Mar 31

 Slowww sticky day today.

Today it's mostly a mental health issue. Not withstanding the usual clown car of physical bullshit going on in the background.

Didn't want to get up today. Had no reason to get up today. Everytime I woke up I was tired as hell.

No joy, no plans, no need, no one cares. Just. Go back to sleep. And oblivion.

But sleep is a tricky thing for me these days. It can just as easily fuck me up as help.

Work laptop broke yesterday. It's been increasingly shitty for a while. The power input went bad on me again. Third time. And as ever I replaced it. Except this time on opening, I found out why the laptop sometimes hasn't been closing right. Broken hinge. Right on the power input. Which makes the power input wiggle and fucks it up even faster than it usually does. Meh. Well. Ok.

Then I looked at the other hinge. A big ole crack in it. Probably from the increased stress due to the other one doing no job at all. Oh. As I looked at it and wiggled it, it finally gave up and broke too. Two broken hinges. And it managed to snap off the wifi as well. Because. Of course that's built into the hinge in a genius bit of shit design.

At that point I figured the laptop had had its day. Done. Time to get work to get me a new one.

Fixing it would be a pain in the ass. Even though technically most of it is sound. With time, some specialised tools and a lot of effort you could fix it back up again.

I tend to use laptops hard. They get hammered. 7 days a week. More than 8 hours a day. They get carted around, travel about, thrown here, placed there. And I push them cpu wise, because, I'm often doing burny things.

So they get a hard life. At most they last me about 5 years before they collapse from exhaustion. It's not a great longevity compared to my desktop machines. But then. Laptops are a frail beast, with compromised design just so that they can sit in your lap. The same way that phones are super compromised design, just so they can fit in your hand.

Strange, but perhaps not entirely strange phenomenon. Not having my work laptop instantly available is making me "itchy". It's not about not having computer access. My house is literally full of other computers. Seven. Others. Not including tablets or phones, or those partially working. So I'm not short of a computer. But the work laptop is the one I spend most of my time on. And it's loss is making me a tiny bit anxious.

Which implies I have at least a small amount of conditioning to it. Like a comfort blanket.

Yikes.

Went for a walk with Hazel yesterday. First time in a week. I nearly didn't offer the invite. Just. That. Isolationist mood doubling down. In the end, last second, I did.

I was quiet. She chatted on. About getting a new council place. About this. About that.

I opened my mouth to explain this week of work, and how most of my time this week had been absorbed by not one, but two non emergency jobs that should have been properly scheduled, weren't, and the stress and juggling of something that should have been routine was the absolute perfect example of the dysfunctional processes and management. I had gone through this with Andy. This. Is a very teachable moment. This bit of work is now complete, back up, examine why it was tasked, what it required, when it should have been done, note all the ways it was a fucked up thing to inject into the work pile right now. Pointless pointing it out. In one ear, out the other. But eh. I did my bit.

Other than that, I noted that I was at a low ebb with people. Isolating. Not reaching out. And the silence was pretty damning. I took some time to feel sorry for myself. I lamented that I was a nice guy, I cared, laid back, yada blah. And it did no good. People just skit away. End up not caring. Lost in their own holes. I get that we may all suffer from wanting to isolate. But eh. Somewhere deep in me it has occurred to me that I care a lot more about others than the other way around. And whilst, normally, previously, that would not bother me at all. Now. It just feeds my sense of giving up.

People, I said. Just slip through my fingers. Gone.

And I am growing quieter, and quieter. And less inclined to reach out.

I said back in, oh, October, or somesuch, that a new "mood" was settling in. An isolating quiet mood. And that I didn't really think it was a mood as more of a mental landscape shift. It's now April as close as damn it. And it hasn't gone away. I've given up Facebook. Stopped talking to people by and large. And those I still have contact with is slowly whittling away to zero.

It's not freaking me out. Or causing me to go nuts. I am. At peace with it. But also. Somewhere in there. Off the charts sad. The kind of depressed sad malarkey that hits bottom then goes out the other side to the land of numb. The fuse blow. It's quiet here. And I am, for the moment, ok with it.

The rational bit of me is aware that there are so many red flags waving at that, that I could be a red army parade.

But I don't seem to care. Given up trying.

Ah, sayeth the shrinks. You're depressed.

I'm never not depressed my dudes. Just varying levels and varying faces of it. This is some slightly different aspect of it. Resignation.

Perhaps I will perk up a bit. But I think the overall trend isn't temporary. I think I'm going into a quiet isolationist part of my life. They say that life can be thought of as chapters in a book. And each chapter can be very different to the next. Different partner. Career. Home. State of mind.

So. I think I'm getting into the quiet hermit chapter. Before I kick the bucket. Not exactly uncommon.

Athena is struggling more everyday. Her age lies heavy on her again. She gets her shot next week. Not a moment too soon. I will have a brief chat with the vet about possibly fudging the time scale and upping the frequency. Which is almost certainly not advised by the meds. But I think the meds are slightly off calibration. Too long between shots. It's certainly possible. The drug is pretty new. And they tend to guess these things from a how does it feel point of view. Also. You can't ask the dogs. But I know my old lady. And she says. More, sooner. Please.

We shall see.