i didn't cry today at all.  o_0

i'm hoping this is the beginning of a trend of not-crying-all-the-goddamned-time.

i think when i get to Seattle i am going to see a psychiatrist again.  only this time, no pink pills. those things fucked me up. 

severe, chronic depression makes everything more difficult.  it's a much misunderstood and much stigmatized disorder.  many people are of the Snap Out of It camp or else they figure you're merely very "sad".  it's just simple ignorance, though, so i don't hold it against them.  i have no idea what it's like to be schizophrenic, for example, and would probably have a difficult time arriving at a deep understanding of it no matter HOW detailed the explanations given were.  there's understanding something intellectually, and there's UNDERSTANDING something.

depression like i..have..is complex.  my body actually hurts.  i have strange sensations in my muscles---one time i think i tried to characterize a particular sensation as being like what it might feel like to have every square inch of muscle in your body scored with a dull pencil and a red-hot compress of citric acid-soaked rags applied firmly.  sort of a burning, stinging, crushing ache.  all over.

there's the vomiting.  and the headaches.  the fatigue.  only recently has it come to light in the medical field (psychiatry included therein) that there are some kinds of depression that manifest both psychologically and physically.  there are a few new drugs on the market to treat the physical symptoms of depression, now. 

along with the physical symptoms, there is an incredible despair that consumes the sufferer.  sometimes it finds a raison d'etre, but, essentially, it is amorphous.  it has no definition and no real reason.  it just is.  and is.  and is.  all the time. 

a long time ago, people suffering from severe depression like this were often institutionalized.  no one knew how to "make them feel better" and, to be perfectly honest, no one likes to be around someone who is chronically depressed.  it makes them uncomfortable.  with so many pharmaceutical treatments available now for the very depressed, not many are admitted to psychiatric hospitals anymore.  maybe only those who do not respond at all to drug therapy or those who are a threat to themselves or others. 

also amazing is how many people the world over are living every day with severe depression.  i, myself, have lived with it for almost 16 years.  many sufferers don't talk about it.  either because of the stigma i mentioned or because they just simply don't know *how* to talk about it.  it often feels like how trying to describe "purple" to a blind-from-birth person might feel. 

for me, days without tears are a rare treat.  so, today was what i might call a "good day", though that expression is somewhat problematic...eh, i don't know if i want to get that deep right now, though.  for now...no tears is good.

i want to come home for christmas with a bull-ring through my fucking nose.  among other things...

i'm nearly 27 and i've never allowed myself to look the way i want to look.  so, yeah.  that's what i'm gonna do.  that's my first New-Kid-On-The-Block project.  the expression, not the "band".  (did i need to clarify that, really?)

new city.  new state.  good time to break out.

there's a ton of shit i want to do and i'm finally starting to believe that, not only *can* i do it, but that it is imperative that i *do*.  and not all of it is appearance-related.  much of it is internal. 

by the way, i was startled awake by this really odd dream in which i was standing on a rock in the surf and this enormous wave built up (rather quickly) and crashed into me and before i could even register it, i saw another even larger wave right behind it---like RIGHT behind it---and there was this indescribable, ominous feeling...almost like the wave was a hit-man or something and we'd just shared a moment of mutual recognition the instant before he pulls the trigger.

this big, gaping, MALICIOUS wave.  dark and violent and powerful and FAST.  i don't believe much in dream interpretation, at least not the frou-frou new-agey bullshit.  but i -have- noticed, at least in myself, a link between dream situations involving water and the presence of strong emotions.  also, sex.  sometimes both.  in this case there wasn't anything even remotely sexual going on.  it was pure emotion.  namely, terror.

i am suddenly exhausted.  i think i have bored myself sleepy.

so, as it turns out, laughing makes me feel good.

O___O

i think i should arrange it so that i laugh, often.  because feeling good beats the hell out of feeling bad.  go figure.

more reasons why my mom is cool:

meg:  "this guy came into the hospital and his balls were *this big*!"
me:  "ew."
meg:  "seriously!  they had to put them in a ball-sling and then prop them up on a pillow on his lap!"
(mom walks in the room)
me:  "we were just discussing medical stuff..."
mom:  (surreptitious grin) "all i heard was something about big balls."

my brother in law is awesome.  actually, my sister got kind of cool in her own way, though it took, uh, like twenty years.  but, damn, she married good.  my brother in law and i would disagree on about a trillion things, the largest being in the categories of religion and politics, (ho-hum, what else is new?) but, fuck, the man is FUNNY.  i mean, he makes me laugh my ass off.  it's not the most highbrow humor in the world...usually it's a combination of sarcasm and impersonations...but, you know, there's a place for that kind of funny. 

there is a chinese woman who works as a sort of waitress at this local chinese food joint.  she is about four hundred years old, round and fat like rice ball, and has a mole the size of new jersey on her chin.  that has a hair growing out of it.  and, by "hair", i mean, a medusan, proteinous thing about the length of her middle finger and the breadth of HORROR itsownself. 

anyway, he does this impression of her that is just a fucking riot, twirling this epic mole hair and mumbling incoherently in a high-pitched and disturbingly detached voice, occasionally throwing in the words "pepsi" and "noodle" just to keep your head from exploding.

my sister and i both have been known to LITERALLY piss ourselves laughing (we're very...exuberant laughers...it's okay, we can get away with it cuz we iz kyoot.)

i can only imagine how many times she must have to launder panties living with that man.

i am only able to stay distracted, (and not totally, at that,) for about an hour at a time.  then the anxiety hits again.  the nausea.  you have no idea how many times i've barfed in the last few days.  my throat is raw.  i don't even know what i'm anxious *about*.  i'm just kind of a mess.  i keep having this recurring urge to beat myself unconscious.  not to hurt myself, no interest in that, really, but just to BE unconscious.

(yeah, if you're as tired of reading about a fucked up girl as i am tired of being one, then feel free to read someone else's blog.)

our mommas raised us right.  that's what i like to say. 

your mom isn't where she used to be, as you and i remember.  it's hard to talk about things and people being "here" or "there" when you *believe* in quantum physics, but, for simplicity's sake, your mom isn't here anymore.

today i am celebrating Mother's Day.  i am thinking about both our moms.  i am remembering how you said, when you were a kid, your mom painted the front door one time to make it pretty.  i am remembering  a lot of things.

the  single greatest thing my mother has imparted to me is the capacity for forgiveness.  my mother has forgiven me every mistake i've made.  she has loved me through all my fuckups.  she has shown me that compassion and forgiveness are greater tools with which to lead than any other.  when i think of my mother, i think of the time she laid down on my bed, in one of my darkest hours, and put her arm around me and told me she loved me.  when i couldn't even love myself.  because of my mother, i am compelled to forgive.

in you i have a friend.  you have never wronged me.  you have never turned your back.  you have never betrayed me.

i think the word "friend" gets thrown around at least as much as the words "love" and "hate". 

you are my friend.  you would defend me against injustice and do it eloquently, to boot. 

you will untangle my fishing line from the weeds, restring it, rebait it, help me cast it out again.  you will sit with me in the sunshine with a bottle of beer, each, and know that we don't have to talk about anything at all. 

i have called people "friend" who were not deserving of the title.  you are.

you ever watch, on the discovery channel or animal planet or national geographic, how a group of, like, fire ants can skeletonize, like, some other much larger animal in, like, a matter of, i dunno, like, minutes?

okay. 

so, #1, Some Other Much Larger Animal = truth, ants = little, vicious yet highly organized lies

and, #2, ants are fucking creepy.  seriously.  they creep me the hell out. 

btw...i did NOT know this...

so, i am kind of thinking i want to get my lower lip pierced but i'm a little worried because i really enjoy giving head and i'm wondering if the piercings will, uh, interfere.

i also kind of want to do my septum.  i think it's hot as fuck.  if the lip thing doesn't work out, i may go for the labret. 

and, if all else fails, (or succeeds, actually, either way...) an industrial bar on both ears.  fuck yes.

THANK YOU TO PUT NEEDLES THROUGH MY FLESH!