musings from the pink chair

I’VE MOVED!

i finally bought my own domain, so i’ve moved my blog on over.

same pink chair, BRAND NEW BLOG!

sometimes i pick ella up and flip her upside-down. she always gets mad at me for approximately 1.5 minutes and then gets over it and wants to be petted and cuddled again. if i give her a nice ribbon or jingle bell to play with, that cuts it down to 20 seconds.

she also has taken to sleeping in shoeboxes, and frequently battles for control of my keyboard. and she’s the only cat in the world who comes when she’s called.

she’s quite the remarkable girl.

warning: small rant enclosed.

do you know what is majorly annoying? people’s attitude towards and lack of knowledge about “mental health.”

to begin with, it should not be a separate category from “physical health.” because it IS physical. it’s not like people decide to have a mental illness. it’s caused by chemicals and hormones and PHYSICAL problems, just like every other disease. why is it put in a different, stigmatized category just because it has to do with the brain instead of any other organ?

but ANYWAY, it is apparently “mental health month” this month and HR is like, oh, we should promote mental health for our employees for mental health month. which is fine. but do you know what they did? they set up a table where they gave out free pens and then you could wait in line to have a free “chair massage.”

right. because if you’d just relax a little and get a massage, all your “mental health” issues will magically disappear. just like relaxing cures cancer and diabetes and arthritis and every other medical problem without a cure. GOSH, ALL THOSE PEOPLE WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA AND DISSOCIATIVE PERSONALITIES AND DEPRESSION AND OCD AND AUTISM AND PSYCHOPATHY SHOULD JUST CALM DOWN A LITTLE AND GET SOME REST AND THEY WILL BE ALL BETTER.

it’s like the people who are healthy saying that they don’t want universal health care because they don’t want to pay for everyone else’s health care because if they’d just eat well and exercise a little nothing would ever go wrong. YES, BECAUSE NOT EXERCISING CAUSES CANCER. THAT LANCE ARMSTRONG, HE WAS JUST NOT IN GOOD SHAPE.

vampire weekend came to play in our newsroom yesterday. i’m not really a fan, but everyone else was ridiculously excited.

so they show up with their roadies/posse, including a hipstery girl who is filming their every move on 8 mm. they explain that they’re documenting their whole tour. on 8 mm. i was like, ok, we get it. you’re indie. you can stop proving it now. really.

…aaaaaaand then i noticed that they were eating taco bell. NO SERIOUSLY GUYS, feel free to stop trying so hard. we get it. really, we do. just stop.

i dream some weird stuff.  i know, so does everybody.  but like, it just seems so random. here are some of the strangest, most random, and thought-provoking dreams i’ve had in my life:

• i was in the television show diagnosis murder. except it was real life. it was actually a terrifying dream, given that the show is, you know, a murder mystery.
• my college friends and i were at some sort of reception at duke, and hillary clinton was there. she came up to us and asked us about some of our policy ideas. and she liked them so much that she made us all go into a classroom so we could discuss further and she could take notes.
• i met cynthia nixon and all i could think to tell her was “you looked better with red hair.”
• i went to a gorgeous, minimalist beach house with big open spaces and huge windows. and ever since that dream, i’ve been trying to figure out where it is so i can go there.
• i found a hidden neighborhood behind my house where i grew up. i’ve had multiple dreams about this neighborhood all my life, and it’s become fairly elaborate. my sister also has dreams about a hidden neighborhood behind our house, and when we describe the neighborhoods to each other, they’re scarily similar.
• as part of some sort of magic show, i had to fight with a lion. this is bizarre because i LOVE lions — they’re probably my favorite animal. i’m not sure why. this is the earliest dream i ever remember having.
• i had to escape from some sort of art museum (that happened to be next to my house). i’m not sure why or who was chasing me. but i had to escape, and i felt like i should have been able to fly, but i couldn’t.

also, you know what’s really annoying? when you dream that you’re mad at someone or have a fight with them or whatever, and then the next day, you’re all angry at them even though it was just a dream. and you have to consciously remind yourself that they’ve actually done nothing wrong and that you shouldn’t be horrible to them. my mom calls this “dream hangover.” it kind of sucks.

late winter and spring are the most depressing seasons.  this may seem ironic since spring is supposedly a season of new beginnings and awakenings, when the flowers bloom and baby animals are born. WRONG! spring is a big tease. it wants you to think that the weather is going to be beautiful and warm and sunny, and then it’s freezing and rainy until june.

anyway, the seasons definitely affect my mood and my health.  i’m not sure if it’s legitimate SAD or just annoyance, but almost every year i get all tired and depressed from mid-january (after the high from the holidays wears off) until it gets warm(ish) in may.  this year, to help fend it off, i decided to join listography (the site is run by the same people who make the cute paper journals) and do one of their suggested lists — “100 things in the world i love.”

…except i don’t really think it’s working. i’ve been at it for a month and i’m only on number 29.  see?  i told you winter was depressing.  what else should i add?

[also, all of you should join listography because it’s great when you’re too lazy to come up with actual content for your blog. :) ]