YOU! You need to read this.

Those of you who know me, know I suffer from clinical depression from time to time. Those of you who don't know me, now know that.

The worst part about having a disease that causes a chemical imbalance in your brain that inhibits your ability to feel anything other than soul-crushing sadness is that a lot of people think you can 'just snap out of it'. When I'm not suffering an attack of depression, I do my best to just not bring up the subject. When I am, I do my best to not punch these people in the face.

Emotions follow a natural osculating pattern, sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down, when people tell you to 'get over it', they're assuming you're just in one of your down phases. Depression is not a down phase followed by an up one, it is the inability to go into an up phase. Exactly what depression feels like (and it is not the same as being sad) to someone who's never had it is a bit like trying to explain what snozzberries taste like.

And then Allie at Hyperbole and a Half wrote this beautiful post: Adventures in Depression

24 Hour Comic

I participated in the 24 hour comic challenge this year. This is the result:

Usually my snappy answers are more timely...

Soooo...I finally thought of a snappy answer to people who ask me why I don't have a facebook page:

"Facebook makes it difficult for me to maintain the illusion that my friends are interesting and intelligent people."


What do you think?

Lurking on US 41

I live alone...I mean really alone, my closest family member lives a 7 hour drive away. So if I want to see people I'm related to, being the single, child-free, pet-free person in the equation, I do a lot of driving, in a car, by myself, for hours.

This has led to some rather creative car games (there's only so many times you can play the license plate game). On a particular trip home after visiting my parents, my car was passed by a red full sized van. I decided to follow them, speculating we were probably going to the same place any way (a common occurrence in the UP).

This is not that van.

I was sneaky for the firs few miles, keeping 2-3 cars behind them until we both turned to go down the same road where we were the only two cars. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, a police car pulled out of his hidey-hole and drove between us for 20 minutes.

Hai guys! Heard you were having a party! Wait...where is everybody going?

I. freaked. out. Had I picked the wrong van to stalk? Could it be someone famous traveling incognito to perform at one of the casinos? Someone from the government on their way to Tech? What had my boredom gotten me into now?

The answer is we had both (the van & I) become a rolling speed-trap for anyone traveling the opposite direction. He pulled over the first sap who came barreling down the highway.

I continued to follow the van until we came to the Seney rest-stop. Normally, if you're attempting to successfully lurk, you probably shouldn't follow them into a rest-stop.  The Seney stop is different. Everyone stops there because you've either just driven or about to drive the longest, straightest, most unpopulated stretch of road imaginable.

I once had a passenger who was convinced the trees were out to get us by the end of this road.

I parked about five cars over from the van and watched as 5 young men got out. Their dress and mode of travel suggested band members. One of them announced loudly on his cell that they "would be there in an hour." From this statement I gleaned two things: 1) They were headed for Marquette and 2) The man on the cell was bad at estimating the passage of time (Marquette was about 2 hours away).

I finished my business at the rest stop and got on my way long before the guys in the van were ready to go. 1 person (even if I'm a chick) takes less time than 5 (even if they're dudes). I didn't want to wait around for them because they might start suspecting something, and when I play creeper, I play to win.

When I got back on the road, I started going about 3 mi. under the speed limit. Most people in Michigan will pass you of your going the limit (kinda explains why the cop went after the first car that went by, don't it?) Eventually, the van caught up and passed me.

Now, the Seney Stretch is particularly devoid of radio stations. As I was following the van, I figured, like many people, they would be listening to an MP3 player in the car. They might even be using one of those devices that broadcasts to a radio station to be playing it through the speakers. Flipping through the static on my radio, I found it.

So there I am. In the middle of the wilderness, stalking a van, listening to their music and they were none the wiser. If I wasn't such a non-intimidating little blonde girl, we might have been in a horror flick.

Like this, except shorter, thinner and wielding a Nerf sword.

Hipster

At one point in time, I thought about making a diary comic. I made one. This is it.

In the Past part 1

This coming Friday I'm having a yard sale (Lake Linden Ave, Laurium btw) so I've been ripping through my things I no longer want with abandon.

I've chosen to get rid of my photo albums since the only times I look at them is when I'm packing them to move, which makes them useless in my mind. Besides, since I've got a digital camera I keep most of my images on my computer.

The best of which I post here. Which I thought I'd do with these. I tried to pair them down to images people I know in my audience would be interested in.

We're starting with high school. There are no good pictures of high school. It is a fact of life.

I was a big fan of my first prom date. And no, I refuse to apologize for that pun.

McGarr. She was a crazy one. That totally explains why we were friends.

How many other people had their prom in a Hockey Stadium? Just us? Yeeeeeesh....

KT as Madame President in the school play "The Mouse that Roared" We were a nerdy group.

If I wasn't a high schooler when I took this, I probably would have thought harder about using a camera in the girls locker room. Luckily, Liz was decent (clothing wise anyway...no comment on mental states)

Not only was I on the swim team, but it was an awesome swim team. Despite me being on it.

Lauren is one of the few people who can wear an Adidas t-shirt, track pants and eat a caramel apple sucker and still look poetic. I might even guess she's the ONLY person who can do this.

I was in choir and a pep band groupie. Not actually in pep band, but there often enough even the music teacher sometimes thinks I was.

Senior Music Trip. We go to one of the US cultural centers (Chicago) and spend a day at an arcade.  N-E-R-D-S. (I mentioned that already? Well, it's still true)

Our old dog Suzy. I took enough pictures of her that I could post one a day for a year without  repeating. I have no idea why I thought she was so very interesting, she didn't do much (except eventually learn to run away from the camera)

Sometimes I'm pretty sure gulls are more intelligent then they let on.

This picture is the reason I only wear shorts to the beach and around the house. WHY AM I POSTING IT ON THE INTERNET?!?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!?

Well, I hope you all enjoyed an embarrassing look into 9 years ago. And that was after I got rid of all the really nerdy stuff. *sigh*

102 Posts

So, I had always meant to make my 100th post an update on my leaving facebook experiment. Even though blogger keeps track for me, somehow here we are on blog entry 103. Oops. I always tend to over shoot things. Ah well, I'm sure there's a counting system out there somewhere that makes this post a significant number of some sort.

When I started this blog, I wasn't exactly sure what it was going to be about. Turns out I'm still not sure what this is about. My posts are all over the place. Maybe that's okay. I'm kinda all over the place (figuratively and literally since I started Wednesday adventures...)

It has been a great motivational tool. I am having my most successful stab at keeping a webcomic since I originally had that dream of running a webcomic. It only took 7 tries to get one that has a marginal success rate (success, in this case, meaning has updated more than once). A lot of that is thanks to this blog. Readers are like observers and science shows people are more productive when they know they are being watched.

I've also managed to strengthen a lot of friendships since leaving facebook, as I was hoping. Sure, I've completely lost contact with A LOT of people, but as it turns out...I did not really care what they were having for breakfast or if they were skipping class that day. Having actual discussions with people, over the phone, via e-mail, with the good ol' USPS has also helped my art. Since we are much less likely to give limited 150 character blurb-ette of our lives, I've gotten into some deep discussions on philosophy and life with people whose ideas I respect and that always gives me something to paint about.

Contact in the physical world with other people has gone up too. Since quitting facebook, I made a new best friend. I haven't had a best friend since middle school, and had no idea how much I missed the awesomeness of best-frienditude. We've even had a slumber party. It was totally tubular.

Anyone want to guess who's been on my mind? Anyone?

In conclusion, quitting facebook is one of the greatest things I have done for myself in the last year. I am still never going back.

I just so happen to have a photo of the EXACT conversation that lead to me quitting facebook.