Search Terms

One of my favorite things about the stats feature on blogger is it gives me the search terms people used that resulted in content on my blog.

Currently, one set of terms is "cute van for teenaged girls"


Which linked them to this picture:

Just going to hazard a guess, this is not the van they were looking for...

Dear Andee...

A comment was posted in response to this post, I felt I needed a little more space other than the comments to properly answer the question. Plus, it's good information for everyone to know.

 as someone who could have been punched in the face(o_O)
i think i can give myself the right to ask;
"soul-crushing sadness!!,Why!!?"

PS.
1)don't temme that u dont wanna talk about it because u did talked about it. (we r on ur blog)(fact!!)

2)don't ask who i am, just to maintain the illusion.(quoted from ur snappy answers!!)

:P

Dear Anonymous,

I thought the reason people who have depression suffer from "soul-crushing sadness" was reasonably clear in the post, but I shall attempt to explain further.

People who have depression are not simple feeling blue, sad, down in the dumps, that is a symptom of the disease. Depression is when your body is unable to correctly balance your chemistry.

Most scientists believe people who have depression have an inability to create the proper amount of serotonin, which is the chemical your body makes that gives you the feeling of happiness. Prescriptions for depression can either be thought of as serotonin supplements or as chemicals that cause your body to start producing it at correct levels. It is rather like insulin for diabetics, their bodies do not create the right chemicals to break down sugar while people who have depression do not create the right chemicals to register the feeling of happiness.

People who suffer from depression literally do not have the ability to be happy, and so they are sad all the time. As the imbalance gets worse, they get sadder and sadder. Sometimes they pull out of it, and sometimes they cannot deal with it anymore and suicide or begin committing self-harm.

There is little telling what might set of an attack. Sometimes it is outside influences, like a close one dying, or in my case, often if I get over stressed (I often have depression attacks around exams or after moving). Sometimes there can be little to no reason for an attack of depression.

Not all depression attacks have to be treated  with medication either. I have found my depression to be much more manageable by eating a healthy diet with lots of vegetables and limiting my simple carbohydrate intake as well as regular exercise, a very similar recommendation for those suffering diabetes you'll notice. When your body is healthy, it has an easier time producing the right chemical balance. Plus, as anyone who's watched Legally Blonde knows: "Exercise creates endorphins, endorphins make you happy, and happy people just don't kill their husbands." (Okay, so maybe I should have cut that quote off earlier)

Sometimes though, the attacks are bad enough that you cannot regulate them yourself and you need medication to get your body chemistry back in balance so that you can feel happy again.

So why does depression exist? Studies have shown that those who suffer from depression also have the unique ability to see things exactly how they are. Almost everyone is a little optimistic in their outlook of how everything is, which can regulate decision making habits like getting a mortgage or loan or in a more hunter-gatherer case, think winter isn't going to be very long. People who have depression have the ability to look at things in a very realistic manner with an emotional detachment "I may be able to afford the mortgage payments now, but the job market is looking like it's going to get worse and I am not that secure in my job right now" or "The snow this winter has been late in coming, which means it will probably stick around longer so we should be more careful with our supplies". If you look at many of the great minds in history who did a lot to changed the world, they often suffered from some type of depression. You could see how this would be evolutionary beneficial to us as a species. The downside, of course, is that these same people can go spiraling down into equally unrealistic pessimism.

The point I am trying to get across here is that people who have depression as a disease and suffer from depression attacks feel "soul-crushing sadness" because of chemicals in their body. Not because someone is mean to them or they just broke up with their boyfriend or because someone they love just died, these things can set off an attack, but the reason people who have depression feel sadder longer than someone who does not is because they do not have the ability to produce the chemicals and hormones that would allow them to get out of it on their own. Which is why saying "just snap out of it" is so hard for someone going through a depression attack to hear, they literally DO NOT POSSESS the capability to do that. You wouldn't tell someone with peanut allergies to just get over it, it is the same thing with depression.

Hope that answers your question,
Andee

TGIF

If you wanna take some action, you can go here.

Now on to more pleasant things.

Tuesday was...yellow. And very DIY. The skirt I wore was made out of an old pillowcase using this tutorial from chic-steals. A once-was-white jacket I bought at Goodwill and altered into a little navy bolero with a homemade apple patch and a stencil of "Judge if you want, we are all going to die. I intend to deserve it." from the webcomic A Softer World, and a pair of white fishnets I shiboried in yellow dye.

Things I did not make/alter that I wore were my olive green Doc Martins (remind me to tell you their story someday if you haven't already heard it...) and my beautiful Pancake Mountain shirt from Threadless.

Recently I went on a tear through my wardrobe getting rid of things I didn't wear any more, had multiples of or felt I was out growing. Out the door went many, many screen-printed tees. I held a few back because with out t-shirts, I don't think I would know how to dress myself in the morning (or noon, or night, it would be pants-on-head madness up in here 24/7). But a majority of my cute/clever/Engrish shirts went out the door. I feel I have come to an age in my life where it's starting to feel way too teeny-bopper-ey to be going through my day-to-day wearing screen printed tees.

Not that I wore so many in the first place. I never got on-board with the whole corporate-logo t-shirt thing that was big when I was a teen (Nike and the like). When people started wearing band tees, comic book tees or movie tees, it just felt like the same thing. If companies want the privilege of using my chest for advertising, they can pay me for it. I ain't forkin' over $20 so that people can read my opinion of Limp Bizkit (yes...I'm that old...moving on) on my shirt. I will tell people my thoughts for free, but I'm not paying anyone to do it.

I don't know if you've shopped for t-shirts recently, but these opinions pretty much regulates me into the little old lady parts of the store where I can get solids or a nice floral print if I'm feeling daring.

I guess the lesson here is if you're going to have principles about buying t-shirts, then you probably won't buy a lot of t-shirts...

A New Game.

My friend Emily introduced me to a site called Gaia, it's an online doll that you can dress up. It wasn't long before all the girls who live in my house were sitting in the living room giggling about the stuff we were finding on the website to dress our dolls with.

I've decided to use it to catalogue my outfits for a month and then blog about them. Most likely because I'm a crazy person. (Coming as a surprise to no one...)

So this outfit represents a rough approximation of what I wore on Monday.

Let me just say, I love those pants. Friday I was walking home from my 8 o'clock and as usual, passed a lot of students going the other way. From far off, one of them looked like they were wearing these magnificently stripped pants. Turned out they were plaid pajama pants and I really need to make a dedicated effort to keeping my glasses clean.

But the idea of those magnificent stripped pants persisted. I considered drafting a pattern and buying black and brown stripped fabric because in my mind those pants must exist.


It wasn't long before I decided sewing them from scratch was too much effort. Besides, there are already so many pants in the world, what was the point of me adding to the problem instead of adopting a pair of my own? So I was off to Goodwill.

I found the perfect pair of Docker's black cotton-blend pants in a size 12 for half off. They're a little loose on me, but they have a "sure fit" waistband that keeps them around my waist and they're comfortable like pjs. Next stop was Wally World for some bleach and masking tape (and gas and dish-soap and And AND, why are these trips never simple?).

Saturday I masked off stripes and stuffed them with some of the surplus plastic bags we have jammed into every nook and cranny around here. I carried them outside sprayed the pants with a 50/50 bleach solution. Then I let them sit there in the dead-end street while the bleach dried, which upon reflection may have not been the most considerate thing to do to the neighbors. Most people find it somewhat distressing to see what looks like half a person lying in the street...

*ahem*

Anywho...after the bleach dried I stuck them in the drier to beat the crystals off before putting them in the washer. I did not think my brilliant plan all the way through. Let's just say it's ill-advised to stick clothing in the dryer covered in masking tape.

One sticky adventure later, and my pants had gone from being imaginary to real world! Huzzah!

I wore them with a Gap white button shirt I got from St. Vinny's, an Ana denim vest from Goodwill, my dad's old alpine hat and his old blue cowboy boots. The whole outfit all together probably ran me $5 and features one-of-a kind pants. How awesome is that?

(Hint: Very awesome.)

Iron Artist

I keep getting asked what I'm going to do over Thanksgiving recess. I've decided I'm inventing an Iron Artist challenge for myself. Over the course of 1 week I am going to complete as many art projects as I (in)humanly can.


The List:
[ ] 5'x3' Acrylic Painting "When My Heart Leaks"
[ ] 24 hour comic
[ ] Next story arc for Legend of Helga
[ ] Found Object Sculpture "Born of Wild Words"
[ ] Mini Collages "Man in his Nature"
[ ] Watercolor painting of a gorilla girl riding a roll of toilet paper (Don't judge me!)
[ ] Prep Masonite for 11 paintings of a series yet-to-be-determined
[ ] Painting #1
[ ] Painting #2
[ ] Painting #3
[ ] Painting #4
[ ] Painting #5
[ ] Painting #6
[ ] Painting #7
[ ] Painting #8
[ ] Painting #9
[ ] Painting #10
[ ] Painting #11
[ ] Portrait of Tyler, the moose dog
[ ] Painting "From Duluth" (Working Title)


So there's like, 11 acrylic paintings I don't have a subject for...suggestions?

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.

A War in the Stars

I've been working on a concept for disposable art. Rather, recyclable art. I've not gotten much beyond this:

If you can't figure out the theme, you are obviously not American. Or I'm a terrible artist. One of the two.

Any way, the idea is to create art that is relatively inexpensive and disposable. Because how many toxic oil paintings do we really need persisting in the world? I mean, yeah, we could probably learn from a few more DaVincis, but for most artists, well. We're probably not all going to make a cultural impact, which means in the grand scheme of history, we're just creating a lot of garbage.

Which bothers me like a fly that won't land when I'm trying to sleep.

Joyce Kilmer: Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

 

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

 

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,   
But only God can make a tree.

IT'S ALIIIIIIIVE!!!

 

After a few months of tech problems, Legend of Helga updates again!

In other tech news: I got my computer from a lump of metal that doesn't work to a lump of metal that turns on and then doesn't work. Progress. Slow, inevitable progress.

Where Google Maps Can't Find Me

I, for the life of me, can't figure out what sort of vehicle this was

I drove across this...

...this "bridge" twice.

I made a boat.

It floats.

No matter how far away you think you are...

Someone was there first.