A Whole Bunch of Random

I've been random the last few days. So I've posted some odd stuff on Facebook. Some of it needs to be posted here as well.

Lovecraftian:
"We got the gills that give the thrills!" aka the New Esoteric Order of Dagon motto.

A new term for my clinical depression:
Oh, while listening to M.R. James' 'Count Magnus' while driving yesterday, came up with a good euphemism for 'being diagnosed (again) with depression'. 'Taking the Black Pilgrimage to Chorazin.' Seems fitting, since I came back with a follower that will never leave. Luckily (?) it rarely sucks the faces off of people. So I may start calling my swings as 'my minion from Chorazin.' Better than a black dog. I like dogs.

(don't worry, this isn't a cry for help or anything, just a random bit of brain foo. Change what you call a thing, and you change how you react. Words have power, and weird words make me feel 'better')

For those who are curious, you can find the story at the following link Text of Count Magnus

and if you just want a summary, check out The Wikipedia page on the story.

How M.R. James described me right before my Dad was born:
One more M.R. James bit. From the intro to 'A Neighbour's Landmark'. Sound like anyone you may know ? *wink*

"Those who spend the greater part of their time in reading or writing books are, of course, apt to take rather particular notice of accumulations of books when they come across them. They will not pass a stall, a shop, or even a bedroom-shelf without reading some title, and if they find themselves in an unfamiliar library, no host need trouble himself further about their entertainment. The putting of dispersed sets of volumes together, or the turning right way up on those which the dusting housemaid has left in an apoplectic condition, appeals to them as one of the lesser Works of Mercy."

It's been an odd morning, but all things considered I'm doing ok I think. Ciao.

Twas the day before Cthulhumas

And all through the Château Innsmouth, the shoggoths were stirring, mostly because Vulpine is having a day. No, I'm not turning this into a prose poem. Just feel like talking about the holidays.

They used to be a big thing for me, as a kid/teen. So many memories of putting up the tree with Mom and Dad, laughing at silly stuff and stories, just good stuff. As a teen ager, I started renting REALLY bad movies for Xmas eve as the folks went to bed, starting with 'Rabid Grannies'. It wasn't a Norman Rockwell holiday, but it fit us just fine.

Then Dad died, and the first Christmas after that really kind of made me wish to never here another jingle bell again. The family tradition boiled down to taking Mom out for Xmas eve, or her cooking something. Telling stories, and giving each other presents. Very little 'holiday' in it. Then I met Amythest, a true Christmas Pixie. When we were together, I tried to de-scrooge at least on the outside. Things got easier after we split up, but became friends again. We had our own traditions, including both of us going to visit my Mom, which Mom always liked.

I tried turning the holiday on it's head a little, created my version of Cthulhumas. Cthulhumas Ctharols from the HPLHS, weird cards, reading 'The Festival', finding horror movies either about the holidays, or more enjoyable for me, movies that have weird relations to the holidays. 'Haunting of Hell House' or 'The Amityville Horror', 0 festiveness, 100% happening around the holidays. I'd help Amythest and Nymaz put up a tree, and do outside decorations (something I swore as a kid I'd never do). New traditions, friends, and that sad core in me got smaller...

Then Mom died. And since then the Cthulhumas game isn't as fun, in fact I haven't listened to Cthulhumas Carols this year at all. I've narrowed down my 'holiday' to a few hours with Amythest and Nymaz when they get back in town. And honestly, I'm just hoping I don't have a complete crash tonight. Plans for tomorrow is full on hermiting, probably in a book or 3. Then it's back to work when I have a moderately sized pile of stuff to knock out. So...wish me luck on surviving tonight and tomorrow. And maybe finding a smidge of that old Cthulhumas spirit.

A week of ups and downs (the downs)

Well this week was a lot more ups and downs. Lets get the downs out of the way. It's official, I'm not doing the magnetic treatment, seems that 'we figured out the insurance problem' actually meant 'oh what the hell, lets try again.' How am I doing about that? Resigned. I intentionally kept my hope to a minimum. Pshrink visit went ok, all things considered I'm handling things alright, so same meds, come back after the holiday season, unless stuff changes. Which given the silly season is their busiest time. I also had a case of unexpected sadness earlier this week. Got a wild hair to look up where my uncle's name was from, and I found his obituary from 2011. I knew he'd passed, I thought I'd mourned when it happened. But seeing his face and hearing about the good he did in his community, well I started crying. And the next day I wrote something about it on Facebook, and the tears started up again. Guess between losing my friend's dad, and seeing my uncle well, opened up the waterworks. Otherwise it's been anxiety and feeling down a good chunk of the time. I'm rather down right now. News, worries about people I care about, and my anxiety spiking up randomly. I was going to try to work on cleaning up some of the clutter in the the areas that are out of sight...but I don't have the tentacles for it, so I'll do it another weekend.

Coming very soon, a more positive post.

State of the fox

If you follow me on Facebook, you've already seen most of this.

It's not been a good week. I had a near breakdown this week. I think I've tapered off my old med too fast, and between stress from helping a friend, bad sleep, fretting over the bill from my dental emergency and work, and the combination became a 'perfect storm' and well, I went pretty far down. I'm better now, functioning if not great. Little better each day, but still I have to fight the depression at least once or twice a day. It was bad enough I found reading to be tedious, and that's one of those great signs that something is wrong.

But, on the plus side, I managed to not call in with ennui once this week. I've gotten stuff done, if not as much as I'd (or my work) would like. I've also found reading to be easier and more entertaining, reading classics like Lovecraft and Brian Lumley (the first modern day mythos writer I ever read). I'm sleeping better, not great but better. The plan is to try tapering off again when I'm under less stress. When that will be? I dunno. One tentacle at a time and all that.

So, it's the weekend. And payday. Weekend plans are more friend helping, but nothing crazy like last weekend. Also, I'm probably going to go see 'Wonder Woman' because, it looks like a whole lot of fun. Tonight is watching 'Life' again, it's currently on and it's a lot of fun (for values of pentapods destroying humanity). Will probably stay up kind of late and try to regenerate tentacles with movies and geeking, then probably more Lumley or similar reading, and sleeping in if I can. Wish me luck, both with sleep and with getting better.

Green Vulpine needs Hope, badly.

Well it's another week, and I'm not doing so hot. Had a relapse after last weekend, doctor called in new antibiotics which have helped. But I still feel pretty lousy. My lungs are really tight, I've been using the inhaler a bunch. It helps, but I have a feeling I need to find a respiratory specialist and get my lungs really checked out. Along with an allergist, and possibly a full body transplant specialist. So if anyone is experimenting with building cyborgs, I may be your guinea pig.

I worked from home Mon-Wed. I was told rather firmly to go home since I sounded like a TB ward. I got stuff done, but I still feel like a slacker. *sigh* Oh, I haven't mentioned it, but I have a new boss. Nothing bad, just some reshuffling above my level. Going to actually meet the guy (he works out of Atlanta, soon to be Tennessee) next week. I do kind of like having remote managers, less of the insanity of a former employer. Plus, me and my team mates just work well together, no real need for a day to day watch over us kind of guy.

Due to the relapse, I've mentally canceled most of my weekend plans. Not sure I want to leave the house, not sure I'll be able to do all the chores that are backed up either though. I really don't know. I'm going to try to get at least the minimum I need for survival, if I can do more, I will, and if I can't...well *throws tentacles in the air*

Mental health is...poor. Mom's anniversary of her passing is next weekend, and I've had lots of reminders of things in the last couple of weeks. The pneumonia is definitely NOT helping. (Her death, for those who don't know, was due to a bout of pneumonia). Add to that the world news lately, and personal issues I don't want to go into on here, I'm really not a happy fox. Seriously, I think the only reason I haven't had a full on meltdown is I'm going numb before it happens. Hiding in books, in movies. I have a pshrink visit in a few weeks, and I sense we'll be changing things.

In regards to the new news on Livejournal, I'm honestly not sure I give a darn. Not that I particularly trust the Russian Federation, but there really isn't anything on there I'm concerned about. On the other tentacle, they're no longer using SSL. That's bad, m'kay. I even tried to force it, nope redirect to port 80. Not sure how much I want to go to DW. I already have a blog, and I have a sort of copy of all my posts on LJ. But since I don't really have the tentacles to cope with a decision, I'm not going to make one just yet.

So what am I going to do this weekend? Besides at least the bare minimum of chores, I'm watching movies. Specifically right now 'The Void', which I've been waiting for with major anticipation. I also picked up both 'Alien vs Predator' movies on bluray to complete my current collection. So maybe Aliens marathon tomorrow, or something else. Or I may just read all the books. I really am just going to try to relax, hopefully my lungs will feel better, and I'll be in a better place come Monday. I can dream at least.

Not doing so hot

Not doing so good today. Last night was a series of classic vulpine anxiety dreams. One involved a cat dying, not any cat I know, but still, sad about kitty. Woke up from that bit of sad, decided to take my anxiety med and try to go back to sleep. Which I did, and had an even worse nightmare about celebrating a friend being in a big budget X-Men movie, which was great and glorious, but all my friends at the party (save the movie star), treated me as a leper. I woke up crying, and I felt like I'd been run over by a train. Great way to start a Saturday.

So I'm wide awake at 7:30am, depressed as hell, scared as fuck of going back to sleep. So I got up, checked the mail, and went to the store. Adulting, even when I had 0 desire to adult. Groceries gotten, some general chores done, been watching the first two 'Species' movies. Trying not to think much, as I'd like my brain to leave me alone.

Between the dreams, and the perpetual allergy war, and the world diving into an unhappy kind of insanity, lets just say I'm kind of hoping the comet that's nnearby takes a left turn and smacks into the planet. At least there are always books. They give so much, they ask so little.

I'll be ok, these things pass, sooner or later. Later today I'm going to see 'John Wick 2' with some friends, which I hope helps. Catch you all later.

How am I doing (long post)

I'm not doing so hot. Last night's maintenance was stressful and ended up having a bunch of issues in the AM, things I was told would just work after reboots. But before that, I went to the pshrink and admitted that my depression cycles are getting worse, my temper is short, and I spend a lot of time thinking about regrets and sad memories. It started during the build up to the anniversary of Mom's passing, but it didn't really go away. What really sucks, I looked at my journal entries from a year ago, and it's like nothing has changed. Same moody, same easily frustrated, same pondering of new monitors. *shakes head* So we're upping my original med to see if that helps, and I go back in a month (actually 28 days) to see how it's going. I hate changing meds, as side effect hell is well, hell. But this is a med I've been on for years, so upping it shouldn't cause too many. At least that's the hope.

Work was insane. Trying to make Sybase databases work, when I have almost no experience with them. I made some progress, but I had to wait on the senior admin to get in to show me how to fix the weird development setup. WHich I ended up arguing with all day on and off. Add to that lack of sleep, and a phone that was in a reboot loop and I was pretty close to having a fit. On the plus side, other than one testy email, no one gave me grief, even got thanks from one of the devs for leaping on to things and fixing them quickly. Was going to leave exactly at 5, but there was one last dev database missing, and since I had it down to a science, I stayed a little late to bring it up. Which verified my notes are good, so I'll try to write it up in detail tomorrow for the company wiki.

So yeah, I'm very tired, I'm stressed, I'm anxious about tomorrow's foo, because there's a ton of servers, and they're production machines, so not much wiggle room. With the experience last night it should be better, but I'm still worried about a career limiting move. So we'll see what I can do for better prep tomorrow. Also see if I can beat my phone into submission so it stops rebooting on me. Or contact the seller and get a replacement, since I'm still in the 90 day refurb warranty. But for now I'm going to chill out, got to bed early and hopefully feel better tomorrow.

Sunday blahs

Still in mid mood swing. Even with a good Saturday activities. Saw 'Crimson Peak', saw friends I don't see all the time, hung out with Amythest post movie...still was wanting to hide at home. Came home fairly early, curled up in bed with books. Slept a lot last night, more dreams, not quite as overkill active. But same thing as yesterday, I woke up and got out of bed, and I just felt blah. Not any one thing, just blah. Cancelled on me and Amythest's usual Sunday hangout, she could tell in my voice I wasn't social. Best friends knowing me are very good things. So I'm just going to stay home today and hide. Books, tv shows about hauntings, things to make me relax.

Really don't have anything else to say. Guess I'll call this a post. Catch you all later.

Bad mood day

Woke up from good dreams to mood crash. Nothing's changed, but boy am I depressed. Taken my meds, eating some breakfast, and I have plans to go be with friends. I'm functional, but very down. *sigh* Maybe going to the movies to see 'Crimson Peak' with some of my favorite peoples will help. If not, well, said favorite people are experienced with sad foxes, so I should be ok either way. Not sure what the fix is, or if there's a fix. Some days I just have to trudge on. Going to put my trudging shoes on. Catch you all later.

Decisions, Decisions

Hey all those who read this. I haven't been cross posting the latest LJ posts to here, mostly because they're repetative and kind of whiny. I'm not sure if I'll continue to seperate this from my daily braindump or not. I do like how I have wordpress basically setup here, but I feel like I should have more informative posts here. I dunno, it may just be I'm down in the dumps and having issues. We'll see...it's the internet, nothing is set in stone.

At least today had tentacles. Aquarium visit and sleepy Giant Pacific Octopus, plus friends makes for a better day. Tomorrow will hopefully be a step in the right mental direction. Talk more later