Life of Pie

My pie was less pretty, but a lot more substantial than this stock image.

Being someone who suffers from depression, as I am (I know because a Doctor told me, plus… all the misery and sadness) I can testify to its soul-emptying, spirit-depriving heartlessness. It’s every bit as bad as people say it is. At its worst it can be fatal; at its best it can just be a drag, but it’s never far away. Like being paralyzed, or having Cancer, it never lets you forget. My own depression tends to filter out all the joy, and light, and hope in my life, and leave whatever’s left.  It’s like numbness, but with pain.

Having said that, however, it would be remiss of me to say it doesn’t have some (albeit minor) positives; slivers of silver linings, if you will. For instance, nobody ever questions why you’re still in your pajamas at 1 o’clock in the afternoon. And if, say, you want to eat pie for breakfast, you can just damn well eat pie for breakfast. I ate pie for breakfast today, and it was delicious – my salty tears adding an extra frisson of flavor. It was banoffee pie for those wondering, made by yours truly. I would post up the recipe, but, well… google.

Of course there’s something inherently depressing in itself about eating pie for breakfast. It suggests a very faint sense of hopelessness (unless you’re hungover, in which case, knock your socks off…) It’s like a vain search for something, anything; that sugary hit to squeeze out a few more drops of dopamine or serotonin from my arid synapses. It’s like, “everything sucks, but fuck you, I’m having pie for breakfast!” A rebellion of sorts.  But really you’re just sitting there in your pajamas staring at a blank TV eating pie while the world rotates around you.

Whenever I go to see my doctor or my therapist, I have to fill out a form with the same old questions: Have you had feelings of hopelessness since your last visit? Do you find it difficult to sleep at night? How many times have you felt depressed since your last visit? etc… I think they could shorten those forms substantially? One question: Have you recently had pie for breakfast?Yes: No.

“I think we need to increase your dosage.”

Another lost Sunday

The Goonies, minus screaming child

You know when you’re trying to save money, or clear debts, or you just have no money, or there’s a baby on the way; or when you’re trying to save money, and clear debts, and there’s a baby on the way? (We have some money, but not much: we’re just about thousandaires.) And then that dreaded question get’s asked on a lazy Sunday morning, when everyone’s still in their pajamas, and you’re watching [insert DreamWorks/Disney/Pixar movie title here] for the eight-millionth time: “So… what do you want to do today?”

There is nothing to do without spending money. Isn’t that depressing? Go for a walk, you might say, take the kid to the playground. Well I live in Oregon. Which means it’s raining outside, or at best, it’s just finished raining, and “looks like rain on the horizon”. The easiest job in the world is weather forecaster in the North West. “It’s raining, and will continue to do so until June! Today’s weather was brought to you by…” The loneliest place in the world is an Oregonian playground in January – It’s like the surface of Mars, but with swings.

We could drive west and visit some of the most spectacular coastline in the US. It’s about a 90 minute drive. Unfortunately my son’s tolerance for sitting in his car seat is approximately 89 minutes, which means we can just about hear the brooding Pacific crashing against the cliffs and rocks over the sound of a wailing 3 year old. So after about nine seconds of this it’s off to the candy store (seriously, if you ever watch the movie “The Goonies”, you’ve literally seen as much of the Oregon coastline as I have after a year of living here). Then, by the time we get 5 minutes into our journey back home, he’s fast asleep, the rainbow effect of saltwater taffy and drool glimmering off his chin.

Then there’s always the mall, which would instantly turn me back into a hundredaire. The movies are showing nothing for kids. Zero. Zilch. How is this possible? They’re always fucking showing kids’ movies; you can’t walk through a cinema lobby without your eyes being raped by a thousand posters and dioramas of the next anthropomorphized cartoon animal on release. “What about that one? It’s called ’Mama’?” I asked the missus, frantically looking through the listings for something even remotely close to something a three year-old might watch, should enough candy and popcorn be shoved down his throat. “You keep mentioning that movie,” she replied, “I do not think it is what you think it is.”

I guess I’m looking at another day in yesterday’s sweat pants (which also were yesterday’s yesterday), surfing the net while my kid watches Rio on loop, and the missus adds to her ever increasing list of “things we need for the baby”.

 “Cherish these moments,” they told me, “they’ll be over before you know it.” Promises, promises.

Zombie Virus is Ruining my Morning

I’m especially grouchy this morning. My grouch levels trend high as it is, but today they’re off the scale – logarithmically. I suppose you could say I’ve gotten up on the wrong side of bed, but guess what? Any side of the bed is the wrong side, at 6.30 a.m.

My three year old is successfully driving me insane. There seems to be nothing he can do to keep me from yelling at him, threatening him with time-outs, banging my head off the wall right now, apart from sitting still and being quiet and not treating me like a human jungle gym. He’s failing miserably at this (despite my subtle, and not so subtle, complaints, he doesn’t seem to get it; hint for future parents: kids aren’t well known for their intuitiveness or perspicacity).

The only reason I ever get up this early is for work. I tend to be just as irritable and grumpy, but for whatever reason, my colleagues tend to refrain from running back and forth across the room while shrieking wildly, or hitting me repeatedly with a rubber lizard. Today, I still had to get up at 6.30 to call my boss and tell him I would be out with flu. Not my flu, but my pregnant wife’s flu. You’d think that would be a perfect scenario: a day off work, and you’re not even sick. But my dear son has seen to it that any chance of relaxation is a mere evanescent fantasy. He’s like the Tasmanian devil on crack this morning. I now realize that my stay-at-home wife works ten times harder than me.

Speaking of flu: you know how every Winter, anyone even mildly related to the medical profession push the flu shot on you with the persuasive enthusiasm of a scientologists to a fledgling movie star? Well next time, ask them do they understand the full implications of taking it while on immunosuppressant drugs (obviously, you don’t have to take immunosuppressant drugs just to ask this; that would be… extreme), just to see what they say. Turns out it’s highly irresponsible to inject a virus into someone with a weakened immune system. It’s apparently a “dead” virus, they might tell you. It can’t infect you. Well maybe, your body doesn’t want these dead little things inside you anyway, or hey, maybe they’ve become little flu zombies. My wife takes immunosuppressant drugs for her illness, and guess what? She’s got her second flu this winter. Humans 0 – zombie virus 2.

Kar-El

I'm on my third rental car in twelve months. My company, due mainly to inter-continental displacement, but also because they're so nice, rent a car for me to drive around in. I presume they're still expecting me to use it to come to work in. I should really ask about that.
After breaking the first two -- both 2011 Nissan's -- Hertz Rent-a-car have tried switching me over to a 2012 Toyota. This seems to have been an unsuccessful endeavor. Faced with the prospect of reaching its first birthday, the car unveils, upon ignition, a light on the dash which flashes "Maint Reqd" in a you're-not-yet-totally-fucked yellow. Now I'm no mechanic, but I have a feeling this means the car -- my third in a year, remember -- requires some maintenance.
I know I should follow this advice before I'm stranded at the side of the interstate during rush hour, cursing the fucking idiot who designed this piece of shit (or whatever I call the perfect combination of years of innovation, technology, and Ph.D's in extremely difficult stuff that involves lots of mathematics and graphs, over the phone to the guy from Hertz). I suppose I've slid all my chips to the middle of the table on the chance that there'll be a sterner red light that says "Get to a garage quick, asshole, before the green light comes on". What's the green light? I'll wonder. "A big fucking dollar sign, Idiot", another light will reveal itself, from some other corner of the dash.
There really are a lot of those lights, let's be honest. And most of them are just some obscure, indecipherable symbol vaguely representing an engine, or an oil can. And that's if you're lucky. Some of them are just random shapes in various colors, designed to keep you're eyes off the road as much as possible. Some of them aren't even bad: "Hey, bro just letting you know your lights are on." Uhhm... thanks. "Yeah I'll just stay here, next to your speedometer, just in case you forget why you're able to see in the dark."
It's not that I dislike my cars, and I promise I have passed my driving test. I'm just careless. We all do regular, menial tasks on autopilot, such as take to the streets in our 100 mile an hour metal killing machines while listening to 80's rock. Who needs to concentrate on that shit? It takes care of itself, right? So my autopilot just happens to be a 15 year old with ADHD, sue me (Disclaimer: please don't sue me).
Anyway with the first one I hit a pothole. Ok, I hit a curb. While answering the phone. While turning a corner. In the rain. The important thing, however, is that the nice lady behind the desk at Hertz Rent-A-Car in [undisclosed location] thinks I hit a pothole. "Those damn potholes, Dah," I tutted shaking my fist in the air at the madness of it all. I think I convinced her. (The important thing to remember, for anybody who might ever read this and happens to work for Hertz' legal team, is that none of this is an admission of guilt, and I love you guys, and we all make mistakes, and... free advertisement, and you look great in that shirt/blouse...).
The second car I didn't really break. Hey, I'm not a total idiot. Ahem... I just kinda scraped it a bit along the side. In my defense, it was while driving along a really narrow bridge, and the barrier had all kind of scrapes and different colored paints on it, so I'm not alone here. I don't judge the other stupid jerks who can't drive in a straight line, so please don't judge me. As it happened this car came due for its regular service, and they wanted to sell it on, so I brought it back, parking it strategically with its "good side" facing the office, then very calmly returned the keys, made polite conversation about the weather (cloudy, if I remember correctly), picked up the keys to the Toyota (Christ, imagine if they'd bought American) and shot out to the parking lot, a trail of flaming tire tracks in my wake. I thought I'd be able to hide out until it was time to fly home. I didn't even wreck this one; I made the missus do most of the driving. Then a quick drop off at the airport, "Damages? Surely not? Why madam, I have a plane to catch..." But because seemingly I'm car kryptonite, I've got another super awkward moment of sheepish, tongue-tied explaining to do, all while wondering who in the name of all that is good and holy decided that adulthood be based on age, and thus I was one.
But not until that fucking red light comes on.

Time management

Over the last year, I’ve essentially gone from watching at least 8 hours of TV a day to almost zero. An achievement I must say I’m particularly proud of. I simply found more productive ways of filling my spare time. I now spend at least 8 hours a day online looking at pictures of people’s pets, and pictures of strangers in humorous and sometimes humiliating predicaments. Sometimes, when I see something particularly amusing, ill elicit a quick snort of air from my nostrils. I presume this is what people mean when they say "lol" and "rofl". I haven’t truly rofled since, well... drugs.
Anyway Tony Robbins was right: it’s about reprogramming your habits to achieve your goals. I still take anti-depressants. Sometimes I sneak an extra one.

Take a sad song

So there's that moment when you realize, truly figure it out, that you're failing as husband, as a father, and as a man. It can happen at any tine. But for me it was tonight, when having spent the day butting against my son -- time outs, tantrums, him wailing, me yelling -- I put him to bed, and sang him the song I sing to him every night -- The Beatles, Hey Jude -- and he gripped me, wordlessly, and wouldn't let me go. Asleep, and holding onto me like he was holding on to the world.
Us old hardened depressives, us old dogs of war, we don't cry. Not anymore. When you start to slip into the abyss of depression you can't stop blubbing. You cry because the wrong (or the right) song comes on the radio, or you caught the scent of an ex-love in a crowd, or you ran out of fucking butter. But us old pros, us with the years of emptiness and numbness and pain behind us, we don't cry anymore.
So when my son held so hard our cheeks became one, and he snored gently in that sweet rumble that only a small child can elicit, all I felt was that familiar ball in my chest chomping away at another little piece of me. Making a little bit less of me than there was a moment before.
Eventually when he was deep enough to unlock so I could sit up and watch his heart-shaped little lips and those gentle eyelids that only come out at night, I thought about why we were here. Money? Opportunity? I'd taken him away from his life and given little back. And then I wept. I guess there's depression, and then there's just sadness.

Things I almost constantly want

A cup of tea
A swift end
Sex
A sandwich
Contentment
A pint of alcohol
Drugs
My son
My wife
The antidote
Class
Knowledge
A decent kip
Riches
A wee
A change
Time to stand still
Noive (pronunciation coitesy of the cowardly lion)
My car keys
Freedom
Closure
Sex
Music
The tv on in the background
Relief
Stuff I see on tv
Stuff I just see
Sex
Peace
The curtains closed
Sex
Help
Sex

#Sheep

"The world can kiss my hairy ass. I'm an individual and I shall live my life as such from now on. I will have the strength and conviction to stand up, alone if necessary, for what I believe is right!"

How many of us have said that? How many times? How many of us have lived it? Hmm...

Rage, rage against the dying ... something something

Whenever someone has any kind of an affliction, it's always a "battle", isn't it? "He's battling his alcoholism". "She really battled with that depression of hers." I want to see what happens when someone doesn't battle. I want to see someone say "Fuck you, depression, I'm going out for steaks"; "screw it Alcoholism, I can't deal with your drama. I'm off to bed."

But really you just lie down and disappear into a black hole. And still people say to one another, "Poor Jim-Bob, he's really battling with his alcoholism."