randbaek

I need a new profile pic. That one's pretty blurry, but i left my camera in Ontario and all my digital photos are on my old computer. Sarah's bringing my camera with her when she comes on Christmas eve, though.(!)

I tracked down that gum at a specialty candy store in my are called the "Freak Lunchbox." Its unflavoured, but not really flavourless. Whatever locust-bean-extract-stuff they make it out of seems to have a slight vanilla taste, but its pretty subtle and is actually a very interesting chewing gum experience.

I always used to love the Freak Lunchbox. Before Disney bought the rights to "The Nightmare Before Christmas"
(resulting in extreme media saturation) the Freak Lunchbox was the only place you could get 'Nightmare' stuff. It was absurdly expensive and imported from Japan (where it has a bit of a cult following) but you could get action figures, christmas lights, candy, and of course lunchboxes.

I'm counting the minutes till Sarah arrives....Its only been a few weeks- I don't know what i'll do after christmas, having to wait indefinitely to see her again....
But best not to think to much about it, as that will ruin what time we have together now....

There's a button on my computer which is appearantly the "close browser button." Every once in a while I accidently hit it and I close FIrefox, obviously losing whatever I've written. I use Gmail, so it happens a lot whilst writing emails as well. I recenlty got a new laptop so i'm not completely familiar with the keyboard and i have no idea what i'm hitting that keeps doing this. I know I should write my posts and emails in a word processor for this reason, but i refuse. Because I am stubborn, I suppose.

In related and moslty uninteresting news, I struggled for a long time with whether to use 'while' or 'whilst' in that last paragraph. I chose the latter. Pretentious? Perhaps, but this is a supportive online community. You wouldn't judge me for my fancy word choices would you?

Notmuch else to report, but I'll keep writing because I don't really have anything else to do.

I saw 'Blood Diamond' last week. My parents were holding a massive family christmas party, for all the extendend relatives, etc. (of which there are dozens). Its such a massive fucking undertaking, but my mom does it every year. She says she has to because no one else in the family has a house big enough to accomadate such a huge number of people. Admittedly, this is so.

I am loathe to attend under normal circumstances. Not only because i hate crowds (and this is one hell of a crowd) but more because my extended family is super-hyper-turbo-ultra religious.

As in: "I was late for work so I asked Jesus to give me all green lights and he did!"

As in: They believe dead bodies can be brought back to life through prayer.

As in: They sit around, silent, in a room, for hours at a time, just smiling at each other. Supposedly they are "Basking in christ's love."

As in: "Gay people are a scourge upon the earth."

Certainly the prospect for hilarity is there, in such a situation, but i lack the social courage to cause any real trouble.

My brother (not the one that came to the hospital, I have two brothers, they are vastly, vastly, different) Once stood up in the middle of dinner at one of these giant family gatherings and proclaimed "Yeah, well... I don't believe in any of that fucking Jesus shit, anyway."

I should point out, that there are like a hundred relatives and they aren't all this bad, they run the gamut from my family, which is completely accepting of everyone and everything, all the way up to the people who refuse to give their children medicine because it might interfere with god's will or some shit like that.

Anyway, as i said, I hate to go under normal circumstances, but this year there was just no way I could handle going, for obvious reasons. So I left the house in the morning and didn't come back until everyone was gone. Which is when I went to see Blood Diamond. Which is what i was origianlly talking about.

It was fantastc. It made me cry. Which wasn't much of an acheivement, I suppose, since I hadn't slept in 84 hours. But it was really an amazing film.

Finally, I went to see my new thearapist on Tuesday. My GP (whom I already hated) didn't provide any information with the referral so I had to tell the thearapist everything. That was fun. I don't really know if I like her or not, she has lofty plans for programs and groups she wants me to attend down the road that I'm not too keen on, but that's still a ways away. Everything in Nova Scotia has a 6month to 1 year waiting list. I was only able to see a thearapist so quickly because I was still on the waiting list from the last time I lived here 6 months ago.

She did give me a new perscription. After having tried every possible combination of effexor, zoloft, welbutrin, celexa, lexapro and paxil I was at least glad she was willing to try something different. Antidepressants haven't been working for me for 5 years, Its nice that I finally get to try something new.

She gave me a perscription for a mood stabalizer. So far it has done the opposite of stabalize my mood. I'm waaaaay up in the day and wayyyyy down at night. It does however, completely knock me unconscious, which is something that even perscription tranqualizers have never been able to do, so maybe at least it will take care of my insomnia.

merryxmasall