Zoloft Blob
October 24, 2003

I keep seeing that Zoloft commercial. I’m house-sitting for my mom -- so enter cable television again. Dozens of hours have swished themselves away into the toilet of my life. And during the flushing process, I keep seeing that Zoloft commercial.

I hate that commercial. The sad little blob pops some Zoloft and then: Poof! The sadness goes away, replaced by an upset stomach, trouble sleeping, diarrhea, dry mouth, various sexual side effects, feeling sleepy and agitated at the same time, slight tremors, indigestion, sweating, and less appetite. I could really use that last one effect too.

Yeah, so I definitely think I might need Zoloft. I feel like shit. There’s no reason for it. I have a great job, at a great company, working on a great team with a great manager. I make lots of money. I work from home. Last week my team lead asked me if I’d like to be considered for the lead position when he eventually moves on.

But this week, I don’t feel like working. I don’t feel like writing. I don’t feel like reading. There may be a new love interest in my life and I’m not pursuing it like I should. I’m fucking up work again; I was supposed to work all night yesterday and I thought it was tonight, so I missed it. “Idiot.”

I’m going to Vegas in December with Shack. I have a great Halloween costume in the works, with the theatrical contact lenses and custom made fangs -- the works. I just bought a house. I have a circle of friends again. I put a Gig of memory in my A31 Thinkpad and now I don’t use my desktop anymore; I’m so portable and I love it! The trip to Salt Lake was great. And I’m supposed to be the Maid of Honor in my best girlfriend’s wedding.

Still, I feel like shit. I’m not excited about any of it. What I would like to do is perhaps lose myself in an online game like Everquest again. Maybe restart an Anarchy Online character. Eve looks fun. Everquest 2 should be out soon… I’m so addicted to video games: a real bonafide addict. That’s why I can’t play them anymore. But it sure is nice when you don’t have to think or work AND you still feel like you’re accomplishing something -- not to mention a sense of magic or wonder injected into your life.

What I’m doing instead is buying lots of books. This is from the last few weeks; not that I’m reading any of them, mind you:

Nebula Awards Showcase 2003
In Her Shoes : A Novel
Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature
Dude, Where's My Country?
The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists
Rock This!
The New Brain: How the Modern Age Is Rewiring Your Mind
Everyday Grace: Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness, and Making Miracles
Why Girls Are Weird : A Novel
Blue Shoe
Poems to Read: A New Favorite Poem Project Anthology

Buying them makes me happy. I don’t really have the energy to read them.

Maybe it’s not that I’m insufferably lazy. Maybe I need happy-medicine. If I were the little Zoloft blob I wouldn’t feel bad about feeling bad: “I’m a blob! Ew, I touched me!” But I’m not a blob. Not yet, at least. So I shouldn’t feel so worthless.

I hate myself for being so lethargic. It’s a downward spiral. And I’m getting hyper-irritable too. It doesn’t help that there are so many incompetent people in the world. You’ve all seen them. They’re the ones that make you sometimes stop and go, “Huh? Are you serious?”

Take yesterday, for example. One of Mom’s neighbors was blaring the Doors. I hate that. It was hard to be too, too mad because he didn’t have the bass cranked up -- so in the house I was safe. And I love the Doors anyway… But it’s so presumptuous and inconsiderate; I managed to be pissed off anyway. Going out for lunch, later, I made a point of driving passed his house just to look at him. Somehow my subconscious always tells me I’ll feel better if I can just give him one, hard, look.

Here’s what I saw. This guy had the Doors playing, full-blast, in his MINIVAN. Whisky, Tango, Foxtrot, Over? It was weird because the minivan was parked in the middle of his yard. I thought he might be fixing it, before I suddenly saw the ludicrous truth. He was HANDWASHING his MINIVAN while blaring the aforementioned DOORS on the radio. Dude! Jim Morrison really would not have approved. Really. And since he can’t be mad at you, I’m going to be mad for him. In fact, I might even run up, grab the tape, and break it into pieces while screaming, “I’m the Lizard King!” If I wasn’t so depressed, that is.

I want to be a happy blob and chase rainbows.

So that’s it. I have that emotional release that says it’s time to stop this one. There is too much to write, as usual. A couple weeks ago I slept with someone at the coffee shop who is 18 and turns out to be a little crazy and who freaked out two days later, in the shop, when I started talking with woman with whom I’d had a correspondence on the Internet for several weeks. We’d never met before, so it was rather appropriate to talk with her, and the affaire two days prior, I thought, was just a casual thing -- since I wasn’t the first or last person she’d hit on that night, or since. Anyway, it was really funny because as I was talking to both these people, Ashley walked up, out of the blue, with a vase of flowers and handed them to me, with no introduction. We’d talked a couple weeks prior about neither of us ever getting flowers, so it was a very nice gesture. And even though she was with her girlfriend, there is something about me and timing… Single for so long and then, SLAM! But I’ll write about that later.

[Note, that at this moment, following an hour conversation with my said, possible romantic interest, I’m not depressed. But I’m posting this anyway…]