Depression Is.... (My symptoms)

Depression is…..

- Uncontrollable tears – not sobbing, just tears – whenever you’re alone and sometimes when you’re not.

- Oversensitivity to rejection, real or imagined

o Guilt about feeling rejected

§ Frustration at yourself for feeling guilty about feeling rejected

- Complete lack of appetite

o Nausea when you don’t eat

o Nausea when you do eat

- Physical exhaustion from anything that expends either mental or physical energy

- Attempting to be cheerful when other people are around

o Physical and mental exhaustion at trying to be cheerful

o Resentment that other people won’t understand how hard you’re trying to be cheerful

§ Guilt over feeling resentful

- Uncontrollable annoyance at other people’s cheerfulness or good fortune

o Guilt over feeling annoyed

§ Frustration with yourself for feeling guilty about being annoyed

- Seesawing between insomnia and sleeping fourteen hours per day

- Uncontrollable annoyance or anger over things that are minor or even funny when you’re normal

- The desire to do nothing but stare at the wall, or maybe the TV, for hours

o Guilt that you’re not spending your time being more productive

§ Frustration that even when you try to be productive, things don’t happen the way you want them to

o Flitting from activity to activity trying to find something that will distract you for more than five minutes

Be nice to your baristas

I work at a coffee shop now, if you didn’t know. It’s a very busy franchise coffee shop; it kind of runs us all off our feet. Now, I don’t drink coffee, and before this I’d never made coffee. The learning curve was steep. But here are some things that I’ve picked up over the last month that I want to share with you, our potential customers.

1. Your default is not necessarily our default. There’s a reason that certain things say “By request” on our menu board – skim milk, decaffeinated coffee, soya. It means you have to request them. The time to request them is when you are ordering. If the barista has time, she’ll confirm whether it’s skim milk or not (for example) as she’s making your drink. Usually we don’t have time. Please don’t ask, as we’re handing it over, whether or not it’s skim. Certainly don’t ask, as we’re handing it over, whether or not it’s skim when you haven’t mentioned skim before. We will remake your drink if you want us to. We will then bitch about you in the back room. To summarize: if you want one of our “by request” options, request it.

2. Most drinks cannot be made simultaneously. This is why the queue gets so long. It’s not even the espresso in most cases. It takes 25 seconds for a normal double shot of espresso and 35 seconds for a normal triple shot. The part that takes so long is the milk.

The following kinds of coffees/hot drinks cannot be made simultaneously: lattes, cappuccinos, Americanos, hot chocolate, flat whites. Drinks with skim milk, soya milk, and whole milk also cannot be made simultaneously. Each espresso machine has three drip slots, so we can’t make more than three drinks at a time. Our favourite orders are the ones with three or fewer identical drinks. Our least favourite orders are the ones with four or more different drinks.

If you come in with an order of two lattes, one with skim milk, a cappuccino, and a hot chocolate, your order will take longer simply because we can’t make any of those drinks at the same time. We’re working as fast as we can, but we are limited by the fact that we can’t make any of these drinks simultaneously.

3. If the details don’t matter, then don’t let the details matter. If there is a genuine reason to have us remake your drink, we will apologetically do so. Genuine reasons include making the wrong drink (i.e., a cappuccino instead of a latte) or using something which, for a medical reason, you can’t have (not making decaf, for example). Using the wrong milk (whole instead of skim), especially if you didn’t request skim at the till, is not necessarily a valid reason to have us remake your drink. Putting too much or too little flavoured syrups into the drink is definitely not a valid reason to have us remake your drink. (see below) We’ll remake it if you ask us to, of course. We will then bitch about you in the back room.

4. The person making your drinks doesn’t usually know that they are your drinks. Here’s what happened to me the other day: I had an order for two vanilla lattes and a something else (can’t remember, not important to the story). As I was making the vanilla lattes, one of the customers waiting asked, “Is that the vanilla latte? Can you add a bit more vanilla?” I hadn’t seen the order be taken, so it was reasonable for me to assume that this order was for this customer, so I added a bit more vanilla (maybe two pumps more). It wasn’t until she asked where her muffin was that I discovered that her vanilla lattes were actually at the other counter, and that the vanilla lattes I had made were for someone else. (Who then said, “there’s extra vanilla in that one? I only want the normal amount of vanilla.” And I had to remake the drink. Seriously, the amount of flavoured syrup is not a valid reason to remake a drink.)

5. If you’re sitting in, please sit at a table that doesn’t have dirty dishes on it. When we’re clearing tables, we look for tables that don’t have anyone at them, but do have dishes. If there are dishes on an occupied table, we assume that they are your drinks and sandwiches, and we’ll wait until you leave to clear them. If you do choose to sit at an uncleared table, don’t give us sarcastic looks if we do realise that the empty trays aren’t yours. It was your choice to sit at an uncleared table. I have never known there to be literally no empty tables. I have known customers who bring the empty trays up to the till, because “there was nowhere to sit” even though I can see at least two empty tables within sight of the one they chose to sit at. These are the people who annoy me.

6. Please don’t complain to us about the queue. We’re sorry, but there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re honestly going as fast as we can. As I said above, we’re limited by the drinks that can be made simultaneously. I know it’s not your fault that the person two in front of you has five different drinks to be made and three sandwiches to toast, but it’s not our fault either. As with the tables, you chose to wait in this line. There are other options. We appreciate your waiting and your custom, we’re sorry about the length of the queue (from 8:00 am or earlier until almost 7 pm, sometimes with a momentary lull around 3:30), but we honestly are working as fast as we can.

Restarting, take 29348

I am lying on my bed, in my pajamas, watching the darkening grey sky that is either a result of the Icelandic volcano or just normal England spring, and it’s 8:30 pm. Why am I in my pajamas at 8:30 pm, you might ask? Well, because this week I started an internship. It’s supposed to be only four days a week, but since this is my first week, I’ve gone in every day – to make myself known, to let myself get to know the project and the people.

It’s a four month internship, so I’ll be there until the end of July. Four months of sitting in an open-plan office, making databases and sending email. I honestly could not be more thrilled. I said, after last fall, that I needed a quiet office job, and that is what I have right now.

Plus, the database I’m currently making is of research case studies from every school in the university. I get to read representative research from every field. How could I not love this? I said in an email to my supervisor today that I keep getting distracted from building the database by actually reading the case studies. I keep finding out about research centres that are based here that I had no idea even existed. Like the Centre for Evidence-Based Dermatology, which is actually in the same building as I am.

It’s amazing how hope and energy come back when you have something external to do. I’ve picked up some writing from a “content mill” (where you get paid by pageviews, for the most part), plus this internship, and I’m starting to feel like a productive member of society again. And even though I’ve been fairly tired when I’ve gotten home this week, it’s been the kind of tired that makes me yawn, not the kind of tired that makes me unable to do anything but stare mindlessly at the computer. (Instead, I stare mindfully at the computer. Or something.)

The tiredness also may have something to do with the commute – I’ve walked both ways every day. There is a bus combination that could do it, but honestly with the waiting and the changing it would probably take about as long. And it’s been mostly nice outside. Like I said at the top, the greyness of today is either due to typical English spring or the Iceland volcano that’s pushing an ash plume across the British Isles and northern Europe today. Tuesday afternoon was drizzly, and I probably should have taken the bus, but every other day has been fine or sunny. It takes me just under an hour to get to the campus where I’m working. Home again takes a little bit longer if I stop at the store for some food (even though I really should be eating what I have in the house, by the time I am coming home I am so hungry that I can’t focus on “what do I want to make tonight”). As the weeks go on, I’m sure that I’ll get used to the hours and the walk and the lack of snacking (or manage to snack more) and I’ll be fine. I’m developing some calluses on my feet already from the shoes I’ve been wearing.

I really am excited about the project I’m interning on. It’s sort of a University-wide practice for the research assessment that’s coming up in a couple of years – the guidelines and requirements have changed, and no one really knows what to expect, so it’s probably best that we figure it out before the real thing comes. It manages to satisfy my mild organizational obsession with the database creation and the file-naming, it lets me be in thrall to academia and research (even if it’s not my research) for a little while longer, it lets me work with adults who know what they’re doing, and work on things that I kind of know how to do, and am getting better at every day (even little things like “go to Marie and ask her to do this thing” – that’s something I’m getting better at!)

I’m already not looking forward to (late) August, after this job is over and after my mom goes home. I know that this summer is going to be fantastic, and I won’t want it to end.

Cravings

I am a firm believer in the idea that you should give in to your cravings. Within reason, of course. I'm not a hedonist. But cravings are one way that your body tells you what you need. If you're craving fish and chips, it's probably because you need whatever nutrients and starches are in fish and chips, and you are perfectly justified in paying the 1.99 for a Sainsbury's ready meal even though you've told yourself that you won't buy any more food until you eat what you have in the house.

Reading cravings work the same way. They tell you what your mind and soul needs. And if you try to force a book on your mind that doesn't fit those needs, it can go very badly.

For example, I have 25+ books on my shelves that I haven't read and want to. I started reading one a few days ago. it's by a writer whom I like (at least, I liked his first book). But I can't get into it. It doesn't hold my attention. It doesn't fit my cravings. There's nothing wrong with the writing. It's just not what I'm looking for right now.

And then I went to the newly refurbished local library (which has beautiful new self-service machines) and came out with three books that I will probably finish in the next couple of days: one that I read about on a blog just recently, and two by an author that I've had a craving to reread for ages. I'm already further in one of the books I checked out four hours ago than I am in the book that I've been reading for four days. I also had a craving to sit in a coffee shop - or at least an aversion to sitting at home - so I did that too, and wrote a letter, a poem, and a journal entry as well as reading several chapters.

Give in to the cravings. Your spirit will thank you.

Look! I have friends! And other miscellany

Three days in a row, including tomorrow, I will spend at least a few hours a day with friends. As in, leave my house and deliberately go somewhere to spend time with people I don’t live with. I’m always a little bit amazed when this happens. I forget, sometimes, that I have friends who want to and can spend time with me.

Yesterday I had lunch with a flatmate from last year, who just got a PhD place here. So yay! She’s coming back to town! It’s very exciting! Especially since she’s the one flatmate from last year that I’ve kept in consistent touch with. And it’s inspired me to at least think about getting back to my own research stuff. I started reading Pearl last night. It’s slow going, but Middle English always is.

Today I was sitting on my bed, slowly getting ready for the day (not unusual), in my bathrobe and towel-turban, when there was a knock on my door and a friend called “BREAKFAST!” So I got dressed and he treated me to breakfast. Then he accompanied me to my initial counseling session, and after that was over, we went to Nottingham Contemporary for the Star City (art and propaganda surrounding the Soviet space program) exhibit.

And while we were doing that, I got a text from another friend, inviting me for coffee before she leaves next week. But I was, of course, unavailable, so I suggested tomorrow instead (we’re meeting for lunch). I’m going to miss her sooooo much when she goes.

I really like Nottingham Contemporary as a gallery. As a building, it’s growing on me although I still think it looks out of place. But as a gallery, it’s lovely. The current exhibit (their second), as I said, focuses on the Soviet space program. It’s named Star City, after the cosmonaut quarters outside of Moscow. It’s primarily modern art, although there are some prints of propaganda posters. It’s also a multimedia exhibit, with a few video and audio things complementing the visual art. The first two galleries also had a sort of electrical theme to them. There was really only one piece that stood out to both me and my friend as “good”* - a sort-of abstract representation of a womb with a red fetus and a black fetus (twins). The red one had a small picture of Castro and the black one had a small picture of Kennedy. I can’t remember the full title, but “We are twins” was a part of it. There was also a giant spacesuit – able to be walked through – representing Tereshkova. One of the things that the Soviet space program did so much better than the US space program was diversity, especially inclusion of women.

*We both agreed that we don’t really “get” modern art in many cases. I was reminded of that Murphy Brown episode, as I almost always am while at contemporary art galleries.

For my birthday, my awesome housemates got me the DVD set of Casualty 1900s, which I had been wanting for a while. And I am obsessed, and can’t stop watching it. There are only 10 episodes at this point, and no word yet on whether there will be another series (season), but I love every single one. It’s so well-produced, well-written, well-acted, and above all, historically accurate. Historical fiction of the highest quality, with a touch of the soaps thrown in. It’s made me ever so interested in medical history, as well as the personal histories of the characters. (Like the lead romantic couple, Dr Culpin and Nurse Bennett, who did get married in real life, eventually.) It’s also helped me clarify my “modern” history/literature interest, which is absolutely Edwardian. Give me 1901-1919 and I’m happy. Much past that, and you get into officially modernist territory, which I really don’t like as much. Even my true literary love, Forster, is more appealing to me in the early works (Room with a View was 1906, Howards End 1910). I knew this before, of course, but this has helped me actually formulate it.

Entering my 30th year

364 days to get my “before I’m 30” list done. And instead of doing anything productive on the list, I’m lying on the couch, ill, and watching DVDs. It’s really not that different from what I do during the day, except that I’m slightly feverish and coughing, and therefore allowing myself not to feel guilty about not working on my books and stories. I’m also allowing myself to stay inside all day – normally I force myself outside at least once a day. I did answer the door earlier, so that counts as my fresh air for the day. It’s really too bad, because it was beautiful and warm today. But I am staying in bed until I am well, or at least better.

Overall, it was a pretty good birthday. Apart from the being ill thing, of course. I got lots of birthday wishes on facebook. Some were expected, some were unexpected. All were welcome. I had nice long conversations with some people and watched The Princess Bride with my housemates, who’d never seen it.

The best part about my birthday was that I hadn’t really missed out on any celebrations. My housemates and I all have birthdays within about six weeks of each other, and this year our combined ages add up to 100. So last weekend we had a joint birthday party for the four of us. The theme was 100 Years Under the Sea, because of our birthdays and the Dolphin Paradise. Of course, being a party that my housemate planned, it was a costume/fancy dress party. I just wore a pretty dress and called myself a water nymph. Among the others were a mermaid (housemate), the Titanic (housemate), a scuba diver (friend, won prize for best costume), a mob informer (friend), a sailor (friend), and a disguised merman (friend, won prize for best excuse). It was a great party. Some people got very drunk (not me, I don’t drink to excess anymore if I can avoid it), and I stayed up until half past five talking to one of my housemates. (This is one of the reasons that I am sick.)

Looking back on the last year, it’s been very eventful. I got an MA, I had a fairly active social life, I moved house (from the dorms to an actual house), I had a minor breakdown and actually sought help for it (and got help for it, also unusual), I went back to the States for whirlwind events (my sister’s M.Ed. and my grandfather’s funeral), I won a short story contest, and I continued my almost decade-long quarter-life crisis. I still don’t know what I want to be “when I grow up”, at least not what I want to do to make a living. I still want to write, I still do write, but I need something to keep paying the bills, and teaching is on hold until I get myself mentally stable again.

And I have 364 days to finish my list.

Hawthorn and Cauliflower

The unluckiest day to get married is a Saturday in May, at least according to English superstition. My best friend and I discovered this last night as we were browsing Oxfam’s online shop¹ for wedding dresses.

It’s such a stereotypically girl thing to do – and neither of us is dating anyone² so it’s really more of an academic exercise than anything else. But some of these dresses were actually really amazing. Some of them were the trendy strapless kind, of course, which are lovely but not for me³, but I think I found my hypothetical wedding dress.⁴ Some of the dresses are not so amazing. There was one in particular that was just horrifyingly bad. It overemphasized the hips and butt area, and didn’t look like it would fit an actual woman. My eyes, they burned. But some of the dresses were great, and in the fictional world where I get married and have a wedding⁵, I am at least looking at Oxfam first.⁶

Not all the dresses were white, either. There was a silver one and a gold one and one with a tartan train. It got us thinking about the traditions and superstitions around weddings. Most people know “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” but did you know that Saturday used to be considered unlucky for weddings? Wednesday was the best day to get married. And May used to be an unlucky month. July and August weren’t bad, but November and December would bring you the most happiness. There are also superstitions about the dress colour and what day you buy the ring. And of course there are the traditions within the ceremony itself: the bridesmaids’ role as decoys, leaving the bridal outfit unfinished until the morning of the wedding, the cake, the confetti, shoes on the back of the car.

But my favourite by far is the medieval Breton tradition around the proposal. This just fascinates me. A suitor would leave a hawthorn branch outside his beloved’s door on May Day. If she accepted, she would leave it there. If she rejected him, she would replace it with a cauliflower. This brings all sorts of questions to my mind. What if the girl was away for the day? What if there was more than one marriageable daughter in the house? What if a girl had more than one suitor? What if someone interfered and stole the hawthorn branch, or the cauliflower? What does a boy do if he wants to propose on a different date? On the surface it seems like such a simple procedure, but I am afraid that it would be more trouble than it’s worth. But as long as they don’t get married on a May Saturday, I’m sure everything would work out.

¹Did you know that Oxfam sells wedding dresses through its online shop? Did you know that Oxfam has an online shop? They do. I volunteer there.

²She only seems to attract creepy guys, and I only seem to help guys figure out that they want someone else.

³I’d be too worried about it falling down, no matter how tightly it was taped and bound.

⁴My views on marriage and weddings are firm, although not immutable, and very similar to my views on children: great and wonderful and special….when they’re other people’s.

⁵That order is deliberate.

⁶I think I'm done with the footnotes now.

I tried to do the jumping-footnotes thing, but it didn't work....I'll learn html better and then come back and fix them. Sorry for making you all scroll up and down.

Desert Island Discs

My best friend and I did the “Desert Island Discs” game the other day. We created a shortlist of 10 and a finalist list of 5 for the music, movies, and books categories, with the added rule (stolen from the radio Desert Island Discs program) that the Bible and Shakespeare are already on the island. These are the books, DVDs, and albums that (at this point) we would want with us forever.

It was really difficult, and actually a little surprising. I’m a big fan of doing things like this every so often, to see how your tastes have changed over time – and sometimes how they haven’t, even if you think they have. Some of my favourites – most-played songs, most-watched films, books that I love – did not make the list. If they were songs, then the whole album wasn’t worth it; books were emotional in perhaps the wrong way (Hardy, I’m looking at you), films I’d watched so many times that even looking at them makes the whole thing play in my head.

It’s also quite challenging. Do you pick your “comfort” items? Things that you’ve been meaning to get to but haven’t had the time? A combination of the two? Is length a consideration? (For example, if it comes down to a choice between two books by your favourite author, do you pick the longer one?) Do series count as separate items, or one item total? What about “collected works” or anthologies or single-volume sets?

It was challenging, but here’s my final list. I say final, but really it’s just final as of last week when we did this. Lists like this are so dependent on mood and state of mind that it’s entirely possible that my list will change again tomorrow.

Books:

Finalists – A Room with a View (E.M. Forster), Bet Me (Jennifer Crusie), An Equal Music (Vikram Seth), Persuasion (Jane Austen), The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)

Runners-Up – Rilla of Ingleside (L.M. Montgomery), The Robin Hood Handbook, Bellwether (Connie Willis), The Blue Castle (L.M. Montgomery), War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)

Comments – I went with the comfort items on this list, for the most part. A Room with a View is my favourite book ever, and every time I read it I find something new in it. Bet Me is also one of my comfort books; I find it nearly perfect. An Equal Music is one of the best books I’ve ever read that shows what it’s like to be a musician. Persuasion is my favourite Jane Austen, even beating Pride and Prejudice, in part because of the letter at the end which is one of the most romantic letters in all of fiction. The Canterbury Tales makes the list for two reasons: I couldn’t go without something in Middle English, and I’ve never actually read the whole thing. So, in a way, it’s both a comfort book and a challenge book.

I was torn between The Canterbury Tales and The Robin Hood Handbook – Robin is my historical fictional boyfriend, after all – but ultimately decided that Chaucer had more variety. The Montgomery books are also wonderful, and comfort books for me, but not quite as meaty as the finalists. Bellwether is my favourite Connie Willis book, and there to satisfy the sci-fi/specfic side of me. And War and Peace is on the list purely for length – I liked it a lot when I read it and it would keep me entertained for quite a while. But it doesn’t come up to the personal emotion of the finalists.

Films:

Finalists – Singin’ in the Rain, Bend It Like Beckham, The Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Pride and Prejudice

Runners-up – North and South, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Lion in Winter, Ratatouille, Beauty and the Beast

Comments – This is a list that changes almost every minute. It’s like picking your favourite child. It was actually harder to narrow this list down than it was for the books! But the first three are my all-time favourite films, than I can, have, and will watch over and over and over again, sometimes in the same day. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is the “funny one” of the Indy movies, plus it features Sean Connery. And it doesn’t matter which of the (more recent) Pride and Prejudices it is. I adore both Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen.

Any of the runners-up could easily make the list on any given day, depending on mood and how recently I’ve seen or been reminded of that particular movie. And there are many more that could make the shortlist, again depending on day, mood, and proximity.

Music:

Finalists – Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev), Ninth Symphony (Beethoven), Wicked, Carmen (Bizet), Revolver (The Beatles)

Runners –up – Amahl and the Night Visitors (Menotti), Abbey Road (The Beatles), Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles), Led Zeppelin IV, Joshua Tree (U2)

Comments – This is where I surprised myself. I thought I was moving away from classical music and more towards pop/rock/alt stuff. But it turns out, when picking the albums to go with me onto a fictional desert island for the rest of my life, I go back to my roots. Romeo and Juliet is my favourite of the Prokofiev ballets, or really orchestral music in general. Beethoven’s 9^th is, without a doubt, the most perfect creation of musical structure, themes, instrumentation, and just everything that has ever been performed ever. Carmen is my favourite opera. Wicked is currently my singalong musical, although depending on mood it could easily be another one; I do need something in my range to sing along with, though. And Revolver is my current favourite Beatles album.

I really debated between the three Beatles albums that I had on the shortlist. All three of them are amazing, and are the three that I listen to all the way through, without skipping. Sgt. Pepper is even my stated all-time favourite Beatles album. But for some reason in my subconscious, possibly because it has one of my favourite tracks, Revolver was the one that I chose to come with me. Led Zeppelin IV is partially on the list for my rock interests, but as it turned out it didn’t hold a candle to the others. And Amahl is wonderful, but very occasion-specific. I sometimes listen to it when it’s not Christmas time, but I listen to Carmen all year long.

As previously stated, these lists are only valid for the day and time that we did them; they are subject to change based on mood and experience. But it’s an interesting exercise nonetheless. Have you ever done the Desert Island Discs game?

Are you a megalosaurus?

Today has been a book day for me. I am slowly making my way through my saved items on Google Reader, and this morning I read through some of the book items. Most of them were book reviews (there's a biography of Chopin that looks interesting; the new Elizabeth Kostova got panned).

The topic of interest over the last few months, and especially yesterday, has been e-readers. Yesterday, as everyone who has turned on a computer probably knows, Apple revealed the iPad. And most of the immediate online reaction has been to the name. (What hasn't been to the name has been "So....it's a bigger iPhone. That's not a phone.") Personally, I'm a little disappointed that Apple didn't go with iTablet or iSlate - I especially liked iSlate, and I think that iPad is too similar to iPod to really distinguish it effectively. But, really, couldn't they have foreseen the jokes? The jokes that I've seen are mostly feminine-product-related (the iPad will come in Mini, Regular, and Maxi, etc.) with a few Star Trek (iPadd, Paramount should sue) ones thrown in. But, like I said to a friend online, in a few weeks the name will be normal and worth nothing more than a wry smile (if that). So if you're going to mock it, do it now.

I also sought out a new second-hand bookstore today; I'd heard about it on Tuesday when I was volunteering at Oxfam. It's just up the street from the town square, so about a fifteen-minute walk at most from my house. It also seems to be staffed by volunteers, so no chance for a job, but any bookstore is a good thing in my mind (although sad: no income means an absolute moratorium on book buying, and I need to get through the books that I already own and haven't read anyway). I met a sweet but loopy woman who declared her love for the Sweet Valley High books, and who also gave me job advice. It took me about ten minutes to extract myself from the conversation.

There's also a couple of book articles from the last few days that I think I want to either keep around or talk more about; I'll try to work those up tonight and post them on the other blog sometime soon.

Randomness:

I found a flowchart online detailing whether you should eat food that has been dropped on the floor. It is very comprehensive - including questions such as "Are you a megalosaurus?"

A friend also posted a pun - I don't think it's originally his but it's very funny.

I sent off my final assessment for my proofreading course; now I need to start on the copy-editing part of it. I've also been doing some stuff (volunteer, of course. I need to get into a field that pays me) on the proofreading site for Project Gutenberg. I'm still a beginner on that site, but it's pretty addicting. I have actually been limiting my time on it because I'm supposed to be looking for jobs and things....

My sleeping patterns are totally screwed up. It's almost like I'm jetlagged, except I haven't been out of the UK since October, and haven't even been out of Nottingham since New Year's. I'm hoping that I can stay awake all day today (no napping!) and fall asleep at and stay asleep for a reasonable time. It seems to be going pretty well so far.

I should probably get back to working on something. Focus on one of my writing projects and get at least a few hundred words written.

Jasper Fforde is awesome, and random encounters

Last night I went to hear Jasper Fforde speak about his new book, Shades of Grey. It was fantastic. I'd also let one of my friends know; we didn't exactly go together, but there was still an empty seat next to me when he arrived, so we hung out during and after.

The book's been on sale this week at Waterstone's - half-price - and the ticket price for the event could go toward the book, so I only paid six quid on the night for the book. Which I was very excited about, because (a) I don't have an income right now, and (b) I doubt that it'll even be that cheap in a year or so when it comes out in paperback.

Jasper Fforde was very personable and funny. He talked about his path to becoming a writer, about the book (including a few passages), and answered questions. Some paraphrased quotations:

"After stealing - sorry, paying homage - to other people's ideas, I decided to write my own story with my own characters."

"Writing is a series of challenges or dares - a bit like Scottish cuisine."

"Because I'm the author, and I can do whatever I want, I generally do."

"Writing is never finished, only abandoned."

He also mentioned his publication schedule, which is a book every year for at least the next three. He didn't say a lot about the sequel to Shades of Grey, but the next Thursday Next book and especially the next Nursery Crimes Division book (which isn't scheduled until 2013) sound fascinating. The most recent NCD book, The Fourth Bear, also sounds fascinating ("How is the porridge different temperatures when it was poured at the same time?"), and it's the only other one of his that I haven't read yet.

He signed books afterwards. James and I started off in what turned out to be the buying line, but switched to the signing line once we realized. We were chatting when one of the three girls in front of us asked if I was American. I said I was, and asked where they were from. Minnesota, Chicago....are you the Luther group? And they were. We talked the whole rest of the way to the front of the line.

Jasper Fforde in person was very friendly and cheerful, even after almost an hour of signing. I can't wait to read this book (I got to chapter three before the talk started).....and everything else that he ever writes.

In which I play with books

Well, my last few posts were depressing and horrible. Or, rather, horribly depressing. Good news! I went to the doctor, I got happy pills, I got my appetite back, and I feel like I can do things again.

Like enter a short story contest.

One of the things I do with my time is play with books. That sounds facetious. I volunteer at a charity shop (Cancer Research UK) and organize their book donations. We try not to have goods on the shop floor for more than a couple of weeks – after that, they get “culled” and go to one of the other shops in town, to get to a new customer base or something like that. So after I sort through the donations, I go through the books on the shelves, pulling the old ones. Then I price and set out new books from the donations.

It’s quite the process, really. I have so much power over these books! I decide whether they are in good enough condition to go out on the shelves (if they’re not, they get recycled in some way), or recent enough. Fiction isn’t a problem, of course, but textbooks and travel books especially – if they’re not from the 21^st century, I toss them. I tossed one today that was a guide to Windows 95. I’m assuming that no one needs a user’s guide to Windows 95 for anything other than nostalgia value. Sometimes I feel bad about some of the travel guides, especially – it can be really interesting to see the differences in tourist advice, or popular areas, or prices over the years. But there’s a point when it’s interesting and a window where it’s too recent to be interesting, too old to be relevant. That window is when I put them in the big white bag.

I have a system of sorts for the storage room, too. Most of the books we get are, of course, fiction. They go on the built in shelves on the outside wall. They’re organized by size rather than anything else, purely for ease of stacking and access. Mass-market paperbacks are on the lowest shelf, just under eye-height, then trade paperbacks (slightly bigger, with slightly harder covers), and then on the top shelf are the large paperbacks – the ones that I’ve seen now as “airport editions” and things like that. Also on the top shelf are some of the non-fiction paperbacks: history, biography, etc. Basically that wall is for anything that you – I – would check out of a library.

Hardcovers are on the other wall, kind of in the same way. Fiction in one area, non-fiction in another. And then we have the reference/specialty books. Diet books, cookbooks (so many cookbooks), gardening books, bird-watching, languages, basically anything that doesn’t fit in with the other categories. They get a shelf of their own, with cookbooks getting a stack on the shelf right by the door. (Seriously. So many cookbooks.)

Kids books are separated into the ones that can go in the 50p bin (picture books, etc.) and the ones that are more for tweens and young adults, which are priced about the same as adult books are. We got a box a couple of months ago that was stacked full to overflowing with teen-girl type books. Some of them are still in the box. I’m shifting them as quickly as I can.

I’m shifting all the books as quickly as I can, really. We have five and a half shelves on the shop floor for books – three of them usually have paperbacks of various sizes, one has hardcover, and one has miscellaneous non-fiction, with a half-shelf near toys for the tween/young adult books. We sell quite a lot of books, and cull quite a lot on a regular basis, but the storage room never seems to diminish.

And some of that is because of days like today. I walked in today and I could not enter the book storage room. We’d gotten so many donations over Christmas (the last time I was in was December 22) that there was literally nowhere else to put the books. It took me at least two hours just to get things sorted, and I was absolutely ruthless about recycling books. If there was any doubt about condition or suitability, into the white recycling bag it went. I then put something like 60 books on the shelves – and one of my fellow volunteers had already done two shelves.

There were three or four boxes full of books today, as well as the mass of bags. I think they were part of an estate sale or something like that. They were nearly all older books, with quite a lot of cookbooks and gardening books and wine-making and things like that. This was one of the times that it was difficult for me to be ruthless when throwing them out (or not), even though I knew I had to be. I kept thinking of my grandparents’ house, which was, and I’m sure is still, crammed to the rafters with books. The collection reflects so much about my grandparents: their interests, hobbies, activities, and so on. I could tell, going through these boxes, what the person who’d had this collection was like in a similar way. I could picture my grandparents’ books going through the same treatment (once the family has pulled out the ones we personally want of course) – sorting through my grandparents’ lives with only minimal consideration for the emotion and history of the books, only looking at how saleable they are. I know it’s necessary, but it’s still difficult.

NaNoWriMo

I started to attempt National Novel Writing Month again this year. I've done it in the past, and I've even "won" twice. This year, I'm not going to finish.

I could make excuses like "I just started a new job" (true) "which usually leaves me exhausted" (true) and "I'm trying not to lose my semblance of a social life" (true) "which means, for example, that I only have an hour at home on Tuesdays" (true), all of which are factors in my wordcount of less than 10K right now.

But the main reason that NaNo is not working for me is that I care too much about this story idea. It's one that's been in my head for literally years, and I want it to work, even in a first draft. And right now it's not working. The plot isn't there and the tone is absolutely wrong. And I care too much about the story to want to throw in flying monkeys or black-suited ninjas.

So the way I see it, I have a few choices. I can try to restart this story, locking myself away and trying hard to gget to 50K in...twelve days. I could restart this story and change my goal to either 20 or 25K (...in twelve days). I could switch stories, also resetting the goal.

Or I could quit thinking of it as NaNo, which is a fairly arbitrary thing anyway that in the past has left me mentally and writingly (you'd think I'd know a better adverb for that, wouldn't you? One that actually exists?) drained and uncreative through December, and just try to write something, a few hundred words at least, every day.

I pick the last one.

My mind is confusing sometimes.

Oh, man, I miss football. I miss football so much. The Patriots and Bucs played at Wembley today and I so want tickets to next year’s London game and I want a friend to come with me so that I can talk about the game, both during and after. I am disappointed that the Vikings lost, but they kind of gave it away (TWO turnovers returned for touchdowns? Seriously?), it’s not good for teams to go undefeated too long because it creates way too much pressure, and if they had to lose I’m glad it was to the Steelers so that I could see Stefan (and kind of laugh at how upset he seemed that he only got to about the 30 on one return, instead of running it all the way back) because he is awesome. Oh, and speaking of undefeated teams? STEP IT UP SAINTS.

It is still weird for me to think of Brett Favre with the Vikings. He was such an iconic Packers quarterback, and the rivalry between the Packers and the Vikings is so, so, so strong, that it’s so hard to see his playing for the Vikings as much beyond a slap in the face to Green Bay. It shouldn’t bother me this much, but it does. (And next week is the rematch! Yay!) Other player transfers don’t bother me this much. When Terrell Owens left the 49ers, I didn’t care. (Although I don’t care about TO much anyway, except to wish that he’d shut up, go away, and get over himself.) Ricky Williams, one of the highest-profile signings the Saints ever had, is playing for the Dolphins now and currently against the Saints, and this does not bother me at all.

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Today I went to the Robin Hood Pageant. It is essentially a Renaissance Fair that is pretending to be in the 13th century. It was awesome. Re-enactment festivals like this are places where, in order to get any kind of enjoyment out of it, you can’t take it or yourself too seriously. Also, it’s nice to see things marginally connected to the things I’ve studied, and think “Right, maybe all my education and knowledge isn’t TOTALLY useless.”

All the performances were, of course, Robin Hood based. The jousting performances were Robin and the band against the Sheriff and Guy (who did not look like Richard Armitage, but was blond like the guy from the 1980s series and not unattractive). The ‘medieval sports’ for kids purported to be recruitment for Robin’s gang. There was a no-strings puppet show of Robin and the Potter and Robin and the Monk. There was a storyteller, a book-binder, an alchemist, a juggler/fire-eater (who I wasn’t sure about from the description but who turned out to be quite funny). There was also falconry – for performances they use Harris hawks now, and the guy gave some interesting information about how to train birds, and what the different levels of birds were (peasants could fly kestrels, kings could fly goshawks, and everything in between), and the Harris hawks run to flush out the prey and it’s fun(ny) to watch. Wilf, one of the Harris hawks, ate things he wasn’t supposed to eat (such as a bit of a hamburger and chips) and then didn’t catch the ‘rabbit’ that was a demonstration of his hunting abilities. The falconer was kind of worried about him. He (the falconer) also demonstrated a barn owl, which is beautiful with such a big wingspan…..

The jousting was also incredible – it was actual jousting, with horses and blunted lances and a quintain and all. Robin won, of course (the jousting may have been real, but the battles were choreographed, of course), and it was cool to see. I had a bit of a bad moment when the Sheriff was a bit slow (for my taste) getting up afterwards [I …. really don’t like it when they don’t get up] but he did eventually get up and seemed fine.

One of the things that going to this did for me – besides updating my medievalist geek credentials, as if they needed it – was to kind of reassure me that there is a place for me and my interests in the world, even outside of academia. Don’t get me wrong: I still want to do a PhD and do feel like academia/education is the place where I am supposed to be, but it’s nice to know that I am not completely alone in these obsessions, and that there is a place for them, even in an entertainment/niche type venue. (Not that there’s anything wrong with entertainment as a niche. Far from it.)

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Speaking of my medieval geek interests, and entertainment, after writing this the other day, I started a list of medieval poems that I could adapt for television/movie/modern literary versions. I figured that I can’t justifiably complain about them not being there if I’m not willing to at least attempt to do something about it. I’m not going to say ‘it’ll be easy!’ because a) I’m not stupid, b) I’ve never written a screenplay before, but I know how difficult even a bad 30-day novel is, and c) I’m not stupid. But it’s something I think I should try. I watch a lot of TV and movies, and read a lot about the writing process in those media, so I have a basic understanding of how it works. And I know some of these poems almost by heart, so I have more than a basic understanding of the source material to know what can and should be included or not. I think I can do it, or, at least, I think I can try.

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I was going to write a bit about a ‘discussion’ I had with a friend last night about religion that started and ended with him telling me I was going to hell, but almost 1000 words is enough for one night, yes? (If only I could write this much on my fiction! Oh, well….)

Sometimes you need to talk about something else.

Life kind of sucks right now, so I am in avoidance mode so that I am not in constant emotional-wreck mode.

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I was talking online to a friend of mine who is also going through a hard time, and we agreed that one thing that would be helpful when we are going through hard times is to talk about something other than what we are going through. Not ignore the bad things, necessarily, but everyone asks, “How’s it going,” and it’s exhausting to rehash everything over and over, and to dwell on it for too long. So my first message to her today was “I’m here for you if you want to vent/rant/talk about something else entirely.” She appreciated that.

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I have found a way to watch football online. I love football. ‘My’ guys have had a good day, too. By which I mean their names have been mentioned on air. That is exciting for me.

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I finally put up almost all the pictures and things on the walls in my room. It still feels kind of like a dorm room, but I’m sure that once I settle more into the rest of the house, that feeling will ease. I still feel like a student, is part of the problem. Once I get a job of some kind I hope that feeling will fade a little bit.

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Because of the depression/grieving that I’m going through right now, I have all these ideas for ‘things I should do’ (edit the novel, brush up on Latin, write a PhD proposal, etc.) but don’t have the energy or motivation to actually do them. This, of course, adds to my stress and depression. I’m working on it. Job-searching is soul-crushing and I find myself repeatedly refreshing facebook and twitter for about three hours, and then getting annoyed with myself for wasting time. I really should give myself a break. Something will turn up. It always does, somehow.

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Depression/grieving is also exhausting. Even when I haven’t been crying, my eyes feel like I have. Being around other people helps, most of the time, but I can’t count on that for the however many hours I’m awake during the day. I’ve got people-oriented things I can do this next week, at least.

The perfect end to a perfect day

I am not having a good day. I mean, my problems are nothing in the grand scheme of things - many people have it much worse, and even many people I know have it much worse - and they're not even problems as much as 'things-I'm-having-trouble-dealing-with-right-now', but still. Not a good day. I missed out on a job opportunity (I heard about the job on Saturday and probably should have gone in Sunday or Monday, but didn’t, and today it was gone and I got looked at like a crazy person for even asking about it), I’m stressed about various things (including an unexpected casual communication from an ex-love-of-my-life on Monday – not necessarily stressful in itself, but definitely mentally and emotionally confusing), and my grandfather is 91 years old and in imminently failing health. I actually had to lock myself in a bathroom stall at the mall and cry because it was either that or cry in the middle of Market Square. And I don’t cry in public anymore, if I can possibly avoid it. [Actually, I don’t cry anymore if I can possibly avoid it. The last two months have been anomalous.] It’s been full-out tears today, too, not just the deep, shuddering, no-tears sobs that plagued me during the dissertation and concurrent romantic woes.

And then, on Skype, I get this:

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Hello [my name],

I have been in search of someone with this last name "[MY NAME]", so when I saw your name I was pushed to contact you and see how best we can assist each other. I am Mr. A. Opeyemi, a Banker here in GHANA. I believe it is the wish of God for me to come across you on skype now. I am having an important business discussion I wish to share with you which I believe will interest you because, it is in connection with your last name and you are going to benefit from it.

One Late Shafi C. [MY NAME], a citizen of your country had a fixed deposit with my bank in 2004 for 36 calendar months, valued at US$12,500,000.00 (Twelve Million, Five Hundred Thousand US Dollars) the due date for this deposit contract was the 16th of January 2007. Sadly Shafi was among the death victims in the May 26 2006 Earthquake disaster in Jawa, Indonesia that killed over 5,000 people. He was in Indonesia on a business trip and that was how he met his end. My bank management is yet to know about his death, I knew about it because he was my friend and I am his account officer. Shafi did not mention any Next of Kin/ Heir when the account was opened, and he Shafi was not married and no children. Last week my Bank Management requested that I should give instructions on what to do about his funds, if to renew the contract. I know this will happen and that is why I have been looking for a means to handle the situation, because if my Bank Directors happens to know that Shafi is dead and do not have any Heir, they will take the funds for their personal use, so I don't want such to happen. That was why when I saw your last name I was happy and I am now seeking your co-operation to present you as Next of Kin/ Heir to the account, since you have the same last name with him and my bank head quarters will release the account to you.

There is no risk involved; the transaction will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you and I from any breach of law. It is better that we claim the money, than allowing the Bank Directors to take it, they are rich already. I am not a greedy person, so I am suggesting we share the funds equal, 50/50% to both parties, my share will assist me to start my own company which has been my dream.

Let me know your mind on this and please do treat this information as TOP SECRET and DO NOT respond to this on skype for same security reason. I have more to write you about the details once I receive your urgent response strictly through my personal Email address: [redacted] We can as well discuss this on phone: [redacted]

Have a nice day and God bless.

Anticipating your communication.

Seriously? Dude, if I had more mental energy right now, I’d try to do something like this.* But I don’t, so I won’t. Instead, I’ll just mock them and their obvious find-and-replace/mail-merge style, their TOP SECRET warning, their poor English (although it’s better than most), and the idea that the man died two and half years ago and it’s only now occurring to this guy to steal the money.

Also, I’m changing my Skype privacy settings – which I probably should have done ages ago seeing as I do get any number of random flirtations on Skype (note: starting a conversation with me, a stranger, with a beer stein icon is going to get you ignored and/or blocked immediately. My computer is not a bar, you don’t know me or you wouldn’t start a conversation in that way, go away and leave me alone) but I have had a couple of family members and friends randomly run across me on Skype in the past and I wanted to leave myself open for that. But no more. *shudder*

*even though that makes me miss the friend who introduced me to the site, and remember the circumstances in which he did so, which then makes me start crying again…

My weekend getaway

Saturday afternoon I went down to London for a brief weekend getaway. There were two plans for the weekend: see the production of Arcadia on Saturday night, and go salsa dancing on Sunday night. Everything else was incidental.

I got in uneventfully, checked into the hostel relatively uneventfully although there were some problems with the specifics of which bed I was in, and then went out for a shop/wander. My hostel was literally right up the street from the salsa club for Sunday night, so that worked out nicely for me.

I went to Waterstone’s Piccadilly, because it calms me and because I wanted to check prices on a few things and because what else am I going to do at 5:30 on a Saturday night in London? I restrained myself from buying any more books. I can’t buy any more books until I have an income of some kind. Then I bought some food from the Tesco Express at Trafalgar Square and sat on the grass outside the National Gallery and ate and read and people-watched. Trafalgar Square was packed – not only is the plinth project still going on – although I still find it more interesting as a web feed – but there were also some acrobatics/break-dancing/magic performances going on. There were also a few protests – I saw one guy in a Polska shirt making what I assume will be a YouTube video about the political situation in Iran, and there were some Falun Gong supporters handing out leaflets just past St. Martin-in-the-Fields. I felt a little bit guilty brushing them off, but one person can only care about a certain number of causes before exhausting themselves, and I’d rather support someone I actually know.

I wrote about the performance of Arcadia here. Suffice to say, it deserves every good word that it has gotten, and I have a few new actor crushes.

Back at the hostel, I remembered why I don’t look for hostels first when planning weekends like this one. You can’t beat the price, and when all you need is a bed for the night, it’s fine – but everyone is so young: they’re on a gap year, or just spontaneously travelling, and if they’re not a current student then they’re ‘actually a college grad!’ as one girl smugly said. I know I was the same way when I was 20, 21, 22, 23 – and to some extent still am. Doesn’t mean I can’t mock it when I see it.

I tried to sleep in Sunday morning, since I knew I would be staying up incredibly late. I made it to 9 o’clock, which is not really sleeping in when you don’t go to sleep until 1 or 2 am and are planning on staying up until 6. I had seen a poster on the Tube for an exhibit at the Wellcome Collection about ‘Exquisite Bodies’ – mostly anatomical models: it looked interesting, and I’d never been, so I decided to see if I could find it. The Wellcome Collection is near Euston, so it wasn’t a horribly long walk (I was staying near King’s Cross), and I picked up some food at the train station to have for lunch. The museum was fantastic. The special exhibit was indeed full of anatomical models, quite a lot of which featured pregnancy which reinforced my “ADOPTION!!!!” belief. The rest of the museum was also quite interesting – exhibits from Wellcome’s own collection, one case of which made me want to research and write about death rituals across cultures/time periods. Somehow I wasn’t quite as fascinated by the collection of amputation saws and obstetrical forceps. Then there was a section on different aspects of research that they do – I found the genome stuff quite interesting, malaria less so, but that’s just my personal interests and research. Each section – there were four, I think? Human Genome Project, malaria, obesity, and the body/health – had an area of artistic representation (sculpture, painting, writing, etc.) connected to it. There was one print in the genome section called Twenty Three Pairs by an artist called Andrea Duncan, where she represented the 23 human chromosomes as socks, which I thought was very cool, and a poem in that same section called “To John Donne” that I liked a lot as well. (I should do a Poetry Day again….any suggestions?) Anyway, the point is that if you want a different museum to go to in London – not that there’s any lack of them – The Wellcome Collection is very cool and well-done. Interactive parts that aren’t just for children, as well, which is nice…..

Then I ate my lunch in Green Park and tried to decide what to do next. I ended up walking around the shopping areas, including a browse through Carnaby Street and a return to Waterstone’s Piccadilly where I unexpectedly found out what my absolutely least favourite teacher of all time is doing now. At this point it was mid-afternoon, and I still had several hours before I was meeting people for dancing, so I went to the V&A – my original thought was to go to one of the Proms Concert Music series, but I didn’t want to spend more money than I had to and didn’t want to have to deal with a schedule and whatnot. I may come down some other time in the next few weeks specifically to do one of the Proms. So I went to the V&A instead, and admired the plaster casts of the Plantaganet tombs. Fontevrault is so on my list-of-places-to-visit someday.

There’s not a lot else to do on a Sunday afternoon for an hour or so before meeting people, especially when you’re wandering by yourself, so I went back to the hostel and packed up my stuff and put it in a place that I could grab it easily when I came back in the morning (a good thing as it turned out, since due to the aforementioned confusion over beds, when I came back this morning there was someone sleeping in the bed that I would have collapsed on. But as it was 7am already, and my stuff was all ready to go, I didn’t care so much). Then I wandered through the Russell Square area, talked to my sister (and drained my cellphone battery, oops), and reminisced about early visits to London.

Met my fellow dancers with no major problems, and went to a weekly salsa event that, as it turns out, is at the hotel that we stayed at one of the first times we were in London. Danced, danced, danced….then went to find food which is not easy to do at 10:30 on a Sunday night. We ended up getting a takeaway and eating it in the waiting area of King’s Cross. We also did some impromptu salsa and rueda in the waiting area of King’s Cross, to the amusement of the night staff and people waiting for the last trains. Finally – after about two hours of eating, everyone else drinking and trying to find ways to put off going to the big salsa club, we made it to our – well, my – main destination. Where we stayed until 6 am. There was never a point where I wanted a dance and had to go more than a song to be asked to dance. But, then, some of the fun for me at major salsa events is watching everyone else and admiring how good they are. But still – lots of dancing, lots of new people whose names I’m either never going to remember or never knew in the first place (and a very few for whom that is a Good Thing – my creepy-guy-repellent WAS NOT WORKING. Grinding is not salsa. Grabbing my arse is not an appropriate salsa hold. And kissing my ear before you’ve even made eye contact, without saying a word, IS NEVER OKAY. SHUDDER.) But anyway, I got lots of good dances, some with people that I knew and most with people that I didn’t, and the only dark spot (other than the creepy guys) was the total vanishing of the friend that we’d gone there to meet, sometime during the last song. I hate incomplete evenings like that, without even a chance to say goodbye.

The crew of us that had gone together then went to McDonald’s to fortify for the rest of the day – they were all going to Notting Hill Carnival, but I knew that I would just freak out if I went, so I instead caught the first train back to Nottingham (thank goodness for bank holidays and no off-peak restrictions) where I came home, charged my phone, checked facebook, and slept for a whole three hours. I’m surprised I’m not more tired now, actually. I think I may be able to make it to midnight fairly coherently.

And then it’s back to work for me. I only have a week to whip the dissertation into shape, but after the getaway it’s all seeming more manageable.