Tag Archives: anhedonia

anhedonia, cannabis, family of origin, homegrown, pictures

bluh… 😒

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i woke up in an AWFUL mood, partially, at least, because i had a REALLY disturbing dream about two friends, who are moving AGAIN in real life… and, apart from the general feeling of dread i get whenever I have had to move, rubbing off, i don’t remember why it was so disturbing. i got up, and went through the motions, taking care of practical stuff (like laundry, dishes, doctor’s appointment, etc.), while wishing i could die, or at least sleep for longer, without having disturbing dreams.

over the weekend, i went to bellingham, to get some starts from darol… who is SEVENTY FOUR now… 😲 he said that, when it became legal, he lost his customer base, and hasn’t actually SOLD any cannabis for about six years. 😲 he still grows his own, though, and he has a healthy crop that is still under vegetative lights, from which he gave me a few.

250415 under lights
250415 under lights

three “medium sized” “starts” (which are big enough that i might put them outside right away, if the weather stays nice), one “small” start, which is STILL bigger than the “starts” i have gotten elsewhere, plus two from seed, which are the ones with the paper markers, because they’re still small enough that i can’t see them without a clue…

darol also gave me some “surprising, but not surprising” news about my older-younger sister and her, apparently now “used-to-be” husband, which strikes me as REALLY typical and even expected, but still, not something that i would have entirely thought possible for someone who USED TO BE a friend of mine (admittedly, a long time ago). and everybody’s dying — 😒 — while i seem to be chugging along like nobody’s business, despite the fact that i think i’ve got long COVID (thus the doctor’s appointment). 😒

then, this afternoon, i went out, ostensibly to wash my car in preparation for SACBO, for which i just registered, and went for a drive, ostensibly to dry my car because i’m too lazy to pay for a drier, and sat through FOURTY-FIVE MINUTES of traffic to go the QUARTER MILE between snoqualmie ridge and the freeway, because of a new traffic light on a street that doesn’t even exist yet, but which had an empty cop car with its lights going sitting next to it… (😒), and, despite everything, the mood of the morning appears to have passed.

and, when i got home, i had a UPS package containing a wireless charger and two cube-taps which i needed to further refine my office space. 😉

anhedonia, anxiety, depression, malfunctioning computers, moisture festival

things

things are beginning to settle down, a bit… there’s still some undefined (and undefinable) weirdness with moe’s and my email, which has been compounded by some apparent SUPER weirdness with either moe’s or my ability to send text messages, which SHOULDN’T be connected in any way… and the whole thing is made even weirder because we recently received a new router, which is supposed to replace our old router… and the new router, for some reason (i strongly suspect demons, or their ilk) decided that it was going to try to connect to my old mac, which has been quite happy NOT connecting to internet for quite some time… like before we moved into our current dwelling… and i keep thinking that there should be some immanent fiasco brewing with my VPN, which, if i recall correctly, acted in a way that it shouldn’t the last time i changed my IP address… but i changed my IP address two weeks ago, and, so far, there has been no indication that the VPN has even taken notice. 🤨

but, strangely enough, the “starting to settle down a bit” scenario has done absolutely nothing to my anxiety and depression… but getting kicked off mastodon, apparently, has had a MINOR effect on my depression: instead of worrying about concrete things that i read about, i worry about more amorphous things that i imagine COULD BE happening. 🫤

which is the perfect mood to start moisture festival next week. 😟 wednesday at 17:00 we load in and sound check, and then there’s one show thursday, two shows friday, the last of which gets out after midnight, three shows saturday, and two shows sunday… it’s gonna be a LONG and BUSY week. 🥵

anhedonia, host services, hybrid elephant, the battle of the computer

oy… 😒

now that it’s over, i can talk about it…

so, there was this thing where some of my web sites were bringing down the server resources for other sites, and they wanted me to use WHM to separate them into different accounts, so that it would stop happening… but the OLD host provider either couldn’t, or wouldn’t tell me how that was supposed to be done…

so, two weekends ago, i changed host providers, to one who said he would help me sort out the FUMTU that was my web site(s)… and he did!

but, as a part of that, the web site that i’m paying someone else to monitor, went down, briefly, a few times in a 24 hour period. the guy notified me that it had gone down, and suggested i contact my hosting company. i suggested that it had gone down because we had been migrating to a new host, and included the new host provider on the email thread, so he would know what was happening.

which resulted in the new host provider and the old web designer getting into a pissing match, which ended with the new host provider telling me to never again include him in emails to the old web designer, and the old web designer telling me that the new host provider is not his client, and doesn’t know what he’s talking about (which is not true).

so i fired the old web designer, and put in a new web designer, who SPECIFICALLY SAID that she would be working with my new host provider, because she doesn’t have a dog in this fight… which is to say, she is NOT ALSO a host provider, she’s just a web designer, and if she has to contact the host provider about something, she wants a way to do it, which is NOT just asking me to ask the host provider… which is one of the things that i have found REALLY IRRITATING about ALL of my previous designers. 👍👍

i need to pay for a couple of new licenses, but i would have had to pay for them, anyway, so that’s not a big deal, but the new web designer is charging me about the same price for THREE months, as the old web designer was charging me for ONE month, so it’s all going to work out in the end.

also, i got kicked off mastodon for being “too political”, so i uninstalled the ActivityPub plugin, because if i can’t read other peoples’ rantings about how awful the political stuff is, then i don’t want to contribute to it. feh! 😒

anhedonia, panto, x-mas

whuf! 😕

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i survived “whamaggedon 2024” by never having heard the song “Last Christmas” by Wham… just to be sure, i went to youtube, searched it out, and listened to about half of it, just to make sure… i’m still not sure i’ve ever heard the song. it’s forgettable, and i have a brain injury… 🤷

the panto has been going unimaginably well, in spite of the fact that we had to have a substitute musician (greg powers, a guy i have known since high school) play the “baphoonium” part (part euphonium, part bassoon) on the trombone, because the bassoon player got sick and the euphonium player had another gig.

my “xmas” was about what i expected: other people getting way too excited about giving meaningless gifts to people they don’t really care about, in a desperate attempt to feel like their lives mean something to someone other than themselves, while completely, i might even say DELIBERATELY oblivious to the fact that their actual lives — and the actual world — is being deliberately DESTROYED around them, while they try to find reasons to celebrate. whee… yippy… 😒

anhedonia, depression, mushrooms

still

i THINK things are still going well, even though i’m still feeling like they aren’t, or shouldn’t be, or something… 😒

i’m about halfway through ripping the “questionable” albums, and i’ve discovered that, if i slow down and apply a little more patience to the process, instead of just deleting minor record skips and clicks and pops and stuff, if i enlarge the view to the point where i can see the individual samples — which is somewhere around 100 samples per .001 seconds — then i can use the “draw” tool in audacity, and actually REPAIR the sample wave! it doesn’t work very well when the record skips a groove, but every OTHER click and pop that i was able to find was really easily repaired… it makes the process of ripping albums take about three times as long, but for albums like The Nova Convention, the end result is a much more understandable and listenable recording. and i’ve FINALLY gotten around to buying blank record sleeves, cardboard covers, and plastic outer sleeves for the records that don’t already have them.

but i’m depressed and out of sorts and i don’t know why…

i guess it may be time for a macrodose. 🍄

anhedonia, doggles, new year

sigh… 😒

the “holidays” are over, and things are getting back to “normal”, which means they’re getting back to boring, irritating, depressing, or some combination of the three, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change much, if at all, for the forseeable future.

our sort-of “annual” trip to double-bluff beach happened, but it was complicated by high tides and the (also annual) polar-bear swim that happens at double-bluff beach at the same time, so instead of getting there really early (i.e. some time between 8:00 and 9:00), we got there after noon, and (naturally) there were A LOT more people who have the same tradition we do… plus there was an added new dog that has never gone to the beach before (quill), and an old dog (rye) who is now deaf and blind enough that he can’t distinguish between his own people, and other random folks with a dog, who also happen to be throwing a ball. the result was a walk on a crowded beach for about half an hour before we had all three dogs on leashes in a place where they’re supposed to be off-leash, because they were all acting up/out and we couldn’t control them. it ended up that we packed it in before we even got to the point where you go around the rock outcropping that blocks the view of the actual park, and about a mile and a half BEFORE the place where the rock ended up — which, now that i come to think about it, could be the last time i was there… 😒

anhedonia, depression, getting old, malfunctioning people, political, politicians, politics, stress, stupid people

urgh!

from the inside, looking out, life is pretty decent: we’re busking again, there are gigs on the horizon, nothing serious is wrong with the house, i’m getting my art car made… i’ve still got a big, scary thing that hasn’t happened for 2 years, but was pretty much essential to my life for some time before that (which is the oregon country fair)…

but from the outside looking in, 50 years of my life, and most of my identity, has been summarily dismissed by the supreme court, which has indicated its willingness to overturn roe v. wade, despite the fact that there isn’t a single state for which the overturning of roe v. wade commands more than 30% support…

which, of course, is PRIMARILY due to #drumpf, who, despite being impeached TWICE, managed to jam through three supreme court “justices”, two of whom are credibly accused sexual predators, and the other is amy coney barrett, who thinks that a woman’s place is barefoot and pregnant.

and all of that is coming from EXACTLY the same people that gave us matt gaetz, who is under investigation for human trafficking and sex with teenagers, and jim jordan, who is accused of enabling a sexual predator, and roy moore, who is accused of sexually predating teenagers at a mall, and madison cawthorn, who idolises hitler, and films himself fucking his cousin in the ear, and another guy who is a long time republican politician who was convicted of possessing pornographic images of children, and the “jewish space laser lady”, and on, and on, and on, and on, and FUCKING ON!!… 🤬🤬🤬

and the chance that ANY OF THEM are going to face real justice of any kind is vanishingly small. 🤬

and that’s not even to mention the fact that #drumpf, himself, along with ALL his cronies, and partners in crime, are STILL running around free, and having rallies, and spewing misinformation, disinformation, and OUTRIGHT LIES to anybody who will listen, which, apparently, is about 49% of the population of the country…

seriously, politics has gotten so over-the-top, blatantly FASCIST, pretty much ever since #drumpf was elected (but, honestly, i see the first inklings of fascism in the 1970s, when nixon and mcgovern butted heads)… the country, and the world, has gotten so right-wing, “christian”, and “conservative” that it’s beyond merely frightening, and everything i’ve seen seems to indicate that it is going to get orders of magnitude worse before there’s any hope of it getting better…

and, if that wasn’t bad enough on its own, don’t even get me started on climate change… 🤬🤬🤬

anhedonia, brain injury, dead people, health, stress

continued…

as i was saying…

i’m so used to being depressed and anxious that, when things are going well, instead of enjoying the fact that things are going well, it makes me more depressed and anxious, because i KNOW that things are getting ready to go “wrong-er” than they have ever gone before, and they’re just waiting for me to relax and ease my guard a little, so that they will have even more effect… 🤬

once again, i have found myself in one of those places: everything is going smoothly, the moisture festival is over, and, apart from being sick for a couple of days after it was over (NOT COVID!), everything went about as well as i could normally expect… i had a unicycle class today, and i worked on my free-mounting and my turns, and i didn’t fall off… and one time i managed to ride THROUGH a group of people and i didn’t hit one of them! 😉👍 there’s a better-than-normal chance that thaddeus and i are going busking on wednesday… i got two incense orders this week… the next big thing on the schedule is OCF, which IS happening, and i AM going (despite the fact that it terrifies me), but only because the band needs a tuba… i don’t know that i’m going to do an awful lot other than play music, and hide in my tent, but i AM going to go…

and, yet, i have this feeling of impending dread… gilbert gottfried died the other day, and he was 67… only five years older than me. i’ve already tried to die once, and failed miserably… what’s the guarantee that i won’t be more successful the next time?

combine that with the fact that i haven’t seen a doctor, apart from an ophthalmologist, for more than 10 years, and that is PRIMARILY because, in spite of everything (i.e. my brain injury), i am overly suspicious of “doctors” in general: i have had personal experience, on a number of occasions, where, if it weren’t for ME saying something, i would have been treated for diseases or conditions that I DON’T HAVE, because somebody, somewhere, made a notation error, and nobody actually knew me well enough to know that there had been an error made…

my erstwhile GP, doctor wackaloon, had notated in my chart that i had a heart stent, but had no notation about my brain injury… and he had been my GP for 10 years! 🤬 and when i was in the hospital, recovering from my brain injury(!!!!😠), i had to inform the nurse that i am not, in fact, diabetic, which was in direct conflict with my chart, which said i was… 🤬🖕🤬

and even the ophthalmologist thought i had glaucoma, because she made me take the glaucoma test with my right hand, and my right hand doesn’t work about half of the time! i told her this before i took the test, but she said no, that it was “standard” to test people with their right hand. when i took the glaucoma test with my left hand, like magic, glaucoma was no longer an issue. 😒

and i’m really not sure how to resolve my suspicion of doctors, and go see a (different) GP, because of the fact that i don’t have any health insurance other than medicare, AND the fact that i would probably have to personally interview several doctors before deciding, and i don’t really think that doctors make time for that, these days… 😒

but, at this point, apart from entirely expected “getting old” things, like sore muscles and arthritis, my health appears to be pretty good… which — i guess — is as good a reason as any to figure these things out now, rather than waiting until i actually have something go wrong with my health, and having to make the decision out of hurried necessity… 😒

anhedonia, depression, frustration, ptsd

not only… 😒

ah, the “joys” of hoMEOWnership… 😒

we’ve been, essentially, without heat for at least two weeks. the guy came and replaced our heating ducts, but he wasn’t able to finish the insulation, so, now, the heat registers are blowing a lot warmer air than they were before he came, but they’re still only blowing lukewarm air, and most of the heat is STILL bleeding off into the crawl space. he’s coming back to finish the job on monday. 😒

they’re supposed to text me, today (at the earliest), to let me know if the part for my tablet is in, but i doubt that they will, and, despite the fact that most of their repairs are made “while you wait”, there’s a good chance that, when they do text me (which will likely be monday or tuesday… or whenever they get around to it… 😒) the screen will break in the process of taking it apart to replace the charging port, at which point there’s going to be another two weeks (or so) wait before i get my tablet up and running again. 😒

AND last night, after i went to bed, the plumbing problem that has been gurgling in the distance for a few days, erupted (literally) in our downstairs bathroom…

a few days ago, the laundry drain backed up and spilled (fortunately clean) water into the garage. monique snaked it out, but she only went about five feet before she decided that it was “good enough”… so, of course, the drain backed up again while she was out, the next day. i snaked it out again, this time extending the snake as far as it would go, which is 25 feet. i found a couple more clogs, but nothing major… then i noticed that the kitchen sink was gurgling when the laundry drained… and the kitchen sink was gurgling when i flushed the toilet… and the kitchen sink was gurgling when someone took a shower… 😒

i discussed this with tracy, our next door neighbour (who is a professional plumber), and determined that the laundry drain was not installed “up to code”, and is not vented, which means that, from time to time, it’s GOING to back up, and there’s not a lot we can do to prevent it.

then, i noticed that the drain attached to the sink in the kitchen is also… wonky… it, also, does not have a vent, and is installed with a P-trap that is installed normally (i.e. the way it should be), and ANOTHER P-trap that is installed upside down, making an “S” or “N” shaped thing, and then another 90° turn before heading down into the crawl space…

another FINE job done by former owner ron zeising (or, presumably, one of his lackeys) because he was a general contractor, and “could”… 😒

monique and i discussed this, and we both agreed that it would be a good idea to get a plumber out to assess the problem BEFORE it turned into a geyser or a fountain, but, apparently, after i went to bed last night, that event happened: someone flushed the toilet, downstairs, which backed up into the bathtub, and in the process of plunging the toilet, the wax seal failed, which spewed sewage into the bathroom.

monique checked with a couple of professional plumbers that she knows (including tracy), and developed a plan of attack, but…

just for once, i’d like to be able to wake up in the morning without having some sort of immediate disaster that has to be dealt with. 🤬

anhedonia, COVID19

OY! 😠

moe went on her first post-COVID business trip to florida. she left last friday, and returned yesterday.

she’s got to wait 72 hours before she tests from the trip.

REGARDLESS OF THE OUTCOME OF THE TEST, she’s got to go in to the clinic on monday, because ALL of the rest of the employees of the clinic ALREADY HAVE COVID!!! 😠

which means that it’s INCREDIBLY LIKELY that i’m going to end up with COVID, despite being fully vaccinated and boosted.

there are reports of lung fibroids in breakthrough cases, which would SEVERELY limit my ability to play wind instruments. 😠😠

and she STILL wonders why i would have preferred to DIE when i had the chance! 😠😠😠

anhedonia, art projects, depression, frustration, ganesha the car, malfunctioning computers

i got the data

good news: i got back (most of, as far as i’ve been able to tell, so far) my IOTM club records, including, most importantly the records of who paid when, and what they have received.

bad news: i’ve checked the largest adobe illustrator documents i can find, and they’re all corrupt, which means, very likely, that the artwork for my car is no longer, and when i get a new car (which might be a lot sooner than i expected), i will have to come up with new artwork for it.

i still have A LOT of files to evaluate… like more than a week, of solid 8-hour days, doing NOTHING but evaluating files… possibly as much as a month of 8-hour days. 😒

and that’s NOT listening to music and watching videos… that’s opening files, to make sure that they’re not totally corrupt, and listening to no more than 5 or 10 seconds of the music or video, to make sure that they’re not TOTALLY corrupt, and then rough-classifying the file based on the contents i’ve seen… and then going to the next file in the list.

which, of course, is leaving me with files where all but the last 5 or 10 seconds of music or video is corrupt, but the rest of it is fine, which is almost more frustratingly irritating than if the entire file was corrupt. 🤬🤬

also, more bad news: there were NO .ogg, .flac, .aif or .aup files recovered AT ALL, which means that NONE of the music that i have recorded since 1983 made it. 😢

i MAY still have the cassettes on to which they were originally mixed down, but they haven’t been played for at least 20 years, and i don’t hold out much hope. ken may have some of my stuff, because he is a music hoarder, and i have played music with him since 1985 or thereabouts, but he lives in bellingham. and i can download .flac files from bandcamp for all of the CDs i have made, except for the one that was made right after my brain injury, which isn’t all there on bandcamp… 😒

but, at this point, it doesn’t look particularly encouraging, and i strongly suspect that i’m going to have to re-rip ALL of the physical media i own, which is another couple of months of solid 8-hour days, at least. 😒

and that doesn’t even begin to address the HUGE quantities of music of which i have purchased and downloaded ONLY electronic copies, like the 40+ albums from ergo phizmiz which i have been collecting for AT LEAST 20 years.

it feels good to have created a way out of this mess, but it’s heartbreaking to think of how much quality work i have done that has been lost. 😢

ETA: i don’t know whether this is as good news as it could be, but i got a zip file full of business logos from my web designer, and there are a couple of high res graphics that are, basically, what i used on my car… and i actually found a couple of .eps files (which, i believe, are vector, and native to illustrator) of the graphic on my car… i haven’t checked, yet, because it’s late, and i really should be in bed, but, well… 😒 AND i am, officially, buying a new car (a hybrid, hyundai ioniq), which means that i’ve got to move my graphic, anyway.

anhedonia, depression, stress

bible study

proverbs 22.6 says “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

when i was a child, from the time i was born, i was trained to believe that i was insignificant, at best, a screw-up most of the time, and a horrible, disgusting screw-up who had no right to live on special occasions.

my earliest memories are of my parents being livid with me… because i had slammed my hand in a car door, because i had “found” a nest of fire-ants, because i cut my finger with a sharp knife at a fancy restaurant… all before i was 5 years old.

my parents never physically harmed me, and to someone looking in from outside, i would have seemed to be a normal, happy child, but they used their words like clubs and straps, often and without mercy.

i don’t remember ever getting a hug from either one of my parents. 😢

my parents, and my younger brother and sisters called me “crummy child”. initially, i think, my parents thought that they were “out of hearing” when they called me that, but as soon as my first younger sister could talk (when i was about 7 years old), she called me “crummy child”, and the other sister and brother just “picked up on it” over the years, as they learned to talk. my father thought “crummy child” was a term of endearment. 😒

my younger siblings are now 55, 53, and 51 years old. i haven’t spoken to any of them in 35 years.

and yet, 61 years into it, i can’t shake this feeling that i am a horrible, disgusting screw-up who has no right to live, and should be called “crummy child” by people who are younger than i am. 😒

thanks, mom and dad. 🤬🖕

if you didn’t already, now you know why i haven’t talked to you for more than 5 minutes in the past 40 years. 😒

anhedonia, depression, malfunctioning computers, stress

so…

the cloud drive is on its way to dallas, to the temple of the computer wizards, who seem to think that they can actually retrieve data from a drive that has been wiped. whether they can, or not, remains to be seen, and if they can, actually, retrieve data, there’s no telling how much, but the expense increases with every file they retrieve, and i’ve got A LOT of files on that drive.

the current conjecture is that an anonymous, malicious, mindless, skript-kiddie found out about the bug that they’ve known about since 2018, but haven’t done anything about it because it’s a “legacy” device that hasn’t been upgraded since 2015 (despite the fact that MANY WD cloud drives are still in use all over the world), and wrote a script to search out all the IP addresses of MyBook drives it could find, and wipe them…

because they can… 😒

L0L! 🤬🖕🤬🖕🤬🖕🤬🖕🤬🖕

but, according to the latest theory, they didn’t overwrite the data, they just removed the allocation tables… they did a “quick” erase, not a “complete” erase… so the data is, probably, still there, as long as something hasn’t overwritten it, and, since the first thing i did when i couldn’t login was to shut it down, the chance that it’s still there is relatively high. it’s up to the experts, and whether or not i have enough money, to determine whether or not i see any of that data again.

and, as far as remediation goes, i think i’ve learned enough to install the 1TB drive (which is not big enough to store 2TB of data) that i’ve had sitting on my desk since 2018, but i haven’t done it yet, and i haven’t even started to search for a replacement cloud drive, or a backup system, because i’ve been going through an existential crisis, AND temperatures that have been an average of 35°F hotter than they have ever been, which has, essentially, shut down any hope of doing anything other than hiding and hoping it’s all going to be over soon. 😟

but climate change is a myth, created by china! 😒

it’s 25°F cooler than it was yesterday, but it’s still 10°F warmer than normal, for this time of year, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be getting better any time soon.

anhedonia, busking, COVID19, depression, mushrooms, political

a number of things have happened

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a number of things have happened over the past couple of weeks, which disguise whether or not the medication i am taking is actually working. those things are:

  • the actual innauguration of somebody other than donald j. trump, and his actual leaving of the white house without having to be handcuffed… although i’m still hoping that they’re coming later… because he deserves them. 😒
  • i actually GOT the first COVID vaccine (before they ran out of doses 😒) on monday, and i have the second dose scheduled for 18th february.

and the fact that i had to rely HEAVILY on my disability weighs heavy on my conscience. if i had NOT emphasised my disability, i would probably not have gotten the vaccine until march or april, and the fact that i got it means that someone else, possibly someone more deserving, did not get it — and won’t until who-knows-when, because they ran out and nobody knows when they’re going to get more. 😒

  • SANCA opened up for classes! yay! circus! 🤡🎉🎊 i’m getting my regular circus workout again! i had NO IDEA how much that meant to me!
  • the fact that i got my first covid vaccine makes it more likely that i’m going to go out and do stuff like busk, and… HEY! my friend stuart, the guitar player for the fremont phil, is starting up a monthly “dagger moon” concert, and wants me and my harmonic flute to start the whole thing out. bonus! 👍
  • i’ve found what appears to be a reliable source of spores. 🍄 i sent away for 6 spore syringes, four 🍄 of cubensis 🍄 🍄 and two 🍄 of cyanescens. 🍄 i hope to be growing my own mushrooms very soon. 🍄🍄🍄

so, i’ve been taking this “medication” that’s “supposed to” inhibit the uptake of norepinephrine and dopamine” in my brain — but who knows for sure what it really does… not even dr. akinyele is 100% sure — but which also causes all kinds of wonderful side effects — which were to the point of intolerable until we reduced the dose, and are still perceptible although not as emergent…

seriously… they prescribe a “medication” among whose side effects are ANXIETY, to treat… ANXIETY… next thing they’ll be telling me is that homeopathy works… 🙄

and i can’t tell whether the “anti-depressent” effects of this medication are improving my mood…

or if the external effects of four years of overt #drumpf and a year of hiding out from covid are finally starting to wear off.

agador, anhedonia, depression

update number whatever… 😐

Agador died today. he was at least 20, and snakes like Agador usually only live to be 10 or so, so it was sort of expected, and not a real big surprise, but now the bookshelf next to the window in my office looks lopsided. Agador was a wild-caught snake that lived as a classroom science project for a few years before he came to live with us. and, yes, we named him after Hank Azaria’s character in The Birdcage.

i’ve taken the plunge, and contacted a psychiatric nurse-practitioner (in georgia, more on that later) who has prescribed bupropion, at the recommendation of my counsellor, who knows me better, but doesn’t have the necessary piece of paper that allows her to prescribe controlled substances. they tell me that it’s going to take a couple of weeks for it to start having an effect. i’ve been taking it for 3 days, and i’m pretty sure i can feel the effects already — kate (my counsellor) says that it’s a mild stimulant. georgia-doctor didn’t say anything like that, so i’m not sure who to believe — but they’re not what i expected… the big one is that i hear about new atrocities and i know how depressing they are, but instead of getting depressed (like i know i would), i just don’t care. 😕 which i don’t particularly like. also, there’s the same general kind of feeling that i had when i was taking acid, minus the hallucinations and the feeling of invincibility (which was the fun part): i’m verging on jittery and i have been going for really long walks for a couple of days; i have been EXTREMELY productive over the past couple of days, and EXTREMELY focused. they say that it takes a while for the drugs to build up in your body, but i’ve taken enough psychedelics to have a really good handle on what my body is doing, when i’m taking a new drug, and i’ve definitely noticed… something. 😒 now i have to check with the georgia-doctor to see whether or not i can take psychedelics as well. i’m not looking forward to that conversation. 😒

georgia-doctor is dr. olajumoke akinyele… which is a mouthful, but i think i’m pronouncing it correctly now that i’ve actually talked with her. english is not her first language, but i don’t know where she’s from. i’ve heard similar accents from people from zimbabwe or mozambique, but i’ve also heard similar accents from jamaica, as well. i did a fair amount of research, and discovered that there aren’t any psychiatric nurse-practitioners in the greater seattle-tacoma area who 1) are accepting new patients, and 2) accept medicare. there are NPs who are accepting new patients, but don’t accept medicare, and there are NPs who accept medicare, but aren’t accepting new patients. however, dr. akinyele is registered in the state of washington, despite the fact that she’s actually in alpharetta, georgia, and telehealth is “a thing” now, so… 😐

anhedonia

that guy that sat in the SUV for 15 years…

while i was living at our old place, i used to walk through the neighbourhood, down to the park, through the park, and then back home, in a big, semi-circular, 4+ mile route.

something i have been unable to locate at the new place, despite the fact that we’re surrounded on three sides by the cedar river watershed, tiger mountain, taylor mountan, and a number of other places to hike, there is nothing within walking distance apart from the walsh lake overflow ditch road, which is just under a mile away from our house, and behind several layers of “NO TRESSPASSING” dire warning signs… 😒

but i digress.

fairly early on, after i discovered this route, i encountered a guy who would be sitting in a late-’90s-model SUV, probably a ford or a chevrolet, near the intersection of S. 380th and 42nd ave. s., in the unincorprorated area of king county just north of milton/edgewood (which is in pierce county). this guy would just sit in his car, engine off but listening to the radio. he was an “older” guy, probably between 60 and 80 or so, and someone — i don’t know if it was him, or someone else — moved the car from time to time. he was never sitting in the driver’s seat when i saw him…

and i saw him, in exactly the same place, in exactly the same car, doing exactly the same thing, day or night, winter or summer, rain or shine, for EASILY ten years, and, since we lived in the house for 17 years, there’s a good chance that it was fifteen years…

i was at the old house this afternoon, and i drove by the spot, and, sure enough, there he was, sitting in exactly the same spot… someone had moved the car, and the back hatch was open, but he was there, sitting in the passenger seat, listening to the radio…

i imagine that it could have been me, if i had been like 95% of the other people who survive having a brain injury… and i wonder why people like rick and sketch and simon are the ones who get to die, while i, who have had every opportunity to die, stubbornly defy all odds, and stay alive. 😒

anhedonia, COVID19, depression, moving

another failed experiment

200408 the end of twitter
200408 the end of twitter
i logged in to twitter today, and was immediately greeted with a notification that my “ability to control mobile app advertising measurements has been removed”.

it has gotten to be more and more depressing, reading twitter, and for some time now, the only things i have done is re-tweet @infinite_scream, and harrass @blarsonexorcist and other so-called “christians”, along with republicans, democrats, flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, homeopathic advocates, and other mind-numbing idiots… none of which helps my anhedonia in the slightest. 😒

and, along with all this “social distancing” and “self-quarantining”, the fact is, we’re moving, and the movers cancelled, because of the “stay at home” order, which means that we’ve had to move all the stuff ourselves… we’re still holding out hope that we’re going to get professional movers to move the piano, the couch, the chair, and the bed, but it doesn’t look good at this point.

and things would be going a lot more quickly if there was a fence at the new place, but that has been put on indefinite hold, because of “supply chain problems”, i.e. sick people, closed businesses, stay-at-home order, etc., etc., et-fucking-c… 😠

and there’s no telling when it’s all going to change… and, if it does change, it’s very likely to get worse…

oh, and it HAS gotten worse: bernie sanders has dropped out of the race… AGAIN… which means that the only rational vote left is Vermin Supreme, and i’m still not sure whether or not i’m going to hold my nose and vote for joe biden or not, because he’s not even close to what i want as a replacement for drumpf, even if he was obama’s vice president.

so i decided that it would be best if i gave up twitter.

i already feel better.

also, i added a side-bar link to COVID19 information, updated every minute, to counteract the gawd-awful twitter/drumpf fake-news bullshit. it’s pretty bad. 😒

anhedonia, house stuff, stress

moisture, but no festival

as i mentioned last week, our bedroom closet has inordinate amounts of moisture in the back, where nobody noticed it for a long time… like, years…

we had a contractor out, who took the entire south wall of the house apart, and concluded that it was a combination culprit: we had

1) water leaking in through the nail-holes in the composite siding, which was sub-standard (having been built in the early 1970s).

2) water leaking in through a sub-standard (1970s construction) gap in the siding between the rectangular part of the house, and the triangular (roof) part — these days, they put in what they call “Z-flashing” between the two levels of siding. in the 1970s, not so much.

3) no house-wrap — once again, due to 1970s construction methods and the fact that tyvek hadn’t even been invented yet — but a layer of plain old plastic, which caused water to condense and run down the inside of the walls.

and, because of this, there is also the matter of

4) the “rim joist” — the 2″x6″ beam that runs under the floorboards and holds the whole house up — was the ultimate victim of all of this aforementioned water. it was rotten through, and the guy had to jack up the house to remove it.

end result: the entire south wall of the house has been wrecked and removed down to the studs, and the south end of the house has been jacked up.

what makes it worse is that we discovered this on the 9th, and it has rained, snowed, or some combination of the two, pretty much every day since. it’s warm enough that the snow hasn’t hung around for long, but it affects how much the guy wants to work…

not only that, but now that he’s got the wall in a more-or-less stable (i.e. no longer damp and rotting) condition, he’s got court-ordered visitation with his kids this weekend, so not only is moe gone, and i have to take care of the dogs on my own, but ALSO there’s the detritus of an ongoing construction project in the front yard, the entire south wall is covered in plastic, and the crawl-space (where the dogs ARE NOT ALLOWED TO GO) is open and unguarded, AND the guy WON’T BE BACK TO FIX IT UNTIL MONDAY!!! 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🖕

🤬

🖕

anhedonia, moisture festival, mushrooms

moisture + anhedonia

now there’s 18 and possibly 19 shares: Peanut Envy is going to be fluffing at least one night, and there’s a rumour that Snake Suspenders — as a trio, or, possibly with a fill-in drummer — is going to get at least one stage slot.

and, i never, in a million years, thought i would be able to say this, but i have been, essentially, commanded to take mushrooms, by what passes for a doctor in my life these days… except for the fact that it’s been snowy for the past couple of days, and more rain is forcast; my house is falling apart — currently everything that is usually in the closet in the master bedroom, is in the living room, while the closet is gutted down to the studs and rebuilt, to get rid of the mold and moisture problems; and, friday, moe is scheduled to leave for (ETA: 200117 – denver) orlando (or some gawdawful place like that) and won’t be back until wednesday.

which means that, taking my thursday unicycle class into account, it’s entirely likely that a week from friday is going to be the first day that i have to take mushrooms. 😒

anhedonia, drumpf, house stuff, stress

anhedonia… 😒

1 Comment

i’ve been “sick” for a week. i was actually SICK for two days, starting last thursday. friday i didn’t make it upright, except to vomit, but by saturday i was feeling well enough that i did the last weekend of the panto without too much difficulty. monique got sick on sunday, and she and i have been trading a low-level “sickness” back and forth ever since. one of monique’s co-workers got an especially virulent strain of pink-eye a couple days ago, so the probability is better than normal that all of the rest of us are going to get pink-eye eventually.

#drumpf assassinated the number three guy in iran, with no “approval” or prior warning, a couple days ago, which, once again, brings us to the brink of world war three. he’s been impeached, but not convicted of anything, and probably won’t be, because the body which is supposed to convict him is controlled by the republican’ts, all of whom think he’s doing a swell job. 😒 55% of americans think his actions put american lives in danger, but he’s using it as a campaign talking point, and there’s a good chance, at this point, that he will be re-“elected” for a second term. 😠👎

and that’s not to mention the millions of people who no longer have insurance, nor the disabled people (which includes me) who will no longer have SSDI when his schemes take effect… he’s asked for, and gotten more money for his wall, and even more money for “defense”, but we “don’t have enough money” for health care and education.

meanwhile, the wall in the back of our closet has sprung a leak, which means that a lot of our “formal” and “costume” clothes are now wet — possibly ruined — and we’ve had a contractor out to give us an estimate (and another one tomorrow, alledgedly), but it has been snowing, on and off, since last night, which means that whatever repairs HAVE TO BE made, will PROBABLY NOT be made until… i don’t know, spring, or some time… 😒

i’m sick.

i’m sick of life. 😒

i wish it would end. 👎

anhedonia, depression, frustration, political, the very big stupid

yeah, woo… 😒

so, #SCROTUS has well and truly been impeached, but pelosi now says she’s not even going to send the articles of impeachment over to the house, because the house has said that they’re not going to follow through…

so we’re sitting here with an impeached president and nothing is being done about it, even from the people who impeached him.

meanwhile, he’s requested and been granted even MORE money for the wall, and for the “space force”, and he’s paying for it with massive CUTS in food stamps, SSI, and SSDI (which includes me), and there has been precisely no response from the people who impeached him, apart from mildly harsh words…

and there has been some protest, in a limited sort of way, but no mass uprising, which means that they are probably not even going to try…

and people wonder why i want to die. 😒

anhedonia, busking, mushrooms

fump

anhedonia has made me ambivalent about the fact that i am leaving on thursday for 11 days of PAID busking(‼) at the Oregon State Fair in Salem.

then i’m returning home for a couple of weeks, and then i’m going to Yakima for 10 days of PAID busking(‼) at the Central Washington State Fair.

i’m getting PAID(‼) $825 for oregon and $750 for yakima, plus half of whatever we make passing the hat (because real buskers can actually do that), which we have been recommended to do about every 15 or 20 minutes. we’re working (in oregon) from 11:30 am to 8:30 pm, but they only want 4 to 5 hours of busking in that time period. we have to pay for a hotel room in oregon, but a hotel room is included in yakima.

i got some more mushrooms from macque, and i got a whole bunch of encouragement regarding growing mushrooms from macque (who is, apparently, an expert. who knew?) and from rossi, who is an art cartist and the friend of ranger’s, who i got the mushrooms from last year. i’m taking some to salem. who knows whether or not i will be motivated to use them during the time i’m gone…

in other news, i got a pair of blue sunglasses, because looking at the world through 💩-coloured glasses was making me REALLY depressed, despite how much i liked them — and how many of my clothes matched the 💩-coloured sunglasses… but i really like the blue sunglasses even more, despite the fact that they’re not polarised, which makes driving in the bright sunlight a little difficult.

anhedonia, corruption, depression, drumpf, malfunctioning people, mushrooms, ocf, political, stupid people, the very big stupid

bleah…

i’ve been under the attack of anhedonia and depression. my mushrooms have lost their potency: the last time i tried, i took 6 of them and they had, essentially, no effect at all. i connected with a person at SACBO — ranger’s connection — but she is only one step closer to the source… although she did mention that starter kits are available on ebay, and that they practically grow themselves, so that’s worth looking into.

part of the reason i have been so depressed is because of what i call the “political situation”: that is, drumpf and his latest atrocities. it just keeps on getting worse, and, when i think there’s no way he can get any worse, he blows the world away with the magnitude of his atrocities… and his republicon base of supporters get upset about a black disney princess and a pair of nike sneakers, but totally ignore the concentration camps and the gestapo Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, not to mention the totally inept people, including his own children, he’s put in charge of such things as education, housing, healthcare and the environment. it’s literally going to take us 100 years JUST to fix his fuckups, and that’s not taking into account the fact that the world is already in a crisis mode. it’s almost as though everything i’ve ever fought for throughout my entire life has been eliminated by this orange babboon in less than 3 years, and replaced with climate-change deniers, corporate stooges, forced-birth and anti-vax controversies, and so-called “christian” love, which is only for the so-called “christians”.

drumpf spent $92 million, which he appropriated from the national parks department (🤬), on a “military parade” in washington DC, complete with tanks and a flyover by the blue angels and “airforce one” — which, of course, wasn’t “airforce one” because the #SCROTUS was on the ground, observing the flyover… and the tanks were stationary, because, apparently, if they had moving tanks, they would have destroyed the streets and damaged the lincoln memorial… but the only people who could view this were his donors, because everyone else had to pay to get in… and then it rained, HARD and everything was postponed. the photos and videos i’ve seen show a very few thoroughly wet people and drumpf giving a long, boring, confusing speech that one writer i read compared to having been written by artificial intelligence, and a retired admiral said that it was on the level of an 8th grade history lesson… and the live video feeds from the top of the washington memorial, and the lincoln memorial were inexplicably shut down and removed from the whitehouse dot gov address, apparently to cover up how few people actually attended this debacle.

so, basically, we, the american people, threw away $92,000,000,000 on an egotistical, childish, boorish, dictator-emulating orange rapist with the IQ of half a rock, instead of addressing the concentration camps, or the homeless issue, or the healthcare issue, or… 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

as can be well imagined, despite my love for exploding things, i take little interest in such activities in celebration of this country, this year… which is, also, at least partially, because of the fact that we now have a dog who is totally terrified of fireworks, AND a next-door neighbour who is prone to setting off a ton of fireworks which ignite their lawn, and other suchlike wonderful things. 😒

OCF is 5 days away, and i’m hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst. by this time, we’ve usually had one run through, and have some rough idea of how long the show will be. this year, we’re nowhere close to that, despite the fact that we started out with a working script, which we created 15 years ago, when we did this show (Jack And The Beanstalk) the last time. and we’re still missing two songs, one of which is probably not going to make it into the show for OCF.

and, on top of everything else, MAD magazine is shutting down! PBLFLLT!! 😠

anhedonia

wyoming

moe left for a week in wyoming this morning. she’s getting back monday, then, tuesday, she’s flying to las vegas and won’t be home until next friday. then she’ll be home for a couple of weeks, and then she’s flying to boston… for ONE NIGHT… 😕

anhedonia… i’m just going through the motions. nothing matters, nothing makes any difference, nobody cares about anything…

moe says she cares, but then she leaves for a week in wyoming, and asks me to ferry her mom around while she’s gone. 🙁 not that i begrudge her going: this is national chapionships, her dog qualified in january and she’s been planning it pretty much ever since, but it is just another thing where nothing seems to matter.

i learned the secret code to getting kontact working when it pulls its “getting folder contents. please wait…” error, which is “akonadictl restart”. i still don’t understand why they put a defective version of kontact in the LTS version of the system, and i wonder when they’ll get around to releasing the fixed version in the backports repository, but as with all things related to the software bug industry, what makes the most sense is often the last thing that the people who can actually do anything about it, think about. 😕

dolphin continues to work, and i continue to be confused about how it worked before the “username@drive” convention became obvious. i still have to re-adjust my desktop wallpaper EVERY FUCKING TIME i boot the machine. there’s no telling when — or if — it will piss me off enough that i leave it where it is. amarok continues to work, as long as i want to move things to my local drive. i don’t, so i’m listening to iTunes on my phone and waiting for someone from the amarok users list to respond to my question about running from a NAS. i don’t expect an answer.

i sold two 16GB iPhone 5s phones for $120 on ebay today, and paypal wants to hold onto the money used to pay for them until three days after they are delivered to the buyer. how i HATE paypal. 😠