A Blog Darkly
The stupid things we do
Like, go into town to meet up with our workmates for drinks and hopefully some star-spotting (the LOTR world premier is here on Monday night). Get to the bar, no-one is there. Odd, I'm half an hour after the set meeting time. Go over to cyber-cafe. Log into work email account. Read email carefully. Realise that we are meeting Sunday. Remember that today is Saturday. Work out that I am 23 hours early.
And I've turned down two other invitations for tonight so I could go to these drinks instead. I, officially, suck ;-)
And my neck is sunburnt from sitting on my deck today, the first sunny day we've had this summer.
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No images. And feeling low, and stuff
OK, I can't post any pics to the blog, because it doesn't have image hosting. I could ftp them somewhere else, but that's the only option I've got, at the moment. Sigh.
Meantime, been feeling more depressed than I have for a while. Not quite sure why. Feeling sad about distance. Yeah, I know I was feeling very happy only yesterday. But such is life. Starting to re-assess whether I really have the strength to go on with things at this distance :-(
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Emails from random American girls
OK. Not quite random ;-)
As I was writing this I got an email from Cory. Well, actually from her friend Becky. It was a collaborative email, meaning that they took turns writing (and occasionally insulting each other over everything from which football team to support to which one had a dirtier mind). As they both managed to find something slightly obscene in the term 'meat pie', I'd say it's a tie as to who's dirtier. (Meat pie: it's a pie. With meat in it. Like an apple pie is a pie with apple in it. I don't see what's so hard to understand about this).
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Digital camera goodness
So, I did some maths and realised that continually buying cheap disposal cameras, and then having to pay to have the film developed, probably wasn't the smartest way to spend my money. So I ordered myself a digital camera, yay!
This is the beast:
Kodak CX6230. Bottom of the line model, but looks like it will do the job. The only thing that annoys me? It would be way, and I mean way, cheaper to order it in from overseas (say Amazon). But guess what? I can't - Amazon won't ship it here - I guess it's a parallel importing issue. But I can't see why I should have to pay so much. Oh well.
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23.16
My time for the 5km run I entered last week. I'm pretty pleased - it's a lot faster than I thought I'd manage (OK, so it's hardly earth-shattering, the winning time was 15m), but I'm pleased. Looks like I'm a little bit fitter than I thought I was.
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November 7: Uber-g33k librarian boy gets grades back
Got my major assignment back for LIBR521: Management (a change management project for a library or similar work place).
I got an A+!
I knew it was a reasonable piece of work, but I wasn't expecting that.
This is the course I got a B+ in for a paper that I researched and wrote while flying around the US.
That's my happy news for today.
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November 1: You know you should clean your room more often when....
....your flatmate walks in to see you taking a photograph of your room (in order to send to a certain woman in New Jersey who's asked for pictures/a description of my house). He takes one look around, registers that the room is tidy, and says 'yeah, I can see why you're taking a photo - want to prove that it was actually tidy'.
Thank you Laurence. If it wasn't your birthday today I would beat you like a mangy dog.
We are having a party tonight for his birthday, and Julie leaving the flat. It should be OK, but we only organised everything at the last minute (like Wednesday evening). So it's possible that no-one will turn up. Equally, it's possible that lots of my friends will turn up, and none of theirs. I really can't tell.
However, tonight is for absinthe. So that should be fun.
I took Rachel to dinner at Istanbul as a thank you for coming into town to give us a presentation on electronic document management systems. Decent meal, till we got to her cheesecake, which had mold on it. They were horribly embarrassed and apologetic, so all was good (and the desert was free, which helped my wallet slightly). Then we came round the flat and watched CSI. Truly, I have a fabulous life.
Whenever Julie came into the living room, she made sure to make a lot of noise, because she was convinced she was going to see Rachel and me making out. Which of course we weren't (just friends, met on nzdating.com but there isn't a spark there). Laurie has ditched his latest fling, whatever her name is (we all have trouble remembering, including him). Apparently she was too pleasant.
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30 October: It's a drunken Thursday!
I've re-discovered one of the benefits of being on anti-depressants: you can get really drunk, really quickly. Mmmmm. I was on my way after 2 1/2 beers, well gone by four. So I stagger home feeling a lot, that's a lot better than I did before. This is a weird experience for me. Getting drunk always used to depress me. Now I feel buzzed, relaxed, ready for anything. It's a nice feeling. Of course, the corollary of that is that I become an alcoholic or something - but that has to be better than being a pillhead, right?
(I don't believe I just wrote all that shit).
Anyway. Cheap beer. My brother. His girlfriend. We finally have a pleasant conversation. This is good. His friends are cool too. We talk football. I stagger home, and eat fish and chips. All of this is good. Very. Very. Good.
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Getting clean
I've been depressed for years. For as long as I can remember, since maybe the age of eight. I've tried counselling (a few years back), self-medication, and two types of SSRI. And I've started seeing a therapist as well.
You know what they say: 'you have to want to change'? Well, recently I've realised that's true - and it's true on a really profound level. There's wanting to change, and then there's really wanting to change. And now I really want to change.
For too long I was glorying in being depressed, in having an illness. I was seeking treatment, but deep down in my self-image I saw myself as the hard-assed depressed guy, sneering at the happy people. Not anymore. I want to get clean. I want to beat this depression, not just treat it. And why?
Well, it comes back to a woman again. She's given me the inspiration to want something more, to want not to feel like this anymore. To want to be clean, for her.
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26 October: falling down the stairs
I'm having one of those days where I really shouldn't have got out of bed. I managed to slip on the stairs, even though I'm completely sober. Cue neckstrain that I have a feeling will soon start hurting like buggery.
Ah well. I got to see the Verlaines last night, and have a good chat to Tanja, and Steve, and Becks. So I can't complain. And the Verlaines rocked, played all the important ones (throwing out 'Death and the Maiden' mid-set and encoring with 'Pyromaniac' and 'Slow Sad Love Song').
The fact that no-one who reads this will have the slightest clue what I am talking about does not detract from the genius that was last night. Followed by late night drunken AIM flirting. What more could a boy want? (well, two things actually, but never mind that now).
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