My mind is totally blank as to what to write about today, so once more I will be setting sail with no destination in mind and hoping to find islands anew, or at least avoid falling off the edge of the world.

The words, they come slow right now. I was just doing some cooking for my friends tonight, and puttering about the kitchen, listening to the C to the B of the C on the radio, and now to suddenly sit down and try to write is a jarring grinding of gears. Writing is so different from any other mode of operation that to switch in to it suddenly is quite the shock.

My gearbox is smoldering as we speak. Then again, it has never been a very good one. I have always had trouble with sudden changes, even ones I am generating myself. You would think that if it was something I decide to do myself, all my bits and pierces would align to my will and it would not come as a shock to the system.

But I have an easily shocked system, it seems. Perhaps it has to do with my poor cardiovascular condition, I do not know. But even when it is things which are totally my idea, like for instance sitting down to write right now, it is a little bit of trauma.

I know that part of that is my tendency to be a little abrupt in my actions. I tend to launch into the next thing with a burst of energy to get me up to speed, and I suppose that is not as good, shock wise, as a more gradual, harmonious style.

But I truly know no other way. That is always how I have done things. I sort of gather my energies then launch. It is like kick starting a motorcycle, or that bit with the old biplanes where the person yells “Contact!” and spins the propeller hard to get it started. It takes a fair bit of torque to get this heaving bulk of a body into motion. You cannot slow start a dump truck.

And of course, my hyper uniform depressive’s existence does not help me to develop better coping skills in relation to coping with change. Indeed, from a certain point of view, one might say I have dealt with an inability to take uncertainty and change by retreating from the world, and thus keeping myself from ever developing the sort of higher tolerance that less avoidant people develop when they are working their first jobs out of college.

That is what comes of being so sick for so long. But at least I am in therapy now.

Had it this morning, in fact. I talked to him about my money worries and he prodded me to call about getting on to full disability. So I made the call as soon as I got back from therapy and shopping.

Turns out, I have a form waiting for me at the office. Apparently, the bizarrely complicated procedure is that you call them, they generate the form with your name on it and whatnot, and then you go pick the thing up at the office.

I guess this is to save the paper and expense of printing up way more forms than they need and then having them sitting in a drawer somewhere waiting to become useless when they change the form again. This way, it is all print on demand, and they can change the form whenever and however they want.

That is great for them. But I have been trying to get this done for three months now, and that is because I wasted a lot of time confused as to whether I just picked up the form like usual, or whether I had to make an appointment with a social worker, or what. Nobody until today actually coherently explained the process. Oh well, it is just months of my life, nothing major.

I also explained to my therapist, Doctor Costin, how that scrip for Zopiclone had not gone through yet, and he seemed surprised and a little pissed off. So he faxed the form in again, with a little note saying “Second time faxing”, and seemed sure that this would clear up the logjam.

This amuses me. I have noticed that doctors seem to have a lot of faith in their ability to exert power over other agencies. For example, they seem to think they have the power to call ahead to the emergency room of a hospital and make sure you, their patient, goes to the head of the line.

Emergency room people find this notion dryly amusing. No mere GP is going to override their triage. It is cute that they think they have this power, though. I suppose it does no harm, and helps them maintain the attitude of authority and confidence that a doctor absolutely must have in order to do their job.

After all, you would not want your doctor to seem like they might not know what they are talking about, do you? They have to be confident in order to reassure worried patients that everything will be OK now. That is what makes them such potent authority figures in society.

Well, that and the drugs.

Right now, I have pasta sauce simmering in the slow cooker. I was going to make the sauce my usual way, simmering it in a big pot, and then it suddenly hit me : use the slow cooker instead! It is built to simmer things! It’s a simmering machine! So I browned the hamburger and cut up veggies (yay fresh mushroom!), put them in the crock with the sauce, and put it on high. When I am done writing, I will turn it down to low, and leave it till later when I cook the pasta and the garlic bread in order to have everything ready by 8.

I really do like to cook. And tonight, I cook for my friends, and hence, I cook with love.

Hope everything turns out OK!