March 8, 1997

Lists Within Lists

Why Darin and I need a LISP-based life.

I'm home. Or what has been home but won't be soon. I'm here for a week and the main things I have to do are:

Write Act I of my screenplay.
Pack up the house.
Say goodbye to the Bay Area for a while -- maybe months.

Other than that, it should be a fairly relaxed Spring Break.

We've been making lists: things to pack, which rooms get which furniture; addresses to change, tasks to be done before the move and after, people to call. Every time we check something off, we feel that much more ahead of the game. Then we think of two or more things to add to the list.

Yesterday I didn't get much done. I flew up here, had breakfast with Darin, and then slept for three hours. I hadn't slept much the night before -- excitement at coming home, methinks. (Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

Last night over dinner, I worked on my screenplay story with Darin, because I've got to rewrite the treatment for it before I start writing. We hashed out most of the plot points and made it a much tighter story than it was before. Made it much clearer than it had been.

I also have to make lists just to remember what it is I have to be doing. It used to be that I could remember just about everything, then it was "If I don't write it down, I won't remember it," now it's "Even if I write it down, I might not remember it."

A Faithful Reader wrote in and suggested my sleep and memory problems might stem from a thyroid problem. Indeed, I have been tested for thyroid problems in the past and I even took a thyroid supplement for a while. But all it did was throw my thyroid levels out of whack.

And of course I've been examining depression. (Not that this is going to turn into a depression journal, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.) I evidently have many of the symptoms of depression...except being depressed. I've been depressed, I know what it feels like. The other symptoms of depression?

Appetite and or weight reduction or increase [not particularly]
Psychomotor retardation or agitation [not particularly]
Energy reduction (fatigue) [in spades]
Sleep reduction or increase [heh]
Suicidal ideas or thoughts of death [haven't had the time -- no, actually I haven't]
Feelings of worthlessness or excessive/inappropriate guilt [only when I don't write...which is pretty much all the time]
Interest or pleasure-marked diminuation in most activities [who has time to enjoy themselves?]
Mental ability diminution (difficulty thinking, concentrating, or deciding) [my memory's been shot to hell]

I honestly don't feel depressed...but my body seems to think I am. Sigh. I know I'm extremely stressed, but mostly what's stressing me is under control. I want simple explanations, dammit.

"There's something French about it...and I don't like it."

This quote comes to you courtesy of Funny Bones, one of the damnedest strange movies I have seen in quite a while. It stars Oliver Platt as the unfunny son of a famed comedian, played by Jerry Lewis, who goes to England and...well, I'll let you see the movie. We're watching it on the Sundance Channel, so you might be able to catch it there. I have no idea where it's going. I wanna know how this one got pitched.