It's been a long November so far. Oh wait... it's July.

I am going to do something I rarely do, and something I generally despise when others go on about it. I am going to complain about the weather.

Can I just get a "what the fuck IS this??" and a "one more day of this and I'm going to go to bed and not emerge until NEXT July"?

As some of you may not know, I live on the West Coast of British Columbia. The southern west coast. The mildest place in Canada. Closer to California than to Alberta, which is the next province over. For ten months out of the year, it is customary to experience rain, wind, fog, mist, hail, the occasional wet snow. Basically any kind of precipitation imaginable. And I suck it up. I suck it the fuck up, because I am lucky not to have to ever shovel snow, or plug in my car, or stick a jacket and shoes on my dog. And hey, it makes my skin look younger. So that being said, I endure ten months of grey, depressing, mild and wet weather so that in the other two months (July and August), I get some sunshine, some warmth, and some bathing suit/swimming weather. Don't get me wrong, it's rare to push over 30 degrees C. But I don't complain because I also don't have to use a mosquito net, air conditioning, and my city doesn't smell like rotting garbage.

Now, I am complaining.

I'm not sure if any of you knew this, but I'm prone to experiencing depression. (hehe) And like most others who experience bouts of depression, I'm very much affected by the weather. Grey days make me blue, and if I'm already blue, they make me want to lie in bed and never come out. A hot sunny day is like an injection of prozac. Or speed, depending on how hot and sunny. It's like the fog in my head lifts, and I'm filled with a little bit of... I don't know... joy! Love for my surroundings. Energy!

So far all we've had this summer is rain, and temperatures equalling early spring and late fall. And I am so done. I am (not for the first time) imagining what my mood would be like if I lived somewhere far south, where it's the polar opposite. Ten months of sun, the occasional two months of grey. I wonder. How much would it change me? What if I could actualy go off meds? What if that is the key to this whole puzzle?

I consider moving to California. Or Arizona (yes, cold winters, but STILL). I want to get the hell out of here.

Sigh.

So now that my rant is complete, I will say what any good West Coaster would say at this particular moment, and I will suck it up and continue with my day.

"At least I don't have to water the gardens."

OH WAIT. I'm currently employed to water my friend's garden twice a week, so I'm now also out of a job. So much for that little gem of optimism.

Sitting in front of my space heater on July 14th,
PS

Your passport photo makes you look like a serial killer.

Heehee! Heehee!

If you finished reading the latest Thomas King novel, you'd get the reference. For the record - a pleasure to read. Beyond expectations.

I started another book but was liking it so much that I've put a bookmark in it to save it for my vacation. I'm at that point where I will only read mediocre fiction until I am lying on a beach, slathered in politically-incorrect tanning oil, and wearing an embarassingly large pair of sunglasses and a shockingly small bikini.

So. Passport photos.

I feel as though I need to rewind. I have decided that from the beginning, this is a blog about me and only me, I do not share other people's stories. I make the odd reference, but privacy is sacred. Not mine - mine is non-existent in this forum. But other people's privacy... well, I try and respect that. Boring, I know.

Last night, I had a fight. I had a fight like no other I have had before. I fought with a friend. Can anyone else here relate when I say that I've never *really* duked it out with anyone other than a boyfriend (read: romantic partner)? I thought it would be different, but the absence of sex doesn't really change the fact that it is scary, heartbreaking, awful on SO many levels, and absoultely debilitating. This story does actually have a happy ending, by the way.

We worked it out, and I truly feel that said friend and I are stronger for it. And unlike most of my romantic relationships, present excluded, I actually feel like we worked it out without me turtling. A nice term for apologizing over and over and taking back everything I said, pretending I didn't mean it, and trying to please please please. Obviously I said things I didn't mean and apologized for them, but what it came down to was that it was a really liberating day for me. Awful in every way, but liberating. Why is it that there has to be the good with the bad? Why can't there just be the good? Ah well. Symmetry, I guess.

Long story short, I feel so open and honest and real with this person. I thought I was before, but I never realized I wasn't 100% until yesterday. I was only working at about 95% honesty. Anyways. It was a learning experience that we went through together.

Last night I cried. I cried like I haven't cried in a long, long, time. My boyfriend has made mention before at my inability (strong word, mine not his) to cry. But I'm on some pretty strong meds that work really well at suppressing feelings of anxiety. Unfortunately, strong feelings such as sadness, though they exist, are harder to bring to the surface level. But when I cry, I CRY. Something I never really experienced before the past two years. I used to cry often, but for small periods of time. Last night I sobbed until my body could no longer produce liquid. And though it was under awful circumstances, I'm not going to lie, it was overdue.

The idea that a pill changes my being like that scares me. Sure, it changes my levels of anxiety and depression and because that's good, I don't doubt its effectiveness. But when it comes to things like feeling severe sadness and not being able to express it... that's when the effects of a single pill really becomes clear. And a little startling.

Wait, I was going to try to make this story more interesting and funny. Yes. Passport photos.

After my night of emotional release, I woke up this morning feeling drained, sick, but motivated. I took everything on my to-do list that I have been avoiding for stupid reasons, and I went and DID them. One of those things was renewing my passport before it expires and I'm left with going through some shit-show to get a new one.

In my enthusiasm to be productive, I ran out of the house, toothbrush going as I threw on my shoes, without looking in a mirror. Or showering. Or putting on deodorant. And trust me, after the night sweats I have, that is a serious exclusion. I shopped, I photocopied, I gassed the car, I went in to get my passport photo taken and then realized, hmm. This is a photo to last five years. And there is no mirror in this store.

I thought that the only passport photo caveat was to not smile. Turns out you must also remove your necklace, and tuck your limp, greasy, sweaty, unmaintained, three-days before a dye-job hair BEHIND your ears. Oh, and not smile. And then they show you the photo. Oh, the photo.

My first comment was: "Yup. I look like a serial killer, must be a proper pasport photo. Looks good to me." My second comment was: "Maybe I should have re-thought the grey Fruit of the Loom tank top, which doesn't really make the serial killer thing less prominent."

I don't know what, if any, point there is to this story. But if I am to take anything from it, it will be...

1) If you are incapable of crying and only do so once every two months, just stay home the next day. For the love of god, take your sluggy eyelids and go back to bed.

2) There is always time to apply deodorant. A rule I believe is universal beyond this story, after years of waitressing.

3) If you need to have your passport photo taken, for the love of all that is good in this world: run a comb through your hair, wear a shirt that cost you more than $1.50, cover your tattoos (it will pay off in the long run) and LOOK IN A MIRROR.

Signing off as someone who has resigned herself to the next five years of being strip searched at the border...

PS

Keith Richards is kind of a boring writer...

... and other things I have learned in my period of unemployment.

Also included:

- Pyjamas are casual, sweatpants are for dressing up and going out.
- The challenges in life are easier to face with good friends and a very supportive live-in boyfriend.
- Mushrooms are always cheaper at the Great Canadian Superstore.
- The Keith Richards autobiography is a slow yawn of a read (who would have thought??) but the Thomas King novel I'm halfway through is super amazing.
- The only downside of knitting: one cannot simultaneously read and knit.
- Toques take more time to construct than I ever realized (who would have thought??)
- Don't ever get cocky when applying for a job for which you feel overqualified. Because then it sucks when you're not even offered an interview.
- Farting is, and always will be, really really funny.
- 2:00 pm is not "the morning."

So. My two jobs fell through and I am currently unemployed, still living with some pretty bad days of anxiety, and applying for "social worky" jobs even though I still lack the confidence to feel I can hold a solid job. To make matters WAY better but more complicated, I am going on holiday for two weeks in... five sleeps!! Luckily, I paid for it when I still had a job. My wonderful man-friend has actually "forbid" me from applying for any jobs right before vacation because he wants me to enjoy my time, but when have I ever listened to good advice that involves self-care? I applied for two jobs. Smart boyfriend be-damned!

Okay, I'm having a pretty good time in life these days. I'm enjoying being in love, and in particular the fact that 90% of the time we're either kissing or laughing. To those cynics who are years into a relationship, yes, I know it's not *always* like that. He and I spend the other 10% fighting. But then someone farts and we're back to laughing.

I have my off days. Yesterday I spent the entirety of the day in bed reading, crying, and having anxiety attacks. But today is a new day, and I find it easier to bounce back than I used to. It helps living with someone, because it's a lot harder to extend that one self-indulgent day into, say, seven. Or ten. Or a month.

My night sweats and dreams are back in full force with the same damn themes as are always haunting me. Angry parents, disturbing violence. On a slightly more amusing note, I have constant recurring dreams that I never finished high school (better finish high school before they take away my university degree!!) and that I return to finish my year but don't show up for any classes. My best friend who I went to high school with is always in the dream, and attends all classes, therefore making me feel even more like a loser. I'm also always on rollerskates when in school, and I can never, ever, remember my locker combination and therefore stress about the fact that my locker hasn't been opened in years.

Every night it's a continuation of the same high school theme. Trying to meet with the school counsellor to see if I can get "incompletes" and redo the work so my permanent record won't be tarnished. Trying to find my classroom (on rollerskates) and never able to succeed. Trying to remember my locker combination over and over again. For the record, this is in fact the locker combination that my best friend and I had when we shared a locker in Junior High School.

Then last night. Last night, amidst the violence and crying and angry parents. I'm back in school, in front of the dreaded locker. On rollerskates. Of course. And VOILA! I remember the actual combination that my friend and I used to use. I pop open the locker in a frenzy of successful joy. I open the locker to find a fine layer of mold upon a stuffed pig, pencils, and what appears to have been... grapes? Spiders and bugs crawling throughout the dusty, webbed chasm. A poof of toxic smoke emerges, and I cover my nose for fear of inhaling black mold.

As the teacher across the hall closes the door to his classroom in order to fend of the stench, I turn away from the locker, walk down the hall, and out the front door.

I woke up feeling just a little bit like I may have made some progress.

Mourning the abandonment of the stuffed pig,

PS