have to wait a wee bit.

i sad

Yes, it is a toddler phrase...that i often hear around here. It is somehow noteworthy that the phrases of those who are learning....sum things up so efficiently.
check this out, it's knitted, do you see? the lines, the petticoat, the embellishments. wow! is the pocket not completely awesome?


While i was changing diapers while getting the twins into bed tonight, my mom came down with some news.

"Do you know who Alexander McQueen is?"

"um, YEAH (like, hello!!)"

"He's dead. At 40."

"Oh, no! Really?" i exclaimed (full disclosure: my immediate thought was 'crap, i have nothing McQueen in my closet'. I am not proud of this thought.)

"Overdose?" i asked.(seemed likely, iirc, he was a hard-partying sort).

"No", she informed me, "They are saying he did it to himself."

Suicide.....seems to be a constant thread these days.
ZOMG!!!!eleven!!!!! check out the queen!!!! is all i can say about this dress.

"His mother just died", my mom said,"and his friend?...editor?...she had done it a few years ago"

Isabella Blow, she was speaking of. In 2007, she made her exit. And his mother died just a few short days ago, Feb. 2....according to NY Times. ooooof. So much pain there....
i have no comment for this one. i am amazed at how it flows.

Ya. I have nothing McQueen in my wardrobe. Reason being, the stuff i could afford (that would be, 75% off the clearance rack at the clearance/outlet store) did not fit me well. Because, if there was every a man who was wasted on the modern ethos of ready-to-wear, it was Alexander McQueen. His clothes demanded a proper fitting.
peacock! f-in peacocks!!! with matching shoes! Do you know how long it would take me to knit that lace? It would be easier to BUY some damned peacocks & stick 'em in the yard.

OK, i am a second-rate math professor at a third-rate public university in the midwestern united states. I have borne five children, including a set of twins. and i have breast fed all of my living babies. This aging, sagging body of mine has very little to say about current fashion....for sure.
feathers! babe! it is MADE of feathers! and...ready-to-wear! (supposedly, anyway)

Except...in fact do know something of such things....and i will say it again, Lee Alexander McQueen knew how to cut. He was a man of great talent....who created rare beauty.

the cut and embroidery of this jacket is truly gorgeous.... just look.

I can't write anything that doesn't sound trite. I could try to relate, but i cannot imagine his own pain from his losses and his demons, nor the pain that his family is feeling now. In fact, i understand very well the huge gulf between the 'almost' and the actual. In this scenario, i am just a stranger to it all...but yet, i am sad.

I sad.






all pictures from Alexander McQueen fall 2008 ready-to-wear collection (a personal favorite).

Day 3 -- Heuchera 'Palace Purple'

At least i think this coral bells cultivar is called 'palace purple'. It is grown primarily for the foliage, seeing as the flowers are very small & fairly nondescript. Still, the flower stems & seed pods seem to hang around a long long time -- far longer than most things in the garden.

We are leaving for Colorado tomorrow, so it might be a few days before my next picture post. We will see how that will go. In any case, no matter where we go, it will be nice to leave the house.

Day 2 -- C's first snowman

Perhaps the snowman (snowgirl?) is not strictly beautiful, but i thought she was quite funny nevertheless.

30 Days of Beauty -- Day 1

I am going to try to do bluebirdbaby's "30 Days of Beauty" and so here is a photo i took yesterday. By itself it is not particularly beautiful -- you have to add the bird's song and the toddler saying 'take pit-chur birdie, mama! Pit-chur birdie!'

That would be T, here very intent on some task known only to himself.

blah blah blah

Lousy day yesterday, and not much to look forward to this week. I have been in the dumps as usual. I'm sure i *would* feel better if i exercised, but i can't seem to figure out how to fit any exercise in my schedule at all. Dh says 'just make a time, i will move stuff around so you can do it', which sounds good in theory but isn't true. He is very busy at work and lately doesn't even get home until 8 pm at night, which means he rarely even SEES the boys -- we leave the house before he gets up -- that's crazy. I'm glad they are busy at work, though, given the economy....i'm not complaining and neither is he, but it is stressful.

I'm leaving on friday afternoon, with A & C, to go visit my father for his birthday. I rarely speak to my dad -- i'm not angry with him but i really have nothing to say to him. What little relationship we ever had when i was a child was sort of permanently killed by my parent's divorce. And though he did try to keep some relationship with me, it honestly wasn't possible -- my mother could write the book on 'what not to do to your kids when you get a divorce'. Sheesh. I don't want to even go there. The problem with that book is that it never ends -- every interaction with my father leads to her making some scene worthy of another chapter (or at very least an appendix).

I tried to establish some relationship with him when A. was young -- they always got along very well, you see. So, you know, i made the effort to call on holidays, birthdays, go out there when i could etc. (he lives in Colorado). Since we got back from France though, i have not had the emotional energy to even deal with him at all. He was certainly not supportive after Nicolas' death, but he wasn't specifically non-supportive...he didn't want to 'talk about it' but honestly neither did i want to discuss Nicolas with him. The guy is basically a non-entity in my life. He came to visit us when C. was born, & then after the twins came...those are the only two times i have seen him in the past 10 years. His wife sends gifts for Xmas and occasionally birthdays. Every now & then he forwards me some ultra-right-wing-conservative joke email. So, my opinion is as always -- for this i am supposed to make an effort?

But yeah, we're going for the damned birthday, because it's his 70th one after all. And C. doesn't actually even know who he is, which is rather sad.

looking forward to April

I was going through last year's kid photos, to find some to print out & frame for my dad's 70th b-day present. It was a hell of a year...there are no photos from May at all, very few from the rest of the summer. But April was apparently nice, the garden looked really good. I went back & looked at my blog entry photos too. I wonder what we will have this year, how the new plantings and bulbs will look, if the roses will live.

So, yeah...i suppose i still have most of february (blah) and all of march (boo!) to get through....but yesterday the weather was temperate and you could feel it in the air that spring must come eventually. C. said "oh, no, the snow is melting, there will be no more snow!" I said, "no such luck, babe, there will be more snow and cold for sure. But then the spring will come."

Hurry the hell up, spring!

this-n-that

To respond to some various comments i never responded to --

Well, as far as the interior of the garage...so far it has none. The garage part looks like a garage. The 'garden apartment', the part that faces the house, looks like a storage shed with nice windows. We don't have money to finish the inside yet, and so far have not decided what the inside is going to be anyway. That is to say, it was dh's idea to make it into a small studio apartment for my mother, but she is now ensconced in the 3rd floor and i think it is unlikely that he will be successful in dislodging her from there. She flat-out refuses to live in the garage...uh...i mean 'garden apartment'. So we will see. In any case i would really like to start clawing my way out of the debt hole again, before making any more massive expenditures.

You know, i do actually believe in the power of therapy, though as an adult i have never had a truly helpful experience with a therapist. I did as a teenager, which definitely makes me pro-therapy. The thing is, i wonder right now if the help that i got as a teenager (from my guidance counselor) was really helpful because she had a lot of good things to say...more likely it was only helpful because i felt that there was this person who actually CARED about me, that i could talk to honestly. Certainly i can talk honestly to any therapist, but i no longer think they actually *care*. Well, maybe they do, on some sort of shallow level, but not really. That's their job, that's all. Which is not a bad thing, but maybe that's the element that i am missing.

I saw my regular doctor, who prescribed me a different antidepressant than the shrink did on monday... and i think i might try it. (i have nothing good at all to say about the shrink i saw on monday...a different one than i saw before. Suffice it to say that i do not take kindly to being given misinformation and talked down to. Of course i can never *confront* anybody about anything like that, just high-tail it out of there. Sigh.) Not sure about the AD's yet...i will kick around the idea for the next week or so. Sometimes i feel like i really NEED some help and other days i feel like i am doing OK on my own. The days are getting longer, and maybe the light box on my desk is actually working a little bit. I know i really should try some exercise, but i am not sure how to fit that in to my day exactly.

In two weeks (Feb 12th) i am going to visit my father since it is his 70th birthday. I am bringing C & A. I am not looking forward to this unpleasant journey and the resulting fallout from my mother. BLAH.

socks! Well, one sock.

Nice sock, eh? I am very proud.

Yeah, i know it would look better in a solid yarn. My yarn store has a piss-poor selection of solid-color sock yarn & as this is semi-solid, i thought it would be close enough. Uh, well, not exactly. But it *was* on sale.
I forgot to get a picture of the back cable on the finished sock...anyway this is a picture from before, it looks like this.

Now i have 4 other things to knit in the next two weeks, so the second sock will probably have to wait.

Oh, by the way, the pattern is here. It's free.

fragile

Apparently i am more fragile these days than i had thought. I got all bent out of shape on friday when somebody posted something not-uber-nice in response to an offhand comment i had made on some forum. This person didn't even say anything mean to me, just questioned what i had said and it made me extremely upset. So, what, i cannot handle even the slightest bit of dissent? It wasn't even about anything important, it was about a cartoon, for pete's sake. WTF is wrong with me?

Perhaps it is just that there is so much dissent in my house these days that even the smallest extra amount is too much for my little brain. Probably i should not be wasting my life reading any online forums anyway.

That is my lesson -- if you can't handle it when people don't agree with you, stay away from online forums where people might not agree with you. And spend time instead working on why the heck you can't handle it when people don't agree with you.

So, i will probably try to do that. In addition to the whole stop-whining thing. Which admittedly hasn't been working *that* well here.

I got my insurance snafu worked out, i saw the shrink again this morning, he gave me another script which i have no intention of starting on yet. Heck, i still look like crap from the last time -- i'm old now, you know, and when my eyes swell up the skin gets all stretched out and it takes time to recover. Not like 1 day, like 1 month apparently (because my eyelids & under-eye areas are still wrinkly and baggy, i look 10 years older). And i have given up on trying any kind of EYE cream on that, because it just makes it worse. I should probably see a dermatologist as well as an allergist. Well, i have an appointment with my GP tomorrow, to get a referral for the allergist, and also to see if he can tell me WHY my leg still hurts even though i fell down the stairs more than three weeks ago so i should be better already, right?

I am continuing with this worthless 'therapy', because i am not a quitter, but i have decided that i hate mental health professionals. I don't want to tell anybody about my mood EVER AGAIN. I would prefer to treat my problems with liberal doses of alcohol and shopping...except that makes me fat and crabby and broke, so perhaps a different approach is required. I am working on developing that approach, stay tuned.

In the meantime, i am knitting an absolutely awesome pair of socks for myself. Hope to finish the first one tonight, and post pictures.