All right already, I’ll take the damn drugs.

But the very nice doctor this morning (I love you nice doctor! I even love your clunky, ugly shoes I couldn’t stop staring at! I kiss gratefully your prescription pad!) said she was ruling out the inpatient program based specifically on my having quit the job of death! I said, “Isn’t it a matter of stress levels?” and she said, quite coolly, “From what you haff told me, I suspect that you vill find being unemployed far less stressful zan copingk vith your hideously stressful job.” She also said for some people, the very definition of ‘depression’ is that you can’t cope with anything no matter how many resources you’re given. That sounds about right, actually, and I’ve heard that before.

A lot of the other stuff she said had me muttering asides under my breath – how this drug won’t affect my libido too badly (“Hah! Yeah, great, my dry spell will be thrilled to hear that, did I mention the one-year anniversary is coming up? My dry spell and I were thinking of going out to dinner to celebrate”), how I simply must get back to the gym (“Oh, hah, as if I’m going to shave my legs just to go to the damn gym”), how I shouldn’t be spending too much time alone (“How’m I supposed to be all naked and crazy if I’m not alone?”), and how I should go through my journals to find things that used to make me happy and try them again, even if I don’t feel it now.

“Wha?”
“Happy.”
“H…”
“Happy. You know. The emotion.”
“Wha?”

When I left the doctor’s I went to Safeway to fill the prescription, and thinking robotically Happy, happy, happy, I went to The Holy Grill (O hallowed vale of deliciousness!) and was confronted by the three hot owners sexily slicing capicollo, opening a huge tin of artichoke hearts, and cleaning the grill. And I felt a short thrill of something… I don’t know if it was actual happiness or just my befuddled libido giving one last sick lurch before it dies completely.

Hot Guy #1: “Haven’t seen you in here for a while! Hey, check out the rosy cheeks on this one, eh?”
Hot Guy #2: “Awww! Lookit that.”
Hot Guy #1: “What can I getcha, honey?”
Me: “You, lightly-grilled on a bed of radicchio.”
Hot Guy #1: “Beg pardon?”
Me: “Christ! Sorry. I meant, ho, varlet, fetch me at once your inestimably delicious Mr. Chicken panini and a side order of sweet potato chips, heavy on the rosemary, to go: for many miles remain in my quest.”

Hot Guy #1 forced a cup of green tea with honey on me, “No, it’s on us, ‘cos it’s so damn cold outside,” and I sat there drinking it and swinging my feet in the booth and feeling a bit less sick and disoriented than usual. So that was kind of nice. I wanted to thank them for being part of my recovery from this low (and I want to thank everybody else I haven’t already thanked, for being supportive and patient and buying me lots of cocktails – B.G. Rob! – and offering your ideas and affirmations and love).

So we’ve got the drugs. We’ve got a steady psychiatrist. We’ve got three months of health coverage and we’ve got Handel’s Messiah this Saturday and lots of clean underwear. This ‘depression’? I am going to fucking headbutt it right in the face until it dies from it. And I shall shout Batman-like sound effects while doing so.

(This is a small pachycephalosaur that I drew in my ENCS 475 class and didn’t get to finish, but I imagine he’d make similar noises while headbutting much larger things than himself, which is what I feel like I’m doing.)