Today was a good day

Wessside

Excuse me for using gangsta' slang in the title of this post but I couldn't help it. I'm back in L.A. Due to economic reasons, I decided not to re-new my lease and move in with family to save some money. I have been packing this last week so I apologize for being a bad blogger by not updating my blog or taking part in certain blog activities.

I want you guys to know that things aren't as dire as my last post suggests. I'm ok but I am trying to improve myself. I will take all of your advice and support. I also want to thank "The Tsarista" from the Tsaritsa sez for sending me her hand made collage. It was unique and super cool. Also, Yvonne from Writing my life away, I shall email you. Actually my email is listed on my blog so you can send me what you wanted to send me. And to Lil Pixie form It's a Lollipop World @ http://alollipopworld.blogspot.com/, I shall play "confessions" once the dust settles.

You guys are the best and I'm glad to be part of a virtual community where everyoe has a unique take on things. All you guys are a creative bunch and this motivates me to keep on with blogging. I'm also thrilled that Kelley from http://www.kelleysbreakroom.com/ decided to contine with her funny ass blog.

I feel like I haven't given as much as I receive from you guys. I'm hoping to get back in the swing of things. I have one more delivery before I'm completely moved out and I already have my internet service but my time will be limited because my new commute is long. Oh and to Quincy, I promise you man, we will make radio magic one day on the internet.

Don't go anywhere people, I promise to be a better bloger and bring the humor with it. Peace.

My First day of Counseling

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may remember that I played the message that a counselor left on my voice mail. In it, the counselor asked me to call him back if I was still interested in counseling. At the time I left his clinic a message, I was not in a good mental state. The message was very late but I guess when you go to the free or "affordable" clinics, you get what you pay for. Beggars can't be choosers.

I decided to get counseling because I have struggled with depression all my life. At first I just thought that I was different and I never really felt like I belonged, especially in social settings. I'm a little bit better now but In my early twenties I can recall showing up to social settings and feeling ackward. Many times I just sat in a corner and people watched.

I have had problems with insomnia as well. For many years I have felt the typical symptoms of depression; the isolation, anxiety, and feelings of despair. I have had every dark thought imaginable.

I applied and got accepted to Chapman Law School. Acually I got accepted to every law school that I applied for including Pepperdine, Whittier, and Chapman. My first year I was overwhelmed. I was taking five classes and the reading was immense. During this time I had several traumatic incidents that shook me up. I broke up with my girlfriend at the time, I was a full time law student, and my father passed away.

I was put on academic probation and was ultimately dismissed because of grades. I rarely tell people that I attended law school because I never finished. When I did attend, I noticed that I had difficulty focusing epecially during exams. My anxiety prevented me from focusing and so I sought counseling after I was dismissed and I was diagnosed as bipolar depressive. I was given medication namely Paxil which I took for several years.

The medication did help me to sleep but my depression seemed to worsen. I finally got off the meds and have been med-free. But I take natural supplements and I seem to be o.k. However, I never sought counseling.

Having been unemployed recently increased my depression and I was starting to lose hope until I got work but I have always had this nagging suspicion that my depression has taken alot from my life. Too often, I am ambivalent and I just felt that talking to a professional may help improve my life.

THE FIRST DAY OF COUNSELING
I show up to the center and it is in a residential area. The building looks like an old house and because it was dark when I arrived at 7:00PM, it was kinda creepy.
"You need to sign a few forms and it's $10 for the intake meeting," the recptionist tells me.
"Can I have a key to use the restroom?"
"Sure let me buzz you in"

I return and I wait in the waiting area when a little Mexican dude opens the door smiles and says, "Israel Carrasco follow me."

I walk down a small hall and I enter a little room in the back. I see a couch and a chair. I yell, "Sigmund Freud!" The counselor giggles.

I'm asked to sign all these disclaimers. I read and sign privacy forms, confidentiality forms, and am told that our conversation is confidential unless he feels I'm a threat to myself, I intend to hurt some one, Or I'm abusing a child or elderly person. I sign away.

"So why counseling Israel. Why are you here?"
I explain to the counselor that I think counseling could help me and I also explain my history with depression and while I'm explaining my story to him, I get fixated on the fact that he is tiny and has a big head. Those two things are my obsessions: Tiny people and Big heads. He had both! I had to look down.

I talked and talked and I mentioned some of my interests including poker,chess, comedy, and blogging.

"The time is up Israel. I will see you here next week", the counselor tells me.
My next appointment is Thursday at 7:00PM. I have no idea what to expect but it seems like counseling is just listening to myself speak. I could have saved $10.

WTF Wednesday - I need a new car

My car has a sense of humor. It turns on. It runs. It works, sort of.

Sometimes, if I don't warm up my car, the gas gives out on me. I can be pressing the gas pedal all the way down and my car acts as if it is on neutral or it travels 20 miles an hour. You should see the faces of motorists light up when I have to put my emergency lights and pull over. I get honks, dirty stares, and the 1/2 peace sign finger flick.

The weird part is if I turn my car off and start it up and press the gas pedal all the way down and then hit drive, my car almost always works o.k. I may have to stop and restart several times. But the way I see it, I'm becoming more familiar with my neighborhood.

Today my car decided to give out on me in Irvine,CA, named one of the safest, big cities in America! It is suburbia heaven here. Everyone smiles, the houses are perfect and crime hardly exists here.

I'm driving along Barranca Boulevard when my car decides to act funny and slow down. It does this over and over again. Each time, I have to pull over, turn off the car, restart the engine and continue along my merry way.

Traffic going home was hell. I was stressed out as I also started my new job today and started getting depressed because shit has not gone as planned. I knew I had to do something to relax so I got Bob Marleyed and now I'm feeling Irie.

jokes 2-23-11

A new app. has come out in Libya called Angry Libyan birds. The object of the game is to topple a regime.

A judge in L.A lifted a court order allowing Chris Brown to get closer to ex-girlfriend Rihanna so long as he wears 12 ounce boxing gloves.

A study by the National Institute of Health in the U.S suggests that using a cell phone can affect the brain by increasing sugar levels. Researchers also found that permanent brain damaged was caused speaking to customer service in India.

4 Americans were killed when they were hijacked by pirates off of Somalia. They were caught when they left behind key evidence: a hungry and pissed off parrot.

Alyssa Milano is having her first baby and is already planning on hiring her favorite babysitter, Tony Micelli.

This Spring, Larry King is going to tour and be a stand up comedian. He has to overcome his most difficult challenge: Standing Up. "Take my 7th wife please."

The Way of the Dodo

I was packing some stuff when I came upon this ancient artifact. Chances are if you don't know what it is, you are of the MTV generation that never knew that MTV actually played music thus Music Television. Well if you're still baffled, it is a casette tape.

See before you had MP3 files, you had a thing called an 8 track. This was like a casette tape except that it was larger and you couldn't rewind or forward. Once you put in the Beatle's Revolver album, if you wanted to hear Yellow Submarine, you'd have to listen to Eleanor Rigby first. Things weren't so rushed then.

The casette tape was next. It could play songs and hold data on the tape but it had the added benefit of being able to record songs that you wanted! Could you imagine that. This made for creative rendition of songs. People would make "mix tapes" of love songs and give them to their love of their life. I know what you are thinking: People used to actually be romantic at one point??? Yes folks it used to happen. The tape also allowed you to record stuff on top of other songs but the more you did it, the worse the sound quality became. The downside included having the tape get tangled. At that point, you either did one of two things: 1- Become a technician and use your surgeon like hands to fix the tape or fling the tape into a wall cursing God,asking him to improve the technology.

The CD came next and it blew people's mind because now you would store more music in a smaller space and the sound was digital folks. The CD blew away the vinyl record. The CD was a record that was in a hurry and was a perfectionist. It was compact and it felt modern. It was metallic.

The next obvious step was making stuff smallers so the nerds got together and said, "what if we break down sound and just release the sound into bits?" This way you don't need a messenger;just the message which is sound. Thus the MP3 file was born and a guy created a site called Napster and the world was changed once again.

Technology is always moving forward to the next thing. I belive that in the future, you will just think of stuff and it will manifest. Call me Rod Serling. When I found this tape, I realized that I couldn't even find a player for it. My tape had become obsolete. It had gone in the way of the dodo, the dinosaur, and the typewriter. Just like the kindle is replacing books, self checkouts are replacing workers, the internet replaced encyclopedias(I'm ok with that one), and video killed the radio star.It's the way of progress.

Just this last few weeks an IBM computer beat the best Jeopardy champions. Don't be surprised when the host of Jeopardy is replaced by a souless machine that operates on "Xs" and "Os".

How times have changed