What We Talk About When We Talk About Blogging

Bad week in these parts.

I'm not alone in this-you can see the suffering here or here , too. Jelisa is still hysterically funny, and Kelly still rocks my world, but around my little corner of the interwebs, we is feeling us some seasonal affective disorder. Blues. Melancholia. The Darkness Visible. The Noonday Demon.

I could talk about my baseball team-Mike Lowell, American Hero, is gone to play Deep In The Heart Of Texas, traded away for young Max Ramirez, the latest in the long line of Good Young Catchers Who Are Going To Step In Since Jason Varitek Turned Into A Piece Of Petrified Wood. A smart move-dear old Mike doesn't have the spring in his step that he used to. Then again, I hasten to add, neither do I. Plus there's Boof. The Red Sox have acquired a player named Boof. Yes, really. That's his honest to Pete name. On his driver's license and everything. Boof. I swear on Bobby Doerr's grave. Wait, he's not dead? Dom DiMaggio's grave, then. But honestly, I just don't feel passionate about it right now.

For the last two weeks, at least, I have been anhedonic like a mofo. I can't derive pleasure from anything. I was so obsessed with finishing my novel for NaNoWriMo, and I guess that pleased me. The story means a lot to me, but it has reached the repulsive insect stage for me. I've now become hyper aware of its many flaws and the weight of the amount of work needed to fix them just overwhelms me. I want the story to be shared, to be experienced by others-but sometimes I just am nauseated by it.

I don't know what's wrong, exactly-I don't know that anything's wrong, necessarily. I can't shake the feeling that my despair is rational-as Doug Stanhope points out, if the first half of a movie is lousy, you don't really have any right to expect it to improve. Things are not looking well-I just don't see hope for the future. I see more striving and sacrifice and suffering just so I don't lose any ground. I'm not looking forward to that. Sorry.

My thinking doesn't feel disordered, to me. Don't all crazy people say that? It's dark out, and cold, and bitter. I still have to do Christmas shopping, and I just don't feel anything. Not anger, just fatigue-waves and waves of fatigue, physical and mental and spiritual.

I don't get anything, and I don't fit in anywhere. I don't feel like I'm a part of things. There are so many people doing great work, and I just didn't feel like I could add anything to it. Then I posted today, and proved it.

(Apropos of nothing, I added comment verification today. I have been getting spam comments in Chinese on one particular piece, for reasons I do not grasp. So just in case someone is smuggling plans for an anti tank missile using this blog, I'm sure that will stop them.)