I haven’t been posting much here lately. It’s basically for the same reasons I haven’t posted much the last couple of years: I haven’t been feeling very well. Not like a passing physical illness, diarrhea or a fever or a cold, not like the head/throat/stomach/body-illness been going around and around (probably just a flu) that I’m pretty sure I got and have been pretty much ignoring. No, an emotional and mental sort of not feeling well that many professionals like to refer to as depression. Some, especially those young women at work who ask me hungrily every day for new and difficult vocabulary words (I’m teaching English as a second language to people whose first language is English), might describe me as lugubrious — though as to why I might be feeling this way, none of them would have a clue.
For reference regarding how bad I’ve been feeling, let me say first that I don’t take as good care of myself and my hygiene when I’m not feeling well as I normally would, which when considering that I don’t normally go above-and-beyond in these areas, leads to what I will say next, by way of explaining how bad I’ve been:
I just took a shower for the first time in 12 days, almost to the hour by coincidence, primarily because the pimples on my body were starting to show up in places that will be visible to others. Which is to say that my bacne had almost reached my hairline. Actually, it’s almost a wide, inverted cross, spreading out across my shoulders and up and down my neck in constellations of blemishes across skin that should have been washed over a week ago. Also of note is that when I showered nearly two weeks ago it was after a nearly-as-long run and that I showered twice that day; once immediately before leaving for a party and once immediately upon arriving home from the party — the first to make a good impression on a new group of acquaintances and the second to get the ice cream and nutella and oatmeal and fruit and whatever else out of my pores and out of … wherever else it had got to during the course of the evening… in a comfortable and familiar environment. Which is to say that if I were not lately making a reasonable effort to force myself into new and interesting social situations, I might be a month or so since my last shower by now.
But hey, at least I floss and brush (or polish) my teeth two or three times a week. You know, rather than once a week or once every two weeks or never. That one’s a fun one, from experience, because of how my mind has learned to interpret my behaviour: I know that the young woman I’ve been flirting with and asking out lately isn’t someone I really care about or even much look forward to getting past the silly flirting with because even though I’ve been flirting with her for weeks and have set up a second date, my oral hygiene has not improved a whit. I have found, in the past, that there is a direct yet unconscious link between suddenly having consistent, high-quality, twice-or-more-daily oral care and my desire and/or belief that I will be kissing someone I care about and/or lust actively for. Otherwise, I mostly just try to keep my breath from smelling like I’ve been eating the sun-rotted remains of things that died explosively from eating too much feces, which is a horrible thing to be coming from someone’s mouth, but something I’ve definitely smelled from more than one person’s face.
Anyway, the second clue, if poor personal hygiene wasn’t sufficient enough of a clue to illuminate how ‘not well’ I’ve been feeling, is the time of this post. I started this post when I had to be awake in only three hours in order to get to work on time, and I’ve been typing for half an hour now. I keep finding myself with a choice between going to bed & getting plenty of sleep and staying up, watching DVDs, playing video games & doing other strange things with my computers… and not choosing sleep. And then paying for it the next day. Tonight is somewhat extreme, I’ll probably take two or three fifteen minute naps (break, half of my lunch, and second break are the times this is okay), drink a couple cups of coffee, and still get a bad headache and wish I hadn’t lost 4 dozen modafinil and/or bought a car (which was the purchase that drove my bills to the point where I can’t afford modafinil at all anymore); often I’m still able to get four or five hours’ sleep.
Sigh. It’s nearly 4AM. I better let my eyes win and shut, or I’ll be slightly more sorry in the morning…