FAT, BOOZE, PILLS, and the FINE ART of BEATING DEPRESSION!

Sometimes...even before you're "officially" awake...you JUST know it's gonna be one of those fucking days!!! Today is one of 'em!!! Again, fourth night in a row...so hard to fall asleep, and when I finally do...I keep waking up...weird had a dream that it was my first day at work in an office out of Mad Men...I mean it wasn't the same office, or people as the show...but you just knew it was Mad Men! Sleep has always fucked with me...from the very first second I was born...on! So now, no matter how many Red Bull's or Diet Pepsi's I drain...still gonna feel sleepy, drained, blah all day, thus screwing up my creativity!!! Now that I bitched about that ...I can bitch about the following. Love it when you have no idea what you're gonna write about...and you just start typing.........

I have been complaining forever and ever about my weight gain. I have gained well over 30 lbs. in a lil' over a year and a half. Why? Well, my official answer that I give myself and others is the fucking meds!!!...and it is... especially one of 'em...if you're on this baby...you are gonna balloon like the kid in Willie fuckin' Wonka...NO CHOICE!!! What I'm not admitting while blaming this pill, is that the weight gain would not have been so bad, if I exercised, ate less (and not so late), and did not drink SO much beer!!!

This pill, Serequel (probably the wrong spelling...who really gives a shit), is an anti-depressant. You gain weight on it even if you don't eat at all, and just suck in air all day! Soooooo, ya ask..."why not just get off it Joey?"... A great question there Skippy...the answer? For over 18 years I have suffered with fucking, horribly debilitating Depression. The disease, the disorder that is...and not, "woe is me...I hate goin' in to work 'cus the guy in the next cubicle is an asshole"...or, "the love o' my life left me...she was my kindred spirit, and I'll never find another." The name is the same (and man did they give this baby the wrong name), but it's two different things. The late, great American writer, William Styron (who suffered from it and wrote about it in a great little book called Darkness Visible), hated the name "depression" with a passion, as do I. He said "brain storm" would be great, alas, it was already taken. I used to always call it BrainFuck...even in sessions with my shrinks...they loved it. There really should be a campaign to change the name...Churchill called it the Black Dogs...it's a good start!!!

See...there I go....where was I???....oh yeah...18 years with this sinister, demonic dark hell inside you...you lose all hope, you lose all the things you love and are interested in most, you lose your self-esteem, social life...hell, you lose the will to live...REALLY!!! You don't even have the..."thing" to even crawl to the damn kitchen and get a bowl of cereal, 'cus you know you really should eat something...if you don't have the "thing" to do that, then you certainly don't have the "thing' to plan out, and then actually go thru all the trouble of killing yourself. Unfortunately, some people do have it, and do end it all.

A friend of mine, a local radio DJ here in Toronto (a lot of you know who I'm referring to), committed suicide, quite a few months ago now. And you don't know the frothing, rabid dog of anger I became when I heard the words "coward" and "selfish" mentioned when referring to him and his untimely suicide. If you truly believe that...FUCK YOU!!! It is not cowardly, nor selfish!!! What it is, is a pain so CRUEL...So fuckin' UNFORGIVABLY AGONIZING, that you actually can't imagine living with it for one second more. You think it's cowardly, huh?...then allow me to put a good ol' fashion curse on you...one solitary day with Depression from Hades..like the one I and millions more suffer for years and years...let's see how you feel about said coward then! Good, glad I got that out...if this blog thingamajig is good for nothing else, at least I get a chance to vent, and write sentences like that last one!

Soooooooooo....yes I want to get off this and all the other meds...and I honestly don't believe it was the pills that one day in May of 2008 made me actually say, "hey...hold on a minute...I feel...different....wait...is the BrainFuck gone...holy shit, I think it is!!!???"...and it was...and has not (knock fake wood...but with this fucker, you just never know) come back since. How do I know it wasn't the pills...I just "know it...I know how it felt inside...I just do...can't explain it"...but the real truth is, I DON'T KNOW...not 100% anyway!!! So it's my choice, get off the meds, take a chance, but maybe go back to that pure sheer Hell of darkness or stay on it and complain about my weight. I see (though, God knows I try hard to avoid it) pics of myself at various functions on FakeBook, and it bothers me SO FUCKIN' MUCH!!!! I saw some pics of me at the fabulous Touched By Fire art show last week...Eeeegad!!! Meat Loaf Re-visited!!!...got into such a bad, self-loathing mood...that I jumped into a cab, went to one of my favourite places (hey...my art is there...I'm the arteest in residence) WATUSi to partake in the fine art of warming the bar stool! Drank beer and tequila all night...made even more dangerous because some of the drinks were on one of the owners that was going thru a heavy issue as well!!! Stupid? Yes!!! Very!!!...and not the best way to lose that unwanted weight it turns out, which was the reason I pulled the self-pity act in the first place...genius!!!

But here's the thing...on the morning of Touched By Fire, last Thursday, while Ralph "Rottweiler" Martin and I were preparing to "hang" the show...I was on my knees, at the far end of this gorgeous gallery at the Royal Ontario Museum , unwrapping a piece of someones art, looking forward to seeing what was under the bubble wrap, kinda excited ...when out of no where it hit me, that I was already, though it was still morning, not only looking forward to the next day...I was excited to see what life was gonna throw at me tomorrow...I mean it actually thrilled me because I didn't know what was still in store!!! What a fucking difference from the days of the Black Dogs, where I was terrified to go to bed at night, 'cus I was so afraid of the morning!!! Oh that fucking horrible morning, and what it held for me!!!! I realized this...and that is why I stay on this muthfkr...because...I want to always look forward and get excited about what the future holds in store for me tomorrow!!!

So...we'll do the usual new year's resolution thang...eat better, less, and exercise like nuts, like Rocky F'n Balboa...even hit sides o' beef if I havta...if that, the weight, is my biggest problem in life...whew!!!... we can do something about it...I'm one of those really strange guys that can actually, one day get angry enough, and actually go to GREAT lengths to prove that I can do it just to spite life, or God (who still doesn't exist) or a fucking pill or disease!!!



Joey DAMMIT!