Taking a break from blah blah me me blah to post a picture of my kid wrestling with his daddy (since wrestling is what babies do best). Aren’t they the cutest? They are totally the cutest.
My favorite part is how they have matching expressions. Oh, and how Not So is modeling his “not so cranky” tee. (I have one that says “cranky” and apparently gets me hit on by lesbians in coffee shops. Bonus!)
Tags: notso cranky, daddy, baby, wrestling
You may remember that I started Wellbutrin last week, possibly because I posted a long, involved rant about it (which did not, surprisingly enough, include links to the manufacturer’s website, the Wikipedia page and the article on Mental Health dot com – but rest assured that I read them all, and several more besides).
The first couple of days were…not good. Bad, in fact. The first day I felt like a zombie and couldn’t speak without slurring my words (fun!), and I felt a little bit like I was on acid, only without the speed. Oh, seratonin! You jokester, you! The second and third days I was…well, the words wildly overemotional would not be out of place in a description of my mood. My mantra was “It’s supposed to get worse before it will get better,” alternating with “THE MEDS AREN’T WORKING AND WHERE ARE MY ANXIETY PILLS?”
I’m feeling better now, thanks. Just in time to up my dose! So this weekend should be a mood-altering extravaganza. I almost don’t want to take more of the medication, since the half dose seems to be doing okay and I’ve only just gotten past the dry mouth, which was annoying. But I’m game. If I’m going to do the antidepressant thing, I may as well go whole hog.
Speaking of whole hog: I jumped headlong into my WIP manuscript last night and ended up writing 2500 words. Woot!
Tags: wellbutrin, meds, antidepressants, WIP, manuscript, writing, seratonin
There it was, crying out to me from the shelf at Borders: Pretty in Pink, the Everything’s Ducky edition. No, I thought. This can’t be it. But when I flipped over the box, it said, plain as day: “Includes Original Ending!”
I’d despaired of ever seeing it. I’d thought that maybe it was an internet legend, one of those stories that sounds true but isn’t, of course. Because who would run off with Blane (whose sole redeeming attribute was, apparently, his ability to rock the 80s preppie ensemble) when you could have Duckie? Duckie’s, well, Duckie. Emo before there was emo, metrosexual before…you get the picture. Duckie was all good things about the 80s. There’s that moment in Andie’s bedroom when they put their heads together and you just know they’re going to kiss, and he looks so desperate and fragile and then they don’t, and she leaves, and he collapses on her bed saying “I love this woman” and that, my friends, that is the whole reason Pretty in Pink lives on. (Well, that and a deliciously sardonic James Spader, but shush, we’re talking about Duckie here.)
You know she’d end up with Duckie. Who wouldn’t? But every DVD release has failed to provide the final scene, the one shown to test audiences and rejected, the one every fangirl dreams about: the right ending. I had pictured it as John Hughes’ dark little secret; I had imagined him clutching the original film on his deathbed, whispering “…don’t let them see it…” as he kicks off…sunglass-wearing lawyers holding off legions of screaming fans while the film is immolated…but no. It’s been released! Praise be!
We watched the movie first so we’d fully appreciate the not-rightness of Andie running off with Blane at the end (although we grudgingly admit – and this is the royal ‘we’ here, as I do not believe Not So has given this nearly as much thought as I have – that the kissing in the mist scene is pretty dreamy, and we do so like the OMD song, which we understand was subbed for another after the new ending was filmed) and then we queued up the special features. Some of us may have been bouncing. “The Lost Dance.” Hee!
The actors, looking somewhat past their prime now that 20 years have passed, discussed the last scene in detail. In particular, they discussed why it didn’t work, and why the new ending was so much better OMG, and how we should all get over it, because of course she ends up with Blane, anyone could see that. A few tantalizing shots are shown, behind the scenes from the day the original ending was filmed. Molly Ringwald was ill that day, they tell us. She hated the original ending. She felt that her character would not have been attracted to Jon Cryer (although she felt that the original choice for Duckie, Robert Downey Jr., might have made sense, you know, for her character – um, hello? Actress much?). She had a crush on Andrew McCarthy. She likes the new ending much better. There is discussion about Andrew McCarthy’s hair.
And that’s it. They never show the original ending.
DAMN YOU, JOHN HUGHES!
technorati tags:pretty in pink, duckie, john hughes, the lost dance
I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, during which I thought I’d mention that I was pretty depressed and anxious and might possibly benefit from some sort of pharmaceutical intervention. I also wanted to discuss migraine meds, but a funny thing happens when you mention depression at the doctor’s office: all else is eclipsed by the sudden need for them to quantify and prescribe. I was given a weird electronic device – something like an ugly LeapFrog – on which I was instructed to take a quizlet to ascertain just how depressed I am. “Press 1 for true and 2 for false,” the medical assistant told me, and then closed the door so I could have some “privacy.”
Of course, after taking the quizlet – which asks things like “Do you feel irritable or cranky most of the time?” and “Do you often find it difficult to interact with others?”) – I start to see “hidden” meaning in everything. OMG I call myself Cranky Mama. Cranky Mama. That means I am cranky! As in, not happy! I might was well call myself Severely Depressed and Should Be In Therapy Mama! (Forgetting, of course, that Cranky Mama evolved out of Cranky Pregnant Girl, which I thought was unbearably cute during Ellison’s gestation.)
I could have told you what my results would be. After all, I have the Internet, and what is the internet if not an enormous LeapFrog? Every once in a while, just for fun, I take various depression assessments, and my scores are pretty universally in the “Meep! Get thee to a doctor!” category. And, see? I got me to a doctor! It only took, what, 20 years of being morose to convince me that I wasn’t just going to “snap out of it”?
Said doctor came in very earnestly and proceeded to quiz me about my history of depression, taking copious notes and furrowing his brow a lot. My monologues tend to do that to people, I’ve found. There’s a reason I am not a super villain. However, at the end of said monologue, I successfully bent the doctor’s will to my own, prompting him to prescribe me the antidepressant I wanted (Wellbutrin) as well as an anti-anxiety pill (though not Valium, sadly)…so maybe I have a future as a super villain, after all. (“It is I! Prescription Girl! Fear my mighty Google-inhanced knowledge of psychotropic substances!”) Amusingly, the doctor actually had to leave at one point to discuss my treatment options with the on-duty psychiatric consult…since apparently I have “a long history of severe depression” as well as the “possibility of mania” (which is news to me, but whatever) and he wanted to make sure none of the meds would bring out what I can only imagine are my latent bipolar tendencies. People: I am depressive. Period. The closest thing to manic that I get is when I’m hopped up on sugar and exclaiming over Shakira videos.
We did not, however, discuss migraine meds, despite the fact that I was coming down from a migraine at the time of the appointment. It occurred to me that I ought to bring it up at some point, but I was tired of discussing things by then. You may be shocked to hear this, but I do get sick of talking about my problems. Eventually. Besides, do I need to add more pills to my daily arsenal? I do not. (I am a person who rarely even takes a multivitamin, after all. Ingesting substances that are not delicious isn’t really my thing.)
I have high hopes for the Wellbutrin. If all goes well, I will not only be a veritable fountain of good cheer and optimism, but I will also be thin and randy (those being two particularly attractive side-effects of this particular med). Let’s all think happy thoughts about that, shall we? Er, those of us who aren’t clinically depressed, that is.
Tags: depression, severe depression, wellbutrin, meds, cranky, diagnosis
In Slightly Less Unhealthy news, I made banana bread for the first time in the new house. It tasted much the same as the banana bread I used to make in the old house. I know you are surprised.
Here’s the recipe, for those of you who like that kind of thing:
1 stick room temperature unsalted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
3 overripe bananas
1 tablespoon milk
1 cup flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 325 degrees and butter a loaf pan.
Cream sugar and butter. Add vanilla extract. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition to combine. In a separate bowl, mash bananas with a fork and add milk. Stir banana mixture with butter and sugar until just combined.
In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients. Slowly add dry to wet and stir until combined.
Pour into loaf pan and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes.
Tags: slightlyless unhealthy, recipe, banana bread
I am baffled by fashion these days. Back when I was 19 and 107 lbs., I was obsessed with fashion. I don’t have much of a defense, seeing as this was the mid-90s and grunge had just hit the scene; it’s not like it was a particularly high point for style. Yet, there I was, devouring every new Vogue and Elle and W and trying to do my eyeliner in just the right shade of heroin chic. Well, actually, I was a Goth, but who’s counting? I had fashion sense, is my point, and fashion? It made sense to me.
I’m the one on the right, smiling like I want to bite someone.
Now, not so much. I was in Old Navy today (yes, style mavens of the world, take note) and so many of the outfits were just…horrendous. Bell-bottoms – excuse me, Wide Legs – are in again? Smocked tops? Are we bringing back the 60s? And yes, again, because I do realize that fashion recycles but man, wasn’t it just a couple of years ago that we were all woo hoo, bell-bottoms? It was; it was somewhere in the vicinity of 1998, when Levis had the “The world is wide open” campaign, with the Tainted Love commercial and the one with the David Cassidy song.
And now I realize: 1998? Not a couple of years ago. I am old. And you damn kids with your strange clothes and your loud music had better stay off my lawn.