Melancholia

The last few days last week were not the best days.  I'm not going to dwell on them, but I should probably develop a protocol for self-care and mood improvement for when I recognize symptoms of melancholia lodging in my chest.  Points in my favor:  I did not exacerbate things by listening to Annie Lennox, Stephen Sondheim, or K. Flay.

Tuesday (10/23) night was an editing night:  I polished up some older manuscripts.  I'm beginning to think that three months in a drawer does wonders for improving my ability to spot stupid sentence constructions, missing words, and syntax errors.  And... uh, yeah... these stories had been submitted to a few markets already.  I console myself with the thought that they were the best I could make them at the time.

Wednesday (10/24) I went to my second--and last--Zumba class.  Well, OK, maybe I'll take an intro to Zumba class if they offer one.  I decided I was too busy trying to figure out what steps (and hand motions) I was supposed to be doing to get any aerobic benefit.   Also, I was getting frustrated and I figured I should go work on the elliptical instead.   (The tempo was just a little too fast, the sequence of moves was chopped up into two-measure motions and by the time I figured them out we were onto a different two-measure motion, I wasn't loving the Reggae-based Hip-hop-whatever music, and I was really wishing the instructor would call out the steps.  It's also possible the 5:45 PM class time was hitting a sugar low time.)  I guess I'll do "John-ba" at home to 80's music.

I also applied for insurance, which, while I'm grateful for the cover, is a real pain to sign up for.  There are about three websites one has to visit, and two of them feature a bunch of forms to navigate through.

Friday morning, I had raccoon eyes.  I promised myself that I'd get lots of sleep over the weekend... and promptly stayed up way too late playing a video game called "Rime" which started out as a light-hearted puzzle game where one scurries around fixing Greek-like ruins, but has gotten progressively darker, where one scales lizard like up sheer cliff walls while avoiding getting carried off by a giant raptor. 

Saturday The Family went to Eugene's first Coffin Race.  It was go-carts with a Halloween theme.  Many folks were in costume, and there were some very clever carts decorated as hospital beds, coffins, and obelisks. Then we went to a low-pressure farm site to buy pumpkins.

Sunday night was more Rime, and after swimming -- and nearly drowning -- through an underground maze, I bumped into a statue, which broke and released a wraith which sucked my essence out through my face.