moving on, community, self-indulgence, autobiography

Once again, for everyone who has wished me well recently, I can't thank you enough. Nor can I describe how much it's helped. With the medication I don't expect the attacks to come back full force any time soon, but knowing that I'm not alone makes the whole thing seem so much less scary and so much more manageable. (I just read an article, by the way -- don't have a link, sorry -- pointing out that schizophrenics have a higher chance of genuine recovery in less developed nations, where, generally speaking, they're kept engaged in family life and some form of economic production. Community's a pain the ass sometimes, but times like this make me realize it's a godsend and infinitely worth the price of the in-fighting and drama and stepping-on-toeing that goes into building it).

I can't think of a graceful way to transition off of the subject of panic attacks. And, being OCD, I could easily spend so much effort trying to come up with the perfect transition that I'd never get around to posting what I actually intended, so I'll just transition abrupty and ask: what could more self-indulgent than a blogger posting bits and pieces of his autobiography? How about a blogger posting bits and pieces of his raw, unedited, unworkshopped autobiograpy that he's writing for his first MFA class?

Well, yeah, that's what I'm thinking of doing. As far as the class is concerned, I've got six weeks to come up with forty doubled-spaced 12-point font pages. But I seem to be writing it blog-size pieces and I have no idea where it's going, so it actually seems well-suited for blogging. And I won't have time to write much of anything else for awhile (though I'll try to post some other stuff as well). If it gets to be too much, though, please don't hesitate to tell me to stop!

So, for your reading pleasure (because this isn't all about me, no way), the first thrilling slice from my life story will follow shortly.