Ton of Bricks
I don’t know what the hell happened yesterday, but by the time the dim sum I had for lunch was in my belly, I was ready for a long nap. I hit the sack around 4:30, and didn’t wake up until almost 6:00. Ever since then I’ve been inexplicably depressed, obsessing over the same things I always get hung up on while I’m plumbing the depths. What’s weird is that usually it takes something to set off the crash: this time it was for no apparent reason. No real reason at all.
It was a great relaxing and productive weekend: the food dehydrator Christina ordered arrived, so on Saturday we picked up 25 pounds of peaches at the farmers market to dry and to can. The dried peaches are delicious, and while I haven’t had anything from the cans yet, the peach butter is the best thing I’ve ever tasted. I don’t know why I’m depressed.
Before the canning and dehydrating started in earnest, we spent a few hours in Lower Merion: my friend Wendy’s neighbor has an in-ground pool in her back yard and we were invited over. The water was lovely and I spent the brunt of the afternoon floating in the water and reading lesbian crime fiction. It was a wonderful time. I don’t know why I’m depressed.
That Saturday evening, my friend Jim and I finally got the ceilings repaired on my second floor. When I moved into to Chateau sur Schuylkill, I had this idea that I would build a ladder and trap door to our flat roof (I still have this idea actually). The guy who did my roof came by and cut some holes in the ceiling where a ladder could be built, then promptly disappeared. Through inertia and plain old reluctance to take on a project i wasn’t sure how to complete, the ensuing holes remained for the next 4 years. Fixing them turned out to be simple and easy: the whole job, including the previous day’s trip to the home depot probably took no more than 2 hours. Then we partied. No reason to be depressed. We weren’t even out that late. Watched some Flight of the Conchords on dvd.
Sunday morning was relaxing as well. Bopped around the house and went out to dim sum for breakfast. In retrospect, that may explain a lot: it was a pork-shrimp-and-starch fest, followed by a trip to Trader Joe’s and a stop at Pathmark. After arriving home I crashed out, and when I woke up I was in a pit. There’s really no reason for this to have occurred to begin with, but once in the pit, things went from bad to worse. My ankle and instep had been aching all day, as if i bashed it on something, but I hadn’t gotten that kind of drunk at anytime during Friday or Saturday and there was no bruise. Since about 3:00 yesterday I have had a pronounced limp.
By 10:30 PM or so, I was beginning to think my bad mood might have something to do with being home all day, so I told Christina I was stepping out for a beer. “Are you sure?” she asked. “It’s kind of late…” I looked at the clock. She was right, and besides I knew if I went to the bar I’d just sit there looking at my reflection in the mirror drinking and thinking too much. “I was kinda hoping for some hanky panky,” she added. I was in the mood too, hemmed and hawed for a few minutes and finally said “I’ll just get a six-pack and bring it home.”
I was in the Best Haus (formerly the Wurst Haus) when Sam’s mom’s best friend from college walked in. I wouldn’t have noticed her, except she made a point of saying “Hello Mr. Brendan F. Skwire. How are you?”
I turned to see who was speaking to me, and when I saw her face my mouth and jaw hardened into a grim frown. “FINE,” I intoned. I am not going into old history, but this young woman had made it her business from day one, including through the pregnancy, to make her opinion of me quite clear to Sam’s mom, who she also lived with. This continued through the two years that Melissa and I were separated by geography.
Now I’m not saying I was some kind of model of the perfect provider during Sam’s first year: I was unemployed and taking any job i could to pay the bills, including restaurant work which after 18 years in kitchens I vowed I’d never return to. But that was between Melissa and me, and no one else had any business telling us how to run our affairs. I was doing the best I could.
Seeing this loathesome meddling troll, who has had such long-term negative impact on my life, dredged up the worst of the past four years, pushing me further into the pit. I was angry at myself for not telling her what a piece of shit she is, and felt worse that I didn’t tell the guy at the register that she was shoplifting (she wasn’t so far as I could tell). I came home from the Best Haus in the Wurst Mood, and by that time intimacy was pretty much out for the night. I rolled over and tried to sleep, but between the 2 hour nap, my throbbing ankle, and my ruminating mind, I slept fitfully at best.
This morning, I woke up feeling better, but almost from the minute I stepped outside the house, things went downhill. My ankle was still killing me: i’d taken some ibuprofen at 3:00 AM to dull the pain, but by 9:00 AM it was wearing off. I decided to give my foot a break and drive. The Schuylkill Expressway was busier than usual, and I soon found out why. The entrance to the Vine Street Expressway, my direct route to work, was closed for repairs. It took over a half-hour to reach the next exit, which was only a mile or two down the road, thanks to the inevitable traffic jam.
I arrived at work to find not only that the internets were down, but a grant I’d had nothing to do with had been lost by the office that received it. It was a substantial sum, and handled by the state: I was tasked with resubmitting online, which had to be accomplished by the end of the day. Long story short: it’s done and I left work early to get my shit together.
Now it’s nearly 10:00 PM. I ate a little dinner,, went down to the bar for a few, and now I’m finishing my blogging. I’m still depressed. I hope it’s over soon. There’s no reason for it, I’m done with it, I have no time for it.
I understand why people self-medicate, I really do. I don’t know if what i have going on right now is depression or not, but it sure feels like what depression must feel like. But it’s not there 24/7 for me: I don’t want to numb my shit day in and day out to stem off these occasional valleys I find myself in. If they’d only make something not-illegal that leveled you off when you need it, you know? Something not addictive, something you could take like ibuprofen for a bum ankle.
What a fucking pain in my ass. That’s all it is, a pain in my ass.
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September 6th, 2008 at 10:52 am
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