Sometimes all you need is to stay up all night.

I was not planning to go out Friday night, but Kristen is a weakness (in a great way). She said "come out and hang with us" so I did. This whole week's theme has been perfect timing. Moments when it feels like the universe is briefly in sync & all is right. I got to Diva's just as Kristen & Eric did. The line was totally insane, and I thought we would never get in. Thankfully, Kristen grabbed my hand and pulled me up the stairs through the sea of mildly disgruntled hippies. It felt like the old days. VIP all the way. Jess and Carley got in shortly after. The "sexy ninja assassin squad" was back in action (minus a few). The room was fuller than I have ever seen it. The people watching was great, although at times made me feel very old. I got very introspective, and realized it was not old I was feeling, it was maturity. Lately I have been wary about going to parties because of fear of drama, and not knowing anyone anymore. Friday night, I was with friends I love and miss. I was completely relaxed and had a great time. I didn't dance too much, i feel like I can never really get into dubstep, but the energy was great, the vibe was great, and I realized I need that kind of relaxation and release and I didn't even know it.

The other part of the night, skipping the "after party" in Hadley that was full of idiot teenagers, was great. We went back to our friends' Dave & Kate's house with a few close friends, and mixed records & played with awesome lasers and blinking lights. Nerding out with electronics all night. It was like scooping up all the best parts of my old party days, without all of the terrible stressful crap. I didn't even think that was possible.

Leila (an awesome DJ) was there selling some of her amazingly beautiful shirts and bags that she handmade. It was wonderful and inspiring to see creative art pieces selling. I've always held back and never actually tried to sell any of my crafts because I am worried no one will buy them. Granted, I make nothing that comes close to the beautiful pieces she makes, but that's beside the point. She's out there doing it.

Thursday I went to pot luck at Carly's with Jess, Luke, Kate and Andy and that was fantastic. Amazingly good food and good company. I forget how good it feels being around my friends, because I get so frustrated and upset when I am around the general public.

Slowly but surely I am interacting with the world again. Tomorrow I took off from work to go to Columbus Day tag sales in South Hadley (a new and fantastic Louie tradition). Next weekend: Boston Comic Con, and coming soon: NYC in November to see my Lindzzz.

Birth Control Pills Shown to Alter Structure of Women's Brains

You aren't yourself anymore. It's a familiar complaint heard by women who have recently gone on birth control pills. Now studies are providing evidence for what many of those women, and the men who love them, have long known intuitively: the pill can alter the female brain, making a woman act like a different person.

The pill turned 50 this year, and it has gone through many iterations since the Food and Drug Administration gave the pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle a green light to market the first oral contraceptive on June 23, 1960. Drug companies continually roll out contraceptives containing lower doses of hormones and entailing fewer side effects. But women who have gone on hormones can point to the effects that have stubbornly endured: moodiness, depression, decreased libido. (This last one makes some birth control pills perversely effective. Not only do they protect you from pregnancy if you do have sex, they also zap your desire to have sex in the first place -- and turn you into an unstable mess, which may in turn zap your partner's interest in sex.) But believe it or not, we still know very little about the consequences of taking daily hormones on a woman's brain.

That is changing, say Craig H. Kinsley and Elizabeth A. Meyer in Scientific American. They point to a recent study in the journal Brain Research comparing the brains of women on birth control pills with brains of other women and men. When the study's authors examined high-resolution images of participants' brains, they found the women on hormones showed more matter in some areas of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with cognitive activities like decision-making.

The Brain Research study prompted breathless news reports suggesting that the pill makes you smarter. But Kinsley and Meyer point out that the brain works like a "neural beehive," and disturbing one part of the hive could impact the other. The fact that one brain region becomes larger than the next does not mean a woman on hormones is more intelligent or effective. It is also possible that her brain is going haywire. (Kinsley and Meyer actually use the word "catawampus.")

That may be why in some situations estrogen has been shown to impair performance in rats. Other studies have suggested that the pill may change a woman’s preferences to the point of affecting her taste in men.

They compare the pill to steroids, which are known to cause increased aggression in men. Could the stints of hyper-masculine behavior known as "'roid rage" have their equivalent in women? Hopefully future studies will shed light on what many couples know to be intuitively true.

Mara Hvistendahl is writing Unnatural Selection, a book on reproductive technology, sex selection, and gender imbalance.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-09/birth-control-pills-shown-alter-structure-womens-brains

Tryin' to Stay Positive.

I have not written in this blog for awhile. Since February. I pulled in from the world. I got busy. There are any number of excuses. Life has been pretty chaotic and I have not really felt like pouring my heart and soul out on the internet. I need to force myself to start writing regularly though. I feel better when I do. I realized this today at work when I noticed a new coping mechanism I have developed. Work has been stressful. I don't know anyone who is not stressed out right now. I've been trying to get better at managing my stress. I'm prone to emotional outbursts. It's just who I am. My chemicals. My Scorpio tendencies. It's who I am but it's not something that I can let get out of control at the wrong moments. So anyway, coping mechanism - writing emails to the person or thing I am angry at or frustrated with & deleting it right after. I got the idea from this show Jeremiah I've been watching (post apocalyptic fun!). In the show, the main character writes letters to his father & burns them.

I'm trying to channel frustration into motivation. Learning to do my best with what I have and let the rest go. I take on problems that are not my own, but I am learning to put them aside and focus on what needs to get done.
I have a problem with focusing on negativity, and all the things that are going wrong that I forget about the things that are going right. I feed my anxiety instead of trying to deal with it and make changes to cope with it better.
The economy is bad. It makes work stressful. All the old rules are out the window and we have to start fresh. People are being forced to change their spending habits and at some point there is going to be a global breaking point. Capitalism cannot continue on the same trajectory it has been on.

Change, adapt, and keep going. No one knows where we're headed, but there are only two options. Keep going, or give up. I choose every day to keep going. I am in a fortunate position, unlike many who are not so lucky. I have a job, I have an apartment, a cat and a wonderful relationship with a person who allows me to be myself completely & whom I love more than anything. My family lives close, I get to see them whenever I want to need to. I have friends are there when I need them. I need to focus on all of these positive things. I need to spend more time on the things that are amazing to give me strength and energy to deal with the rest of it.

My tendency when I get stressed and depressed is to withdraw and shut out the world. To grumble and ignore my feelings, just "trying not to think about it". Avoid. Isolate. Retreat into my safe cave of an apartment and surround myself with Sci Fi TV shows, avoiding any and all interaction, doing craft projects for hours. Some of that is fine. It's what I enjoy, it's who I am. I also need to get out. I need to see my friends, I need to see my family, call my family so they know I am thinking about them, and love them. I can't cut off my connections to the world.

I have a hard time finding a balance. I always have. I know that I need me time. Some alone time every day, every week to just be calm, gather myself. If I miss out on that time I'm a mess. Somehow I need to slowly work in some more people interaction. Slowly. I tried to much to fast a couple months ago and spooked myself into isolation again. I don't know if that made any sense, but I'm glad I wrote in my blog again. It helps me organize my state of mind and guides me toward what I know I need to do next.

Do the best I can, take everything one step at a time, and try to stay positive.