rinue | There is Nothing to do in Winchester

I'm fairly depressed today, although I wasn't when I woke up and I probably won't be this evening. Partly, this is because I am on my period, or rather on the week-long break in my cycle of birth control pills, which I find depressing because, really, it's more like a monthly miscarriage - a miscarriage of nothing, of a child that I fooled my body into thinking existed. If that's not good and depressing, I don't know what is. I mention all of this not as a screed against birth control, which I think is pretty great stuff; mostly it's an illustration of how my thinking gets dark because I'm addicted to estrogen, and am in withdrawal.

I am trying to drink a lot of soymilk during these weeks to compensate with psedoestrogens. This works about as well as methadone vs. heroin, which is to say sort-of. The "sort-of" is particularly hard on Ciro, who bears the brunt of groundless and paranoid accusations that he is planning to leave me, as he should, because I am a miserable person who does nothing but spread misery, and anyway, how could I possibly believe that he would ever make a single decision based on emotion rather than logic, or would respect and value our cultural differences? I also spend a lot of energy imagining that I am under personal attack when he says things like "I'm going to check my e-mail now." Or "I know people who don't like Johnny Cash." Or "It is time for me to leave for work."

I cleverly made all of this worse by spending about half an hour looking at pictures of ghost towns.

Furthermore, it is grey and ugly outside.

On the upside, Ciro and I founded a band this morning - a band with no songs so far, and no members but us - a band that will likely never rehearse, perform, or record. As you can see, this band is already following a proud tradition, and I am excited to be a part of it.