Normal Misadventures

Tracking, Targeted Advertisements, and Your Privacy

I’ve been meaning to put this post together for quite some time, but a number of different things have stopped me, including the fact that I’m not the world’s biggest expert by any means. 

But still, I have stuff to say about this, so I’m going to say it.

If you find issue with anything in this post, or want to correct or elaborate on anything I've put here, please do so in the comments and I will update the post. Thanks in advance for your input!

First, I’m going to talk about what targeted advertising entails. Second, I’m going to talk about the methods of targeted advertising. Third, I’m going to talk about things you could do about it if you choose to.

There are a lot of class action lawsuits coming up around tracking and targeting, specifically about using information about what you look at on one site to target ads on other sites. For example, when I was buying a lot of goth Lolita dresses, I’d get Milanoo ads showing me the absolute cutest dresses ever, not just on Milanoo, but on Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and most of the news sites, magazine sites, and blogs I frequent.

 

What is tracking?

Tracking can take many forms. At my work, we use tracking for a lot of things, like improving the experience of a person who visits our site or improving the number of ad impressions we deliver. On any page, we display at least two ads. The metric that we watch in order to get a good idea of ad impressions is pageviews (that is when a page, including the tracking javascript/code, loads).* For the most part, this sort of tracking doesn’t store personally identifiable information about you. We don’t store your IP address and can only see your behavior in a general way, as combined with the rest of the site visitors. Even if I look at a path with only one person, I can’t tell if that person is Myra Smith or Susan Sarandon.

Another form that tracking takes is ad-related tracking and then serving ads based on where you’ve been around the Internet. You might be surprised to know that anywhere you see the “Like” button from Facebook and the “Tweet” button from Twitter that your action on that site is probably being tracked (provided that you didn’t sign out when you left the sites). Every site that you visit with one of those buttons sends information back to your record on Facebook’s and Twitter’s servers about your interests. Google stores your search and browsing history, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if they use the Google+ button to track you as well. There’s a Chrome plugin you can install called Privacy Fix that will block the Facebook Like button from appearing. I’ll talk about that later.

 

Targeted Advertising: your mileage may vary

The main thing that tracking is used for is, of course, profit. It’s easy to see how targeted advertising is far superior to non-targeted advertising: if you put products in front of people who have already expressed interest in those products, it’s pretty likely that you’re going to convince people to cave in and buy that stuff. Similarly, if you put products in front of people who share common interests with other people, it’s likely that the targeted people will also share their interest in certain products.

For example, I’m listed as engaged to my fiancée on Facebook. He’s a male. As a result, I’m getting a lot of ads for wedding photography and wedding locations… but I’m also getting ads for children’s clothing. Even though I haven’t stated that I’m expecting a kid anywhere on my profile, my demographics (engaged, heterosexual female, 37) make it pretty likely that I’ll be enjoying a visit from the stork soon. Of course, having kids is furthest from my mind, but the majority of people in my demographic are, so I get targeted.

When I was play engaged to my friend Laura, I didn’t get baby ads. I guess lesbians aren’t a good target for baby stuff.

Facebook doesn’t want to waste targeted advertising on anyone, so they give you the option of controlling what kind of ads you see. You can thumbs up or thumbs down ads on Facebook to refine the ads you see, enabling better targeting on you.

Why on earth would you want Facebook to better target you? Because ads that you’re interested in become content and not ads. Think about magazines… those are just big advertisements that you’ve self-targeted by buying. Not just the ads, but the clothes featured, the product reviews, the beauty advice… all of that is about putting products that you might be interested in at your fingertips.

The difference is, of course, that in a magazine, you would have to go seek out that adorable skirt from Sack’s, but on the Internet, you can click in and have it sent to you in minutes.**

There are some reasons I don’t like targeted ads:

1. They’re very good at making me part with my money, because companies like Zappos can show me the boots I was drooling over across pretty much any site I go to.
2. I have massive amounts of data about me living on some server and I don’t even know what is stored out there. I can only imagine that it’s everything. That’s a little creepy.
3. Companies like Fab start sending me email all day long featuring products that I actually really do enjoy looking at, so I open them, which is a waste of time and a reinforcement of their somewhat spammy email policies.
4. When the targeting is wrong (like with the babies), I feel like they think I’m a cheap and predictable piece of meat connected to a credit card.

There are some reasons I like targeted ads:

1. They do feature products I’m actually interested in, so much so that I’ve actually started looking at ads again. The ads have become a kind of extra content.
2. … um, that’s it, actually.

There are some reasons I’m neutral to targeted ads:

1. Who really cares if someone has all this information on me and my habits? It’s not like I have anything truly to hide, and the advertising companies aren’t in any huge hurry to publish my habits, since then I’d know how much they know. And I’m kind of scared to know.
2. I have to support the services that I use, either by subscription or by advertising. There’s no such thing as free anything. Facebook, Twitter, and Google all provide services that I actually need, so I accept advertising and tracking as the contract of exchange that I have with these companies. My habits are currency.

What kind of information is stored? Ah, this is where it gets amazing. Everything. Facebook recently did a deal with the companies who manage the data from buyer loyalty cards. So every time you buy pre-natal multi-vitamins or stretch mark cream at Ralph’s, Facebook knows you should get more baby ads. Or, at least, theoretically. I don’t know how integrated the systems are yet. But imagine the kind of information that could be gleaned by watching every post, every tag on a photo, every person whose post you comment on, every article you read (yes, even that one about Snookie running for president and about early warning signs of herpes)… I mean, it’s really something.

But as I said above, the companies doing this tracking have a very serious interest in not letting anyone know how much they know about you. If you found out how much data they had on you, it’s likely that you’d be creeped out in the least, outraged at the most.

 

Ok, but really, who the hell cares?

This is the question I struggle with all the time. Do I really care if corporations are amassing huge piles of information about me for the purposes of getting me to part with my money? Isn’t that more my problem than theirs?

It’s not all that simple.

I think my general philosophy on tracking is based on the idea that I’d rather know than not know. And once there’s a huge amount of information stored about you, well, it’s hard to undo that. What if the government suddenly decided to take a huge interest in the cross-section of population that reads Tom Robbins and wears rugged boots? I’d be in a mess of interest.

That’s not to say that ad companies hand over their information to the government, but since I don’t know whether they do or not, I assume they would.

It’s just a lot of trust to put into people who know all your secrets.

 

So what can you do?

As I mentioned, it’s impossible to know how much information is being stored about us and how complete a picture that the companies have about us. That’s why the methods of stopping tracking are inexact for the most part.

Opt out of tracking by putting another cookie on yourself:

1. go to http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ and select all the checkboxes of the companies that are tracking you.
2. Go to http://privacychoice.org/trackerblock and do more non-tracking things.
3. Go to http://www.rubiconproject.com/privacy/consumer-online-profile-and-opt-out/ and check out what they’re tracking about you… I actually don’t find Rubicon that bad, since they tell you what they know (mine says “book club, oprah winfrey, book, club, challenge, community, meditation, magazine, everything, super, new earth, soul, earth, life, new way, programs, offer, blog, eckhart tolle, hour, reading, chapter, programming, true, presents, books, series, space, block, thank, video, present, episode, definition, radio, tolle, host, 21” because I spend a lot of time on oprah.com). Opt out if you want.

Go to Facebook’s brand page settings and like a bunch of stuff you don’t like: https://www.facebook.com/pages Unfortunately, this is the best way to “opt out” of Facebook targeting. It still won’t stop tracking you across third party sites and they’ll still base a lot of your targeting on your posts and your friends’ posts, but at least it’ll throw a significant wrench into their algorithm.

The bad side of liking stuff you don’t like is that all your friends think you’re a huge Land’s End and Ritz fan. And then they also get targeted based on the fact that you liked those things… which is probably for the best anyways.

Go to PrivacyFix: https://privacyfix.com/start and install that Chrome plugin.

Go to your Twitter account settings and uncheck the box that says “Tailor Twitter based on my recent website visits“: https://twitter.com/settings/account

Go to your Google account settings and see if they’re what you want https://www.google.com/dashboard/b/0/

I guess it’s worth noting here that I actually give Google almost unlimited information about me. Why? Oh, I don’t know. I have no justification at all, actually. Which leads to my most important point….

Accept the terms of use that by using the site, you agree to be tracked and targeted. The CEOs of the companies doing the tracking are unapologetic because they should be. This is their business. Their employees aren’t volunteers and they’re not working out of their garages, they have massive infrastructures. Every time a site like Facebook, Google, or Twitter goes down, people freak out, but without the targeting (and the targeted advertising draws much more money than non-targeted advertising), outages would be so frequent the services would become unusable.

 

So why didn’t I lead with that? Well, y’all are my friends and I assume that the readership on this post is going to be so minute as to not make even a drop in the bucket of the revenue of any of these companies. It’s my gift. :)

 

If you want to take action about tracking, the President of Consumer Reports, Jim Guest, just sent my dad a note with a petition, which you can find here.

 

* Many years ago, pageviews used to be a pretty good indicator of impressions, but since HTML has come a long way in the last 10 years, it’s not necessary to reload the page to reload an ad. It’s possible to change the ads based on your actions, and not just the action of changing pages. For example, slideshows like those on Martha Stewart don’t refresh the whole page when you switch from one page to another, but rather just refresh the ads and the slide you’re looking at. This makes it a lot quicker to look at multiple slides, because you’re not waiting for the page to reload and you don’t have to scroll down to look at the slide. 

For this reason, I don’t think pageviews are the be all, end all of metrics that they used to be. Omniture has created code that you can refresh through javascript to show a page refresh, even though the whole page didn’t reload, but some advertisers don’t recognize this. In addition, ads that expand on mouse over sometimes don’t work correctly in pages that don’t fully reload (this is an issue here at my work), so advertisers who rely on fly-out ads aren’t going to be able to advertise on these pages. It comes down to balancing the needs of the advertisers against the user experience.

This is a vast oversimplification of what is called “Usability.” Our job as Product Managers is to make your experience as enjoyable as possible while still meeting our business needs. We use metrics delivered through tracking suites like Omniture and Google Analytics to figure out where people are getting excited and clicking quickly through content or getting frustrated and clicking away. Among my favorite parts of Product Management is going through the analytics and measuring them against success metrics (like increased pageviews and pages-per-visit).

 

** This is a huge part of what a retail product manager does… they make the process of arriving at the product you have been targeted to the point of sale as seamless as possible, so you hardly have a chance to realize what you’re doing before you click “confirm” on that final order page. It sounds sinister, but it isn’t. You actually do want that adorable dress and you’ll be drooling at the door in 5 – 7 business days. Product managers just make that decision process much quicker.

A self-referential post about the blog

As most of the people who would ever find this blog (through Facebook, mostly) know, I work in a professional position. I recently found a really amazing blog network that I wish I could join, but I can't accept myself publicizing the swings and slings of my inner brain. My desire to be loved and heard wishes I would, of course, but I just don't  think I want this all... out there. This isn't a blog that I'm using for profit, I think if anything it is a way to share what's going on so that others (that's you, btw), can see it and know that you're not alone in feeling this way... and similarly, when you leave in the comments that you've felt this way, I feel less alone.

I live in a very alone world. I know that maybe sounds weird, since I live with seven other people who are my friends and have the most amazing, loving bo- uh, whoa-- fiancee I could ever be blessed to imagine. But partying with friends isn't how I want to spend my weeknights and my fiancee is so far away (it makes me wonder if I'll even blog when he gets here... I hope so! Though I guess I hope I won't blog because I feel alone... I always struggle with how to write about my relationship,  and moving in with someone means most of my life would be about that relationship... ah, every time I think of him and what our future is, I feel like a huge relief. I am, by nature, a very coupled person. I think some people are inherently coupled and some people are inherently solo, just by their nature, not by their upbringing or anything. That has been, periodically, issues in my relationships. I'll fall for someone who is inherently a solo person and then I'll struggle to be amazing enough to turn them into a couple person, which, of course, is futle. Thankfully, Russ is a couple person like I am, and we quite immediately curled up into happy couple-dom.  Will I still feel alone when he arrives? And do I need to feel alone in order to use the blog to reach out? I don't know.).

But the fact is, I'm sharing my inner thoughts. That in itself is a pretty unprofessional thing to do. Throughout my career, I have tried not to show emotion except to a select few very trusted people. I think I have cried at work maybe a half dozen times, and always in the bathroom.  Though I bring a lot of my personality to work, I try to bring only the cheery, Pollyanna side of my personality and leave the existential bullshit to my recreational hours.

So what do you guys think? I could password protect this blog, but this url is so obscure that only people who look for it specifically really could find it. I don't use SEO. I'm not part of any blog networks. And even if someone I work with found it, I don't think it would be any huge shocker. But I don't know...I'd love to hear your thoughts.

The Bounce

updating this post to include the Thought for Today quote from the Oprah.com newsletter:

"Passively accepting your sadness is the same as forgetting to build your own happiness. Happiness is more than a mood. It's a long-lasting state that is more accurately called well-being."
—  Deepak Chopra

Sunday, I bounced. I was in a world of Hell Sunday due to one thing happening that turned my world pretty dark. Thankfully, the situation itself was fairly easily resolved and all I had left to manage was the feelings, trying to identify what exactly bothered me so much and resolving it with the people involved... which took through Monday evening.

Tuesday, I was on the road to recovery.

This is what I think "Happiness" is about. This is what Weill is talking about. He is not saying that every day will be sunshine and roses, but I'll be better able to cope with and move on from the dark days. As my good friend Teresa said, "It's not about not having the fight, it's about moving past the fight quickly when it's over."

I didn't go to the gym Monday. I still refuse to beat myself up for that. I didn't have any eggs here for breakfast, so I cooked some fish and had that with my toast. Yes, I know fish for breakfast sounds gross, but many cultures have it and today was their culture's day in my stomach. I have been taking my supplements very regularly, with the exception of Saturday and Sunday (coincidence? perhaps not), since I left the supplements at work. I have started the Deepak Chopra 21 Day Meditation Challenge and am doing his guided meditation... I started yesterday evening, but realized it was best done in the morning, so did it this morning.

As I was telling my dad when I had lunch with him yesterday, it isn't about doing everything, it's about doing something. It's about having the tooth-gritting determination to demand gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. It's about refusing to accept that I have to wake up every day feeling bad.

Inevitability

It's a bummer, 'cause I had a post about this mostly written, but now I can't find it.

Anyways, I have been doing better. Lots better. In fact,  I think I can definitely say that I am not depressed anymore. Yes, I have fluctuations in mood that come with frustrations and disappointments, but I'm not struggling under them for days or weeks anymore.

It's kind of like waking up after having a terrible flu with a fever and everything, and feeling...well. You know that feeling like you're going to Do Things? Well, that. And I don't think it's mania, since I'm not staying up late or, well, yes, I did decide to pursue a hobby (photography), but I actually think that's a positive step.

I'm not doing all the things that I had been trying to do before (the list below), but I'm doing what I can manage, and honestly, that seems to be enough for now. I'm sleeping at least 8 hours every night, drinking less (if at all), eating lots of vegetables and cold-water fish (I got a 9 pack of canned sockeye salmon... it's not the greatest, but it does fulfill the recommendation of eating fish daily), and taking supplements. Monday, I'm going to the gym across the courtyard from me.

One  of the things that I've come to accept is the inevitability of my feelings from before. Without a concentrated effort, there would be no way that I could go on without getting depressed. My room gets no natural light and I feel at the mercy of the moods and attitudes of others nearly every waking hour. I don't have the separation to disengage myself and just be... me. Resilliant me. Quiet me. Satisfied me. Yes, isolation is one of the side effects of depression, but I think that isolation, like sleep, is something the body does naturally to heal itself, but that our brains get stuck there. But without alone time and sleep, I don't have the "reset" button.

On that note... I wish I could write more, but I'm going to the LA Flower Market this morning and I have to get there before they close, which is soon. Yes, I'm going alone. I wanted to do something beautiful.

Untitled

Hey! I think I'm either through it or almost through it! Nearly a month, but I can see the other side. The stubborn gladness won.

Or something.

I don't care what won, as long as something did. Yes, there are still many things I can do that would make myself further better and hopefully more stable. And hopefully now that I feel a little better, I can start working on incorporating them slowly and forgivingly into my life (instead of just shouting "hurrah!" and going back to my old ways).

I will not beat myself up about faltering. I'm still learning.

So at this point, I do strongly recommend Spontaneous Happiness by Dr. Andrew Weill to everyone. And I insist on it for people who struggle with depression. It's $15. If you live in LA and don't have Amazon Prime, I can order it for since I get free shipping and you can collect it next weekend. Or support a local book store and have them order it. (I grew up in Seattle, so Starbucks and Amazon still feel like little start-ups from my home town, not corporate goliaths that have eliminated all in their path) I haven't incorporated all the suggestions, but I have incorporated some and those seem to have made a difference.

Here's what I have done, just in case you would like to try the same:

1. Go to bed at 9 or 10 and wake up at 6 or 7. I haven't been able to do this every day since Monday, but it has been a guideline. Part of my depression was insomnia, so it's hard for me to sleep through the night.
2. Take melatonin for sleep. The jury is still out on whether this is helpful. It hasn't seemed to be really changing anything. I may try valarian next.
3. Stop taking Trazadone for sleep. I was on an anti-depressant/sleep aid that I didn't feel like was doing much of anything. I stopped taking it. Maybe it's the melatonin, but I also haven't felt much of an effect from stopping that. Important note: do not stop presrcibed medication without permission from your doctor. I have already talked with my doctor about stopping this.
4. Stop taking anything else that wasn't prescribed for me. Yes! I know. It's not something that people should do. But I had been so anxious that it seemed like one or two here and there wouldn't hurt anything. But in listening to the book, I became convinced that anything that boosted me would ultimately make me drop, and anything that relaxed me might shatter me later.
5. Reduce the amount of caffeine overall. I went from drinking four or five cups of coffee to two. I hope to reduce it further in the next few weeks.
6. Stop eating over-processed foods, including white bread, pasta, or refined sugar. This is along the same lines as the caffeine... anything that boosts will ultimately cause a crash.
7. Take supplements. I started taking two multivitamins, two 2000 iu of fish oil, 2 vitamin B complex, and a vitamin D.
8. Take my wellbutrin at the same time every day. People have told me to do this over and over, but it's hard for me to have my pills with me and stop and take them and sometimes I forget and ... yadda yadda excuse excuse. I made a reminder on my google calendar, on my computer, on my work calendar, and on my phone. And I carry the damn things with me.
9. Eat vegetables. This is the hardest one since I do not like vegetables overall. I've started eating at least one salad per day. Begrudgingly. And then I trick myself into eating celery by covering it with peanut butter (not ideal).
10. Do a breathing exercise in the morning and in the evening. It's in the book and takes about one whole minute. And yet sometimes I feel like I don't have the time... I know. Such is my brain.
11. See Russell. I am not going to recommend this for you, but I did find that seeing my honey for one weekend TREMENDOUSLY improved my mood.
12. Consider exercise. I haven't done it, but I am carrying workout clothes in my car. Just in case a gym springs out into the street and attacks me.
13. Get mad. Yep. I totally think this is legitimate therapy. As long as I'm complacent, I feel like a victim. As long as I feel like a victim, I feel shitty. Getting mad about things that I don't feel like I have a right to be mad about is fucking therapy and I do not give a single fuck what you think about it. grr!

So that's what I've done. And on that note, I have to dash. I've got a lot going on today.

Hey, at least I care

I woke up this morning from a nightmare where I got fired from my job for some pretty legitimate reasons (in the dream... not anything I do in real life) and I realized I'm just not expecting the best from myself or most of the people around me. This made me pretty pissy at myself. Which of course ended up turning towards others...

First thing, I did my breathing exercise that Weill recommended. I wanted to see if I could clean my brain out before my thoughts got too far along. Then I made my bed, which is a habit that I started at the beginning of August. I've never been a bed maker in my life, but it seemed like a good habit to start. After that, I made breakfast and prepared to do my Theory chore (we have a chore wheel and part of me not expecting the best of myself is that I didn't prioritize doing my chores over everything else), which was cleaning the floor of the kitchen. I quite enjoy this task, since it's something that is quick and fun and that I can see the results of immediately.

But then I looked at the chore wheel to see what chore was next... and washing the floor wasn't my chore this week... in fact, it wasn't my chore since four weeks ago. But that actually wasn't true. It was my chore yesterday morning.

Someone had fucking spun the chore wheel and now I had a different chore, but I was already working on the floor. I had cleared out the room, swept, and filled the bucket with water. But this week, my chore is cleaning out the laundry room. Which is fine, except that I was already on my actual rightful chore.

Is this a big deal? No. It is not. Did it send me off my nut into an angry tirade on email? Oh yes it did. I sent this:

Hey guys,

We agreed to use the chart wheel last house meeting, so I've been trying to do that. This morning, I started cleaning the kitchen floor (my task that I saw yesterday, which caused me to start the job today) was no longer my task. It's now the laundry room, which is literally on the other side of the wheel. Well, I obviously did not wash the floor yesterday when it was my task. It's still filthy, so I am cleaning it, what with art walk this weekend.

I hate cleaning and don't have any more time than the rest of y'all. It's demoralizing to feel like we're all getting our chores randomly. Remember how Rebecca never got "release the gays"? Well, that. It's up next for me this week and I don't care. I know I have shirked many chores here, so I don't want to have a gay release party.

Anyways, this is one of those little pissy things that makes people like me want to move out (it adds up if I don't say anything). I'd bring it up at the house meeting, but we're not having one. So I'm bringing it up here.

Stop fucking with the chore wheel. Do the chore.

- normal

Ps, yes, I'm cleaning the laundry room too.

This is my angry tirade. And it's my pissy tirade. I wish I hadn't sent the email, honestly. I didn't even realize how pissy it sounded when I wrote it, since I was working on a tiny little phone screen.

It isn't going to make any difference anyways. But it is yet another reason why I don't want to bring Russ into this household and why I personally want to extricate myself from it. I'm definitely not the cleanest person in the world, but cleaning up other people's messes or working around them is frustrating. I try to clean my own messes up in the common area (at least within 24 hours).

But that aside, I'm generally fighty this morning. I'm going to put on my new motorcycle boots and go into work and have a conversation with my supervisor about my performance (which I am frustrated with myself about). I want to produce more. I want to make things. I want to get shit done.

I do not want to put up with my own mediocrity. Not in my actions, not in my clothes, not in my attitude.

I want to excel in having patience with people around me, too. They hold themselves to their own standards and it is not my job to be the enforcer of those standards. It is not my job to speak for others or fight for justice for people who aren't me.

From this point forward today, I will be excellent and patient.

But I'll tell you... it's refreshing to care about something at all after the last several weeks of not giving a shit.

The Stubborn Gladness

As you may have read, I have been struggling mightily with depression over the past several (now approaching three and a half) weeks. I also had decided that I was not going to put up with it any longer, so I would make depression abatement my primary priority. As anyone who has been depressed over a long term can tell you, it doesn't just affect the time when you're depressed, the effects of depression can permanently ruin jobs, relationships, and lifestyle. Just ask any alcoholic.

But the catch 22 of depression abatement is that it's nigh impossible to acutally enact the things that will (presumably) fix the depression. Getting myself to the gym three times a week, for example, is almost as impossible as becoming a professional gymnast. And "finding an exercise that is fun" when I'm depressed feels like I'm trying to imagine some insane fantasy world. Nothing is fun.

However, I'm very stubborn. Thank God for  that.

"We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world." - Jack Gilbert

I think there's a fine line between stubbornness and faith. Instead of languishing into depression, I decided to change things. I remember I told an ex that I didn't care how he decided to work on fixing his depression, as long as he worked on it. If he felt like patting his stomach three times per day would fix it, then patting his stomach three times per day was enough proof he was working on fixing it. And I truly believe that... it really doesn't matter what you try to get over depression, as long as you do something. And if that something doesn't work, stop trying that and try something else.

Of course, there are bazillions of studies and personal testimonials on what has a higher liklihood of working. Things like getting enough sleep, eating a balanced diet, exercising, and avoiding stimulants and depressants have all been proven enough times to be considered effective treatments for depression. But these things are pretty elusive at best right now (and totally impossible at worst). It doesn't help me to be less depressed if I'm beating myself up for having chicken nuggets, missing the gym, having a few glasses of wine, or laying awake with insomnia.

If there's one thing I've found as a reliable way to increase depression, it's beating myself up.

So I decided to try to find smaller things more like patting my stomach three times per day. Sure, it might not be the most effective thing, but at least I'm making some progress. I want to set myself up for success here, not create a deeper hole of failure that I have to climb out of.

I trust Dr. Andrew Weill and have done his "Eight Weeks to Optimum Health" program before. I loaned the book out years ago (never to be returned), so I decided to look for it on Audible (books that I can listen to in the car are yet another way that I can set myself up for success. The idea that I'll actually read a book in some sort of paralell universe where I have a bunch of time to read is yet another way that I could set myself up for failure). I found the "Eight Weeks" book, but also saw that he had a book called "Spontaneous Happiness." It got great reviews, so I decided to get that one instead. It's much more specifically topical and, though it was a terrifying departure from my intended purchase, I felt ok taking the risk (yeah, everything seems fearsome these days).

It's good. It's really good.

My friend asked me if it works. It's far too soon to tell, but I believe in it. I have faith that it will work. And that alone has helped me feel more optimistic about my situation. The book directed me to take some supplements. Easy enough, right? I bought the recommended supplements and set them next to my desk so I remember to take them when I get to work. I have been doing the recommended breathing treatment twice per day. I went to the gym (but I'm not sure I can do that on a regular basis and I'm not pressuring myself). I've been more mindful of what I put in my body, focusing on having fresh vegetables instead of processed sugars and flours. I don't beat myself up if I fail at some things... I had a roll last night. Perfection isn't important here, it's progress that is important.

Any kind of progress at all.

And I drove up  to see Russ last weekend, since it was more than three weeks since I saw him and that was too much to bear. He petted me and took care of me, fed me fresh food, made me laugh... driving up was a huge step and I didn't really have the money to do it, but I knew I must do it if I was to get better.

Because depression is the kind of thing that enjoys stasis. It gets you stuck like tar and it's so hard to get out of. But you must have the stubbornness to demand gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. Accepting it isn't realistic when the powerful weight of your brain is too heavy to hold.

"Everything is amazing right now and nobody's happy." - Louis C.K.

 

So, I'm hustling to get ready for work... every morning feels like a new day (well, it should, right?) and I wake up all optimisitc that things will be fresh and new, and then throughout the course of the day, I get more and more discouraged until I go to bed crying.

It has been like this for weeks.

Well, not the crying part. That's more recent. But by and large, the days depress me from what I feel is a good, solid launch point into solid pathos in the afternoon and finally into complete despair by 8pm. Sometimes, I grab a bottle of wine and stave off the despair until 4 or 5 in the morning (when I wake up and lay there staring at the wall or the clock or the ceiling or my phone until it's time to get up), but I don't feel like that's an effective depression-relief strategy. So I try to keep that kind of thing to a minimum. I think it probably just makes things worse the next day, since I am then slightly hung over, sleep deprived, and starting the day from a less solid launch point. At which point it must go down further.

Allie, the writer of Hyperbole and a Half (my favorite blog), very accurately captured my feelings in this blog entry called Adventures in Depression.

And why? I am so blessed. I have an incredible fiancee who loves me with every fiber and dedication a human could muster and whom I love with paralleled intensity. I have a stable job that is neither menacing nor abusive. My friends are beyond belief amazing. I live in the biggest artist community in the world. I'm not grossly obese or malnourished. I have everything I could want, including a nice car and an animatronic pony. I'm on mood-stabilizing drugs to make me not feel like this.

Everything's amazing. I am not happy.

As is my general life philosophy, if things suck, do not continue to do the same things. Start trying new things -- anything -- to improve things.

I tried starting up this blog again. I stayed on a boat last week. That was amazing for two days (and intensely smelly for one after I changed boats), helped me realize that I love living in weird places, and left me $120 poorer. So, that did not work for more than temporarily. I tried purging all my clothes and slimming down my storage. That has left a huge mess in my dressing room (which I started putting away last night), but hasn't caused any actual improvement. I went for a walk yesterday afternoon and ended up crying on the walk because LACMA was closed (seriously? this is not a reason to cry, Norm.). I wasn't even sure I wanted to go in, but the fact that it was closed was a crushing blow. I have been listening to Wild, since it seems to be about a person who was similarly at sea (though she had more legitimate reasons). I had a long conversation with Russ last night and told him, weeping, why I was so sad. Or at least tried to. It was nice to feel like my partner is someone I can share these things with. This is ... new. I like it.

Today, I have downloaded Spontaneous Happiness from Andrew Weil and will slog my way through that on my commute. I'm bringing gym clothes with me to work in case I can drag myself to a gym after work today. (No, I don't belong to one. I'm going to see if I can get a month-to-month at LA Fitness. I've heard that exercise makes people happy (though haven't really experienced this), so I'll try that. At least it will probably help me sleep.)

Something will work. I believe that. I just have to figure out what it is and/or hunker down until the depression lifts.

Dreaming Big or Staying Sane

I know I just posted last night's entry, but I have to pop a quick one in here...

"If there's something on your wish list for life, make plans today to do it." -- Dr. Oz

The above statement is why it's hard for me to fantasize about $100k yachts. My psychiatrist said this is not usual behavior, but I don't enjoy fantasizing about things that I have no intention of following through on. That seems plain old terrible and like it leads to a life filled with yearning for things that aren't possible given my life priorities. If I want an expensive yacht, then I have to either decide to pay off all my debts and/or sell all my stuff and scrimp and save for 10 years and then I could have a yacht... but I also would need to decide if I wanted to have a dog, because a lot of marinas dont' allow dogs and it would probably also be important for me to learn to sail, so I should probably start doing that as soon as possible so that I can make 100% sure that I really do want a yacht because you better believe that if I've dedicated 10 years to something, I better fricken' want it want it.

Which is why I pretty much don't want to want anything outside of a three or four year's wanting commitment.

And right now, I want to be out of debt, which is about a three year commitment. And I also want to travel, but if I want to travel, then that might extend the amount of time that it takes to get out of debt... and then I have to think about that...

Yesterday, Russ was sending me links and said it seemed like I was getting stressed out, since every time he sent one, I kept saying, "oh no, that's too big. I'm thinking I only would want something very small," or "ah, that's way too much money!" He said, "but isn't it fun to think about?"

To me, it's not stressful to think about things I don't want, nor is it fun, it just doesn't seem to have a point. And there are so many other things to do that have points.

Like making planter boxes at Theory and putting low-maintenance flowers in them. Or getting rid of all that paint. Or staying on a boat for a few days and then cleaning out my place like fricken' mad.

Second night on the boat... and I have a lot on my mind

On the way home, I was thinking about what I'd write about tonight. Facebook reached 1 billion users and I noticed that the facebook email addresses were showing up in my contact list in my iPwn 4s, which creeped me out a fair amount. Once I thought about it more and read about where this came from and what the general consensus and tech bloggers were saying about it, I got super grim and felt like I needed to say something.

So on the way home tonight, I had my super hero cape out and was ready to list off all the diabolical marketing schemes that Facebook, Twitter, and, yes, even Old Man Google "Don't Be Evil" Withers. Because they're not "evil," they're all just helping you connect with the brands and products that you already want and need. Right?

Well, ok, yes kind of... except...

A sailboat just silently (and I mean silent silently) drifted along the end of the piers, carried by the tiny breeze here in the Marina. It's a tiny little boat -- couldn't have been more than 25' -- and it slipped by like a dream that wakes you happy and you can't remember why. I wouldn't have even noticed it if I didn't often glance up and love (not "appreciate," which is different) this marina even as I write. It was a ghost. It reminded me of when I was doing the AIDS Lifecycle and I'd train for long stretches of pavement where it was just me and my bike. No car sound. Just the sound of the wind moving through the straps in my helmet.

And the breathing. The panting. Because, fuck, that was fucking HARD WORK.

But we forget that our cars make sound and the wind makes sound and at the end of your time being there, everything is silent for most of the time. It's like that Far Side cartoon where the cows only say "moo" and hang out on all fours when the cars come by.

Not like sitting here listening to the boat dwarves clanking away. Listening to the residence in the building behind the dock have a very loud party (ok, really, it's two guys and one girl talking quietly on a balcony with the occasional sounds of laughter from inside... and now they're bum-bum-bumming out a tune that I don't recognize and neither does the girl, but the point is that it SOUNDS loud from here). Every sound carries. A helecopter flew over and I thought I might be in Vietnam. A crow said ONE word and it has me waiting for any other "skaaa!" but nope, quiet. And then the airplanes.

I wonder what it would be like to be out on the ocean with *really* nothing. Just the sound of the air, the ocean, the boat, and your breathing. And of course the sharks that are constantly trying to eat the boat, because I know how that goes (I have seen JAWS, the documentary about realistic shark behavior) and Jae Zee can not convince me otherwise.

I live with the threat of bears when I camp and the threat of sharks at sea. They really have so much in common. Bears... the sharks of the earth. Sharks... the bears of the sea. I can't decide which I like better or which I'm more afraid of.

I like to imagine that the sayings that Jae Zee sent me earlier mean something new and different to me now that I am a boat person (I've considered a boat home for MORE THAN 24 HOURS), but the only one that I remember is something about a great deal of voyages sail on a great deal of debt (Chinese proverb). And yeah, that one totally means something different to me now, because I *see* that. R-pod started sending me boats for sale today for $90k, $70k, and finally one for $50k. I'm set to pay off my debts, including my car loan, in three years. That may seem like a lot of years, but it's a lot fewer than if I hadn't started paying them off ever.

And then after that, he and I can start saving for a little boat. He wants a bigger one than I need... I would be happy living in a floating tent with a shower (and I don't need a shower if I didn't have a job... but I would also starve and not be able to buy adorable costumes), but heck, we can get a medium sized one like Ken and Teresa's in a few years after that... so, like, six years. I'll be nearly 44.

Oh whoa. 44. Considering that I'll probably live to be in my early 90s, that's still less than half my life, but somehow that feels like a milestone when people begin to stop being young and start being old. I have heard of a lot of people my age who have already started being old, but most of my friends are about my age and I don't think we feel old. Will we feel old? My mom is in her late 50s (58?) and she doesn't seem at all old. She started a new career and is even presently over in China teaching surly university students English, living in a dorm and working with other ESL teachers. She is "old" over there. People offer her seats like they would to an old person. I can't even see her age. She is healthier than she was when she had me, both emotionally and physically.

And to that I say "FUCK YES." I will be 44. I was going to say "I'll own that," but I don't like how people use that phrase. Like the rest of society thinks it's a problem and yet they're willing to concede that it's the way they are. People "own" their body shape if they're fat (hey, I'm not a hater. I'm a solid 148 at 5'7" and that puts me on the huge side of beauty standards. And I hate to work out, and I like to eat, and drink, and so fuck it, I am 148.). But yeah, I'm going to be 44 and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.