I hang my head in shame - but smiling

I had a curious 36 hours - emotionally. As noted previously, I am now running on unleaded having by now detoxed from my anti-depressants after about 7 years of their faithful service.

So far, so good.

But on Wednesday afternoon, I suddenly went from feeling fine, to feeling remarkably flat. A downward spiral that took about 10 mins to achieve. Oh there was a trigger. A very bad bad man. For the next 24 hours, I felt a general malaise. But then last night, I went to a girlfriend's place to do some applique (DO NOT MOCK ME!), and she desired to watch some television.

Within minutes of watching the as yet unnamed show, I was feeling a smile radiate. I was downright chipper. In fact, I began to smirk. Then laugh. Before I knew it, I was guffawing. (NOTE: For your own safety, do not laugh hysterically whilst holding sharp objects.) By the end of the show, I had tears - of laughter - and felt immeasurably better than I had in days.

The show, I am loathe to admit, was "The Footy Show - AFL Grand Final Edition".

Oh the shame. At this rate, I will be watching "A Current Affair" to catch up on all those pensioner rip-offs etc, and enjoying it.

Your help for these dire times is most appreciated.

Unrequited Love

I was directed to watch a documentary some nights ago by R. It was on quite late, and probably wasn't made so recently to warrant a prime time slot. But it intrigued - so I watched. Ostensibly, it gave the impression that it could indeed be a documentary about myself. It was titled "Fag Hags: Women Who Love Gay Men".


But this was not about women who loved gay men. It was about a few women who were IN LOVE with gay men. I think it screams a lot of a case of pot calling the kettle and so on, but these were women with ISSUES! There was the woman who loved gay men so much that she started her own interest group, for fag hags to get together. There was the woman who married a gay man, after he was so scared of AIDS during the early days of the epidemic. There were so many women who seemed to be in love with these men to avoid forming relationships with available men.

I thought to myself, I am nothing like these women.

I have gay friends whom I love and adore. But not because they are gay. Simply because of who they are. Their sexual preference is of no consideration to my friendship with them, and certainly does not make them any more of an attractive option as a friend than any other person. Persons who are my friends, whom I love, are friends no matter where they put their pink bits.

Of course, where I am similar to these women is the fact that I seem to fall in love with unavailable men. And that DEFINITELY has something to do with them *not* being gay.

(Ab)normal functioning

Whether rightly or wrongly, I have recently stopped taking my anti-depressants. I have attempted to go off them in the past, and have usually found that I quickly realised the error of my ways. This time, I hope it is for good.


I didn't mean to go off the drugs, but I kept forgetting to take them, and when I did, it was every other day or so. So I figured that it was only a small step to eradicating them altogether - so why not! Up until a few days ago, things had been going well. I congratulated myself on breaking 7 years of artificially enhanced seratonin levels. But now I am in a dilemma.

A few things of late have pissed me off. A few other things have made me cry. I have noticed that my tolerance of things is reduced, and I am seem more prone to an emotional reaction. So what I have to ask myself now is - is this normal? Am I so used to having my moods somewhat levelled out (yes people, the dramas of the past few years related here have all been under the assistance of drugs - and are therefore more moderate than they could have been - scary isn't it?) that I don't know how to function with normal roller-coasting emotions? Should I still be on the drugs because roller-coaster emotions AREN'T normal?

I am going to try and ride this out and see if I can function. To illustrate how crazy I feel at the moment, I actually smacked Isabella the other night for some annoying and pretentious behaviour. Me. Smacking my angel. Unbelievable.

So - consider yourselves warned. This could be a bumpy ride.

Who am I?

Yesterday at work I was relaying the joy of my new purchase to work colleagues. No, it was not a pair of shoes, or even a handbag. It was a PVR. For those of you who are techno-illiterate, it stands for Personal Video Recorder, and has dual digital TV tuners and a 160Gb hard drive and completely rocks.

After much struggling, and bemoaning ("Two fucking physics degrees - surely I can connect a stupid fucking TV together!", etc), I was enjoying new and improved clarity, recording shows onto the hard drive and marveling at yet another toy that I had purchased.

So, after my glowing reports of this new found joy, I was asked, "Are you sure you aren't Generation Y?".

Now - this of course led me to a bit of research. According to Wikipedia, Generation X is the generation spanning those born between 1964 and 1979 - an age range which I can assure you I most definitely fit into. But funnily, it then went on to say that Generation X-ers were notable for their "stereotypical reputation as apathetic, cynical, disaffected, streetwise loners and slackers". This is a description that I think hardly fits me. Although, conversely, they they then go on to say that "Generation X is noted as one of the most entrepreneurial and tech-friendly generations in American history". Now that is more like it.

As for Generation Y, which loosely follow the birth years of Gen X-ers, up to approximately 2000, there seems to be little to exactly describe this group. Perhaps as their influence is more fully felt within the community at large, we shall understand what it means. They are collectively described as rude and rebellious, but more appropriately, they are reactionary and are more likely to think along the lines of "an eye for an eye" philosophy. They are accused collectively of bad spelling, poor grammar, and no respect of authority. But they universally are the purveyors of all modern gimmicks. Studies done have shown that in this generational category, the use of computers, mobile phones, MP3 players, instant messaging, on-line information sharing, blogs(!) and forums such as Facebook are not only common, but the norm. And it is into this part of the definition that I most clearly identify.

So it seems to me that there maybe Gen X and Gen Y - but it seems that there is something more. There are those of us who are Gen X in our birth years, and perhaps in our earlier years we were the rebellious slacker youths (hell - we gave John Hughes his entire early career by relaying our angst!). But now we are technophiles who fill up our, perhaps, empty lives by gimmick after gimmick. Electronic toys (of the non-adult variety) are our passion and our distraction.

So what generation are we that fit in between? X and a half? Gen i - for all things Mac? Suggestions please!