Random Traffic Through Nick’s Brain

Spider Robinson, one of my favourite authors, posits that:

Shared pain is lessened, shared joy is increased.

I tend to believe this. With that in mind, I’m posting this blog entry. It’s not about sharing joy, it’s about sharing pain. Please do not read further if you’re not in the mood for something heavy.

Disclaimer: This blog entry is not about me. It really is about a friend of mine. I have felt down in the past, and will probably feel down in the future, but I’m not down now. This isn’t about me other than the fact that I need a bit of support / advice in supporting my friend.

So, I think a friend of mine is suicidal. Let’s call him Pete for narrative simplicity. He’s going through a rough patch. I’m trying to be there for him, but it’s difficult. He’s an old friend from high school who’s moved to the Maritimes. I mainly talk to him over the phone and on IM. His SO broke up with him a couple of months ago. His main outlet, sports, is unavailable to him since he got injured playing hockey (damn Canadians). He’s underemployed, and unhappy at his job.

The good news (if there is such a thing) is that Pete’s currently only in the plotting stage. He has a life insurance policy with, essentially, a suicide rider. He’s waiting for it to mature in ½ a year in so he can provide for some of his loved ones. The bad news is that I’m pretty much the only person that Pete talks to. He’s always been a bit of an introvert, and in the breakup, his ex got most of the friends.

I’ve tried to convince him to see someone, but he doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want anything on his record. Doesn’t want to have to take meds. I’ve suggested that he doesn’t actually have to take any meds they tell him to take, but that didn’t compute for some reason. I’ve suggested calling a suicide hotline. He doesn’t want to. Doesn’t see what good it’ll do.

At the insightful suggestion of a friend, I called the suicide hotline today, hoping to figure out what I could say to Pete. The good news: they told me I was doing a good job. Listening. Being there for him. The bad news: they didn’t have many suggestions on what more I could do. I could talk to him about the finality of his actions. I could ask him about what it would be like when it happened to drive home said finality. I’m also not to feel responsible no matter what happens. Apparently, I can’t fix everything, as much as I’d like to.

Aside: the first two times I called, I got a message saying that all Samaritans (their term) were busy and to call back later. If it was a medical emergency, call 911. If it was urgent, call another number. Darkly amusing somehow. Made me think about volunteering. Then got me to wondering about the technology behind these call centres. I wonder if people actually have to go into an office of some sort, or if they can volunteer from home. If the former, I wonder if some sort of VOIP network could be set up to allow people to stay at home, and attract more volunteers.

Things Pete says that scare me:

• I have nothing worth living for.
• The only respite I get from life is sometimes when I’m asleep, and only sometimes…. (he’s been having nightmares)
• I’ve still got another half year before my life insurance will pay out if I kill myself. You’re stuck with me for that long.
• I’m tired, my life is meaningless. There’s nothing I can do with it, it’s a hopeless situation.
• I don’t need help. The only thing that’s wrong with me is that I’ve fucked up my life beyond repair, and there’s no hope for it ever getting better.
• Everything that might have mattered is gone.
• I’ve screwed [my life] up beyond fixing.
• Everything good in my life is in the past.
• I don’t belong anywhere. All I have are a number of superficial acquaintances with little to no emotional value.
• Time to face the music, no one likes me, I’m unlikeable. When was the last time anyone else decided I was interesting and went out of their way to try to be my friend?
• Try my best to fix [my life]? It takes everything I have just to get by day to day. I come home with no energy or desire to do anything but sit and veg. Well, except for sports, and I’m too injured and usually too tired as well to do that. There’s nothing left for me. Just years and years of working a job I don’t like and being alone. There’s nothing left to build for. Your friend here is gone, all that’s left is an empty shell, there’s nothing left for you here. Really and truly….whatever happiness or optimism you once saw in me is gone.
• There’s nothing left for me. Not now, not ever. There’s no point. I don’t want to live like this. I’m better off dead. Just have to keep going long enough to leave my loved ones with something. Nick, give up on me already. I’m being selfish demanding that you spend all this time talking to me.

So, dear readers, what do I do?

People

I’ve come to realize that there are people in my life that I just plain look forward to seeing the rare times I get the opportunity to see them. Sometimes it’s people from out of town. Sometimes it’s at annual events (dance weekends, Mystery Hunt, etc.). Sometimes it’s friends of friends that I only see at the rare big get together.

This happened recently. Someone was in town… not even a friend… I heard he’d be here… and I found myself happy with anticipation. Then, I started thinking about it. Why did I feel this way? In some ways, I barely know this person, I hang out with him, in group settings, about once a year or so.

Then I hung out with said person, and remembered why. I normally find it difficult to interact with people. I don’t normally know what to do or say. However, with some people, it just seems to work. It’s fun to talk, hang out, veg, dance, puzzle, juggle, or just be with them. At least on my side of things, I’m comfortable. Sometimes it’s because the other person is just that good at putting introverted geeks like me at ease. Sometimes it’s because the other person and I click.

It’s nice when it happens. I shouldn’t wonder why I look forward to it.

Myself

I barely… heck… I don’t understand myself. Why should I expect to understand others? Better yet, why should I expect to understand how I interact with others?

Water

It still pisses me off that I can’t walk on water, even though I know there’s no rational reason I should be able to. Still… it looks like it should be so easy.

One of my favourite jokes is:

A lawyer and an engineer were fishing in the Caribbean. The lawyer said, “I’m here because my house burned down, and everything I owned was destroyed by the fire. The insurance company paid for everything.”
“That’s quite a coincidence,” said the engineer. “I’m here because my house and all my belongings were destroyed by a flood, and my insurance company also paid for everything.”
The puzzled lawyer asked, “How do you start a flood?”

I enjoyed L’s instantaneous response:

You put some C4 on the dam.

Unsurprising that she’s been to law school.

• Dina’s friend, knowing we’re a bit skittish about what life will be like AAA (after Alex arrives), invited us to come and hang out with her at play-group. All the adults were women. Men? Apparently home watching TV. I was dismayed.
• I don’t get people protesting The Da Vinci Code. First, it’s fiction. Second, IMHO, if you really had faith, you wouldn’t feel so threatened by this.
• I’m not a big baseball fan, but something rubs me me the wrong way about Barry Bonds chasing Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron’s home run marks. Hard not to root against a (perceived / alleged) cheater. If I were a major league pitcher, I’d be tempted to walk or bean him every time I faced him.
• Bush said that illegal immigrants who got on the path to citizenship would go to the back of the line, not the front. Fine. That still ignores the fact that it will put enormous strain on an already overtaxed bureaucracy. The immigration process is already mired in caution and red tape after the September 11^th attacks. I know some people who’re almost 2 years overdue for some of their interviews. This will just make the process worse.

I’d finish this spoof…

The devil went down on Georgia,
he was looking for a girl to do.
He was in a bind,
he liked her behind,
and was wanting to tap that too.

In the 2^nd verse, “hickory stump” looks like a promising euphemism. Not sure I can get away with the devil going down on Georgia right off the bat… the storyline may demand a bit more build-up than that. I’m pretty sure I can figure out something for Tech Squares amateur night.

Update: This collaborative thing is working out pretty well. Let’s see if it works as a wiki page. Click here to go to the wiki page. You can either add comments, or double-click and edit the page itself. Play nice, don’t stomp other’s work. Have fun.

• Finally on a new web host, A Small Orange. My previous host NetBunch was bought out by WebHostPlus (who suck). You can read about this fiasco and others. Sad really. Modus operandi of WebHostPlus seems to be to buy a host with clean IP addresses, move their spammer customers onto the clean IP addresses, and move the new customers onto the old, dirty IP addresses the spammers have used up. Worst part is, they can’t even be bothered to do an efficient migration for their new customers, resulting in downtime and loss of email.
• Dina’s grandmother liked my dark chocolate covered roasted almond clusters. So much so that she asked me to cook them for her. According to Dina, no one’s ever been asked to cook by grandma before. Tasty, liked by everyone, and good for your heart. I also made garlic roasted almonds. Those were very good, but didn’t turn out as well. Need to figure out how to get the garlic to stick to the almonds properly.
• Beef tongue. Mmmm. Totally a texture thing.
• Made pasta sauce. Forgot to put in the fresh basil leaves at the end. Dammit.
• Going to try and make pork hocks some time this week. Not sure how to do it without a pressure cooker. Google’ll tell me though. I’ve been enjoying cooking by scanning the first 5 to 10 recipes that Google gives me and then adapting to my own tastes.
• Can you tell that I’m looking forward to being the primary cook in the household for the first time in years?
• Ana Sortun, chef and owner of our favourite restaurant Oleana, has finally released a cookbook. I’m looking forward to playing with it.
• BU graduation went shockingly well, despite the incessant rain. Life is easier to take when there are no scheduling conflicts.
• Conversation w. MC:
  NV: Lotsa people blame my good behaviour on Dina.
  MC: hehehe, keeps you inline? You’re no block element! ;-)
  NV:

  <style>
  .Dina { display : inline; }
  </style>
  </span class="Dina">Nick</span>

  
  MC: that’s awesome, inline element and everything
• Been up and down all week… at times at peace with myself, realizing that pretty much all my problems are figments of my overactive mind. At other times, the figments take over, and I’m grumpy, unmotivated, and lethargic. Add too much caffeine, lack of sleep, and lack of feeling of making progress, and it’s been one roller-coaster of a week. I’ve been avoiding people and social situations as much as possible.
• On the good side, poker has been going well.
• I’m getting frustrated with sexism again. When I was younger and more idealistic (yet somehow, still cynical), sexism against women bothered me. Partly I wanted my female friends / girlfriends / future wife / future daughter to be allowed to be all they could be. Partly, it just didn’t sit right with me. I tend to believe in meritocracies. Now I’m running into sexism because I want to be a stay-at-home parent, a role traditionally reserved for women. The worst offenders this time around are women. Part of me thinks “No wonder women can’t achieve equality. They’re their own worst enemy. Someone is volunteering to share the burden of child care, and they heap scorn on the volunteer.” I’ve learned to accept the taunting from my friends that I cook (quite well), clean, sew, and actually enjoy doing other household chores given time. Now, apparently, I have to learn to deal with surprise at the fact that I can do these things, mainly from women.
• Big preparations for Alex are mostly done. Now it’s just the continuous stream of little things left.

I used to be spartan, both materially and socially. Materially, I just didn’t want to have too many possessions. Simple is better. Less clutter. Less schtuff. Less materialism. Socially, no matter how much I enjoy their company people, even friends, wear me out.

Spartanness used to be simple. Materially, I was a poor starving student and I moved a lot. Socially, as an introverted geek with poor social skills I didn’t naturally make many friends, both because I shied away from them, and because, well, I sucked at it.

Things have changed. I’m working. I’ve made efforts to improve my social skills… yes people… this is the socially ept version of Nick. You can imagine how bad the previous version was. As a result, I’m accumulating shtuff and friends. Sometimes this dismays or troubles me.

Materially, we have too much shtuff. Our apartment is packed. So is the basement. It’s hard to get rid of shtuff once you have it. You grow attached to it (remember, we got that candle-holder when we were in Whitby.) It’s might be useful someday (we have over 10 vases from the flowers I’ve given Dina over the years). My frugal side thinks it’s a shame to get rid of something that’s not truly trash-worthy.

Socially, our calendars are full, even when we attempt to keep them relatively empty. Each individual interaction is fun. My friends are my friends for good reason. Overall though, our lives feel frantic. I don’t have time to recharge. Friends are even harder to get rid of than possessions, no matter what I do… most of my friends tend / need to be pretty forgiving people. I also am more attached to them than I am to our shtuff.

Where does this leave me? I don’t know. I’ve been wrestling with this topic for a while now.

• At some point, we need to have a yard sale. We were planning one for this spring, but Alex is taking up a lot of our time. Or we need to move… moving is great for divesting oneself of one’s possessions. Or we need to buy a house (which kinda implies a move)… we can really figure out whether all the things we’re saving for ‘when we have a house’ will actually be used as we plan.
• We need to be more selective in both who and what we let into our lives.
• Maybe I need to not hold on so strongly to people who are drifting out of our lives. Unsure if this is the right thing, as I’ve always believed you attempt to nurture your friendships as best you can.

A really nice weekend. Nice mix of relaxing, productive, and fun.

Friday

Our friend V came over. Dina cooked Lamb roast. Awesome. Possibly the best lamb I’ve ever tasted. Martini #1: Limoncello. Tasty. Refreshing. Martini #2: Frangelico. Still tasty, but might be a bit too sweet. Good conversation.

Saturday

Woke up, headed out to the river to rent a kayak and tool around. Dina got us there early, 45 minutes before they opened. We took the opportunity to sit on a bench and watch the river flow by. Lotsa birds. Some things splashing in the river itself which we assumed were fish. Squirrels.

If a squirrel and a geese got in a fight, who would win? Seriously, if you put them in a cage and put a single peanut between them… who would win?

A whirlwind tour of fine commercial establishments including Babies’R'Us where we polished off most of our registry, Magic Bean, ditto, and Costco to buy 248 diapers and 704 wipes. We are going to wipe our son’s ass thousands of times. Makes me want to call my parents and apologize. Started doing laundry with the baby laundry detergent… baby clothes shed a lot.

We also bought 4 pounds of king crab legs and a pound of scallops at Costco for our dinner with E&O. Scallops were marinated in ginger-sesame, rasberry-chipotle, and jerk sauce. Note to self: frying stuff on high heat in jerk sauce needs to be done in a very well ventilated area. Martini #3: Dirty Espresso. ½ shot of espresso plus some fresh coffee grounds. O liked it. Possibly one of my best martinis ever. Martini #4: Applesauce martini. ¼ apple, puréeed in blender. E wasn’t a big fan of it. Martini #5: Belgian Chocolate Ice Cream. Good, but ice cream doesn’t cut the alcohol taste of the vodka as well as other flavours do. Lotsa good conversation, but I think I put E&O to sleep with my drunken repetitiveness drunken repetitiveness drunken repetitiveness. Or maybe it’s just that it was midnight… yeah… I’ll go with that.

After that, I was still hyper. Played some online poker. S dropped over for some late night conversation and then crashed on our couch since she was too tired to drive home.

Sunday

Woke, fed ourselves, and started playing with our new toys. Assembled stroller. Added infant car seat attachment to stroller. Cleaned infant car seat. S was surprisingly helpful. Did a bunch of stuff around the nursery, which is now pretty much ready. Wow, it’s 5 already. Time for a BBQ at K’s, J’s GF. Had a very good time. We may have ragged on J too much, especially considering K’s mom was there… oops. K also has nice friends. It’s (sometime) fun meeting our friends’s friends or our friends’s SO’s friends.

Told my boss that I plan on being a stay-at-home dad once Alex is born.

The lawns in the Boston area started fornicating recently. I’ve been attempting to go medecine-free this allergy season, but I may cave. I’m mildly uncomfortable with the pollen count at ‘Moderate’. We’ll see what happens when we hit ‘High’ or ‘Very High’.

A post card I sent Dina from Amsterdam on March 19^th arrived today.

On Exercise

Had a conversation with some officemates at the gym on Monday:

A: How much did you run on Sunday?
Me: 14 miles.
A: Wow.
B: Why are you running that far, are you training for something?
Me: No. I’m just tired of being out of shape.
B: If you’re running 14 miles, you’re not out of shape.

B’s last statement gave me pause. I guess it must be true to some extent. But it’s not how I seem myself. I still feel out of shape. Damn residual self-image. Guess I’ll have to update it at some point.

On Conversations

Being an introvert, I tend to worry when meeting or dealing with people one-on-one. This extends to even the very best of my friends. I worry that I won’t know what to say, or will say the wrong thing. Thankfully, most of the time, things tend to go well. Conversations come easily, or the silence is comfortable. Mind you, this is self-fulfilling. People who mesh with the way I am tend to get defined as ‘friends’. People who don’t, well… don’t. Such is life.

There are occasionally people that I’d like to get to know better, and I feel would like to get to know me / us better, just that the conversations don’t come easily. In fact, I’ve had meta-conversations with people like this on this topic. In the end, we’re friendly, but don’t really become friends. It’s odd.

The things you learn. “Labor & Delivery” is a hospital department. Besides being the place to go when a pregnant woman is in labour, or about to deliver a baby, it’s also a place to go to check on the pre-natal health of the baby if mom-to-be is sick, gets hurt, or anything else happens that might affect the baby. We’ve actually been to L&D 3 times now. Once as part of our hospital tour, once when Dina was sick with the flu, and once when Dina sprained her ankle. Apparently, any fall requires monitoring of baby for 4 hours after the fall. A fall where the belly is impacted requires monitoring for 24 hours.