Fri Nite Videos

Just because I'm too lazy to think of anything else, and because I was bummed out that I didn't remember that it was Friday last Friday, you get Friday Night Videos. I've loved Fountains of Wayne since the mid-90s, when I was in a band myself, and not just because I lived not all that far from Wayne, NJ. When I heard "Bright Future in Sales" on the radio last year, I was beside myself. No video for that, so here's "Denise" -- which is not too shabby.



And this -- The Avalanches' "Frontier Psychiatrist" -- because, well, I'm crazy in the coconut. Plus, it's got a kitty in it.



Out here in Michigan it's all frontier psychiatry.

To which I respond with Nada Surf's lovely "See These Bones." It's got a camel.

Tracks in the Snow

Today it's rain, turning the snow to mush. But late last night I got to watch a small herd of deer--7 or 8 of them--poking around in the snow in our back yard.

Now I know what made all those funny circles of tracks in the white, white snow that had been such a mystery to me yesterday afternoon.

Since I've started talking about bipolar/depression this week (speaking, as I was, of circular tracks washing away in the softening snow of my thoughts), it occurs to me to tell you that Mr. O'Kitten has a blog. He's far more articulate than I am about it. So give him a visit at The Outer Rim Territories.

He also uses that cool "labels for this post" trick. I'm not nearly that clever. And video illustrations. It's nifty, just like Mr. O'Kitten.

And now to close, here's Isis in his room, looking rather cross.

I'm Twelve Today

So I'm Not Alone

It's amazing to me that when I have chosen to share with someone about my challenges with bipolar/depression (and perhaps it just reflects my cautious choice of people to open up to? but I believe that it's more than that), the person generally tells me that either they themselves or someone very close to them has also suffered from it (dysthymia/depression/bipolar).

I have told a few people by email over the past year, but I've also occassionally shared it with someone I've met, say, at the Spinning Loft or elsewhere, so it's not only online.

It one regard it makes me feel less alone knowing that I'm not the only one who has spent days, weeks, feeling paralyzed in bed (not to mention several hospitalizations), but it also makes me shudder to think how many of us have gone through this, have experienced such 'long nights of the soul' -- because it's pretty darn lousy.



As an aside, since so many of us also have cats, I have to say that at least for me the cats really help pull me through. It sounds kind of silly, but they don't care how much I sleep, or how down I feel, they just lay around and purr anyway. Hey, they sleep something like 20 hours a day themselves, right? I just find their furry presences so soothing, and their purring so healing.

But nothing changes the fact that this stuff is really, really hard.

And I'm 12 Today

Today is my 12th clean and sober birthday (or anniversary, depending on where you go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings). Hard for me to comprehend, since, in my drug-addled despair back in 1995 and early 1996, I had no expectations (nor really cared) whether I lived past 27.

Kurt Cobain (1967-1994), Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970), Janis Joplin (1943-1970), visual artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988)--I could name a whole host of fascinating creative people who didn't make it past the somehow magical age of 27. Why 27? I don't know. Just because. (Wikipedia even has an entry on this regarding musicians; see the 27 Club.)

But at 27, I got clean and sober, and haven't imbibed a drink of alcohol or taken an illegal drug since.

Of course, with all of the toxic stuff out of my system, it turned out that I had an underlying mood disorder; at 1 1/2 years sober, I was depressed, and was subsequently diagnosed with depression. A few years later, it turned out I was Bipolar II (and that's why the anti-depressants weren't working). It's been an adventure--that much is true.

Mr. O'Kitten has been clean and sober since 1999. We met at an AA dance in Manhattan in the summer of 2000. More of this story to come...with cats, of course.