The negative.

[judecorp]

I am having a hard time being positive. I know, in my head, that this winter is /nothing/ like the winters I endured in Maine. I mean, heck, it wasn't uncommon in Maine to get a foot of snow one night, and then get another a night or two after, and then another a night or two after that. And there were no snow days. (However, they /did/ plow the roads.) But I'm getting the same feelings that I had there - that bleak, dismal nothingness, the want to do nothing but sleep, the tedium, the way that being cheery took so much effort. I don't want to feel this way. I try, each morning, to be as chipper as possible, but it's so difficult. Each grey, cold, inky morning - each day fighting roads that are unplowed - each trudge through snow-covered sidewalks... I need to get out of here. I need to live in a place where snow is a novelty, and two inches is an astronomical portion.

I don't mind it /as/ much when I don't have to do my day-to-days in it. I derived some pleasure out of spending yesterday in my pajamas curled up in Jen's bed, watching movies, eating chocolate chip cookies for breakfast and ice cream for lunch. (Dude. I am gaining /so/ much weight.) It really didn't get all that bad until I realized this morning that the nice parking space I shoveled for myself would be stolen by a parking vulture, and that I would have to leave my car at the grocery store. I hope they don't tow.

I hate that people here don't know how to drive in snow, but then I think: how can they? The roads aren't treated in any way, so how would one even know where to begin? Whole roads are passable through one set of ruts, and cars meet head-on in the ultimate winter chicken. Clueless people in their big, stupid SUVs force my little Nissan to go off the path so they can pass. That makes sense. The city selectively clears roads, and if there is street parking, well, tough luck. Craziness.

Work has become a chore. I realize that I miss my little forays downtown, if only to break up the day, to give a sort of half-way point, to jar the monotony. I could see a different set of people, smile at different faces, use different words - if only for a short while. Still, I think I'm more productive now. Hard to tell just yet.

I don't want to be so negative. I don't want to feel completely devastated and deflated because some idiot knocked over the snow sculpture. In sunny weather, I would find it easier to simply celebrate the fun of creation. (Yes, I will upload the pictures. But it didn't happen tonight.) I don't want to feel mopey, but I'm having a hard time preventing it. I have stone steps, and the ice is a clear sheet all the way down. I feel like that, sometimes - treacherous.

Comments

[prettyvacantone.livejournal.com]

I completely understand and concur. If you need hugs...well, additional hugs besides those of the girl....well...I always do. *muah*

[lemur68.livejournal.com]

Everything you've described here seems to be pretty much universal right now. Everyone is on edge. On a larger scale we've got a statesman of subnormal intelligence and questionable ethics who's about to accomplish the unprecedented feat of bringing our country into both a war AND an economic depression concurrently; and on a smaller, personal scale we've all got money and relationship problems, lots of people are un- or underemployed, and those of us who are lucky to even have jobs hate 'em. And the fact that we haven't seen the sun since August is just the jimmies on our turd parfait. It's enough to infect even the sunniest of dispositions, so don't put the pressure on yourself to always be "up" if it's not in you. God knows my surly ass doesn't. :)

I have stone steps, and the ice is a clear sheet all the way down. I feel like that, sometimes- treacherous.

The comic artist Evan Dorkin once described this feeling thusly--you're walking down a steep, narrow flight of stairs with no rails or walls on either side, carrying a full glass of water in each hand at arms' length, trying to neither spill a drop of the water nor fall yourself.

Uh, I know none of this probably helps in the negativity department, but maybe it helps to know it's not just you. And you know you can always count on me to be your ray of fuckin' sunshine. ;)

[oddharmonic.livejournal.com]

Would more sunlight help? My dad grew up in Mexico/SoCal and got really depressed in the winter when we lived in New England. At one point we borrowed a full-spectrum light from my grandmother and it did wonders for him. I'm thinking about finding a full-spectrum lightbulb for the torchiere I have on most of the evening in our main living area because the lack of sun here is making me feel blah.

As for ice cream, I recommend Ben and Jerry's. solcita has me all hot and bothered with her description of their new Brownie Batter flavor but lacking it around here, I splurged and bought a pint of Honey, I'm Home! which is so addictive I've eaten the entire pint in just 4 days (normally a pint takes me a few weeks).

I'm pretty sure we all love you, even when you're mopey.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

You know, I hate to admit that you're right, but you're right. It /does/ seem like everyone I know is in a funk, and it does seem to be all-purveying and universal... and I have no problem attributing that to the idiot "running" our country and all of the crap that's going on, added to one of the more harsher winters most of us have seen in a long while. There's just this great big universal downer thing going on, and I suppose it pops up in my work, too, because my clients are edgy and irritable and upset. They're cold, they're snowed in, the sidewalks aren't plowed and they can't get anywhere, they've been looking for jobs - any jobs - for months with nothing surfacing. What kind of economy is this that we can't even hire maintenance people? And even if they /do/ get a menial wage job, Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority has suspended Section 8 vouchers indefinitely due to lack of funds, and many of the other subsidized housing programs (for the mentally ill or chronically homeless) have lost or cut funding.

The situation out there is bleak right now, and my clients are frustrated beyond belief, and who gets to see that? Me, because they're shouting at me, and antsy at me, and want to know why I haven't done anything to help them.

Stop the rollercoaster. I'm sick, and I want to get off.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

When are we going to watch My So-Called Life again?

Re:

[prettyvacantone.livejournal.com]

Any time you're ready. I've got all the time in the world in the evenings.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

What about this weekend?

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I'm sure more sunlight would help, but I don't know if it would help coming from a lightbulb. I think that deep down inside, I would know it was a lightbulb and not real sun, and that would bum me out - that I would have to get fake sun.

I've never tried those flavors of Ben & Jerry's, but I like Caramel Truffle, Phish Food, and S'mores!