Skip to main content

Reading and so forth


I am going through one of my reading phases right now, one which is characterised by a short attention span and a need for getting things over with quickly, which translates into only wanting to read short books and short stories. I have also become bumbling and graceless in my movements, always moving too fast and bumping into things and people, dropping and breaking stuff and I am generally in a hurry without quite knowing why.

At work, my fingers fly over the keyboard but I can’t concentrate for longer than 20 minutes at a time, so the productivity is the same as when I plod along all day. I suppose I could say my sap is rising with the lengthening of the days and it's making me restless, but the fact is that I feel more like I am plunging into one of my depressions. This means I have a psychological wrestling match ahead of me. It hasn’t ever got bad enough that I have needed medication, but there is a very specific set of things I need to do to pull myself out from under the cloud. This may mean a break in the blogging, but we shall have to see if that happens or if I manage to keep up the routine of at least one post per day.

Comments

George said…
Hope you feel better soon. You might want to increase your Vitamin D to 4000 IU a day. And maybe watch A FISH CALLED WANDA. Sometimes laughter is the best medicine.
February 19, 2011 4:40 pm
Bibliophile said…
Thanks for your good wishes. I always go into a down-swing at this time of year, but I thought I had gotten it over with early when three of my relatives died within 2 weeks of each other, but clearly I am in for a double doze of the new year's blues this year.

Part of my efforts for getting back into the light is to break up one or more of my established routines. I generally try to continue to blog during these episodes, because it gives me something to focus on, but when I don't read I can't generate reviews, so the posts become fewer.

Fortunately, the weather has been positively spring-like lately and the snow and ice have all but disappeared form the streets, so I am walking to work. Fresh air and increased exercise always do me good.
February 21, 2011 1:16 pm
George said…
Several of my friends have Seasonal affective disorder at this time of year, too. You might consider checking MayoClinc.com for possible treatments.

Hope you continue to feel better!
February 21, 2011 2:54 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book 40: The Martian by Andy Weir, audiobook read by Wil Wheaton

Note : This will be a general scattershot discussion about my thoughts on the book and the movie, and not a cohesive review. When movies are based on books I am interested in reading but haven't yet read, I generally wait to read the book until I have seen the movie, but when a movie is made based on a book I have already read, I try to abstain from rereading the book until I have seen the movie. The reason is simple: I am one of those people who can be reduced to near-incoherent rage when a movie severely alters the perfectly good story line of a beloved book, changes the ending beyond recognition or adds unnecessarily to the story ( The Hobbit , anyone?) without any apparent reason. I don't mind omissions of unnecessary parts so much (I did not, for example, become enraged to find Tom Bombadil missing from The Lord of the Rings ), because one expects that - movies based on books would be TV-series long if they tried to include everything, so the material must be pared down
Post a Comment
Read more

Icelandic folk-tale: The Devil Takes a Wife

Stories of people who have made a deal with and then beaten the devil exist all over Christendom and even in literature. Here is a typical one: O nce upon a time there were a mother and daughter who lived together. They were rich and the daughter was considered a great catch and had many suitors, but she accepted no-one and it was the opinion of many that she intended to stay celebrate and serve God, being a very devout  woman. The devil didn’t like this at all and took on the form of a young man and proposed to the girl, intending to seduce her over to his side little by little. He insinuated himself into her good graces and charmed her so thoroughly that she accepted his suit and they were betrothed and eventually married. But when the time came for him to enter the marriage bed the girl was so pure and innocent that he couldn’t go near her. He excused himself by saying that he couldn’t sleep and needed a bath in order to go to sleep. A bath was prepared for him and in he went and
Post a Comment
Read more

List love: 10 recommended stories with cross-dressing characters

This trope is almost as old as literature, what with Achilles, Hercules and Athena all cross-dressing in the Greek myths, Thor and Odin disguising themselves as women in the Norse myths, and Arjuna doing the same in the Mahabaratha. In modern times it is most common in romance novels, especially historicals in which a heroine often spends part of the book disguised as a boy, the hero sometimes falling for her while thinking she is a boy. Occasionally a hero will cross-dress, using a female disguise to avoid recognition or to gain access to someplace where he would never be able to go as a man. However, the trope isn’t just found in romances, as may be seen in the list below, in which I recommend stories with a variety of cross-dressing characters. Unfortunately I was only able to dredge up from the depths of my memory two book-length stories I had read in which men cross-dress, so this is mostly a list of women dressed as men. Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb. One of the interwove
Post a Comment
Read more