Sorry for my Absence, I've been Depressed and Pining

For those of you who follow me religiously (and there are so many of you), you've likely noticed my long absence from the blogosphere. I wish I could say this due to some awesome occurrence, like being called suddenly to be a secret agent in Russia, jetting off on a whim to the Amazon jungle, or even  just fending off a localized zombie apocalypse; but sadly, it was due to none of these things. I was just depressed.

I hate that I wrote "just depressed", which implies that depression is not a serious mental illness affecting hundreds of thousands of people across the country, and which dramatically impedes productivity, engagement in the world, and overall happiness. If I had my way, everyone would get a yearly physical check-up with their doctor, mental check-up with their shrink, and "good-job-for-making-it-to-work" meeting with their boss. Also, you're apparently supposed to visit the dentist every six months, which I didn't know about until two days ago when fiance informed me of the fact. I thought I was doing good to floss once a week and get my teeth cleaned every two years. But regardless of what tooth-care regimen I'm on, mental illness, even "just depression", is a problem which is not acknowledged, recognized, or dealt with by a lot of people, and I wish that would change. So I revise my statement; I was depressed, and it totally sucked.

Now that I'm feeling better and out and about, I can tell you about one awesome thing I discovered during my days of pitiful interactment with the world: Pinterest. Pinterest is a site where you can visually collect and organize all those inspiring pictures, nifty projects, and funny things you find while browsing the interwebs. You can even upload things from your own computer, which I fully intend to do one day, but haven't yet because I haven't made anything pretty enough to put on display. Sometimes I put on my eyeliner really well, but that's not what I'm aiming for in terms of pin-worthy material.

Anywho, if you'd like to check out Pinterest, I suggest you start here, on my very own board of Heart-Breakingly Adorable Dogs. Then start searching for other things you like (food porn, compost pictures, creepy craft projects), and get ready to waste a whole lot of time. I've found I need to set an alarm when going on Pinterest, otherwise I pass out at the computer after nine hours of pining. If Pinterest isn't your thing, that's okay too, I still can't figure out what the appeal of Twitter is, and it honestly makes me depressed that someone is making millions of dollars off of copying Facebook's status button and making a whole site dedicated to single-sentence posts. Not depressed enough to never leave my bed again. Just depressed enough to eat a few extra cookies tonight.