Good Riddance, 2012

Once again I am feeling oppressively sad and lonely. My crazy-meds don't seem to be working so well as before: or, I suppose, it's rather that they can only do so much and lately my psyche has been too shrunken for them to have much effect. I imagine I'd feel even worse without them. I'm not sure why I have shrunk. I suppose it's mostly the combination of the holidays, and having only six local friends who are all busy with their families, and the shortness of daylight. I've also been feeling the weight of my (admittedly limited) obligations to others, and feeling as though I have little to lighten them. I have been waking at 7:30 but unable to haul myself out of bed until 9:30. There are several things I would, in the abstract, like to do but cannot muster the energy for so I waste time on the computer until aroune 12:30 when the sense of wasted time finally guilts me into dressing. Then I waste more time on the computer until the last possible moment before I must leave for an obligation. Upon returning home I waste still more time on the computer until it is time for bed.

Repeat. 

There are movies I would, in the abstract, like to see, and books I would like to read, and projects I would like to undertake, and even chores I would like to complete; but just thinking about them seems to sap whatever energy and interest I have for and in them. Since at least my middle-school years I have been able to undermine myself by thinking immediately past whatever I feel any enthusiasm about, to the moments when whatever-it-is is over and my responsibilities remain; and my enthusiasm seems pointless and transient, and wanes quickly. There are always more responsibilities and they always outweigh my enthusiasm. I seem to see enthusiasm as a distraction from responsibility rather than an easing or lightening of them, so that I feel too guilty about deferring my responsibilities to indulge an enthusiasm (but never too guilty to indulge procrastination on the computer); or I so convince myself of the pointlessness of an enthusiasm that I cannot enjoy it even if I do indulge it.

My Neighbors Suck, and They're Probably Terrorists

Kept track over about a 10-hour period the other day:

• Next-door neighbors stomping on floor & banging on walls (supra-ambient; acute instance or chronic episode): 12
• Using car horns for doorbells (unique cars): 4
• Doing nothing while watching infant or toddler scream (episodes): 2
• Slamming apt door (instances): 3

Other crimes that they commit, just not on that day:

• Kids hollering in hallways for fun
• Inflicting lack of musical taste on all residents

Some Blind Tiger Jerking Suds on the Side

I took Tabby the Cat in for her semi-annual physical last week. For a 20 y ± 3 mo with incipient renal failure, she's doing quite well, apparently...aside from the blindness.

I've suspected for a few weeks that her vision might be impaired. She'd been hesitant about leaping gaps between furniture, and it'd been some time since she's gone on one of her mad tears around the place. She'd seemed to ignore moving string, but since there was always an initial look at it I figured she's just over string, which at her age didn't surprise me. Same with the glitter-poms. Her eyes, while not cloudy, still didn't seem quite as clear as they'd always been. So I thought maybe she had cataracts or something.

But the first thing the vet did upon entering the exam room was check her eyes. I don't know if I just never remembered that from before, or she noticed something about Tabby's behavior (certainly possible; Tabby was much more subdued on this trip than she has ever been). Anyway, apparently her retinas have detached, which the vet seemed to attribute to undiagnosed hypertension.

I felt mildly guilty, but after asking about it there didn't seem to be anything I should have done but didn't. Mostly I feel bad for Tabby. It sounds like it would have happened suddenly, and if so she must have been scared; but she can't talk about it, and I can't console her.

What's remarkable, though, is how little difference it seems to have made to her routine. As I say, I thought she might have somewhat impaired vision, but blindness never occurred to me. She doesn't bump into things (except for earlier this week when I left a box in the middle of the floor), and although she's hesitant about leaping gaps, she still leaps them. But I do notice things. She's more careful about climbing into my lap, testing before she transfers weight to that next step to make sure she has a solid footing.

Still, I suspect she isn't entirely blind. I suspect, from some uncontrolled ad hoc experiments, that she has some middle-distance vision remaining in her right eye. The idea makes it easier for me to bear, and if it's real, it probably makes her condition easier for her to bear.

They Have the Internet On Phones Now, Eh?

I don't have a smart-phone. This is not because I fail to see their utility but because I am cheap. Now that they all have wifi I see little call for a data package, but service providers make one mandatory so fuck that. I'd sort of be OK with it, though, if it weren't for the also-mandatory phone package. Service providers milk them as phones that also do computery stuff, but to me they are computers-lite that one can also use as a phone. So I don't have one because I refuse to pay an overinflated phone bill but I also refuse to pay the overinflated mid-range-laptop price of an unsubsidized "lite" computer.

Committment to this line of thought eventually led me to wonder about smart-phones and deaf persons. Do service providers allow them to have data-only plans, or do they screw them with useless phone plans the way they screw the hearing with mandatory data plans? If service providers to let them get data-only plans, do they have to prove that they're deaf? If the s. p.'s do offer data-only plans, why should being deaf have anything to do with it? Unless the s. p.'s offer the same purchase subsidies. I guess I can see that, although my inner cheapskate would still feel cheated.

What I really want is an iPhone that runs Android, without having to pay for a phone package. I want the iPhone display and camera without having to deal with Apple or service providers. (Apple should just call themselves iPple now, and the logo should be an apple with one giant bite out of each side leaving a vaguely I-shaped core.)

Oh, the pain, the pain of it all....

I am so sick and tired of this world...not just my life, but the world I live in, with the hassles that it entails regardless of the circumstances of life, and the time spent dealing with them, just to maintain those circumstances.

That's very much part of my depression, I think. At times I value the world I live in so little, that it seems almost pointless to make any effort to maintain my situation in it. (And of course the other times I do value it but the effort of achieving what I value seems so overwhelming as to be futile).

Mozilla Firefox 8.0

Fuck Firefox. For a browser that touts its customizability, this latest update using the new supposedly transparent update model certainly did a thorough job of ruining my adds-on installations and customizations. They might at least have warned me. (And yes, I did select each add-on's "keep" option.)

Fuck Mozilla. Their feedback page is driven by Twitter: only 140 characters per feedback. But they don't tell you this until you've invested time in writing a longer reply and then try to submit it. Seriously, what kind of feedback do they expect in 140 characters, especially for problems?

Chef Lonelyhearts

In every way that counted, I was dead. Inside somewhere maybe I was screaming and weeping and howling like an animal, but that was another person deep inside, another person who had no access to the face and lips and mouth and head, so on the surface I just shrugged and smiled and kept moving. If I could have physically passed away, just let it all go, like that, without doing anything, stepped out of life as easily as walking through a door, I would have done. But I was going to sleep at night and waking in the morning, disappointed to be there and resigned to existence.

—Neil Gaiman, "Bitter Grounds," 2002.

Is This How You Imagined Your Life, Edna?

This is how I've been feeling lately, with the laundry and the internet and even the thing with the videos (but I use Netflix so there are no late fees piling up–just the average rental price of the same 3 DVDs I've had out for the last two months–and no slow, resentful bike rides to the video shop. Instead I take slow, resentful walks to the supermarket and occasionally the library). Except for the end. I still have feelings left. I spend a lot of time feeling like I'm about to cry and I kind of wish I would because maybe that would be cathartic.

I have many thoughts about what causes me to feel this way but they're disjointed. I've started seeing a therapist again, and I wonder whether it would be useful to write down all of my thoughts and feelings and have my therapist help me organize them in a useful way. I could organize them myself but I'm not sure my arrangement would be useful. But I have no inner strength for anything any more, not even that. I'm almost unable to write this any more right now.

I feel as badly as ever I have, more or less just waiting to die. I can't bring myself to make it happen but part of me wishes I could. I think eventually I will, probably not this time, or the next, but maybe the time after that, or the one after that. I guess I'm not entirely hopeless yet. I don't have any faith that my hope will be realized, but for now I still hope, even though every day shows it to be vain and makes it seem like an obstacle.