Hump Day

 I made it through Wednesday without anything approaching fun or glory.

Internal distress, I think from the meds, left me tired. I even called CC to get a ride down to the courthouse. She couldn't make it, I walked. It was almost an hour of a walk. I have to admit I felt peppier when I got there – sweating and hot – but now my left knee was aching. 

I got home about 3:30, tried doing some work, took a nap, got up and ate bean soup, went to work on stuff for dad's trust. I walked down to Dollar General for Coke and a block of cheese. I went off the reservation and had a little ice cream. When I got done with that, I read more on Christopher Marlowe. It is fuel for a fire that I am chewing over in my head. There is now a second play in my mind.

I woke at 4 AM. It is now a little after 5.

I feel still a bit disheveled – things that need done are not getting done. There was a time when this would have overwhelmed me and depressed me, not so much now.

The email distractions I have cut down. However, I want to point two pieces I have run across the past two days on depression.

On bad days: How we talk about mental health by Chris Cillizza was the second, but the one that may be the more important to be read. Oh, boy, does this sound familiar:

Yesterday was a bad day for me.

There was no specific reason why. Or, at least, none that I could figure out. I got up, wrote, dropped my kids off at sports. That’s my usual routine these days. (And, yes, I know it is a luxury.)

But something felt off — a sense of dread hanging over me. I couldn’t kick my worries about the future — where I’ll work next (and when), will the kids do ok in school and in sports etc. — and it dogged me all day.

The dread that comes with depression, I knew. When I saw the counselor this Tuesday, I finally got around to talking about the anger and hatefulness I felt towards the world when depressed. Dread was there, too. The feeling of being cut loose, no connections to reality and no way back were also feelings I had. I am lucky that KH got me back to writing and Joel C kept me doing it, for like Cillizza wrote, it helps with my depression:

The other thing that helps me deal with bad days is writing. It helps me process how I feel. And in sharing it, I feel like I am making a difference — even a tiny one — in our willingness to talk openly about our own mental health and, yes, struggles.

The other is lighter, another sign that Indiana pops up in the strangest places, l that maybe there is hope for this State: ‘Who’s going to work there?’: Lawmakers grapple with labor shortage:

Crider, for example, said a persistent lack of mental health resources has limited the work potential of some people in his state.

“It not only keeps people out of the workforce, but it also affects people’s attendance and focus on the task at hand when somebody in their family is struggling,” he said. “And so that’s one of the things I think we talked about quite a bit.”

Research from Indiana’s behavioral health commission in 2022 found that mental illness was costing the state more than $4 billion in lost productivity and health care costs each year. The potential to improve worker productivity was one reason the legislature earlier this year near-unanimously approved Crider’s legislation that overhauled the state’s antiquated mental health system and aims to infuse $130 million more per year into services.

Crider said the workforce shortage requires a comprehensive set of solutions. Quality of life is as important as job opportunities — and that is especially true for remote workers who can live anywhere.

This morning I read American Theater's review, A Man in Full: August Wilson and His Plays, in All Their Complexity. I have not seen his plays onstage, but have read two. He and Sam Shepard are my favorite modern American playwrights.

Also, from yesterday, Palter, Dissemble, and Other Words for Lying. Mendacious should be all our vocabularies in this era of Trump.

I have not gotten through the whole of 99 Drama Scripts That Screenwriters Can Download and Study. Operation Clean Off the Table is taking precedent.

I downloaded the free e-book, The Night Trembles: A Sampler of New Writing by Women in Translation from Seven Stories Press. It gives me a chance to read Annie Ernaux.

In an hour I will be at the bus station downtown. I will you leave you here.

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