Interesting times

Well, the last couple of weeks have been pretty darned cool...

I've had the last week and a half off work, which in itself is an awesome thing... I spent a week of this time in Mt Maunganui and Tauranga, hanging with the fambly. it was a good time. Urgh, this is coming out kind of stilted and horrible. I'm not very awake - I went to the late session of Ironman at Riccarton last night, and although I've had about 7 hours sleep, I still feel knackered. The film was great - big action, quite funny, generally cool - and my sister came along, which was also neat. It kind of completes a set - I went to the late session of Pirates of the Carribean 2 with my bro and his wifey when that came out, and I saw Pirates 3 with my mother at a late session too. I guess the only person left to do this with is my dad. There's just something kind of fun in the whole experience, knowing that it's a bit silly because it's so late but enjoying a good movie...
Anyhoo, back to my holiday... yeah, it was great. Seeing the folks is always nice, and as a huge bonus my brother and his gang were there for half the time as well. It was awesome to meet Dom again - he's changed so much since Xmas time. Little people are wonderful...
I had a strange experience on my return to Christchurch though. When I went up north, I had a fairly substantial ginger beard, and my normal hair. As I seem to do quite often while on holiday, I ended up with blonde hair and trimmed back to a tidy goatee. When I was waiting for my sister outside the airport, I had this indian guy talk to me. It was an interesting conversation...
He said hello, in the way you'd greet an old friend you haven't seen for ages. I was somewhat confused, and immediately started trying to work out if this was someone I knew. He welcomed me to Christchurch, and asked me where I was from. I told him that I was from Chch, and had just been up north visiting family. I began to suspect that perhaps he was some sort of religious type, about to tell me about the glory of some particular Deity. Then he told me he was on his way to Auckland, but he hoped to see me when he came back to town. Being the type of person I am, I was just smiling politely and making generally affirmative noises. And feeling progressively more confused by this nice, friendly person... Then he said "I am a gay, are you?" Oh. Whoops...
I just said no, and that was pretty much it. He said goodbye and went off to catch his plane. I found the whole thing highly amusing. It's the first time I've been hit on by a gay guy. I don't know if it's the hair that made him think I was a gay too, or if it was the Golden Breed jacket I was wearing, which has a combined male and female sign as it's logo. I think it's just that they make unisex clothing, but I guess it could be misinterpreted... But no, I think it's probably just that he thought I looked like a gay in general. I don't find this at all worrying, oddly enough - I'm comfortable enough with myself these days that it doesn't fase me if people make inaccurate assumptions based on my appearance. I like the way I look, and that's all that really matters.
The other thing that did occur to me was that if I was a gay, I could probably do better than the guy who talked to me... Hee hee... : )

Muh? Buh...

Sorry, the title isn't too creative. But I thought I had something to write about, but found that by the time I had logged in and all I can't remember what it was. Hmmm... That sentence seems to have a variety of tenses in it. Oh well...
My typing is becoming atrocious. I've never been what you'd call a speed typist, but I used to have reasonable accuracy. I now seem to be suffering from some weird form of keyboard dyslexia - I find that when I read back over some of what I've typed I'll have a few words that aren't actually words, where I've managed to hit the key next to the one I wanted for an entire word. I don't know if it's my eyes, my brain or my fingers, but it's annoying...

Life is much the same. Work. Sit about at home. Visit sister and nephews. Sleep... Well, not so much sleep recently. My sleep has been fairly broken for the last two weeks. I'm not sure why - I find that if I go to bed at about 8 in the morning, I'll wake up every two hours almost exactly. It's weird. But on the plus side, I've been getting plenty of naps at work, so it's not so bad :)

I'm really looking forward to Anzac weekend. I'm going up to Tauranga to visit my folks for a week, and my brother and his wife and little person should be there too. It should be great... And I've taken the rest of the week off when I get back home, so I get a proper break from work. I know it's not that long since Christmas and all, but I feel kinda... frazzled? Just knackered, bascially.

I'm still undecided as to whether Prozac is responsible for my improving mood, or if it's just a case of having it all out in the open making life feel...freer? I don't think that's a real word... But anyway, I'm feeling really pretty good most of the time now. It's great... But I think the drugs kind of balance me out. I used to have crazy manic periods, too, which i haven't mentioned to my doctor... Where I'd feel ridiculously "up," and need to be as busy as possible. Without an adequate focus, this feeling tended to eventually lead to frustration. So having that dampened too is good. It was one of the things that I was worried about when I considered antidepressants - someone told me that they basically even you out, so that things in general don't affect you as much, and I thought that I didn't want to lose my highs, even if it meant I had to live with the lows. I'm very glad that I got past that - I can see now that those ups weren't particularly healthy either. I know that I'm essentially diagnosing myself as manic depressive, but this is basically how I feel... Or felt, anyways...

But for the moment, life is good, I have things to look forward to, a reasonable degree of clarity of thought, and a fairly positive outlook. It's... nice :)

Express yourself...

Okay, so I was just listening to Fade to Black, the Metallica song. I grabbed my guitar and played along with the rythmy chorus bits. And I was struck by the realisation that there are people in this world who don't have any particular creative outlet. How do these people get by? I play the guitar badly, but I still find just hammering away at power chords, or plucking out something like Greensleeves, very relaxing. I can't imagine what it must be like to have absolutely no outlet for this side of me.
It's like when I was working at Hoyts in Wellington, and there were people who told me that they'f never read a book. I mean either you must have an incredibly busy, fulfilling life, or there is a huge cultural void there. I can't imagine what it must be like to not have read... stuff. I'm sure people know what I mean. Books, stories... what you read gives you an insight into the nature of other people, I think. Perhaps this is why bullying and things is becoming a bigger problem these days. I know that in reading things like the Dragonlance Chronicles, I developed a greater degree of empathy. The way some authors express their view of the world and relationships really can have an impact on your world view.
I watched some of 20/20 the other fay, and they had an article about bullying. It made me despair for the future of our race, really... They had a couple of cases of highschool students who had beat up or assaulted their classmates. And the scary thing was, the students who did the beating said that they were sorry, and that they wished they hadn't done what they did... But their only given reason had nothing to do with understanding or empathy, but simply that they got in trouble.
It's a bizarre thing to me. In my teenage years, I had several occasions where I wanted to thump people. And I guess that for the most part, it wasn't fear of punishment so much as fear of retaliation that kept me from hitting people. But there were also plenty of times where I could see that I wouldn't like someone to hit me, so I didn't hit someone else. And that is what seems to have disappeared in today's youth - that ability to empathise with a potential victim.
There were people who were that fucking obtuse in my day too, people who would bash anyone just for the hell of it. But it seems that these days, the balance has shifted, so that there are far more of these mindless fuckers who go straight to violence with no filters or control. It doesn't bode well for the future of our species, if you ask me...

Say Uncle...

I love being an uncle. Eli and Ben are both huge amounts of fun. Eli, being the age that he is, is quite a handful, and I think I'm getting some idea of what my mother means when she says that I was "busy" as a child.
Yesterday, I had my usual Friday of going to my sister's place and hanging out. We went to Northlands mall, for... stuff. I can't remember exactly why it was Northlands... I think it was just because there is a Pak'n'Save there, and we could wander around the mall after shopping for grocery type stuff. We went to Te Wharehouse, a place I quite enjoy shopping... Basically to look for new shoes for Eli, but I ended up buying a few things too. Eli got two pairs of jandals - after he tried on his first pair, it was pretty much impossible to get them off him, so we bought them for him. It was quite entertaining watching him try to get the hang of walking in them. He was sort of shuffling forward, and if he got excited and decided to run, the jandals got lost pretty quick.
I bought a T-shirt and some shorts. I finally decided to buy a smaller size of shorts than I usually get, and it's quite good - they don't fall down if I'm not wearing a belt :)
Back at my sister's place, I played with both the boys in the lounge for a while. I find Ben amazingly cute - I mean Eli is cute too, and little Dom is lovely, but there is something about Ben that is just... wonderful. I think it's the way he smiles. He is almost always a very happy, smiley little person. And the way he squeals in delight when you pick him up, and flaps his arms about is great.
But I was playing dinosaurs with Eli, which is cool. He was a T-Rex, and I was a Diplodocous. Or however you spell it... Anyhoo, the game basically involves the Dippy person crouching and pretending to eat grass, and then the T-rex comes running up and jumps on it. It's enormous fun having a little person jump on you, and being able to pick him up and play with him. It's probably more seeing how much he is enjoying it than it is having fun yourself.
But yes, uncledom is wonderful. I get to have all this fun with these little people, and I get the satisfaction of knowing that I'm helping out my sister, and at the end of the day, when I'm knackered, I can go home and leave the boys in someone else's hands :)

I watch stuff...

Well, not a great deal has been going on recently. Work is still a bit of a mess. We are currently about eight days behind on our production schedule. It would seem that the solution to increased competition in the marketplace and needing to increase production has been to paint squares on the floor, shut down things periodically to change the colours of these squares, amd put us over a week behind on customer orders. Clearly I am not cut out to be a planner at GC, because I fail to see the benefit of this new system...

My weight loss has stalled, but I am not gaining weight, which is cool. The next step, I guess, is exercise, but I can't be bothered going out half the time. I needs me some sort of home equipment, like an exercycle or rowing machine. Or I need to stop being a pansy and just go out for walks more.

I have watched the first two seasons of Dexter over the last couple of weeks. I love this show... It is quite possibly my favourite TV show ever, at the moment. It's about the life of a guy called Dexter (surprisingly) who works for the Miami PD as a forensics person by day, and is a serial killer by night. But he only kills murderers who have escaped justice. It makes him an interesting character, because while what he is doing is essentially not a bad thing, his methods are fairly horrific, and he is basically a monster, so it's hard to call him a hero. But it's as much about his "normal" life and interactions with other people as it is about the killing, which is kind of what makes it interesting. I highly reccommend it.

I also downloaded and watched Planet Terror - the Robert Rodriguez half of Grindhouse. It is quite possibly the best bad film I have ever seen. I absolutely loved it. I was laughing myself silly through most of it, and definitely in a godd way. It perfectly captures that cheesey low budget horror feel. If I was going to make bad horror/sci-fi films with a big budget, this is exactly the sort of thing I'd like to make. I'm quite curious to see Deathproof now, but will have to wait a couple of weeks as downloading two seasons of Dexter has used up a significant chunk of my data cap. Oh well...

On the other hand...

Okay, so the whole depression thing is basically crap. But I forgot to mention the one up side of my most recent slide into major depression - weight loss. It's a funny thing to talk about anyway, but I'm feeling pretty good about how much I've shrunk of late, so there you go...
Basically, with the whole getting really down and losing interest in life in general, food became more of a chore than a comfort. It's one of those odd things, I guess - in the past I've been an emotional eater. That is to say, when I've felt down or bad, I've taken solace, to some extent, in filling myself up with food. But in this latest major downturn, I've hit a place that is more "I can't be bothered" than "I feel empty."
I don't know how all of this is going to make other people feel - but it gets to a point where all you can do is laugh or cry about what is or has been wrong with you, and today I'm in a laughing mood.
Anyhoo, with mt disinterest in food over the last four months or so, I've lost around 15 kilos. Which is quite a bit, really... I hadn't particularly noticed it myself, but then a couple of people at work said I was looking heaps skinnier, and asked me what the secret is. I didn't tell them that getting seriously fucking depressed was the key - I just said that I'd been eating less food.
But anyway, the cool thing is that even though I'm generally feeling better at the moment, with the drugs and all, I haven't developed the same appetite I had. I am enjoying food again, but I feel full fairly quickly, and am eating far less than I used to. So hopefully the weight loss woill continue, without needing to feel like shit : )
You have to what? you have to laugh...

Changes

The last couple of weeks at work have been interesting. We have had a couple of major changes - first to the standards of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) and now we are changing the whole system of running the factory. The changes to PPE actually went through fairly smoothly, after a lot of grumbling and moaning. Basically, we are all now wearing high visibility shirts and overalls, safety glasses have become compulsory when in the factory, and hearing protection is mandatory too. There were originally plans to ban all visible piercings, and watches and other jewelery. But the company backed down on that.
The new system being introduced is going to be fun - we will be working to customer orders only, not making stock any more. This is supposed to increase productivity, when combined with new visual cues and stuff. It'll only work if the sales team can pick up their game, and get enough orders to keep us busy.
Okay, I'm watching the second episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles while I'm writing this, and it's hard to concentrate, so I'm going to leave it there. Basically, work is getting even more naff than it usually is. It may well be time to seriously consider a new job.
However, the last couple of days have been kind of fun. Friday me and Kate were basically just goofing around, because Sunday was the start of the changes, so we weren't too worried about production. And last night was basically just the whole Comms night shift crew moving stuff around, and mucking about. It was cool...

Pots and kettles...

I just received my weekly-ish e-mail from a friend of mine in tauranga, and I remembered something I wrote a while back about depression and things. This friend of mine is the one who I mentioned ages ago, who was sent to a doctor by his parents because he couldn't get a job and things, and ended up on antidepressants. At the time, I was fairly critical of the whole affair, saying how giving people drugs to mask problems was a bad thing, I think, and that when i was his age and in a similar state, I didn't get offered any help, I was just expected to get on with things. Now here I am, seeing a doctor, on prozac, admitting finally that there is something wrong with me, and that this something has been negatively affecting my life for a very long time. I think now that I have been an idiot all these years, and that if I had started on this process ten years ago, I'd probably be living a very different life now. Oh, bugger... I'm very tired and this is getting difficult to keep together.
But then life is always a series of what-ifs and if-onlys... The thing that has really struck me about all this is that people are much better than I expect. Of course I know my family love me, and all that, but the whole depression thing has always felt like something I should keep to myself, out of embarrassment, and not wanting to burden anyone else with my stupid problems. It's funny, when I told my sister about this last week, she said that she knew there was something wrong years ago, when she came to visit in Wellington, but she didn't know what to say. I hadn't realised that I wasn't hiding things as well as I thought back then. But then that's an interesting period for me. When I look back on my time in Welly, most of it is good memories, good times had with good people. But when I look back through the diaries I kept at the time, they are loaded with fairly nasty, unpleasant sentiments, and a general theme of hatred for the world and idle thoughts of suicide. I guess that I have been sad and angry for most of my adult life. But it's one of those things that is very hard to explain - being depressed like this doesn't mean I spend all day every day feeling like shit and wanting to die. I have good and bad days and moments, it's just that the bad significantly outweighs the good.
But to put a little positive light on all of this, because I'm not all about the bad, I feel that I should explain about what keeps me going. Despite the fact that on a conscious level, I expect to be disappointed by people and the workings of the world, I have at the core of my being this eternal, unquenchable feeling of hope. I am, at the heart of it all, an eternal optimist. I genuinely believe that things will one day get better. Even at my blackest moments, this unshakable hope keeps me going. And so I will always be here, waiting for that elusive good thing to come along and change the world. Well, my world, at least...

And so much later...

Okay, so it's been a very long time since I last added to this thing. My life after that last post took a decidedly uncool turn, and it's taken quite a while for things to come right. The things that went wrong were pretty much my own fault, and not surprisingly alcohol was involved. But I'm finally feeling better. Properly better...

This probably isn't stuff I should write about, but hey, hardly anyone reads this thing anyway. The night out that I was looking forward to in my last post before Xmas was a complete shambles. Although I can't remember the worst parts, it was seemingly a whole new low for me. I don't know how much I had to drink - I didn't take that much with me, but people had a beer bong, and I hadn't slept since Thursday afternoon, so wasn't in the best state to start with. But basically, I was a mess - apparently I fell over in a bush at one point, and someone tried to put me in the recovery position. Herm... But the bad stuff - all centers around Kate. The evening started well - she picked me up, and we went back to her place to wait for Mark to get home. That was cool - just sitting around her house, checking out her room, shaving part of my leg... fun. (Kate apologised for her hairy legs, and I asked how annoying it was to shave them, so she decided I should find out.) When we got to Marks place, it was cool for a while, just sitting in the sun and talking bollocks. Then the beer bong came out, everyone started moving around and stuff, and things went sour. Kate went off to spend time with Mark, then was getting cosy with someone else on the couch. And then, basically, I went insane. Apparently I followed her into the kitchen and started yelling at her, asking why she hated me. Then I was being "scary," although she hasn't elaborated on what that means. So she started hiding from me. I couldn't remember the shouting, so couldn't understand why she was avoiding me. Then at the end of the night, when we were all going to town, I saw her with a person she really shouldn't have been with (someone who is married or engaged), and apparently lost it again, calling her all sorts of horrible things before staggering off by myself. And finally, I sent her a very nasty text message. Fucking brilliant...

I didn't find out what I'd actually done until Xmas eve, when she finally responded to my texting and explained things. Needless to say, the Xmas period was somewhat less than fun. I felt like complete shit right through my time off work, and was dreading going back. On the first night back at work, no one said anything, and Kate was still talking to me, although not much. I didn't know what to say. On the second night back, she came and talked to me properly, and I apologised some more, and she said she wouldn't hold it against me, that it was drunken stupidity. But she insisted that I go to a doctor.

Yeah, perhaps I should explain a bit about that... Basically, I'm clinically depressed. Neat, huh? And even better, I apparently also suffer from dysthymia, or chronic depression. Which I guess I've always been aware of, but had never done anything about. But a couple of months back, I made a silly comment about going on antidepressants for a laugh to Kate, which led to me telling her everything about how I feel. She told me then that I should get help, but I couldn't do it.

After that episode at Marks place, I decided that I should seek help, as a sort of apology to Kate as well as because of what I can see is wrong with me. So I've been seeing a doctor for the last couple of months, and I'm on Prozac. I'll be going into therapy in a while, once my mood has stabilised and I'm in a headspace that'll let me take on board what a counsellor has to say. My state of mind has definitely improved since I've been on Prozac - I still have bad thoughts, and I still get sad, but I can cope with these things much better. And I feel a sort of detachment from it all, like I can stand back a bit and actually look at and analyse what is going on. I don't know if that is just the drugs, or if it's a mental shift brought on by taking that first step toward getting better, but either way my life feels like it's back on track for the first time in a very long while.