hi, my name is gina

After a week of searching, I've finally found my NYC vagabond holy grail: computers that I can use for free for an unlimited period of time, require no special login or password, support Gmail, and are not swarmed by the tech-savvy elderly of the Upper West Side. The day they change the appearance of the Columbia student ID will be a sad one indeed. Of course, this will be of no more immediate use to me, since on Monday I am relocating to Ithaca, New York--home of gorges, suicides, and disgruntled students known to commit suicide in the gorges. In a great display of sound logic, I am going there to overcome my depression.

I had a "Major Depressive Episode" exactly ten years ago--the spring of 1995, when no amount of synthesized Swedish pop or Reduced Fat Pringles could cheer me up and my plans for the last day of eighth grade included all the pills in my parents' medicine cabinet and a silent "fuck you" to the nice Catholics at Our Lady of Peace Elementary. Ever the procrastinator, I simply ditched the last day of school and put off the dying thing to give public high school a chance. I gave up Pringles, found a nice clique of band geeks to call my own, and devoted my existence to perfecting my college application in order to get the hell out of town. Though some would certainly argue otherwise, I'd been relatively happy and stable ever since.

Then I graduated from college, which proved not unlike entering junior high. In junior high, I lost my social network because I didn't own an ESPRIT bookbag and hadn't yet learned how to pluck my unibrow or cover up zits, and I lost it after college because of the cruel existence of cities other than the one in which I lived. In junior high, my teachers were not, to put it lightly, doing it for me, and I rebelled by amassing the largest chewing gum fine in school history and almost failing religion class; since college my jobs have been downright horrible fits, and I made myself feel better by dressing inappropriately and doing no work whatsoever. As a result of this two-fold lack of meaning and purpose and my unfortunate inherited neurochemistry and social anxiety, depression started to creep in, and after a year and a half in each case it became unbearable.

Now, as opposed to when I was 13, I have the advantage of knowing exactly what's up. For example, I know that staying in bed until 2 p.m. every day and spending the night crying and avoiding human contact, as much as I feel compelled to, will only make things worse. So I've been hopping on planes to be with people who won't let me do too much of that. But as my parental funding was used up on the dust-covered piece of paper with latin writing and my full name on it, I can't do this forever. The advantage of Depression Part I over Part II is that when I was 13 there was only one logical next step. Now there are infinite possible next steps, and I am paralyzed by indecision and too stripped of self-confidence to just make a fucking decision already and fucking do something--anything. So I'm moving to Ithaca to redirect my focus away from making enough money to afford exhorbitant rent and liquor costs and toward getting my head screwed on straight, whether it be through finding a passion for something and becoming good at it (hahaha,) talking about myself to someone with a PhD as opposed to the blog-reading public (I have a sinking suspicion the latter might be more therapeutic,) or good ol' psychotropic meds (bring on the dry-mouth and sexual dysfunction!). Wish me luck.