Quality time

They've just got rid of the right-hand give-way rule on our roads. Or was it the left-hand rule? I don't think I'll miss it.

Dad left this morning. I'm lucky I'm able to talk to him so easily (unlike Dad with his father). He's interested in just about every subject under the sun, so at times we had some pretty in-depth conversations. Immigration. Interstellar travel. Italy. Insurance scams. Islam. And that's only the I's.

He loved giving me advice on what to do with the inside of my flat. Like a lot of things of late, I've been struggling to care. When I came home from work one evening he was studying a colour chart full of greens and yellows, each shade given some ridiculous Kiwified name. I'd had a lot of sinus pain that day. My head was full of Aotea Quay Yellow gunge. Fortunately the pain has since died down even if the gunge is still there.

Saturday wasn't a great day. I'd agreed to see the extremely popular Wellington Ukulele Orchestra with Rose that evening, but first Dad and I browsed some furniture and bed shops in Thorndon. Something about all that very nice but hopelessly unaffordable furniture brought out some quite negative feelings in me. Eventually we found a bed shop whose prices weren't ridiculous and I'll be having a bed delivered tomorrow lunchtime.

I felt very anxious that entire evening. The last time I met Rose I was surprised by just how much we had in common; on Saturday I was sure all those similarities were a mirage. She's a culture vulture who goes out fairly often; I live in a cultural black hole. We had a curry before the show, then on to the San Francisco Bath House. I had no idea what the venue would be like but it turned out to be a bar; there were simply far too many people for my liking. Rose and I turned up just after eight; a supporting guitarist came on at around 8:45; by the time the ukulele people came on stage it was almost 9:30. They were extremely good but all that standing and shoving and being shoved and sweating profusely meant I'd lost interest long before they finished, which was close to midnight. Rose wanted to get to the front so she could see. I didn't envy her one bit standing in high heels for four hours, but she happily danced to the strains of the ukuleles. The band was a motley bunch; just about every hairstyle was represented. The ukuleles themselves were almost incidental - it was really all about the humour, the banter, or as they'd say in Ireland the craic. Mum and Dad had seen them in Geraldine, which was one of the stops on their nationwide tour (that must have been quite a coup for a town of that size). The group tailor their performances to their audience; according to Dad their humour in Geraldine was less, er, anatomical than in Wellington.

In short, Saturday evening wasn't an enjoyable one for me, but these days I can't enjoy any more than I can fly. For that reason (mostly) I really want to come off my Efexor. I've heard horror stories about this so I plan to come off it slowly, 37.5 mg every ten days, then even more slowly when I get to 75 mg. To do this I'll need to get hold of the low-denomination pills. I'm fed up of bouncing around between various mental health services like I'm in some giant pinball machine, and never getting anywhere. It's about time I regained some control.

I saw the psychiatrist last Tuesday. She wasn't bad but I don't think she was the right person for me. She's an ADHD specialist and could tell very quickly that I didn't have ADHD. In fact I wish I could have an injection of the H bit.

Anxiety is still an issue in my latest role but it's no longer crippling. I certainly still have days when my output is reduced, but not to zero like in my old job. I have no idea what the future holds for me - any long-term solutions probably lie outside the corporate world.