Oh that's right, I have a blog

In memoriam

Like many, I am stunned at the news of Heath Ledger's death. He was not the next celebrity I expected to hear about passing away. Britney Spears, yes. Heath Ledger, no. I can only imagine the long and successful career he would have had. My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

News from Maxine, Inc.

I haven't been updating my blog much and even thought about taking a hiatus. It seemed like everything I wanted to say was just silly or didn't sound good when I typed it or I'd get interrupted while writing a blog entry and decide to scrap the whole idea. But ... I stuck it out. (Easy to do when one isn't posting.) So. I'm here. I guess I'm trying to figure out what to share. Even though I've put a lot of my life on the Internet, I'm never sure how detailed I want to get about my private life. Maybe it's a Scorpio secretive thing. Maybe it's just me not wanting to talk about depression and how much it sucked being off Effexor for more than five days. Things are much better now, by the way. The medicine is back in my bloodstream and I am celebrating small victories like going to the grocery store instead of isolating and spending tons of money on takeout. (So. Expensive.)

I don't really have any stories to relate, although I can say I learned my lesson when I dropped in on a small, generally not-crowded grocery store around 5:30 PM on Monday and discovered that everyone in River City apparently had the same idea. The place was PACKED with customers and employees who appeared to be clearing expired food items off the shelves. I seriously thought there was a giveaway going on when I pulled up - there were that many people. I didn't freak out about the crowd until after I was back in my car, although my trip was probably cut short by a good 20 minutes. I got about half the stuff on my list and then I fled. Too many people, too much noise. I'm not good at dealing with anxiety, I guess. I didn't have a panic attack but I was wigged out in a very small-animal-trapped-by-larger-animal sense. Not. Good. BUT! I went to the store again last night. A different one at a slightly different time but I went. I've been praying at the altar of takeout for about six weeks straight because I had no food I would eat in my house. I have pizza in my fridge that I think has been there since July. I haven't gotten close enough to the box to find out. I know, you'd think I would throw it away, wouldn't you? But it's weird ... a lot of things, like tidying up around the house, taking out the trash, or doing more than one load of laundry are difficult when dealing with depression.

The short story is this: I started out on one Effexor a day (37.5 mg) and was told by my doctor to bump up the dosage to 75 mg about a week later. I did that, but at some point I decided I was over-medicated. You know. Me. With my years of medical and psychiatric training and all that specialty in antidepressants. At some point, months ago, I dropped my dosage back to 37.5 mg but only recently realized accepted that one pill a day just wasn't cutting it. That day was last week, right around the time I hit the peak of don't care / don't want to / leave me alone on the couch with my cats, the remote, and my blankets, surrounded by takeout containers because I'm just going to stay here until I die. At the recommendation of my therapist, who I see on a weekly basis, I went back to taking two pills. Imagine my surprise (/sarcasm) when I started feeling different almost immediately. I'm not a sunshine and lollipops / perky flight attendant kind of person anyway. I'm generally a nice person but I clearly have a limit when it comes to putting on a happy face for others. Case in point: I've had more than one boss talk to me about my 'attitude.' The first time was when I worked in retail and was apparently expected to be Mary Poppins behind the register. Right. For five bucks an hour while I'm dealing with a roommate who goes through my stuff, having to work a second job at Denny's to make ends meet (they never really did), and dealing with -- you guessed it -- depression. Sorry, dude. I'll be cordial, I'll smile, but if I'm in a bad space, well ... people are going to know it. I've gotten the same 'change your attitude' lecture from King V, which is so, so fun. No, really.

The good news is that I'm on the up and up. I'm still angry that I need to take an antidepressant in the first place. I resisted for years and years. I welcomed days when I was happy like they were holidays. I got used to being 'down in the dumps' and made all manner of excuses for how I felt. But then I reached a point a few summers ago when I couldn't stop crying while I was drinking myself to sleep and I gave in. I'm irritated that Effexor is the third antidepressant I've tried and that I'm still working the kinks out of the system but I've had a hard time accepting that I can't do everything on my own without anyone's help grouse grouse god damnit leave me ALONE. Yeah ... I have enough issues to work out that my therapist can probably go ahead and put a down payment on that boat she likes.

In other random news

I came into work this morning with freezing toes -- the wearing of anything besides electric socks not being a good match for the cold-ass weather outside -- so I got out the space heater and aimed it at my toes ... except the air blows out instead of down, so I ended up with lukewarm toes and ankles that feel sunburned. It's sort of like microwaving something and ending up with a burnt outside and a frozen inside. I'm looking at you, Hot Pockets.