Category: depression

twenty-twenty-five on speed

Posted on by admin

Is it just me, or is this year moving like a freight train whose throttle is wide open and stuck down?

Barreling toward an inevitable conclusion that can only be catastrophe?

I’ll admit, Bad Neighbours, being largely about conflict and unreality, about dichotomy and the endless fight of us versus them, it’s done a number on me.

I know, as a writer, you have to live in the space about which you’re writing. When I did Romance #1, it was fun and goofy, ironic and sardonic. Western Cradle was about trying to make shit out of suffering. The Mungk was months of exploration into trauma and hopelessness.

The fatalism nearly got me.

But I’m largely conflict-averse in my life, so this obsessing over the fight, over being at war, over being at odds with each other, especially in light of the world’s political situation, it’s anathema. And it’s bleeding into the rest of my life.

I’ll be glad when this is done, for more reasons than just completion and the pride of having finished it.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1794 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: East Wind: West Wind, Pearl Buck
Comics: The Seasons 6-7, Escape 1
Music: Everything To Everyone, Barenaked Ladies (this IS Canada, after all)

home again

Posted on by admin

I was praying for peace, but, uh, yeah. Nope. Sofi’s not well (hopefully overkill from the week gone), and coming home to no Isis, and Raiden (her twin) being weird.

It’s hard.

Why does everything suck so much all the time?

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1344 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Hammered, Elizabeth Bear (finally, some progress)
Comics: A Righteous Thirst For Vengeance 11, Deadly Class 56, The Sacrificers 1-2
Music: Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Various

last day

Posted on by admin

I spent much of the day on the water, trying to ignore everyone. I could float forever.

The sky was giant blue; there was beer on the shore.

My dogs seem tired, but happy, a little nervous.

The water is cool and refreshing. How nice it must feel to go deep.

Would that I could settle into a soft buzz.

Sadly, I don’t do drugs (anymore).

I do kind of miss them, though; just not all the shit around them. A whiskey to sharpen the edges, a cold beer to take it off. A nice glass of wine to sparkle, a long, low rum to get happy, man.

Nothing beats mushrooms.

Except mushrooms while staring at the great white North, falling into endless stars, rapt with aurora borealis.

I will miss here.

I hate the fields.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 256 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Hammered, Elizabeth Bear (maybe someday, maybe someday)
Comics: Deadly Class 52-53, A Righteous Thirst For Vengeance 8-9
Music: Essential Thorogood, George Thorogood & The Destroyers (oh fuck, did I ever need this, especially after that execrable Billy Joel - anything for a lifeline out of saccharine, talentless, mediocre tripe)

tomorrow is going to suck

Posted on by admin

I’ll have a lot more to say on that tomorrow, but suffice it to say, the day is going to be a real bummer.

The anticipation is almost worse than the act itself; neither of which makes me feel anything but horrid.

I’m so sorry, baby.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 701 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Rocket Ship Galileo, Robert Heinlein
Comics: Deadly Class 43-44, Death Or Glory 9-10
Music: Enter The Vaselines, The Vaselines

forty-eight

Posted on by admin

My health fights my ambition.

My depression fights my motivation.

I’m not sure which is winning.

Happy goddamned birthday.

I’d like nothing more than to go back to being twelve, with the knowledge I have now, and do things the right fucking way.

Then again, would I have all this?

Or would I have opted for the easy way out that time?

Would I have followed Matt into heroin and other hard drugs?

Would I have done something even dumber than the things I already did?

It is hell to be at war, whether it’s with others or yourself.

The dichotomy must die.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1562 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Comics: Deadly Class 23-24, Seven To Eternity 3, Black Science 26
Music: Emigre, Anti-Flag

last day of forty-seven

Posted on by admin

Tomorrow, I’ll be forty-eight years on this earth.

And given how my neck, shoulder and stomach feel today, I have lived all of them quite poorly.

At least, in all likelihood, I’m better than halfway through.

Closer to the end than the beginning, that’s for sure.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1307 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Comics: Seven To Eternity 1-2, Deadly Class 22, Black Science 25
Music: Elvis Presley Essentials, Elvis Presley (can't go wrong with the king)

the one day in the office

Posted on by admin

Yeehaw, called in sick Monday so we could take the grandbaby out for waffles, and yesterday was a stat day, so only one day in the office.

Now, if only my laptop bag didn’t smell so horribly like cat pee.

My life is one walking travesty after another, punctuated by brief moments of joy that I can barely enjoy.

Depression’s a monster.

The black dog sucks the joy out of everything.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 1888 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Agent To The Stars, John Scalzi
Comics: Black Science 10, Low 4-5, Deadly Class 9
Music: Electric Ladyland, The Jimi Hendrix Experience (so at least, I got this going for me)

day two – back in office

Posted on by admin

I still don’t like it, and there’s even more people here today.

Zero out of ten, do not recommend.

Work from home, kids, in any way you can.

Hell is other people, as a smart man once said, but it’s also the self.

Basically, we live in hell, the darkest timeline, whatever, the world actually ended in 2012, and we’re just lost in a collective nightmare where things only get worse, no one can stop it and we’re all doomed to live out our days watching things turn to shit.

This is why you don’t put the boy back at work; he’s less likely to spiral.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 1121 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Infinity Concerto, Greg Bear
Comics: Fear Agent 21-24
Music: Ed Sheeran Essentials, Ed Sheeran (fuck you, the kid seems like a dork, which is cool with me)

back to office

Posted on by admin

It’s every bit as bad as I thought.

At least, I’m in a side room, not the main floor, but my boss is right in the room with me (though she’s cool – a cousin of my wife, though neither of knew the other existed prior to me starting there – she looks like a younger version of my wife).

It’s weird though, so quiet. I feel like I’m breathing too heavy, like everyone is watching me.

It’s creepy, keeping my back up.

Hopefully, I get used to it, because otherwise, the background stress of being there is going to kill me.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 702 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Infinity Concerto, Greg Bear
Comics: Fear Agent 13-16
Music: Echoes, Silence, Patience, & Grace, Foo Fighters (why is every album so good? A deal with Satan, for certain)

on the verge

Posted on by admin

Tomorrow, we start this back to office program. It’s only three days a week, but I’m not sure how that’s going to affect my writing schedule.

Weeks were I’m in now tend to be struggles to find time, because of the extra prep and travel time involved, but I had two weeks to catch up if things went off.

Now… every week, possibly three days where I’m having to get up earlier or stay up later or drop other things I need to do in order to keep up?

Or worse, postponing everything to try and shove them in Thursday or Friday, or that other time that we’re supposed to have time but don’t, a weekend?

I am fretting.

Yes. Fretting.

Okay, freaking out.

I want this life, and I’m tired of fighting myself for it; I certainly don’t need the rest of the world piling on.

The Mungk left me hopeless, fatalist.

Bad Neighbours only feeds my anger.

I don’t need any more anger.

I have always had more than enough.

Fuck.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 611 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Almayer's Folly, Joseph Conrad
Comics: Fear Agent 9-12
Music: Echoes - The Best Of Pink Floyd, Pink Floyd (no shit, for real)