the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

Life got better.

First, I'm back on the Prozac. When I quit this time, I'd quit drinking for several weeks before, and figured that my body might adjust differently without the interference of alcohol. It did better than last time, but eventually settled back into The Funk. If you've ever been there, you will recognize it immediately: you aren't interested in doing anything, let alone excited about anything; you're bored with 98% of the dialogue you encounter because none of it is original or even thought-provoking; you don't really care what happens next, to you or to the world; you are functioning from a basic level of anger and disgust with Stuff That's Wrong With The World and it won't go away. After a while, you can't concentrate, either. Your brain wakes you in the wee hours--not matter how much trazadone you may have just ingested--to kick you about for being such a loser. You think goals would help you out of this funk, but damned if you can think of any that excite--or even interest--you. You stop wanting to be around people in general.

In my case, I wanted to be at work more, since it was the only thing that gave my life immediate meaning. Also, it forced me to be disciplined, made me interact with people. It gave me something to pour my energy and thought into.

I've realized lately that I want to drink again. Sometimes, I indulge. Most of the time, I redirect myself. What bothers me, though, is the urge. I think it's connected to my hopelessness and the funk. So? Prozac. I should be back on an even keel (and return to being a person others may enjoy enteracting with) soon.

***

It helps that it's spring in Izmir. Today, we were at 21C (that's 70F). Everything is green. You can smell grass clippings from the lawn grooming going on everywhere. People smile more, make more jokes. I wonder sometimes if we don't all have at least a touch of SAD we deal with through the winter.

***

I'm off to Oberammergau, Germany, this Sunday for a NATO course. O'gau is just north of Switzerland, and from what I understand, just breathtakingly beautiful. Me and my new camera are looking forward to it.

***

I think I've finally worked out the problem with my electric bill. It's the combi-electric unit.

A combi-electric unit heats your water on demand (which is a feature you want in Turkey), and when it's on the "winter" setting, it heats your whole house. The uuuuuuummmmmmproblem, though, is that apparently--and I'm judging from electric bills like I've never witnessed before--it isn't mean to be left on all the time.

To an American, this is pretty daft. I mean, our heating systems are on all the time. We do, of course, have simple technology that regulates the temperature at various times of day to save money, and the system stops using power when the house is at a certain temperature. It seems, well, so simple a Turk could do it, doesn't it?

They can't, as it turns out. The combi-electric unit will draw electricity the whole time it is turned on, regardless of the temperature it's set at and regardless of whether the heater is actively working or not.

You see, then, how what Americans will assume about heating systems and what Turks will assume about heating systems are at loggerheads. I was taught how to turn the system on for the summer (no heat, just water) and on for the winter (for heat). No mention was made of the fact that I'd have to turn it off every time I stepped outside (which in my view, is just nuts, because when you come back home and turn it back on, it takes a couple of hours to get the house warm again).

I explained this to Oz at the Housing Office (our liaison with our landlord and various utility companies, etc). He called my landlord and explained the misunderstanding in such a way that the landlord offered to split the cost of the last three months' bills, since I simply didn't know any better. He asked me if this was ok, and I said absolutely YES. I'd already written the money off as one of those prices you pay to learn a lesson, so I'm tickled that he's going pay back half of my mistake.

Now that is an excellent landlord.

***

In other news, I realized Tuesday afternoon, when I went in to be shot in the back again, that my doc is treating me for fibromialgia.

That's right. I've never been diagnosed with it, because I don't have it, and it isn't in my records ("ruptured disk" is, though). But he is definitely treating me for it.

I dropped by the aid station today and left a note to that effect, and asked them to reengage to get me up to Germany to see a specialist about my chronic back problems. We'll see how that works out.

That's all the news that's fit to print. Y'all be excellent to one another.

d