Weird Cake - Treats from a Bipolar Mind

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Wednesday with the whales
2007-09-17 06:27:00
Last Wednesday morning in Monterey, rather than attending the conference talks, my roomie and I headed down to Fisherman's Wharf and forked over $35 apiece to go on a whale watching cruise. Having never even been on a boat before, I was fairly excited to get the opportunity to do this...even if we ended up seeing nothing, I suspected that I would have a great time, but little did I know just how GOOD I would feel during (and even after) the whole experience. :-) There is simply something about being more than an hour from shore, with no land in sight, to really allow yourself to feel "free" in every aspect of the word: away from the everyday bullshit of your life and surrounded by the awesome natural realm of the ocean. Alas I digress...back to other stuff!As we waited around for about half an hour before boarding our boat, a little bit of nature presented itself to us early as a pair of sea otters cavorted and dined on shellfish at the dock. It was at that point that I knew I was...
More About: Whales , Hale

The verdict? STAY PUBLIC!!!
2007-09-17 02:11:00
After reading your comments and giving the situation some deep personal thought, I have decided to keep the blog public rather than privatize it.Thanks for the input, and catch you later!ariK
More About: Public , Verdict , Stay

Holy FUCK!!!
2007-09-15 07:41:00
While being so drunkenly festive a few nights ago, I brought up to some long-distance colleagues the fact that I have a blog and dared them to find it.Little did I know that within hours that evening they would find it and bring me evidence the next day in the form of this photo."What say YOU", my esteemed blog readers? Should I do the sad deed of taking this blog private now or simply swallow my pride and keep on truckin'? I sincerely await your responses...Cheers!ariK
More About: Holy , Fuck

Last night:
2007-09-12 00:53:00
Just thought I would share with you some evidence of just how (too) much fun Jin and I had out and about yesterday evening. :-)
More About: Night

Greetings from Monterey
2007-09-11 10:25:00
Howdy folks...it is beautiful here (though arriving was MOST difficult, and I may detail it in a future email, but alas I am tired for now). I survived the difficult meeting that I was dreading so much and then promptly went out and got shitfaced...do ya blame me?!? Anyway, I will post more sometime tomorrow, but for now I should be off to bed...in the meantime, enjoy this photo taken from my hotel view. :-)
More About: Monterey , Greeting , Mont

It Can't Rain All The Time
2007-09-09 08:11:00
(Jane Siberry)We walked the narrow path,beneath the smoking skies.Sometimes you can barely tell the differencebetween darkness and light.Do you have faithin what we believe?The truest test is when we cannot,when we cannot see.I hear pounding feet in the,in the streets below, and the,and the women crying and the,and the children know that there,that there's something wrong,and it's hard to belive that love will prevail.Oh it won't rain all the time.The sky won't fall forever.And though the night seems long,your tears won't fall forever.Oh, when I'm lonely,I lie awake at nightand I wish you were here.I miss you.Can you tell meis there something more to belive in?Or is this all there is?In the pounding feet, in the,In the streets below, and the,And the window breaks and,And a woman falls, there's,There's something wrong, it's,It's so hard to belive that love will prevail.Oh it won't rain all the time.The sky won't fall forever.And though the night seems long,your tears won...
More About: Time , Rain , The Time

A little bit of travel...
2007-09-09 01:17:00
...and I'm not particularly looking forward to it. ;-)Remember last year when I attended a conference in Atlanta on non-human primate research and was TOTALLY not looking forward to the closed meeting beforehand involving a competing laboratory and our NIH project officer? Well, that time of year has rolled around once again, except that the venue is Monterey, California (MUCH preferable to Georgia). I have my slides ready and am simply hoping for a miracle to get me through the talk, especially since my job satisfaction level right now is so negative and I don't have much enthusiasm for the project to begin with.So what's new with you?
More About: Travel

August 2007 Mood Chart
2007-09-05 08:25:00
August's mood chart (crafted using the free online tools available at Mood Tracker.com) clearly reflects upheaval in my life...due to any of a number of reasons. I'm glad it's behind me and am hoping to post more positive results for the month of September!Pink area #1: Zoloft 50 mg, Abilify 10 mg, and Topamax 100 mg.Blue area: Zoloft 50 mg and Abilify 10 mg.Pink area #2: Zoloft 75 mg and Abilify 10 mg.(Everything else is as referenced previously...)
More About: August , August 2007 , Chart , Char

Hi there...
2007-09-05 08:05:00
...LONG fuckin' time, right? Yeah, it has been, and I apologize. I got the sweetest email of concern about my well being from a reader the other day and realized that it is high time I get off of my ass and post again, even though I haven't exactly been the same since Sean died. I AM, however, getting better. :-) SO much seems to be going on lately that it's going to take a bit to catch up however...for one, I'm playing with my Zoloft dosage due to the fact that I've been quite depressed ever since quitting Topamax (and I quit Topamax because my hair started falling out majorly, to the point in fact that last week I went out and got this short 'n sassy haircut to make the hair loss seem less harsh). A lot of people hate short hair on women, but considering the fact that I don't really give a fuck what guys think of me to begin with, I figure I'm fine doing whatever I want. Another major thing in my life is that I am finally coming to terms with the fact that I absolutely...

Dreaming with a Broken Heart
2007-08-15 08:49:00
It's going on 1:00am and I can't get to sleep...so many thoughts in my head right now, and life in general has just been so crazy lately. This song goes out to Anonymous: you know who you are, my dear.(John Mayer)When you're dreaming with a broken heartThe waking up is the hardest partYou roll outta bed and down on your kneesAnd for the moment you can hardly breatheWondering was she really here?Is she standing in my room?No she's not, 'cause she's gone, gone, gone, gone, gone....When you're dreaming with a broken heartThe giving up is the hardest partShe takes you in with your crying eyesThen all at once you have to say goodbyeWondering could you stay my love?Will you wake up by my side?No she can't, 'cause she's gone, gone, gone, gone, gone....Now do i have to fall asleep with roses in my handDo i have to fall asleep with roses in my hand?Do i have to fall asleep with roses in my hand?Do i have to fall asleep with roses in my hand?Baby won't you get them if i did?No you ...
More About: Heart , Dreaming , Broken , Ming , Broken Heart

Long time no write...
2007-08-09 09:10:00
...but here I find myself back at it (or at least attempting to do so). Things have been rolling along, but my mood hasn't been as great as it could be, I'll admit. For one thing, I'm going off of Topamax (for good this time), which has left me feeling semi-depressed since it helped to buoy my overall state. However, I am NOT amused by the fact that I'm losing a handful of hair at least as big as the one shown in this photo every single day. So, farewell Topamax. Also, I didn't get an offer for the position I really wanted, which sucks, but I'll get over that as well. In the big picture of things, I guess I should simply catch y'all up for now by saying that I'm basically alive and well (for the most part), though I'm not sure if I've ever gotten quite THIS careless with the blog before. Do y'all still love me regardless? ;-)I have much to do, however, to catch up with people: in the aftermath of Sean's suicide, I still haven't gotten around to "picking up the pieces"...
More About: Time , Write , Long

Nicotine fit!!!
2007-08-01 22:07:00
So today marks the beginning of an entirely smoke-free campus here at UNM, and let's just say that ariadneK is having a slightly rough time of it, to put it mildly. ;-) I'm doing fairly well actually, though I did take a brief walk off-campus (which was fairly relaxing in and of itself) about half an hour ago to relieve some of my anxiety and indulge in lighting up.Aside from the nicotine bullshit, I'm starting to feel a bit better than I did last week, so hopefully I will indeed start posting on a more regular basis once again. With regard to the position that I interviewed for awhile back (a few weeks ago now, I think?) that I REALLY want, I haven't heard anything back on it...so damn! I guess things aren't so promising after all, but I'm still keeping my fingers tightly crossed and hoping for the best.Anyway, perhaps more later...ariK
More About: Nicotine , Coti , Nico

July 2007 Mood Chart
2007-07-31 23:14:00
July's mood chart (brought to you as usual using the online tools available following a free and easy registration at Mood Tracker.com) isn't too pretty because, well, I skipped many days, but you get the basic idea: stable for the most part. The suicide threw me for a loop and bummed me out, but I'm doing a lot better now...still don't feel quite up to writing very much, but I'm coming along. Anyone who thinks I'm slighting you: I'm not, I just need a little time to get my head together.Pink area: Zoloft 50 mg, Abilify 10 mg, and Topamax 100 mg.(Everything else is as referenced previously...)
More About: July 2007 , July , Chart , Char

When to let go? Medicine's top dilemma
2007-07-30 02:11:00
(By Tom Heneghan)WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A terminal leukemia patient must have daily blood transfusions or die. A family begs doctors to do everything possible to keep their elderly mother alive. Parents cannot accept their newborn baby will not survive.End-of-life issues top the list of ethical dilemmas hospitals face as medical progress enables doctors to extend an endangered life to the hard-to-determine point where they may actually only be dragging out death.Private dramas like these play out in hospitals every day, rarely hitting the headlines as did the family feud over ending life support for Terri Schiavo in the United States in 2005 or a British couple's fight to save their severely handicapped baby Charlotte Wyatt in 2003 when doctors wanted to give up on her.These patients used to just die naturally, but now it might be doctors, hospital ethics committees or courts that decide if and when to let them. The more science discovers, especially about the brain, the harder it ...
More About: Dilemma , Medici , Let Go , Dile

I'm back...sort of
2007-07-29 09:08:00
Sean Michael O'Brien was laid to rest today (or I should say Saturday afternoon...as usual, I'm having issues with getting to sleep and it's actually the wee hours of Sunday morning as I'm typing this post), and only now am I beginning to emerge from the state of shocked numbness which enveloped me on Tuesday when I first heard of his suicide. Indeed, I haven't been in the mood for anything lately: no blogging, phone calls, friendly chats, or anything really, but I think that anyone with half a heart can understand where I'm coming from on this, eh? Just when I thought I'd started to slowly get my shit together following things with Scott's death, another beautiful young man goes and blows himself away with a gun, reminding me just how fragile life can be. Fuck, I really hate this.In any case, I'll be around...ariK
More About: Back , Sort

27-year-old an apparent suicide
2007-07-26 21:56:00
(From the Del Rio News-Herald...published Tuesday, July 24th)The 27-year-old son of a Del Rio doctor was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot inside his home Monday afternoon.Dead is Sean Michael O’Brien, 27, of 114 Hudson Drive. He is the son of Dr. Larry and Nancy O’Brien of Del Rio, who also reside at the Hudson Drive address.Del Rio Police Department officers, emergency medical service personnel from Val Verde Regional Medical Center and Del Rio Fire and Rescue Department firefighters were dispatched to the O’Brien residence about 4 p.m. Monday after they were notified of a possible suicide at the residence.The ambulance dispatched from the hospital, as well as the firefighters sent to the residence, returned to service a short time later.Not long after arriving at the Hudson Drive residence, police officers called for members of the department’s criminal investigation division and cordoned off an area at the rear of the home.Justice of the Peace Precinct 2 Joey Gonzal...
More About: Apparent Suicide , Suicide , Year , Appa , Cide

R.I.P., Sean...you will be missed terribly
2007-07-24 21:11:00
I found out a few hours ago that a fellow member of Undernet #bipolar, Sean (a.k.a. pithe^), took his own life yesterday. Such a young, brilliant soul (not unlike Scott in many ways) he was...may he finally be at peace with whatever demons raged inside his troubled heart.I'm gonna miss you buddy; see you on the other side,ariK

Sleepless Saturday night
2007-07-22 09:58:00
Hello there...and my apologies for not posting sooner (being that I intended to state something about the interview on Friday yet never got around to it), but my mood has just been a little off kilter. It happens, you know how these things go. In any case, since I can't quite get to sleep, I figured that now is as good of a time as any to catch up, so that's what I intend to do. ;-) Despite the fact that I was nervous as HELL, the interview did indeed go well...and all I can say, and with absolute honesty, is that I really want the job. If I get an offer, I definitely am going to consider it, which will also mean considering a number of huge changes in my life (including a major relocation). Please keep me in your thoughts during this time and wish me luck! I know that there's at least one of you out there (you know who you are) who doesn't like the thought of me moving quite so far away, but this definitely is something that would factor in positively for me in a number of...
More About: Night , Saturday , Eple

Window Song
2007-07-22 09:46:00
(Finger Eleven)All the windows are playing their gameWhere I won't see outside againTil I write all the fog awayI'm putting words in their placeBetween me and the window's paneFrom my inarticulate brainBut all of the fog is erasedWhen I write all the words that I never saidTo youNow the impulse won't go away"Distracted by something?" you'd sayCause you don't see anythingIt's just between windows and meWait til it rains againAnd I write all the words that I never saidTo youWill you try to read these lines?Focus hard and give it timeWho you are in my lifeReads as the water washesNow the dirt on the window is showingI should have drawn something insteadThe dirt on the window is showingI should never have written my headI should never have written what I never saidTo you
More About: Song , Window

Friday randomness
2007-07-20 18:59:00
Well, I haven't actually had the interview yet: I got a call yesterday morning about an hour beforehand rescheduling it for today, so I get the pleasure of being a bundle of nerves until 1:00pm this afternoon...at which point I either sink or swim. ;-) I'll be sure to write a post later letting you know the course of events (I TOTALLY hope it goes well, and thank you so much to everyone who has sent me wishes likewise!).Right now, I'm taking a little break outside to chill out and try to relax in advance of the thing...and also get my head clear from unpleasant shit I've already had to take care of this morning as a side-effect of a bad episode here at work yesterday (which is also why I didn't feel up to blogging last night). I had to get rid of someone this morning. :-( One of my employees went apeshit during a meeting yesterday and called me a motherfucker (yup, you indeed read that correctly), which of course I cannot have. Damn it, I hated having to go through wit...
More About: Randomness , Friday

For whatever it's worth:
2007-07-18 21:16:00
I have a telephone interview scheduled tomorrow afternoon for the position that I submitted my paperwork to last week...Keeping my fingers crossed,ariK
More About: Worth , Wort

This 'n that...
2007-07-17 22:28:00
Well it's that time of the day for a brief break outside, I think. I'm feeling a bit better than yesterday (my allergies are behaving!), but largely this is because I've just spent some time thinking about one of the things on my mind that has been depressing me (that I don't really care to go into specifically at this point) and have decided to cut it out of my life altogether. If something simply cannot be fixed or reconciled, and it's something that doesn't actually have my own interests and beliefs in common anyway, why bother fretting over it at all? In any case, that's my sentiment, and I'm at peace with the issue finally...I just hope that the issue itself will move on and likewise begin to leave me alone, too. I realize that this was about as clear as mud to most of y'all, but some might understand exactly what situation I am referring to (then again, perhaps not). ;-) The whole ordeal, however, has seriously contributed to my stress level enough over the past ...

I feel like shit today
2007-07-16 23:32:00
Between a seemingly hopeless battle with allergies, lack of sleep (I was up until close to 4:00am working on the progress report from Hell but fortunately completed it), and a down mood in general, today is just not a pleasant one for me overall, and I'd like for it to be over. I'm sure y'all have experienced days like this, eh? Anyway, it's somehow appropriate for a Monday I suppose, but just thought I'd vent a little bit and let everyone know what's up, and also why I haven't exactly posted much over the weekend. I probably will keep Liz Spikol's wonderful blog, "The Trouble With Spikol", up for another week as "Weird Cake Blog of the Week" because, frankly, (1) her blog fucking ROCKS, first and foremost, and (2) I'm simply too goddamn exhausted mentally to deal with coming up with a new selection for this week. So there you have it, my first slip-up in delivering the award, but I hope to get back on my regular schedule of handing it out on Thursdays soon (perhaps even TH...
More About: Today , Shit , Feel

Rockin' Girl Blogger!
2007-07-15 09:48:00
Holy shit! I am quite honoured to have checked my email just now (a few days late, I might add) and discovered that Saboma from Maryannaville has bestowed upon me the "Rockin' Girl Blogger " award! YAY! I am seriously stoked, and with the day I've just gotten through, I mean that. Thanks so much, I truly appreciate it! Indeed, it's been a fuckin' rough one folks...work out the ass (the progress report is eating me alive, and tomorrow doesn't look like it's going to be any easier), IRC drama has reached new heights (and has culminated in my being banned from posting to the website forums of The Icarus Project, which at this point isn't a tremendous deal to me considering what I've learned of them), and I feel like right now all I want to do is draw a nice, hot bath and just lose myself in it. Sound like a good plan? Yes, I think so, too. :-)

Happy Friday the 13th!
2007-07-13 21:14:00
How is YOUR day going thus far? Mine is going, uh, alright I suppose. Just alright, but that's a hell of a lot better than it could be I guess! Right now, I'm taking a break outside (as if you couldn't guess from the photo I snapped with my phone): it's absolutely beautiful weather, with the steamy temperatures having cooled off a bit over the past several days and a few fat raindrops coming down as well. God how I would miss this place (New Mexico in general) were I to ever end up moving, but as I said before, it would be a long shot getting the position I just applied for (which would be in Maryland, of all places) anyway. I'll just wait and see what happens. :-)So this weekend promises to royally suck, as I have a deadline looming for a major NIH contract quarterly progress report that is due on Monday...this will be keeping me quite busy from now until I'd say into the wee hours of Sunday night/Monday morning. It wouldn't be quite so bad except for the fact that a major...
More About: Happy , Friday , Friday the 13th

One down, one to go...and other stuff :-)
2007-07-11 21:55:00
So I have managed to fill one of the two open positions in my lab today! YAY! A wonderful young man that I interviewed last Friday has decided to take one of the jobs available, so that has me pretty happy at the moment. :-) It continues to be so difficult to find good people. Speaking of employment issues however, one of the weirdest things this morning was waking up to my cell phone ringing with a recruiter on the other end: apparently, my own CV is still floating around on the internet from when I was looking for work over a year ago, and I had NO CLUE that I hadn't disabled it. In any case...the position that I was called about I have only the slimmest of chances shooting for (it has nothing to do with research and is instead a writing opportunity), but I am tempted to go ahead and toss my name into the mix anyway. Does that sound bad?!? Hehe...yeah, it probably does, but what the fuck ever, you know? Life is too damn short not to consider opportunities when they arise, in ...
More About: Stuff

Slightly drunken babblings...
2007-07-10 07:25:00
Well hell...you didn't think that I would FORGET, now did you?!? Nope, I surely didn't, although I cannot vouch for my sobriety in this particular edition of my audio posting (click "play" to listen!). I wasn't in a particularly festive mindset when I left this, and I was also on the better half of finishing up a bottle of wine, so accept it for what it is, please! At the moment, I'm just disillusioned with people in general, and that doesn't make for very festive conversation, especially considering the fact that I tend to think that all people are good at heart to begin with. In this case, that belief has been very heavily challenged, and it's not too pretty to think about in excess.
More About: Babbling

Weird Cake Blog of the Week #37: "The Trouble With Spikol"
2007-07-09 05:10:00
So...I still haven't managed to get back on track with my Blog of the Week scheduling, but hopefully you'll forgive me somehow, right? Heheh, I'll get my shit sorted out one of these weeks, I promise! In any case, I've selected another particular favourite of mine for this week, so I hope you enjoy it. :-)This week's Weird Cake honours go out to Liz Spikol's "The Trouble With Spikol", a site which the bipolars amongst my readers I'm sure are all too familiar with already. According to her blog, "Liz Spikol is managing editor of Philadelphia Weekly. She writes the award-winning column 'The Trouble With Spikol,' which began as a chronicle of her struggle with mental illness, and has since expanded into humorous musings on everything from graphic novels to how to use a mop. This blog is about mental illness — policy, news, personal journeys and more." Please drop on by and pay her a visit, you will not be disappointed.

Meet my roommate:
2007-07-08 06:47:00
Indeed, now that I've figured out how to capture film blurbs with my camera (and post them using Photobucket), I've decided to put a little clip of Penny up for y'all to see! Okay, so I'm a dork...but I think that fact has been established for quite some time, so what ELSE is new, eh? ;-) Enjoy!
More About: Meet

Another beautiful evening in Albuquerque
2007-07-08 04:11:00
Scenes like this remind me of what it was like when I moved here just over a year ago: seeing the world as though I had opened my eyes for the first time upon a beautiful new landscape.
More About: Beautiful , Albuquerque , Evening