Milano Cookies. A Love Story.

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I love Milanos.

Last week I discovered the Lemon Variety. Please take a trip to your local food retailer and acquaint yourself with this lovely decadence.

Its nearly the zenith of Orange Milano. Indeed, there are certain moments, just around the 3rd or 4th chew where it exceeds the Orange and attains a moment of zen like yum. Bright Sunshine and Fresh Sweetness and Lovely.

Tonight I decided to branch out and try the Dulce de Leche. I hadn’t tried it before because it sounded a bit chancy. A bit puffed up with itself. But I can report now and its pretty damn good.

Not quite up to Lemon. But it is a much sultrier taste. It earns it’s name. Its definitely a high class call girl willing to do dirty things to you as long as there are candles and a steamy bath involved.

I know. I know. These are just supermarket tramps. Not home made, Not pure. True. But. They are so very easy and so very tricksy because of it.

Everyone likes an easy trick.

ACHIEVEMENT has been achieved.

girl-408066_960_720 I went shopping. NOT only that. I went to local store which is unfamiliar.

I left the apartment and felt so energized by having walked out the door that the idea of dealing with a store where I didn’t know exactly where to find everything wasn’t such a terrible thing.

This was of course helped by me just buying only the usual things, but I still claim victory.

And it was not such a terrible thing. Which is always the way with things that I put off. I make them into huge canyons of impossibility in my brain and in reality – easy. Well, at least tonight it felt pretty easy.

And everyone in the store was in a good mood. Smiling and nodding and making small talk. NO dicks anyway. So that was nice.

And I even exchanged a small bit of small talk with a man who couldn’t find the ziti he was staring at. He explained that he doesn’t usually go to the store but his wife is ill and someone had to go. He’s really not good at it.

I wanted to tell him I’m not good at it either and I go 2x a week, but I didn’t. I just pointed out the ziti was penne. And assured him that it isn’t the same thing as macaroni. Which he seemed inclined to buy instead.

Anyway, I’m doing the happy dance of achievement and I’m hoping that my brain is back on the rails again.

Progress: Showered & Dressed

But now I’m having the most ridiculous dither about which store to go to.

Because again with the things NOT FAMILIAR.

The store near me is not the store I use. Or not very often.

I go to the store that is near my work because I have to pass it when I leave work and its just easy to stop. The store nearest me is another 4 miles outside the route to work.

The store I’m familiar with is 20 minutes away and in another fucking state.

The one nearest to me is 8-10 minutes away and on the same road that I live on. But I don’t understand its layout as well, and so finding things becomes a thing.

I’m probably going to drive to another state to go shopping because FAMILIAR.

I am so tired of myself right now. 24d182555f187ace4692dcc5ea31c2dd

So. Speaking of Grocery Shopping.

I need to leave this apartment and attend to this chore.

I have planned and intended to do this from the moment I woke up at 830am.

It is now nearly 8 hours later and I’m still not dressed.

This is not helpful. I have to get moving. Not just because I want to buy some food but because I need to break this cycle of stillness.

I have missed work, and that must stop.

This is Day 12 of Antidepressants. They don’t start working until 4 weeks or so. But yeah, I am in reverse. Oh the fucking irony.

I need a Depression Management Achievement to get me back on the rails. Grocery Shopping is going to be it.

So. Go Me. early_women_cheerleaders_at_uw_madison_2246608893

This has been a self pep talk, which you had to witness. Thank you for observing. Sign below as witness.

Groceries are my nemesis.

carrefour_market_voisins-le-bretonneux_2012_09 Which considering the additional poundage I carry around… it doesn’t seem like this would be true. But it is.

I hate shopping and used to avoid it with a success that is attributed mostly to Depression being on my side with this.

But as I have managed the Depression, going to the grocery store has become a regular thing. 2x a week. Like an adult.

But I’m still REALLY bad at it. I buy the same things and I eat the same things over and over because my brain turns to mush once I enter the store. And this is the only way I can manage to buy anything.

In the deepest dark holes of depression, I have been known to wander the aisles helplessly, finally grab a box of frozen waffles and leave. I don’t like frozen waffles.

So now that I have foods that I know work – buying the same items is kind of a win. But I realize that this not healthy. In particular this set of items that I buy and eat.

Of course you are thinking – bring a list. And this is AN EXCELLENT SUGGESTION. Making a list has now become part of the problem.

The mush brain that attacks in the store has now extended to the list making activity.

Grocery Lists are based on what you will eat for the next week. What I will cook. What will I cook? I don’t know. Now we are facing a whole new problem.

Will I cook? Its a toss up with the heavy favorite being NO.

But maybe I would if I had the ingredients and a simple recipe.

OK. Lets look. Nothing seems quite right. Its too hard, it doesn’t sound good, I don’t have the right cookware… I give up.

But lets say I finally overcome all of that and make the list. I then arrive at the grocery with the miraculously remembered list and I stare at the list. I’m tired already and I just got the cart.

I am now longing for the quick and easy selection of food I know. I can be in and out of this hell hole in under 15 minutes if I just go buy the shit I always buy.

Sigh.

I move into buying the list and its all a never ending set of choices. I can’t just buy chicken breasts. Now I have to consider 5 different versions of fucking chicken breasts. Every damn thing is a decision and in my life those tiny decisions are just cutting little pieces of my will to continue away.

This is depression. The everyday choices that people make and don’t even really consider are like tiny energy drains in my brain. And each expenditure of energy to make an unfamiliar choice is costly.

That is why I eat the same things every day. That is why I buy the same groceries every week. Because the accumulation of choices to eat well is expensive. And I don’t have enough energy to pay for it.

“Trainee’s unemployment came through and so he won’t be back.” ~my boss

I haven’t been able to go to work for 3 days. The depression/anxiety is winning the current battle.

When I sent my email of non-attendance this morning, the response contained that sentence in the title. (except Trainee was the person’s name)

I’m confused by the sentence but I guess it means 2 things.

a. Trainee would rather not work than work. Or possibly it is a better deal for Trainee due to COBRA benefits that will be lost if he has a job? Our company doesn’t provide benefits.

b. My boss thinks that I’m not at work due to Trainee.

The second one is more on my mind. People think that there are reasons – concrete understandable reasons for my behavior. The reason – Depression, isn’t sufficient. It has no context or meaning for them. An annoying person who she thought made me feel uncomfortable – that is a concrete reason she can wrap her head around.

We all do this. I do it. I want there to be a path of reason between my brain and my action. And so I look for plausible things. There are whole psychological theories looking for plausible reasons for unhealthy behaviors.

But I have come to realize that there is no rational, plausible reason. Its Depression. I’m stalled because my brain has decided to implode. There is no event that caused this behavior. Its just my brain derailed and went into a stall. Its part of the illness. It happens. Too often.

Its very hard to deal with the lack of plausible cause. It makes the illness far more terrifying. It makes it harder to grapple with. And it makes it almost impossible to explain to another person. Because People want Reasons. I want reasons.

I’m new here… and its a bit disturbing…

welcome_mat The internet is very good at providing a cocoon of sameness. Google etal all have algorithms that recognize patterns in your online behavior. And they know if you are a liberal, for example. They then provide that sort of thing to you when you search.

This makes being online very very much more comfortable.

On tumblr, I started by following the people I met on Twitter. And then I followed the people those people followed and the people those people followed. And so on.

What I essentially did was create my own little algorithm of like minded people. As a result, a disproportionate number of the people I follow on tumblr are socially liberal. None are overtly religious.

I’m slowly migrating away from tumblr because its not supporting commenting and its become less enjoyable.

So I’m slowly meeting new people over here. But as I look about at the various blogs on here, I find I’m definitely outside the liberal zone I’m used to. There are blogs on here that make me cringe. I obviously don’t follow them, but I’m finding the search for community on wordpress is not as obvious or as easy to find.

And then there is the question of the like minded cocoon in the first place. Is it a good thing? Its comfortable. There is NO doubt about that. But is it good? Probably not.

On the other hand, my mental well being is not so great. And reading things that upset me, things that me cringe like hate and bigotry are not things that help the promote a healthy state of my mind.

So. Here I sit, a little bit disturbed about the neighborhood and wondering if its worth the effort to forage forward to find new friends.

The world is a horrible place.

597px-veave_in_jail And it always has been.

But most of the time my mind is effective at filtering and ignoring the horror.

Today it is not. And all I can see is the terribleness of things that have happened, things that are still happening and the horrors keep inflicting themselves inside my brain.

I call this the crawls. Because I want to crawl outside my brain. To hide.

But I’m trapped in here.

Today is another day.

la_vesvre_de_saisy_morning_mist Specifically, its day 8 of antidepressants.

Day 7 was a failure. I did not go to work. But sat in stillness in my bed.

Say what you will about time, it will always give you another chance.

There is always the next day, the next minute, the next week. It just keeps on marching and dragging us with it.

So today is a new start. One where I will go to work. And earn a living. And it will be better than yesterday. Continue reading “Today is another day.” →

In Which I take encouragement from a bad day.

Today was not grand. Again.

But I went to work and there was a rather dangerous moment this morning when I wasn’t going. I do best when I have something I need to do. And when I remembered that I had unfinished work on my desk, I got up and went to work. Easy peasy.

I did not enjoy the day. The trainee is… a hoverer. This is bothersome. I am not in the best place for being patient and I snapped at him at least once.

But the brain is the reason the day was bad. It won’t stay focused and it is having a very grand time making me feel like a large dung heap. I think of all the very valid reasons why I suck as a human. And this is not conducive to feeling particularly cheery.

And all of this while taking antidepressants.

But I’ve only been on them for 6 days. So. Not really fair to blame them. Or is it?

Because I remembered. Some people commit suicide when they first start taking anti depressants. And that is what I found encouraging.

Stick with me on this.

I’m feeling like so much crap – worse in some respects than I did during the 3 weeks in the deep hole of last month. Its all centered around this self disgust. And then I realized – its the drug. It creates this sensation before it makes things better. A sensation that makes people feel bad enough to give up.

A doctor once told me that people commit suicide after starting the drugs because it makes people feel well enough that they have the energy to act out the suicidal thoughts. But after these last few days – I think not. I think its magnifies the bad for a period of time before it moves into the good.

No proof of course. Just me thinking.

I’m not suicidal. But damn, this is not pleasant.