Whoa

Drop off the Internet for a while, and Blogger goes and changes everything. Don't get me wrong, I like the switch. But it just makes diving back into a connected life seem more...monumentous? So, uh, thanks go to Blogger, I guess, for making my return feel all the more spiffy.

And why exactly was I gone for so long? It's not as if I'm really busy or anything. Well, sleeping until 9 or 10 and then playing Final Fantasy X and X-2 for twelve hourse straight does have a way of eating up your schedule without you realizing it until suddenly two weeks have gone by. Yes, meet Kellie the Industrious Unemployed Writer/Scientist/Jill-of-all-trades-if-it-will-get-me-a-friggin-job.

So about a month ago to do the day, I had a Cooking Accident that resulted in four stitches and the start of a minor depression. I had enough going on with Human Dignity to keep me from admitting that I was getting a tad depressed. And then I started my Final Fantasy binge, which resulted in my further denying that Anything Was Wrong. To be fair, I started the binge in order to keep from over-analyzing everything in the days leading up to and just after my two interviews. Seemed like a good plan at the time. My writing projects were all in beginning or end stages, making it hard to just sit down in front of the computer and let the words consume me. (It's funny: I hate writing the middles of books, but being in the middle of the book is the easiest time for me to immerse myself in a project, apparently. Or perhaps I'm just a big-ass font of excuses. Methinks the latter.)

Why did the Culinary Incident kick off a depression? Mainly because it was a noticeable blip in the system. My first week of unemployment went fairly well. I was working out everyday, pounding the Internet pavement with gusto (I'm still pounding it now, but it's rather half-hearted), working on my books, staying connected with my on-line haunts, and just in general eager to make the most of the time I was going to have unemployed - however long it should be (and I really didn't think it was going to last much more than a month). Then I sliced into my finger and was out of commission from a surprising number of things: writing, swimming, holding anything resembling a weight for my workouts. Pain was a big issue as was general dexterity (which wouldn't have been such a big deal had I decided to mutilate my pinky or any finger on my left hand; but no, I had to hack into the middle finger of my right hand, and right by the spot where a pen rests when I write). Seeing as how I had decided to write away my unemployment, the Can of Peaches Pop-top From Hell proved to be an extremely cruel foe. And then all the job leads started to crumble, not helping anything.

I actually kept any sign of depression well-hidden. Sure, I wasn't happy for most of April. Sure, I spent a lot of time thinking I was never going to find gainful employment, that a certain former science boss had been right and that I was Dumber Than Shit. Sure, I overanalyzed every dark corner of my self and decided that Mark was either a saint of an idiot for sticking with me even this long. And sure, I'm even being overly dramatic in describing how melodramatic I was in my not-quite-depression. But it wasn't until I started sleeping ten hours a night and wanting to sleep more that I realized just what was happening.

Mark's got this great ability to just tell himself that he's being stupid about something, or that general sentiments about something are just dumb, and the problem is solved. He's determined that his thought process was wrong or just unhelpful, so it's immediately fixed. Anytime he starts down the path of these thoughts, he remembers that he realized it was stupid, and he stops. I'm hoping that I'll learn this neat trick from him at some point over the course of our marriage. I'm only beginning to understand how it works for him. But it's painfully obvious how dumb all my self-pity and depression is. "Dumb" doesn't mean I'm dumb for succumbing to it. But it's dumb to continue it, and I don't like to do dumb things. So off I go on the Road to Wellness.

Starting now, I will not just give up on myself. I will get my revenge on that infernal Pop-top. And I will not let some idiots in Corporate America - who thought they could save a shit-load of money by axing me and a bunch of others - determine my worth. Good. Glad that's done. Now where's the chocolate and Playstation 2?