across an invisible border

I am watching a butterfly fry its wings on the other side of the window screen. I feel like a terrible Nabokov scholar, in that I couldn't tell you quite what it is. But it is sort of bronze and has spots.

So this is where I talk about more serious things.

Last year, after my excruciating hospital experience, I stopped taking my antidepressants. There were several reasons behind that. To begin, the hospital refused to let me have my medication during the days they kept me in the hospital. So I had a couple days of the worst cold turkey right there. For another, the pharmacy kept switching between giving me a bunch of 150mg pills and 300mg pills, so at times I was taking far more than I should and it was making me sick and weird. It seemed to change almost every month and some months I wouldn't notice and end up taking 600mg a day instead of 300mg, which was not good.

After a couple weeks of desultory pill taking, I just stopped. It wasn't a case of "oh I'm better now so I can stop" or "pills are evil I quit." I just stopped. Kind of like when I quit smoking. This isn't to say there wasn't some weirdness and adjustment, but by and large it has gone well.

(I want to make note that I think antidepressants are a useful tool. They aren't magic and they won't fix everything. But sometimes they help. I have been on both ends of the spectrum. I took drugs in my teen years that exacerbated the problems and made me suicidal, and the drugs I've taken in the past years have kept me from crying all the time. Just because I'm not on them now doesn't mean I think anyone else should stop or that the way I quit was necessarily a good way to do it. It was probably very ill advised from a medical standpoint.)

While I cannot say I am a perfectly happy, cherry, bouncing ball of sunshine I do feel like I'm past the period of time where I needed those drugs to survive. The year after my divorce was terrible. I was sad all the time, all the time. But I changed, and certainly my life has changed. I've come to term with some difficult things, at least partially and I've taken steps to make my life a more sane one. There are still days when I feel sad, but I'm learning to figure out why and how to deal with it. I've felt a strong sense of anhedonia lately, but I am trying to find my way past that and I suspect it is one of the last long term side effects of the medication.

There are still things to do. I need to actively deal with my gender issues and my anxiety, for my own peace of mind. Things will have to change in me and in my life. But I feel past the bleakness, as if somewhere along the way, I crossed an invisible border into another country.

oh Texas

This is and is not normal here

Perry told The Associated Press on Tuesday he needed just one shot from the laser-sighted pistol he sometimes carries while jogging to take down a coyote that menaced his puppy during a February run near Austin.

Perry said he will carry his .380 Ruger — loaded with hollow-point bullets — when jogging on trails because he is afraid of snakes. He'd also seen coyotes in the undeveloped area.

When one came out of the brush toward his daughter's Labrador retriever, Perry charged.

We do have coyotes and they are often bad business. However, most of us do not jog with Rugers full of hollow points and equipped with laser sights. THAT is the ridiculous part. And seriously, you need a laser sight on your handgun cause you're afraid of snakes? SERIOUSLY? Maybe you should just jog in boots instead. I'm fairly certain even I can outrun a snake, and a hand cannon is just not an appropriate weapon for killing snakes.