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Depression

6/30/2013

This tree is seriously depressed. It's hollow is now a hole.

This is probably what you thought I meant by the title of this post. No, no. That's just how I felt after my job interview. Sheesh.

ps.
The job interview went really well.

This is what doctors throw at you when you feel hollow. Research shows a 50% success rate. The 50% unsuccessful rate includes patients who became more suicidal and/or dead. Also, lots of people who got better taking a sugar pill.

This is the stuff that one of my writing instructors in college used to treat her depression. (Hint: The definition of depression in this text box excludes indentation. See the tree above.)True fact: Both ant-depressants and allergy medication effect the histamine receptors. (Though anti-depressants monkey around with other receptors too. Hence, why antidepressants can make you suicidal and allergy medication can't.)

Since allergy suffers can experience fatigue. weakness and drowsiness, I've always wanted to study allergies and depression. That is, I have a theory that X percentage of the population are not depressed at all. They just have allergies.This would make a GREAT scientific study. It would be easy to study, too:

!/3 of the group gets a sugar pill.
1/3 gets allergy medication.
1/3 gets an antidepressant.

But what I'd really like a pill for the economic depression.

True fact: When the economy is good, fewer people are depressed.

Perhaps instead of building a secret giant information storage center for Prism, or chasing Snowden, Obma should be concerned about the economy and jobs.

The angular distance of a celestial object below the horizon

This is the first definition of depression. I have no clue what it means. When I search for a graphic I got fresh eggs. True story.

Where's the beef?

6/7/2013

"Who too my meat?"

The house was empty except for Toby, the 17 year-old shepherd mix. he's my roommate's dog. Toby rolled his eyes up to me thumped his tail.

"Did you open the freezer?" I asked him.

At times Toby seems to understand English. Just the other day I was sweeping the floor and singing a silly song about Toby's hair (He sheds because he's old and I'm more allergic to him than I am most animals. ) and I hurt his feelings. Pretty remarkable considering he's mostly deaf. Anyway, he scurried down the basement to pout until I apologized.

Mostly, I get a kick out of him because if Meat Head were a real dog, he'd be Toby. But opening refrigerators is not in Toby's skill set and that let me scratching my head on what happened to the beef.

Two days passed. I noticed a smell. Can you guess where the smell was coming from?

Wrong.
Wrong again.
Yeah, that's wrong too.

As it turned out, I put the beef on the top-shelf of my kitchen cabinet instead of the freezer. Why? I don't know, but what I'd really like to find out is, what did I put in the freezer?

So where's your beef been lately?

Carving out your niche`

6/1/2013

A good friend of mine responded to a recent email about how life is going. (I'm torn between finding a job in the states or going abroad again, in case you were wondering.)

She was talking about Meat Head: the Worst Dog in the World. What she exactly said is that "It's niche` and I love it." I've heard that about Dr. Bob, too.

And yet it's the word niche` that struck me. Niche` dates back to the 1610's. It's origin could come from vulgar Latin or French. In French it meant a recess in a wall or a dog kennel. In Latin it meant nest. People were probably using it as slang a long time before it was recorded. (Upper class and lower class, and all that jazz.)

Whatever it's origins the word now means a place or position suitable for a person or a specific market. And yet, I think niche` has a large scope because it applies to life itself.

From the earliest age we are saddled with expectations: teachers, parents, peers, siblings, friends, grandparents, aunts and uncles and our selves. As we get older, universities, coaches, but especially our bosses become a huge player of expectations.

We all have things we are good at and things we are not. When we are not good things that people expect us to be good at difficulty arises. And then some of us are just plain old weird. (If you did not laugh at this joke then you have failed my expectations of you.) Moving on.

The only way to navigate life is to be hard on yourself, but not too hard. To work hard but not too hard. To play hard, but not too hard. But above all else you must carve out your niche`.

I'm going to use writing as example, but this applies to anything you do... If the traditional mode of publications is securing an agent and then a publisher, carving out your niche` might include that or it might mean doing it on your own, or a third option that nobody has thought of.

Finding your niche` is a great thing, but a word of caution: don't forget that as we grow older we change and our niche` today may not be the niche` we need tomorrow. If you build the walls too high, you run the risk of self imprisonment.

What's your niche`? Do you like it there or do you feel stuck?

Depression

Where's the beef?

Carving out your niche`

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