Winter Woefulland

Image via Wikipedia

For those curious as to my complete blogging absence, I've actually written two new ones this month that I chose not to publish. Unfortunately both entries were contradictory to my normal chipper upbeat humor, and took turns into dark parts of my mind where no one should venture. I fear the descent into these caves myself as the walls are steep, covered in thorns and a thick mucus, making escape all too difficult. I lost my keys in there once and rather than going in after them I had all my locks changed.

Perhaps I'm one of those holiday goers with an inverse reaction to cheer but I suspect it's actually a response to this thing called winter. I am unused to both extended cold temperatures and precipitous events other than rain and hail, but I didn't expect to have this kind of mental meltdown, if you will. Snow meanwhile has threatened to swallow our home.

According to Wikipedia there is an actual reported condition called winter depression or seasonal affective disorder (SAD). They define this as "a mood disorder in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year experience depressive symptoms in the winter..." 'Normal mental health' may be a stretch but I can see differences in my overall demeanor and I'm having trouble concentrating for any length of time. I can only hope my friends and relatives take my SADness into account when reading my Christmas cards this year. Many of them are just signed "What's the point?" or are stuffed with random obituary clippings. Most intended recipients will be saved from the black Hallmark oddities however because my only attempts at mailing them were by feeding the envelopes into the garbage disposal or neighbors' car exhausts.

Vanessa fears that winter in this large house will get the best of me and she's happy we don't own a croquet set or axe. We were told that to get through the winter we have to enjoy it, finding outdoor activities in which to participate. My dog sled team is coming along nicely but I'm getting annoyed with the amount of "lost dog" posters cluttering up the neighborhood telephone poles. It's just tacky.

I'm torn on who should lead the pack at this point, the three legged Great Dane or the chihuahua with the big heart. Chi-Chi keeps getting trampled up front but I know she's strong enough. After all, she bit that big dog's leg clean off!

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Future Me

Is there maybe a two and under class I could join? Image via Wikimedia.

Procrastination is an ongoing problem I've been meaning to deal with for awhile now, but it's hard to be active when they keep making couches so comfortable.

Each morning I wake up with a list of things I want to accomplish that day and time has yet to become my enemy. Truthfully, I usually just wake up with a song playing in my head and I spend 20 minutes trying to simultaneously get rid of it, remember the complete lyrics, and figure out when and where I last heard the tune. On my way to work though I'm compiling my to dos. After my arrival:

Morning coffee. Emails. News. Colleague chats.

While at lunch I'm thinking of how I'm going to "really go at it when I get back to the office."

Full. Sleepy. Distractions. Funny emails. Time Passes.

Before leaving for the day I'm setting aside my work list for my home list, and as I go to sleep I think about what a failure I was that day and how tomorrow seems so bright and boundless. Long ago I learned to write "make a list of things to do" as the first entry on my list of things to do. This way I could immediately mark something off. When overtly desperate for a sense of achievement I would also add things like "take shower" and "eat."

Whether or not you create a mental or physical checklist of desired or necessary personal tasks, most of us are all too often in the habit of hyping up our future selves as gung-ho, workaholic, athletic, dedicated, and generous superfolk. In our optimistic visions of our idealistic doppelgangers we can do everything. We exercise, talk to our neighbors, make our own bread, volunteer at the local shelter, go to the library, build birdhouses, and watch PBS sober.

In the future I get up at 7AM and jog two to three miles, eat a big breakfast while watching the morning news and catching up on personal correspondence. (Sometimes I even write letters using old pen and ink on aged parchment for effect. Future me is classy.) My work day is productive and everyone is impressed with how much I can get done in a day and how my results are always so superior to any other employee, past or present, and of course future. When I come home I read two chapters of two books, one for pleasure and one for education, and I complete a lesson of Rosetta Stone with the end goal of mastering at least four languages. (Future me is a world traveler who stays with small village families, not fancy tourist hotels.) Every one of these activities is enhanced by intermittent pipe smoking while formulating a conclusion about, new idea from, or opinion over the information I've recently absorbed. Stir in some reflection, a chuckle about something funny I said earlier, and a snifter full of brandy and my evening is set. On the weekends I work on my novel and every second Wednesday I dabble in oil paints.

We all have a future version of ourselves and optimism is good in small doses. I do believe people can change and a big part of life is striving to be a better version of yourself. Just make sure there is a plane of reality where your current self and future self can meet. It is also advisable that you don't sign up for advanced Taekwondo if going upstairs significantly alters your breathing. Future you is strong and agile. You are still fat and slow.

Texans in Canada, Part 3

Golf. Also for white old fatties. Image via Wikipedia

The sports you play and, for the rest of us, the sports you watch, define your character as much as anything else. For awhile now I've acknowledged that the world outside of the U.S. is mostly obsessed with football. The other football, which Americans call soccer. We call it soccer because in America we like to make fun of foreigners and display our own ignorance in the least moves possible. Giving a different name to the only sport that has the perfect literal descriptive name and is beloved by Latin Americans everywhere is the two for one deal of the century.

What I never realized is when those other countries obsess with one sport, they offer so little in the other ones. Canada's obsession is of course hockey, and as a result most provinces fail to maintain a decent baseball or football team of their own. I'm not sure they've discovered basketball yet.

American television and everyday life is inundated with a variety of sports, so there is always a game on of some kind. (Sports Bar is easily agreed upon as the best combination of words in the English language.) In Texas however, we understand the single sport obsession and it is football that we worship. Other sports are just something for the kids to do until they're old enough to play football, or maybe between football practice, or when you're not throwing the football around. Basically if you're playing baseball or basketball it's because you didn't make the football team or you're trying to stay in shape for the next football game.

...Football.

Canada does have the CFL which is followed by all of dozens of fans. The Canadian Football League apparently is a little different from the one I know, adding ten extra yards to the field and retracting one down. I think they might also use a live chicken as the football during the second half but no one has made it that far through a game yet, so it's not a widely known fact.

There is also something called curling here, where you throw smooth stones across the ice and use brooms to sweep away ice gremlins that try to keep the stone out of the target area. I guess it's kind of like shuffleboard but I just can't imagine this sport being invented while sober. They throw rocks at the ice on which they're standing. I smell alcohol and failure, two very old friends. I will likely be joining a league as soon as possible.

Finally, I've yet to see it with my own eyes, but they've gone and screwed up bowling. Bowling! The ball is much smaller and there are only five pins. I'm not sure but I think this is some passive aggressive attempt by Canada to insult America. I think we've gone to war with countries for less. Pretty clever though Canada. If you want to offend balding overweight American men, the bulk of our governing class, go after the only sport in which they can excel.