I assume others, like myself, who start on Paxil will begin searching for accounts online of people’s experiences once the side effects start happening. So, here is a quick run down of my crazy experience thus far.

I stupidly started Paxil the night before I left for DC. I take the train to DC since I’m unable to fly but still require drinks here and there to get myself through the adventure. I thought since Paxil took weeks to start working the side effects also took time to occur. Oh, how wrong I was. I woke up fine the morning after taking my first pill but by 10am I was very dry mouthed and continually having to stop myself from vomitting. This was very different from my normal travel day nausea, so I knew it was not just in my head. There was a very strange feeling down my chest and my body felt funny. Luckily, when I needed to head to the train station the vomiting had mostly passed.

Now in Union Station my normal anxiety was in full swing and I felt confused from the Paxil. I felt so off I knew I shouldn’t try drinking anything to calm myself. I forced myself to eat some food and then waited for my train. While waiting in line to be able to board the train I panicked. I grew hot, unable to stand still and similar near vomiting to that morning. I knew if they didn’t start the line moving soon I wouldn’t make it on the train.

I made it to boarding and had now calmed down. Feeling a bit better I decided I needed to get a beer or I’d never make it through the train ride. I drank it slowly to gauge the effects and everything seemed fine. I had a couple more and talked to some people to keep my mind off everything.

Over the next couple days the vomiting and severe dry mouth would come and go. The over all funny feeling would stay constantly and a bad headache would appear at times. I would also become confused at times, but I had not been sleeping well, partially the trains fault and I think partially the drugs fault, so I’m not sure if thats a direct effect of Paxil or the lack of sleep or both.

Somehow, I was able to make it through my day working just fine. I had been unable to drink beer as it just didn’t feel right and one night I woke up around 2am and was extremely dizzy. I was unable to stand up. I simply went back to sleep hoping it would go away. I woke up again 2 hours later and was still dizzy but able to stand. My walking was crooked but at least I could walk. That day my legs were not “right” but I was able to walk in a straight line.

Since then the vomiting and dry mouth have slowly diminished. Last night I woke up dizzy again but it wasn’t nearly as bad. My legs feel shaky and numb and my head will ache but overall its gotten much better.

At times I’d say the side effects were almost fun, just not when it caused increased anxiety. However, it is definitely not easy and some may not enjoy it at all. I see the end result, if it works, worth the increased anxiety for now. Reading other people’s experiences about what they could do after the drug started working helped me get through it. Hopefully in a weeks time I’ll be able to write about how great Paxil is.

Almost forgot to mention one thing. I’ve been sleeping a lot more. It could be related to losing sleep while treking to DC but I think its way more than can be explained by that. Saturday night I went to bed by 10 or 11 and slept till 8. I then took a nap that day in the afternoon for a few hours and went to bed that night around 10 and slept till 8 again. I fell asleep last night around 9:30 or 10 but forced myself up at 6.

Update: I wrote this in the morning. This afternoon the side effects jumped back into full force for a short period (extreme crazy feeling in my legs and near vomiting) and I ended up napping for 2 hours again.

Scary but I guess true, the Republicans can see the future (”Time Until Biden’s Next Gaffe”):

Though the counter is counting up… So Biden will never make another gaffe?

Note : They fixed it :(.

Maybe I should have cropped out my forgetting it was “-window root”, but whatever, screw you guys I’m lazy.

I’ve been put on a daily SSRI class drug, Paxil, to deal with anxiety, plus Valium or Xanax for situations like flying. Maybe that could be a surprise to some of you who know me, but chances are you’ve only seen me drinking at a GLUG meeting… The question is, what will happen to my current self? Ironically, I fear mind altering drugs. And I’m barely able to keep common drugs, like Tylenol, down anymore with my anxiety. I write this to help convince myself its a good thing, leave it open to others to convince me and to inform the people I haven’t been able to tell directly (Charlie, I see you!). And maybe my drug adventure will be informative to some, but I doubt it. Oh, and this way I don’t have to explain to everyone every time someone notices I’m drinking less than everyone else at the bar. Plus, this is cheaper than therapy.

I’ve mostly got passed the feeling of not deserving help, that I have no reason to have problems and shouldn’t leave it up to some drug to fix it. Then there is the feeling that having a beer to calm me is healthier than taking these drugs. Which is true, but there is a limit. It is sad we live in a society so closed to drinking and other safe drugs; yet, it is so open to more harmful drugs. But I’ll save my rantings on rich and extremly religious people for another time.

Now, as I sit with a bottle of pills, the question is, what will happen to me? My hope is all I lose is my anxiety, allowing me to travel, both far and to the grocery store, and to finally take action on things I must do outside of my apartment and involve other people. The fear is not caring about things anymore. What if what gives me some thoughts others deem crazy are tied to what this drug will change? My only hope is that instead of hindering those thoughts the drug simply removes the barrier that has kept me less vocal and actionable about my “crazy” thoughts. Yes, I hope to be able to tell more people, more often they are stupid. The last thing I want is to not feel intense rage at the fact the political system is just a game played by arrogant pricks and no one seems to care. Maybe now I’ll be able to think that outside.

In the end, I got them anyway. After feeling uncomfortable even in my own home I knew it was time to do something. I’d rather not be found one day trying to build a device to create a portal to the 4th dimension hopings its a place I would be at ease. That just sounds nuts.

Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. …voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. — Hermann Göring

Apparently real change is: pandering to gun lovers, giving the telecoms immunity, warrentless wiretaps, continuing GOP propaganda (taxes, health care, etc), being a corporate slave, breaking your word to take public funding, pandering to Zionists, courting Christian Evangelicals, fearing nuclear power, increasing the military industrial complex, $30,000 per person get togethers, support for the death penalty, religious profiling for photo ops, …

The Democrats are at best a sliver of a difference from what we already have. They continue to spew the same bullshit we have to hear from the Republicans about lowering taxes and universal healthcare not working. Middle class citizens don’t need tax breaks. The middle and lower class need higher wages, more time off, lower cost of education, more public transit, more bike lanes, cheaper insurance, cheaper medicine, someone stopping those who look to prey on those in need in order to make a buck, instead of dining with them and working for them. Even worse, Democrats try to play that beat on their drum, but anyone who is paying attention knows that lowering (and not raising) taxes is not going to bring us any of what they promise, and their promises don’t go far enough. Its plain to see the Democrats do not plan to bring a “new kind of politics” (whatever that means) or take on their corporate bedfellows.

And what of foreign policy? I can assure you a Democrat would only slightly change our international policy. Sure we’d be looked at more favorably by plenty of countries, but if we are talking Europe just look at their abuse of power and their corruption throughout the world and tell me thats a great compliment coming from them. I don’t remember Clinton ever removing the sanctions in place on Cuba.

In the end we still get a conservative who won’t bring us that much cheaper transit, health care or education, improve our international policy, truely go after a new energy policy or decrease the military. We still get corporate and religious cowards. An aristocracy. This is class war.

Change? I don’t see change.

Don’t vote for them just because they get media coverage and aren’t completely stuck in the middle ages like the GOP. They are enjoying their rein as the only perceived alternative, and I don’t see them helping to change the political landscape with regards to the two political party dominance either, I only see them hindering it.

My head hurts when it gets filled with too much bullshit. Lately its been hurting a lot more than usual. The debate about opening up new land to oil companies for drilling has sparked again. They saw an opening to use high gas prices to trick the people into supporting it. I was watching American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Red Cavaney on This Week today as he tried to explain why this was a good thing and why it was needed. He had to defend against the main arguments most people know about regarding opening up new land: they haven’t drilled in a huge amount of the land they already can drill on and it would generate little oil, meaning a small change in price in a decade or two.

Cavaney had a GREAT explanation for why they haven’t drilled in the land they currently have to drill in but are not, they don’t have the equipment! He says all their equipment is being used up for drilling already, so there is nothing they can do.

Thank you, Mr. Cavaney. Your logic is astounding. We need to open up ANWR for drilling becuase we don’t have the equipment to drill in it, or even the land we currently have open to drilling…

Does anyone else listen to these people?? How did Edward Markey, who was also on the show at the time, not stand up and shake him!? How can this not infuriate people?

I’ve begun a biphasic sleep routine this week. After researching others who had done this I found you wanted to keep the sleep in multiples of 90 minutes. So for the past 5 nights I’ve slept 4.5 hours, except one night which was 6 hours. I only took my first nap (so technically the first day of biphasic sleep) yesterday, all other days I was too awake in the afternoon to fall asleep. The nap is 1.5 hours.

So far today was the hardest to get up from. I believe that was due to external forces (drinking and thinking) and not just the fact that I haven’t been sleeping. Other than that its been fairly easy, surprisingly. I haven’t even had to use an alarm clock… Which is shocking and a bit scary. I guess my internal alarm is better than I thought. I suppose I was awoken from my nap by an alarm, but technically it was a phone call.

Before when I would get up at 5am (with 7-8 hours of sleep) I would start working and by the afternoon I would be tired and not care to work anymore. Thus, hours would be lost until I was able to start being productive again. My hope is that not only will I gain 1-2 hours by only sleeping 6 hours a day, but also the time I am awake will be more productive.

Of course its not all about getting things done. Its interesting to see how the body reacts to changing the sleep schedule in such a way. Hopefully no problems arise.

In order to keep me focused on getting through the rough days and in case anyone else wants to give this a try, I’ll be posting periodically about how its going and how its making me feel.

More recipes! This is probably my second favorite thing to make. Some of the ingredient measurements are given in ranges because I make this different every time depending on what I have in my fridge at the time. The onion and green pepper just need to be balanced so not too many are in the mix, and you can always leave one out.

Main Ingredients:

• 1/4-1/2 onion, diced
• 1/4-1/2 green pepper, diced
• 1-3 jalapeños, diced
• 1 can black beans
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 hamburger bun, crumbled

Spices:

• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp seasoned salt

Fry the onion, green peppers and jalapeños in oil till soft. Mash the black beans till smooth and mix with the rest of the ingredients. Add the flour slowly as you mix. Make into patties and fry in oil, adding salt and pepper or other spices. Top with whatever you like on burgers. BBQ sauce and ranch dressing go amazingly well on these, especially with lettuce, tomato and pickles.

Tilda’s new release, 0.9.6, was finally made today. It is mostly bug fixes:

• Fix metacity-2.20 focus problems
• Add future plans to the TODO list
• Update documentation to reflect the current keybindings
• Fix Ubuntu’s bugs about copy and paste
• Fix metacity-2.22 focus problems
• Fix autotools so that it can generate release tarballs
• No more visual bell

Download it here and check us out on Launchpad to submit bugs or feature requests.

Also, thanks Ira for all the work!

After seeing manchicken is getting into the spirit (everyone else needs to now!) here’s another recipe. Its not mine, I got it from Zen Habits, but its too good to not post, I do make small additions since I love the “extra spicy” and take out the corn.

I first made this chili about two weeks ago and it lasted me days. A lot of the recipes I’ll be posting from now on are about saving money :). Well, that and eating less meat, mainly red, but thats a topic for another post.

• 1 package Morning Star Meal Starters (or any ground beef replacement)
• one 14.5-oz. can each: black beans, pinto beans, and kidney beans
• one 29-oz. can each: stewed tomatoes & tomato sauce
• half a yellow onion, diced
• half a green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and diced
• 2-4 cloves garlic, diced
• black pepper, salt, chili powder to taste
• olive oil

My additions:

• Couple fresh jalapeños, chopped (I actually like them cut up in slices)
• One diced habenero if you really live dangerously
• Few drops of hot sauce, I recommend Dave’s Insanity hot sauce

I do all this in one big pot, my old brew pot. Heat the olive oil, saute the onions, garlic and then the peppers. Add the “meat”. Once all thats cooked start adding the beans, followed by the tomatoes and tomato sauce. Heat it up, then turn it down to low and let simmer for 30 minutes. Be sure to keep adding spices till its satisfying to you.

Stay tuned for my black bean burgers, buffalo tofu wraps and burritos!