sickness is a state of mind

i went to the doctor monday morning. i explained what was going on and that i figured i had a sinus infection, but was concerned my constant exhaustion and sleeping was more than just jet lag. i told him i thought it might be worse allergies to my cat after having been away from her for a couple of weeks, and that i didn’t think so but i wanted to be sure i wasn’t having a relapse of mono (as mono sucks). he looked me over and said he thought it was sinusitis and jet lag. he said jet lag can last a couple of weeks. so he gave me a shot of cortizone and an antibiotic shot, as well a z-pack antibiotic prescription. he also went ahead and had blood drawn to do a normal blood test as well as test for mono.
i went by h.e.b. and got the prescription filled, then — as they were on my way back to my house — i stopped by old navy and bought two new pair of blue jeans, and stopped by microcenter and bought a fairly cheap sata hard drive so i have one to put into my desktop at work. i’ve been waiting to get a second hand bigger hard drive from work, but one never has turned up, so i finally gave up and bought one myself.
i went into work after lunch. in the afternoon i had some conversations with a couple of my friends at work about my recent difficulties in dealing with life. i really don’t feel like i’ve got much that i’m content with or happy about right now. i mean as far as big picture things i care about. i’m not particularly happy with my opportunities at work, i don’t feel like i have any valid plans or goals for the future of my life, and while i enjoy having time alone i really hate being alone all the time — i miss companionship and closeness and intimacy, and i would like to be moving towards marriage and a family if possible. these things/feelings i don’t have and want tend to overwhelm me during the many hours i have to think about what i don’t have. i currently don’t have to worry about more basic things some people worry about like failing health, having working transportation, a job at all, having a roof over my head, food. i know i’m fortunate to not have to worry about these things, but it doesn’t make me feel better about the higher things i want but don’t have (some of which i don’t feel like i have much control over). ash mentioned in a comment that he refers to my way of thinking as “dtl: depressed terry logic”. i completely don’t deny there is truth to that. i want to have faith, i want to have hope, i want to believe, but i find it very easy to be self-critical and self-defeating. i have been that way most of my life. i think i’m a good person, when i view myself by my own standards i’m more likely to like myself — i just find it really easy to think negatively about myself when i’m considering how other people view me. or if not negative, then that they don’t think about me at all…that i have no value or meaning to most people around me…i’m just some odd background noise. and that tends to overwhelm my generally okay perception of myself by my own standards. someone recently mentioned to me (i think it was ash) that germans come across as stoic, but they are really very sensitive. i feel that way a lot. (i’m only “german” by heritage, but i still feel some level of kinship to aspects of the culture/people.) i think most people think i’m stoic, or stuck up, or don’t give a fsck about most things, but underneath i’m sensitive and emotional and scared of hurt and rejection. another friend, when talking to other people about me, used to trot out the old cliche: “still waters run the deepest”. i wouldn’t deny that.
anyway, after work i was still feeling pretty down, so i contacted jack and sue to see if one of them would be interested in having supper with me. sue was at work, but jack and the kids were “in town” so they met me at a chick-fil-a. jack and i talked while the kids played. talking doesn’t really ever seem to resolve anything for me, but it at least gets the stuff out of my head for awhile, and i have to explain myself to someone else. that forces me to collect my thoughts and see if they seem reasonable or not, and it also allows me to get someone else’s perspective.
i know some of my extremely heightened feelings of melancholy and depression could easily be related to my being sick, my sleep patterns being totally jacked, and post-vacation blues. (i don’t take long vacations much…well, almost never.) but i know even beyond the current intensity levels, these are all still issues that i wrestle with normally.
i went to bed around 1am and my sinuses were feeling some better. unfortunately, i woke up at 5am this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. but at least my sinuses don’t feel as messed up now as they had been.
shifting gears, while i was in taiwan i bid on and won an album on ebay. i got it in the mail a few days after i got back.

• limited edition (976/1000) – adult. (ersatz audio)

it’s a 7″ vinyl with a fold-out poster piece of photographic art done by nicola (one half of the band). catalog ez017, released 2002. at this point, other than the decampment series (3 very limited edition 7″ vinyl pieces each with a full-color glossy photo by nicola, collectively telling a story, and not cheap), i’m missing about 4 or so of their releases, pretty much all of which are out of print and somewhat difficult to come across.
i also called edelbrock this last week on thursday or friday about the warranty work on my engine. they, of course, had dropped the ball again and not followed up with me at all during the two weeks i was out of the country, or the week before or after. they didn’t really even mention anything about not following up, they just said they couldn’t use the place they had originally planned on using. so they called around and found some other place, and i talked to the guy on friday, so i’m supposed to be driving the car up there (he’s way up north/nw on 249) soon to have him look at it and get an estimate for edelbrock. hopefully all that will go well.