Annie left four years ago.  She drifted silently and painlessly into that long night that awaits us all.

Peace, Doc

My 63rd birthday occurred last Thursday.  In itself, that would have been disquieting enough to moderately upset me, but I carry around a gunny sack full of thoughts, beliefs, memories, and assumptions that have made it much worse in recent years.  Even the “Doc, heal thyself,” maxim is only partially effective.  There are several reasons for this, most of which I recognize, but quite likely some that I have suppressed and then repressed to the point that they are not considered or controllable.  Due to my Northern European ancestry, I may have some of the elements of Seasonal Affective Depressive Syndrome (SADS) where one feels more depressed due to the shorter hours of sunlight and the effect on my body chemistry.  Maybe, but I doubt that is much of the problem. 

Another is a simple actuarial ratio of average lifespan to number of years already lived.  Quite simply, the longer I live, the shorter future I have to look forward to.  This is real, and frequently influences my thinking, even though I am in good physical health (with some minor exceptions – growing cataracts, being underweight, having a knee that goes out of joint at inopportune moments.  Generally small things.)  One fear that I have is that of a patrilineal family history of alcoholism.  Both my father and my grandfather died in their mid-sixties from complications of cirrhosis.  Unless there is another associated biological time bomb hidden in me, I will not go that way.  I had my last drink in 1974.  Lung cancer is a less probable cause than I once believed because I quit smoking in 1979.  I shouldn’t worry, but I do.

The “giving up” of these vices, especially smoking, was difficult, but they’re gone.  I don’t worry about them.  I can find quite enough other things to cause anxiety and depression, thank you very much.  The holiday season is certain to turn me into a Grinch, not because I don’t like the lights, decorations, and celebrations, but because I live alone and the memories of Thanksgivings, Christmases Past, and New Year celebrations only serve to remind me of the happiness of past holidays and its corollary thoughts of loss and loneliness in the present.  There are far too many ghosts around the table, if I bothered to set a table.  This is a general depressive trigger, because I associate it with many loved ones who have passed and not a specific person.  In my attempts to use thought stopping, I have been fairly successful in “forgetting” birth dates and dates of death.  They are not connected to any specific holidays and when I do think of a loved one who has passed, if it starts out as an unpleasant thought, I can deliberately switch to a pleasant memory of the person.

The most acutely depressing thoughts and feelings occur when I associate a death with a particular date that is nearly impossible to forget.  One’s birthday is nearly impossible to forget.  My wife died exactly one week after my birthday.  Further, her birthday is the day after Valentine’s Day, also quite difficult to disassociate from the memory because of the societal reminders of these holidays.  There are other holiday triggers that remind me of unwanted or traumatic events.  Annie was buried on Ground Hog Day which I thought of as being an undignified happenstance until I realized that it is also a cross quarter day (halfway between solstice and equinox) with religious and historical significance.  There are many others, but the associations are less powerful or more easily counteracted by the thought stopping process.  And that is why the days from January 22 through January 29 are generally the worst ones of my year.

I happened to have an appointment with the psychiatrist who prescribes my antidepressant medication on Wednesday, January 23.  I have known him for 22 years, frequently saw him with Annie, and consider him to be more of a friend than a “doctor.”  During our session, we discussed most of what I have described above, my medication levels and effectiveness, any changes in my symptoms, his work schedule, what I could be doing to get me out of my slump, volunteering for something or partially coming out of retirement, computers and the many ways they meet my needs, cats farting while watching TV, the new political scene, how my obsessiveness, frugality, and pure dumb luck have served me well, my shaken self-confidence and lowered feelings of worth, and numerous other things.  I believe that we enjoy each other, at least partly because I am predictable, I know exactly how to describe feelings and changes in condition, and I do not create emergencies for him to be concerned about.  In turn, he has a way of pulling laughter out of me that is extraordinary.  I left feeling better.  I almost always do.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2009, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

“Complain about the present and blame it on the past.  I’d like to find … (my) … inner child and kick its little ass.  Get over it!” – Eagles

As I wrote this post, I was watching the inauguration ceremonies on CNN and sincerely praying that nobody would be killed.  I don't believe I have felt this strongly about a new administration since Camelot.  Not this strongly about a political "event" since Dallas in 1963.  In college, I was located about 60 miles farther from Chicago than my home town, and 100 miles farther away than I would have been, had I attended Loyola or Northwestern.  If I had I attended one of those schools, I would have quite likely been an acquaintance of Mr. Ayers rather than suffering Brother Gerard's Chihuahua attacking and hanging onto my pants leg as I tried to cross campus and resist punting the little darling over the Student Union building.

I'm rather certain that "my dossier" started around that time or a bit later with simple crowd pictures of protest rallies.  An attempt was made to recruit me into The Weatherman faction of the SDS. I declined it, as bombing for peace made as little sense to me as the war it was protesting.  Twice during the inaugural coverage, I heard "The entire world is watching..." (CNN) and "The world is watching," (Feinstein) which produced chills as I recalled the chant, "The whole world is watching," from the Democratic National Convention riots in Chicago during the Days of Rage.

I am from Illinois.  I have watched President Obama's political career since its beginning and seen him to be that rarest of creatures, an honest Illinois political figure.  I have voted for him in every election in which he was on my ballot.  I was asked what I thought of him about four years ago when names were just beginning to be discussed as possible presidential candidates.  My response was, "He's the real thing."  I don't know if we can handle the truth and the reality of our nation’s condition except in small bites, but I believe that we will finally get it.  Hang on, people.  I think we're in for a very interesting ride.  And for the first time in a very long while, I believe that it will be in the correct direction.

As I watched the TV, I saw two small things that I considered significant on a personal basis.  Two white birds, possibly gulls, glided over the ceremony with its millions of people and seemed oblivious to all that was happening other than, perhaps, finding a landing spot.  The second was when I watched President Obama sign some orders or declarations immediately after retiring to the oval office following the ceremonies.  He is quite thoroughly left handed in his writing, as am I, which may explain something (I'm not sure exactly what, but it seems somehow important to me in knowing that we share a trait.) 

Be careful in reading this paragraph, as it could easily be misinterpreted.  One thing seemed to me to be important and unfortunate, but not because of what was said, done, the whole history of this nation’s racial prejudice, or the disregard of the opinions of youth.  Because Martin Luther King, Jr. day was celebrated Monday, there seemed to me, a white, to be too much concentration on being black.  I'm sure the fact that he is black has not escaped the attention of most people, but yesterday's news coverage seemed to strongly emphasize his blackness rather than his being the brilliant hope of a president elect who happens to be black.  I'm sure it is a true and important fact that this is an historic landmark and is most certainly extremely important, especially to minority populations, but it felt to me that he was in some way being taken away from me.  I suspect that what I experienced was a small taste of the discrimination that others have known for so long.  That will require some serious thought on my part before I get it sorted out.

I was then brought back to the present and my real life.  Bittle, who was sitting on the arm of the recliner watching the inauguration ceremonies with me, just farted twice, and quite loudly for a cat, I might add.  Possibly that added some further perspective to the importance of my thoughts, as did the birds.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2009, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

I seem to be back after an unintentional absence.  Thank you to those who sent a private message or email for your concern.  Despite the tone of some of my recent “poetry,” it was my laptop that was self-destructive, not me.  At this point comes the decision between the long version or the short version.  I’ll choose the short story for now, but don’t be surprised if there are further elaborations in future posts.

Nearly three weeks ago the laptop decided, for no apparent reason, not to boot up past a few of the drivers.  I poked, tricked, and swore at everything I could think of, but none of my vast store of computer knowledge, foul language, or behavioral psychology produced a desirable result.  A few days later the “Rent-a-Geek” I called did the same, but more thoroughly and knowledgeably.  He said he had never seen one do that before, and I believed him because he was also talking about his quintuple boot computer (98SE, XP Pro, Vista, OS7, and Linux) as he ran the diagnostics.  Alas, poor Leonard had to go back to “the shop.”  I sent Max, his backup pal and sidekick, along to keep him company.

The older (30-something) and wiser owner of the business took over Leonard’s resuscitation and care.  He promised to take Leonard out for walks over the weekend so he wouldn’t feel neglected (really – he said that.)  After numerous phone calls and about two years later, he called back to tell me the operation had been a success.  It really did seem like two years.  From that and my withdrawal symptoms, I have concluded that internet addiction is quite real and that I don’t like it.  When I received the good news, there was a brief moment of elation and wild celebration and then I did something stupid.  This is a normal behavioral pattern for me.  I asked if he would install a simple wired network when he returned the laptop.  Of course he agreed, and of course I had not anticipated that that it would take another year for the router and cables to be delivered to him.  The good news is that I now have a working network.  When the network was in, and Leonard was once again in touch with his server and computer buds, I wrote a check for a considerable sum of money and forgot to use my $25 coupon.  I was happy anyway.  It was only when I found that I could not turn Leonard off that I again became concerned.  We’ll leave that topic relatively unexplained other than to state that I have found a distinctly unusual way of shutting the laptop off, involving tricking the Roxio burner suite into believing that I want to use it and then shutting down.

During the haze of the withdrawal period, I became so desperate for an internet fix that I did the unthinkable.  I installed Vista on the project computer before it was ready to have the XP Pro installed on another partition or drive.  For a refurbished PC, it looked totally unused internally and externally.  I installed another 4GB of heat sink finned RAM into the appropriate slots and turned the beast on.  It lit up, whirred, and the DVD tray would operate.  That’s all.  Just the electromechanical stuff.  The OS refused to even consider installing itself.  After due consideration, I decided to undo my improvements, and re-installed the original RAM.  This resulted in a success experience, if one considers the installation of Vista on a perfectly good PC a success.  I now have the two computers networked and operating, even though Leonard remains a bit eccentric. 

I continue to hate Vista, but will list only three reasons that irked me the most during my initial skirmishes with it.  1.)  It questions everything I want it to do to the point that I forget what it was that I wanted it to do.  2.)  It works funny.  3.)  It cheats at solitaire and doesn’t even reward you with the traditional bouncing cards when you win, but asks which of three actions you would like to take while humiliating you with the statistics of your past wins and losses.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2009, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"It's practically impossible to look at a penguin and feel angry." - Joe Moore

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