Making everything right again

Everything is confusing. This is something that becomes clearer and clearer the older I get. I turn 31 in less than a month, something I am not all that excited about (though I am a huge attention whore on my birthday… celebrate meeeee!).

When I was a teenager I thought I had everything figured out. I argued incessantly with my parents, I knew how to raise me, they didn’t. I knew what the world was all about. I knew everything. But now here I am, almost 31, and I don’t know shit. And unfortunately neither does anyone else. But sometimes you can change stuff to make it better. I like that.

I think I have mentioned this before but it’s been on my mind a lot lately. I have had a pretty major battle with anxiety most of my life, but it’s been at its worst over the past 5 or so years. It’s not fun, my brain decides something is wrong with me (what’s that weird chest pain… OMG it must be a heart attack… adrenaline releases as if it’s really happening and then I totally freak out) and it haunts my day to day life.

This year I decided to do something about it. I went to a doctor who sent me to a psychologist who sent me to a psychiatrist who sent me back to my doctor who sent me to a nutritionist. That’s the short version, at least. I still see all of them, but we keep adding new people on and making changes. Like, for instance, in January I was put on Paxil to regulate my panic. At first it worked great but over the last few weeks my anxiety has been worse than ever. So we are in the process of changing that. But in the mean time she thought maybe my diet (doing low-carb, it’s working well also) might be affecting me so she suggested I talk to a Doctor about it. He thought my diet was perfect and was really happy with it, but gave me the number of nutritionist. I then called her and she told me that my diet doesn’t exist, which I found weird being that I am on it. She said “If you really ate 20g of carbs of day you wouldn’t be able to get out of bed.” I said “well I do and I do.” She said “You must just not know how many carbs you are eating.”

See! Everything is damn confusing. I am trying to help myself and I seem to be in a bigger mess than ever. Three different “specialists” can’t agree on my diet, in fact one thinks that I wouldn’t be able to be alive on it (which makes no sense, tons of people do Atkins type diets). So who do I believe? I’m not really sure. At this point I’ll go with my Psychiatrist about what meds, I’ll go with the nutritionist about what to eat and I’ll go with my doctor about whether those things are hurting my body. But all this conflict is confusing me. It was easier when I just stayed in my apartment all day every day and tried to figure it all out myself.

There is something amazing about reinvention though. Even though my anxiety has been insane lately I am still very, very happy with the person I have become. This diet that doesn’t exist has shed about 25 pounds, the meds (or therapy or both) have allowed me to re-explore my more creative side, both with this blog and with me picking up my guitar and singing again. A long time ago famous mortimer was a cool guy, then he hit hard times, and then I got to reinvent myself and in a lot of ways I am better than ever, even with this anxiety.

Of course reinvention isn’t always a success. I am a star trek nerd but I wasn’t all that fond of Star Trek: Enterprise. I was into it during the first season but then in season 2 it just went haywire and it blew. I recently saw the remake of Psycho. I actually liked that, it was a shot by shot remake, and that was actually cool… but at the same time why bother? I mean the original is just fine. But still, I enjoyed my time with it… so that’s ‘why bother,’ I guess.

Battlestar Galactica is in my mind almost all of the time these days. The final season just started and for my money BSG has been the greatest TV series of all time. This season almost feels like a race, because we know in advance that the end is near. We need to figure out who the final cylon is. We need to find out what’s up with “final five.” Are they more advanced? Are they more human? We also need to find out if the crew is gonna survive and find Earth. And when they do, when in Earth time will it be? Wouldn’t it be cool to look outside and see the Battlestar Galatica landing outside your house?

BSG, if you didn’t know, is a remake. I never watched the original, but what I know of it is that it was a sorta hokey space opera about humans from another planet fleeing robots that are trying to exterminate them as they search for this mysterious planet called “Earth.” So some very smart fellows many decades later decided to take this concept and completely reinvent it, adding in moral conundrums that the original series couldn’t possibly fathom. They took the old and reworked and made it completely awesome.

I am hoping for the same on the video game front. I have always been a huge, huge, huge fan of the Socom series on the Playstation 2. I loved it. I still love it. Even with my high def TV and next gen consoles I still throw in Socom 2 weekly and Socom 1 monthly. The problem with the Socom franchise is that Socom 3 was ever created. It bastardized it’s own name. The game was far too large, devoid of action, and just plain boring.

Step in the next generation of machines and a new developer (the up and coming Slant Six) and it is time to reimmagine Socom once again. The developers went straight to the source, querying us hardcore Socom fans about what we loved about the Socom series. We all cried out in unison “The tight, dramatic and tactical gameplay and map design of Socom 1 and 2).” And so far it seems like they are listening. Every interview they talk about what was so great about those two games and what they are doing to move that experience (and not the Socom 3 experience) to the Playstation 3. I am very, very excited about what these guys are doing. I am hoping it will be great.

But in the end it’s not very easy. Most remakes are utter crap. My own personal remake is filled with all sorts of ideas from outside sources that are at odds with each other. How do you honor the old with still keeping it new? How do I become a genuine happy person again?

Who knows, but we will keep trying anyway, we don’t have any other choice. First off, I am looking for a BSG loving volunteer. I was going to make a HMB lens about who I think the final cylon is. But I don’t want to make that, I want someone else to. Basically, go to Heymonkeybrain.com and use the template and make the argument “I think _____ is the final cylon and here is why.” And then fill out the other forms, maybe throw a picture of some hot cylons in it, and link it back to me here (or email me). Could someone do this? I will pimp the hell out of it, and we can get a really good and nerdy conversation going. It’s gonna be a first come first, um, do kind of thing. So just put a comment here saying “I will make the Final Cylon HMB” so others know not to do it. Of course, if anyone wants to make any other lenses about the subject they are welcomed to.

And lastly, back on the Socom front, I made a HMB lens this afternoon to gauge what kind of videogame nerd traffic I could muster (and, well, argue with me). Socom 1/2 is the greatest shooter of all time is me laying down the law on the shooter that rules them all. If you are into that type of thing go check it out and comment. I set it so you don’t even have to sign up with a squidoo account to comment.

Seriously though, someone make this BSG lens. Pleaseeeeeeeeee! Even if you know me in real life and are only doing it out of pity, do it! Doooo it nowwww!