Dreamer Easy

Oh dear, I think I'm hypomanic, and we're watching Warriors Gate. I just delivered a two or three minute largely incoherent speech about randomness. Chaos Theory! Chaos Magic! Quantum forces operating on a macro scale! Altered Walter! Cross Purposes! Donald Duck in Mathemagic Land!

Oh no, Frankalike is back, mewing at the door. In a moment Tim will be enormous.

ETA: To get a sense of my current mental state, go to this page with illustrations of the Egyptian afterlife. If you cannot stop laughing at the pictures, you're where am I now.

I need to go to the doctor, the post office, the chemist, the health food shop, the supermarket, and the gym. All I want to do is nap with the cats for a few hours.

Yesterday an old and dear friend confided that he'd recently bumped into a slight acquaintance of mine from the nineties. Not realising how badly she was embarrassing herself, she began slagging off "all those Doctor Who nerds", and in particular that red-headed woman who "wrote those books" and was "out of her mind". My friend showed admirable self-restraint by not laughing in her face (or telling her that he'd married me).

I got home from hearing about this hilarious social gaffe to find an email from Google Alerts. Remember that editor from whose publication I withdrew my story? We've had no contact with each other since then, but the ego-scan informed me that he's still bitching about me in his lj. Creeeeepy. Childish, too. I adjusted the search so I won't see his comments in future.

If you've followed this blog for a while, dear reader, you know of my many flaws. But in both of these instances, the remarks say far more about the remarkers than the remarkee. (My friend was apologetic about not defending me, but my gods, she was manifestly not worth the trouble so thank goodness he didn't.)

The reason I mention this crap at all is that the former incident briefly triggered in me that creepy feeling of being watched and judged at every moment. Haven't felt that for quite a while, but it was almost as though she was standing there in my kitchen, with me thinking, "What must she think of my daggy clothes? Oh no, I'm singing nonsense to the cats, she must think I'm crazy!" And so on.

I assume this pathological self-consciousness is the result of the fun 'n' games at high school, where I was watched and judged at every moment - or at least, often enough, unpredictably enough, that the bullies succeeded in installing a miniature version of themselves in my brain to do their work for them. Fortunately said organ and I know each other well enough now that I can recognise those thoughts for what they are and defeat them.

What I'm curious about is whether anyone else has experienced the same intense self-consciousness - not in a social situation, but when you're quite alone.

I've buggered up my wrist, so I can't get much housework done today, so you're about to be spammed with all my backed up links. Plus I'm in a rubbish mood. Duck and cover.

Recent postings suggest that lj Doctor Who fandom may be beginning to reclaim itself from the shipwarriors and other obsessives. Huzzah.

Australia's gag rule will soon be lifted. "[Foreign Minister Stephen Smith] Mr Smith said the focus of Australia's foreign aid would remain on avoiding abortions by providing better family planning education, as he pledged to boost funds for preventing maternal deaths by $15 million over four years."

Saith Gordon Brown: UK, US 'aiming for nuclear-free world', with Britain making some reductions to its nuclear arsenal and offering to go further if the US and Russia will.

Are bad sleeping habits driving us mad? "Take anyone with a psychiatric disorder and the chances are they don't sleep well. The result of their illness, you might think. Now this long-standing assumption is being turned on its head, with the radical suggestion that poor sleep might actually cause some psychiatric illnesses or lead people to behave in ways that doctors mistake for mental problems."

Guantanamo guards "take their last revenge"

Carbon dioxide is good, so more carbon dioxide is better! Unless you're a foram and can't make a shell because dissolved CO₂ has acidified the ocean. Oops.

KATE YOU IDIOT

I've managed to let my stress levels rise to the point where I found myself online at 3 am last night, waiting for the Valium to work. I've really got to stop thinking and acting as though next month's OS trip is The End Of The World, and I have to have all the housework done, errands run, and Hugo won beforehand.

*slaps forehead* And from the 'I know better than that' department, I spent the last two weeks working so hard and stressing out so much that I managed to have a Setback. Fortunately Jon was there to drag me off to the gym and then out for Thai, restoring my equilibrium. I'm having today off to laze about. She said, having just opened up ABW to work on Other Writing Project without even realising what she was doing. *sigh*

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article5326758.ece (DT's understudy)
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/12/05/birth_certificate/index.html (conspiracy theory psychology)
http://www.smh.com.au/news/lifeandstyle/parenting/jack-the-lad-why-parents-pick-this-boys-name/2008/12/13/1228585181754.html
http://xkcd.com/311/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2008/12/11/even-impartial-jurors-use-emotion-and-self-bias-in-decisions/
http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2000_02_09_Sleep.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/blues-are-killing-your-grey-matter/2008/10/08/1223145446472.html
http://news.smh.com.au/national/survey-reveals-mental-health-ignorance-20081010-4xoh.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/ignorance-on-crime-fuelled-by-media/2008/10/17/1223750333642.html
http://news.smh.com.au/national/most-dont-seek-mental-treatment-abs-20081023-57dk.html

Unwell. Xanax relieves anxiety but not the depression which results from long stress and panic. Generally a bit paralysed. Also, I have a headache which feels like being repeatedly stabbed in the base of the skull.

WHY YES, I AM HYPOMANIC, WHY DO YOU ASK?

Always seems to happen when I am Having a Woman's Period. Maybe it's just me sprinign back to my normal shape after the PMS, like an unsquished Nerf ball.