So January.
I haven’t railed about how much I hate the month of January yet, but just so you know, I totally hate the month of January. If the calendar were up for a kick ball game, I would grudgingly pick January last (after trying to pick the made up month of Hexember and then being called a cheater by the opposing team) and it would undoubtedly have self-esteem issues for many Gregorian years to come.
I had a different plan this month, in so much that it wasn’t a plan but a tentative Hands Over Eyes I Am Invisible kind of thing in which maybe if I didn’t think about how much I hate January, then maybe it wouldn’t suck as badly. Except of course it sucks. Because it’s January. My God, that’s its job, the sucking!
I think I have seasonal affective disorder, or whatever that thing is where you’re not getting enough light. I don’t know. I saw an episode of Northern Exposure about it (Mmmm’ Chris in the fucking Morning) and they had light visors or something and it made them all super Alaskans. I would sort of like a visor, but maybe only if it had Hello Kitty on it.
Yesterday at work, Esteban called me to talk about something (probably his joy that he can eat without throwing up or having massive bowel distress’ go Esteban!) and was asking me what we wanted to do for dinner and I just couldn’t think about it, the stress of the decision making was leaving me stymied. I was trying to put together my grad school applications and the admin at one school is claiming that he doesn’t have my GRE scores and fuck me, I hope he does because the GRE place purged them last year and the only way that I can get official scores is to take that fucking test again. And finally, after listening to me quarter-heartedly say, ‘I don’t know’ three times in helplessness, he said ‘Wow, you really are not happy today.’ It wasn’t so much an accusation rather than a realization that things are not as they should be. I don’t know that I realized it myself and boom, there it was. I replied ‘No’ no, I’m not.’
He has tried to suggest that I do something fun, something that would make me happy, mentioning the postponed trips to Minneapolis and Chicago, or suggesting that I have one of my crazy travel weekends, but the very idea of planning something like that stresses me out to no end. It’s just not relaxing or fun right now, and as much as I would like to wander the giant monument to consumerism in either of those locations, I can truthfully and honestly say that I do not feel up to a big shopping trip. I just want to sit in my yoga pants and wear warm socks and drink tea and wait until the sun stops popping in for a few minutes of face time and starts showing up for real.
So yeah, the ennui is back.
I’m excited for many things coming up and I know that it will go away once I am no longer living in the sensory deprivation tank of January, when it is dark when I leave for work and it is dark when I leave the building. I know that this is not some kind of Capital D depression and rather just proof that I am a product of my environment.
In effort to cheer me up, Esteban sent me a bouquet of tulips and then took me out to the new seafood place that just opened and I got to have incredibly fresh oysters as an appetizer, and also a lobster roll with asiago mashed potatoes. We had a discussion about how it doesn’t make sense that I love oysters as much as I do, especially since they are just grey slimy puddles of goo. They should offend my quasi-vegetarian leanings far more than say, ground beef, which I can’t eat for a month after I’ve thought about it too much. But a whole damned raw oyster? My mouth starts watering–where’s the Tabasco? Fresh oysters that are soft and slippery and taste vaguely of reefs and waves and sea spray’ that is the stuff of dreams, my friend. And normally, it would be all kinds of wrong to expect incredible oysters in Green Bay, Wisconsin in the dead of winter, but damn’ they were better than the oysters I had in New Orleans. And this place is open for lunch. Oysters on the half shell every damned day.
By the way, the lobster roll was not so much. I’ve always wanted to try one, but apparently never connected that it is covered in mayonnaise, which I despise. Ah well, I could not get grumpy about it after the delectable oysters.
So there it is. Tulips and oysters on the half shell and I might just refrain from sticking my head in the oven. Take that, light visor!
