The Bloody Doors Off

I was gonna post the following:

“Lisa Loeb. Goddamned American Treasure or Dominatrix Bent on World Domination? Discuss.”

And I wanted to link the specific song I was thinking of.

What I Am.

Only Lisa Loeb did NOT record that song.

Edie Brickell did.

So yeah.

Senior moment.

Oh gods, I qualify for the early bird special in Florida.

Cathy, I’m lost, I said though I knew she was sleeping
And I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They’ve all come to look for America

America, Simon & Garfunkle

I may have used that before. I reserve the right to reuse, if it fits my mood.

Which this does.

I’m feeling disconnected today.

It could be the lithium.

Finally took one this morning.

But this predates the new medication. Which yes, I realize I’d put off taking this for close to two months after agonizing whether or not to fill the scrip. I’ve been tetherless for most of the week. It lessens temporarily when I focus on a specific task, like work from a client, or getting lost in a good documentary (I’m looking at you, No Responders Left Behind. You were amazeballs last night. Seriously friends, if you have Discovery+ you should watch it. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry.)

But yeah, take away the shiny and I’m back in the rowboat, drifting downstream without a paddle.

(As an aside, because I’m jumping tracks randomly tonight. I hate the new two-step verification to log into my bank account online. I get why it’s there. I appreciate the added security. But every time I try to sign in, I have to get a code sent to a different device. Not very helpful.)

Marlo and I were discussing photographs earlier. Correction, Marlo was regaling me with stories of packing and selectively purging old photographs. I bring this up because it reminded me of photo albums I had when I was a kid. That, for some insane reason, I chose to toss in one of my many moves a couple of decades ago. I think of these photographs now with longing. A favourite were two photographs of my best friend growing up, Doug, and I on the set of the game show Definition. We posed with the host Jim Perry, the announcer (weatherman Dave Duvall from CTV), and Canadian treasure Louis Del Grande. Google Seeing Things. Seriously. It lasted six seasons and won 4 Gemini Awards (the Canadian Emmys).

But one particular photograph came to mind tonight. Me and René. How did we become friends? I couldn’t tell you. I think he was the son of a friend of my dad’s? But we were damned good friends for the time. And that lead me down the path of thinking on the people I’ve met over the years, whose lives touched mine, made an impact with the way I grew up, shaped my worldview. Aside from a few friends from high school that I’ve reconnected with on Facebook (I REFUSE to call it by its new name), they’ve all gone off and lived their own lives.

You’d think that would make me feel connected, right?

But no. Those are just fleeting memories that I hold no concrete proof of any longer.

This post doesn’t make much sense.

But then, neither do I, at the moment.

I had a lame dad joke to tell.

Thought better of it.

Work is picking up. I’ll be juggling two or three clients for the next week

Kinda nervous about that. Don’t know why. I’ve juggled more in tighter deadlines. It’s straight-forward, meat-and-potatoes work too. Nothing mentally taxing. Time-consuming, sure. Bring it on, I say.

(Did that seem confident to you? I’m trying to exude authority. Maybe then I’ll believe it.)

Huh. There’s a pattern there. Any time I start a new contract, my anxiety ramps up. Self-doubt rears it’s ugly head. Harold whispers bitter barbs. But then I start the work. Where possible, I develop a rhythm. Especially if the ask is repetitive, which one of these projects will be. Once we/they iron out a bug in the template.

Meh. I haven’t got anything interesting to say.

Back to your regularly scheduled program, citizen.

This is gonna be a tough post to write. Mostly because it’s already played out in my head, in such a way that is narratively disjointed yet made perfect sense in my head.

It started as I was walking Auggie in the Distillery.

Okay, a little background.

While most people are transitioning to more weather-appropriate apparel, I choose to dig in my heels. I’m still wearing my cargo shorts and Hawaiian shirts. Not like I have to dress up to go into the office. But this has become an act of defiance. “November is coming”, the papers say. “But not yet,” I growl back.

So I’m walking Auggie past Biltmore and they’ve got a pumpkin patch out front, selling the gourds for $15. And it triggers a memory of trick or treating when I was a kid. We turn down one side street, anchored by The Oyster Bar. They have heated lamps mounted outside for comfortable dining on a chilly night. And that really resonates. Not the lamps, but what they produce.

I stare at the orange coils. Imagine the radiating heat, and how it would feel on my face.

I remember my last apartment. It was heated by gas (getting the fucking account turned over to my name after I kicked out my first roommate, yeah that was fun) and there was a radiator against the south wall in the living room. My couch sat opposite. The ottoman was the favourite lying place of the cats in the wintertime. Every time it clicked on, I’d find myself standing in front of it, basking in the warmth.

And that reminds me of my childhood.

I can feel the wicker laundry basket (sadly, it is painted a light shade of pink, and has two horizontal blow stripes) pressed against my back as my right side leans into the bedroom wall. My pyjamas are the kind with cuffs around the ankles, so only my feet ever show. I’m sitting next to the heating vent because moments earlier, I heard the furnace roar to life. Every night, after I’m tucked into bed. I can’t sleep without first holding my feet over the grate and seeing how long I can withstand the increasing temperature. The best room in the house was the master bedroom; it sat directly over the furnace itself and offered the most air pressure. In the middle of the night I would sneak in and prop myself against the cold, metallic desk, and bask in its embrace.

Yes, I’m weird. I own it. Tell me you don’t have similar memories.

And that was the problem. The memory kept getting interrupted. And I got increasingly frustrated that I continually derailed this trip down memory lane.

So I had to ask myself why I was so intent on reliving these particular memories.

“Because I wanna be a kid again,” I snapped back.

Not because I want a do over. I am very happy with where I am, and have begun appreciating the journey I’ve taken. Kinda like How I Met Your Mother, only funny.

(The blogger would like to state, for the record, that he actually liked HIMYM, but hated the way they wrapped up the series.)

And why the hell would I put myself through puberty a second time?

(Oh gods, Pat Sajak just ripped off a joke from Carl Reiner. For shame.)

So why would I blurt out something like that?

Yes, I said it out loud. Like you’ve never done that.

I think it has to do with the feeling the memories evoked.

Safe.

Warm.

Maybe it’s time to put away the khakis until next summer.

There’s a thing called high-functioning depression.

Of which I check off some of the boxes.

But you have to have been in this fugue state for a minimum of two years.

So that doesn’t explain what I’ve been feeling the past two days.

I’ve been able to focus on tasks, like a formatting job I did for a client this morning. Was able to concentrate solely on that, got the job done in a reasonable amount of time. No issues. But once it was done, and my mind no longer locked in, waves of depression washed back over me.

I don’t get it.

I have nothing to be depressed about. Yes, the CRB has run out. And thanks to the government, I don’t qualify for the next stage. Apparently it’s aimed more toward businesses. But work is starting to trickle in again. I’ve got an assignment that allows for ad hoc hours, that will run into 2022. If I can average 10 hours a week along with my other client requests, I should be fine. I might even be able to contribute to household expenses again. It should cover my prescriptions until my deductible kicks in.

The majority of my dental work is done. I have a consult next week to discuss whether or not another tooth has to be pulled or can be fixed with fillings. But I’ve grown somewhat comfortable in the dentist’s chair; my fears have lessened in the past couple of months. I won’t lie, I needed Marlo by my side the first couple of times to help me through the experience. And Doc Sugarman has done a great job. I can probably hold off on getting the final dentures for a few months, and can arrange a payment plan to pay it off in the new year.

Anxiety about being in public has continually lessened these past few months. I actually look forward to short trips to run errands. And I went to a public place on Sunday with a friend, and Covid protocols were in place so I never felt anxious.

So my point is. This bout of depression is completely chemically-induced by my brain. And I don’t know how to fight it.

And I want to fight it. I don’t want to ride it out.

Heya Tom, it’s Bob, from the office down the hall
It’s good to see you buddy, how’ve you been?
Things have been OK for me, except that I’m a zombie now
I really wish you’d let us in

I think I speak for all of us when I say I understand
Why you, folks, might hesitate to submit to our demand?
But here’s an FYI
You’re all gonna die screaming

All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable, I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains

I don’t want to nitpick, Tom, but is this really your plan?
Spend your whole life locked inside a mall?
Maybe that’s OK for now but someday you’ll be out of food and guns
And then you’ll have to make the call

I’m not surprised to see you haven’t thought it through enough
You never had the head for all that bigger-picture stuff
But, Tom, that’s what I do
And I plan on eating you slowly

Re: Your Brains, Johnathan Coulton

I FUBAR’d my sleep schedule. Yay!

What was supposed to be a one-hour nap morphed into a four-hour snooze fest.

Clearly I needed it, otherwise I wouldn’t have ignored the alarm. If it went off. The clock radio is ancient and a bit finicky. It can’t find FM radio stations any longer. Not that I set it to play Q-107 to wake me up. Give me the buzzer. Only way to permeate the fog that is sleep. But occasionally it tries to play the radio. In the middle of the day. You can barely hear the static, the volume for the radio function is so soft. But it’s there. And it can be annoying when you hear a phantom sound in the bedroom and can’t locate it.

I’ve been searching for a replacement for years.

And yes, I could use my phone.

But I’m a creature of habit. I like having a clock radio.

Anyway. It’s now 12:30 am and I’m wide awake. Contemplating coffee, because I won’t be going back to bed anytime soon.

Then there’s the issue of dinner, which I skipped. Need to eat something.

I don’t suppose Smart Popcorn counts as dinner?

Yeah, didn’t think so.

I can’t math. I barely made it through the subject in Grade 11. Dropped it the next year.

Not because I couldn’t do the work.

Depression. I can look back and see the impact it had.

And still can.

But I won’t let it.

Like I said, I can’t math. Turns out, I didn’t self-commit in September 2013, it was October. I’m having memories of Hallowe’en decorations up in the common room. Plus, today is the day I put down as having quit smoking. Because when you’re intake, you’re on lockdown for 72 hours and they won’t let you outside to enjoy a cigarette. You’re shaken to the core at how close you came to self-harm, and they won’t let you smoke a fucking cigarette.

Which was ultimately a good thing. Eight years now without tobacco.

I’d tried to quit twice before. Once was cold turkey; I picked up a pack of smokes to handle the stress at casino (this was pre-Mollie roadtrips). The second, I tried using Champix. Holy crap, I had the most abnormal dreams. We’re talking body parts hanging on hooks in an abandoned hospital nightmares. My mood got worse, it was bad news. So I went back to smoking and the nightmares dissipated.

Three days.

That’s all I needed to quit for good.

My brother Kevin came to pick me up when I was discharged. Happy to be in the fresh air, I pulled out a cancer stick and lit up.

It tasted horrible.

Never looked back.

So here I am, eight years later, staring down the anniversary of my breakdown.

I’m a little shook that I thought it was last month, and the feeling of pride I had when I felt that I’d handled it flawlessly. But I don’t want a cigarette. Not gonna drink the memory away.

I’m stronger than that. I’m here today because I asked for help during my year of hell.

I can do this.

Paul to be more clear, we’d like a mockup (two of them), of one being a box or suitcase that is branded with [Company]. The next mock up is of a ‘lemonade stand’ type structure that’s built, with the [company] logo and [influencer] standing by it. The stand should have a few [food items] on it, sauce for sale, cutlery, etc. Essentially a mini [Company] franchise that came in a box (or suitcase).

In case you were wondering what some of the requests were that pushed me to call RED.

Tonight I did something completely anathema to me.

I put myself first.

Let me back up.

Got an email this morning from an agency I work with frequently. A past client contacted them, and asked if I specifically was available to work on a job this afternoon and tomorrow.

Of course I said yes and.

Had a Teams meeting in the early afternoon. Discussed the job details, was given samples to familiarize myself.

Link to the project comes in; it’s using the bastard child of PowerPoint and DropBox, SharePoint. That’s the first hurdle to overcome. I examine the slides; they’re not using the slide master. Another hurdle. All the fonts need to be changed. Not a problem. Except.

Once you change the font, the text block formatting gets wonky.

I say again. This is SharePoint.

They want me to source some logos. Fine.

They want me to use more targeted imagery. Google is my friend.

Oh yeah, in the middle of this I got an emergency request from another client. That one sailed right on through. Turned and finalized it in an hour.

Here’s another thing about SharePoint. You can share it. There were four other people working on the deck at the same time as I was trying to format it. I’d move past one page, making note to come back and clean it up, go back to it and find out they completely rejigged the page. Then there are the two times edits I made didn’t get saved because it was being updated by someone else.

I took a break. Walked Auggie.

Came back. Saw that they were still editing and adding pages.

So I called red.

I scrolled through my call history, found my recruiter’s number, and called.

Make no mistake, I haven’t quit the job.

It’s being handled.

And hey, look. The panic attacks have stopped.

Now if only the butt cheeks would unclench.

This is sooooooo unfair.

I wanna write.

But I’ve got nothing to talk about.

Not true.

There is stuff.

Stuff I can’t talk about. Won’t.

And I can’t say why.

Spoilers.

I wonder if that’s what’s got me verbally constipated.

Fuck. This is a shitty post.

Guess it won’t make it into the memoir.