Depression

It’s a groggy whole-body feeling, not unlike having a mild fever. Achey, irritating and persistent. It also feels like a lead vest. Standing up from a sitting position seems a huge inconvenience, and just going into the other room to hunt for the telephone is a chore. Your mind’s only real attempt to snap out of it is through anger, which is the easiest emotion to generate. Room mates are the safest targets, easy and handy. Why the FUCK would she put the phone in between the couch cushions? Nobody has any decency or consideration for other people besides me, so what’s the point? That’s another question that shows up a lot, What’s the point?
Preparing food isn’t fun, but you’ve no hope of actually wanting to go anywhere to eat. It’s all a monumental task. You don’t have any desire to go with anyone else, no interest in conversation. Everything seems expensive and far away. You think of the gas it would take and get angry. You think of how sweaty you’d be if you walked or biked. You decide to order food for delivery even though you’re bitter about the expectation to tip. It takes you forever to decide what you want to get, and by the time you call, it’s off-peak hours. Some days you go without lunch altogether, and feel like it’s been withheld from you by the world. Today though, you’re eating lunch at 3:00pm, hungry and cranky. You’re like a toddler who needs a nap, but you lied in bed all morning unwilling to face your day so you aren’t tired. You’re tired and not tired at the same time, and you hate that feeling.
If anyone calls you, it’s a hassle to find the phone, and ringing makes you angry. If you can get yourself to pick up the receiver, which is unlikely, you’re terse and demanding. You answer Yeah? Like you’ve got someplace to be, or something more important to do. You cannot STAND ums and likes and stalling. Your sighs say Get to the point. It’s a friend and he wants to do something. What? You want to know, as though it couldn’t be worth your time. I don’t know, he says. Well I’m kinda tired, you lie. Why do you lie? You don’t know, it just seems like what they deserve. Alright, well I’ll let you go, I guess. Yeah. You have forgotten how to end a conversation. You don’t remember that you like this person, that you have liked this person for years. You can’t be bothered to say goodbye. You’re busy sulking.
You watch a movie, but it takes you forever to decide what to watch. You paw through every DVD like three times but can’t remember what any of them are when you get to the end of a row. Finally you pick one and shove it into the player. Even the DVD player is an asshole. The FBI warning lasts for hours, and you press fast forward the whole time, even though that little Oh-no-you-don’t icon is in the top left of the screen. When the phone rings again, it’s like a cell phone in a movie theatre. The NERVE. Hi. You don’t mean it like, Hi, how are you? You mean it like Yeah? It’s another friend, she wants to know if you feel like going to a movie with her and your friend from earlier, and a handful of other people that you genuinely like. That would you do anything for, if they needed it. Well, I’m kinda in the middle of something, you say. But you don’t even know what’s happening in your movie. Inside you decide that you just can’t handle the social intricacies of group hanging-out time, and that seems like a reasonable excuse. But it’s a fucking movie, you won’t even have to talk to anyone. Still, you don’t want to go. You’re stubborn, very stubborn. Alright, well I guess I’ll let you go then. Yeah, see ya. But you wish ill will in your head. Want us to call you if we go somewhere after? Sure. But you only say that so you can turn them down later. Alright, later then. Yeah.
It’s now 8:30, past dinner time. You are hungry, but you don’t want to order more food. It’s been like four hours since your friends called. They MUST be done with the movie. They were supposed to CALL you. So you call your friend up, the second one, and ask Where are you guys? Like they’ve stood you up or something. We just ordered some food, want to come meet us? How could they? You resent them for not adequately preparing you to turn them down for dinner. Now you’ll be late. It’s too late, there’s no point now. You’ve been made to feel like a jerk for even calling. We can order you something if you want, she says. No, that’s okay, you respond. So why did you call? Later, you say, without explanation. Uh, okay, later, she replies. She isn’t exactly disappointed you’re not coming, you can tell. Well Fuck them you manage to think across the phone before you hang up. You hang up quick to make sure she hears the beep of your phone being turn off. Fuck them. You’re not even sure why you ever hung out with them.
By midnight, you’re still awake, cause you haven’t so much as gone outside to get the mail all day. You have burned like 12 calories today, and you’re no tired at all. Now though, you have some new feeling besides anger. You’re lonely. You are lonely for company, for someone to make you feel better. You pick one friend and miss them, miss the hell out of them, because while everyone else has been an asshole, they only have been a true friend. You just know this. As you remember your whole life, you know this. She’s out with the rest of them, you know. You’d be willing to call her up, to make an effort, but you don’t feel like facing the rest of them. You are starting to realize that you might have come off a little grumpy earlier, and the last question you feel like answering is What was with you today? Like YOU know.
It’s later now, you wonder where everyone is. Are they still hanging out? Did they go their separate ways for the night? If they’re out, they’re probably drinking. You want a drink.
Swallowing your own pride is becoming distantly conceivable now. The fever is gone, and you’re left with the after-symptoms of a long flu. You’re still tired feeling, but not tired. The anger of the day has worn you out in your brain. Maybe you could just call and see who’s still hanging out, you could join in maybe, if they aren’t all drunk. Catching Up would be asking too much of yourself, but you could have a beer. You’d love a beer actually. You could watch someone play pool. You could take a Guest Shot maybe.
This is about the time you start taking deep breaths for no reason. Not all in a row, just once every minute or so, like your practicing little mini pride-swallowings. Finally, you make a call. You try to sound cool, but your voice is a little raspy, and you’re sure she can tell that you’ve been depressed and acting like a dick all day. Hi, and this time you mean it like We’re still friends, right? You imagine word of your bizarre behavior spreading through the network of your friends, you imagine she’ll have a third-hand rumor of your suicidal and insulting feelings. Like people have been saying things like Yeah, he should get some serious Help all day.
But she says Hey, and means it like Hey, how are you? She tells you they’re at The Buff, or whatever your usual bar is, and do you feel like a drink? Your earlier assessment, that she is your one true friend is upheld. We’re not doin’ much, she continues, just hangin out. Yeah, I’d like to come, you say, and your sending Thank you for asking across the connection too, with your mind.
You get there in a little while, after it takes you like twenty minutes to pick out a clean shirt to put on, and have prepared in the car your explanation, your alibi, but once inside, you only hear You feeling okay today? once, and they accept Eh, just a little under the weather as explanation enough. No one wants you to apologize, in fact, no one really remembers you being weird earlier. They might if you pointed it out, but right now they’re playing Shuffle Puck, and its your Guest Shot, and when everyone else is smiling, it’s easy to smile too. You shoot a terrible shot, but of course no one cares. Someone gives you a glass and points to a pitcher, so you have some Coors. You kinda like the taste of Coors, what little taste there is. No one asks for any money, but inside you make a careful note to buy the next refill.
Things in you that refused to relax let go. Your face feels better, and it’s easier to stand up and walk around than it was before. You have a few deep breaths but now its more like you’ve caught your breath and are sitting in a boat and less like you’re treading water in the ocean. You’ve refused help all day and yet still managed to get pulled aboard somehow. Fondness for your true friend spreads like wildfire, and if you had a lot of drinks right now you’d probably get a little gushy, but instead you keep it together. You find your mouth is smiling without you even thinking about it. This isn’t going to be a night that people talk about later. No one is doing anything crazy, there’s no story.
But while you walk to your car later on, you try to put this night aside. You try to store it up in a little bottle in your head so you can find it again later, so that maybe next time you can skip all the bullshit and just say Yeah, I’d like to go to the movies with you guys. What the fuck were you thinking? But if you knew that, you wouldn’t have this problem, would you?

Hiatus Continued

Well, here are some updates. First: Joey, Scooter, and I went to Boutique Beach, a tournament in Hawke’s Bay. It was a hat tournament with 6 teams, 6-7 people per team. The level of ultimate was mediocre at best, with several people coming to play for the first time in their lives, but still fun. The beach lets you throw your body around plenty so even though the skills were shitty, we all got to lay out grab/d enough to make it fun. I however pulled a back muscle on Sunday, which left me pretty much in the prone position for hours. I finally managed to do a little standing and walking, and after several more days, am mostly back to normal. Has been a frustrating and somewhat painful recovery though. Reminiscent of my back injuries in the spring of 2007, I place blame on my throwing lots and lots of hard-as-I-can hucks post-tournament play on Saturday. But I’m getting caught up in the tournament. I’ll write about that later.
Second: Cyle is currently being fixed. Joey and I at the reins, we managed to transfer the mechanical breakdown insurance that Previous Owner had on Cyle to our name (my name) and successfully file a claim. This procedure all came about because we needed to figure out how not to the pay the $1500-2000 expected fee for putting in a second-hand motor to fix a broken cam shaft. As it turns out, the whole thing will likely cost $2400, with Drive Right, the insurer, picking up $1750 of the tab. A win, we think. Now, Joey and I are simply waiting for the job to be completed.
Third: Here’s where we’re waiting. Stuck in Hawke’s Bay after the tournament, me with a bad back, Joey and I explored some options. Initially, he though he might work on the vineyard again with Scoot, but that kinda left me screwed, since there might not be work for me, and my back sucked, so he abandoned that, which was very considerate. We ended up spending a day in Napier, figuring stuff out and letting me rest for a day. We crashed at a nice enough hostel for two nights, and decided to try and find a local solution, since the beach neighborhood wasn’t too bad. We decided to email pretty much all the reasonable WWOOFing spots in the area, and got a positive response (as well as many many negative ones). The place we got hooked up with is a B & B near Waipukurau. It’s a sweet gig actually, we work from 8 to 1 roughly each day, and have the rest of the time off to use the amenities of a luxury B & B (tennis courts, billiard table, pool, fruit trees, beach, etc.). It has been a comfortable and cheap way to spend the week while we finished the details with Cyle. We are not waiting out his rebirth. Also, there is a wedding here tomorrow, which will be fun to see/be a part of.

Hostesses, Volcanoes, and Car Trouble

Benjamin is well in the lead with hook ups on places to stay this trip. He found the Milnes, who have been hugely generous, and thanks to Baxi, met Linda, who has been an incredible mom away from home. First off, she and her husband Barry let us stay at their house for two nights in soft comfy beds. They also fed us three huge dinners (lasagna, roast with vegetables, steak and potatoes), gave us breakfast of museli and toast, and sent us hiking with sandwiches and apples. As if that weren’t enough, they let us stay, alone, at their beach house for a night where we enjoyed a quiet and beautiful day swimming and laying on the warm sand. Linda also mentioned some other places where she had some relatives that might host us. Wow.
We just hiked a couple of volcanoes in the past few days. First, Mount Taranaki, which is 2500 meters tall and a challenging climb with stunning cloudy views. Then, two days later, we hiked the Alpine Crossing between Mt. something or other and Mt. Rupaehu, the first half of which was fantastic, with completely new to me volcanic landscape reminiscent of Martian photos and some crazy sulfuric vents and yellow green pools. We also saw some fantastic lava flows, and some wild red rock formations. Pictures can be seen at the picasa site (http://picasaweb.google.com/HenryRScharf/)
Unfortunately our car, affectionately named Cyle Van Rockin, has fallen ill. He wouldn’t start up at the car park, and we eventually had him towed (thanks to my nearly expired AAA membership) to Owhango, a tiny place 55km away with a service station. Evidently the trouble is with the cam shaft, and now we’re hiding in a tiny motel room where we are allegedly one person, waiting to find out the damage with Cyle. Here’s hoping it’s a small fix.

Cwmglyn Farm - WWOOF #1

Today is Sunday, and since Monday night I have been here at Cwmglyn farm WWOOFign with Ben Gray. Basically what that means is, in exhange for food, shelter, and knowledge of organic farming (in this case, of organic Dairy farming) we work for 4-6 hours a day doing simple things like yard work, cooking, and cleaning. On Tuesday morning, our first whole day, we totally took apart the milk shed where Emily and Molly are milked daily and washed down the walls, shelves, floors, buckets, containers, and tools and put it all back together again. It took us roughly 4-5 hours to do, and then we made some dinner. This was a heavy day to be sure, but it was something of an audition day in my opinion, and we proved ourselves well. We took the rest of the night off beginning around 7:30 and relaxed in our spacious library that contains my bed and connects to Ben’s bedroom.
The next morning we awoke refreshed and ready to do some more work. Colin had us unearth some large stumps which though tipped on their side, had succumb to the dirt left on the roots and the quick New Zealand vegetation growth. It was tough but fun work to dig, then pry up, and then knock clean the giant stumps. By noonish we finished and went in to have lunch and begin a giant batch of stew, which would feed the four of us dinner that night, and Ben and I again the next day. With the pot simmering on the stove, we were given the rest of the day off and used it to go for a run in the countryside. The heat finally made me walk-run the last mile home, but Ben finished all 4.5 miles or so that we attempted over the rolling paddock-filled hills. We threw for a few minutes among the trees in one of the farm’s paddocks and felt our quads protest. It was a well needed run, especially with our high milk fat diet here. A shower, some puzzle work, and a couple card games took up the rest of our afternoon.
A note about our residence here on the farm. We live in a second house, connected to the newer main building by a hallway. Our house has a pool table, a huge library of fiction and non-fiction, and four separate beds. It also has a stereo of mediocre but well distributed sound. At first, our only real input was radio, but we finally put it together that Ben’s tape adaptor could give us iPod connectivity. In here we tend to play cards, read, nap, put puzzles together, and so on. It’s a relaxed study-like place that is nice and quiet when we want it to be, and much nicer than our former abode. It should also be noted that while we have earned no money this week, we have had to think about money the same amount.
We finished up our stay with some steaks one night, hack pizza the next, and my first ever attempt at Stroganoff, though with venison instead of beef. All went well. When Joey and Scooter finally came to pick us up, they stayed one night, and then we said goodbye in the morning after some pancakes. Colin and Biddy wished us well and told us to stop in if we were in the neighborhood again.