Sometimes I have to write a post to clean off my desk.

With my new plan to write about books closer to when I actually read them, I managed not to post an end-of-summer book post.  This is because I didn’t finish any more books over the summer.  Final tally was 21 books.

On to fall.  I have been meaning to read more of W.B. Yeats for a long time now.  I finally got around to it via The Major Works.  The poetry fed my soul with its language.  I found the plays interesting.  The stuff about the two intersecting cones and the gyration of the universe and all the fascist leanings I can live happily without.  I studied some early Irish literature in school and I found what he did with his tradition fascinating, although ultimately I find myself puzzled that he didn’t bother to learn to read and write the language itself.

Because I am silly, after 500-odd pages of Yeats, I tackled Steven Erikson’s Fall of Light, the second in his prequel trilogy to the Malazon books.  I like his way with language and I am really enjoying the back story of Anomander Rake, among others.  Some year I’m just going to have to decide that I’m reading the whole thing from the beginning again, but not yet.  I found the book at Half Price Books and so figured that the next one might also be out, but it turns out that most readers were not as into this one as I was and Erikson got discouraged and is working on some other projects before coming back to write the third book.  I’ll attempt to be patient, which won’t be that hard, given that my to-read shelf is entirely out of control.

Norton Juster is brilliant.  Alberic the Wise and Other Journeys is not a long book, but it’s a beautiful one.  The four short stories speak to the essentials of living.  In theory, the book is for kids, but it is the kind of kid book that adults (other than me) enjoy.  Highly recommended as a gift for pretty much anyone.

The books that came with my little free library have been, in general, not books I would have chosen myself.  Border Crossing by Jessica Lee Anderson definitely falls into that category.  It’s a YA novel about a mixed race kid with paranoid schizophrenia.  It’s not quite as grim as that sounds, but almost.  The writing sings at times, but man, depressing, despite the not-horrible ending.  Kudos to the writer for not punting on the end—there is no big win there, but a small victory with a tinge of possible hope.

That’s it so far for fall:  four books and counting.

Wish I Believed The Sign

Perhaps I write too much about the Depression Monster.  Perhaps not.  I do it because I know I’m not the only one who has one.  I do it because I’m trying to be honest.  I do it because I want people who don’t have one to understand that it is possible to be pretty functional in the world and still carry a monster around.  Sometimes I do it because I am tired of carrying it by myself.

Of course, I second-guess the process.  Yesterday I saw a link to an article about how depressed people use language differently.  It’s how I write, too, although my passing-as-a-not-crazy-person editor often changes things before I let the words out into the world.

Coping sometimes feels like a constant effort to lie to myself long enough to get to the next moment and the next after that.  Sometimes I do it without even knowing.  When it was August, my least favorite month, I kept telling myself that it was just August tradition, that it would get better in September.  I was wrong.

The Depression Monster is stealing my sleep.  When it can’t actually prevent me from sleeping, it gives me nightmares.  I’m not talking about my run-of-the-mill anxiety dreams about parking lots and tests, but full-on car crashes, explosions, shootings, rapes, and murders.  Then I’m tired, so I struggle to choose foods that are good for me.  I debate the pros and cons of exercise; exercise often helps, but also makes me more tired and sometimes it feels like calculus in involved.  Everything goes slower, which I find frustrating.  When I am frustrated, I get crabby, which makes for fraught conversations with the people who love me.  And, of course, I am accomplishing less than usual, so I get to feel like I’m failing even more than usual.  It’s not a pretty picture.

I’m fighting that bastard.  Really, I am.  I’m breathing, aren’t I?  I’m showered.  I made my bed.  I went for a walk (Cricket gets the credit for that one, actually, because she doesn’t give me much of a choice) so minimum exercise has happened and it was outside.  I’m doing chores.  I’m showing up to work.  I’m both making a quilt and telling the monster that it is all right that there is quilt mess all over the table because I’m making something beautiful.

I don’t think I need suggestions.  I mean, I’ve been doing this for a long time now.  I’ve read all the lists and I do the things, even down to drinking the damn water (I’ve said many times that my personal indicator that the Almighty They don’t have a clue is when a list includes “drink plenty of water.”  It means that they’re down to suggesting things that won’t hurt, but probably aren’t going to solve anything by themselves.).  I might need a hug or two or ten.  And if you see the Depression Monster wandering around, kill that thing dead.