The smell of cyanide in the morning

I needed the terrace cleaned. The good old things like hot vinegar, some chemical shit to remove calcareous deposits and copious amounts of scrubbing didn't help much so I got a bottle of industrial strenght something. It had all sorts of warnings (corrosive, will tear your heart and drink your blood, use respirator and hazmat suit etc.) and when poured on the crap, it reacted, producing a lot of foam and something relatively easy to scrub off. It kept dissolving sponges and brushes, too. While smelling of bitter almonds. I don't really know why, for goodness' sake, on perfumes, you get all the linalools and citronellals, which may be and often are constituents of natural oils, and on various household and chemical plant products say Less than five percent of non-ionogenic tenzides; acid. I want to know what caused the bitter almond smell, was it hydrocyanic acid or some smell-alike? I couldn't have enough of that smell, it was beautiful, weren't it for another acid smell, good old vinegar, or, to be exact, concentrated acetic acid, which came along. They could keep the acetic acid for themselves but I'd love to have a bottle of bitter almonds. Terrace cleaned, new gunk may build up.

Breakfast of champions

Yesterday I did some cleaning. Or, to be exact, minor cleaning whose main part was to pick wine bottles and food gone bad to take it to the trash. I can't say I actually suffer from anorexia as I don't suffer. I just don't feel like eating most of the time and mommy keeps sending me food. It's a season of strawberries, green peas and such stuff which doesn't last as long as pretzels do; I do my best to eat it all up but it just doesn't work. I have barely any appetite. In my old life, I'd - oh shit, I called this awful episode of depression and work which I still fail to like 'new life'? - I'd be glad that I'm losing weight. These days, I don't really care unless the clothes get uncomfortable. I can't even bring myself to be happy that one day, I'll feel fine in general and about my weight loss. Also, no need to worry about my wine consumption, I usually have a glass in the afternoon, and half a bottle once upon a time. I just don't take the bottles away often enough. Well, my apartment is cold and wet. I went through my newest herbary acquisitions and most of them, basically all the thicker plants, dried too slowly, with chlorophyll decomposing, and turned brown. Even the green ones weren't properly dried and got more or less crinkled when exposed to air slightly less wet than the newspaper. I'm slightly pissed which is good, any emotion than sheer despair and let-me-die-now is good, and I've always prided myself for the aesthetic values of my herbary. The office is much warmer and drier, I'll press my plants here. See? The stereotype management works. Yesterday I had a shower, even washed my hair, ate four tortillas with something, herbarized for a while... well, not really, I'm still short on clean clothes, reasonable food intake and keeping sane. Today's a new day. For breakfast, I had half a glass of wine and a dose of psych meds. So it goes.

At least something.

I got to the verge of nervous breakdown, got back on antidepressants. After a month, I'm back to a maximum dose of citalopram and I feel worse than what I had thought the utter bottom: the feeling that I should only plop down to the ground and be dead. Nope, I'm not suicidal, I totally don't plan to kill myself. Either I have too much of an ego or too much of a responsibility but I would feel compelled to clean up my table and files and that's a major task (see Augeas'stables to get a better idea). I'm just tired by all the things. I'm trying, though. I read somewhere reasonable that keeping the stereotypes helps to maintain normality, illusion of thereof, or makes going back to usual easier, or, simply, that it's good for you. Funnily enough, I've been managing most of work just about okay without falling to the ground staying fallen. The rest... not so much. So: (1) Brush teeth (2) Take meds - while I hang onto them as something that preserves last bits of sanity, I still keep forgetting (3) Put on at least mostly clean clothes - yes, finding a clean top/panties requires much more physical and mental energy than grabbing yesterday's one. (4) Brush hair thoroughly, not that it just looks somewhat neat on surface (5) Fluids (6) Fluids (7) Herbary work - I have a heap of pressed plants and a heap of erratic notes. My memory tends to fail when I'm depressed. The more I'm delaying it, the worse it will get. (8) Zazen - just because (9) Wine is not balanced diet. Even if I alternate cépages or years. Another sensible meal. (10) Third sensible meal. Anything made of two and more food items, of which one may be wine, counts as sensible meal for now. (11) Shower. (12) A little bit of cleaning at least. As for yesterday, I ate something (what the hell it was, is another puzzle to solve), took meds, drank two small bottles of water and took the trash away, for a total score of 4. Life rocks.

Flashback

I'm down with depression again. Next week I'm going to a book fair so I'll drop at the shrink's - haven't been there since around September because then I wanted to go on a day of sudden snow when traffic was stuck and after that, I got stuck at the damn hotel which ate all my nerves while I was running out of antidepressants. Last winter I needed stronger shit so now it's probably time for change of meds. Accidentally, Hyperbole and a Half published a piece on depression today. It seems that everyone has already read it but I'm linking it anyway. It sent me thinking, what was my shrivelled corn of inexplicable laughter... and I couldn't remember any such turning point. Well, maybe after my first bout of depression, which ended quite spectacularly (no fireworks or some such, just a nervous breakdown, suicide attempt and the general quiet and discreet spectacle of depression), I came to a conclusion that it's all in my hands, that I can kill myself any time I want, I don't have to live if I don't want to. Life framed not as compulsory but as an option became less overwhelming. No corn, no instant enlightment. I can related to the crumpled hoodie, though. It's all the same again. The last time, I fucked up my Ph. D. due to depression and resulting inability to communicate effectively. These days, I could only fuck up my job, which I probably hate, can't really decide as it's too hard a work. I should probablz go and do something reasonable. If I only knew what could that be.

Balkanized

After less than comfortable night, I got up early, packed my stuff as neatly as possible and hung around, feeling grumpy for no reason (some theorists say that one can always find a reason to feel grumpy but I'm of a pessimist disposition so I do not need to go reason hunting, for me, life sucks all the time unless specified otherwise). Then I learned that several people were robbed. I sometimes feel like the last just and reasonable person and having had a few unlucky experiences in my life, I insisted that the afflicted individuals go to the police. Nobody listened. El Mínimo Líder decided that we're a botanical expedition, we go plant-hunting, we have no time to lose with minutiae, generously ignoring popular whine. At the end, he decided that we'll talk to the campsite manager, let's wait when she comes to work. I mildly protested, saying that even if the campsite wanted to deal with it for one reason or another, which is unlikely, they need to have a police protocol for reasons of insurance or whatever else and that it would be advisable, regarding the time constriction, to go to the police straight away. We hung around for a while, the manager came, said Go to the gendarmerie and that was it. I offered myself to go along, having dealt with a few less than user-friendly institutions (I briefly remembered how I yelled at an officer who told me that I had been my stupidity to get robbed that while stupidity is what it is, it's not a criminal offence and none of his business, while theft is, so could he please proceed and do his job NOW, thankyouverymuch). I had also rediscovered my ability to speak French, not good French but workable one. At the gendarmerie, we got some photocopied forms to be filled in, or, to be exact, “you can fill this in outside or elsewhere, you don't need to be here, full stop”, with a photocopied stamp. Nobody at the station spoke decent English or any other language than French so it was somewhat difficult. After three rounds of explaining that for purposes of insurance and stuff, we need an original stamp, we were repeatedly told that On le fait comme-ça en France. I and Minister went to ask to the Police Nationale whether this is indeed how things are done in France. Minister called his friends in politics and diplomacy, El Mínimo Líder called the embassy with the same question and indeed, things were confirmed to be done this way in France. Meantime, we filled in our papers and went back to the Gendarmerie to see what happens. The gal, erm, officer, signed them and that was it. I'll ask the afflicted persons how it went with their insurance companies and authorities, as some IDs were stolen, too. It seems that there's a lot of petty crime going on and that nobody cares. I'd imagine that this is how things work in, say, Romania. I never dealt with Romanian police and I fully intend not to but one hears stories. One also hears stories that France is actually civilized. Oh well.

High expectations, high precipitation

It rains and rains, which plainly sucks. We got kicked out in Arles, too rainy for plants, good enough for sightseeing. I saw St. Trophime, tried to recollect whatever knowledge remained from the most excellent lectures on French Romanesque (which didn't work), got a postcard, learned that stamp is timbre in French (live and learn) and got lost. I yet need to see the map of Arles but I strongly suspect some urbanistic catch compared to Florence – Roman street plan with some unexpected alteration. Or, worse, my otherwise excellent sense of space is going the way of dodo. Also, Arles lacks mailboxes. The plan was changed, instead of going somewhere to Pyrennees-Orientales and then to Cape Creus, these two were switched as it should be beyond the mountains and warmer down south, which it was. Meantime, we stopped somewhere off Perpignan at a gas station for peeing, coffee and whatever. Someone checked the curb, found orchids and El Minimo Lider decided to take one hour of a break (we had one and half for Arles, by the way) to check plants. I got out, found some Allium roseum and a storm came. Within 20 seconds, I was drenched and my mood got down to absolute zero. Everything gets worse with wet feet. We got to the general area of Figueres. Been there some 20 years ago and since then, street signs and stuff changed to Catalan. I just need to learn this language, pity I didn't start back at the university, there was a handful of courses going on in our building. Or, maybe it would have sucked. I had actually downloaded a textbook back in January but had no time to study since. Next time. Catspotting: One tabby at a gas station somewhere in France. When I called her, she gave me a disgusted look and went away. One tuxedo, one calico, one red and white, all three of them pretty big, in a courtyard of a country house somewhere off Figueres where we stopped for plant hunting.

A long sigh of relief

The chaos on wheels which is one of my current jobs has been sorted out a little bit. We hired a few people so I don't need to do a job meant for five, actually, I can only do my shit and steer my deputy (of sorts) who is new to the place and needs (1) some of his enthusiasm culled (2) to be shown where things and places are. After a long and dreary winter, the cold white crap dissolved even up in the mountains. I was somewhat annoyed watching the brown plant matter emerging from under heaps upon heaps of snow, knowing that down back home where my first work and mommy dearest reside, there're crocuses and stuff in full bloom and I'm missing all that and when I'll get back up there, I'll miss the very start of spring as well. Now I should pull up a pic from my botanizing trip from, say, October, but it's stacked on a portable drive somewhere out there. No, I didn't have time to sort out pictures or herbary entries or just about anything. Life got out of reins, that's it. My dad had some long-standing health issues of somewhat unidentifiable nature which the honorable members of medical profession waved away as You're getting old, my good man, live with it, or It's idiopathic pain, we can't do anything. Or, the worst, You're just fine, it's all in your head. When dad got to a stage when he was barely able to walk, someone got the idea that leg pains might have their source not in the ankles but somewhere upwards, ordered a sCT of the whole spine and there it was, some bone growth that pressed on the nerves and wrought havoc in everything. The solution was a surgery ASAP, hopefully the guy doesn't get paralyzed meantime. The whole process of finding out took half a year and one of the consequences was that I got a bunch of keys thrown at me with an instruction of Run the business. The rest is hinted here. I'm not good with people. I'm introverted and insecure, with my negativist tendencies thrown in. I've worked in very intellectual environment... and I ended up trying to manage a bunch of people ranging from 'somewhat normal, working hard' to individuals dumber than a box of rocks, museum-worthy specimens of laziness and thieving scum. Admittedly, thieving scum might not be sheer thieving scum but chaotic idiots with a bit of theft and scummery thrown in but I don't want to know. I had to step away from the idealist view that all people, if they try at least a bit, can behave in a reasonable way, that they have manners, common sense and a vague idea of what they are doing. Wrong on all counts. I still need to learn that saying Could you kindly do this? doesn't yield anything, that I have to say or sometimes yell Go and do it now! and repeat it a few times. The worst thing... the guests. I know I know, a hotel can't work well without guests but I only have a certain limit of tolerance for people. Make it too long, too many, too willing to interact - and my brain changes into cortisol-laden jelly. At least the Food and Beverages Manager, generally known as Chef, is happily messing around and chattering. Most importantly, on Saturday, I'm going for a holiday. Two weeks of botanizing, folks. I'm terribly unprepared, under normal conditions, I'd already learned some Catalan just for the heck of it and made extensive notes on places and things to see. So far, I've noted down to take my copy of Polunin and Smythies and asked a friend to lend me a tent which I need to pick yet. I hope I'll gather up some energy to start blogging somewhat more intensively than as of late. (I was told that my writing style resembles that of Helen Fielding of Bridget Jones' Diaries fame; this certainly creates a sort of obligation.) There're plants, knitting, possibly some gratuitous cat pics, I kept a bottle of Guerlain's Dawamesk on my table for months before I moved it back to safe storage. I also should take a few shots, I somewhat got pissed with my hair colour and I've already booked an appointment at my hairdresser to do something about it. Which will be funny as I've worn the same bleached hair for some 15 years and adapted my wardrobe to it. Well, things to do, places to go, stuff to blog about. I'll try to be back earlier than in six weeks.