Funny Ha-Ha, or Funny Strange?

graashoppa @ 2008-05-09T11:15:00

2008-05-09T19:30:03Z

For the past few weeks, I've been bouncing up and down the spectrum of bipolar disorder like a crazy ping pong ball. A day or two high up, a day or two down low, and then back up again, back down again. My anxiety level is doing the same thing to the beat of its own little drummer. It finally occurred to me over the weekend that I'm rapid cycling. I'd read a little bit about it (what very little there is anywhere to read about it, anyway), and finally it just clicked that that's what's happening. The more I thought about how I've been feeling lately, and how I've been feeling over the past two years, the more I realized that some of what I took for "mixed" episodes were probably rapid cycling back then, too. But I don't remember it ever been quite this pronounced.

It seems like I can't get much done whether I'm depressed or hypomanic, because either way, my attention span is been shot. When I'm up, I'm agitated, paranoid, and so anxious I'm buzzing out of my skin. When I'm down, like now, I can hardly put words together to write or speak. I can't work up the steam to do much of anything. I feel like my throat is full on account of my heart having taken up residence there, and the rest of me is hollow. I've had a half day at a time, once or twice a week, of feeling just fine. And then I slip-slide back up or down, like I'm drowning or being carried away by a crazy mess of helium balloons.

I've managed not to miss a writing deadline yet, but only just barely. I can't afford my shrink anymore, appear to be "uninsurable" as far as health care goes, and I'm at the point where I think I'm going to have to try traditional meds anyway instead of my holistic stuff. So I called county mental health yesterday and I'm trying to get an appointment with them to be evaluated. I'm grateful that those services exist, 'cause without them... wow.

Happy National Mental Health month to me. I just hope writing about this stuff will help me feel a little like I'm careening out of control.

Hoelie Baibl: Keengh Jaemz vs.

2008-05-01T04:24:28Z

Funniest. Lol. Ever.

I like the way British people put the emphasis on "Hood" when saying Robin Hood

2008-04-29T15:24:02Z

So after hearing some buzz about how great the BBC's take on Robin Hood has been this past year, I finally recorded a few episodes this weekend. I made it through one. It's cheesy and poorly written. And the characters are insufferably BORING.

I think it's trying to be both dramatic and exciting and goofy and silly all at once. Not an easy row to hoe when shows like Buffy have set the bar so very high. But wow. Lame!

Tristin, Day 3

2008-04-28T07:09:15Z

On a more chipper note, tonight my parents and my brother and I went over to my sister's house. She and Wes brought Tristin home from the hospital for the first time today. So we went over to visit and bring them Chinese take out, and make sure they had everything else they needed, and to each of us wait our turn to hold the baby. He fell asleep on my chest again, like he did yesterday.

Maybe it's the Cancer in me glorying in it, but seriously. Is there anything more wonderful than cuddling a brand new baby in the family close, feeling that softer-than-anything-you've-ever-felt-before skin brush your cheek as you smell the top of their fuzzy little heads and listen to the feather-light sound of them breathing? Yesterday while driving home from the hospital, after that first time that he slept with his tiny, wizened, old man face snuggled against my cheek and my shoulder, I felt like The Grinch Who Stole Christmas when his heart suddenly, visibly doubles in size.

I'm only an auntie, but I have caught a glimpse of that thing that makes mothers throw themselves in front of bullets and speeding cars to protect their children.

lions and tigers and bears

2008-04-28T06:48:09Z

I read this amazing book today. I'm reviewing it this week, so I won't go into detail about it. But it was about a girl who happens to be in high school. Ah, the glorious horror and daily humiliations of high school. Reading this book got me remembering bits and pieces of what it felt like to be me when I was in high school. Back then I was having daily panic attacks, only I didn't know what panic attacks were. So I pretty much thought I was going crazy, daily. I had crippling social anxiety, too, but I didn't know what that was either. I just thought I was a coward. A crazy coward, who kept going temporarily crazy when I tried to be around other people. So I kept mostly to myself. I sketched and painted and wrote and read and composed music and was lonely. I thought I was a crazy coward all the way through high school, all the way through college, up until I was about 23 or so. Longer than that maybe. Probably. And I was afraid of what would happen to me if other people knew that I was a crazy coward, so I didn't talk about it with anyone. I physically couldn't for the most part, even when I tried. I was too ashamed.

It's funny. From the moment I realized I was gay, back when I was 14 years old, I felt no shame about it. I felt fear about how I might be treated by others on account of it. But I never had any of that internalized, "I'm a disgusting pervert/freak of nature/fag" homophobia stuff. As painfully shy and riddled with my own emotional demons as I was, I was able to be out as a teenager because I knew in my bones that society was messed up about sexuality and gender, and that the only way to help fix it was to be out. So I was out. And if anyone said something hateful to me about LGBTQ anything, I set 'em straight. So to speak. I had no shame. Not when it came to all of that. I could be articulate, eloquent even, when one of my peers at school mouthed off about dyke this and faggot that. I could be brave then. It wasn't easy, but it was do-able. I had a fight worth fighting, a just cause. So I had no shame.

But about the possibility that I might be crazy? Or mentally ill? I felt boatloads of shame. I still do. I waited 27 years for a proper diagnosis, and even after that came, even now that I understand that I am not a coward, and not crazy, I feel shame. Never mind that it's the fault of neurotransmitters rather than a defect in my character. I still feel like less of a person, less than I should be, because I'm biochemically less able to cope with life and the living of it. That is incredibly shaming.

I'm trying to work my way through that these days. I can't help but find it odd though, how relatively easy it has been to be openly gay, and how much harder I'm finding it to be openly bipolar. It's odd and kind of funny and sad.

messages from beyond

2008-04-27T03:21:19Z

My nephew is now one day, seven hours and thirty-one minutes old. It got up to 95 degrees in Spring Valley this afternoon, and the heat is lingering into the night. My brain turned to middling mush hours ago. So here I sit in my office, draped over my futon, watching old movies I love on VHS, as there's not much else I can work up the energy for. First Secondhand Lions and now Tea With Mussolini.

I always, always cry when the Fascist goons try to take Judi Dench's dog away when she's getting on the bus. (Oh, god, here comes the dog back to her in the barracks. "She's come all this way, oh you brilliant dog!" Yeah. That line makes me get weepy, too.) I know. I'm a sap.

So I'm getting all choked up, and I'm inwardly laughing about my boundless affection for Judi Dench, fondly recalling the only other person I've known to share this adoration: one Michael White, these past two years, one month, and two days deceased. And I'm laughing at myself for being such a sap and getting choked up, yet again at this part of the movie. When very distinctly, I hear Michael's voice in my head. Down to his inflection. His intonation. That curious mix of dry derision and dear fondness.

"Yes, you're such a mensch."

Only I don't actually know what "a mensch" means other than that it's Yiddish, a dialect with which he habitually seasoned his conversation. So I hop online and on over to Wiki to look it up. And it means, basically, "a good person." And given the way I heard him say it, that's so right in line with his sense of humor that it's impossible to doubt the source. So I bust out laughing.

It's hot as hell and I'm having a rough time getting back on my feet professionally, creatively, and financially. But so what? Life is getting really good again. The rest will fall into place.

From the desk of the doting auntie...

2008-04-26T04:34:01Z

Please welcome to the world young Tristin Lee Winkless, born at 12:33 PM in San Diego, CA on April 25, 2008.

20 inches long and weighing in at 7 lbs., 4 oz. at the time of his birth, Tristin is healthy and happy. His parents are resting comfortably tonight at the hospital, set to bring their son home Sunday evening.

He's got Taurus sun, Capricorn moon, and Leo rising. As my friend Kimberly put it, this is one kid unlikely to let anything get in his way. :)

stubborn Taurus babies who can't be bothered to budge...

2008-04-25T06:22:32Z

Spent three or so hours tonight at the hospital hanging out with my sister, brother-in-law, and his side of the family. Still no baby. They've been trying to induce her since last night, but so far it's been a no-go.

Her two-and-a-half year old niece on his side, Maddyx, had the best comment of the day. Her mom told her that her cousin, Baby Tristin, might be coming out of Aunt Lisa's tummy today. Mad's reply? "That would be funny! Ha ha ha!" I freaking love that kid. I hope Tristin is even half as much fun. :)

Best news of the day: The recipe for Cinnamon Toast Crunch has been altered to no longer include milk products. In short, I can eat my favorite cereal again, whee!

headdesk

2008-04-24T05:36:58Z

Oh, other American Idol viewers. You have shamed us all.

In other news, my sister is having a baby tomorrow!

It's Meme Thursday!

2008-04-17T18:32:34Z

Oh. My. Bob.

How can this BE?! I'm a CYLON!!!

Your Slogan Should Be

Graashoppa. Hand-built by Robots.

The Slogan Generator

Rilly Big Cinematic Thoughts

2008-04-16T04:12:01Z

My favorite essay of the week: "Showgirls: The Disease Of Heterosexuality"

Jennifer Beals, Ilene Chaiken, Daniela Sea, and Alexandra Hedison at V to the Tenth last week...

2008-04-16T03:26:58Z

Bad video quality. HILARIOUSLY SEXY content...

Super not-work-safe.

I think my brain melted.

2008-04-14T05:39:04Z

The Sun has gone mad. And he's riding Zephyr like a two-trick pony. They call them Santa Anas, but I know better. I feel Santa Ana-inducing Apollo/Zephyr porn coming on.

A mouse is nibbling on my knees...

2008-04-08T04:11:24Z

Oh mah Bob! Joyce Summers is on New Amsterdam!!!

Film Fest

2008-04-04T01:25:14Z

Looks like there's a big ol' LGBT Film Festival in San Diego next weekend. The really exciting bit? They're showing Jamie Babbit's new film, The Itty Bitty Titty Committee. Yay!

Hipster Book Club Update for April

2008-04-01T14:30:23Z

This month's theme for The Hipster Book Club was memoirs, and I lucked out with a really fabulous one, Swallow the Ocean. It's about the author's childhood, growing up with her paranoid schizophrenic mother, and it's done just beautifully. My review can be found here.

There's also a really great April Fool's Day article up today if you click over to the HBC's home page. It's the Harper Lee "memoir" review, located a few hits below the blurb for my review. Definitely good for a laugh!

Welcome to the Couch Potato Brigade

2008-03-30T19:02:26Z

The first installment of my weekly Boob Tube blog is up today over at Our Chart. Mosey over and take a gander iff'n you're so inclined!

Book Reviews

2008-03-29T16:32:00Z

I'm a dork. Last month I had my first book review published at The Hipster Book Club and I forgot to post the link here. I just wrote another one for them that will be up this coming week.

Had my first Our Chart book review published this week, too. And my new Boob Tube TV blog on Our Chart should make its debut some time today.

Making some writerly progress here. Guess it's about time!

Vacation all I ever wanted

2008-03-19T03:34:23Z

I'm in Lihu'e, Kauai this week with my parents and my brother. On vacation. It's the first real, go somewhere far away for a whole week vacation I've had in maybe three years. When we stepped off the plane into the balmy, warm air I inhaled a few deep lungfuls of the stuff and fell a little bit in love. The air here has this moist thickness and melty softness to it. I was struck with the overwhelming urge to grab a spoon and eat it, convinced that it would have the texture of ice cream left out on the counter for fifteen minutes, gone a little crumbly around the edges.

Ooh, and my pasty, white self is getting TAN!

That's me as a lesbian? I'm so sweaty and glowy. And I think I'm kind of fey!

2008-03-13T15:36:58Z

SPOILER ALERT! Buffy comics, season eight issues 11 & 12... repeat, SPOILERS!

Bestill my beating geek brain. When Satsu the Vampire Slayer came out in issue 11, professing her love for Buffy, that Kennedy-loathing geek brain of mine immediately thought, "Hmmm. Maybe Kennedy will die horribly (and stay dead this time, for the love of no more Spuffy, ever), and then Willow and Satsu will fall in love. And Willow can be with someone who doesn't make me want to throw up a little bit in my mouth..."

Alas, it was not to be. Not yet, at any rate. Although if Joss has done his vicious lesbian circle homework? Who knows? Because in issue 12, Buffy went and slept with Satsu. It was done with grace, with sexiness, and with a delightful smattering of French farce.

And equally noteworthy, it was done with an accompanying Joss Whedon interview in the New York Times, in which Joss finally--FINALLY--five years after the fact--admits an understanding of the existence and blechiness of the dead lesbian cliché. In a round-about, slippery sort of way, he even touches briefly on the importance of being responsible about the kind of messages you send as a storyteller:

"What of the viewer outrage when Willow’s girlfriend Tara was fatally shot?

“It’s something you have to factor in,” Mr. Whedon said. After Tara died, he said, he discovered that “there was a whole cliché about lesbians being killed.” He added: “You do have to be careful about the message you’re sending out. It’s a double-edged sword. You have to be responsible, but you also have to be irresponsible or you’re not telling the best stories.”

I guess it's a tad hypocritical of me to wish fiery death upon Kennedy in the same breath as calling Joss out on his dead lesbian cliché retardedness and past misdeeds. But I loathe her so deeply that it's hard to care. :X

Coming to a Wishverse Near You...

2008-03-09T02:12:23Z

A government employee after my own heart... The FCC announces that television obscenity laws do not apply to naked appearances by Allyson Hannigan. Woohoo!

FCC Okays Nudity On TV If Itâ��s Alyson Hannigan

Hee.

Dedicated to the one I love...

2008-03-06T23:48:17Z

Enter the ICHC online Poker Cats Contest!

Iz mushy.

Pitching My Tent in Obamaville

2008-02-27T18:14:05Z

After my "I just gave Obama money" post yesterday, my buddy cracksback responded saying that Obama pulls the same negative campaigning stuff I expressed frustration over in Hillary's camp, and that Obama just does it more covertly. I was going to post this as a reply to Crack's comment, but decided to start a new thread altogether, 'cause this week I've been thinking a lot about the election, and how and why different folks are coming down in one camp or the other. I've been thinking about why I'm coming down in one camp over the other.

I don't usually discuss politics with the vast majority of folks, because I hate arguing about this kind of stuff with people I care about. Those of us who care, and even a lot of us who don't, are all are passionate about political issues, so much so that I think it sometimes brings out the worst in us. It makes us get mean. So I'm gonna try really hard here not to be. Here is my response to Crack, and to everyone who is supporting Hillary, and who may be wondering why the rest of us are excited about Obama.

I'm on Obama's mailing list, and I haven't seen hide nor hair of negative attacks. Did you catch any of the debate last night? At the end he said some incredibly gentlemanly, down-to-earth things about running against Hillary. I almost forgot I was watching a presidential debate listening to him just then.

In short, my increased support for Obama is not a sympathy thing. It's not, "Oh, poor Obama. Hillary is being mean to him." It's not a band wagon thing, either. It's a super sick and tired of politics as usual thing. Do I think Hillary would be a better president than George Bush or McCain? Absolutely. She will have my vote if she wins the nomination. But on many levels, she's still representative of what I think is screwed up about our political system. People who take huge sums of lobbying money from the very industries (health insurance conglomerates, for instance) they are claiming they want to "fight" and who fire their campaign managers and go negative as soon as the campaign starts to look bleak are prime examples of why I left the Democratic party a few years back, and why I registered Green earlier this year.

I'm sick to death of the two-party system where both parties are bought off by the same corporations, at the expense of the issues that matter the most to everyday folks. The fact that someone being taken so very seriously for the Democratic nomination is even TALKING about this kind of stuff makes my head spin with astonishment. If the rest of the Democratic party reflected Obama's values on these kinds of issues, I would likely still count myself among them.

I want special interest/lobbying reform and abolishment of enormous tax breaks for corporations that have all but destroyed our economy's infrastructure with outsourcing, and who ignore green technologies and don't pay for health insurance for their employees. I want a realistic approach to developing universal health care for those who want and need it that is plausible and possible within the next five years. Hillary's contention last night that Obama's plan to start small and pave the way to grow bigger with universal health care is self-defeating from the start makes absolutely no sense to me. Americans need to be educated about what a system that covers all of us could do for them. There will be a learning curve to overcome all the smoke and mirrors propaganda our country has been fed on this issue. If you have no idea what I'm talking about and you haven't yet seen the movie "Sicko," I suggest starting there.

I want a candidate who will stand up for acceptance of LGBT folks, separation of church and state, and the value of religious pluralism down in the trenches--in black churches and Baptist conventions in the South--not just in letters to the gay community sent the weekend before Super Tuesday.

I want a candidate who inspires me to do more to be the change I want to see in the world, not just while he's campaigning, but with values and ideals he's been standing by, fighting for, for years. For me, Obama is that guy.

I've been watching him with a keen eye for months now, and started declaring myself officially in his camp weeks ago. So my donation this week was not the knee-jerk, out-of-the-blue reaction it may have seemed based on my admittedly flippant post. But yeah, hearing Hillary compare Obama's ideas about foreign policy to George Bush's Neo-con Reign of Terror was rather motivating. It made me mad. I want to be a part of someone like Obama getting elected--much more than I want to be a part of getting someone like Hillary elected. And for those who are in the other camp, I think that camp, all in all, is not a terrible place to be. It's certainly better than this place we've been living for the last seven years, where we could stay indefinitely if the Republicans get their way. Hilary's camp could absolutely be a place I wouldn't mind hanging my hat. But the place I really want to live in is Obamaville.

Politics Make Me Barfy, But...

2008-02-26T21:56:06Z

I'm so irritated by Hillary Clinton's negative attacks on Obama this week (desperate much?) that I just contributed $25 to his campaign.

Nnnnnoooooommm...

2008-02-23T15:52:02Z

Enter the ICHC online Poker Cats Contest!