Posts Tagged ‘california’

The Wayward Bus is a 1947 novel by John Steinbeck. Many of Steinbeck’s novels are long-ranging affairs, some taking place over several generations. In contrast, The Wayward Bus takes place over a single day.

What is the novel about? Well, it’s about a bus that gets stuck in the mud. This only happens towards the end of the novel. The rest is build up to the bus getting stuck in the mud. Looking back now, I am not sure entirely sure how Steinbeck spun out an entire novel based on that. He did though, and it was interesting.

One thing I have always enjoyed about Steinbeck’s work is his ability to create emotion within me. With The Gapes of Wrath I felt a small sampling of the frustration felt by the farmers who were victims of the financial system. With The Wayward Bus I experienced if only for a moment, the frustration of being trapped in a small town with dreams of getting out.

John Steinbeck is better known for his serious and deeply-moving novels, notably The Grapes of Wrath. However, he did have a sense of humour too and wrote several darkly satirical novels, one of which was Cannery Row.

Set in a working sea-front town in the Great Depression, Cannery Row reminded me every much of Catch-22. Probably because both of the audiobooks I have had the same author. But Heller and Steinbeck display the same utterly dry sense of humour when it comes to writing about less-than-ideal conditions for humans to live in.

It’s fairly short, especially compared to some of his other works, and wanders around with a much more relaxed feel to the plot line.

Last week, one of my friends posted on Facebook about the depression she had been suffering from. I found it rather inspiring and so have been meaning to post an update on my own mental health issues with anxiety. Her command of the English language allowed her to put it very eloquently. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for me, so here is a rambling mess about the whole situation.

Of course, now you’re thinking, “Chris, surely you can’t have any problems – you’re my hero, the person I idolised most in the world, the closest thing we have to a human archetype.” You’re right of course, but clearly in order to achieve that I need to possess some characteristic that makes me more relatable so that the rest of you mere mortals can identify to me. It was a choice between this, or changing my name to Chris Every-Man ;).

I’ve just taken my first beta blocker. It’s a new type of medication I’m trying, after SSRIs proved to be ineffective for me. I’m now experiencing quite a wide range of side effects. None of which are listed in the list of side effects in the booklet. They’re almost certainly not caused by the medication. But that’s one of the odd things about the placebo effect, it has its good side and its bad side.

Actually, as I continue to work through my issues, I often feel like I’m learning loads about what anxiety is, and nothing about how to control it!

I also sometimes feel like the anxiety itself is also undervalued. For example, any therapist you speak to will describe it as difficulties and feeling uncomfortable. I don’t classify anxiety attacks as uncomfortable, I classify them as painful. In the same way, I would if I cut myself – it, in itself, is what I want to avoid, not just the consequences I am worrying about that are causing the anxiety in the first place.

Still, that’s just my 2p, and that’s worth a lot less than when I was a kid and you were 20% of the way to a Fredo with that. The moral of the story, it does very gradually get better. Here is some anecdotal evidence (you know, the singular form of data). So, as Professor Farnsworth would say, “keep your chin up.”

“OW! My chin!”

Recently, I had to pull out of the opportunity of a lifetime, to go and work in Palo Alto, in the heart of Silicon Valley, due to health issues.

It was undoubtedly one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. Not least because I had already paid for Elina’s flights and as a Yorkshireman, the idea of not being able to obtain a full refund on anything I’m not going to use makes me feel physically nauseated.

So, the war is on. I promised myself I would take Elina to Disneyland (and by that I mean I promised myself a trip to Disneyland, and Elina would be there too) and by god I’m going to get there somehow.

I’ll see you in Anaheim.