simmah down now

An update to the tantrum below, in the form of my reply to the great and magnificent Dark Side Lawyer's comment therein. Er, thereunder? Anyway, it works perfectly as a wee follow-up.

DSL:

"Sorry to hear you are having a tough go. Hang in there. If you want my unqualified advice, fuck meds and smoke pot. ;)"

CC:

"I felt better after spitting all that out, and this particular session in the angry chair has led to some thinking I'm tempted to characterize as revelatory. Do you know how much of my reality has actually been made up of a truckload of bogus assumptions and pre-fab notions? [Still!! Jesus!]

Anyway, I'm now immersed in the happy activity of tearing a bunch of total crap down and setting fire to it. I'm shaking things loose instead of cursing them and asking futile questions. And it did necessarily take me this long to get to this point. And I'm turning back toward myself instead of (metaphorically) avoiding (or throwing rocks at) mirrors. It's gonna take a minute, here, but better times are ahead for sure."

 

Thank you so much, my twitter peeps and other readers, for your kind well wishes. They count for probably more than you know. So very grateful.

This post is dedicated with love to @jasummerell.

Calling Dr. Bullshit

No. Listen. I'm not down for a long, drawn-out, baby-steps process ANYMORE. After giving variations on that path MORE than their fair shot, I am done. I am so fucking done. I am so tired of expanding my patience beyond its natural limit. I have gone ahead and asked for help, and with all due respect, if not maybe a few credits more, for how I've been answered, and with infinite reams of gratitude for the earnest efforts, I am not better. And in fact there are a couple key ways in which I've worsened.

II don't know exactly what else to say right now.

 

I I'm not spending months and months in this whole depression-meds game. Fuck this. Agreeing to try them at all was a mistake made in desperation. Still desperate, mind you, but done with that phase of it. What I was fucking thinking? I was not being true to myself or my principles or even my (vast, VAST) knowledge and understanding of how my depression 'works' when I agreed to try this.

I am having more trouble than ever remembering and keeping track of what is truly important in this life and my life than ever before. It's as if every day has been a further drift away. If I can't stop this, my life, with all that I am lucky enough to be capable of, will be seriously, sinfully and permanently wasted.

There is so much that I am NOT capable of, enough confusion, a dark enough murder of crows against my sky, that certainly getting to my right, healthy self all alone is probably impossible. It's not help itself that I'm suddenly refusing (though I hardly seem a charming or gracious enough character in this angry snit to attract any volunteers :P).

I don't know exactly what else to say right now.

 

If you are good at feeding an animal that might snap at you for your trouble, please send a kind thought to me, today. Somewhere in there, it will be deeply appreciated.

 

Puddy Tat, Part I

On September 30th at about 11:00pm, I got off my bus from work one stop early. No real thought to that, just did it. I nearly bumped into a girl as I stepped down, so I gamely said 'oops' to her and her doggie, a small Shepherd. I looked at the girl with warmth while saying hi to her dog, extending my hand under its nose.

I thought this girl was special. Just a feeling. Strong on the inside, delightful and gracious and sweet through and through. She had geek glasses and curly curls, her youthful manner seasoned with having been through some serious shit. I would learn her difficult story and witness her unsinkable spirit on our way to my apartment building's entrance. But back to the bus stop, where we're still chatting about the nice autumn temperature, her dog, my job, the price of coffee.

She: "Um, would you like a free cat?"

Me: ... ?

She reaches into a satchel I hadn't even really seen in the dark night, and draws out a little animal. It is so jet black and so small I have to focus to make it out. But there were the big golden eyes, clearly a bit nervous, but not spooked. The girl handed the kitten to me. I took a look at those eyes, the sprightly little ears, her sleek fur. I stroked the little neck. The kitten nuzzled her face into the crook of the sleeve of my black work jacket, and all four of us started our walk to 9th and Madison.

 

I'll continue tomorrow.

My Totally Fucking Awesome Kid

This is Tony Baloney Balloon, Rock Star:

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Tony Baloney, Rock Star.

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Catherine Thatch to Mom

show details 6:49 PM (4 hours ago)

Has been known to:

Teach English

Bartend

Take care of his Abuelita, affectionately known to all as Chelito

Take care of his beloved kitty cats

Play guitar

Play bass

Be an excellent kid, friend, cousin, boyfriend, son, grandson, etc.

Be awesome with kids

Be a total metal head \m/

You rule, Tony Baloney Balloon. Your Auntie Trinity and I are looking forward to visting you in Mexico next year, and hauling you back up here to Seattle for a while afterward! We can't wait to visit & celebrate Fiesta with you & Mimi & our whole family!

Love,

Mommy, Mum, Mama, Mom, Your lovely Mother, Me, Catherine Taylor Thatch :D

<3

 

A Wild Leg Tickle Appears

Ta da! I made a comic at Rage Builder.

New Blogger Interface: +1

At first glance, I like it a lot. Google will be re-branding Blogger as Google Blogs (and Picasa as Google Photos) in the coming 6 weeks (thanks for the info, @martymankins). This effort is in the interest of making their empire & all its constituents seamless. To prep for that, they've overhauled the interface.

I've never been connoisseur of these things, but since I'm not truly computer-literate I make a good litmus test person. If I find it easy & intuitive, if I don't stumble & get confused in making something happen or finding the cog in the machine I need to work on, it's a winner. So far, it looks like a success by those measures.

I'm not crazy about all the orange color on the dashboard page though :P. I do think I like how it's set up.

More thoughts to come as Rome gets built, I'm sure.

How To Be An Intolerable Interviewer

I like to be positive, so I contemplated scrapping this list and writing an earnest “How To Be a Stellar Interviewer”. I may go on to write that, but I’m still pretty irritated right now, so this stands.  Please indulge me; this morning I was pissed off listening to some idiot mangle an interview with one of my heroes. This list is not comprehensive and is leveled at that villain’s style in particular. When I write the positive version, I will be more thorough.

How To Be An Intolerable Interviewer:

1) Gasp, coo & say “Wow” at your subject’s every utterance. Be familiar with methods people use to  compensate for lack of genuine interest: clenching their smile, using ingratiating intonation, feigning thrill. Put a see-through veil over your arrogance, scan your subjects’ words instead of truly listening and nod your head with something approaching pity.

2) Interrupt your subject at nearly every turn. Palpably wish he’d keep his answers snappier. Goose-chase interest by pulling your subject in different directions and force him to backtrack if he’d like to complete his thought.

3) Assume your phraseology is superior and that your audience is an idiot; reiterate your subject’s answers ("In other words...") as if you were his only hope for coherence. Suppose that your purpose is to make your guest more interesting than he is on his own.

4) Place your own interests regarding your subject and his topic above that of the audience - and even that of your subject. Seem preoccupied with an aspect of his endeavor that has little or nothing to do with his larger passion.

5) Be vague. Be inarticulate. Ask “What’s [that] like?” (Fuck you. If you’re lost for a specific, well-put, thoughtful, intelligent question, please say, “Please talk about [that]”, or something comparable.)

Image credit: http://paulvargaradio.com

6) Don’t be well-prepared. Rather than bringing some excellent ideas to the table, bank on something in your subject’s current sentence prompting your next question. Meander in a loose, ill-directed & sloppy conversation rather than constructing a strong stage upon which your subject can shine.

7) Feign learning what you already know (“Ohh, you were born in Brussels? Wowww”) for any of the half-dozen misguided reasons you do that.

8) Use vaguely passive-aggressive word choice to liven things up with a pinch of defensiveness from your subject. Repeatedly put things in such a way that he’s stuck correcting you, thus sounding overly picky or sensitive.

9) Forget that this is about everything before you: your subject, the audience (professionals, fans, piqued bystanders who are interested in him and what he does), his thoughts, his personality, his point of view, his difficulties and solutions, his story. Forget that your job is to reliably and respectfully frame that picture, bind that book.