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So, I'm currently in the process of washing out (most of) my current antidepressants, in order to switch to a different one - under the instructions and guidance of my psychiatrist, mind you. This is, of course, the express ticket to Fucked In The Head you might imagine, and the sad thing is I didn't realise that was what was screwing with my brain yesterday until Dean was like, "Dude, I totally saw this coming, relax."
The next week or two should be Interesting Times.
... huh. Dreamwidth just gave me a "Restored Draft" of the post I was working on about twelve hours ago on a different computer and never finished.
Anyway, it's now 5am, and despite only getting about three hours' sleep last night, I can't sleep, at all. Hooray, fucked-up brain chemistry!
The best part is my supposedly-joyful trip out earlier this evening to go see Up! with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) elaran earlier this evening.
Without wanting to give spoilers, a few minutes into the movie I started crying uncontrollably, and thereafter everything that happened just seemed drenched in pathos and woe. It got so I couldn't stand it, and - for the first time in my life - I left the film early. (Early enough, mind you, to get a ticket refund, which was nice.)
Someone laughed at me, and I was deeply hurt by that - but at the same time, hey, I'm sitting there sobbing real tears at a Pixar movie.
On the bright side: planning for my trip to Britain continues apace. Travel arrangements are getting booked by travel agent. To my astonishment, I shall apparently be driving a Mercedes B 180 SE (something like that) or similar, for 78 days, for AU$1200.
My mind, it is somewhat boggled.
Some exploration of accommodation options in various areas suggests that B&Bs are really not that expensive, which is good.
Since I'm going to be over there longer than I was originally vaguely theorising - shall, by current travel arrangements, be arriving at Heathrow on the 6th of October and departing on the 22nd of December - I'm looking at going into Western Europe, too. Check out some major historical sites, maybe go to Legoland in Denmark... then, maybe, catch the Oslo ferry, and scoot up a ways through Scandinavia and, as well as taking some potentially gorgeous photographs, see if I can catch the Northern Lights.
I would love to see the Northern Lights, and in October, it's nominally pretty feasible.
Still working on a rough itinerary plan. Currently, my rough idea is: from London, go to Uncle Ian's to recover from the flight, depending on whether that's going to be feasible for him and his family, then head north. Edinburgh and Mary, then Aberdeenshire and Great-Uncle Ian and his family, ferry from Aberdeen to Orkney, ferry from Orkney to Caithness, south again, stop at Worcester and Great-Aunt Eleanor, onward to... Dover? to get the ferry across the Channel to France, then head north towards Scandinavia.
It might marginally increase my chances of seeing the Northern Lights if I aim for Norway first, but I'd rather go see my kin first. I could also skip Orkney entirely.
I did buy a GPS device, which came with maps for Australia, and I bought maps for the United Kingdom, Western and Central Europe.
The problem is, as it turns out, the otherwise-totally-pleasing GPS device doesn't quite have data storage space available for Australia *and* the UK/Western/Central Europe. (The problem here is largely Europe, which is almost 2GB of maps, where Australia is 100MB. There's less to map.)
However, it's not like I'm going to want both at the same time, and swapping them by connecting to my computer is trivial. (Somehow, I find it hard to envisage circumstances in which I would urgently need GPS driving navigation assistance for Europe and Australia in quick succession.)
I'm glad GPSes exist, because driving around foreign countries should be a lot less stressful when I have a little device to feed me directions, rather than having to mess around trying to work with maps. I'm used to using Perth street directories, but even that can be stressful finding thoroughly unfamiliar places, and this is my home town, and Australia is very, very different, in terms of geographical layout kind of stuff, from Britain and Europe.
Britain, at least, is so very densely occupied. I'm from Perth. The nearest major city to mine is halfway across the continent. Far further than, say, London to Edinburgh.
But my GPS includes things like petrol stations and Points Of Interest, which I think is pretty awesome, and, you know. Directions. "Where the hell am I going? Oh, right, thattaway."
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So, as anyone who Knows About These Things can tell you, the best guitar picks were made of turtleshell.
However - again, as anyone who Knows About These Things can tell you - that's not exactly a cruelty-free source of pick material, and the sea turtles from which they were derived are now an endangered species. Some people still have decades-old picks but they're no longer produced legally.
Naturally, human ingenuity came into play, and you can get fake turtleshell picks. The material is an artificially-produced cellulose substance with properties very, very similar to the turtleshell, but without the "murder of endangered species" aspect.
I recently ordered a couple of faux-shell picks from Red Bear Trading Company. I went with Tuff-Tones, because they're cheaper and hardier, and I didn't exactly have a way to try one before I bought them. They arrived today, and I just tried them out.
They are amazing. They feel good on the strings and they pull a tone out of my Les Paul even more beautiful than I'd heard it make before - and added to that, strumming with a soft hold, as I tend to do when practicing (because I like the more mellow tones), they're very quiet over the strings, where all the other picks I've used click audibly in the strum.
They also feel nice to the touch, secure in hand without needing to be rough-textured, totally beautiful and wonderful.
They're expensive, of course, by guitar pick standards - Tuff-Tones are US$10, the regular ones are US$20 each, where plastic picks are readily acquired for an Australian dollar.
Totally worth it, at least on the assumption that you'll avoid losing them. Comments from guitarists who've used theirs extensively are that they can take a LOT of use without showing much wear. With mine I got one of the pick-holding key fobs Red Bear also sell - with my name engraved on it, which is just nifty.
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