ya can't argue with a cold can of sapporo and a couple ice packs...

it's the best thing really after basketball (playing not watching) and i'm really hurtin cuz i forgot that i'm 30+ and out of shape and ran like i'm not...seriously, for the first 30 minutes we were all run and gun, which means i was out leading the break at full speed and sprinting back on defence...just try running as fast as you can and then stopping, jumping, and turning around to sprint the other way...now that you've got the hang of that, add in some boxing out and fighting for rebounds and loose balls, maybe dive on a cement floor a couple times, and running sideways and around people who don't necessarily want to let you run around them...if you're still feeling ok, find someone younger, faster, and more athletic (but not as gritty and with less heart...) and try to chase them...for 30 minutes cuz even though you're pushing the ball and setting good screens and rebounding, you're maybe not hitting your shots so much...actually i was but my teammates were a little cold...except for gary (round mound of rebound...seriously he's 45 and totally unathletic but he's got a nose for the ball and a certain tenacity...i've gotten bruises fighting him for rebounds...i love that guy...)

i bought this sapporo especially for 'after basketball' actually. good call.

so how have you been?
me...i've been struggling...depression seems to be kinda under control...better living through medication... anxiety/stress...not so much. it seems like i might also be suffering from an anxiety disorder...or something... those silly little misunderstood/poorly diagnosed/funny little psych things.
i have numerous panic/anxiety attacks most days.
seemingly unconnected to where i am what i'm doing or what's going on around me.
if i've been talking to you in the past year, i've had one while talking to you. (you didn't notice cuz they last about 30 seconds and i "know what they are"...at least enough to recognize the nausea and shortness of breath and pounding heart and terror as "not real"...ie no one is running at me with a knife or a gun, i'm not about to give a speech to a hostile audience and you didn't say anything terribly upsetting...it just happened.) and i can fake my way through things until the part of myself that's whited out stops doing that.
(don't try the problem-solving thing ok - it happens at all times of the day, at work and at home and everywhere i've been in the past year and even when i'm playing basketball and sometimes i have them when i'm dreaming and wake myself up... so patterns aren't in it...although my new shrink is pretty sure we'll be able to sort it out. i'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. he's prescribed more meds specifically for this part of things...fair trade i say.)
for my part, i'm seeing a shrink. new guy, not the woman i saw the winter before last. he comes recommended. and so far so good. even if he is in the east end...sigh
i think other things have been happening since the last posting. but that's the biggest thing. especially lately.
i dunno.
i work a lot.
i haven't been reading as much lately. it's a timing thing kinda. the cycles of book releases means that things i could read for free in hardcover when i was last working in a bookstore are coming out in paperback. the new titles are still in hardcover and i can't afford that. i gotta wait a bit longer for stuff that came out after i was a bookstore employee to come out in paperback so i can afford it.
i've found a few things i really absolutely love.

Sherman Alexie - he writes brilliant short stories about basketball actually...some of the most beautiful writing i've come across, and only a beautiful few stories are about basketball, and the rest of the beautiful stories are not. thanx to brook and colleen for lending me "the toughest indian in the world" and thanx to adam and michelle for the gift certificate that i used to buy more sherman alexie.

Cormac McCarthy - he writes biblically, epicly...he knows more words than the dictionary...and he can write in such a huge enormous grand scale (bigger than moby dick) and i'm enthralled and amazed by his language.

other than those two i've been struggling a bit to find books that really get me excited...although i've enjoyed a bunch of books i've read that i can't think of right now...

i just picked up the new tom waits...well i love (love) 2 out of 3 discs...i'll take it. i love the two discs i love enough that i don't mind having paid for the set.

i love sarah too. every day. all day... she gives that grinch heart-growing-to-be-two-sizes-too-big-for-his-chest feeling all the time. (actually i often have that feeling...i have a big heart...i hope so anyway...)

work is ok i hope...even though i'm on my last warning for talking out of turn (my well-documented low bullshit tolerance in action with clients who don't have their shit together...) actually i was given my last warning about a month or 6 weeks ago, and things have been pretty ok lately...i've been keeping my head down...and adam held an intervention... (actually i'm feeling vengeful...anything the women folk want me to talk to him about?...like the infamous "the women folk are worried about your drinking" intervention at the turn of the century...?)

anyway, i guess that's all i got.
tired. and struggling.
let's play poker and eat good food and have good times more often ok kids, otherwise the next post is gonna end up being an essay entitled "depression is like loneliness, that's why i'm the social convener - you guys make me feel better cuz you're good and you can't feel lonely when you're actually with good people"...hmm...don't make me use that title ok.

what's everyone up to this weekend?
i'm gonna go to cambridge and visit my family and relatives.

i'm gonna try to get back to this blogging thing. i'm hereby commiting to one posting every week. hopefully more. we'll see how it goes.

take care of yourselves ok.
you're important.