Before we went in we had a cup of coffee in the little place in the 'super practice' or whatever. Now, I often forget I've got a booming voice, but in combination with the anxiety I was feeling at that moment, it wasn't long before the cup was rattling, the saucer was full of coffee, everyone in the place knew I was nuts, and blubbing like a baby. Told the bloke making the coffee to 'have a good one, mate' and a woman I vaguely recognised, with a gap in her teeth, gave me the biggest smile which had a bit too much sympathy in it.
Anyhooo, I explained the situation to my doctor, and told him about the courses of treatment that I've been arranging, and he prescribed me with 8 zopiclone tablets a month, and propranolol beta blockers, explaining he didn't want to give me 'another problem' by prescribing more sleeping pills which could cause dependency. He said he was prescribing zopiclone 'against his better judgement. The propranolol is there to lower the blood pressure to ease the anxiety.
I knew I'd have to fight to get help, but that felt tough. Just glad my mental health worker was there with his 'magical lanyard' or I wouldn't have got that!
I'm not sure if I've mentioned but one of my other recent appointments gave me a real buzz of confidence, bordering on mania. I'd not slept the night before, was anxious on the day, crying just before the appointment. When all was done I felt great, out of proportion with what had actually happened. This was hapenning again now.
The propranolol played a part in that feeling too. It almost immediately turned down the anxiety and that seemed to help this kind of euphoria. This happened for the first few days, and I also felt sick as I got used to the drug.
The weekend rolled round along with cannabis and alcohol. These 'recreational drugs' (which have for very long been 'self medication') added to my new 'prescription drugs' to provide a very interesting few days.
Watch this space, we'll see how things go.
The Making of.......
I decided I needed more of a concept or whatever to this blog. Along with naming posts after songs with a bit of relevance, they're gonna be some of my real favourites, and I'm going to make a kind of video or film to go along with them. I'll post them online and hope to end up with a collection of ten films, in various styles, so I can just roughly try out some techniques, and get some kind of method recorded. Basically, there are so many ideas going round my head I feel like I need to record them.
I produced one a couple of weeks ago. Using rough footage I'd made, slowed down and roughly edited with pictures from my Where Is My Mind post. 'I Love You, I'm Gonna Blow up your School', by Mogwai.
Not too bad an effort, but the cutting in and out of the images doesn't look very good.
So while I've been feeling manic, and getting used to new pills, I've been working on a kind of animated movie for 'Better Living Through Chemistry' by Queens of the Stone Age.
The techniques were hard work. Getting used to free or found software, and finding very long winded ways around. I will try and describe them and provide designs to get this recorded.
Convert to .avi format using Video File Converter.
Use VLC media player to extract still images from .avi clips. IE 30fps, extract 1in6 to have 5fps etc.
Most of my footage comes from my wandering about with my phone in my hand or attached to my clothing and it's 'all over the place'. So then I go through each still image, rotating it so that resulting animation will look more uniform.
Used IrFanView for this bit because of its batch processing to save a bit of time.
Then I used Photostage Slideshow Producer to make the still images into short .avi clips, in that way i can control the frame rate and judge the speed of transition from one frame to another depending on speed/style/beat of the song.
Used Pinnacle Videospin to create the final movie.
Put the Audio Track in.
Put the various smaller .avi slideshow clips together to match/inform the song.
I decided to use the empty Title or Caption track to add lyrics and scribbled images over the video at this point.
I used an animation application to design these. This allowed me to use 'Onion Skinning' (check it out), and saving the images as .png files meant they would have a transparent background to allow them to overlay the other video.
A LOT of 'pratting about' later, et voila!
Below I've put a few of the scribbles and notes, to keep them in the one place.
So, onto the next one.
It's going to be a pop at 'Suddenly Everything Has Changed', from the album 'The Soft Bulletin' by one of my favourite bands 'The Flaming Lips'.
Other Ideas are for 'Touch Me, I'm Sick', by Mudhoney, 'Can You Feel The Force?', and 'Giant Steps', the Boo Radleys.
Now just got to wade through all that footage. Where are those pills?
