Halls are only for Type A freaks who work when they’re sick, obviously.
Power Through
What Does Depression Feel Like?
I go in and out of waves of low level depression. Not suicidal style, but just general humphiness and a flatline of emotion, accompanied by the usual “what’s the point of life” questions. Â Over the years I’ve gotten my coping strategies together, and mostly just soldier through when the “dog days” arrive, but it’s cyclical and it sucks.
I’ve been trying to think of the best way to describe it, but I think “melancholy” is the simplest. I’ve heard of “dysthymia” but I don’t know if it helps much to self diagnose. Explaining it to friends can be tricky, since there’s such a range of mood disorders. I don’t want to worry people, but I do want to explain what I feel.
Thankfully I’ve run into some really insightful blog posts about depression lately. I’ve been meaning to post about Hyperbole and a Half’s recent posts (part 1 and part 2), but haven’t been able to get around to it. Today The Bloggess wrote a sort of inspirational “Keep on trucking” type of post about depression. It’s pretty great too, so I thought I’d make this one a twofer. You don’t have to read the Bloggess one, but the Hyperbole and a Half ones are SO GOOD. My favorite is part 2. They’re long, so grab a beer and sit back. And if you don’t have time now, here’s a teaser…
She explains how difficult it can be to make casual chitchat with friends when you’re feeling depressed.
I’ve heard that my face is pretty emotionless/hard to read, so I often think about what my face looks like. Totally get it. Along the same lines, ran into this today on The Hairpin and love it. I totally have bitchface.
Chipotle’s Cultivate Festival
Love food? Love music? Love massive burrito bombs from Chipotle?
Then come to the Chipotle sponsored BurritoFest Cultivate Festival in Golden Gate park on Saturday. It’s corporate sponsored, but I can’t snark. The lineup looks pretty good and …
Free is free!
- Free music (The Walkmen! Mayer Hawthorne! People I haven’t heard of!)!!
- Free cooking demos from Chef Celebrities such as Amanda Freitag and the Big Gay Ice Cream guys.
- A free burrito if you visit certain”Learning tents” across the festival
- There’s also a food hall with samples from local artisanal food vendors, and an educational section to learn about sourcing food sustainably.
It looks like it will be 82 in SF tomorrow, so probably a perfect day to laze in the park and eat things.
Acceptance and Letting Go of Expectations
Over Memorial Day I took a trip down to Los Angeles to visit my mother. It was a belated Mother’s Day celebration visit, yet I felt dread.
Ever since my mom opened her Vietnamese restaurant in 2010, she’s been very unavailable, even when I come down from San Francisco. Her eyes are on the prize, she works every day, even when she has pneumonia. TRUTH. The last few times that I’ve visited, I’ve gotten my feelings hurt terribly. I would come out for a multi-day visit yet only see my mom for a few hours. It was just weird, and it hurt a lot.
My therapist had me total out the amount of time that I spend with my mom over the course of a year and all I could think was total, maybe a 6-12 hours? A day or two? Who knows. After a few years of these trips I started feeling abandoned. Over time I accepted that my mom is a workaholic. There’s really nothing that can be done. And even though I know this, my mom’s utter dedication to her work stings every time.
While I was preparing myself emotionally for this visit, I thought… what if I do things differently this time?What if instead of bemoaning the fact that my mom can’t spend as much time with me as I would like I simply accept that it’s not going to change and focus on enjoying the time that we do spend together?
I can’t say that I didn’t make it through the trip without feeling a bit exasperated, but the shift in thinking helped a lot. Instead of going “oh, here we go again” when my mom was late or had to go back to work I just let it be. I had plans, I lived my life. She popped in for a little bit and we had fun. It was so much… easier. I accepted that my mom would be busy at work and I let go of the expectation that she would take massive amounts of time off to hang out with me. Â This sounds simple, but it was a revelation.
Today I was upset and angry about being let down in the same ways time and time again by those close to me. I was thinking to myself, if they would just stop doing this one stupid thing that hurts my feelings, if they could make an honest effort to change maybe we could get along better… Then I stopped myself, thinking of my nice trip to LA. Reason intervened. The truth is that maybe they will change, maybe they won’t, or maybe they can’t- but it’s really not up to me. I’ve already voiced my feelings and desires.
What I can do however is work on accepting them as they are and changing my expectations and my reaction.
So a friend keeps letting me down in the same way every time we get together? What if I just decide that it’s not my problem and I won’t let it bother me anymore? What if I let go of wanting this one thing? Would I stop being disappointed and hurt? I don’t know, but I hope so.
Goodbye SFMOMA: Closing Countdown Celebration
Last weekend the SF Museum of Modern Art had a multi-day blowout bash to celebrate the closing of its doors. The museum will be getting a massive facelift, but it’ll take 3 years. Admission was free during the celebration weekend, and on the last day the building stayed open all night long for drinking, celebrating, and art. YES. ALL NIGHT LONG.
I dropped by around dusk (knowing full well I was not going to make it to 4am, or any am). I was startled by a car cruising down the sidewalk! Damn ZipCar drivers!
One exhibit that I was very excited about was Christian Marclay’s The Clock, which I’d read about in NYMag ages ago. They were playing it from beginning to end during the last 24 hours before the museum closed. I wanted to see it badly, but not badly enough to wait several hours, or to come back at 4 in the morning. Oh well. It should be on YouTube somewhere, yes? Right? Right? :/
Bands, poets and artists of all types popped up on the rooftop stage to perform in 20 minute intervals.
There were food trucks outside- a must. I ended up getting some noodles from a Thai cart run by Argentinians. Those Argentinians know their pad thai! Who knew?
Here’s the view from the third floor stairwell down to the first floor bar.
For the last year or so my go-to bar drink has been a Moscow Mule. So I was pretty excited when I realized that the signature drink for the event was a “MOMA Mule.” It’s the little things that make me happy.
People hanging out on the rooftop while the band “Tits” plays inside.
According to the SFMOMA website, almost 50,000 people came out last weekend! Crazy. Now the museum’s exhibits are scattered across different partner museums and parks (including Crissy Field). It’s lovely, but I’ll miss being able to pop over on my lunch break whenever I’m feeling frazzled. Memories 🙂
