Words’ End

S.A.D. is kicking my ass this year, but this doesn’t come close to last year’s suck. Of course, I’m also not in crisis mode this winter, but there’s still a lot going on, and it’s good and bad and hard to keep up with, and I’m swimming more than sinking, and that feels good.

Last winter was easily the worst time I’ve yet spent on this planet, but it taught me a lot about my own strengths, and these days I’m remembering the lessons and putting them into practice in completely different contexts. That also feels good.

Today I was… moody; let’s say, it wasn’t full-blown SAD crashing down on me like a storm cloud, there were just things that kept throwing me off-balance. I made it mostly a good day, but couldn’t stop the wild swinging until I started cooking. Only a few minutes into it I felt this weight that I hadn’t even known was there fall away. Happy conclusion, or re-learning, or what have you: cooking is not something I indulge myself in and carve out time for here and there. It’s nothing short of medicine. Remarkable, really.

Yesterday I woke up grumpy. I had my reasons, but mostly it boils down to, I’ve been getting abysmal amounts of sleep this week – five to six hours a night. No good reason for it.

Moaned about, got out of bed like an hour late, went to work and stayed there for ten hours, in part because the first half of the day I was mostly useless. (Enh. It happens. It’s SAD season, and I do what I can, and somehow work-blogging after hours feels different, calmer, with nobody around.) And near the end of the business day I found out I’d made some people unhappy, and had to deal with that, and it wasn’t a big deal—in fact, the conversation with a third party was helpful and reassuring—but it’s never a good feeling to know you’ve screwed up. On the other hand, learning experience, and a mild one as such things go.

So by the time I left work at 8pm I was tired. And… not exactly grumpy, just feeling off. But then.

Then I came home, and there was a circus band rehearsing in my living room. Went upstairs, and housemate Coraline was hanging out in the kitchen with her friend Carolyn. I threw my stuff down and—having had no dinner—declared I needed scotch, and to make a casserole. Why? I dunno. I guess I’d had a fantastic casserole at Molly’s the day before, and I’ve had random foodstuffs hanging around the cupboards for forever, AND I’d never made casserole before.

Yeah, really.

So we broke out the bottle of 12-year-old scotch that I’d taken to Burning Man and we’d never gotten around to opening (there was other alcohol around, but it’s not tempting to drink a lot of dehydrating liquid in that climate). And I made a casserole of frozen artichoke hearts, frozen peas, frozen corn, frozen mixed mushrooms (thank you, bulk food ordering, I have a mushroom invasion in my freezer), chick peas, canned tuna, multi-colored potatoes, cream and two kinds of cheese. And I’m probably forgetting other stuff.

All the while, people around me chatted and sipped tasty alcohol and giggled a lot. And later I ate and felt more human, and around 10:45pm Coraline (ok, Johanna) and Eric and I went out against all better judgment, because spectacularly under-advertised Midnight Madness was going on in Davis Square. We gawked at antique bobbles and boutique-y clothes, but mostly we dropped by Dave’s Fresh Pasta, sampled tasty foods, and brought home mozzarella made that evening by a neighbor of theirs (or something).

Oh. my. gods. Homemade mozzarella with crushed pink peppercorns and a drizzle of truffled olive oil. Yeah, I’d say that, combined with hanging out with my awesome housemates, was a win even though it meant that once again I got too little sleep.

Boy, if that was a bad day, bring them on, you know? Speaking of days, I should probly go face mine. The sun’s rising, a warm shower awaits, and today I get to take tasty casserole to work for lunch. Oh, and tonight I get to see both of my favorite small girls (can’t call them toddlers anymore, as they’re skipping and giggling on either side of three years old), and go to the Museum of Science with one of them and her dad. WOE. Woe is me in this sad season.

Today I’m thankful for good people in my life, and for all the weird bipolar days that, in the end, let me know that things are going to be ok.

…at 6:30am on a Saturday morning. To make home fries, some with bacon grease, some without, then get picked up in a big truck and go move some boxes from south of here to west of here. All of this before brunch, a couple of hours after which I’ll be hanging with a toddler for a while, and then with another one of my dearest.

Life doesn’t suck! Though maybe a little more sleep would be good.

Rowan berries!

And the tree is a rowan. Beautiful. Photo courtesy of Jill in Norway.

News in the past day or so: out-of-state couples will soon be able to marry in MA!!, as a 1913 state law originally aimed at interracial couples is repealed.

AND.

Jetpack.

I’d say we’re taking off, as a society.

Haven’t been updating, or not here anyway. Dealing with taxes and other emotionally loaded issues, as well as being super busy at work, participating in my village and preparing for Burning Man and its attendant road trip, have all kept me running around. You can see some of my life on Flickr. I suspect this – both the relative dearth of posting on Words’ End and the snippets viewable on Flickr – is going to continue for a while.

Today I went out on my bike for the first time in well over a year. Halleluiah for bike paths! I got past Arlington Center and out towards a football field – no idea how far that is from home, probably no more than four miles or so. Were it not getting dark fast (and had I had any water or food with me), I might’ve kept going – and will, soon, because oh gods that felt good.

Riding through swarms of insects out by Spy Pond in the dusk, though, maybe not so good. On the bright side, glasses double as mini eye shields!

On the way back, the ripening moon was peeking through the tree canopy straight ahead of and above me, along the path. And on ’til moonrise.

The lovely, warm evening ride gave me hope for dealing with the tax man tomorrow. Word to the wise: don’t be late filing your taxes. The penalties, they hurt.

At least one more ride this week. Next week I’d like to bike out to work.

4:42pm: Molly and I leave a BU parking lot and head out to get her daughter Natalie from daycare, near their house. Normally this is a 25-30-minute drive.

5:20pm: traffic crawling the entire way there, both on Storrow Drive and on I-93. The sky’s been dark on and off for several hours, and thunderstorms were in the forecast, and at this point the clouds are black and boiling. We take opportunities to [photo|video]graph them off the freeway.

5:28pm: we’re on the off-ramp. The skies open up. Truly impressive sheets of water come down.

5:30pm: we’re underneath the big freeway overpass. Whoa, man: we’re at least fifty feet away from the nearest spot under the open sky, and we’re still getting wet from all the rain that’s being blown our way by the wind.

5:35pm: we’re at the daycare. Parked practically right in front of the front doors, and armed with Molly’s hyooge rainbow-colored umbrellas, we still get soaking wet up to our waists in the twenty feet between the car and the building’s front porch.

5:37pm: we open the doors to go outside and the poor child shrieks, terrified of the racket made by the rain and the wind. She’s still wailing when Molly puts her in the car; we make big excited noises about omigods it’s raining SO HARD and isn’t it COOL and we’re all WET and COLD and we should really get home and put on some dry clothing and maybe have tea! And isn’t this fun! Natalie, being a smart human, looks at us sceptically, but we actually mostly mean it. The flooding rain is ridiculous and exhilarating in its suddenness.

5:45pm: we’re at their place. Safely inside, we change into dry clothing – I get to wear her dad’s warm, awesome flannel-lined jeans. Her dad juggles and does other circusy stuff. This is relevant later. There is dinner full of noshing, and leftover beers from a birthday party last weekend. They are cool, and have a warming effect.

7:15pm: Natalie wants me to do bedtime with her. I read her two books, we giggle a lot, I turn out the light, we cuddle and giggle some more, she gets goodnight kisses from me and from mommy, relocates to her big-girl bed, and quietly sings herself to sleep. Bedtime is pretty fun these days, apparently.

8pm: Molly goes off to play Rock Band, as an entire Pixies album (their first?) was released for the game today. That’s why I’m monitor-sitting, you see.

9pm: I’m totally asleep on the couch, with the monitor.

10:15pm: Molly sheepishly wants to know if I’m willing to stay a little longer. I have no idea what time it is, so clearly, the answer is yes. I mumble as much into the phone.

11:25pm: she returns, grinning from ear to ear, the evening a total win. “B and C are waiting outside and can give you a ride, if you like!” Of course I like. B and C are also circus people – aerialist and musician, respectively.

11:30pm: David, whose clothing I’m wearing, returns from his evening’s outing and happily announces that there are circus freaks outside his house! I make a wide-eyed face and ominously declare that they’re waiting for me. Good-byes, a ride, conversation about accordions and a bass and how cool the Pixies album was.

11:45pm: I get home, and receive an offer of whipped parsnips with butter and cream. I swoon, but am not hungry, so this is a useful mental note for later.

11:50pm: I get an irresistible urge to juggle. And do. Must be channeling all them circus freaks.

00:21am: I take echinacea and goldenseal, just in case, to ward off what I think might be a cold. Or maybe it’s just allergies. Or maybe I should be asleep again. Or maybe I should’ve had tea instead of beer.

In conclusion: I love my friends.

Satisfying:

-writing my very first AppleScript, and having it be reasonably clever (for a first script, yo) and work.

-lunch of spicy Thai beef salad and a gingery tofu-veggie dish with Molly. There’s just nothing bad about that.

-decent talk with my therapist earlier this evening.

-lovely time with Colleen, whom I’ve known for ten years this year, and gods, knowing her is one of the best things that ever happened to me. And with her kid Sylvana, a giggly, smart, developmentally fascinating toddler.

-fiddleheads, slices of cheese, and riesling for dinner. As a “picnic” on the kitchen floor. Complete with real wine glasses.

-a garden full of roses that have a scent, around the corner and down the block from my house.

-my house, with its murals and animals and human animals and quiet when I want it.

-summer, even despite the heat wave.

-lying around naked on a weekend morning, underneath a ceiling fan, grinning ear to ear because you just can’t help it.

-being dependent almost entirely on public transport, and finding that to be very pleasant.

-Mac OS Leopard and the upcoming release of the 3G iPhone.

-reading more, as I ride the T to work.

-making a mental inventory of the last week or so, and of the rest of the summer, and realizing just how lucky I am.

OK, an hour ago I still had the excuse of long-overdue catching up with a friend. Now it’s just the sneezing and the achy throat keeping me up.

Significant bright sides, both from tonight and from the past weekend: conversation over ginger lemon tea and a hummus plate at Diesel right up until they closed. Coming back home and preserving lemons brought to me by erstwhile Croatian visitors. Tasting the resulting lemon-juice-and-much-salt concoction, which won’t actually be ready for 5-6 weeks, but hey, I was curious; and experiencing a unique taste sensation that is oddly compelling. Listening to Ottmar Liebert, one of my favorite guitarists, whose album “In the Arms of Love” I’ve come to associate with the calm of late evenings.

Last Friday, seeing Mischief in the Machine, incredibly satisfying not least because the musicians have been practicing in my living room for the past several months, and some of the other performers are friends and acquaintances, and oh, also because it was an excellent show.

Food shopping with two friends and a kid, and helping the two-year-old through a comparative critique of two fairly complex cheeses.

Dinner (involving sushi), dessert (involving cherries and really actually unfortunate bacon chocolate) and conversation (involving three of my favorite peeps) underneath the Templet.

Helping a friend move – not under the best of circumstances for him, but satisfying both in a physical sense and in that I was able to participate. I’ve been on a bit of a streak reacting to what I see as empty pronouncements of love and sunshiny feelings towards the world – the only meaningful way I’ve found to counteract that is to invest of myself in my world, in practical ways that benefit it (them) and therefore myself. Hey, it’s not the best of motivations, but whatever gets me up and running, no?

Speaking of up and running, weightlifting is still having a profound effect on my life. Have I mentioned that? Yeah, like, every other post. Well, it’s true. Soon, if Molly and I succeed at mutually motivating, I’ll go check out BU’s gym facilities.

Going from strenuous move to the best picnic “brunch” yet this season. Quotation marks because it lasted most of the day. Molly and Rosa really know how to make a girl happy with food.

And then quiet and important conversation with Mark, one of the aforementioned favorite people; feeding my haptic interface; and an opportunity to start organizing my life – and snail-mail – and other paperwork – that seems to have been just the push I needed to start digging myself out of the piles-of-paper-everywhere hole I seem to get into at least a couple of times a year.

On balance, things aren’t bad. Except, of course, for the things that are. But, as I’ve written for the past several months, that’s largely out of my control.

Aki is sitting guard by my side. Time to go cuddle the cat – if he deigns to assent. Here’s hoping that the echinacea and goldenseal capsules counterbalance the lack of sleep, where my immune system is concerned.

Sure way to lose my banking business: be obliquely idiosyncratic with regard to when charges post, even as pending. (It’s often out of banks’ control when a charge actually posts, and that’s ok; but there’s no reason a point of sale debit card purchase should not immediately register on my account as spoken-for funds.) Let some charges go through that you shouldn’t have let go through, charge me $93 in overdraft fees in the span of two days, then claim that this is all out of your control.

Then, take a check that bounced the first time (for which I took responsibility) and post it a second time, claiming that it’s not you, it’s that other bank, and that checks might be deposited like that 7-10 times in a row, and if I don’t have sufficient funds, that’s $31 each time. Claim that you don’t have any control over either these deposits or the overdraft fees, and not five minutes later turn to the woman at the next desk and ask her if she’s approved the charges from this morning yet. When called on the discrepancy, insist that no, the entire process is automatic, oh, except that every morning we decide which transactions go through.

Also, have an online billing representative claim that funds are withdrawn from my account on the date for which I set a bill to get paid, regardless of whether it’s an electronic transfer or a paper check. Then have the reality be patently different.

Sigh. Goodbye again, Wainwright Bank. You’re socially responsible and local and all kinds of nifty, but you don’t do the banking part well, at least not the aspects of it that matter to me. I was with you before, left in frustration, decided to give you another chance, and nothing has changed in the last several years. This time I’m breaking up with you for good, you hear?

Today has in fact been long, what with catching up with my boss, who is newly returned from vacation (good!), doing phone tech support late in the day when already tired, and updating Windows on sixteen machines, each of which has 512MB of RAM. On the other hand, evenings have been pleasant indeed. Done with the grant proposal review process and some other obligations, I suddenly have room to breathe. And cook, and plan, and make to do lists, and do many of the things on those to-do lists, and plan menus so I don’t eat out as much during the week, and put together lunches to bring to work, and spend time with friends and loved ones, and watch a movie or two, and do laundry, and clean, and read for hours.

Not that all of my outstanding obligations are dispensed with. There’s the matter of a 500-word abstract I’ve owed folks for some months now… the shorter the piece, the harder it is for me to write.