LFGryph

WHOO-HOOO adjusting to new medication!!!!

Ok, not really woo-hoo. Like last time, if my writing seems off that would be why. It’s also an excellent excuse to throw another PSA out there. Depression, anxiety, and other not fun illnesses/disorders are not anyone’s fault, and sometimes getting help is the best plan.

I say this as someone who hasn’t been in the best financial place, and who has a long history of not listening to her own advice. Still, whether it’s finding a counselor or therapist, looking into medications, or exploring other avenues, it’s worth the effort. Even if the first few things (or many things) don’t seem to work. If your finances are borked, do some investigating to find out where you can get free or low cost help. If you’re insured, see what may be covered even if it means doing some digging.

It sometimes seems like folks assume being miserable is a sign of intelligence or creativity; but seriously, you can be intelligent and creative AND less miserable. They don’t cancel each other out.

On a lighter note, speaking of my new medication…

Ingress

Yesterday I had to go out of town for a doctor’s appointment. While killing time before I had to check in, I decided to give Ingress another try.

For those who haven’t played, Ingress is a sort of capture-the-portal, mobile, MMO ARG. The game’s app is available (and free) for both Android and iOS phones. I’ll let folks discover the story of the game themselves, since I had fun tracking it down on my own.

To understand my story, you only need to know that an important aspect of the game is capturing “portals.” These portals show up on your game screen, but are linked to real-world locations – you have to physically walk around to find and access them.

More specifically, portals are placed near things like statues, murals, artwork, places of worship, historical landmarks, local places of interest, libraries… To quote Ingress Help, “Portals are places where human creativity and ingenuity is expressed and unexplained energy phenomena emanates.”

There are all kinds of portals in the town where I live, but none near my home or where I work. While that doesn’t seem like a big deal, I tend to do a lot of dog walking at work and then walk my own dog in my neighborhood. In order to capture most portals I would need to drive into town and walk around there instead. Not impossible, but not always practical.

My doctor’s appointment was in a larger city and located in an area absolutely stuffed with portals. Not only was this awesome to see on my screen, I could begin to see the other draw of the game. I wanted to explore the city more, see these pieces of art and places of history that were popping up on my Scanner. I began to better understand how this game might make a person slow down and notice things they would normally walk right past.

I may not ever be super involved in the game. After spending the day walking boarding/shelter dogs and the evening walking my own, I’m not really in the mood to drive to a park and walk more. (I realize I could drive my dog other places to walk, but walking in the area is more practical most days.) I will be trying to make more opportunities to play, though, and I certainly encourage others to at least try the game out if it sounds interesting. The game’s app is free, after all!

Blaugust

Belghast, over at Tales of the Aggronaut, is getting ready to launch his second Blaugust blogging challenge. The complete rules can be seen on the Blaugust Initiative Page, but the short version is it challenges folks to post a blog entry (or vlog) every day of August. I’m planning on participating, and it should be interesting to see how I finagle that between work and other obligations. I like the challenge aspect, of course, but more importantly it will be good motivation to work on a couple things. I have a bad habit here (and elsewhere!) that if I don’t have the time or energy to post a long and well thought out piece…I just don’t post anything at all. While quality is important to me, there’s something to be said for letting myself be more flexible and adaptable in my writing.

It should be fun, if nothing else!