Missing

I used to write a lot, and now I mostly just write about not having anything to write about.

I've been feeling off lately. Months at least; maybe more. Just generally restless and a touch sad. Highly unmotivated and easily distracted. I keep gaining weight, and despite the fact that I both notice and abhor it, I can't seem to find the willpower to do anything about it. I'm not sure if I've always been this way or if it is a more recent development. I can't tell if it is "see a medical professional" serious or "man the fuck up" serious. It's a thin line, and so to avoid making the wrong decision, I have done nothing. It's really the safest route.

I am awful at balancing my love and adoration for science - and by extension, medicine - with my internal self-doubt that says asking for some medication to try to fix everything wrong with me is just weakness and a further indication of my lack of self-control. People (and by people I mean the internet) tell me that exercise is a great way to stave off the sorts of negative feelings that I have been wallowing in, but with the exception of one or two days every year or so, I can't bring myself to go to the gym. I wake up so exhausted that the thought of doing something physically strenuous is terrifying. I have enough trouble sitting in a chair thinking and typing all day while still having the energy to clean my house in the evening.

Of course, all the while I keep trying to build myself up, to find some sliver of motivation for something and follow it. Inevitably, I fail. The only thing that has shown any sign of working was forcefully taking on some responsibility at my church. I wormed my way into being one of the sound guys, and having that responsibility - the people depending on me, the warm fuzzies you get from volunteering - is the closest thing to good I have felt in a while. Every now and again I'll hit a high at work, too. Some towering problem that I can solve elegantly after a significant struggle. It feels good, though the feeling is short-lived.

I have an excuse, maybe? A family history of depression, at least. I took medication to help me sleep for a while, but it never really made a difference. I can sleep just fine. It's resting that I have trouble with. I am also afraid. Afraid of whatever the side effects of any medication might be; afraid that I might not be broken after all, meaning that this defective feeling is genuine and I can't blame anything else for my excessive lethargy. Afraid that there is no real way to keep the constant stream of distracting and invasive thoughts from flooding my mind. Just general, everyday fears.

I've even fallen out of my hobbies. I barely play video games anymore, and when I do I am awful. I never go out and take pictures for myself. My camera only comes out of the closet when I am asked to shoot for a work event. I only play drums for church anymore, and I haven't touched a guitar seriously in months. My computers are in various states of disrepair (I'm fighting with Asus right now to fix that, at least). I can see myself slipping away from everything I used to enjoy without having anything to fill those spaces, but I can't seem to do anything about it. I keep telling myself that I'll go take a hike around one of the many parks within a stone's throw of my apartment, but every Saturday I end up playing games and watching TV and getting shanghaied into shopping. I abhor shopping.

And so now, as if to cement my sorry state, I am writing to an anonymous and likely-imaginary reader base in some sad plea for an answer.

Flux

I have not posted since January. Spoiler alert: I still don't have much to say.

At present, I am best described as a ball of stress. Work is keeping me plenty busy from 7 to 4.30 Monday through Friday, and the constant state of flux has kept me on my toes outside that.

Also, I don't seem to be able to type on this keyboard anymore.

My sister moved back home yesterday after nearly 2 years of being my roommate. Something about getting married? As a result, I am now officially living alone for the first time in ever. It is a strange feeling, and my propensity towards paranoia have me jumping at every sound for the moment. My apartment is a wreck at the moment, and it will stay that way until I move this next weekend. As soon as my sister, future brother-in-law, and parents skipped town with a van full of boxes, I started tearing the place apart looking for things I don't need. I've gotten rid of a significant amount of stuff that I have finally deemed useless enough to dispose of. I had no fewer than 6 types of plastic storage container, each with its own style lid. Five of those six are now being recycled. I have also been cleaning house on my furniture: as much as I enjoy having my parents' old bedroom set, it is obscenely heavy and therefore a poor decision for someone who expects to move 3-4 times in the next few years (like me!). It went to a friendly fellow from Craigslist.

I've been so distracted by everything that I really haven't had a chance to be introspective in a while.

Guild Wars 2 will soon be a reality; after 7 years and more than 1000 hours in the first game it should be spectacular. I'll miss the first beta weekend due to moving, but hopefully the second will come soon enough.

I am once again realizing that I actually do very few exciting things. I come to this conclusion every time I try to post lately. I need to get out more.

Impatience

Amazon Prime has ruined me. The mere idea that something I ordered over the weekend will not arrive tomorrow is more than just upsetting or frustrating - it is appalling. I have no fewer than 4 orders in the air (or on the ground, more likely) right now, a majority of those were ordered to give me something to work on while I mourn the loss of my main computer.


I have been curiously active since my the machine stopped booting for good a few days ago. I am waiting for Asus' incredibly slow support team to get me an RMA number so I can ship the motherboard off and get a new one which will hopefully fix my problems. Problems being systems lockups in BIOS and during POST and randomly (and inconsistently) identifying RAM as bad.


I've also finished my book, and I can't bring myself to pirate or purchase another one since it won't be able to live up to my expectations at the moment. I've just finished Dark Sky, the third and final book in Patrick Lee's Travis Chase series. It was a wild ride, but I expected no less after reading and loving both The Breach and Ghost Country. The trilogy is an immensely entertaining blend of sci-fi and action that is sure to have you hooked from the start. Sad as I am that the series is over, I am pleased with the ending - Lee didn't leave any loose ends of lingering plot arcs to frustrate me. I am, unfortunately, cursed with a terrible memory when it comes to books. It has been well over a year since I read The Breach and Ghost Country, so of course I have little recollection of the goings-on contained in their pages except for the broad story arcs. Now that I can read the whole of the series in a single straight shot, I aim to read it all over again in a quick burst to get the maximum effect. Think of it as watching all three Bourne movies right in a row - but better.


My old 20" LCD had been making horrible squealing noises for months now, but I've been able to ignore it well enough. Now that my primary distraction is promising to be knocked out for a week I couldn't stand it any longer which is why it is now lying - in pieces - on my kitchen table, waiting for the USPS to hurry up and bring me some new components from DigiKey. It has been all of a day and a half since I placed the order now, and already I am frustrated with how long it has taken. I am eager to break out my shiny new soldering iron and get the display back to (silent) working order. Working with my hands is often the best distraction I have when not satiated with constant internet.


In that vein, I have a pair of dev kits coming from SparkFun. Fresh off my Free Day victory at SparkFun, I ordered a USB RFID kit and TI's MSP430 Chronos kit. They should provide me with some entertainment if not a bit of learning. I have long been fascinated with RFID, so this will be a chance to play with it in the confines of my own home. But of course, as with everything else, it's in the mail.


I have been thankful once again for my DAC if only because it meant that I didn't have to go dig up a 3.5mm to RCA cable to get music playing from my laptop through my delightful 2.1 setup. After much agonizing, I ended up with a pair of NHT SuperZero 2.0's and an Hsu STF-2. I'm still adoring my Maverick Audio TubeMagic D1, and my cheap little solid-state amp is doing well enough - for now. I was lusting after some bigger closer-to-full-range speakers such as the Paradigm Atoms and the PSB Alphas, but I came to rest on the NHTs after reading a number of glowing reviews. In all honestly, I ordered the subwoofer first - it was on sale over Black Friday and, having heard wonderful things about Hsu subs from my good friend and audio sherpa Jon, I jumped on the sale without a second thought. That left me full of turkey from the holiday and without a decent pair of bookshelf speakers. Since I already had the sub in hand, I no longer needed to worry about bass response - I'd have plenty. The SuperZeros are astonishingly cheap when you look at bookshelf speakers, and even compared to other entry-level speakers, they are on the less-expensive side of things. They have smaller drivers - a 1" silk-dome tweeter and a 4.5" wood pulp cone woofer - than others in their price class, and their frequency response looks a bit strange at first - they roll off around 95Hz on the low end. This, however, pairs perfectly with the STF-2. The SuperZeros have brilliant mids and highs, just as every review I read said they would. Even at nearfield listening (~2ft in my case) they sound excellent. Imaging is top-notch, especially given their less-than-ideal placement on my desk. I picked up a pair of AudioEngine DS2 desktop stands for them which has - much to my surprise - helped quite a bit. As a sidenote, the SuperZeros don't fit the stands perfectly - the stands stick out about an inch past the front of the speakers, but it doesn't look too strange. I may try to rig up a way to move the NHT's closer to the front in the future. For under $40, though, the DS2s are solid stands.


I am in no way qualified to write speaker reviews. I have learned that I barely have a copper ear, let alone a golden one. It is sufficient to say that I am very pleased with the setup. The only upgrade I'm lusting after now is a less bargain-basement amplifier. There will always be something.

Invasive Thoughts and Marriage

The wind is picking up; the weather becoming more tumultuous for a moment before it dies back down. It is warm, obscenely so, especially considering the past few mornings where I could see my breath as I walked the short distance between my third-floor apartment and the garage where my car rests. It is sticky. Just yesterday my heat was on. Today I have all my windows open. It is supposed to storm tonight, and it feels eerily still outside. The frogs and crickets are chirping, quieter now after this last cold snap, but still present. I am desperate for a storm to come tonight, to break this absurd heat snap, unwelcome in the midst of late fall. Sleeping will be a struggle tonight.


Marriage is on everyone's mind. A couple just got engaged - two friends of mine - and despite the inevitability of it all, there is still a buzz in the air. It's the difference between saying that you intend to do something and actually going through with it. It all seems so dangerous, so exciting and risky. I have always been a romantic, but I have usually managed to keep that to myself. So much of me is suspicious, skeptical of things I don't know and, even worse, things that I do know. I'm never quite sure of my own feelings about things. Whether this is a purposeful emotional disconnect or some built-in malfunction in the part of my being that houses the 'appropriate emotional responses' data I am not sure. I never seem to react correctly, at least not compared to the other people who I watch react to the same news. I make an effort to react similarly, though I constantly fear that others notice my longer-than-normal latency with said responses. I don't often feel the correct response to a situation. I must stop and think about it first, putting aside my first few gut reactions until I settle on something that seems appropriate.


Marriage. That's where I was going. It forces you - or at least me - to reevaluate everything. It is strange that the decisions of one pair of people can so strongly effect my outlook, even if it does happen to be only temporarily. I have spent a lot more time thinking about marriage and commitment in the context of my life. At the very least, it has made me less patient as a knee-jerk reaction to the sudden influx of invasive thoughts. I find myself suddenly analyzing every interaction, seeking out what I like and what I cannot stand. What I cannot live without and what I abhor. It is exhausting and distracting and exhilarating to be cataloging my interactions this way. There are some hurdles that I have to ask myself, ones that I will not share here. Things that, unfortunately for me, cannot be easily answered without actually living them first. I have so far found it impossible to give myself satisfactory answers. I can only imagine, than, that the day my relentless search yields a concrete answer will be the one on which I know what I must do next.


It is both wonderful and terrifying. 

Long Overdue

I'm making an effort to start writing again, yes. So far everything is living in separate files on Google Docs - I need to warm up my typing fingers and get them back into English mode after months of typing little other than C++ syntax. I also need to find my voice again.

I wrote the beginnings of a review of a new piece of audio equipment. It reads to me now as pompous and absurdly abstract, just like every other review of a piece of audio equipment. I guess I should expect things which are almost wholly subjective to be described in highly opinionated words.

The new blogger interface is amazing and beautiful; far cleaner and more open than it used to be. I don't feel like I am trimming down my words to fit in the old static-sized box that seemed to shrink over the years as my monitors got bigger. It feels more like, well, writing now.

I'm making an effort to come back. I know very few of you - if anyone - are still here. We'll see.

Remember

Oh blog.

I've told myself that I'm going to start writing again, mostly because I promised Tim a short story-like thing and I have been losing my grasp on the English language at an alarming rate.

Today I resolved to practice drums for at least a little while every day. I've grown tired of playing all the time for a few weeks then stopping completely when I get off the rotation at church. Every day, even if it's just for a small bit.

I also, apparently, resolved to make a valiant attempt at growing a beard. I realize that is a frightening prospect, but I went to work with my sad not-sure-what-to-call-it facial hair, so that must mean I'm committed to it, right? I look absurd. I'm hoping that eventually I will look less absurd.

It feels weird to be breaking in my keyboard all over again. I don't even remember most of my vocabulary; everything has devolved into project-specific jargon at work. I've been so immersed (in a good way) in everything there that I've stopped thinking in other terms altogether when I enter work mode.

I should read more.

I should do a lot of things.

Living

June 18? I think this may be some kind of record as far as my ability to get distracted. I've been working a lot lately, and... and all kinds of other excuses.

I started writing two weeks ago; it went something like this:

There is a sickly-sweet feeling weighing in my head right now, a heavy, solid mass of largely-uninterpreted emotion that’s sitting on my brain stem restricting the flow of information to the rest of my brain. I’m stuck focusing on a single euphoric event while trying desperately to fit in little bits of other thoughts into the gaps that are few and far between. It has not been good for my productivity. In fact, it has been awful for getting anything done. Except eating, I guess.

Went to the doctor this morning; was told to not eat breakfast - fine, I can handle that. I packed a post-appointment breakfast to eat at work and set off to get a physical. Three vials of blood later, I was sitting on the examination table sweating like crazy trying my damnedest not to fall off the table (or fall asleep). The doctor gave me a glucose gel-thing that was incredibly difficult to eat but was surprisingly effective. Beyond that, I’m doing pretty ok I guess. I’ve put on some weight over the past few years, but now that I have a prescription for an inhaler, I can embark on a renewed attempt to retain some semblance of activity and, therefore, health.

As for the actual distractions, they are a different story.

But I never made it back to fill in the rest of the story.

I've actually been doing things lately, which is strange because I've been spending an incredible amount of time with Chelsea. For the sheer amount of time I've spent lying on the couch watching TV, I've gotten a number of things done that make me feel decidedly less lazy. In what can only be described as an ordeal, I mostly-successfully hung a curtain yesterday. The 'mostly' comes from the fact that the center bracket isn't actually holding any weight whatsoever, and, in fact, the curtain rod is likely supporting it. The drywall was thin and brittle and the provided drywall anchors were less than useful. The curtains are, however, attached to the wall and they seem to be sturdy enough. The nigh-impenetrable studs on either side of my window saw to that - and to making me drill more holes in my walls that I'm proud to admit. I'm going to have a lot of holes to fill and patch when I leave, but that's a problem for Future Mike. He is far better equipped to handle that problem.

There are other things afoot, but few of them are exciting.

I am now back in what I would call a relationship. After what seems to have been the perfect amount of time, I got another unexpected answer to a long-standing prayer dealing with my sense of romantic loneliness. I may/may not still be in the euphoric first-few-weeks stage. Maybe.

As it turns out, I don't hate sushi. In some cases, I rather enjoy it. I do wish it was cut into more bite-sized pieces, though. So far, that is my sole complaint: I want it to fit into my mouth more easily.

Work is work. I had a week where I got approximately 15 minutes of real work done and spent the other 43 hours in the office doing something of which I have no memory. Fortunately, it lasted only a single week and I am back to working hard (ish) and being challenged. I am enjoying my project and, even as I keep getting told to brace for a bad third and fourth quarter, I haven't felt a slowdown at all due to the decidedly frequent release schedule I'm caught up in. It is a learning experience to be sure.

I am doing well.