Meaningless, meaningless

Right. Just so's you all know, I've been diagnosed with depression. This mainly takes the form of starting to think about dying and not being able to stop. It's been just over a month so far.

Tom says I should just think how lucky I am to be alive and then go and have some chocolate. It sometimes works, but then I think about how I'd like to die laughing, or up a big hill with a nice view and that starts me off on what it's like to be dead, and it's all downhill from there.

I've read some Scott Peck. He says you can get over your fear of dying by losing your narcissism. My narcissism seems to have set up home and is planning on staying, thank you very much, and Scott Peck's dead anyway, so it didn't work for him, did it?

I think it's the physics/problem solving thing. Death presents a problem to me, and I feel like I need to solve it before I can stop thinking about it. But of course it's not something that you can solve, you just have to live with it, as long as you can and with your fingers crossed.

In the meantime I'm trying to find some friends here, and playing football, and going to Teapots and sometimes to church and talking to Tom about how I feel, because I know a large part of this is circumstancial and will get better if I make the effort to connect with people.

If anyone's ever read Douglas Coupland's "Life After God", the last chapter is pretty much how I've been feeling. It's a good, if slightly depressing, read (though I haven't read the whole thing).

Scott Peck quotes Carl Sandburg:

I am riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains of the nation.

Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people.

(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall pass to ashes.)

I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he answers: "Omaha."

Typing this made me feel better. 

Hello.

Feeling quite lonely most evenings at the moment, as I may have mentioned.  Phone calls would be much appreciated.  I will try my hardest to have something interesting to say.

Of course I could get up off my arse and ring you lot, but then I would have to decide who to ring first.

Fun things that I am looking forward to (maybe Rodg could add to countdown if he is still struggling for events):

• spring
• Teapots starting again (16th), though have just realised I'll be in London that night - dang.
• seeing Tom at the weekend
• graduation (27th)
• football on Wednesday
• doing my presentation in London next Monday, even if it is about boring shite
• spring
• going to Mexico with Tom in April
• spring
• sunshine (currently forecast for Weds)
  
• having a flatmate
• having friends
• getting O2 Active to work and downloading some Mp3s
• spring
  

I'm feeling very down today.  My desk is stacked with my possessions, ready to be packed up in boxes and removed.  Despite the trials of PhD and the social ineptitude of physicists, I don't want to leave this place.

The rain and gloom outside probably isn't helping.  Yesterday was sunny and I came back from staying at Jon's, following 2 nights camping in a field in Bristol and chilling out with Clare, Pete, Dazza and lots of other juggling folk.  I virtually bounced into the office, so happy was I to see everyone.

Tonight is work leaving do -- Elly is coming, as well as a bloke I met at Yohann and Magda's party last week *blush* and all the physicists.  I'm sure it won't live up to the expectations I've built up in my head, because it's been building up for too long.  I am desperate to be in a good mood tonight.  I'm counting on Elly to get drunk with me and encourage silly behaviour.  She's very good at that.

What I also need to confess is bothering me is that I can see no signs that I will get a leaving present or even a card from the group.  When Dave, Owen and Dan left at the same time last year we had a big presentation with wine, and even when it's individuals there's always a colllection.  I grumbled about this to Yohann earlier and he pointed out that it's usually me who goes around with the card and the envelope for money, and suggested that I start my own.  It's galling that no one can be bothered when it's my turn.  And it's not that I'm materialistic, seriously -- I just want the acknowledgement that I've been here and formed relationships with these people and that they may be just the tiniest bit sad that I'm leaving.

OK, so this is obviously really, really bothering me.  I think I will go and see Graham and tell him pointedly that since I'm moving on Tuesday I will come in on Monday to say my final goodbyes to people, see if anything materializes by then.

Ugh. Braindead. :-(

Couldn't sleep last night as I was stressed about the grant I'm applying for for the football club after one of our members reminded me that I needed his signature for it as well as that of an "independent person". Meant that I went home and sat up until midnight getting the form filled so that today I could go around getting the signatures.

Also I was stressed about not really knowing how the "Lab in a Lorry" experiments worked and worried about looking stupid in front of a class of year 9s.

Even Dean's lullaby-like favourite CD was no good. It relaxed me while it played then I woke up when it finished.

Then Magda and Yohann decided it would be a good idea to clomp around in the room above me, packing for their holiday in France.

Then I needed a wee and Magda was in the shower.

Finally got to wee and ended up getting asleep around 2 for a 7 o'clock start. Then talked to year 8s for 2 hours. Then went back to my office and made Dean come to early coffee with me (and Sergei who'd turned up because he didn't know what time coffee was). Then photocopied loads of stuff for the grant so it's all ready to go bar the sigs.

But now I am foiled again! The lad who has to sign it has gone to Braunstone for the day and I ain't biking all the way up there when I have to go to the Saff as well. And the vicar's phone is engaged so I can't ask him when he's free. Hopefully it'll all get done before the day is out, and hopefully not during afternoon coffee, which is Dean Time. Meanwhile I'm stressing about wanting it out of the way and not able to concentrate properly on my tedious work. Blah.

"I really like your company and I'm wondering if it's mutual."

Is that cheesy?

For some reason I've been feeling so demoralisingly boring recently. Not that life is boring, no - that I, myself, am boring. I can't think of anything even mildly interesting to say to anyone.

It's funny, I go through phases where I'm convinced I'm the funniest person on earth, where everything I say makes someone giggle and then there are times like now when it feels like there is nothing anywhere entertaining enough to pass comment on.

I'm forced to conclude that the boring periods probably correspond to periods of low alcohol intake. Beer is good for you! Or maybe I just need more positive feedback. Laugh at me, people! Or maybe it's just that there is a finite amount of hilarity in the world and I've used up my quota. That's it, no more humour for me. Worth thinking about, eh?

This is something I don't like at all. I'm at the stage where the soaring euphoria has worn off and I go from being a funny, happy, reasonably well-adjusted individual to being whiny and clingy, in need of constant affirmation and physical contact.

The thing is, I can't remember what comes next. By this stage I'm usually so annoyed with myself that I break it off, or get dumped for being whiny and clingy. The one time I have got past it was in what turned out to be quite a destructive relationship, which I really don't want to use as a benchmark.

I think part of this is the classic male/female thing, where it takes a while to figure out that in general for men quiet=contented, whereas for women quiet=upset*. I don't think I realised at the beginning that Roger really isn't a talker, that the constant e-mailing before we got together was him being really keen, and now he's got me he can relax. Which is nice for him but leaves me fishing for conversational gambits.

So at Sheffcon I oscillated madly between fun fun fun clubs unicycle Mill's mess trampoline handstands games friends and moping, wondering why he'd wandered off and why he didn't want to hold hands when we went for food and why he didn't say goodnight before he went to sleep in the corner. And then I cried at him, exhibiting my formerly suppressed whininess and clinginess. And then sealed my neuroticism by waking him up and nagging him until he moved to a better sleeping spot.

What pisses me off the most is that I've spent years breaking through negative female stereotypes to reach a stage where I'm respected by the men I work with for being a reasonable and intelligent woman. So why do I revert utterly to my gender's worst characteristics as soon as I meet a man I like? I hate the reminders that underneath all the layers of interestingness and significance we hang on our lives, we're just clever apes doing the reproductive dance that's had the same steps and the same music for millenia.

Makes me want to go read Ecclesiastes.

*Except for at Quakers. Ah, the soothing peace.