Can I get a 'woop!' for the boxing imagery?

I can't listen to the newest album from Barenaked Ladies - Silverball - without being me and I don't think I would even want to talk about it while pretending that the last 17 years of me being a fan of the Barenaked Ladies existed.

The Barenaked Ladies released Stunt in 1998 which was certainly the best year of my life up until that point. But it's possible I didn't actually hear it until 1999 which was definitely much worse. An unprecedented alignment between me being sure I liked something and me being sure that amongst society and my peers that it was okay for me to like that thing meant I concentrated a lot of liking into the Barenaked Ladies.

I'm a little bit worse for wear

Got a little bit more grey hair

I'm not gonna be the next big thing

But I'm getting fitted for a new brass ring

Then they released Maroon in 2000 which was the year I thought I was having a mental breakdown but didn't say that to anyone because I figured that they'd tell me I was overreacting and that would be belittling to people who were actually having mental breakdowns and that years later I would look back on that time and realise that it wasn't that bad and that I was overreacting and wasn't having a mental breakdown at all because I was a teenager and didn't have to deal with all of the normal stressors of adulthood and I was overreacting to my own overreacting. But mostly I didn't think I could be having a mental breakdown because I couldn't imagine any way that my life could possibly ever get any better than it was right then and was sure that it was on a downhill slide forever.

I've been dunked, I've been kicked around

Now I'm ready for the big rebound

I know you can't win them all

But I'm swingin' like Pitt gettin' hits in Moneyball

A decade and a half later I am pretty sure that I did, in fact, have a mental breakdown that year.

Anyway.

It's difficult to listen to any newer Barenaked Ladies album and not feel some combination of two things.

1. Disappointment that there is no way that this album could possibly mean as much to me as Stunt or Maroon and the reality that it is unlikely that I will ever love an album as much as I loved them

2. Relief and happiness that I don't need this album as badly as I needed those.

Get back, get back up

You gotta get back, get back up

You got a whole stadium on their feet

It's not about a victory or defeat

See you gotta get back, get back up

You gotta get back, get back up

Tonight I'm going to party like it's 2009

On Thursday evening I went to see The Caraways, Fox and Fowl and High Tail at Brighton Up Bar.

I hadn't been to see any music in a long time and when my friend suggested that we use our synchronous spouseless evening to go to a bar and see some live music I had a weird thought about whether it would be some kind of weird waste to spend my first live music after a long break on a bunch of bands I didn't know anything about.

It was a silly thought, easily dismissed, but the similar one I had about returning to my long-neglected blog was not so easy to dismiss.

In early 2010 my then-boyfriend joined the navy. The summer prior to that event was probably the best and most productive of my life: I was walking to and from work every day (1hr 5min each way) as well as using the gym in my work building multiple times a week and working lots of hours of overtime. It is both the period of my life that I describe when doctors ask me if I have ever had a manic episode (any doctor I have described this period of my life to in detail has concluded that I was not manic or hypomanic. Just, you know, really happy and fit and productive), and when I want to describe the mental state to which I want to return. I was running both a webcomic and a podcast.

These things had started to drop out of my life prior to the Navy thing and the depression that crept in and took over my life over the next two years had been lurking in the corners for many years: it wasn't a trigger or anything. But it certainly impacted my creative drive in a pretty big way and I found myself pretty much incapable of producing anything creative. I tried to restart my webcomic several times but just never got anywhere with it.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I don't think it's a coincidence that I didn't update this blog during the time that my now-husband was deployed to the middle east.

It's not like I wasn't depressed before he left and I think overall I coped pretty well with the love of my life being shipped (haha) to the other side of the world but it was just another thing that got harder. (Perhaps he is my muse?)

I dumped my psychiatrist and got a new one recently. He thinks I don't have Borderline Personality Disorder after all but he does think I have ADHD as well as depression so we're treating me for those things for now and earlier this week we completed all of the hoops and paperwork for me to get prescribed stimulants.

I started taking them on tuesday and the best thing I can say about the last three days is that my head feels like it did in 2009. I can think and I can concentrate and I get up early and I get things done and it's kind of amazing that I can have this headspace without spending 3-4 hours a day exercising. I certainly want to get back to the point where I can do regular exercise (and getting my hip operated on early next year will hopefully help me become a person who can go running regularly again) but I don't think I need to be doing 3+ hours a day.

Anyway our evening didn't go exactly as planned: the first thing that happened was that the bar didn't serve wine by the bottle so our scheme of getting there early and sharing a bottle of wine over the evening was scrapped. the second thing that happened was that the gig was $10 even though the gig guide that had directed us to the event in the first place had listed it as free. The third thing that happened was that the band I had looked up and decided that I absolutely had to see wasn't actually playing after all.

Far from being disappointed, however, the Caraways were fresh and energetic and kind of adorable babies who'd learned to shout-tunefully better than they could sing. I think they have potential.

The Fox and Fowl kind of blew me away with their first couple of songs although they dipped in the middle. They mentioned that they have an album (or an EP?) coming out next year which I am certainly looking forward to.

High Tail were a little disappointing after Fox and Fowl which made me feel bad because they weren't bad at all. But by that point it was late and I was tired and I had worked out by that point that Kite Club were not actually a part of this gig after all. Also I think they listened to a lot of Smash Mouth back in the day (but not as much as The Caraways listened to The Cure).

I'm looking forward to hearing more from Fox and Fowl, snuggling my husband, seeing more live music and, hopefully, blogging more regularly.