Wednesday - 2008-0326-1130 - Rain - Melbourne, Australia; Clive Owen; Mal de mer; Upper Respiratory; Depression

Rain - Melbourne, Australia Larger Image

Clive Owen Larger Image

An incredibly beautiful shot of shimmering streets in Melbourne, Australia from A hazy shade of (almost) winter. The photographer is timijimi / Tim Heraud. His home page at timijimi's photos indicates he has a vast collection of images available for viewing.

There's almost a surreal quality to the photo. Desolate areas - devoid of traffic: human, animal or vehicular. A land of vague shadows and ice-blue reflections. I can almost feel the chilling wind wafting off the water-covered surfaces.

Even though I've started the guys, I've not forgotten the pensive guys section. As I was looking back at some of the pensive guys folders, I noticed there were several images of Clive Owen I'd not used. And I'm not sure why. I guess I reached a certain point and decided to work with other sections of the site.

Clive is an actor that fits into what I would call the "robust" category. A forceful acting style, an imposing physicality, a resonating voice, and a craggy visage. Whenever I watch him, I think how he physically resembles Richard Burton.

The upset tummy seems to wax and wan. As usual, I made the mistake of eating something too heavy, too soon. I'm fairly certain it was not a good idea to have those slices of chocolate pie.

When I visited the doctor last week, he had said that if I did not feel better with a couple of days to move on to plan B which was a prescription for Cipro. So Sunday afternoon, I visited CVS to have that subscription filled.

Monday, I woke with a terrible sinus/allergy/migrane problem. But I was not sure if it was dependent or independent of the tummy problems. I've frequently encountered headaches that I thought were sinus but instead were the manifestation of something gastro-intestinal. If it was independent of the tummy problems, I was hoping that the Cipro would have an impact.

I was able to notice that it was trying to fight the sinus problem but was not strong enough. I felt slightly better but not the way I should. Yesterday, I decided to re-fill my prescription for Factive, which does a good job of fighting sinus problems. I took one last night and within about an hour, I knew I'd done the right thing.

Today I mostly slept which is very rare. Usually, I'll sleep fitfully when I'm sick and then wake up every few hours. Part of the day, I experienced that dreaded feeling of achiness that appears to infiltrate every part of your body. I was sure that at some point, my brain had been removed and replaced with wet wool.

I guess I'm doing slightly better since I'm able to make this entry.

As I was searching for images of Greg Louganis last week, I came across this article about his and Chad Allen's appearances at forums in New York and San Francisco. See Depression: Louganis and Allen to speak at forums in New York, and San Francisco Oct. 27.

The article has three paragraphs that are extremely revealing:

Coincidentally and not present at the New York public forum, the current issue of Nature Medicine published a news feature on antidepressant drugs (1). This article clearly explained a problem that has been in the news recently, that antidepressants can increase the suicide risk for children (and maybe adults). This problem, well known among psychiatrists but not always among general practitioners, is that patients with major depression often have suicidal impulses but are too depressed to act on them. But antidepressants cause different symptoms to lift at different rates. "The psychomotor retardation is the first thing to go, existential sadness is the last thing to go," so there is a critical risk period when people have the energy to act on their suicidal thoughts and feelings.

That article also noted that it is difficult to design antidepressant drugs because nobody knows what depression is or what causes it. Also, there is no animal model, as depression is seen as something that happens only to humans.

This matter has not had the attention it deserves, because of a philosophical bias in Western culture toward seeing the "mental" world as a ghostly reality separate from the physical body. In fact, depression and anxiety exist as biochemical changes in the body. It is no surprise that evolution could produce a level of anxiety that is unhealthy, because we needed fear to survive throughout human development. How the biochemistry of serious depression could be selected by evolution is much less clear, and a great diversity, of theories has been proposed.

(In Wednesday - 2008-0326-1130 / Out - 2008-0326-2330) This entry was written in multiple settings.

Pax! Erin go braugh! Je accuse...