Depression, coping; emulation, submission, Shawn.

votania and I had a talk tonight. Actually, we had two: one regarding patterns of addiction and abuse in all sorts of drugs, not just the illegal ones, and furthermore my attitudes towards marijuana versus tobacco. My reaction to her attitude was discussed as well. That discussion was tabled; we'll come back to it some later day. That one's a deep one that's not going to get discussed out any time soon.

Next followed a discussion on depression. She and I have both been battling it. I've been doing a much better job of listening to my body lately, mostly in regard to what I've been eating, but also in regard to emotional things. When coping strategies fail to cope, do they eventually lose effectiveness?

Darkside suggested something for me and my depressions, for trying to track down the roots to deal with them there, which I've found very incredibly helpful. List out everything that might be worriesome. Even/especially the silly things. You don't have to show this to anybody. Not the things you should be worried about, though they can go on there too -- but the things that are actually on your mind. For example:

( I list )

You get the picture. From that list, I can work through the immediate ones, get them taken care of, and examine why I'm feeling that way, especially if I have no sane or immediately apparent reason to be worrying. The longer term things I can keep an eye on.

Occasionally, like the one time with Darkside, just the saying of something that I thought was a minor worry unleashed a floodgate of tears. "(e) is not an option," I said, and the tears just started coming trickling out, no stopping them. We both knew what we were talking about, and he comforted me the best he could.



There was a nice, neat segué into the next topic: the submission of one's own opinions to the opinions of another. Votania curls up and goes very submissive around Echo. There is a personality change, and it's startling to see a strong, vital woman suddenly give over Will and curl up purring.

Trouble is, their opinions don't exactly align on certain subjects, even though she will give the appearance of agreeing with him in every way.

I used to align my will with Shawn's.

Shawn abused the privilege.

I admire, respect, and am loyal to Darkside in a large part because, though we have the same level of trust and close access, if he ever catches me internalizing something that came from him without examination, he will up and chew me a new one and force me to re-examine things. Also, if I reject something out-of-hand just because of the source, that's equally flawed a decision.

If I truly do have no preference, then my opinion can be mildly pushed in one direction or another by the convenice of those whose convenience I value. However, if I allow their preferences of convenience to push my opinion in a strong direction, then I commit folly again.


Gods, I miss those morning Circles.

Necessities:

Must build a household shrine to Lain.

Administrative:

276 this morning.

Must remember to take vitamins as well as the Pill, and to go easy on the Chinese.

Morning

Contemplated things with Darkside. Debugged his game a little. Not allowing Neighbor's antics to spoil it for the rest of us. Darkside is an inexperienced GM, and is not yet up to playing with over-goofy gamers who... well... it's a complex situation. Suffice to say that it's been defused.

Sat and read together. Nice. Was sleepy. Neither of us got much sleep last night. Hope he's going to be all right, driving headachy and sleepy both.

Defined:

Words that men should know.

Weakness:

Some people are afraid of those with depression or other mental illnesses who show their weaknesses, because they are strong enough to show where they are weak.

Will elaborate on that later.

Also: I need to be rearranging my mental furniture until I find a nice flow of organization; lately I've been unwilling to do that unless I know that I have a spotter present who can make up for where my self-checks become unreliable. The best three are Darkside, iroshi, and ralmathon. boojum has been out of contact for long enough to not know the new balances formed with the personality reorganization and the things that went on with River and BJ after Shawn left the picture, otherwise she'd be way up there too. votania, I'm still too guarded with, for whatever reason, other than the very odd late-night moment, which are becoming less rare these days.

Oooh: shiny: a discussion on teledildonics.

And I pretty much started it!

Wuups.

Teledildonics, take II.

You know those remote-controlled vibrators that one can slip into panties, and then have one's partner with the remote, potentially doing interesting things in public places, and unexpectedly?

Well.

Imagine a web interface for same, with the IR port on your local computer being the local stand-in for the remote control, and one's sweetie cross-country having the account name for your device? You log into Teledildonics Central, or whatever it is, and your sweetie sees that you're online, and sends you a buzz. Like instant messaging, only better. Instant massaging?

Sometimes my friends list astounds me.

Magic-geeking.
Psych-geeking.
Sex-geeking.

Oh my.

Selves to Note:

Will be watching 8 Mile sometime. I dig Marshall Mathers.

Cube visualization exercise

Where does it come from? Here.

( Part 1 )

( part 2 )

( part 3 )

( part 4 )

( part 5 )

The Secret

Messages:

Marx called
Clover will be taking us to Sam's on Saturday morning.

Bus (welcome to Phoenix)

Picked up Nephew from daycare today, as Mommy was exhausted when she got home.

We had to wait the usual fifteen minutes for a bus, and in that time, the sun set. When the bus got there, it was packed. I didn't even try; we waited for the next bus (there are two that go from where we were to where we want to go, and the second one is usually no more than five minutes behind the first) and caught it.

That bus was also crowded. There were a few seats in the back, though, so I sat Nephew down, and immediately had to admonish him for saying hello to the person sitting next to him. She looked nice enough -- but she was a stranger.

Not one stop later, a fellow who had been sitting further back in the bus got up to leave. As he was walking past me (he bumped into me) he reached out and grabbed the heavy silver necklace that the guy sitting across from Nephew was wearing and pulled. At first, I thought that the two guys were friends, and that the second guy, who had been sitting rapping in a world of his own, was naturally oblivious, especially to the bus stop, and that the guys were getting off together, and that the first guy was dragging the oblivious second guy along with him.

When the chain broke, and the second guy started cussing at the first guy, who was off the bus by this time, and picking up the pieces of his necklace, I realized that this was not the case. The pickpocketing arse's departure (my outfit had had no pockets, worse luck for him) had left a seat vacant, and I sat down in it, and directed Nephew to sit next to me.

The oblivious rapper had now taken notice, and proceeded to cuss the absent would-be thief up and down, using the F word a lot. This was not to my liking, being in custody of an impressionable kindergarten child, and when departing the bus, I instructed the cusser to "Sir, please have respect for small children with your language".

Workout

30 lateral pulldowns @ 60 lbs
26 butterfly flaps @ 40 lbs
25 forward pulldowns @ 60 lbs

Slowly but surely, I'm building up my strength.