Image post: fallen leaves glazed in rain

The title pretty much says it all, if you're not interested in a bunch pictures of wet leaves on the ground, this is probably not the post for you.

Pictures are from yesterday (October 4th.)

How many pictures?  55 I think.  How many leaves?  No idea.  Some leaves are in more than one picture, which would bring the number down, on the other hand some pictures have more than one leaf which would bring the number up.

Anyway, click for full size.

 The pictures immediately above and below this really show what a difference the decision whether or not to use flash can make.  Same leaf, same place, very different pictures.

I took notice of this leaf mostly because of it's size, which was bigger than my shoe.

My life, objectively, sucks

So, first, the good news.  My depression might have been dealt with.  It's a tentative conclusion, and there are things that remain to be seen.

Two bits of bad news come with this.  One expected, one not so much (though not exactly shocking).

The not expected one, but in a "figures" kind of way rather than a "I would have never imagined this was possible" kind of way, is that I have another mental health problem that's still preventing me from getting simple tasks done.  It wasn't noticed before because the depression was screwing everything up well before it had a chance to screw things up.  Though it has been suspected, on occasion, for a good solid 20 years so if I was going to have another mental health problem, that's the one you'd bet on.

To put it in auto repair terms, it's like we've reached the point where the engine will start only to discover that the break is stuck on and the gas pedal does nothing.  Things are clearly working better, but were's still not going anywhere until more work is done.

It's not, "Yay, the depression is cured, now I can start doing things to put my life in order," it's, "The depression may well be dealt with, but I still can't do things to put my life in order."

More work is left to be done, fortunately I have a good psychiatrist and a good psychologist via school.

So, that was the unexpected thing, I really thought that when it came to mental health depression was the thing and once that was dealt with I could actually, you know, accomplish things.

Here's the expected thing.  It's the title.  My life, objectively, sucks.

This is not a surprise, this is not something that was lost on me all of the time that I thought that I really needed to get the fucking depression dealt with.  Dealing with the depression was always the first step because it was preventing me from dealing with much of anything else.

Anyone who's been reading here for a while probably has a sense of some of the ways in which my life sucks.

My housing situation sits upon the edge of a knife, stray but a little and I'll lose my house.

My sister's housing situation does too, except if she strays then it means that my aunt reverts to plan A which is to try to develop the property (having my sister living there paying rent to her has placated her somewhat because she really loves money) which probably means a court battle to decide how to divide it, and no matter what much of the property will be destroyed to make way for unneeded houses for people so rich they can buy houses they don't need.  (As has happened to much of the surrounding farmland.)

If she gets the house, she'll destroy the house.  (The land the house sits on is worth more than the house, greater profit is had by tearing it down and replacing it.)  If she doesn't get the house then she'll have to get more of the land to make up for not getting the monetary value of the house.  So more of it is ruined.

And it's not like negotiations will be easy.  This is, though not with direct quotes, quite seriously how she came to her position on the house:
Her: I don't want the house.
My mother: That makes things easier, because I was thinking that I probably did want it.
Her: I want the house.

While she loves money, she also loves being able to take things other people want.  Even if she doesn't want them.  In any given situation, it's almost impossible to tell which of her loves will be dominant.

And there's the fact that the last time I saw a friend was when I met Lonespark which was *looks things up* early May, I guess.  I do see people I like in classes, but it's hard to distinguish between amicable classmate and friend you never see outside of school.

And then there's stuff I don't discuss in public.

And then there's the fact that my inability to make myself do simple things means I'm behind in all my classes.

And then there's the general lack of good things.

I have lots of stuff going on that would make a mentally healthy person sad, I have much less that tends toward happy, so dealing with the depression just leaves me to deal with a life that objectively sucks.  And there's no pill for that.  That's kind of what feeling sad is for.

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Which brings me to something that's a bit strange to say.  Depression has some upsides, and I don't just mean that in certain areas depressed people are more rational than non-depressed people because that's not always an upside.

Depression can manifest in many different ways, it can be that you have highs and lows but your highs are about the same level as other people's lows, it can be that you go so low that you will never be able to explain it to someone who hasn't experienced it for themselves because there are not words to describe, there are not comparisons to make, and there are no common points of reference, it's off the scale and through the floor, it can be feeling nothing at all.  It can be many other things as well, but the only reason I wrote this paragraph was so that I could talk about the nothing at all part.

This is not, in any way, shape, or form, a good thing.  Losing the ability to feel is horrible.  It's like you're dead inside.  It's like whatever made you human just went away and left you numb to the world.  It's like you're not even a person anymore and can't even be bothered to care about that fact.

And, of course, we can get into things like the fact that it means all joy and happiness and good feelings died.

It's like you're watching the world pass you by through a car window and you can't interact with anything emotionally because the depression stops you as much as the glass stops you from reaching out with your hand.

Elie Wiesel talked about the opposite of love, beauty, faith and life* and if you imagine that crawling inside of you, taking hold, and becoming a part of your very being then you can understand why not feeling is a horrible thing indeed.

But, at the same time, keeping the world at emotional arm's length does have it's benefits.  They in no way counter the downside, but one would be lying to say that they're not there.

And they are exactly what you'd expect them to be.  A rock feels no pain, and an island never cries.  When you can't feel you can't feel bad.  You can't feel sadness or despair.

You're insulated from the slings and arrows of normal existence.

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Now I haven't had bouts of complete apathy in a while anyway, I've had things where I felt lows but no highs, or the highs were momentary but the lows came with both anticipation and long lingering afterglow.  But when you have a symptom you don't always have it full on, and feelings don't need to be deadened they can just be dulled.

Or maybe it's just the fact that when I'm sad now I can point to reasons, and they're good reasons, and that somehow makes it feel worse.

But whatever the reason, I've got a problem.  My emotions may well be working properly now.  I'm in a situation where properly working emotions would not lead to good feelings.  I'm sad.  I have good reason to be.

That doesn't really feel any better than depression.  I mean, I feel better when there are reasons, my highs are higher, the difference has been noticeable to others as well as myself.  When physically in classes (as in, not talking about out of class work) I'm doing well and feeling well and having fun.  But when left to my own devices, there are so many things to bring me down, and basically nothing to lift me up.

One of the diagnostic questions they ask to see if you're depressed is if things you usually enjoy have stopped being enjoyable for you or something like that, for years upon years I've been in a position where I don't even know how to answer because I don't even remember what I usually enjoy.

It's entirely possible the last time I wasn't depressed was in elementary school.  Somehow I doubt that the same things would bring me as much joy today even if I did remember what they were.

So, the depression may have been dealt with, but even if it has I have to face the fact that my situation is depressing.  So, an emotionally normal person, which I may now be, shouldn't feel good in it.

Yeah.

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*The quote:
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death.

It's been a year

So, I missed the blog's birthday, which was September 30th, but give or take a few days (is it giving or taking when you're late?) it's been a year.

So we've come from here (the first post) to here (this post) and hopefully accomplished something of value along the way.

Seemed like a milestone worth marking, so, I'm marking it.

It has been marked.

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I was going to end there, but it occurs to me that I actually have a question for readers.  Anyone have any favorite post(s) that they'd like to point to?  I'd be interested to know what you liked most.  Or found most useful, or whatever.

July 2012

General Stories/Ideas for Stories:
A Strong Delusion - At the dealership - Two characters from one of my original rapture stories comment on the oddness of business as usual taking place during World War III.  Inspired by Left Behind which does not have the easy explanation for why business as usual is taking place during World War III that this story has.

Ten reasons for vampires to attend high school - Exactly what it sounds like.

Talking time Travel at a Gas Station - Written in response to a prompt I misread.  Some discussion of time travel at a gas station because the time-truck needs repairs.

Possible beginning to a possible anthology story about ghosts - Person dies while playing a computer game, shortly after the gameworld dies when the game ends (lack of person leads to lack of player character defending self leads to game over) ghost of person ends up in the ghost of the gameworld.

Mech Story: Beginning - The beginning of a story (and so far all there is a beginning) about a future in which mechanically augmented individuals regain all the functionality, and more, of their replaced body parts but also end up with pariah status.

How to make your Zombie Apocalypse Team - a sizable portion of people coming to the site via google were wondering.

The Devil's Coat, overview - An overview of the idea for a story in which someone gets the money to save the family farm in exchange for giving the (not evil) devil his coat but unforseen complications end up landing him the job of ferrying the souls of the dead to Hell.  Which is nowhere near as bad as it sounds.

Unproduced projects and the fear of writing what I don't know - I've had various ideas for male-presenting person becomes happy lesbian stories.  I list fiveish in the post.  The reason I haven't really written any of them has to do with things that I don't know, not things that I don't know about transgender issues, rather things that I don't know about everything else.

General Twilight based stuff:
Some responses to Edward in Chapter 9 - The things Edward says are from the original text, the responses are from hypothetical Bellas of my own invention.

Manuscript e - What's in the Woods - Edward, who doesn't know werewolves still exist and would have been warned if other vampires were in the area, warns Bella to stay out of the woods because he's not always the most dangerous thing out there.  So, just what is he talking about?  Find out here.

Some thoughts on Edith's mind reading - Exactly what it sounds like, an Edith and Ben metapost.

It's not an SUV it's a Time Machine! - A short silly thing explaining the durability of the SUV that replaces the truck, and how the truck wasn't really replaced at all.

General Left Behind based stuff:
Skewed Slightly to the Left: WWIII at New Hope - Loretta and her underlings face the war.

From my slow trek through .hack//Sign:
These points of data make a beautiful line - Subaru returns to Mac Anu, bringing Sora with her.  This prompts a conversation between Subaru and the Silver Knight which gives me a chance to talk about various things included but not limited to Subaru's search for information on the larger flow going on in the world, the way that Subaru's interest in Tsukasa and said flow will change, and indeed invert, over the course of the series, and how the series relates to the larger .hack franchise.

How not to respond to a depressed kid's first success - Tsukasa, believing he trained the Guardian, contacted Mimiru so the could meet and he could show her the good news.  And it was good news.  It was his first major success, it made the game safer for everyone, it was the first that led to him expressing positive emotions.  Mimiru sent Bear in her stead and Bear demonstrated how not to respond to a depressed kid's first success.  Also I have more discussion on Mimiru not giving up and the peril Tsukasa appears to be in given the limited information available to the characters.

From my slow trek through Deus Ex:
Training - Part 10: Snippets of information - We end the training mission, six months after starting it.  A hall of holograms exists to give the player little snippets of information, I talk about all such snippets.

Other fiction related stuff:
Tron: Legacy as Season 1 of a TV series - I previously wrote that the promise of added depth would make me accept Tron: Legacy more if it had been a two hour series pilot (obviously modified to have a less final ending) instead of a stand alone movie.  In this article I consider a very different way of making it into a series.  Instead of rewriting the plot to make it into a pilot, it would be filled out to make it into a full season.  More characters, more perspectives, more time, more depth.  I propose episode summaries based on hastily writing down where episode breaks might fit into the movie during one viewing.  Ana Mardoll recommended this.

Under the dome, what I would guess it is about - Given the title and nothing else, these would be my guesses.

Something I like: Sahara - A list of things I like about the movie Sahara.

Other Stuff:
God provided the fireworks - On the fourth of July the fireworks were canceled due to the weather.  The weather was a very nice lightshow itself.  I meant to capture stills from video I took to add to the post, but I'd mostly forgotten about it so at the time of this writing it hasn't happened yet and thus there are just two pictures that don't really capture it.  And, of course, me talking about it.  Bunches of that.

Monopolies and the free market - On why, in a free market, monopolies tend to stay monopolies and the idea that anyone can start a business to compete with them doesn't really hold up as a reason for them to go away.

Botocracy no more - Selma Botman, the incompetent and unkind president of my university, stepped aside.

On Selma Botman stepping sideways - Some thoughts on the way she left the university and possible interpretations of it.

Image post: Pictures of Dragons - One picture of one dragon, modified in various ways.

On the temptation to give up and spend my life screaming profanities into the empty space - One of the things about writing the title before the post is sometimes the post doesn't end up reflecting the title as much as you expected.  More about what was going on in my life at that point in time.

Image post: Ana's Avatar - Ana mentioned my artistic ability with respect to the "Pictures of Dragons" post above.  As it happens, I'd spent the day before messing with her avatar in vaguely artistic ways.  So I posted about it.

Image post: Ana gets the Dragon Treatment - The vaguely artistic ways I had been messing with Ana's avatar were not the vaguely artistic ways I had been messing with the picture Ana commented on, so it seemed there was only one solution.  Another post in which I did to a picture of Ana what I had done to the picture of the dragon.

Boys make music, girls only listen, and other lessons from an unpleasant trip to Walmart - Ok, so, it was originally supposed to be about children in advertising and how, for no apparent reason, the matching ads for children's underwear indicated that boys make music, girls listen to music.  But between the time I took pictures of the ads and the time I got out of the store so much more had gone wrong.  (Customer service, Walmart does not do it well.)

Can someone who knows programming help me out with gimp? - question still stands.

It is Real - When you're interacting with someone on the internet, it is real.  They're a real person, presumably you are too, whatever you say or do to them is real.  This should not be so hard for some people to understand.

Music - Five bits of the music I listen to when I don't have the energy/motivation/ability to leave the computer to get a CD.

My hoped for future doesn't exist - A post about how depression, by preventing me from doing things sooner, has made those things impossible as the passage of time removed things that were key to such things.

Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice - How I go on.

Food Helps - The realization I'd been starving myself, and the effort to eat more, improved things.

Blog stuff:
April 2012 - An index much like this, but for the month indicated.  Wrote about my zombie apocalypse team, what the government can't do if it can have the individual mandate (twice) because apparently at least one US Supreme Court Justice has never read the US Constitution, getting my picture in the paper, spider plants, and more.

The Great Eye and I opened another shop - Want to buy a poster of a higher resolution version of the dragon from the "Pictures of Dragons" post?  Or a postcard or a mousepad or a... If I ever get around to making Stealing Commas merch, that's where it will go.  But unless you want a picture of a dragon, there's not much there now.  The post might also be of interest if you'd like to hear me talk about the dragon's eye staring at me for an extended period.

My Spam - Every piece of spam that was in the spamtrap at the time of me posting, minus, of course, the actual "Please visit [spam]" parts.

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The 'verse is moving

It is by now old news that The Slacktiverse at Typepad will be closing soon.

I don't disagree with the decision to close it, though I have strong and mostly negative thoughts on everything that led up to it.  I think the administrators there were badly mistreated, and that makes me sad.  When they withdrew I hoped that they'd someday return, that will not be happening.  I hope wherever they go, online or off, they find better times than they had at the Slacktiverse.

But for all others the question of what to do now remains, and it looks like the answer is going to be, "Go Here."  The Slacktiverse at Blogspot.  There's almost nothing there yet, as one might expect.  at Typepad doesn't close until the 15th, so right now there are actually two Slacktiverses, but the point is, moving.

Anyone who wants to keep on being at the Slacktiverse is going to have to get used to a new address because in the future The Slacktiverse at Typepad will be the frozen archives of all that went on there, and The Slacktiverse at Blogspot will be where any new things are happening.

So, grab the furniture, load up the van, we're moving.  If you're of the Slacktiverse, that is.  If you've come here by other means and have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, do consider stopping by sometime, but be aware that we are in the process of moving at the moment and take that into account when you consider the state of the place(s).

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There's a post I've been meaning to write for the Slacktiverse pretty much for as long as there has been a Slacktiverse.  Shows you the speed I tend to move at.  For another example, it's been years, I'm pretty sure, since I decided to shave off the beard.  It's just that doing didn't happen until this passed Sunday.  It always seems to be the doing where things get hung up.