11:47 PM - 10.10.16
The Land Of Diminished Capacity

So...where to start...?

The "car saga" is basically over - I hope! - beyond doing the DMV stuff.

On Weds, the previous owners brought over the title and key fob (They'd given me the spare key till my check cleared), and once again said I could call them if there's any issue with the transmission, since the work done is under warranty through late December (They added that the battery is under warranty for another year).

I'm really enjoying the new car, an upgrade in every way over what I had - it's newer (by 12 years), looks nicer (I keep saying "I'm not ashamed of my car anymore!"), everything works (Nice to have dome lights, a lighted instrument panel, a driver's-side window that actually rolls down, and maybe best of all, air-conditioning), and it has an auxiliary plug-in so I can play Pandora over the car speakers.

It looks nice enough that 1) It takes away one of the impediments I've had to asking women out ("I'm embarrassed by my shitty car"), and 2) It makes me want to keep it clean and nice-looking (Over the years, I'd all but stopped washing the last car, and the interior was dirty and torn-up and strewn with garbage).

The "fly" in this vehicular "ointment" is my uncertainty about the transmission (I'm still smarting over paying a mechanic $85 to basically shrug his shoulders and say, about the transmission, "I dunno. Could be something. Could be nothing. 'Buyer beware'").

The car has more get-up-and-go than the old car (It has a V-tech engine, which I'm assuming is the reason that's the case), but as I drive, any perceived little "pause" or "hitch" in its giddy-up is cause for alarm.

The idea of spending more money to have another mechanic check it out kills me...but I think I have to. I need either the piece-of-mind of being told it's nothing, or I need to know there's a problem, so I can get the repair done while it's still under warranty (There were also some other "minor" things - nevertheless totaling almost $400 - that I'd like to get a second opinion on as well).

As is often the case for me, it's hard to "thread the needle" in terms of reasonable expectations - I want the car to run well and be free of any problems, but it's a 14-year old car I paid a couple thousand for, so there will undoubtedly be "issues".

I guess I just don't want them to be "immediate" and/or "catastrophic".

Anyway, long story short, the car's fun (More so than I'd imagined)...but I'm still a little nervous about the whole thing.

In other news...

Shot my 7th episode of the season this past Tuesday (Episode 10).

I was excited about it, because it was basically me and Mike M's scene, and it's comparatively rare that I'm one of the "drivers" of a scene (Most of the time, I feel like I'm just dropping a line or two into someone else's scene).

But it was a weird day - I genuinely enjoyed being on set and doing the scene...but right alongside that enjoyment, I was disappointed with how the scene was staged (It made it difficult to actually interact with Mike/"Tommy" the way I wanted to), and disappointed with my own work.

(It struck me afterward that the scene could very easily be cut - Maybe it's something, but in the moment, it didn't seem like anything terribly interesting was happening.)

Afterward, one of the stand-ins said they were feeling sad because "the season's almost over" (This was the 5th or 6th day of shooting for episode 10, and there's only 12 episodes in a season, so it'll be "all over but the shouting" by the end of the month).

While I knew this intellectually, someone pointing out there were just weeks left in the shoot schedule made me depressed...especially when, in the moment, for all I knew, my season might have have just ended (I wasn't in episode 11, and hadn't yet heard about 12).

(I have since gotten the good word - I am in the 12th-and-final episode of the season - but haven't gotten a shoot date yet.)

The 7th season wrap-party is on the 22nd.

We haven't always had wrap-parties (or else we have, but I haven't always been invited to them), and the ones I've attended have been hit-and-miss for me (Nice food, a lot of pointless, lonely meandering-around among people I mostly don't know - It's not just a party for the cast and shooting crew, but for everyone involved in the production - until I glom onto Mike M and other people I know, maybe some dancing, maybe a little face-time with Bill Macy or John Wells or whatever regulars show up, etc).

But "hit and miss" nature of wrap parties aside, I was excited to get the email invite to the Season 7 party (I guess it's still just "nice to be included").

And it struck me yesterday - as I'm sure it has in previous years - that I have something of a "hook" here, if I wanted to get someone to go out with me (I imagine some ladies might find the idea of going to a Shameless wrap party exciting & fun).

Only trouble?

I don't have any prospects.

I did contact someone via Facebook and ask if she'd be interested - I don't know her relationship status or anything like that. I just know that she's very cute and we seem to have a nice chemistry - so we'll see if anything comes from that.

If that doesn't happen, I'll probably just "go stag"...like always.

On Weds, I had my first appointment with Dr I. (my psychiatrist) in two months.

I was his last appointment of the day, and he was clearly tired, but he took the time with me I needed, and now I feel like I have a little more clarity in terms of what my "expectations" should be regarding medication.

I told him the medication had "taken the edge off" - It's been awhile now since I've felt like I was going to "lose it" in public, or have hit myself in frustration - but that I was still wrestling with a lot of bad feelings, and while able to keep myself from actually doing it, was still having the urge to hit myself, particularly in the previous week (There were a couple episodes where I was very close - didn't hit myself, exactly...but let's say there was some pretty emphatic clapping at one point).

And the Doctor said that, while medication wasn't going to solve everything (And that I should definitely continue to "talk therapy"), it should do more than "take the edge off".

So I have an appointment next month, and if I go in feeling like things are pretty much the same, he'll up the dosage (from 75mgs to 150).

I'm still not completely happy with doing this...but it's also not as big a deal as I'd imagined.

And if it keeps me from breaking down in public, or using my face as a punching bag, I can live with my wounded pride (Or whatever the issue is here).

(Anything else...?)

Did another edible this week.

It was the "eclair" my friend had promised me previously (Though it wasn't really like an "eclair" you'd get at the bakery - it was more like something between a cookie and a brownie - but I thought it was pretty tasty. Unlike the previous edible - a pot gummi ring - I didn't "taste the pot", which was nice).

It took maybe an hour-and-a-half to kick in, but I definitely got very high (It kicked in while I was talking to Cary on the phone - I'd told him I'd taken it, and that we could quickly bring things to a close if/when I started getting stupid, which I did, as it became difficult for me to remember what the hell I was talking about by the time I got to the end of a sentence).

I did some laundry, which was fun - this routine chore was suddenly a real brain-teaser (It's been awhile since I really had to think about the process of doing laundry)- and just generally had a good time for a few hours.

Like the last experience, I spent a good deal of time "analyzing", and pondering what makes "getting high" fun (Or not fun, if you're having a bad experience). What goes into the determination that feeling disoriented - physically and/or mentally - is "fun" or "unpleasant"?

I remember thinking at one point that the experience was a safe, fun, temporary version of something I'm actually very afraid of - losing my physical/mental abilities over time.

I'm actually pretty terrified at the idea of there coming a time when something like doing laundry will be too daunting a physical/mental task, not because I'm high, but because my brain and body are too far gone.

(You'd think a grim line-of-thought like that might "harsh my mellow", but it really didn't, that I recall. Maybe specifically because this "land of diminished capacity" was someplace I was just visiting.)

And with that, I think we're pretty much up-to-date (I'm gonna save watching the 2nd Presidential Debate for next time).

And it's past my bedtime...

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