Yippee ki yay.

Well, what's going on?

Not a lot. Sarah is over on the coast, at a cat show spectacular, my niece is out mushing or moshing or something, and I am at home, alone, not visiting my friends.

Why is this?

Well, it's because I feel ever so slightly low. To be honest, more than a tad low. A sizeable tad. Sleeping stupid hours, thinking stupid thoughts, eating rubbish, that kind of thing.

Now, there are protocols which I have developed for these circumstances, ways I have for dealing with the moods. There are a variety of things I can do, and if I do them I can head things off at the pass, neurochemically speaking.

- remarkable mental image, isn't it. The serotonin rustlers riding hell for leather towards the amygdala, driving the lowing neurochemicals before them, while the sheriff's men gallop madly along the prefrontal gyrus of the brain -

Mmm. Anyway. Every time I get a bit low, especially if it coincides with Sarah's "as if she has her own life to live" absences, I go off and visit my friends. If you ever move down here, know now that these are occasions to be avoided at all costs. Not that you'll be able to - I usually phone to invite myself as I pull into the victim's driveway. I emerge with a bottle of cheap wine in hand (which I will drink myself, along with whatever anyone else has got). I hunch in a chair, emitting misery like black body radiation, and gorge myself on whatever food my victims had prepared for themselves. People around me try to lighten the atmosphere with chatter and cheering conversation, I quash it. Then after what must seem like hours I mutter a few gnomic pleasantries and I depart, leaving screaming children, sobbing wives and all manner of domestic discord in my wake, then on to the next house.

So much for my "whine and dine" therapy. It does work, possibly if only via that whole "trouble shared" thing. But to be honest, I'm not feeling up to that at the moment.

Instead I have been practicing the social withdrawal method. Withdrawal is as effective a treatment for depression as it is a method of contraception. One day, if I ever find "the answer" for depression, I'm going to write it on the bedroom ceiling. That way, when I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, I will see it.

That's not a bad idea. If I got a sizeable font, I could fit "How about you get off your arse" and "think about someone else and grow a backbone" on each side of the light fitting. A mantra for troubled times.

Anyhow. Rather than that I am going to do the whole thing - the gym on Tuesday, writing as soon as possible, maybe some study. All that cognitive stuff I rave about to everyone else. Working, seeing people, that kind of thing.

Anyway - they say it helps in these cases to have a definite goal, a deadline. Therefore I aim, with the help of modern psychopharmacology and a pair of boxing gloves to get happy, by this time next week. In fact, since I have a science background, I'm going to be more precise and aim to be at least three point eight percent happier each day until next Sunday. I'll just attach myself to the gloomatron....

Anyhow, thanks for listening. This is not, by the by, a plea for condolences. Without wishing to sound ungrateful, wjhat I'd rather get if anyone wants to comment is people saying five things - the movie, the book, the piece of music, the friend and the food that they find has the most potent anti-depressant effect.

Hopefully without the weight gain and sexual side effects of many of the SSRIs.

Thanks for listening. Normal neurotransmission will resume shortly.

John

PS - a friend of mine has started a blog. He is the best writer I know, he's one of the better writers I've read. When We were in a writer's group together I took home some "bit of crap" he wrote and framed it and put it one my desk as an example of what writing could be. He will be mortified when he reads this, he demonstrates an almost anaphylactic reaction to traces of praise, but fortunately I am able to hide behind the anonymity of the internet, so he won't suspect a thing.

Anyway - go thou and read it.

Thanks again,
John