George Sand's Open Salon Blog

Things I don't understand about Open Salon (and I've tried!)

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:04:26 -0400

Admittedly, I haven't been here very long...but I was reading for months before I created an account. I tried to know what I was doing ahead of time and pick up on the unspoken etiquette of OS. And I think that in many ways, I've done okay with that. But there are some things that leave me scratching my head in puzzlement.

1. The Editor's Picks/cover spaces/etc., etc. What makes an Editor's Pick? Why does a Salon staffer's paltry couple of paragraphs on Carla Bruni and the sex tape semi-scandal, banged out this morning, end up on the front cover...instead of Stellaa's fantastic piece, which was more thorough and entertaining, and which was posted the night before? Why are some writers always featured (laziness on the editor's part?) Why do these things take days and days to change sometimes - if one reads regularly, it can get fairly tedious to see the same articles on the cover day after day. And (this isn't happening at the moment, but I feel like it does fairly often) why are there sometimes two or more pieces on the same topic on the cover?

2. Is there a better way to keep track of "favorites"? Is the list in the order I added people? That doesn't make sense. Why not alphabetical order?

3. This Open Call thing: I cannot make heads or tails of it. It seems like people label anything "Open Call," all willy-nilly. And is the Open Call for right now really "How You Can Build Your Blogging Audience"? (The Help page tells me to look in the upper right corner of the OS front page. I'm looking. That's what I see.) How often is this changed? Can we maybe have a more riveting topic?

4. Pitbulls in Spamalot, etc. The stuff that WILL NOT LEAVE THE MOST READ FEED. Why? Why? Okay, OS, you've broken me...it's like going to a (really messy) friend's house and looking around, then grabbing a mop and bucket and getting to work. Does no-one else want to clean up Most Read? I'll do it! Mememe! ::waves hand frantically::

5. And last but not least...what is UP with Freaky Troll, anyway?!

Tell me what I've missed, O Wise Ones. Or tell me I'm not alone in questioning this stuff.

This isn't melodrama and I'm not a hypochondriac

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:04:16 -0400

Sunday

Disturbing dreams last night; so much so that when I remember bits of them, my stomach tightens and I will myself to think of something else. I've been feeling invisible lately, hovering around the edges of my life, and today isn't helping. I'm home alone, it's stopped raining and the sun is out, I should be at least cheerful about that, no? But I'm lost in grey mists, looking through drifting veils, experiencing the world through a haze.

It's a frightening feeling when depression creeps up on me like this, not situational, not really caused by anything at all. There's no real reason for it, and yet there it is. I'm exhausted, even good food is bland and eating is a chore...or else something I do too much of, blindly and mechanically. I drink too much, smoke too many cigarettes, even as I tell myself that I shouldn't be doing so.

It doesn't make me feel any better. Nothing gives me the slightest bit of pleasure right now - not books or music or movies, not friends or family or food or drink or sex. I'm reminded (and no, I'm not at this point) of when suicide stopped being an abstract, a payback, a raincheck, a last resort - and started being something that I didn't want to do, but felt like I had to do.

I got very angry with a very dear friend the other night. (Silently, but probably glaring daggers at him as a small group of us had this conversation.) He was dismissive and contemptuous of people who are medicated for mental health problems; he himself had seen therapists when he was younger for what he termed "behavioral issues," and he was fine. He didn't understand why anyone would need medication. Yes, I'm simplifying a bit - but that was the gist of it. I'm furious thinking about it even now, sick that I thought I could confide in him, feeling betrayed by his opinions. Especially when, for me, medication has been a last resort, something I've turned to when nothing else works.

I didn't know how to explain this to him at the time: when depression is a result of fucked-up brain chemistry, sometimes a shift is necessary - and if that shift can be accomplished by medication or therapy or a combination of the two, all the better. I know that everyone gets depressed sometimes, and most people flirt with the idea of suicide at least once. But when the depression returns again and again, clouding your mind, your personality, your life - and worse, when it seems to happen for no reason at all - it's difficult to make anyone who's never experienced this understand.

I have fought the idea that something was "wrong" with me since I was twelve, believing it to be a terrible stigma. I've since stopped thinking that way (but every once in a while I do, all over again, usually as a result of a conversation like the one I mentioned.) I've harmed myself and come very close to killing myself, and sometimes medication was the only thing that would change that course of action. And I'm grateful for that. But I loathe being dismissed as an hysteric or a hypochondriac because my friend has never experienced clinical depression.

Are people overmedicated, or possbily medicated when they don't need to be? Of course. But I've been struggling with clincal depression for nearly twenty years now, and I've learned not to question what works for anyone. Being on antidepressants is (sort of) working for me right now; at the very least, I'm still mostly functioning and able to get up in the morning. The specter of suicide isn't hovering at the edge of my consciousness day and night. And for now, I'll take what I can get on that score.

Thursday night at my house

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:04:57 -0400

I'm listening to the rain. I was just outside, under an enormous golf umbrella, juggling that and a glass of Spanish red wine in a crystal glass that a couple of goldfish could swim in comfortably, a cigarette, and a 1953 paperback copy of The Great Gatsby.

(I'd forgotten how gorgeous some of the descriptions are - and how annoying some of the characters.)

Now I'm listening to Elvis Costello's "Alison", and being sort of amazed that it came out the year I was born; I can't remember ever hearing it as a child, so it seems like something that would've maybe happened in the 90s, when I was in high school.

I'm thinking of the men I love, and where they are: one here and gone again (but he'll be home tonight), one close but not, one thousands of miles away and I'll never see him again.

And I switch the music - from Neko Case singing a Tom Waits song to Spoon, the first song I ever heard by them, and my mood shifts just enough that the night doesn't seem utterly hopeless.

Thursday Haiku - The Things You Find Out Later

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:04:47 -0400

I was just eighteen

love in an elevator

hadn't heard the song

You're a bigot

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:04:16 -0400

Bigot: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices ; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance

If you believe that marriage in this country should be legally limited to only heterosexual couples, then I believe you're a bigot.

The gay marriage debate rages on; what conservatives don't seem to understand is that it shouldn't be a debate at all. Legally recognized marriage, and the benefits that accompany it, are rights that should be granted to everyone - not just heterosexual couples.

How is not allowing gay couples to marry any different from the abhorrent laws that used to prohibit interracial marriage? There is no difference. None.

Just because you don't agree with it, doesn't mean that it shouldn't happen. And it's certainly your right to disagree and to speak out about it; free speech is one of the founding principles of this country. But your hatred and intolerance are glaringly obvious.

The idea of "sanctity of marriage" is laughable when nearly half (or more than half - statistics seem to vary) of American marriages end in divorce. How is legally recognized gay marriage taking anything away from anyone? The people who oppose it remind me of toddlers who howl and scream and throw a tantrum when someone touches a toy that they weren't even playing with - but it's theirs! Nobody else should be able to look at it! WAAAAAAA!

I'm not talking about churches or other religious groups either; they're free to believe what they like, though tolerance would be encouraging. I'm looking at this purely from a legal standpoint. (Another founding priciple of this country: separation of church and state!)

And finally - yes, in my opinion, this includes our President. I supported, donated to and voted for Barack Obama. I think he's brilliant and determined and the best choice we could have made for this country. And I was still aghast that he agreed to do the Saddleback Church interview with Rick Warren, and very disappointed by his answer to the gay marriage question. He's free to believe what he likes - but he shouldn't bring it into politics, and he's pandering to a group who was never going to support him to begin with.

I applaud Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, and Vermont - and hope to see more tolerance and acceptance such as they have shown.