Donald Trump

They don't say fired anymore, I guess. They use the word terminated, which I think is even worse. I picture Arnold crushing my windpipe or that shiny silver guy stabbing my brain with one of his fingers. And now I know that's pretty much how it feels when you find out you'll have no income for the next few months when you were going to start fertility treatments the very next day. Thanks!

So I'm having a bit of a crap day. If anyone has money or food to send my way, I'll take it. Or if you need a maid/babysitter/web designer/writer, I have some spare time. Or if you really feel like punching someone, I am SO there.

So the next couple of weeks should be quite an adventure. I have no idea what's going to happen with the fertility stuff (or the rest of my doctors, for that matter). We'll probably move in with my mom and pop, and then go to Denver when Tim's job starts. Please send boxes. If you're feeling really generous, fill them with goodies first (wink).

One for Tim

I can't let Fathers' Day pass without recognizing Tim. He is a very, very good man. I'd guess only a minority of men have to deal with women as crazy and sick as I am. And I'm sure it's a tiny minority of those who deal with them as well as Tim does. He's an amazing husband, and I'm sure he'll make a great father whenever kids come into our home. There is only one of him in the world, and I'm so glad he's mine.

Dad

My mom met my dad in Germany, and within weeks they were ready to spend their lives together. My mom was lucky my dad didn't turn out to be some kind of axe murderer, but she couldn't have known until much later how very lucky she was. What are the odds that two people would meet while traveling in another country and in such a short time snatch each other up for good? And then that that man my mother found would turn out to be such a good one?

My dad is a California Highway Patrolman—a gun and badge, multi-holster, here-practice-shooting-this, don't-mess with my daughter cop. When one of my college boyfriends came to visit, my dad didn't care if he stayed in the bedroom next to me because he knew that if the guy tried anything, he'd wake up to the sounds of teenage boy screams. Because of Dad, I knew how to load and shoot at least three kinds of guns before I was twelve. And don't get me started on control holds.

But when it came to home and family, my dad dropped the drill sergeant routine. He was and still is very much a dad, and as tender and caring as any dad could be. He never quite figured out braiding my hair, but he always knows just when I need him to call.




I love you Dad!

Thin-Crust Pizza

I've been loosely dieting, and when I was craving pizza yesterday, Tim brought home a chicken/bacon/artichoke deelite from Papa Murphy's. It was pure diet heaven. I'm finally starting to enjoy a few sugar-free treats.

But is it just me, or does time pass slower in the absence of Hostess Cupcakes? I feel like I've been sitting at my desk for years since I got here this morning. At home there are all kinds of lovely things like Tim and Coco and leftover pizza and sleep. Here, I sit endlessly cutting and pasting the right text into the right spot as I listen to my stomach sluggishly digest a 25 calorie bag of baby carrots. Yawn.

I've reached the height of boredom, the height of sloth, the height of tired. My thoughts are bouncing back and forth between my next slice of pizza and my next nap. Well, more like rolling or oozing than bouncing. They say TV will melt your brain, but guess what: so will a desk job on a Thursday in June.

Important Confessions

I say I don't like cooking, but I actually really enjoy it when the dish involves bacon. I'm pretty sure bacon is the original aphrodisiac.

I am developing an unhealthy addiction. When Tim was out of town, I decided I'd try something new and get a mystic tan. Then, I decided I might as well try for some real color—you know, since I've been ghost white all my life (I look like a flipping apparition in my senior photo). I went all out and got a month of unlimited tanning, and I feel like I've discovered El Dorado. But it's more than just looking like an actual human being. When I close the lid on the white-noise filled tanning bed and feel the breeze of the fans keeping my cooking skin cool, the rest of my life disappears. Me time. Ten minutes of solid frying is as good for me as an hour of deep breathing and meditation.

Laurel has now saved me twice from embarrassing zipper incidents.

I play World of Warcraft. I am Donnanoble, a level 53 Beast Mastery Specced Dranei hunter (and occasionally Frexxa, a level 62 Blood Specced Gnome Death Knight). I realize this makes me a gigantic loser, and is probably why I have a weight problem instead of friends.

I will probably never own an iPod out of respect for Tim's deep hatred of Apple.

As a girl, I never had celebrity crushes. I did, however, fall madly in love with several fictional characters. Lucky me, I also happened to marry Prince Charming, so I suppose my disconnect with reality worked out for me.

I actually like Smart Balance fake butter spray.

I usually eat ice cream because of peer pressure rather than actually liking it. I don't dislike it, and I do occasionally crave it myself, but I'm not a big ice cream eater. I am, however, a big ice eater. MMMM!

Sorry for the Baggage Dumping

I'd like to think I know when to shut up. It would be a lovely thing to be able to think about myself, but I've never had the experience, so I can only guess. In the scriptural accounts of Jesus' conception and birth, Mary does all kinds of silent pondering and keeping things to herself. Every time I read those I feel like a total idiot, because I know exactly what I would do if that were me.

I know because I do it all the time. Here. On Facebook. To people who'd rather be doing just about anything but listening to me. I spill. Verbal diarrhea, some call it. I think that somehow if I tell some poor person every uncomfortable detail of my concerns, those details will be slightly less uncomfortable. The really terrible thing is that I'm right.

I'm like some kind of terrible insect that vomits her problems all over a person to start digesting them before she actually eats them. And what with all the emotional digestion, I seem to be running out of friends fast. You'd think that would teach me to keep quiet every now and then, right? But no, I'm just some voracious beast destroying my own social ecosystem with my ravenous and ill-governed need to spray the entire universe with my special brew of overreaction, emotional baggage, TMI, and bitterness.

In other words, I apologize for the corrosive spew.

I Need a Hug

It would be lovely to have a hug machine sometimes. Or just a hug. But people can ruin hugs. You know, like those guys who give you a hug but are really just trying to cop a feel, or like how they intend it to be a shorter hug than you'd wanted it to be.



Anyway, I'm just having one of those need a hug days. And nobody nearby will hug me. Insert weepy Amy face here.

Prizes

Seriously guys, I know everyone uses Google Reader. I use Google Reader. But it totally throws my groove because I can't count your visits, give you viruses that install keyloggers, or watch your every move by hacking into your webcam if you don't actually visit my blog. YOU WANT TO GO TO THERE (here). Oh, and for you facebook readers, you really need to view the original post to get the full impact and secret content.

So to encourage you to come to my blog more, I'm including some Hulu at the bottom. That's right, you can now watch Arrested Development directly on THIS BLOG. And that's not all. If you wanted to watch, say, Stargate SG-1 in my blog instead, you'd just have to type that into the search bar in the widget and TADA, Stargate SG-1 episodes for you. What a fantastic treat. There are even some movies. It's right at the bottom of the page.

Most of you won't even come over to my house, and you email/comment/facebook/text me instead of actually talking to me. Honestly, the least you can do is come here to my blog and be where the party is.

Just Kidding. Literal Music Videos!

Yeah, I'm as tired of writing antidepressing things as you are of reading them. Instead, let's watch some YouTube.

On Antidepressants

Antidepressants have a serious stigma, and that's a problem. At least in the western US, having a therapist has a stigma too. But you know what? It's time to get over it.

Psychology and psychoactive drugs have been the subject of huge doubts among even very educated people. It comes from a fear of something most of us know little to nothing about: the brain. Even people with an extremely sophisticated understanding of the chemical and physiological workings of the brain are eons from conclusions about how thought works, how we produce speech, etc. That's where psychology comes in.

Many people have doubts about the merits of psychological scholarship or the benefits of therapy because there isn't a lot of math behind it. Most of it sounds a lot like some guy's opinion, and let's face it, Sigmund Freud was on crack. But the field has changed significantly since Freud's time. Psychoanalysts telling people they have Oedipal complexes have been largely replaced by psychotherapists helping people live better lives by thinking better.

Of course, there's always your rogue combination analyst AND therapist, or analrapist.


Okay, funny time over. So therapy gets a bad rap, even though a lot of people—I'd venture to say most people—have an experience or problem that they could get through and recover from much better with the aid of a professional therapist. There are huge benefits to be reaped from caring for your mental health with a doctor the same way you would with your body. Nobody thinks you're weird if you go to the ER for a broken bone or a third degree burn, but people seem to have a problem with mental wounds that would cause someone to get therapy. You know what? GET OVER IT. IT'S NORMAL.

Similarly, we treat muscle aches, menstrual cramps, viral and bacterial infections, and organ malfunctions with medication. Often, these medications solve a temporary problem or augment the body so that it can function properly in the long run. Nobody thinks old men who take heart medicine are weird because their hearts don't work quite right without it.

But for some reason, when chemical deficiencies in the brain cause depression, anxiety, or any other syndrome, people have an aversion to using drugs to rectify the problem. Somehow the fact that it's going on in the brain makes people think one of two things: (a) it's "all in your head" and is therefore imaginary, and people should take control over what happens in their head and just get over it or (b) The drugs just dope people up, make them dependent, and cause a false sense of well-being.

In fact, a recent episode of The Simpsons in which Lisa began taking antidepressants called them "happy pills" and depicted their effects as painting a smiley face over anything that would be depressing. Lisa on "happy pills" was completely stupid and so out of it she nearly injured herself. The show is meant to be funny, but the truth is that antidepressants don't do those things and the fact that people think they do is actually harmful to our society.

Harmful? Why? Because when people have depression, they're at high risk of self-medicating and consuming enough drugs or alcohol that they will actually be more doped up and dangerous than people think antidepressants make people. Depression, left untreated, can destroy relationships and leave people dead from suicide, just because of an untreated chemical problem in the brain.

The things that happen in peoples minds are real. Brain chemical imbalances affect lives as much as stomach chemical imbalances. Just like chronic acid reflux can wear out the esophagus causing extreme pain, tissue corrsion, and cancer, depression can wear away at the mind causing more and more damage. There are simple solutions for both of these problems.

You can reduce acid reflux with extreme diet and lifestyle changes, but that takes time, and the damage needs to stop so the tissue can heal. With lifestyle changes, dependency on stomach acid inhibitors can be reduced or eliminated. In the same way, with therapy and lifestyle changes, over time, depression can be overcome. But the chemical imbalance needs to be fixed faster than that so people can think clearly enough to get help, fix their lives, and not suffer the life-crippling effects of depression.

To come: what antidepressants do and don't do.