Unfortunate

Turns out being hungry and feverish is pretty similar to being black-out drunk because I have no...

Fri, 24 May 2013 21:12:48 -0400

Turns out being hungry and feverish is pretty similar to being black-out drunk because I have no idea where this food came from.

(I’m just a dog chasing cars; I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught one)

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:13:22 -0400

(I’m just a dog chasing cars; I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught one)

(There aren’t any symposia at this conference I’m particularly interested in attending...

Thu, 23 May 2013 14:31:11 -0400

(There aren’t any symposia at this conference I’m particularly interested in attending anymore, so what if I just followed this guy with the most amazing ass I have ever seen around until I go to the airport? Using public funds for stalking is probably really unethical, right?)

Photo

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:42:14 -0400

I completed my 15+ minute talk in 11 minutes.

Sun, 19 May 2013 13:26:29 -0400

I completed my 15+ minute talk in 11 minutes.

THIS PLACE IS FUCKING WITH ME

Sun, 19 May 2013 01:30:04 -0400

THIS PLACE IS FUCKING WITH ME

Well fuck me running.

Sat, 18 May 2013 19:54:35 -0400

Well fuck me running.

(I’m planning on getting back on some sweet psychoactives shortly after I return from this...

Sat, 18 May 2013 02:11:40 -0400

(I’m planning on getting back on some sweet psychoactives shortly after I return from this conference. This was a scary bout of nonsense and I don’t want to repeat it.)

Insane thought of the hour:

Fri, 17 May 2013 22:07:31 -0400

What if I just yell out ‘CARDIAC SWAG’ and then sit down instead of actually presenting my shitty slides?

(I’m counting on all the gifs of spirals to hypnotize the audience into thinking I gave an...

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:44:39 -0400

(I’m counting on all the gifs of spirals to hypnotize the audience into thinking I gave an amazing talk.)

At current count, there are 14 animated GIFs in my talk.

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:51:05 -0400

At current count, there are 14 animated GIFs in my talk.

"I think I know what’s going on. We have to be careful with windowing. If we window states (or..."

Mon, 13 May 2013 22:41:28 -0400

“I think I know what’s going on. We have to be careful with windowing. If we window states (or their differences) and then shift, we would be in the same pot we are in right now. We have to window the “shifted” residuals, rather than Arnoldi vectors (or Krylov subspace basis vectors). Otherwise, the shift will introduce artificial errors on the boundary when you compute the “shifted” residual. That’s true even if the two states only differ by a shift - try it.”

- You gotta be fucking kidding me.

Remember that time I laid on my kitchen floor so I could eavesdrop on my downstairs neighbor have a...

Mon, 13 May 2013 00:16:44 -0400

Remember that time I laid on my kitchen floor so I could eavesdrop on my downstairs neighbor have a weird conversation with a one-nighter about witchcraft and pedicures?
Now I’m doing that but with impromptu therapy sessions sponsored by the gangbangers selling drugs behind the house.

This house smells… earthy. It reminds me of the smell when you had to feed worms in elementary...

Sun, 12 May 2013 20:55:14 -0400

This house smells… earthy. It reminds me of the smell when you had to feed worms in elementary school.

Where is everyone? This is weird.

Sun, 12 May 2013 15:38:27 -0400

Where is everyone? This is weird.

In the interest of maintaining arguably the only theme this blog has ever had, and in keeping with...

Thu, 09 May 2013 22:59:47 -0400

In the interest of maintaining arguably the only theme this blog has ever had, and in keeping with the cascading series of meltdowns I’ve had recently and have witnessed on my dash today (due in no small part to the newest Hyperbole and a Half) I thought I’d talk briefly about self-harm.

My depressive symptoms are typical. It always begins with lethargy, and withdrawal. Inexplicable sadness, and self-loathing. I start crying sporadically, usually for unidentifiable reasons. Finally, I go numb to most of my feelings, and then there’s an anxious and uneasy serenity that accompanies daydreams of killing myself.

Another sensation that always accompanied my depression, beyond the crushing monotony and the overwhelming self-loathing, was the idea that I didn’t have control over myself, my feelings, and more broadly: my mind. I lose any ability I once possessed to concentrate when I am depressed. I’m in constant pain, both physical and psychic, and I don’t have any tactics to combat it.

I think a lot of people who haven’t experienced depression personally see those who self-harm as ‘rehearsing’ suicide. While I can’t speak for anyone else, my motivations stem from the need to counter the three most debilitating symptoms of depression in my life:

pain, focus, and control.

Depression on it’s own is exhausting, but the constant emotional and physical pain is debilitating most days. Being unable to focus makes any task a monumental undertaking. Feeling out of control is, frankly, unnameable; the closest sensation I can think to describe it with is when you have a lucid moment while very drunk.

I have no illusions that the self-loathing played some part in the motivation to cut myself. But when I cut myself, that self-loathing took localized physical form, and it became identifiable. Worthlessness became a sting. I would cut myself, and the fuzzy edges of the world would be thrown into sharp relief. To call the self-inflicted pain focussing belies it’s effectiveness. It was as though the sun came out, drove away the fog from my mind, and brought me back to a stark and faithful reality. Reality was real and I was a part of it again. Most importantly, having made nebulous and effluent pains eminently physical, I could control it. I could focus on it for as long, or as briefly as I needed, and then cast it aside.

This was a pain I could control. This was a sensation I could focus on.

Cutting myself was more immediate than some background waking torment, promising relief if only I closed my eyes and walked a few feet forward, or floored it into a tree, or swallowed every pill I could find, or this, or that…

Cutting myself made the worst parts of depression tolerable, because I showed myself how to control admittedly cheap facsimiles of them.

So that’s it. I debated whether to post this for quite some time, largely due to what I will say next. I’ve been in the throes of a particularly terrible depressive episode recently. I’m trying not to withdraw, because I think this time I’ll actually kill myself, and I’m worried, I guess, or at least I should be, because for the last week I’ve been cutting again because I have the emotional maturity I had when I was 14, and sat alone in the dark with a stolen razor, and quietly wished I had the nerve to kill myself.

jrhyley: [T]he emotional deadening that followed was a welcome...

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:13:08 -0400

jrhyley:

[T]he emotional deadening that followed was a welcome relief. I had always wanted to not give a fuck about anything. [B]ut my experiences slowly flattened and blended together until it became obvious that there’s a huge difference between not giving a fuck and not being able to give a fuck.

New Hyperbole and a Half is exactly what I needed today. [ty beefranck]

Hey look, Allie Brosh published all my drafts and is better at explaining things than I am but her story ends with an upward trajectory and mine is still stagnating, just like my fucking residuals.

Actually, my drafts are somewhat more dark and serious than her post, but they make for less compelling reading, I guess.

What’s the appropriate amount of time to toil impotently in the face of forces you can’t quite grasp...

Wed, 08 May 2013 23:40:11 -0400

What’s the appropriate amount of time to toil impotently in the face of forces you can’t quite grasp before admitting you’ve never been good at anything, hate yourself, and this stoic perseverance schtick is simply not for you?

I am deeply unhappy.

Tell me it’s okay to give up.

0 + 0 = 0, usually. 0 - 0 = 0, sometimes. 0 * 0 = 0, if you’re lucky. 0 / 0 = 0, is heresy.

Wed, 08 May 2013 18:08:01 -0400

0 + 0 = 0, usually. 0 - 0 = 0, sometimes. 0 * 0 = 0, if you’re lucky. 0 / 0 = 0, is heresy.

Today a waitress was nice to me and it made me cry.

Wed, 08 May 2013 15:09:14 -0400

Today a waitress was nice to me and it made me cry.