I discovered today that there are 2208 members of the "Depressed" diaryring here. Made me want to go out and fly a kite or chase butterflies or some such thing. Depression is so pathetically standard these days and the realization of such doesn't really help the problem. Anyway, I decided not to join that ring, because really... What's the chance of getting noticed among two thousand other people who are crying in their beers? And besides that, I'm guessing that about 1500 of them are teenagers/cutters that haven't yet realized that having had a fight with your best friend over not wanting to wear the same color top on the same day isn't the end of life on the planet. Not to downplay teenage life--angst is a rite of passage and teenage depression is depression none-the-less. It's just that the things that set off teenage depression are so ridiculous in the grand scheme of things. Hormones are a bitch. When you're an adult and STILL depressed... then you'll see. You'll wish that the things that were such a big problem when you were 15 are the same things that plague your life now. Well, in some cases at least. The root of my depression as a teenager was my alcoholic parents and their oppressive, muscle-flexing way of parenting. I can't say I'm not thrilled and overjoyed to be rid of that situation, in so much as I can be rid of it. That was the base though; the day-to-day triggers where the normal issues though... friends mainly, guys, my appearance, etc. And as I said... I would LOVE for those to be the biggest issues in my life nowadays. Depression, nothing... My life would be cake. It's all about perception of the problem and being a teenager skews one's view of things and the importance of them, that and inexperience. Again, my unoffical motto: I won't say that in high school I knew nothing, just that I know so much more now. So worth saying, again and again.

Boy, what a tangent I went off on. I meant to go into one of my clean room ponderings. I guess I won't discuss it fully, but I was thinking last night while I was testing my sterilities about the book and movie, Brave New World and how the caste system in that book relates to reality at BVL and at WIL. It occurred to me yesterday that since we, in the lab, have the same uniforms as the workers in packaging, the more manual labor, lower-job-qualifications workers (not that there's anything wrong with such work... They are very important to the operations of the company and to the welfare of our customers)... Anyway, since we wear the same uniforms, the office-people have a tendency to look down on us a little more than maybe they ought to. In the book, the lower castes: Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons do the menial, non-thinking jobs and are basically just clones. They all dress alike except maybe for different color overalls depending on whether you were a gamma or delta, etc. In my opinion, the lab workers at BVL rank at about a "Beta" according to the Brave New World theme. Yet, because we are all dressed alike, we are regarded with the same snobbery as the deltas might be. There are plans set in motion for our uniforms to change and I'm interested to see how that will affect things. Up until several months ago our Quality Assurance department wore the same "delta" uniforms. They changed theirs and I've heard that they feel they are treated with more respect. If not for that, I probably would have never made such a silly association, but it will be interesting to see what happens.

Mental note: remember to reread that book when I finish Taltos.

Au revior.

Before And After

Would I get a discount if I birthed the baby in the store? - 5/16/05
The end is near? - 5/13/05
The progession of me - 5/10/05
Cleaning update - 5/7/05
Pre-nesting - 5/7/05