Erika's Bloglet

I have created a blog for our foster cat, Sponge.

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:01:50 -0600

I have created a blog for our foster cat, Sponge.
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Something in the basement, probably the boiler,...

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:41:15 -0600

Something in the basement, probably the boiler, occasionally makes a distinct video game noise, a fwhum! noise. I think it's used in Super Mario Brothers or something, maybe for going down one of those tunnels. Really the exact noise from some classic game, Tim will back me up on this. The first few times I heard it I thought I must be confused as to where it was coming from, because there are no video games in the basement.
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After a failed Windows 7 upgrade that got my...

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:55:53 -0600

After a failed Windows 7 upgrade that got my system into an unrecoverable state, I thought, what the heck, and installed Ubuntu as the sole operating system on my computer. And, wow. It is, so far, in every way a superior operating system to Vista. Installation including burning a disk in under an hour. And everything just works. My wireless card, which wanted special drivers in Vista. My fancy audio preamp. The printer. The external hard drive. I'm up and running with no installing anything, no hours of futzing. Nothing breaks when it goes into sleep mode. I have never expected Linux to be superior to Windows for usability. But this one is. Bravo, Ubuntu. Worthy of a "switch" ad. We'll see if there are any frustrations down the road, but the basics are absolutely smooth.
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Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:20:47 -0600

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Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:20:13 -0600

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Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:17:47 -0600

Beach today.

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I just opened a bank account and had to answer...

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:17:48 -0600

I just opened a bank account and had to answer multiple choice questions about where I had lived and my parents' birthdays. And get them right. Creepy much? Ok, fine, I accept that there are services keeping dossiers on me that know more facts about my life than I do, but that's just rubbing it in.
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Dreamt that I got a bee sting on my finger, and it...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:47:12 -0600

Dreamt that I got a bee sting on my finger, and it hurt. Not used to feeling intense pain in dreams. Odd.
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Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:01:46 -0600

rust continent

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Eggcorn watch: "to segway onto an essentially...

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:54:46 -0600

Eggcorn watch: "to segway onto an essentially unrelated topic" (found in the comments to this meta incendiary post that Liz linked to-- so possibly intentional, but still, a use for the segway, at last!)
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The cat is blaming me for the Snow Problem...

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:25:41 -0600

The cat is blaming me for the Snow Problem. He's asking whether I've fixed it already every ten minutes or so.
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Happy cold and snowy!

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:43:32 -0600

Happy cold and snowy!
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Pema Ch�dr�n & bell hooks talk over life and all...

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:21:16 -0600

Pema Ch�dr�n & bell hooks talk over life and all its problems. Great article, makes me interested in reading both authors.
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Unusual names with normal nicknames:...

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:48:18 -0600

Unusual names with normal nicknames:
Lizard (Liz)
Mallard (Mal)
Salamander (Sal)
Margarine (Marge)

I think there were more good ones but Tim started having low standards after a while.
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I am thinking about quitting my job....

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:57:06 -0600

I am thinking about quitting my job.

It's not something to do lightly, and it's not out of desperation. This is one of the better jobs I've had, and I think I could keep it going for some time if I had to.

The illness does relate, but not in the way one might think. It's not that work stress causes episodes. It's that I need to make some changes in my life in the general direction of better health and adjustment, and the ever-presence of the workweek consistently throws a monkeywrench into my attempts to make them. I think my employer would be quite happy for me to better manage body mind and spirit-- off the clock. But the clock is always there, always the need to do eight good billable hours every weekday, and that becomes just a whirlpool that I can't keep up with, so I go into survival mode, I'm out of balance, I don't make any progress on anything, and that hurts my work performance too.

It's not like I'm an automaton that just takes specifications and produces code, either. It's not like I'm some engine that if you keep it at the correct level of stress does good work a certain number of hours a week. I do good work when I'm motivated to do good work, and I'm motivated to do good work when I understand what the project is for and see that it is valuable and see that it is being done well and see that I can contribute my particular skills to it, and when I have the energy for it. I suppose management understands this at some level, but so much is geared around just getting the contracts and fulfilling them. The disconnect between that and anything I can personally recognize as valuable is not something that I think can be bridged in the rare frank conversation with higher-ups. And this is one of the better jobs I've had in this regard.

Is it fair not to work? Well, it depends. I mean, right now I guess as society sees it (or as my mortgage company sees it) I am doing the responsible thing. I am using my skills to do stuff people want done and getting paid for it in currency everyone recognizes. But as I see it, I'm spending the best hours of my day churning out projects of questionable value for people with no more expansive vision than the ability to secure government contracts.

I have the luxury of choosing whether to work, because right now my salary and then some is going into savings. True, the money is something, mostly for security. I think the idea that I need to work for money in solidarity with others who must work for money is worth considering, but not reason enough. I'm pretty sure I can be more supportive of Tim and less in need of support if I'm not working. If I quit my job and just screwed around and didn't do anything useful or take care of myself, yeah, that would be bad.

I can see that I could be doing better work than this. I don't think it's arrogant or idealistic to seek meaningful work. What people do with their time and talents is what gets done. More meaning is good. I don't think I have the same idea of meaning as other people do. It's not about the work being big or intellectual or saving the world or something. I'll have to come back to what I mean by meaning, it could take some time to explain. I want time to explain a lot of stuff, to get it straight in my head. That's another reason to quit, there's all this stuff I want time for. By work I don't necessarily mean paid work, or well-paid work.

I want to take off this "be sensible and fit in to corporate America" hat that I've been wearing a long time. It's never been comfortable. But there are reasons why I'm wearing it: wanting to do something that is understood and acceptable and doesn't need defense, wanting to prove I am mentally stable, solidarity with others, financial need, wanting to have some structure and social validation in my day-to-day life. The last one especially I will need to find ways to address still. I need reasons to get out of the house and interact with people.

You know, just about everyone is being sensible and fitting into corporate America, even though most people understand on some level that it's not working in a lot of ways. And that's actually really harmful. And it's mostly not knowing what else to do, and just wanting to get by. I want to start answering the question: what else is there to do? I know we can't all jump ship at once. But I need to start living my life. I need to take responsibility. All the shouting voices say that taking responsibility means getting a job. In this case, it's the opposite. I'm not thinking of it as a permanent shift away from any sort of employment, but a significant time away from the 40-hour grind. Maybe I'll frame it as a year. A year to get on my feet as a human being, and then we'll see what beckons.

Now I have to figure out how to bill this to bosses, co-workers, neighbors, and relatives without burning any bridges or sounding like I've really gone and completely lost my head. Unless I swing the other way, back into the inertial orbit. We'll see.
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awesome elephant picture. from here.

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:06:27 -0600

awesome elephant picture. from here.
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If you ever get a chance to go to the MIT museum,...

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:51:34 -0600

If you ever get a chance to go to the MIT museum, it's worth it just to see Arthur Ganson's mechanical art. Margot's Other Cat is especially good. Machine with Fabric wasn't at the exhibition, but was my favorite on video.
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The problem with all the scientific manipulators...

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:02:23 -0600

The problem with all the scientific manipulators is that somehow they don't take life seriously enough; in this sense, all science is "bourgeouis," an affair of bureaucrats. I think that taking life seriously means something such as this: that whatever man does on this planet has to be done in the lived truth of the terror of creation, of the grotesque, of the rumble of panic underneath everything. Otherwise it is false.

Ernest Becker, from "The Denial of Death", 1973 (out of an excerpt that was a reading for a book group I didn't go to).
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O.o.C.Q.o.t.D....

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:48:48 -0600

O.o.C.Q.o.t.D.

"It would be confusing if the stock market was suddenly afflicted by poodles. They would run around and yip."
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Been continuing to like thesixtyone, which Moss...

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:02:12 -0600

Been continuing to like thesixtyone, which Moss linked to a little while back. Odd thing, I actively prefer the junk bin setting of songs that other people haven't liked ("The Rack"-- their user interface is seriously confusing, and half of it is locked at first, be warned). I'm not sure what's up with that. Maybe just that I'm looking for stuff I really haven't heard before (like ok, Sigur Ros is great, but you know, they're on my ipod already). And maybe I'd prefer unstudied and scratchy or cheesy to polished and not-quite-there. Whatever it is, people seem to actually vote up bland radio songs (who'd've thunk it?). I'm imaginaryelephant on there, if you decide to check it out.
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Brother Blue died recently. ...

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:41:00 -0600

Brother Blue died recently.

I had the honor of meeting Brother Blue a couple of years ago, at one of Krysta's parties. So here I was, awkward, bored, not knowing what to do with myself in a house full of strangers. And this strange old black dude shows up, says he's a storyteller. He goes around the room, weaving everyone into this story, he looks me in the eye, and says something just based on the look of me, kind of offensive but also getting it just right, my awkwardness, what I'm doing there, my out of place-ness-- so I'm gripped, I have to hear what he has to say. He gathers a circle round and does some variation on a Shakespeare play, and it's like he's channelling something, out of this world. Then that story ends, and people start shifting round, and he can't help but be the center of attention, but now it's uncomfortable, and he starts drifting into his life story, poignant moments, complaints, and I feel bad that we can't be audience enough for him. Truly one of the great people I have ever met. May he rest in peace, or become one with the Bard beyond time, or whatever it is that would be fitting.
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To put a few words on the last couple of weeks:...

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:15:31 -0600

To put a few words on the last couple of weeks:

I don't remember it all. I don't want to. What I knew, or thought I knew, genuinely, I don't want to know, not right now. And all the swirls up and down through delusion, those aren't interesting either, and whatever insight was insight is not really separable from the delusion anyway.

One thing that I don't think is well enough understood about mental illness: there's a there there. The experience is an experience, a possible experience, a human experience. My experience. But the attempts to communicate it fail and fail, and there are reasons for that. I do not want to fully understand it myself. The past two weeks for me have not been time in the ordinary sense, time has not marched forward for me, but rather I have struggled through it, I have followed a thin line through incomprehensible space, twisting and turning in the labyrinths of my own mind, and only returned to shared reality through desperate struggle.

When I followed that thin line, every choice I made was right, in my own estimation. I dropped a rock into a fish tank and thought: this action will stand, if it is my only action, ever. Either that or terrifyingly wrong: this action destroys worlds. Either way, important, desperately important, in the calculus of my mind's profit and loss equation.

In shared reality, the rain simply rains and all the drops come at different moments and not only when I pay attention, and that is excellent. In shared reality, what I always thought was meaningless is still meaningless, and the meaningful is still meaningful, and time and space are plentiful and effortless, and people understand me when I speak. In shared reality, things are hard and annoying and I am not very powerful and mess up a lot, and that's fine.

I can say with confidence though that there was some quite real perceptual distortion. A bit of plastic meant to protect against door knobs fell off the door to the basement, and I saw it fly across the room, saw the arc, it was really odd. When I dropped something, I would see each bounce before it settled. I'm still having some heightened visual perception, like I watch movies and actually see the backgrounds and the characters at the same time, like having an extra eye, hard to describe how weird it is. Some of this I think is totally normal for other people, and it's just interesting to see vividly what it would be like to be in someone else's shoes perceptually, though I expect it will fade.

Mania is not so much about mood as is advertised. It is a disorder of sleep, metabolism, sense perception, time perception, motion perception, symbolism. Also, every episode is different, even if it's the same person.

I'm sorry for being difficult to deal with. If you had a sense that I wasn't aware of you or of where you were you or saying things that made no sense at all you were probably completely correct. I was holding onto reality by the thinnest thread, if at all. I was trying hard, but failing. In general, the best you can do for me is to stay grounded yourself. You can't bring me out of it, you can't make things much worse, and if I totally misunderstand it's not that you weren't expressing yourself clearly, and if I say something is really really important! it's probably not, except to me, and I might not remember an hour later, and if I say it's really about you! and I have a message, for you alone! don't take that too seriously either. I am really grateful for all the support I received this time around from many quarters, you have no idea how surprised I was by that. And I feel pretty stupid about all the stupid crazy shit I said and did.

I don't refuse medication out of stupidity or lack of awareness that this is a problem. It's more that I don't trust it as a solution, and have plenty of good reasons not to. When I'm having an episode I get really sensitive about trust and respect, and I don't always know who I am or who other people are, and it's true that those aren't always valid reasons to do something or not do it. But I am not grateful to be dashed back to earth. I would rather be allowed to find my own way, with such medical help as I actually require for my own reasons. There is work I have to do in order to be myself in this world and have a life worth living, you don't have to believe that, but you have to respect that I believe it.

It's a little like this: a farmer is having problems with wolves attacking his household. Someone says, here's the solution, let's put you in a cage in the sheep pen where the wolves can only sniff you and howl, not harm you, and drug you into a fog so you won't be too worried. The farmer is like, what the hell, listen, I know about wolves, I know what I'm doing, it's dangerous, and I need to be awake for it, you obviously have no idea what this is, leave me the hell alone, I have sheep to protect, that is my life, this is my farm. And then the committee of concerned villagers says, this farmer doesn't believe in wolves! And the farmer is just like, whatever, and strives to do everything within regulation so they have no excuse to force him.

This is just a start. I need to understand and explain all this much better, on a rational level, with connection to reality, not for my sake alone. I just want to say, you know, I'm back, at least for the moment, and the flame for me tends to burn out pretty thoroughly. If you want to know if I'm crazy at any point, just keep me talking, it should become pretty clear. Right now I'm coming down with a cold, and I'm tired, and I hope I can do some work tomorrow.
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Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:21:27 -0600

the cat has taken to jumping on the screen door to ask to come in.

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Erika's brain is gradually returning to normal...

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:05:02 -0600

Erika's brain is gradually returning to normal. Thank you for your patience.
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Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:36:54 -0600

1110091433.jpg

impossible triangle is possible. not.impossible triangle is possible. not.
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.

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:36:35 -0600

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Scratch that, what I meant was: ping.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:16:20 -0600

Scratch that, what I meant was: ping.
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...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:32:29 -0600

...
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i spit on kim jong il's grave. (here's to hoping)

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:57:13 -0600

i spit on kim jong il's grave. (here's to hoping)
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an enemy anenome amenity a manatee amity.

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:09:58 -0600

an enemy anenome amenity a manatee amity.
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