Misplaced and excavated

I had another rough patch of which I might tell the most honorable readership later. However, I seem to have got over the worst bits, or I'm so utterly bored that I started cleaning. It requires moving things there and back as dust accumulates behind and between the random clutter and as it happened, I had a few other things on my mind, a few things I've been looking for. I haven't found those yet but I have, purely accidentally, located the following: The card for Kungliga Biblioteket in Stockholm. Not that I needed it but it's a pretty card and it may come handy in case I went to Stockholm again and it rained or something. It was in the box with old bills, tickets and various other pieces of paper I'm keeping for some reason. A box of yarn that included seven skeins of some Grignasco merino dyed in shades of blue. The Grignasco company went under, I hear, and I've been missing said yarn for more than a year. Not that I needed it although I did have a vague plan for it - I don't recall what plan, though. And a skein of mostly cashmere sock yarn (there are three more somewhere out there). Bag full of photos from my first stay in Italy some 9 years ago, from the predigital times. They clearly illustrate that one needs 50 shots for one decent picture, that taking pics in dark buildings is an utmost vanity and that I looked somewhat better back then. A package of anxiolytics located in an otherwise empty box. Not that I wouldn't have plenty but psych meds may always come useful. A sample of Lapidus' Envol perfume. The internet lore says that it's the same thing as Lancome's Envol but it is not, not at all. I have both now so I can debunk that one. Someday, not promising anything.

Getting out of the hellhole

My parents hardly say anything about my work beyond Do not think that other jobs are just okay all the time or Work harder. I'm not actually complaining too much in general (1) and even less to them. Yet, the other day, mom forwarded me a notice that Technical University of Civilized Town that there's an opening for a part-time teaching gig at the Faculty of Art and Architecture and prompted me to apply and not to tell dad. I shared the idea with my friends who voted unanimously for Go and try it so I found my diploma (not a difficult job, the big tube is hard to lose), got a credential and intended to write a CV. At which point I got stuck. A friend arrived to the hotel for two days. We landed at the bar, being served by one of the worse gossips, talked intellectual shit ranging from differences between Finnish and Estonian, Latin poetry and various geekeries. The waitress probably regretted not having elephant ears – I know she spreads gossip about me, or, well, downright lies, and now she'd have a lot of fodder if she only understood the difficult words or, well, the general point, such as when I was explaining the word 'vittu' and its derivatives and their use as curses in Finnish. Or Florentine epigrams (those guys at least spread the gossip in written and in verse, pasted to the public well). Or... whatever. Just the normal talk. The next day, the task was to get to the post office to mail the papers. Jean-Pierre graciously helped me to write the CV, or, to be exact, wrote it after he asked me about what I had done and such. My self-confidence keeps saying things like Oh, it's no biggie, it was just a grant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, anyone can get that. I basically felt as if I were polishing a piece of shit but J.-P. is an experienced academic nomad so I left it up to him. We walked through the woods – the other option was to wait for two hours until they open and then go to the local post office, hoping that they are open in the afternoon as well. Letter was posted and now I'm waiting. Actually, I do hold hopes. An opening is not advertised a month before the start of the academic year, which means that someone died or got pregnant with triplets without informing the department in reasonable advance and they need someone, anyone, with a certain degree of literacy, who would take said job NAO. Or, with about the same likelihood, the spot is kept for a friend of a friend and it was announced publicly because it's required by the law and I won't get a decent answer even. Whatevs. Now I'm waiting. ______________________________________________ (1) Should anyone want to point out that whenever I talk about work, it's all curses and screams with a recurrent theme of I want to get out of that hellhole!!!!11!1!elebenty!!!, as it is not too much, given the general crap I'm dealing with.

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.