HTML Issues

So, if you're looking at my blog this evening, you may notice that it looks all crazy. Yeah...sorry about that...my bad. I was testing out a new template and realized my HTML and CSS skills are non-existent. All should be looking better very soon. My apologies to your retinas.
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Dear Esther ~UPDATED~

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Dear Esther,
I have found myself to be as featureless as this ocean…  For once, I agree with the voice; when I peer into the water, I see no reflection.  Lately, the voice has been talking more and more about a serious leg injury, unbearable pain, a life-threatening infection and a quantity of pain-killers that would make even Rush Limbaugh blush.  But the walker plods on without complaint, my steady pace maintained in the face of the character’s laments.  The walker’s footsteps are often silent, and when audible have the regularity of clockwork.  I look down into a chasm, and as the voice fills me in on its significance, I edge a little too close to get a better look— and fall in.

-The Narrator

Last night, Boyfriend and I played Dear Esther. I use the word play very loosely. There is debate among the gaming community as to whether this "experience" qualifies as a "game" since there is actually very little interaction involved. The game is a first-person exploration of an island, underscored with a gorgeous soundtrack by Jessica Curry, and interspersed with monologues spoken by the unseen narrator.  There is no real sense of who you are in the game and there is no real story. The "plot" is designed to be a free-form experience and once the game ends (yes there is a point where you know your game has ended) it is up to the player to interpret the events of the game.

Boyfriend and I knew nothing about the game other than the trailer we'd seen, so I can't say we were completely thrilled with the game right away. It's a digest-what-happened-and-then-form-an-opinion-about-it kind of thing.  Nevertheless, Boyfriend and I enjoyed it overall. The graphics are breathtaking and the experience as a whole, I think, is one every gamer should have. We went through the game in about 2 hours, but, according to the website, each time you play through the game the "narrative" of the spoken letters to Esther changes slightly, so you can have a different experience each time, and possibly come to different conclusions about who Esther is, what the island is, and the relationship between them.

Can I recommend this game? Maybe. If you're the type of gamer who loves the storyline and the characters and the interaction of gameplay, then, you probably won't care for Dear Esther. It's like a visual piece of literature that you're reading out of order. I applaud The Chinese Room and the entire Dear Esther team for releasing a beautiful if not, experimental piece of art that is this game.

I gave Dear Esther 3.5 out of 5. The art and soundtrack were beautiful and haunting, but I don't know that I would consider it a "game" per se. It is an experience that I would recommend simply for its bravery to take a giant leap in an unexpected direction as far as the nature of video games goes.

UPDATE: 3/29/12- I stumbled across this very well-written article about Dear Esther. There are spoilers. You are warned.

Happy Day of Birth, Steve Jobs

You are truly missed, sir.

It's Been An Honor, Mr. Lucas

Boyfriend stumbled across this video last night and we were greatly amused. I'm not sure why it doesn't have more hits. Watch it! Love it. Share it.

Doom Cloud (Updated)

Do you have a doom cloud? You know, that sneaky demon seed in the back of your brain that starts as a small little voice telling you that the world is scary and awful and that you're stuck in a swirling drain of failure that you'll never emerge from. Then it grows and grows until it consumes your entire head and then your entire body in a torrent of dread and despair slowly weighing you down day after day until you feel like you'll suffocate under the pressure of it all. To top it all off the doom cloud rains on you a constant barrage of awful thoughts, feelings, and mental horror shows inside your brain until you feel like you want to pry open your own skull with a claw hammer just so you can dig the bad images and thoughts out of there, like cutting out a cancer.
The helpless hopeless feeling the doom cloud wraps you up in feels like cling wrap squeezing you tighter and tighter until you want to implode, then you can dissolve and melt away and flow carelessly down the swirling drain into the sterile darkness.
A Liminal Perspective illustrated it all quite well:
I want to get angry at the doom cloud. I want to cry about it. I want to want to scream and throw punches and smash breakable items with a baseball bat. But I don't. I can't. The doom cloud has sucked all my feelings away. I just feel blank. Blank and empty and irritable like I'm trying to function on not-enough-sleep. It's like a hangover without the booze. Crankiness and blinding fear swirl around in my brain, fed only by this fucking cloud and my new-found ability to not be able filter any outside audible stimuli. I can hear EVERYTHING! Finger nails scratching a scalp, 4 conversations in various areas of the office, the copier spitting out papers. I just want to sprawl out on the floor in a quiet room and just be there forever.

There are times, in my murkiest moments that I wonder if maybe being temporarily institutionalized would benefit me...Wow, it's really scary to actually see that written down. I've never said it out loud to anyone. But then I argue with myself that people who need to be institutionalized don't usually wonder if they should be institutionalized, right? Then my social anxiety kicks in and fills me with even more self-doubt when I realize that committing myself would require me actually going to a hospital and trying to convince them that I'm crazy enough to need one of their beds for several days. To explain how much that is not going to happen, I will explain this: I'm afraid of getting ill or hurt, not because I would be getting ill or hurt but because I'm afraid of all the ambulance/hospital people staring at me and judging me then rejecting me for not being hurt or ill enough to treat with top-notch care. Am I fucking neurotic or what?

The worst part is having to go to work like this. My office is the kind of corporate atmosphere where people will still come in even if they're barfing up a lung, so my calling in sick due to a bad mental health day would be scoffed at. Every time the phone rings at my desk, I have to take several deep breaths and force myself to answer it at all, yet alone be all perky and bubbly-like so that maybe the person on the other end will maybe choose to not yell at me or be unnecessarily douchey.

No. The worst part is feeling completely and utterly alone and not having anyone I can talk to who understands this feeling. I feel surrounded, yet alone. I know that I'm not alone, though, thanks to some brave peeps out there who understand and remind me that I am, in fact, NOT alone in my suffering. Thank you for your emotional bravery. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to share this too.
Thank you to:
Allie Brosh, Jenny Lawson, Chris Hardwick, thanks for keeping me laughing.
At the end of the day, sometimes the cloud dissipates and I can see and feel and think clearly again.
P.S I promise I'm going to a psychiatrist next week.
To counter-act all that sad, here's a piggie:
Thank you Cuteoverload.com for my daily squeeeeeeeeeee!
UPDATE: 2/27/12-I am going to the psychiatrist this afternoon and I am flipping out!!! But, I promise I'm going to push through it and go to my appointment.
 Update: 2/27/12- Holy shit! I got anti-anxiety drugs! Weeeeeeeeee!

Update: 2/28/12- I went to the psychiatrist last night, she was very low-key and I felt comfortable with her, unfortunately, she doesn't do talk therapy, which is something I think I could benefit from and I know I need to start long-term therapy sooner rather than later, and she agreed that I would do well to seek out a therapist. She wrote me a script and I got it filled last night. On my way to work today after reading an article about malfunctioning elevators (probably not the best idea for someone with an elevator phobia) I started freaking out inside. I tried to comfort myself by reminding myself to breathe and that I had a little tablet to take in case. This just got me more anxious. I'd never taken an anti-anxiety before and the thought of starting another drug freaked me out even more. Oh irony, you cheeky bastard. I sucked it up, popped my clonazepam and climbed in the scary elevator of doom in my building. Shaking like a leaf and trying to breathe and not pass out, I survived the elevator ride up nine floors to my office. After a small emotional breakdown, I got settled at my desk, and that bad boy pill kicked the fuck in. I have never been so high in my entire life! Well, I've never been high at all, not counting the morphine drip I had when I was in the ICU 12 years ago after spinal surgery. I freaked out my poor co-worker a bit being high and very uncoordinated (more so than usual) for about 2 hours, and then I settled down and felt really sleepy for the rest of the day.

Update: 2/29/12-I'm not supposed to take my new meds every day since there is a dependency risk, but after yesterday I almost don't want to take it again, that was crazy! Crazy, and a little awesome. Good news: my anxiety appears to be under control today. Bad news: the doom cloud is taking its sweet-ass time dissipating.

Balls.

My Contribution to the Meme Universe (Updated)

In honor of my two favorite bloggers:



Time at work well-spent.

So...THAT Happened... (Updated)

I believe I have mentioned in the past that I live in New York. More specifically, I live in Queens, in a neighborhood with a growing reputation for being affordable, convenient and relatively safe. There are a lot of young artists/actors/etc who live here (myself included). However, what the neighborhood might not be known for is having a shit-ton of crazy people living here too.


Boyfriend and I live in the least expensive apartment either of us have ever lived in in NY. We've lived in our current place for almost a year and we've come to realize that it is cheap for a reason. I plan to share some other apartment-living horror stories at a later time, but for now, I want to tell you a short tale about an incident from last night.


I may have also mentioned in the past that I suffer from depression and anxiety disorders (as do most creative types, I think). I'm not exactly an introvert, I can be very charming and outgoing in the right situation (aka when I'm in my comfort zone) or after I warm up to my surroundings, but I'm not all up-in-you-face-oh-it's-so-great-to-meetcha kind of gal. Boyfriend is much more of an extrovert than I am, which is why we compliment each other so well. He can coax me out of my "safe zone" and I can rein him in when he gets a little too "out there" or too chatty.


That being said, we live on the fourth floor of a four-story-walk-up (i.e. no elevator, steep-ass stairs) so at the end of a long day at work and a commute home on a crowded train, I still have to haul my lazy ass up four ancient flights of stairs, and I get a little winded and cranky and sweaty.


Winded+cranky+sweaty+social anxiety disorder=panic in the face of strangers


Also, our 3 neighbors on the fourth floor are all crazy, or so Boyfriend has told me, I've never actually met any of them since I'm at work all day. Anyone else I come across in the building we will exchange the socially-acceptable nod or smile and a muttered "hi"-typical New York behavior, and I'm ok with that.



Last night, Boyfriend and I are walking up the stairs, both coming home from long days at work. We get to the top of the stairs and there is a strange woman whom I've never seen before in my life. I don't know if she lives in the building, I don't know if she's visiting. I. Don't. Know. Her.



I nod and smile and turn the corner and go to unlock my door. Boyfriend, having seen this woman before (apparently she's our crazy neighbor who lives across the hall) smiles and says:

Boyfriend: Helloooo!

Crazy Neighbor Lady: Hello.
I turn around, realizing she's our neighbor, I smile again and before I can even think to say hello, she says:

Crazy Neighbor Lady: (To Boyfriend) You know, you're wife isn't very friendly. You're friendly, I like you. But she's not very friendly at all.

Boyfriend: (Defending my honor) Well, I think she's plenty friendly, she's just quiet.

Crazy Neighbor Lady: Hmmm...well I don't think so.

I was speechless as the rage boiled up inside of me. Who says that? Also, how dare you talk about me as though I weren't standing right in front of you! I have this to say:


Dear Crazy Neighbor Lady Across the Hall,

I DON'T KNOW YOU!!! We've never met before last night's abysmal excuse for human interaction. I've never seen you before in my life! You know nothing about me and all I know about you is that you dump rat poison pellets in the hallway but refuse to let the exterminators in when they arrive once a month to spray for pests!

W. T. F?!?!?!?

Sincerely,


The Apparently-Rude-Girlfriend Across the Hall




P.S You're crazy



P.S.S We're not married.


In fact, in honor of my hero, I am tempted to leave these in front of Crazy Neighbor Lady's door:

Or this: