We had a Valentine's Day meat party last week in celebration of being single and alone and lonely. We did this through meat (duh) and karaoke, and drinking, oh the drinking, while wearing prom dresses.
Instead I ended up wandering around the East/West Village with J2, taking in the scenery of every other asshole off of work that day. We tried to eat brunch at 3 different places (included Balthazar, mmmm tasty tasty Balthazar) but ended up at a little bit of a diner dive in Alphabet City that did have amazing nachos but was not exactly the brunch of my dreams. And it was hella packed. Oh days off with moderate to nice weather, fuck you, fuck you right in the face.
I've had two dates now with one of Liz's Friends (LF) who I met for the first time at a New Year's Eve party and invited to my own housewarming. It's the first time in, well, maybe since high school? that I met someone in real life first and they liked me and we did our courting and flirting like normal people do (in meatspace than in cyberspace). It's INCREDIBLY stressful. It feels like there's so many more strings to pull and things to coordinate and...stuff. LF is a good guy, nice, funny, Capricorn, good kisser. Not so ambitious. Film major and shitty temp-kind of work. I wish I could reconcile the two. We saw Coraline (in threeeeee deeeeeeee) last night and grabbed Mexican in Hell's Kitchen. It went as well as dates can go, with awkward "wait are you going to kiss me now? now? NOW?" moments in Port Authority.
But like I always say, these things are good practice for being a human being. I need as much of that as I can get, although my feet are feeling great lately and wearing heels has been no problem. Heels = Real Person. And I got my 1 year lease to resign in the mail, which means I am absolutely going to live in the same place for another year. It's a big committment. A big fucking adult grown up committmen
I'm seeing TA's show on Sunday with EnriqueIglesias (otherwise known as my Best Looking Male Friend and Moral Support. See above gentleman in a suit. He is Just Not That Into Me, otherwise I would hit that like the fist of an angry god) to get my show back and to see what I consulted on (he borrowed heavily from my crazy in trying to do a show about ADD and medication) and to get my stuff back. I am...nervous to say the least. He wants to "explain" things to me, but I keep saying I am embarassed for the way I handled stuff. I'm not the kind of person that needs to hear what did or didn't go wrong. I'm afraid my heart is going to leak out of one of my ears and onto the barroom floor.
I made it to the gym Wednesday morning and am on track to go again tomorrow morning. I can't believe I stop doing things that make sense like eating well and vitamins and the gym. It's silly and I will end up doing it until the end of time.
It kind of freaks me out when I realize that my mental state is so tied to my physical state.
I was just about to write an entry about how the last couple weeks I'd been kind of depressed and whiny, mostly to myself, and how I'd been lonely and how I'd been in the "I am desperate to have a boyfriend" kind of way, where I was even having dreams about being with Jonathan and I missed TA even though I knew were we all wrong for each other and in every other way I was pretty happy with my life, etc.etc. I haven't been able to write...anything. Anything at all.
Then a got my period, and it all made sense. And that's just fucking bizarre. I refuse to let hormones rule my life and mental state this way! ...and yet there's nothing I can do about it, as illustrated time and time again. Fuck.
Speaking of hormones ruining the mental state, I had the "I'm just not that into you" talk with J2. The outcome was basically, um, he said that he didn't care, and being friends to him meant doing the same things we do already (like go to a Devil's game on Wednesday at the Pru Center. Turns out I love hockey! Who would've thought!), so he was going to keep giving me presents and taking me places and doing kind of extravagant stuff.
So. That's kind of weird. And makes me very uncomfortable, but in a way that's actually kind of good. But it's still for the win!
I love Valentine's Day. Have we talked about this? I love it. I love it in all of it's tacky mid-winter glory, where the drug stores are packed with bizarre candy as far as the eye can see. Even single, whiny, and mopey like I have been for the majority of V-Days, it's kind of a big deal. And I'm not hella sick like last year!
Jessica and I, however, had decided in advance that we were going to be each other's Valentines. I sent her a big boquet of pink roses (which, I just realized, I never asked how much they cost, and I'm sure it'll be a small fortune) and she sent me gourmet cupcakes.
Because of course Valentine's Day falls on the week I decided to stop eating like shit. Christ. So yeah, the cycle thing in the last post had been a lot about how I just hadn't been taking care of myself. I'd been eating indiscriminately and manically, spending so many nights away from home, feeling exhausted and busy and stressed out all the damn time. It was about time to cut it out. I think I've gained something like ten pounds, which is ridiculous because I somehow did it without noticing. Nothing really has been fitting badly, I guess, or maybe I haven't been paying attention. Ehh, I guess now that I am paying attention I somehow just managed not to notice because I didn't care.
I'm hoping a lot of the 10 is period weight but I'm not really gonna hold my breath about that. And hopefully cutting out sugars and flours again will help drop some water weight. AND! I made it to the gym 2 mornings this week. After 8 months of saying I would, I did, and it's great. It just requires me to get to bed by about 10:30 on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Sundays are going to become difficult since I joined a floor hockey league that starts playing next month, but I guess those other days won't be too hard. My mom is visiting this weekend and we were out late eating at Cinema (mmmmm pan seared scallops and chicken coconut curry soup, yum yum yum) 39 Steps last night (a hilarious romp! a must see!) and didn't get in until late and I was appallingly tired and just couldn't do it this morning. Hopefully I'll be able to make it in tomorrow morning instead.
So yeah, the cupcakes are going to waste on me, but it's the thought that counts. Hopefully my ass is counting on being much happier too.
It's weird, the days go by much much slower when you're actually paying attention to yourself and not just lazily letting them slip by. Where as November-January went by in a flip, this week has dragged on for ages. That probably means I'm doing something right. Ugh, I hate doing the right thing. It's so inconvenient.
In other news, I had an a++ Vox meetup with Steve (Papi Chulo) on Tuesday. A+++ GREAT DINNER FAST RESPONSE WOULD DINE WITH AGAIN He made it up here for the incredibly bizarrely mild weather we've been having. I don't care for it; but then again, I'm more of a "me against the elements" type of girl.
What else what else what else.
Working for Wikipedia has been put on hold, work here has gotten increasingly irritating, and I just need a god damned fucking vacation already.
I think that's everything, chipchips! Hope you didn't read through this whole god damned thing, and have a great long ass weekend. I'm hoping to.
As someone who has dealt with mental illness for almost ten years now (shock! I'm old!), I'm a big believer of this idea that "everybody gets one."
Everybody, at one point or another in their fog, is capable of pulling themselves above it without the help of drugs, medicine, therapy, friends or family. Everybody has it inside of them. Everybody gets one. The theory goes to state, even if you kind of relapse, you have the knowledge that you've done it before and you can lean on it to limp along and use it again and again and within that time of one-ness you have the capacity to develop tools for dealing with yourself in the future.
We live in such a weird culture that wants to shame people who are depressed but want to coddle them at the same time. It sends such bizarre message and I can't imagine that anyone internalizes it well. You can't get out of your hole without time, money, drugs, therapy--but there's something wrong with you and you should be ashamed that you can't get your shit together. It's weird. It's horrible. It is what it is.
I've had my one, and even though I'm conscious of it, I keep having mini-ones. Although I'm happy, healthy and regularly medicated, I have little cycles of destruction or depression that are not always in the forefront of my brain. I have to identify them by their consequences, the things that I see happening around me as symptoms, not because I spend time being mopey or weepy or unhappy or unproductive. And like any cycle, I have to hit a mini-rock bottom before I can wake up the next day and take care of my shit and be good going forward until I get caught in the next mini cycle. I can try to stop it, but the intervention is usually short lived and often only partially effective, allowing me to limp along half heartedly at something I don't believe in until something knocks me back into the rut.
I've had my one. After four years of being miserable in high school and three godawful years in college, I was tired of it. I was tired of being so young and not being a human being. I had gone on and off medications, flip flopping from one end of the spectrum to another, so engulfed in the depths of depression that it sprouted paranoia and insomnia, two symptoms I'd never really been too familiar with. Again, it wasn't until I looked at the consequences, I labeled them, I truly looked at them--I realized there was a problem bigger than just what was happening in my immediate mind. I was having low grade hallucinations, unable to leave my room to go into the rest of the apartment and although not self destructive truly unwell.
I rationalized. I stepped away. I stopped. Everything stopped.
I think everyone can do this. I don't think everyone wants to.
I also think a lot of people falsely attribute this moment in their life to finding religion, spirituality and even sexuality, when at the end of the day it's really just the moment you decided to cut out all the bullshit.
In my junior year of college, towards the end of the summer, I literally woke up one day after having the flu and decided I wasn't going to be depressed anymore. I just decided. I flipped the switch. I got my one. I took care of my shit. I stopped wallowing in my problems. I stopped taking my medication and I was happier without it. I stopped feeling sorry for myself, I stopped using the disease as the reason I couldn't do anything or be anyone. I stopped hearing the mixed signals. I was really and truly happy and content inside and out.
I got along like this for about 8 months before I got stuck in a mini-cycle and had to go back on the drugs and haven't really been able to replicate my success again (although I've tried, if only to save on the copays). It's an amazing thing to know that you can fix yourself in some sort of permanently important way and I can be proud of that moment when I just decided and my word in my brain was law for my body and for my self.
It's frustrating to know what you believe is possible and watch others around you call you a liar or shortsighted. It's a silly thing to advocate, "Decide to be over it and you will be over it," especially for someone who's fought for so long just to keep their head above the water. But I've decided. I keep deciding. I keep deciding that I'm worth more than the feelings that keep me from having what I want to have or doing what I want to do or being who I want to be. And it's not that they're not there, and it's not that they're not as bad as yours. But even in my worst days I now don't believe anything is impossible.
I wish I could put that in a bottle and sell it. I wish I could weave it in a rope and toss it on everyone I've ever met, known or loved that found themselves up to their waist in quicksand, in a cesspool, trapped in their brain.
I can't.
It sucks.
But I've had my one. And at the end of the day, that's all I can ask for out of life.
And to win the lottery.
I'm letting sushi guide me through this nightmare of a week. It's not helping. The peanuts and brown sauce and avocado and eel (oh my!) are tasty but they're not taking away my headache (no adderall-- stolen at the party; no coffee-- simply just lazy).
I miss TA. I miss him so fucking much. And even more than missing him, I miss trying to think about not missing him. We're still emailing back and forth trying to get together to get stuff back.
Me:
It might just be easier if you just dropped my stuff off with the guys downstairs at the desk. I don't think an explanation would make either of us feel any better, and I'm Facebook friends with Fern Zimmerman now, so I'm actually pretty busy. But it's your call.
Him:
Well, I know I don't larp professionally, nor have I been the swarthy star player of a hit larping documentary, so those are two strikes against me. Clearly. But regardless, I feel like we need some sense of resolution so all this stuff isn't just left hanging in the air. Or something. I guess I just don't want you to feel this was some sort of Dennis-esque move on my part and that I could care less that this entire thing has gone down like it has. So, yes, I would still very much like to see you next week, and scene.
You know, Dennis from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia who is just a grade A self involved douchebag. TA maintains he is Dennis, but I've never agreed. And even more than that, I have no idea what he's going to tell me that isn't going to break my heart even farther.
I'm in a Dude Sabbatical. Jessica pointed out that I was overeating to try to deal with it (although frankly, I don't know how much you can blame me. Tostitos with Lime are just amazing, and blowing through 2 bags in 24 hours almost seems like a modicum of restraint. They're like Salt and Vinegar Tostitos! Come! On!) and I promptly placed a Fresh Direct order to fill my house with groceries and I can remind myself how to be a human being.
This is a really boring entry, I suppose, but so am I.
What it is is a week to follow all shitty weeks that have been rolling forward. Things with TA continue to wrap up gradually. I haven't spoken to him outside of his response ("don't be sorry for sending this" I was, immediately, even though I'd read it over and over ad nauseum) and that he wanted to meet up to explain his decision. I...just want my stuff back. I don't need to sit over dinner and hear why someone didn't pick me. There's no fun in that.
PRJ stalks my OKC profile and messages my friend Stacy. When I send him a "WTF, if you have something to say to me say it to my face" he sends me back "I haven't contacted you so I don't know what you mean." In what universe is stalking me and messaging my friends 'not contacting me'? Ugh. What a crazie crazie crazie.
So I'm taking a boy sabbatical along with Jessica, although frankly, it's not going to be hard. I've decided to go crawling back to FreshDirect even though I know ShopRite has better prices (ShopRite is more expensive in time and effort, both of which I find it difficult to muster) and cook food, you know, again. I cleaned my apartment top to bottom to get ready for Saturday's party (and someone still managed to steal my Adderall anyway, assholes) and realized--holy shit, I have a lot of cooking equipment (also holy shit, I kind of have a slammin apartment but that's neither here nor there yet). I used to know how to do this making food thing. Hell, I even used to do this a lot. There's no real reason I can't, or shouldn't. I need to kick up a bit of a rut again. I'm being too overwhelmed by random anxiety to keep going at this pace and I had a near anxiety attack yesterday afternoon just realizing the magnitude.
Left to right: Monsoor, Tim, Doug, Me Liz; Liz throws up MidWest gang signs; the skull and crossbones ice I made; the lady dream team of me, Liz, Suze and Crazy Stacy; me and Doug repping for PA; a great picture of Doug and my wall tentacles that make him look like Cthulhu; Gabe and Liz; and me holding my half pony half monkey monster (it pleased me). I know of at least two other people with cameras full of pictures that have yet to go up on Facebook; nothing like that lovely feeling of impending doom, I suppose.
Workwise the week is going to be overwhelmingly busy. DudeBoss's Macbook died yesterday and I had to order him a new one and get him an iPhone for his trip to London next week. It'll be hell until that gets all squared away. But on the upside he's going to be in London all fucking week next week and not all up in my business. It's probably going to be the best week of all time. I told Wikipedia I needed to take a hella step back away from involvement in his shit. I need some Charlie Time to figure out Charlie's Life.
