raven: [hello my name is] and a silhouette image of a raven (Default)
raven ([personal profile] raven) wrote2008-09-28 09:34 pm

I cannot tell a lie; this entry is dull

This weekend has been mostly marked by a profound sense of unease. I don't like Indian summers; I sort of distrust baking asphalt in late September, and there have been a lot of comings and goings, so the Mousehole hasn't been the usual haven of continuity it usually is (that said, our new housemate is pretty, butch, Swedish, and radiates an aura of absolute calm; I heartily approve); also, on Saturday I did the enormously smart thing of forgetting my pills. By four in the afternoon I was overheated and mad. It wasn't good.

Speaking of pills, tomorrow morning I return to my GP, pretty much to say, "Hi, still here, moar pills, plz." I have been on citalopram for almost two months, now, and I can still say without reservation that it's done me good. People at law school occasionally ask me what I did over the summer, and I've got in the habit of saying, "I was ill." I was ill; I was in constant pain, my brain had ceased to function, I was unhappy, I was ill. Now, I am not. Well done that antidepressant. I'm at the stage, now, though, where I would like to come off it at the earliest opportunity, whilst understanding that the earliest opportunity may not be until Christmas at the very earliest, and probably should be Easter. Because I react so badly to missed pills, I cannot help but think that I shouldn't do it during termtime; I should actually schedule a few coming-off-pills days and sit at home and allow myself to go nuts and not even try and function while I do it.

We shall see. As for why I want to come off them, well, there are side-effects. Some of them are TMI, and another of them is the odd fact of extraordinarly vivid dreams, some good, and some plain old nightmares. This week, I've been stressed out and thus have been having sanguinary Technicolor horrors for a few nights in a row. They're almost worth it for the waking up, in the quiet dark, with lots of sleep to go before the morning.

In short: pills still good, but they're an ongoing project.

(Pause there for [livejournal.com profile] shimgray to inform me from the kitchen, wistfully, "Iona, your fridge is on a deep and fundamental level unlike Andrew Jackson's White House."

And a further pause for me to realise a) he is making cheese on toast and b) and cannot find the cheese.)

In other news, I have [livejournal.com profile] jacinthsong visiting, which is always a force for good even when I am being flaily flaily useless girl. I went for a long walk, I sat in the garden for a while, I tried cleaning, but in the end I gave up, slept soundly for four hours and she came and petted me occasionally. It was a good cure; I woke up feeling much better, and have since then eaten a large bowl of pasta and cheese, a large bowl of cereal, a slice of bread, a chocolate bar, two sherbet lemons and a sliced apple with lime and am still hungry. Possibly what I have also ails the cat; at any rate, she has spent the last four hours or so fast asleep on the sofa, looking ridiculously cute.

Ah, yes, speaking of the kitty, she is a boooooy. We took her to the vet, walking her down the Iffley Road in a carrier while she wailed piteously, and sat in the waiting room cooing through the bars before we took her in to see the vet. The vet was a very nice woman indeed, not at all fazed by the four women it apparently required to take this one very small animal to the vet's, and lifted up Harriet's tail, and said, yes. She has testicles. Your kitty is a boy. She is, however, still being referred to as "Harriet" and "she", because, well. Because we can, and we're used to it.

(My personal favourite bit of this whole encounter was the part where the kitty sat there like an angel while the vet injected her with a BIG GINORMOUS NEEDLE and we wailed and clutched our breasts and cried, "Baaaaaaby!" She, meanwhile, didn't make a sound and didn't squirm and when it was over she gave the vet a forgiving lick. We've had her a month and I don't know what we did without her, dear little thing.)

There is nothing else of note in my life at present, it must be said. Last night I saw the Jules Verne pass overhead, a brief shining thing glittering through the twilight. Because I am small, and our back garden is full of trees, I had to be lifted up to see it overhead, and it's amazing, how this brief passing star lifts you out of dinner and washing-up and the smell of apples in the garden, up into the sky with it.

What else? Land law is fascinating. I am not being sarcastic. Land law is this delicious tangled mess of common law, Roman law, history, tradition, Latin and lore, and I love it. I hope I still love it after twelve weeks of flailing about in it, but I'm certainly enjoying it at the moment. Tomorrow, the doctor's, then school for just an hour in the afternoon - I'm going to do some pro bono, so help me.

Life, v. exciting. Goodnight, all.
ext_2207: (Default)

[identity profile] abyssinia4077.livejournal.com 2008-09-28 09:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Hee :) Our boy kitty was also a girl until his first vet visit.

(we also left the vet with a receipt that said "canine" - very confused cat)

[identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com 2008-09-29 12:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Heee! Our poor kitty is being raised as a girl. We've a few years till she starts blaming us for her neuroses.

[identity profile] balthaser.livejournal.com 2008-09-28 10:04 pm (UTC)(link)
My cat Eiffel was a boy until we went to the vets and she was declared to be a girl.
Sooty was apparently not neutered until she went and they opened her up to find that, oh yes, she had been done.

[identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com 2008-09-29 12:01 pm (UTC)(link)
It is good to know we're not the only ones, seriously. :)

[identity profile] absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com 2008-09-28 10:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, HARRIET.

Seriously, all posts which discuss a) Harriet or b) the Mousehole make me miss you all so much. How long is Laura there for? Will I get to see her? Apart from how much I'm dreading it (LOTS), I can't wait to come back, IYSWIM.

[identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com 2008-09-29 12:04 pm (UTC)(link)
We miss you too, dear Chloe! I can't wait to see you. Laura is, alas, only with us until tomorrow morning, but we do see a lot of her regardless. There will be meetings soon.
selenay: (Default)

[personal profile] selenay 2008-09-28 10:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Annie and Kate had their first vet visit this week and thankfully the vet declared them both girls. Phew!

But you can absolutely still call her Harriet because will it really make any difference? Especially after that operation? Because you do not want a boy kittie who hasn't been snipped after a certain stage. No, siree.

[identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com 2008-09-29 12:04 pm (UTC)(link)
She's being snipped at Christmas, poor darling. In the meantime she remains gender-variant. :P
tau_sigma: (Default)

[personal profile] tau_sigma 2008-09-28 11:45 pm (UTC)(link)
I am glad the citalopram is helping you. *hugs* That's very good to hear.

Side effects, aha ha ha yes. What you say is interesting, because I have also had periods of vivid dreams, so vivid that they're tiring (and given my state of my over the last year or so, they've pretty much all been either stressful, disturbing, or both), and I've wondered, on re-reading the information leaflet, whether it's to do with the citalopram. That said, it did get very noticeably worse around March, so possibly its just life and me.

Also TMI side-effects. Err. I have some of them, too, and they're not fun, and they may not, of course, be the same TMI side effects, but ohgod they're not fun. They're a fucking pain. But better than being miserable, still. (For me, at least.) Also, they apparently get better after a few months, and I think I have noticed this in myself. So there is hope?

And finally: booooy kitty. Hee. She sounds like a darling little thing.
chiasmata: (Default)

[personal profile] chiasmata 2008-09-29 06:34 am (UTC)(link)
Hello! You don't know me, but I was on citalopram for six months in 2007 - and the vivid, exhausting dreams were definitely a side effect I suffered from, too. :)
ext_6483: drawing of a golden hare in front of a silver moon (JM: I has a kitty! <3 *snuggles*)

[identity profile] sunlightdances.livejournal.com 2008-09-29 09:36 am (UTC)(link)
Ah yes, this was what I meant to say! I'm now adding a second 'me too!' to the vivid dreams, on citalopram, on venlafaxine, and now on amitriptyline. :) It's nice when I'm dreaming about kittens, but not so good when I'm dreaming about horrible things.

[identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com 2008-09-29 12:26 pm (UTC)(link)
There is hope, yes indeed! (Email me to complain about TMI side-effects, if you'd like - I can certainly offer an empathic ear. *g*) I'm glad that you, too, are feeling less miserable because of it.
ext_99338: Somebody at a desk, writing (ISIHAC)

[identity profile] jmkg.livejournal.com 2008-09-29 08:25 am (UTC)(link)
Our cat had been a girl for *three years* before we acquired him and took him to the vets!

[identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com 2008-09-29 06:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Heh! The more people tell me things like this, the better I feel about our kitty!
ext_6483: drawing of a golden hare in front of a silver moon (JM: I has a kitty! <3 *snuggles*)

[identity profile] sunlightdances.livejournal.com 2008-09-29 09:35 am (UTC)(link)
Moar pills are good. Kittens are awesome. References to The West Wing make me squee. And I'm glad you're doing well. *squish*

GARETH: Your friend has a transgendered cat?
CASSIE: Yes. I love my friends. :D
GARETH: :D

[identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com 2008-09-29 07:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! All of these are good things.

Also, you should come and see our transgendered cat. :) :)