Alternatively, direct links skirt the privacy filters.

Yeah - I thought (briefly) about this aspect of a direct link. However, the photo in question was donated by the original poster to be the "public face" of a public group - anyone can join, there is no "process" for joining. Seemed innocuous enough. (I mean, I don't even know who the original poster is; I'm presuming it's the actual group founder, but since we're not Facebook-friends, I can't see the photos he/she stores in his/her albums...)

What Teppy said. Taking an AD is like taking insulin--it's not a matter of willpower, it's a matter of chemistry.

Yes, exactly. And for some of us, going on an AD was a few days of "well, maybe this will help", immediately followed by "WOW, I feel better about life in general! Thank goodness!"

Yeah, I know. I'm like one step away from being Howard Hughes.

My daily pills are: AD, B-complex, fish oil capsules, Vit. D, iron, potassium, Rhodialia (herbal complex, helps with stress), and DMAE (to help with brain function). At night, it's calcium/magnesium, 5-htp (supposed to help with sleep issues), maybe melatonin, and maybe Ambien or Xanax. I am totally ready to become a wealthy eccentric. Sign me up.

I am totally ready to become a wealthy eccentric.

I'm a non-wealthy eccentric already.

I have no health insurance, or I'm sure this would include more mind-altering substances to try to coerce more rationality and order into my life: Multivitamin, flaxseed oil, Vitamin E in liquid form, and my PhD Botanist/Homeopath/Druid friend is slowly testing various sleep-aid decoctions on me. Already, we know that nutmeg is too much of a sedative, not enough of a relaxant. And so we go 'round the whole collection. Whee.

because I want to be either Dr. Orpheus

And do you occasionally just start talking in Massively Overdramatic Voice for no reason?

I have no health insurance

Well, that's the thing. Steph and Jilli and others, were you prescribed all these vitamins and supplements so that they're covered? Now I feel like I should be taking lots of pills.

And do you occasionally just start talking in Massively Overdramatic Voice for no reason?

Oh honey. You have NO IDEA.

I'm a non-wealthy eccentric already.

Yeah, all those years of cultivating the eccentricity, and it turned out to be the wealthy part that was hard. Le sigh.

Oh my God, I love my brother so much. He just left for a trip to Ireland. I e-mailed him yesterday to tell him to have fun and "bring me back a redhead with an adorable accent."

He responded from an Internet cafe:

i promise to get you a redhead who wont be written out of your life randomly when they decide to leave her in an alternate future for no reason

David is such a Venture Brothers fan (and such a Monarch/Doctor Girlfriend shipper), it's going to kill him to catch up later and not participate in this in real time.

My own, lame observations: The Monarch marriage is indeed one of the best in all of television history; Ben Edlund frightens me (and, hell, I say that without having yet seen a single one of his Supernatural episodes); I wish my own dad was like Doctor Orpheus, all Massively Overdramatic and protective and in touch with the mysteries of the universe and leaving me booming voicemail messages that call me Pumpkin and remind me that there's frittata in the fridge if I get hungry; and those boys are much too good for Doctor Venture, especially Dean.

Oh honey. You have NO IDEA.

JILLI! BRING ME THAT CUTE BOY!

(see? It happens all the time. She just slaps my hand and says, "He's straight, boss." Which is true more than 98% of the time.)