I'm still glazed...

[lydy]

so I'm told. I don't feel particularly glazed. But I do feel as if I've lost my gift for conversation. Not that I was ever brilliant at it, but I used to bring a certain amount of passion for it. Over the last few years, though, I've started to feel like the only thing I ever talk about is myself. If this were a revelation that constituted insight into my own nature, that would perhaps be a good thing. It seems to me that the only things I have to talk about are my latest chemistry mix, and how I feel about it. Not even so much how I feel. My emotions are awfully flat, which isn't like the way I was years ago. Now, maybe it's much better to be calm and distant than it is to be riding that rollercoaster. It's hard to say. There was a lot of down and misjudgment (especially about money).

Here we go about me, again. I don't know if I should ask the doctor to reduce the drugs some more or not. I'm worried, in a calm sort of way, of losing control. We've already reduced one of the antidepressants significantly, as well as the mood leveler and the antipsychotic. In retrospect, it feels like the addition of the antipsychotic really leveled things out, and flattened them. But this is all like trying to read tea leaves for me. I don't remember too well how I used to be. How I feel now is how I've always felt.

Being well-drugged was useful for Fourth Street. I was glazed and worried, but rarely panicked. And even when I panicked it was in a private fashion. Very subdued. The drugs probably also had to do with some of the things I didn't do correctly, like send out the flyers to people who we got a change of address on. I don't think it had anything to do with my lack of delegation -- I've always delegated terribly. It's all very difficult to sort out. Not that I'm that worried about it. I'm worried about not being worried, if you see what I mean, but again in a calm, distant fashion.

The thing that really bugs me is my loss of being able to hold conversations with people. I don't talk about my brain chemistry much anymore, I don't have a job so there's no material there, there's not a lot to say about school to people who have finished school 20 years ago. I should be able to ask about other people's lives and go from there, but I've lost the knack of it, somehow. I seem to recall that the transaction works something like, I ask you about yourself, you say something, I recall something similar from my life, things go from there. But since I self-censor a lot, based on the belief that my life is boring, or that I'm whining, I often don't get to step two. And if I do, I don't know how to find the "things go from there" step. Look, this is how bad it is: I was con chair for a con with one of the coolest pros (Elizabeth Bear) and I did not use this as a perq to talk to her, or even so much as tell her how much I liked _Blood and Iron_. Being a conchair is a lot of work, but one thing that's universally acknowledged is that the perq that comes with all that work is easy access to the pros. I was really hoping to go out to dinner with Bear and Mole, but never got around to saying anything, and they, of course, had more invites than they could reasonably manage. Shy is close to the condition I'm talking about, but not quite the same thing, maybe. Or maybe it is. I did not used to be shy, ask anybody.

And this is all a kind of whining. But I wanted to say that I don't find other people boring. Mostly, I find them interesting. But I've lost the knack of showing it. I wish I could get it back.

Comments

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

This lack of conversation is often how I feel and is the other significant part of why I hesitate to impose myself on people. We are still siblings! (And I've now add odd and unusual physical problems to the mix.)

Hugs.

MKK

[lydy.livejournal.com]

We both have tedonitis in both arms, as I recall. Damn nusiance. I'm treating it roughly like: "Doctor, it hurts when I do this." "Well then, don't do that." I'm also taking ibuprofen, which doesn't seem to help at all.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too, a lot. I also get very tired of talking about myself, even when by mutual agreement we're catching up on both of us.

I have also gotten pretty good at keeping the other person talking about themselves. It's mainly because I'm interested in them and what they're doing, but lately I realized that it's probably also a little bit ducking responsibility for a truly balanced conversation.

Finally, I like it when you guys talk about your lives. It's interesting to me, because it's YOUR life. Going back to school? I even have a professional interest, there. And MKK, I never did get to hear you talk about that person you were grieving for.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, I am perfectly happy to chatter at you, and then to pause, and then to start chattering again if you don't jump in with something.

We should do that. Possibly with food involved.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

We should do that. But with you in the wilds of Eagen, and me in the civilized South Minneapolis, this requires a car and a driver. Logistical problem. You're not driving, and I don't own a car. Maybe we could get David or Timprov to drive us to a rendevous. They could even stay for the talking part.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm feeling generous today: I would even let them stay for the food part.

[eileenlufkin.livejournal.com]

I have Wednesdays off. If you wanted, I could maybe drive you guys somewhere to have lunch sometime?

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Wel, I woul dhave loved to have dinner. Maybe next year?

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Next year? It would be so cool if you were here next year. Yes, definitely, let's try to do dinner or something.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I personally think this post is fascinating, and I have always thought you were interesting. I like how you talk about you.

A semi-serious suggestion. Try practicing the "talking about other people" thing by commenting in people's LJs.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a reasonable suggestion. Since I'm not working, I have the time for LJ. I'm hesitant to jump in. Comment threads are so ephemeral, I lose track of them once I've read them and don't go back for the evolving conversation as a general rule. Which brings up the rather interesting (to me) question of how people manage their live journals. What I do is I start at the top and read back until I run into an entry I've read before, and then stop. Which means that any ongoing conversation I miss because I just don't go back. I miss rasff back when it wasn't all politics and wasn't so huge as to be trying to drink the ocean. I was bloody talkative on rasff, back in the day.

[jry.livejournal.com]

I'd love to read people's answers to this. Too bad they've all stopped reading this thread ;-)

I use LJ exactly like you describe and have the same nostalgia for rasff (and rasfw) even though I never seldom talked there either. Your writing there then is why I'm reading your LJ here now.

I also beg to differ on the interestingness of school issues. I'd be fascinated to hear your take on the experience of going back to school as an adult.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I periodically go to the "manage friends" link and click through to my favorite LJ's to look at older entries.

I also have email notification turned on for replies to my comments. If you do that, AND you comment :) you'll get a ping when someone's replying to you, no matter how long it's been.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I thought you were very nice but extremely shy, based on our dinner & scenic drive. You seemed reluctant to talk about yourself or to be drawn out. I didn't read you as having flat affect at the time, but in retrospect I could see it that way.

One conversational gambit that lets you avoid actually talking about anything private, is to jump right into talking about something you saw, read, or experienced. As in "I was walking through the park today, and I saw a squirrel eating a twinkie!" But if you're having a diminished sense of engagement with things around you, it's harder to collect your thoughts to start those kind of conversations.

You should think about coming to Making Light and starting to comment regularly there. Threads persist for ages, conversation is high quality, and people have good discipline about indicating to whom they're responding.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I like Making Light a lot, but the threads get so long so quickly. My old Usenet habit of reading to the end of the thread before saying anything means that by the time I've reached the end of the thread, anything I was thinking of saying has already been said, by someone sharper and wittier than I am. I don't really think of myself as a lurker, because I do sometimes contribute, but it's so rarely that no one really keeps track of me.

I'm terrible with squirrel-eating-twinkie stories. I never remember them when I need them. Part of that being disengaged thing.

All that said, I miss Usenet. I used to be a regular on rasff. Nothing like it has come along since, and I gather that rasff is a changed place. I left because it had become too huge. These days I hear it's nothing but political fighting. I used to like that, but I've gotten too extreme in my old age. I just want to stand on a chair and scream, "How can any sane person want to vote for McCain?" over and over again. Not much like discourse, but I've had it with the Republicans.

It was nice, going to dinner with you. Very shy substitutes for glazed rather well.

Oh, and congratulations on the adoption of your son. That's so cool. And right after Fourth Street, too. Hopefully, we lended you some good karma or something.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Maybe if we're lucky, Tor.com will be something like the old Usenet communities. I miss Usenet too...I wasn't all that regular on rasff but I was on some other groups, back in the early 90s. Back then, it seemed like most computer users were also SF fans, so when you went online to hang out with folks, you were talking to a small, interesting group of folks, and the trolls were known to everyone. Nowadays everyone uses a computer, and so it's harder to have a small community online.

I definitely think 4th street contributed some mojo towards my adoption of Charlie. He was born while I was at the con, actually...which unfortunately means I can't go next year because it'll be his birthday. Hopefully I'll be able to hang out with some of the same folks at WisCon...and hopefully 4th street keeps happening! It'll move off of his birthday weekend eventually (or he can start celebrating his birthday at the con!)