SwampLog 3.0

Friday Five: 31 October 2003

1. What was your first Halloween costume?
My first was a homemade pirate outfit that was fairly good looking, considering my mother cobbled it together with spare bits and baubles.

2. What was your best costume and why?
1990. The Energizer Bunny. Pink sweats borrowed from my roommate, hooded with ears, makeup for the whiskers, and a bass drum that I had bought from a band supply shop for damned cheap, that I had drawn the Energizer logo on. Women loved that costume.

3. Did you ever play a trick on someone who didn't give you a treat?
Nope, but I'm sure local kids will paper the house because I'm not answering the door tonight. Damned heathens!

4. Do you have any Halloween traditions? (ie: Family pumpkin carving, special dinner before trick or treating, etc.)
None now, but next year, we will throw a bitchin' Halloween party. I promise.

5. Share your favorite scary story... real or legend!
One of the best haunted houses I ever attended was about three-quarters through, when the lights all went out. The guide was perfect, saying that it wasn't planned, and we should all remain still until the emergency lights came on. When they did, a pair of bodies were hung and bloody mere inches away from us. Damned good scare.

Is It Cold Onstage?

From the greatness that is FARK.com comes this tale of a Boston-area all-naked karaoke show. Now, I've worked more than a few events where flashing occurs, but quite a few of the people that sing karaoke have no business getting naked. None.

I wonder if "I Touch Myself" and "Baby Got Back" are as popular at this show as they are here.

Update From The Front

Status Report on the Battle of the Bulge:

I've lost 8.5 pounds in the last 10 days. This may be from better dietary choices, or from ketosis -- I don't know, because I haven't bought ketosticks yet. Doing that today. I already hit the carb hangover phase, and cleared it faster than the first time I did this, in January.

In theory, for me to get back to the body I had before I put on all of the weight from working at Friday's Front Row, I need to get back to 209 lbs, which was the plateau I hit before coming off Atkins in May. My goal this time is to surpass that, getting to 200 lbs or lower by December 15. (Yes, I know -- the road for this weight loss drives squarely through Thanksgiving. I'm still confident I can do it.)

Happy Halloween. I would be more excited about the holiday, but I didn't have any real motivation to do any good costume. Since I'm working as a karaoke DJ tonight, I can't trot out Silent Bob again, and any other costume would just be half-hearted.

Maybe I could dress up as a missile wearing camouflage, with "Weapon of Mass Destruction" stenciled across my chest. Scream out when someone "finds" me. Damn, I wish I had thought of this on Monday.

Hold The Phone, Perry

Slept for seven hours last night. Blissful. I only hope for a repeat performace tonight, but since I'm working a DJ gig tonight, I doubt I'll get any quality sleep.

I'm wondering now if I'm merely trained to wake up at 8:30 am, regardless of when I fall asleep. I shouldn't be, since it hasn't been necessary to get up that early for a while. A new wrinkle, and one I'll have to experiment with.

Daylight Life-Sucking Time

As completely screwed up as my body clock is, the loss of Daylight Savings Time makes it that much worse. According to my perception, it should be about 7:00 pm right now, and I should be figuring out what to do with my evening. Instead, it's 5:46 pm, and the evening news is still on, for Bog's sake.

There have been several suggestions to leave our clocks on Daylight Savings Time, and no one has come up with any argument why this can't be done. We're happier humans with more daylight to work with, and with all of the turmoil in our lives, wouldn't it just be easier to leave the clocks the way they are in the summer?

Scary?

If I weren't working Friday night, this ESPN.com article on how to dress like a certain Cubs fan would come in very handy. All I would need for the outfit would be the Renegades Baseball sweatshirt, and I would be set.

Maybe it would be even better if I could lead a goat around, Or have a monkey on my back.

Honey-Glazed Brain

Still not sleeping. Melatonin isn't working, and going on four hours of sleep a night is simply killing me. I remember the days when I worked as a DJ, and I would get home around 4:00 am. I would sleep until 1:00 pm, maybe a little later. Get up, putter around for a couple of hours, then prepare for the night's show.

I haven't slept right since the Florida trip, but the effects of that kind of travel shouldn't be this long-lasting, right?

Someone suggested that I try to pull another all-nighter, to "reset my body clock." As unappealing as that sounds, it wouldn't be much less sleep than I'm getting now.

This isn't nearly as bad as what Marty's going through right now. He didn't get home from work until 5:00 am this morning, and he's back out the door to work at 11:30 am. He truthfully needs a real vacation -- even though we just went to Cancun in August.

The party I'm working Friday night at Volcano's is themed "80's Hair Band Hell." As frightening as this is, I know for a fact that I can find a Def Leppard or Aerosmith t-shirt somewhere and dress the part. Well, mostly -- maybe if I can find a pair of jeans I hate and do a little strategic ripping... Otherwise, I'll only be halfway authentic. I already know my opening song: "Wait," by White Lion.

Today's iTunes Suggestion: The Peter Malick Group with Norah Jones, 'New York City.' This was recorded two years before Norah's 'Come Away With Me,' and deserves just as much adoration as her Grammy-winning debut. It's a six-song EP (seven, if you count the "radio edit" of "New York City"), so the album costs less to buy through iTunes.

Seek and Hide

About a week ago, my Aunt Phyl called. We've always had an interesting relationship -- she was younger than my mother, the one who suggested that I be named Devin due to my birthplace, and the one with whom I argued, then agreed with politically. When things went south with my mother, she was the one whom I could speak with rationally, and as an equal instead of a family member.

She's got a degree in psychology, and does testing for fifth - seventh graders.

We talked for about ten minutes about various things, then I went back to work. She called back a couple of minutes later.

"Devin, are you depressed?"

The question really caught me offguard. At first, I thought she was talking about the Cubs, since people had been asking me that a lot in the days since they lost the National League pennant. I tried to answer flippantly, but she persisted.

"No, Devin, I want to know if you're depressed."

I brushed off the question, saying I would call her back with an answer. How the fuck did she pick up on that? After ten minutes of small talk, she picks up on something that I work very hard to hide from the general populace? From myself? Hell, I didn't think I was hiding it from anyone, because I didn't think I was hiding it from myself.

But I was. I am.

I thought about her question a lot over the last week. Was I really depressed? Why? What triggered this? Was it something that I could do a quick biofeedback fix on?

More importantly, what could I possibly do about it? I have no insurance to speak of, and no preponderance of cash. If I wanted to go to a psychiatrist and get medicated, as Marty has advocated all along, it would cost, easily, $300 for the office visit, then $120 for a three-month supply of whatever happy pills would be prescribed for me. Unlike John Nash, I'm not some savant who can will himself into mental stability.

(By the way, thank you, Bonnie . Had I not seen you online tonight and had this conversation with you, I probably wouldn't have done what needed to be done next. You are always, amazingly, right where you need to be.)

I called Phyl back tonight. When she answered, this is what I said:

"As to that question you asked me last week, I think the answer is probably 'yes.'"

The reasons I gave her ranged from my inability to get back into a career doing something creative that didn't involve a DJ booth, to being so far in debt that the people I love are starting to eye me warily when I call. Whatever the reason, it's ratcheted up by my lack of insurance and knowledge of what it will take to "fix" me. Pulling my mother off drugs in my teens still hangs heavily in my mind, and I have no desire to get into that whole whirlpool myself. I have a really addictive personality (quit snickering), and any long-term use of anti-depressants scares me silly.

We're supposed to meet up this week to plot out some sort of strategy. She's the only one I trust to help me without bias, and I can't think of a better person to get me through these first few steps. I just hope I can make the changes it will take to get my head right with ball.

(I turned commenting off for this entry. No comments necessary -- all I needed to do was get this down on screen for posterity.)

I'm So Shocked

So, the commission trying to figure out who knew what and when about the 11 September 2001 attacks is being stonewalled by the Bush administration. The reasons -- national security, executive privilege, et al -- are the same ones we hear time and again when your fearless leaders fear your wrath.

With Bush's team of lawyers running interference, we'll probably never conclusively know how much Dubya knew about the impending attacks, yet we'll be dealing with the aftermath of his opportunism for decades to come. Just remember this in 12 months.

(Not) Friday Five: 17 October 2003

(Got out of the habit of doing these. This is one I missed.)

1. Name five things in your refrigerator.
Miller Lite (the better part of a case); Diet Coke; hot dogs; pepper jack cheese; a lone bottle of Bawls guarana soda.

2. Name five things in your freezer.
One frozen pizza; various Michelinas frozen dinners; ice pack; a couple of Uncle Ben's bowls; ice cubes.

3. Name five things under your kitchen sink.
Ant spray; de-greaser spray; trash can; glass cleaner; the mouse that Edison brought in and now won't finish the job with.

4. Name five things around your computer.
World News Now coffee mug; Rangers babooshka doll; resin Buddha; bobble-head tiki guy; Nunzilla!

5. Name five things in your medicine cabinet.
Shaving gel; Axe body spray; beard trimmer; big-ass bottle of ibuprofin; Biore facial scrub.