A stranger to some and a vision to none

[From Yesterday – 30 Seconds To Mars]

Today I nearly fainted at work, which wasn’t so fun. It was weird, because I’d eaten in the morning – albeit not a full breakfast, but definitely enough to keep myself from blacking out – and I’d drank water. But it was humid, and maybe my body was just suddenly reacting badly. Halfway through taking an order, everything turned into those stars you see when you rub your eyes too hard, except it didn’t go away when I screwed my eyes shut, and then I couldn’t hear anything. I barely called out to my manager – thank goodness I had the nice one – to take over before stumbling to the back (somehow missing falling into the fries machine) and in the end I had to sit in the office for about 15 minutes and another manager, the shift manager, came in and gave me some nuggets to eat even though I wasn’t hungry. The food didn’t make me feel better, but at least I stopped blacking out, so I did the rest of my shift with a raging headache and steadying myself on the register.

Then I met up with Mela for an early dinner and hanging out in the city. She held my hand so I would walk in a straight line, and we went to the Original Lolly Store to stock up on some sugar, because according to her I was probably somehow low on blood sugar. Then we went to Menya in the small alley with Boost and the Harajuku Crepes, and I ate my entire bowl of ramen. After eating we went to our spot on Southbank and then I felt hungry again, so I had McDonalds (shush! I ate a small hamburger only, okay? And we tried Steamed Bun for the first time and it’s so soft and glorious I’m going to do it for every time I order a non-large burger) and then took the Pakenham home so it would be easier on her to take a bus home.

When I got home, it turned out Dad bought a new TV today which is digital capable, so Mom could watch the Aus Open seeing as our old set-top box broke. But we bought a TV for the kitchen, and it turns out that the antenna we were using for the kitchen TV (as there is no wall mounted antenna there) is either not strong enough or blocked by our brick house, so I could only get the analogue signals and still no digital signals. I guess we have to move the TV over to the lounge room for now so she can watch tennis… The TV is also capable of playing stuff straight from a USB port, so I think when she’s not using that TV I might just plug my own hard drive in there, and free up my laptop screen…but I don’t know, I have so many things plugged into this laptop that moving it around will be quite a pain! We’ll see.

4 months coming Thursday, but we haven’t really got anything planned. On the train home today she fell asleep in my arms, and it was quite comfortable – if not slightly bad for my back as I was sitting sideways. Maybe on Thursday we’ll just go to her house and snuggle, like we did for our 1 month.

Anyway also going to watch how I feel tomorrow, because I am eating loads tonight (I still maintain my bout of faintness isn’t from under-eating, because I’ve been massively hungry before, and it was a completely different feeling), but that might be because my body is trying to heal from something so it needs energy. Might sleep earlier tonight as well, and seeing as the baby is working tomorrow I can’t go out, so I’ll sleep in. I hope it’s not anything bad, but I’ve consumed a lot of sugars and salts today, in case I lost them through sweating, and I’ve also eaten all my noodles meaning I’ve got the carbohydrates.

Alex.

Yet Another Way That Emos Can Die

This was on the mX today. I was going to scan the actual clipping but I really am too lazy.

Why, it’s the lone danger

Loneliness is as bad for your health as smoking or obesity, it’s being warned.

Psychologist John Cacioppo said isolation could increase blood pressure, stress and the risk of depression, weaken the immune system and make it harder to sleep.

He said loneliness can even sped [sic] up the progression of dementia, with regular socialising keeping the brain supple.

He found the loneliest people had blood pressure readings up to 30 points higher than gregarious types and equated the health divide to that between smokers and non-smokers and gym-users and couch potatoes.

Cacioppo also said it was better to have a few strong friendships than lots of acquaintances and that it had deep evolutionary roots.

“When time takes its toll on the body, loneliness steepens that slope of descent,” he said.

Aside from the fact that mX is notoriously inaccruate, biased, and whatnot, and they had a bloody grammatical error, I personally found the article infinitely amusing.

Firstly, a guy with the name ‘Cacioppo’ who did a study on lonely people must be pretty lonely himself.

Secondly, he’d gone and found the “loneliest people” and compared them to “gregarious types” with  “gym-users” and “couch potatoes”. I’ve always sort of thought that a gym-user (I’m going to assume for the sake of his argument he meant a frequent one) or a couch potato are by default rather lonely people; if you’ve an active social life and “gregarious” by nature, why do you go to the gym so bloody much? Similarly, if you’re sitting in front of a TV all day and night, that’s not scoring much with the ladies, is it?

Thirdly, where the hell did he find all these “loneliest people”? I know I said emos, but there are so many of them and if you’ve seen Flinders St station or were with us that day for D.P.’s birthday and saw them lining up for Bullet For My Valentine, you’ll know that they’re not really LONELY. By definition, he’d’ve had to find a group of COMPLETE social misfits who don’t have ANYONE, or close to that, and can’t even condition their similarities in having none with the rest of the normal population into forming a sort of mutual relationship with EACH OTHER.

I don’t disagree with him completely; I also think it’s better to have a few strong friendships instead of a mass group of acquaintances. But his quip about “deep evolutionary roots” only made me visualise a couple of very depressed, sick, and curiously emo-looking chimps slowly dying in a dark cave somewhere.

Keep Cool (and your old friends, who’re gold)

D.F.