The second of three sets I shot with before leaving DC is now up at That Bird\’s Nest. Go wank to your heart\’s content. I think it\’s probably my favorite of the three as I got to wear one of my ties… too bad I didn\’t get to tie it correctly, though.
So goddamn tired.
Bureaucracy is the same everywhere. I\’m not surprised, just dissapointed. Australian customs have been holding my medications for more than a week now. I spent every day last week stuck in the apartment, playing phone tag with one official after the next. Shipping companies, the American consulate, doctor\’s offices, customs offices, drug administration offices… I fear for what the phone bill is going to be like next month, but that\’s just the cusp of the matter. Tonight is my last sedative of any kind and I run out of Effexor in three days. I\’m also supposed to start this month\’s round of hormones tomorrow, but of course, they\’re held up in customs.
Full drug withdrawal from everything while my uterus continues to bleed. Sounds like fun to me. Oh yeah. Bring on the sudden severe mania. Bring on the drastic mood swings. Bring on the utter depression. Stain every last pair of my shorts with dark spots. Go ahead, motherfucker; you think I haven\’t been through all this before? HA!
I haven\’t slept properly in about two weeks. I really miss resting, real rest where the mind is at peace. It\’s just not working, though. Last night we went to this punk night — reminded me of high school, kind of weird — and despite digging it, I couldn\’t sit still and enjoy it. My mind was furious. I ended up coming home before midnight and cracking out at the server for four hours. It\’s really incredible how much I am able to get done when I can\’t sleep and am too wound up to do anything other than mentally productive things. I\’ve got MediaWiki up and running on there now. I\’ve been reading an XML book for fun — wtf? CassandraDisque.com is almost done, I finished the redesign for Secret Superstar but it isn\’t uploaded yet. The new Minxen.com is almost done. I\’m working on tohellwithpoverty.com still, but not as much as I should be. I\’ve got a bunch of new members set up on the server and the full set up for thecounterculture.org is almost done (but not public yet). Workity workity workity.
Looks are so deceiving. I\’m getting all this work done on the computer, yes, but my brain is totally fried. All my thoughts are contained within tag brackets. I cannot write a coherent or decent piece on anything. All I can do is sit there and tweak CSS2 for hours on end, staring at the screen and oblivious to all body signals of hunger, thirst, and the need to pee. I feel no pain. I know nothing but the mark-up language in my text files. But once I sever the mind-screen link, I become aware of my body once more. The incredible pain from sitting at a laptop keyboard for hours on end. Try to sleep and my mind whirls with all the things I could be doing right now and all the various styling tricks I could try to fix the one page that I cannot get to properly align right. Try and think about something else? What? Oh, something other than the 0s and the 1s? Right.
Okay… time to spend money. Yes, spending money, good. No — it\’s bad. Try and write but can\’t. Try and have a conversation and trip over the words. Try and read and can\’t focus on the thoughts. Try and get the blood flowing and collapse, exhausted. Can\’t do anything but slip my mind into the obsessive compulsive void of perfecting the perpetually flawed.
Now see, if I was actually good at computers and design, when I am medicated I would have an actual career. Instead, when medicated and feeling well, I can\’t be bothered with computer design because I know how absolutely lacking my skills are and how ridiculous it is to spend hours on one simple alignment problem. Hours, days — ney, whole years of my life have been thrown away, lost to the dedication of finding that one misplaced ampersand. And unmedicated — hey, I don\’t mind, because when I finally find that simple missing character it is like hitting an orgasm after three years of celibacy. But when sane… when sane, I know it is lunacy. Funny, that. And while I can look at myself now, from the outside, I can see how ridiculous this all is. But in here, working my ass off on the impossible, I am at peace.
Please, please, please, Australian customs, give me my medication before I relapse completely and lose two years of progress.
