Tim Brough's Black Leather Bookshelf

I am stunned that it's already been two months since I got laid off from work. While there have been plenty of good things to keep me balanced (like getting to IBR and becoming friends with a fellow writer named Thom who has moved from NYC to Philly), overall I am fighting depression. I had to ask my doctor for anti-anxiety meds to keep me from flying off the handle. I would lay down to sleep and my brain would just take off like a motorcycle of disconnected thought. It's been damn near impossible to settle my mind before getting to sleep; ideas and weird, non-linear thoughts would literally feel like they were crashing around in my brain.

The other problem is, once asleep, I've been having seriously violent and suicidal nightmares. I see myself with a dagger driven through my forehead and out the back, or taking a pistol and blasting myself. (Please don't worry about my actually doing these actions, as they only seem to be haunting me in my dreams.) The anti-anxiety meds seemed to help for a while, but then the dreams came back on a regular basis. The other things the meds helped with was to, again just for a week or so, turn of the weird screaming subconscious voice that tells me what a worthless person I am in no indelicate fashion. It had been so long since my brain hasn't been screaming at me that I'd forgotten what a tranquil mindset felt like.

So when I came back to my "new normal" (I've been dealing with this since about 2000 or so), it was even more frustrating than ever. While Joel has been somewhat helpful throughout, I can tell he's furstrated that I am not working at some high level specialty position that he thinks I am suitable for. He also has a habit of lecturing when he thinks he's being conversant, and i tend to just shut down when he gets that way. The situation is not reached a critical mass as yet, and I am trying my best to insure it doesn't.

One of the actions I've been taking is to try and make the basement office (aka the Dungeonette) back into a working space. I have done a lot of writing down here, but atrophy and entropy have allowed it to become cluttered with the last eight years of living here. The process has been emotional and cathartic. (And has already broken one paper shredder.) One of the emotional parts has been taking all the old Butch Media paper work and throwing out that which is non-personal, and using the shredder on all things including personal or financial information of me, Peter, or any Vulcan America/Butch Media customers. It took days to complete this task, and a few tears. Vulcan published its last mag in 1999 and I took the website down in 2003.

Once the paperwork was destroyed, the last thing to go was my Apple PowerMac, purchased at a Sears in Los Angeles in 1996. (I still had the receipts.) It has been sitting on a table, pretty much unusable, for 5 years. The last thing I did with it was to transfer files from the Vulcan archives to my current machine, and then to formulate much of the material into the book "Skin Tight." The PowerPC was then blanked, and tossed into the recyclables. With it, just about 10 years of activity went off to the junkyard. Like I said earlier, emotional yet cathartic.

My dad is recovering from his heart surgery, which is good. He's a strong old goat, and I hope I've inherited his repetitive genes. However, he is recovering at my older sister's home, and that woman and I have such a toxic relationship that, when she attempted to use this moment as a weapon against me (and my younger sister, I should add), there was a final rupture in the Brother/Sister relationship. Dad is now aware of it, as is my Mom. (The full details would take a lengthy post, which may or may not appear at a later time.)

I promise to return to a more disciplined writing schedule soon, as my daily musical posts have been less frequent through this period, and frankly I use them as brain exercises. And again, please know that while I am dealing with the depression, I am Okay overall. I just needed to vent and LJ seemed like a good place to type it all down.

The complete set can be found through the clickie.

Many awesome folks and LJ types to be seen!

Visiting The Grandkids!



More pics through this Linky..

Joel has developed a cat allergy, and we love Sophie too much to give her away. So she now gets special cat dander shampooing.



More fun under the clawie. Clickie.

Joel and I went to Albany a couple weekends back for the Baby Naming ceremony for Advah, our second granddaughter. It is Joel's daughter's second child. Lotsa and lotas pics under the linked picture.

My Uncle Mike succumbed to the Cancer that has been in him for almost 5 years late Tuesday.
Father, Brother, Grandfather, Uncle, great friend. That's his oldest grandkid. He leaves behind three daughters and three garndchildren, the newest of which was born in June. His wife Carole passed in 2000.

To me, Uncle Mike was an inspiration. I ran for Class President in High School after he won a City Council seat in the mid-seventies.
 

I have a movie shoot in Austin this weekend. It's gonna be tough. This is the second family member to have died this year, following my Uncle Rick in April and Uncle Mike is the first of the Gallagher brothers and sisters (my Mom's side of the family) to leave us.