Sunday, February 22, 2009

Personal Update / New James Callis Message & Site!

(That's one crammy title to end all crammy titles, but at least I hopefully made this post visible to Google blogsearch.)

This is a James Callis fan blog, not a personal diary (for that, you can see Deniselle's Diary Blog). However, I'm going to talk about myself a little bit now, because this affects my updates: I was diagnosed with depression on Tuesday and got medication for it. I'm feeling somewhat better already, but still tired, so the updates are going to come when I feel up to them. I'm mainly referring to the James/Mark Q&A part 2, which is in a sad state of disarray at the moment. I haven't had the energy to even look at it for a week. My writing skill and sense of humor aren't completely comatose, but I'm feeling quite depleted.

I'm prescribing myself extra doses of James, and it's actually been quite helpful. I'm currently staring mostly at this picture from the James Callis Fans Myspace page (dreamy dark eyes alert!), and enjoying this sample of James and Tricia being awesome together, courtesy of Nicole Anell's definitive Baltar/Six picspam (which I've already plugged twice, but it bears repeating). James' (imaginary) presence is friendly and soothing. It takes me out of my own head a bit.

Then for some James news:
James posted a new message for the fans at the First Unofficial Website forum! The forum is here, and a direct link, which might or might not work, is here. I'm on a total fangirl high over this. He begins characteristically by beating himself up for not posting sooner (when it's only been three months - I was hoping he'd post soon, but it's not like I was pulling my hair going "Why has he forsaken us?!"). In the interim, he's been to India and Switzerland and is currently in the States, preparing to go to MegaCon in Florida next weekend.

Next month, he's going to be given a Jules Verne award in Paris! I frankly have no idea what a Jules Verne award is, but it sounds awesome and I'm proud of him. A quick Googling shows that the award might look something like this.

And - he's filmed a pilot for the funny and filthy comedy he mentioned at Starfury!

Then Filmed a Pilot written by Howard Webster - who had contacted me 10 years earlier when I was making B.L - He'd finished translating his column to a screen play - it's called Meet Pursuit Delenge - and it's funny and gross as all frak!

Think if B.J'S DIARY was written by Withnail and I - then you have a rough idea of the genre - but it was a blast to film - with fantastic people - truly talented and committed (or shortly to be!)

This sounds very interesting indeed, although I hope it's gross in the "lots of dirty talking" kind of way, and not in the "people flinging poo at each other" kind of way.

The post is quite long and totally sweet, so go read it now. There are, according to my calculations, 33 dashes in it. The title is "Frak me!" - is that a request, James? Just name the time and place.

I keep meaning to plug Australian fan kixxa's new James Callis blog, All Things James Callis! Check out the beautiful images and essential information on James' projects there! It's exciting to see a new James fan page emerge - when I came around, there was only one page, and now there are three (including mine). Maybe there's a growing buzz for James online?

In other news, I'm going to own a copy of Beginner's Luck soon, ordered through my brother (who did ask me to pay for it, but it's still sweet of him). I've also gotten my virtual hands on Sex, Chips and Rock'n'Roll, Going Wrong, the James-relevant episode of As If, and one particularly bad episode of Soldier, Soldier, so I'll probably be blogging on those too. When I feel better. Which is hopefully soon. I probably will be updating normally about MegaCon next weekend.

2 comments:

kixxa said...

Hey! I was sorry to hear that it's a bout of depression that you're suffering from. I've had a bout of it myself once, long ago. The good news is that it went away and hasn't been back since.

So happy for James getting some recognition for his contributions to BSG. His awesome contributions to BSG. I felt happy all day yesterday just knowing that he was v.v.v.v.happy!

Thanks for the link to my humble blog site. I'm going to post a few more pics today on the Sex and Chips theme. I also got my hands on the Heat of the Sun (Private Lives) ep where a very young James wanders around clutching a pith helmet and showing his delightful knees in 1931's exotic Kenya. There will be pics of that too, eventually.

*laughs evilly*

Wesoly said...

Hey, D!

I really admire your courage to talk about your diagnosis. We've had a lot of great talks on Twitter, and I'm so glad that you're making strides in your recovery!

Some of you may know me from various boards: I'm "M" at Janine's JC website, "SidesteptheQuestion" at SciFi, and "wesoly" here. From these sites you might have learned that I've been diagnosed with PTSD & that I'm open to talking about it. At first I was afraid to, but part of the problem with the continued stigma surrounding mental illness is that we DON'T talk about it. We don't really have a cultural dialogue for trauma, depression, anxiety, etc., which is disconcerting considering the number of people in this world who have suffered some emotional trauma from war, oppression, natural disasters, abuse, or need support for depression and anxiety and find themselves somewhat "blacklisted" socially.

While I certainly wouldn't wish the circumstances that caused my PTSD on anyone, I have to admit that those events really shaped the person that I became--and I like myself, goddamn it! :) So why should I feel shame over my condition? Would I feel shame if I was diagnosed with diabetes?

So keep up the good work, D! It's not easy what you're doing, but you sound great!

And if any of you are concerned about your own mental health and are afraid to talk to a doctor about it, please let me offer you some gentle encouragement and support. My experience in therapy was very, very positive, and I only regret not having gone sooner. I didn't because I was afraid of the stigma, and that fear kept me from being well for years.

Also, remember that it's a personal decision to share experiences about one's own mental health. If you're comfortable doing so, great! If you're not, then that's nothing to be ashamed of either. You don't lack courage or other such nonsense.

:)

Best,
M