Follow-up to the last post: I am feeling 500% better, I guess the benzos finally kicked in

(The disadvantage to Clonazepam is that it sometimes takes 3-4 hours for me to feel anything; the advantage is that once it works I feel dazzling coruscating full-body-and-mind well-being, figurative head held high and no longer cringing in response to everything and anything.  So it’s a pretty good tradeoff)

Sleep-deprived and excited about work successes yesterday, got 10.5 hrs sleep, now feel tired and like everything is pointless

I guess this is what recovering from sleep deprivation (and from work fugue) is usually like, but it seems more pronounced this time.  I just don’t want to do anything but stare at the wall, or read whatever on the internet is most transfixing, which tends to be whatever is most enraging/depressing

Just took another benzo, considering exercising (although I feel physically exhausted)

He was on this line of thought when a barely-pubescent-looking kid, probably a freshman or sophomore, ran into the kitchen from the living room.  He had a bit of stubble, and was wearing a baseball cap and a white t-shirt with the word “ROLLERS” on it.  There was a manic grin on his face.  “Robby, you in there?” he shouted.  He careened through the kitchen, aimed for the spare room’s door, missed, and bumped into Calvus.  Calvus stumbled backward and felt something wet on his stomach: some beer from a twelve-ounce can in the kid’s hand had splashed onto Calvus’s shirt and cape.

“Sorry, buddy,” he said, in a surprisingly deep voice.  He walked, more slowly this time, into the spare room.

“It’s fine, buddy,” Calvus mumbled sarcastically to no one.  He took a long swig of his beer.  A few girls walked out of the spare room and edged their way past him.

Re-reading some of my old fiction writing, as expected it’s really bad but I’m kind of fond of this incidental figure with his inexplicable “ROLLERS” (??) shirt

The Wrongness of certain views is getting to be almost physically intolerable to me, like claustrophobia

What if telling someone they’re “wrong on the internet” becomes as unavoidable as performing one of my tics

I’m sorry I’m an annoying internet guy, I just have Annoying Internet Guy Tourette’s (literally)

SCREECH SCREECH SCREECH

I should eat something and stop reading people who cause the mental screeching noises

But I must EXPLAIN why they are WRONG.  This imbalance cannot be allowed to –

no I don’t.

(– the fact that you even think of this in terms of “imbalances” is inherently self-centered.  As though you have special access to the truth –)

(oh not you Yawning Mental Void.  Go away, I’m tired of you)

I am still in the “angry because there are things that do not FIT and are not RIGHT” state of mind

Angry about the silliest and least important things

Angry at Thomas Pynchon for his faux-leftism

Angry at Van for not sleeping with Lucette (!)

Angry at that guy on twitter (…) who called Piketty and a guy reviewing him “bros” to prove he was a feminist (???)

Everyone sucks

(This is, however, preferable to my other, more common anxiety configuration, which is “I am the guy who sucks [and no one else does, just me, uniquely]”)

I’m feeling a lot better than I was yesterday, sorry about my meltdown

That thing seems to happen to me at least around once every 1-3 months, as long-term readers may have noticed (remember the time last winter when I was babbling on about how I could really know anything and whether I really had beliefs at all?  or last month’s moneycat convolutions)

It’s becoming clear to me that I should probably do what everyone else has already done, and make an active and extensive effort to make tumblr into a place where I can talk to my friends without being constantly faced with things that make me crazy (in a fairly literal sense)

Like today I log on and my friends are being great and then there is tumblr user [redacted] going on about how they dislike YA fiction and its readers, for reasons which (of couse) are the perfect opportunistic alloy of generic establishment snobbery and vague gestures toward radical political analysis

tumblr user [redacted] I’m not sure why I ever thought it would work out between us but I am unfollowing you and not feeling bad about it

I need to start using tumblr savior more, and more shrewdly, there’s no point in making this site a brain minefield if it doesn’t have to be

In getting on Isaac’s case about Ray Kurzweil I am surely, in a certain sense, “playing devil’s advocate,” because I don’t even like Ray Kurzweil.  He is clearly a “devil” in the sense of that phrase

But that doesn’t mean that that kind of argument – call it whatever you will – will not actually consume days’ worth of time churning in my mind if I don’t express it

Sometimes people complaining about devil’s advocate arguments are to me like what someone who never stops complaining about “negativity” can be to a depressed person.  Like, yeah.  I know I’m shit.  I know the things I want to say are not things people enjoy hearing.  I already feel bad in one way and you’re making me feel bad in another.  I have to live with all this stuff churning in my head and you’re sitting here talking to me about how much you would hate me if I stopped bottling in the things that are churning there.  Let’s sit here and talk about people whose minds work like mine are the scum of the fucking earth.  I’ll make sure to keep a smile on my face.  I’ll even try to get really into it, just to keep up the facade.  LOVE doing this, really cool, really fun

Several people (who I was aware of and liked / were not spambots) unfollowed me after that last spate of posts, and I mean, it’s not like I can blame them

I can’t be honest and be friends with everyone at the same time, and ultimately what matters is that I felt like shit when I woke up today and after writing those posts I don’t feel like shit, and there seems to have been a cause-and-effect relationship there

I get really obsessed with arguments I think are right that I also think other people will dislike, because there’s this conflict between

“you have to not say this to remain in good social standing”

and

“but not saying it makes me feel like a stupid child who doesn’t understand and [defiant voice] maybe occasionally I am an adult, maybe just occasionally, just maybe even by accident, I have a point”

and of course

“what if I’m just tricking people into seeming more likable than I am and I shouldn't be in good social standing and I should be clear about how much of an alien/child/badthing I am, so people can make an informed decision about whether they want to be around me”