Never Enuff SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER
Dec. 11th, 2013 08:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraNine hours of light. Sun rises at 7:12am and sets at 4:25pm.
Doesn't help that I spend most of those hours in the world's ugliest office. By the time I leave to go home, it's pitch black.
Exercise has always been what's saved me in the past when full spectrum sunlight is scarce. But I don't have much interest in exercising in the dark.
I suppose I could join a gym. But I hate gyms.
All I really want to do is sleep and veg. And star in a remake of Old Yeller because at any time of the night or day this time of year, it only takes me about five seconds to burst into tears. (The futility of life. The frustrating interface of iTunes 11. The poor little doggies and kitties without homes. Etcetera.)
Honestly, I don't see how people who live in the northern-most reaches of Scandinavia and Japan where winter sun may shine for as little as five hours a day manage to cope. Presumably, they eat a lot of fish, high in Vitamin D, DHA and other omega fatty acids. I'm trying to see this in terms of the extremely white skin of the homogeneous Scandinavians – is it some kind of genetic mutation selected for because white skin absorbs what little sunlight there is more efficiently? Perhaps all the dark-skinned Vikings threw themselves into the fjords during basic Rape and Plunder training. But surely melatonin is what allows people to harvest available sunlight most efficiently for Vitamin D production. Melatonin is what they prescribe for people suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, after all.
It seems to be worse this year than how I remember it being in the past.
Framing it as a test of willpower – You vill finish baking Christmas cookies to send to ze troops back home! -- doesn't seem to be working at all.
###
At least I've managed to frame the opening scenes of my fictional foray into Huguette Clark-land. Ybel and Christopher work at the Buttercup Bakery together. She's a waitress; he's a line cook. They smoke cigarettes together, grow friendly, start doing psychedelic drugs together and eventually Ybel invites him back to the seedy North Oakland apartment to play with her toys. (Shades of Roberta.) She has managed to rescue her old dollhouse from the ruins of her childhood, and they act out a scene where a doll leaps from the dollhouse parapets just before Christopher jumps out her window. Thus the incidental action supports the basic theme of the novel.
Interesting factoids about the Buttercup Bakery:
• Suze Orman worked as a waitress there for many years when her finances were just as messy as yours and mine, before she became a famous Money Guru.
• I worked there as a waitress too. Very briefly. If I was introduced to Suze Orman, I don't remember her.
• I generally parked my car in the Bank of America parking lot across the street from the Buttercup. The parking lot abutted a building that had once been owned by Marybeth's grandfather, the one who founded the Plumbing Dynasty. Susan's brother Steve lived in that building when I was first going out with him. Steve is one of the regrets with which I line my pillow.
One night, very late, I was leaving the Buttercup, my purse slung over my shoulder by a long strap, when a kid materialized from the parking lot shadows and tried to snatch it. I was studying Tai Kwan Do in those days. I landed a roundhouse kick to the kid's face and heard a crunch as I broke his nose.
The kid fell in a dazed heap.
"Are you all right?" I asked the kid, and he began to cry.
For a minute I thought about calling an ambulance. Or possibly auditioning for a remake of Old Yeller.
Then I thought better of it, got in my car and drove off.
Doesn't help that I spend most of those hours in the world's ugliest office. By the time I leave to go home, it's pitch black.
Exercise has always been what's saved me in the past when full spectrum sunlight is scarce. But I don't have much interest in exercising in the dark.
I suppose I could join a gym. But I hate gyms.
All I really want to do is sleep and veg. And star in a remake of Old Yeller because at any time of the night or day this time of year, it only takes me about five seconds to burst into tears. (The futility of life. The frustrating interface of iTunes 11. The poor little doggies and kitties without homes. Etcetera.)
Honestly, I don't see how people who live in the northern-most reaches of Scandinavia and Japan where winter sun may shine for as little as five hours a day manage to cope. Presumably, they eat a lot of fish, high in Vitamin D, DHA and other omega fatty acids. I'm trying to see this in terms of the extremely white skin of the homogeneous Scandinavians – is it some kind of genetic mutation selected for because white skin absorbs what little sunlight there is more efficiently? Perhaps all the dark-skinned Vikings threw themselves into the fjords during basic Rape and Plunder training. But surely melatonin is what allows people to harvest available sunlight most efficiently for Vitamin D production. Melatonin is what they prescribe for people suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, after all.
It seems to be worse this year than how I remember it being in the past.
Framing it as a test of willpower – You vill finish baking Christmas cookies to send to ze troops back home! -- doesn't seem to be working at all.
At least I've managed to frame the opening scenes of my fictional foray into Huguette Clark-land. Ybel and Christopher work at the Buttercup Bakery together. She's a waitress; he's a line cook. They smoke cigarettes together, grow friendly, start doing psychedelic drugs together and eventually Ybel invites him back to the seedy North Oakland apartment to play with her toys. (Shades of Roberta.) She has managed to rescue her old dollhouse from the ruins of her childhood, and they act out a scene where a doll leaps from the dollhouse parapets just before Christopher jumps out her window. Thus the incidental action supports the basic theme of the novel.
Interesting factoids about the Buttercup Bakery:
• Suze Orman worked as a waitress there for many years when her finances were just as messy as yours and mine, before she became a famous Money Guru.
• I worked there as a waitress too. Very briefly. If I was introduced to Suze Orman, I don't remember her.
• I generally parked my car in the Bank of America parking lot across the street from the Buttercup. The parking lot abutted a building that had once been owned by Marybeth's grandfather, the one who founded the Plumbing Dynasty. Susan's brother Steve lived in that building when I was first going out with him. Steve is one of the regrets with which I line my pillow.
One night, very late, I was leaving the Buttercup, my purse slung over my shoulder by a long strap, when a kid materialized from the parking lot shadows and tried to snatch it. I was studying Tai Kwan Do in those days. I landed a roundhouse kick to the kid's face and heard a crunch as I broke his nose.
The kid fell in a dazed heap.
"Are you all right?" I asked the kid, and he began to cry.
For a minute I thought about calling an ambulance. Or possibly auditioning for a remake of Old Yeller.
Then I thought better of it, got in my car and drove off.
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no subject
Date: 2013-12-11 03:09 pm (UTC)I bought a CREE brand TW(true light) series LED bulb at Home Depot, and put it where I often sit at night.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-11 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-11 08:59 pm (UTC)Whoa! That last story. The key word is so obvious: kid.
I've never studied anything like Tai Kwan Do, but I've learned that I am very quick to react physically to invasions of space. It's not great, but it's probably much better than the opposite.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-14 09:13 am (UTC)I often wonder how people in Scandinavia deal with their winters. They don't exactly have a reputation for being particularly grumpy, quite the contrary.. They usually come out on top in surveys measuring "individual happiness" and quality of life. My theory is not that it's biological (you have a more logical, scientific approach to this question I guess!) but that it's something about their societies that makes it tolerable for them. Germans are not just grumpy because of our weather (it's not just the grey winters - sometimes we don't have a spring at all, and often summers are extremely short so there are years where it's just dreariness all year round), we're also grumpy because we live in a highly regulated, conformist, and rather "cold" society. I've only ever visited one northern country (Scotland) and the people there are a LOT warmer than Germans (Germans are only warm with their loved ones) which just makes for a totally different atmosphere. And of course the spectacular scenery and the closeness to the sea. I really believe the ocean is a big cure. Scandinavia has both, closeness to the ocean and spectacular scenery. And societies that are oriented towards the happiness and well-being of its people.
I am an anglophile but I always hear "oh you'd never be happy living in England, it rains all the time!" but first of all, I don't think it rains more in England than it does in Germany, and second, England has a completely different feel to it than Germany. Everything is - prettier. English pensioners spend their evenings playing Bingo, German pensioners spend theirs staring out their windows. People are warm and friendly to each other, here, everyone hates everyone else unless you're in their inner circle.
So I think Germany just may be the worst country to live in if you have SAD....lol. Grey weather, sometimes 12 months a year, cold people, no ocean for most of us, and a nice enough but certainly not spectacular scenery.
Actually the people in the northern part of Germany who ARE close to the ocean, are much, much more easy-going, friendly and laugh more than the landlocked people down south. Seems to prove my theory about the powers of the ocean. The south gets more hours of sunshine, but yet....