GIST: 22 of 365

1. The Naval Observatory is no longer blurred on Google Maps. This has made my day.

2. The boy let me know this because he knew that I would care.

GIST: 21 of 365

Nationally:

1. Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passes Senate.

2. Global Gag Rule GONE.

3. Gitmo to be closed within the year.

4. Torture BANNED.

5. Salaries for White House staff frozen.

6. No more blanket Executive Privilege.

Personally:

7. Friends. The people with whom I have surrounded myself in the past three years make me realize what I have missed out on all for most of my life. I love them dearly and would not be here without them, all of them. The Student and the Architect. The Staffer, the Paralegal and the Most-Christ-like-Christian. The Ecochick and her Lawyer. Thank you. You have no idea how important you are to me.

8. The Junior League Band at Black Cat last night with the Boy and his friends.

I'll stop now, but for today I could go on and on. I am so thrilled that the administration is living up to what I had only really hoped it would be in my wildest dreams.

GIST: 20 of 365

1. Penut butter with maple syrup in it. This may be the best invention EVER.

2. Another dinner consisting mostly of ice cream.

3. An easy day with an intimidating attorney.

4. Angel and Cordelia.

5. Having the appropriate meds on hand to deal with my arthritis.

GIST: 19 of 365

1. I am at work today. This sounds kinda disingenuous, but really I am grateful because I still have a job.

2. The guy I worked for got me a cookie at the 'Bucks.

3. Ice cream for dinner.

4. Still riding high on the history of yesterday.

5. My bed is a comfortable place to sleep.

On being healthy

A few short months ago I was in the depths of despair. All around me was dark and foreboding and I simply could not see anything good coming my way anytime soon. The relationship I was in was imploding which was no surprise. My job seemed to hang on a thread and was causing me intense, daily anxiety. Something I had never experienced before and to a degree I did not know was possible. I could not fall asleep at night. When I did finally slepp, I had nightmares featuring various uncomfortable work situations. I awoke every morning shaking. I got to the point that I was not eating. At all. For days on end.

I took a good look at my sleepless, shaking, shrinking self and realized that as much as I thought I would be just fine off of the Zoloft when I went cold turkey in July, that this was most sincerely not the case and that perhaps what I really needed was to get my ass into a doctor's office and walk out with a prescription for the pretty yellow pills.

________________________________________

When I was first diagnosed as being clinically depressed, really diagnosed, by a psychiatrist in college after that unfortunate Halloween in 1994, he sent me home with a piece of paper to take to the pharmacy and get medicated. The thought of being medicated because I was unhappy terrified me. It was the last thing I wanted as a freshman in college, to have the stigma of being depressed and on Prozac, and thus just tore that little white rectangle in to smaller and smaller bits in my dorm room.

After that I tried Zoloft once or twice half-heartedly but mostly resisted antidepressants for years until a neurologist suggested Zoloft for my migraines. At that point I figured that if one of the side effects was that I no longer wanted to off myself on a regular basis that, perhaps, would not be the end of the world.

I've been to more therapists than I can count on both hands. Most decent and helpful in some way. I've had epiphanies. I've had revelations. But it always comes back to the fact that I am damaged and can never really understand why people think that I am a valuable human being.

Being unhappy, being depressed and suicidal and convinced that I was and am a failure at all things was just the way I knew my life. It is the way things have been for as long as I can remember, since before college, high school, middle school, before elementary school, before memory. I have a hard time with friendships, with relationships with other people in general. I trust too easily, create high expectations and then am sorely disappointed in people when they cannot live up to them.

My depression is one of the reasons that I waiver when asked if I want to have children now. To have mental illness in your family, to have an uncle whose life was ruled by the voices in his head and a grandfather who drank too much and then ate his service revolver, makes you think twice about your genes and whether they are worth foisting upon another unsuspecting generation. While I may better have the knowledge and resources to deal with a mentally ill child, that does not mean that I want to go through what my parents went through with me.

GIST: 18 of 365

1. We have a new President!

2. Good Riddance to Bush.

3. That I watched the day's festivities firmly ensconced on my sofa with leftover ribs and scotch.

4. Peaceful regime change.

5. Knowing that the country is on a better course.

GIST: 17 of 365

1. Guacamole and beer at Cafe Atlantico.

2. The excitement of the city on the eve of the inauguration.

3. Having someone to catch me when I fall.

4. Being more important.

5. Obama belts!

GIST: 16 of 365

1. TINY laptops.

2. Football.

3. Friends who actually come to VA.

4. Ribs, mac and cheese, and apple compote.

5. Sleep.

GIST: 15 of 365

1. Maxalt.

2. Being lazy on a Saturday.

3. French toast!

4. Realizations and Epiphanies.

5. Angel.

GIST: 14 of 365

1. Being busy all day.

2. Still having a job when so many lost theirs today.

3. Bourbon.

4. Friends who make it all better

5. Metro... when you can't really walk and definitely can't drive.