Richard Fitzgilbert's (Jeffrey Sussman's) Diary

The Diaries of Richard Fitzgilbert
and Jeffrey Sussman

Sign My Guestbook!

Previous Entry

Next Entry

List of Entries

Contact Me

My Profile

2003-06-23 - 1:29 p.m.

More cool stuff from other dairies [sic]. From "Marsist:"

"I'm out of the Mental Illness Closet."

That's such a great thought! Ok, I'm coming "out of the Mental Illness Close" too. Yeah, I know, no big surprise. These days, it's almost chic to be taking anti-depressants. Today's the worst kind of day. For no apparent reason, I feel really, really crappy. I had such a good day yesterday too! The fact that I don't know why I feel crappy, just makes me feel more crappy. Depression is just full of ugly feed back loops like this.

Ok, the best medicine, for me anyway, is to hang out with my friends. So, I'm going to drag myself out to practice tonight. Though, that'll make me feel frustrated because I can't put on armor! Well, better frustrated than depressed. Frustration is a spur to action. Depression is a mailed fist around the throat of action.

Stuff from tonight's practice:
Defense is hard, If one pays close attention to any particular thing, one cannot pay enough attention to all the things that require your attention.

"He couldn't teach a duck to swim if he was standing knee deep in water"

A fighter's attitude should have all of the following: Patience, Power, Precision, Playfulness, Pace, and a Plan.

It is frequently useful, when sparring with a less experienced fighter to start by throwing no blows (or no dangerous blows) and working on your fundamental defensive skills, until they hit you once. This helps build confidence and precision in your defense. Something many I saw today were lacking.

Thanks to Lady Susanna for helping me run a test to figure out exactly how far woefully pathetic my conditioning is. The bad new was that my attack skills were horrible! [Don't tell Sooze this she might misunderstand] I couldn't hit her nearly as often as I thought I should. Also, I did somethig twice that I never do when I'm in shape. I whiffed twice. I don't whiff! And for good reason, whiffing hurts! Having short strong arms ameliorates the damage but that's about the only advantage to have short arms. The good news is that I was able to move better than I expected. The bad news is that I'm in pathetically bad shape. The good news is that I didn't have a heart attack or something worse.

Next step is to open the armor bag and assess the work that needs doing.

I was rushing out the door to get to practice and fell down half the bottom stair case. After coming to rest lying in the foyer, my first thought was that falling down stairs is dangerous and this had been a bad idea. I had managed not to kill myself or something worse like wrecking a knee. Yes wrecking a knee would be worse than death. More pain in my life I don't need. Less life would mean no pain at all. (Yeah, that's melodramatic, but it's true.)

More on today's crappy mood: As soon as I picked myself up from the floor at the bottom of the stairs, I felt lucky and that pushed the depression away. I had a great time at practice. I was able to help a couple of people a lot and a few more at least a little. Felt great. The depression came crashing back on the drive home. I want my flying car! Back in the 60's we were promised flying cars before the end of the century. We are way overdue now! I'm done blathering.