autographedcat

Sometimes, you realise something about yourself so fundamentally obvious in hindsight that you're not sure how it took you so long for it to occur to you.

I've been struggling a bit with my depression in recent weeks. Given the amount of slow-motion change in my life right now, that's hardly surprising, but today, while thinking about a comment thread yesterday in osewalrus's Facebook page, something clicked in my brain that clarified to me why I've felt so unsettled.

I have two strong behavioural methods for temporarily punching up my mood: eating and buying things.

Neither of which I can really do right now.

I'm trying hard to get back on my fitness plan, which means I have a careful budget with regards to what and how much I can eat in a given day.

I'm saving up money to move across country in 3 months and need to be prepared to weather out a period of unemployment, so I can't really shop for much of anything I don't actually require.

It could be argued that neither of this are strictly healthy ways of dealing with stress and depression, but I've been me for a long time, and I know they both work, at least in the short term. And right now, for a variety for reasons, I'm denied their outlet.

Not sure what to do with this information presently, but there you have it.

So, having made a solemn pledge to start updating again, I promptly stopped updating. Which isn't to say things have been boring around here. runnerwolf came to visit, which was shiny and awesome, and then I went to California for Consonance, which was also shiny and awesome, and then I came home and had the plague, which was dingy and boring, and then Marian Call was in town for a concert, which was back to shiny and awesome.

So, rather than talk about those things, each of which deserves at least a post unto itself, I want to talk about Pop Culture Comfort Food.

This past weekend was mentally fragile for me. I do pretty well most of the time these days, but depression still sucks, and every so often it gets the better of me. There are some things that reliably help, but it's mostly a matter of just getting through them until my brain chemistry balances out.

Since I had managed to lure kitanzi into playing The Old Republic with me, I got the notion over the weekend to rewatch Star Wars. I followed it up with The Empire Strikes Back because, well, it comes next, doesn't it. And a couple of things struck me while I was watching it:

1) The Special Editions are fine. Seriously. There's really nothing wrong with them. (Before you start, I want to note something: Han still shoots first. Really. Go watch. He shoots Greedo, whose gun discharges at strikes the wall. At the very worst, they shoot simultaneously. It's Not Even A Thing, stop griping about it.)

2) These films are, for me, the cinematic equivalent of a big bowl of macaroni and cheese. I've seen them enough times now that they really are like comfort food. I go back to them and I'm 10 again and the world is okay.

kitanzi and I were discussing this last night, and she said that she couldn't really think of a movie that fit that category for her, but she certainly had books which did, most notably Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series, which she claims to have read more times than she can actually count anymore.

So what are *your* pop culture comfort foods? When you just need something warm and familiar, what entertainment do you turn to?

I’ve been debating how much I want to talk about 2005. In many ways, it was a painful year. There were highlights, of course. kitanzi and I spent half of February honeymooning in England, I got to visit New York City for the first time, and we celebrated our first wedding anniversary and fourth couples anniversary. I developed a much closer romantic relationship with aiela, which brought me joy, and cultivated an intimate and satisfying friendship with klrmn.

On he downside, I spent much of the second half of the year fighting off depression, much of it wrapped up in a specific single issue that ultimately was not resolved satisfactorily. In the process, I learned a lot of useful things about myself, and a lot of things I wish I hadn’t about someone else, leaving me ultimately more disappointed than I was with the outcome of the issue.

Between myself and kitanzi, we had a lot of medical issues, the most major of course being her shoulder surgery in November. I’m still working to get a handle on my blood pressure. We started and then faltered on a fitness plan, partly due to various infirmity, but mostly on my part due to my depression.

My task for 2006 is to take the good stuff above with me, while leaving the bad behind. I will make my 2006 be a year of light and love and joy and hope and promise, for myself and all of those I care about. How’s that for a New Year’s resolution?

Forward.

Tuesday was certainly a mix of a day. On the whole, it was positive, but...

( Way Too Early In The Morning.... )

( The Good News... )

( ...and The Bad News )

So, that's the news from here. I still count it as an overall positive day. The accident is only a today problem, and Kit's new job will reward us for years to come, so that's a net win, don't you think? I keep telling myself that. I hope that someday very soon I'll actually believe it.