3-28-11 Sucker Punch

I went into Sucker Punch knowing as little as possible.  I knew Zack Snyder had directed it and it was his story.  I had seen the trailer and I knew it was a bout a group of women trying to escape from a mental hospital.  That's all I knew.  It was enough to get me into the theater.

I went in thinking that at the very least I would see a fun action packed movie.  Sucker Punch delivers on the that front and more.  You are probably not going to believe me but Suckerpunch is not just a mere action movie; it is a Film.  A movie is entertaining; a Film is art.  You can watch it as an action movie but if you want you can begin to peel back the layers of this Film and find a work of art.  I've been replaying the movie in my head all weekend long.  I've never felt so enraptured by a movie before.

Looking around the internet I see quite a few people are seriously hating on this movie.  I wish I had the energy to engage them in discussions and really find out why they hate it.

Mood: Still depressed.  I've had a few really bad days and a few not as bad days.  On a scale of 1-10 I've been averaging about a 3 for the last week.

Happenings: I went to see Sucker Punch.  See above for my reaction to it.

Media: Over the weekend I saw Sydney White and Push.  Push was an ok movie.  Pretty standard thriller/action movie.  It doesn't have a proper ending through, instead opting for a sequel hook that wouldn't be bad if they had made the sequel, which they didn't due to the movie doing poorly.

Sydney White is also an ok movie.  I've been working on a piece that I'll be posting here later in the week about how LGBT people are portrayed in the film.  They're not important to the plot and are only on screen for a few minutes but I think it's important to talk about how LGBT people are portrayed when they are shown as part of the normal human continuum.

Writing:  The aforementioned piece on LGBT in Sydney White.  I'm also been thinking about how trans* characters are usually portrayed in fiction, especially movies.  I might have something about that as well soon.

I've also been trying to flesh out the bare middle of an older story.  The other day I had some great ideas and even scripted a full scene in my head while I was working but didn't make any notes and when I tried to remember them after work I couldn't.

That's all I got right now,

~Gilly

3-24-11

I am experiencing a major depressive episode. It's hard to know for sure but looking at past posts it looks like it's been about two weeks since I really started to feel really depressed.

Yesterday I happened upon a book titled Why Am I still Depressed?, which is about the bipolar spectrum and how it's possible that someone could be bipolar without realizing it.  Being that I'm somewhat poor I didn't buy it.  I am taking an idea from it and rating my mood everyday on a 1 to 10 scale.  I'll be writing the numbers down on a calender that I have hanging in my room.  It should be easy enough for me to write down a single number that I won't forget to do it.  After a few weeks or possibly months I'll be able to see if my mood cycles from depressed  to normal.

I'm almost sure that I'll see some sort of regular cycle.  I remember noticing patterns to my mood before in my old livejournal.  For at least three months I made note of feeling very depressed for a week every month.  If I can find the time I might go over all my old posts and try to piece together a mood graph for the last four years or so.

Right now I'm feeling empty.  I feel detached from life.  I've been walking around in a daze a lot lately.  I feel like a fake person a lot of the time when I'm talking to people.  Like I'm only saying what a "normal" person would say not what I want to say.

That's all I got for now.
~Gilly

3-15-11

Mood/mental health: I feel agitated. I feel like I can't sit still. I have a slight headache. My thoughts feels like they are racing. I feel unfocused, like I'm not in my body and in it at the same time or switching between the two states very fast.

Happenings: The night of my last post I cleaned my bathroom. I washed all my dishes the other day as well. My apartment is still messier than I would like it but at least some progress has been made. I talked to the manager at the cookie store to see if she would talk to the regional manager about rehiring me part time. I really hope she(regional manager) says yes. I really want to go back to working with the people there and I could use the extra money.

Media: I watched Battle Royale over the weekend. It's a Japanese film about a middle school class that is forced to kill each other by the government. Not a whole lot of depth to the movie but it is entertaining.

Writing: I wrote a scene for JOBC and outlined a story. I did this while at the mall hanging out near the cookie store that JOBC is based on.

~Gilly

3-8-11

Most of this post was written last night to be posted today.

Mood: Mostly okay. I am feeling depressed but dealing with it right now.

Added before posting: I'm feeling more tired than depressed right now.

Happenings: I want to clean my apt tonight. It's gotten kind of messy, like my living areas often do when I get depressed. I know it's messy and I want to clean it but often I just can not muster the energy to actually do it. Usually I just live with it until I get a break in my depression and end up cleaning everything in a single fit of "I must clean". I'm trying to break that cycle by forcing myself to clean tonight.

Added just before posting: I just got off work. My boss asked me to stay a little late to cover for someone who had to leave early. I'm feeling really run down so I don't think I'm going to hav it in me to clean my entire apt. I'm going to aim for getting the dishes all washed and see how I feel after that.

Media: Hopefully more Dragon Age: Origins or maybe a movie.

Writing: None.

Gilly

3-6-11

Double post today due to Thursday's post not getting posted until today.

Mood: Feeling average right now. Saturday I spent a little time with my sister and her kids which almost always makes me feel better, so it was a good mood day.

Friday I started the day feeling a little run down. Around 11am I started to feel a migraine coming on. I finished what I was doing and downed three Excedrin, the dose that works best for me. For about fifteen minutes I suffered through migraine symptoms until the Excedrin kicked in and kick in it did. I felt great. I felt full of energy. I felt mildly high. I've never felt that way after taking Excedrin before. After doing some research I think I what I experienced was a normal reaction to a high dose (but not overdose) of caffeine. I'm unsure if I actually took my regular three or if a fourth pill might have slipped out of the bottle into my hand and been consumed accidentally. In any event I was feeling very good for most of the day but did feel a little unfocused and had trouble sitting still.

Health: Like I said I felt a migraine coming on Friday but took Excedrin and felt fine. Today, Sunday, I again felt a migraine coming on and took Excedrin for it. The weather has been shifting lately which is a cause of my migraines.

Happenings: Nothing really.

Media: I finished the main story in Fallout 3. I have a save from just before starting the last mission so I can still complete the other side quests I didn't get to but having finished the game and reaching the level cap had me feeling like moving on to a different. So I have restarted playing Dragon Age: Origins. I'm playing a female rouge noble. My previous rouge was a city elf but it's been so long since I played that I've forgotten most of what has happened to her so I started over with a new character. I'm going to try to finish a playthrough so I can get Dragon Age 2. I know I could play DA2 without finishing DAO but in my head I can't.

Writing: None.

Gilly

3-3-11

I wrote this Thursday but didn't get to post it until today(Sunday).

So I missed yesterday's promised post due to getting caught up reading my feeds and then attending the Haven meeting and then wanting to get home before it got to late.

Mood: I feel a lot better than I have been feeling. Part of it is that during the past week I've been making sure I get plenty of sleep. Being tired doesn't make it any easier for me to deal with depressive episodes which is something that I sometimes forget. My mood still feels a little fragile like it wouldn't take much for me to fall back into hopeless despair. Hopefully I'll start feeling more stable for a while at least.

Health: I've been well except for last night when I woke up because I felt some fluid draining from my nose. I wiped it with my hand and saw nothing but clear fluid. I wiped it again and this time my hand came away from my face with blood on it. I grabbed the bridge of my nose and stopped the blood flow while walking to the bathroom for toilet paper. My nosebleed stopped quickly and I when back to sleep.

The blood came from the same nostril as the nosebleeds I had three weeks ago (noted in post 2-11-11). Around the last time my nose was bleeding spontaneously it was still cold. It has been a little cooler the last couple of nights so it might just be the cool dry air giving me nosebleeds but it seems odd that it's the same nostril and feels like it might be the same spot.

Happenings: Haven meeting yesterday and Film club meeting earlier. Haven is struggling to survive. The last two meetings have been very low attendance(like five or four people only one of which was a student and VC). A few years ago I had the thought that I wanted to make this city better for LGBT people in some way. This gay straight alliance is a start.

I won the trivial contest in the Film club meeting by one point with a lucky guess. I got a movie called "Naked Bomb" which stars Don Adams as Agent 86, Maxwell Smart, from the show Get Smart, which I loved to watch as a child.

Media: I've been playing Borderlands and my character is at level 29. I watched Surrogates last night. Its an average movie, not a bad movie but not really great one either.

Writing: none

Gilly

Feeling tired but not really depressed. This might be the end of this depressive episode. Real post tomorrow. Promise. ~Gilly