The Thing You Want to Do

[rowyn]

My friend Kendra once offered advice along these lines for dealing with depression: "find the thing that makes you happy, or failing that, the thing that makes you least unhappy. Do that." There was more to it then that, of course; it's also kind of crisis-advice, aimed at getting you through the day without hurting yourself rather than "how to live a full and productive life".

This weekend, I rented a car so we could do our monthly "load up on groceries". I should've gone to see friends; it always seems a waste of the rental to just use it for groceries. But the week had been overwhelming, and the prospect of dealing with people in person was even more overwhelming. The weather was nice on Saturday, so I loaded my bike into the rental car and drove to the trail instead of biking to it, for a change.

I ended up going for a very short ride, not even 10 miles, because while the weather was gorgeous (mid-60s!), there'd been snow on the ground just two days ago, and the trail had turned to mud. The section of the trail that'd been closed all summer was open again, and I ended up regretting taking it because biking through mud was such a slog. I took the detour back -- a broad paved sidewalk running alongside roads. It took me 80 minutes for the whole ride. Oif.

Afterwards, I went to Panera for bagels and an overpriced frozen chocolate-coffee drink, and to draw. Panera is inextricably linked with drawing and coloring in my head, courtesy of koogrr and jordangreywolf. I brought my mini-sketchbook, my markers, and one of haikujaguar's coloring books, "Not in Need of Quests".

I asked my Twitter feed for prompts and drew a handful of sketches from those, then started coloring one of the pictures from the coloring book. I spent three or so hours at it, before I finally went home.

Sunday, I frittered away the morning jumping between various video games and ideas without accomplishing anything. Finally, I decided to go back to Panera and draw some more. I skipped the bike ride this time, because I was feeling lazy and getting the bike in and out of the car is annoying. Also, muddy trail. But mostly lazy, because otherwise I'd've at least ridden my usual circuit near the house. So I just spent four hours sipping at my froufrou drink and drawing. (I'm not gonna re-post stuff to LJ, but the pictures are over here.)

It was nice. It is not particularly sociable or productive, but it felt just sociable/productive enough that I don't feel like I wasted the weekend and accomplished nothing.

So there. I have a thing I want to do. Drink pricey beverages and make marks on paper. Today, I feel less like I'm depressed and more like I just hate my job. I guess that's progress? Some days I actually kind of like my job, though, so I'm not sure I have achieved normality yet.

Lut and I watched the second disc of Appleseed XIII, which we are pretty meh about. It's lovely to look at, but the story varies from 'okay' to 'wow, that was incredibly contrived and nonsensical' with bonus 'I don't remember Deunan Knute ever being this annoying before'. And the pacing is glacial. Lots of flashbacks and lots and lots of repetition. It's like being bludgeoned to death with THEME. The second disc was better than the first (Deunan finally grew up and stopped being a petulant brat in powered armor) but I'm not sure I'll watch the third. We also went to Minsky's for pizza. :9 And cuddled. I didn't need a car for any of that except for the pizza, but it was all good.

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Slow thematic anime is probably my second least favorite sort, after poorly drawn cliché anime that fails to actually be funny.

...poorly drawn cliché anime that succeeds in being funny is good, though.

[rowyn]

But this was interspersed with giant robots and powered armor blowing things up, so not all bad, right?

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Fight scenes tend to put me to sleep. v.v

There are exceptions but giant robots and explosions do not usually qualify.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

I still mentally associate Panera Bread with drawing (and also with Moonwolf/Playful_Eye, and with Koogrr). Within the last month or so, there was an instance where I said (more or less), "Hey, I'm too lazy-tired to cook, and I shall use unspecified business at my workplace as justification for why I should be so exhausted. Let us go out and eat foodstuffs prepared by someone else," and Gwendel said (more or less), "Yes, but where shall we eat?" And then said I (more or less), "I know not where. Where might you be inclined to go for foodstuffs?" And Gwendel said (something like), "I am most reluctant to suggest it, but the inclination has struck me that it would be nice to have soup and half-of-a-sandwich and fancy tea at Panera Bread, but I do recall how much you despite that place." And then I said something remotely like, "Huh. It's been a while. Hey, why not give it another go?" And so we did. I think that the problem was mostly in that I would grouse about the vaguely spheroid lumps of baked sourdough encased in leathery shells they would give out, wherein I would be faced with the challenge of trying to break through said crust, only to be treated to a bready interior that tasted ever-so-faintly rancid (sour), and I'd make jokes about being able to bounce the bread-piece on the floor like a Superball. (I never actually did this in practice.)

So, we went, the food was good, the crowd was not too overbearing, and Gwendel actually had an iPad (an older model -- a hand-me-down from Digital_Rampage) she could use to test the WiFi and look up Minecraft-y stuff while waiting for the food. The "sobe noodles" were okay; the barbecue chicken flatbread sandwich was actually pretty good. (I like that they had spinach leaves instead of iceberg lettuce -- to my surprise, I actually LIKE spinach leaves.)

It was still melancholy, since, after all, we so strongly associate the place with the "art jam" and with Playful_Eye and with Koogrr. :/ (Le sigh.) I wish I somehow had the resources, super powers, or whatever it took to conjure up a great paying job for Koogrr in the States, and all the paperwork to allow him back down here.

[rowyn]

Yeah. US immigration law = SO MUCH HATE. x_x

Lut's never been a big fan of Panera either; he's not crazy about the food and finds the portions too small for the price. They have new "dinner rolls" now, which are much tastier than their sourdough (they're not sour, for one, and they have thin soft crusts). The wi-fi is handy even for me on my smartphone; I was using it to look up image references while doodling. Anyway, I like their frozen mochas, the bagels, and some of their soups.

Spinach is much tastier than lettuce! It has actual flavor and stuff. As well as being much more nutritious. Go figure.

I kinda want to do a remote art jam, where we all hang out online while drawing (with more drawing than actual socializing, I imagine) and being at whatever cafe is local to us.

[alltoseek.livejournal.com]

DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVE YET TO CHANNEL YOUR DEPRESSION!DRAGON AND BURN YOUR LOWLY WEAK-FLESHED COWORKERS TO A CRISP AND TAKE OVER THEIR HOARD IN THE VAULT? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS.

I have been having fun lately channeling swoopy-flying fire-breathing depression!dragon :D

***
Hating your job while sometimes kind of liking sounds pretty normal to me, honestly.

Am glad you found lots of things to do that you enjoy.

The debilitating phase of depression comes when there is nothing that makes you happy, and the only thing that makes you least unhappy is staying in bed, because anything else is painful to contemplate, and agonizing to attempt.

Let's hope you don't go there. Fire-breathing FTW! :D

[rowyn]

♥ for your new icon.

Somehow, thinking like a dragon was just a leeeeettle too violent to make me feel better about the situation yesterday. :D

Hating my job is within the range of normal-for-me, but it's not my preferred normal, if that makes sense. :) And I am trying to keep my mood from getting any more debilitating than "makes me pretty unproductive at work and very unproductive at home." Work today was considerably less aggravating, at least. -_-