My friend Kristie Agee is putting out a CD. I just listened to the track she has available online and was very impressed. Roy, her husband, plays the trombone on this track, and he does a fabulous job, too. I’m so happy for the two of them, accomplishing something that they’ve wanted to do for a long time. Go, Kristie!

So, a little update on why I’ve been so quiet these past couple of months. My depression recently came back with a vengeance, which has resulted in my hardly doing anything at all this semester. I’ve hardly been able read anything longer than a blog post, let alone read any of the texts for my thesis. I’ve only occasionally been able to read fiction. Given that I’ve hardly been able to read, writing has been pretty much out of the question. I just haven’t been able to concentrate well enough to form a coherent paragraph. This is one of the symptoms of my depression that bugs me the most: after all, if I can’t read, how can I entertain myself or get any work done? I’ve spent a lot of time this term watching downloaded TV episodes of Lost, Desperate Housewives, and Carnivale.

Early this term I repeatedly sprained my ankle, which made me consider quitting Aikido. I also missed a few yoga classes due to the injury. Not a fun injury to have, when your life is so dependent on going up and down stairs and walking! After a lot of hemming and hawing, I did finally manage to go back to Aikido. For one class–during which I managed to pull a muscle in my back. I couldn’t move without major pain, so I ended up going to the minor emergency center. Nothing to be done but take painkillers. That injury took forever to heal, and I haven’t been back to yoga or Aikido since. So I haven’t been getting any physical activity other than walking since February. Vicious circle, the depression and lack of physical activity.

Things were so bad for a while there that I finally made the decision to try to get help from the medical community again. After my multiple unpleasant experiences with psychotropic drugs and their many side effects, I’d vowed never to go back on meds again. Things had gotten do bad, though, that I didn’t feel that I had a choice anymore. My lovely aunt helped me get a referral to a pdoc, one her patients had had very good experience with. I’m seeing this new pdoc now, and am back on the meds. Remeron, this time. It’s difficult, trying to approach this new course of treatment with an open mind. I want things to be better so badly. None of my courses of treatment have ended because I’ve gotten better, however. Meds I’ve stopped because of the side effects, doctors I’ve stopped seeing because I didn’t feel I was getting anywhere with them. I’ve never had good luck with…well, anything, really, except maybe yoga. We’ll see how it goes this time.

So, I’m feeling a little better now. I’m feeling more like writing on my blog, as you can see, and I’m starting up the yoga again on Monday. I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll be going to two classes a week again, and the yogaferie is coming up at the end of this month. I do think the yoga helps keep me more stable, so I’m relieved that I finally feel well enough to go back.

Other news: my parents were just here for a week around Syttende Mai, and we had a very nice visit. Only problem being that we didn’t have a bathroom in our apartment! About two months ago a pipe broke in the floor between our bathroom and the bathroom underneath us. The bathroom was torn up and the shower unusable for almost six weeks. Finally we have a usable shower and almost all the work is finished, however shoddily. The mold from the wet wood and clay has really done a number on my allergies, something I’ve hardly had a problem with at all since I’ve lived in Norway. Of course the allergies hit me hardest when my parents were here, so that I was totally zombified for half their visit. We all had a good time, anyway. The allergies are mostly better now.

So, yeah, that’s why I haven’t been writing much lately. I’m hoping things will be getting steadily better from here on out. ‘Least ’til the next depression hits me.

People never tire of mix tapes. They keep them until they lose them; they never throw them out. Instead, they wear them out or spill bong water all over them and still refuse to get rid of them, despite the urgings of girlfriends, boyfriends, fiancées, wives and husbands.

Ain’t that the truth. I still have all the mix tapes my friends gave me in college. Not too long ago I found them as I was cleaning out several boxes still unpacked (ugh!) from our move to the new apartment two years ago. I tossed out a bunch of old cassettes, mostly stuff that I’d re-bought on CD or downloaded, but I couldn’t toss out the mix tapes. I never listen to cassettes–or even CD’s–anymore, but looking at those covers and tracklists brought back so many memories for me that I just couldn’t bear to throw the mix tapes out. I guess it makes more sense to put them in my memento box now, instead of with my music collection.

Here’s a track list from one of my favorite tapes, of course one made for me by James:

I played that tape to death. Looks like I spilled something on it, but damned sure not bong water!

Mix tapes, mostly ones from James, were the soundtrack of my college days. I used to blast them out the windows of my car on my way to work, blast them down the highway when I went on road trips down to Austin to see my friend Bruce. In November of 1998, Johannes came to visit me in Oklahoma from Norway. We drove a big U-Haul van with all my stuff in it, Probe trailing behind, to PA, where my parents had moved a few years earlier. We got married on New Year’s Day of 1999, then moved to Norway just a few days later. No more Probe, no more road trips, no more listening to mix tapes. The end of an era, clichéed as that sounds. I wasn’t any happier back then than I am now, but I sure had more of a life.