How are you?

it's just one of those social conventions.

someone says "how are you?", and you are supposed to say "fine". or more better, you say "fine, how are you?"

then they say "fine" and then, since everything's fine, the conversation moves on. or not. whatever. no biggie. except for me these days, it kind of is. a biggie, i mean.

i'm not sure if it's a bipolar thing or just some other way that i am fucked up that makes such a simple thing so hard for me. i bring bipolar into it because one of the ways this disorder has an impact on my life is that i am always checking in with myself.

how am i doing? how am i? is my blood sugar OK? am i responding appropriately to stimuli or am i over-reacting? am i sleeping too much? is anyone noticing? when did i last take my meds?

how am  i responding to the distinct possibility i'm never going to work again? how am i doing with the idea i'm never going to make any kind of contribution to the world again?

how's that loneliness thing doing? still OK with the fact that i'm probably not going to talk to - let alone see - anybody besides my mom and her dog again this week?

how am i? how would i know? even with all this checking in and monitoring myself and the meds and everything else, how would i know whether or not i'm "fine"? and even if i thought i was, the odds are someone else would not concur with my diagnosis.

the odds are if i thought i was "fine", anybody else would think i was heading into a manic episode.

how am i? i'm a lot of things, but "fine" isn't one of them. "fine" is something 'normal' people are, i guess. i don't even know what it means...

and the fact that i can't even respond appropriately to such an innocent social cue is all the proof anybody needs, including me.

You Know You're Depressed when... 2

sometimes, "inspiration" is
the last thing i want.










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Crazy about books

"So many books, so little time."
— Frank Zappa

the first flakes have fallen in our little town. the tourists have all gone south with the birds and the last windy day peeled the last of the leaves off the trees.

winter's coming, and the word is the lakes got pretty warm this summer, which usually means lots of snow... and up here "lots" means exactly that - ie - there will be days when you aren't going anywhere until there's been some plowing and sanding done.

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."
       — Cicero



there are a series of rites and rituals in preparing for winter - getting the snow tires on, buying some kind if new age salt-like product for the walk, church rummage sales, digging out the serious boots and gloves and for me, buying a box
or two of books.

there's a ReStore near here where a twenty can get you
an armful, but it's those rummage sales where one can truly score. if you have the right sources, you can learn where the right ones are to get your print fix and since my mother is a church lady, i now know.




"When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story's voice makes everything its own."
       — John Berger

there are two things in this world that i literally could not live without - music and books. i love the sweet white shut-down that winter brings here. i love the sound and the smell and the site of it, but if i was forced to confront it bookless,
i would go all the way off the deep end.

fortunately, that's not going to happen...

"My alma mater was books, a good library.... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity."
       — Malcolm X




"I have always imagined that Paradise
will be some kind of library."
       — Jorge Luis Borges


"Books are the perfect entertainment:
no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life."
       — Stephen King





"If you go home with somebody, and they
don't have books, don't fuck 'em!"
— John Waters

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Can I get an Amen?

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle.

But if you can't handle me
at my worst, then you sure
as hell don't deserve me
at my best."


    — Marilyn Monroe

Cyclothymic Disorder and Bipolar Disorder

...just came across a very interesting article about these two...



Cyclothymic disorder and bipolar disorder are both psychological conditions.
Do they go together? Cyclothymic is a precursor of things to come? Is the transition to full-blown bipolar disorder?



read all about it right here!

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Cinematic bipolar disorder ?

Charming... a review of Adam Sandler's latest movie in USA Today appropriates the term "bipolar" to describe Mr. Sandler's somewhat checkered career as a developer of humorous content...

Adam Sandler falls down in 'Jack and Jill'

It's a valid question. Sandler seems to suffer from cinematic bipolar disorder: In films in which he simply stars, such as Paul Thomas Anderson's masterful Punch-Drunk Love, Sandler shows surprising depth as an actor.



Who's lazier - the lame-ass writer or their editor? If a medical analogy was required, I would have left the brain out if it altogether and re-situated the discourse elsewhere in the body, as in "Sandler ls about as funny as a case of hemorrhoids".

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some days...

some days are perfect...
not because they are especially different
from any other day but because
they are the days when we happen
to notice.

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