iPad

Emotional and heartfelt posts are nice, I guess, but frankly, I think it's time for a shallow technology post.

You probably already heard about Apple's iPad. And you've probably already heard at least a couple of jokes involving its name and menstruation. And I wouldn't be surprised if you've already heard my thoughts about this newfangled tablet thing. I mean, you haven't heard them from me, but you've probably heard them before is what I mean.

My thoughts: it looks cool, like all things Apple. I want to play with it. But I don't know if I would buy one over a netbook. With a netbook I always have a physical keyboard. Though I haven't tested the iPad's touchscreen keyboard, I'm betting that it isn't as easy to write quickly on as my already not-typist-friendly netbook keyboard.

The thing that freaks me out about the iPad, though, is that the only software you can run on it comes from the App Store. Though the App Store is a wonderful thing on the iPod Touch and iPhone, I'm a little disillusioned to see it on something that is basically a computer. If Apple released a computer and said that you could only run software that it'd approved on it, you'd probably be a little freaked out. That's basically what's going on with the iPad.

However, I do understand why they're doing things this way. I think that with the iPad, Apple is trying to attract the sort of users who are scared of computers. The device looks pretty user friendly because it's incredibly simple. Though that simplicity may be a blessing for the computer confused, it could be a curse for those of us who know what we're doing.

Shimer, Etc.

I'm doing better. Still not up to 100 percent, but doing better. I've learned the hard way that without structure, my life and self just kind of crumbles.

I don't think I'm going to go back to Shimer. There are some wonderful people and educators there, but I'm not sure if it's the place for me.

There's been a lot of controversy going on around the school - it's big enough a deal that it's made the Tribune. Our new president, who's brought on a lot of new members to the Board of Trustees to back him, has been making some weird and defiant decisions about the college and its future. He's fired a staff member who's been performing well and replaced her with an under qualified person who just so happened to go to the school that he once worked at. He's made it clear that he's interested in changing Shimer's mission statement, and thus change the direction that the school would go in. He's written letters to people in which he discusses that he has a vision for "the future of Shimer" that has scared or pissed off the majority of students and facilitators. His most recent controversial move was this advertisement, which is is a pretty huge misrepresentation of Shimer. (The girls pictured aren't even students here, which is a first for Shimer ads.)

Regardless of where anyone stands on these issues, you can say this: there's a lot of hostility and strife going on within Shimer College. And it's freaking me out. I've learned from my time here that Shimer has had its share of near deaths in the past. Frankly, I'm not sure if it'll survive this one - and if it does, I'm not sure if it'll survive as the Shimer College that it's been for the past few decades.

Secondly: I'm not sure if this sort of education is right for me. I came into Shimer thinking that I wanted to be some sort of a professor - maybe literature or writing. After my first semester I knew that academia wasn't for me.

Over the past week, when I was feeling truly, truly awful, I started thinking about what was important to me. Certain people popped into my mind. And so did certain things. One of those things was films. Making them, watching them, whatever. And though Shimer does offer some solid film theory courses, they aren't much help in the way of actually making movies.

I think one of the reasons the past year or two of my life has had its share of depression is because during these years, one is posed with a big question: "What are you going to do with the rest of your life?" Of course, it's not going to be answered in full during that time - there are plenty of people with obscure degrees doing totally different obscure jobs - but it definitely has an influence in what you'll do with the rest of your life.

All I know is this: when I've been feeling awful, movies and great TV shows on DVD have helped me out. I feel good when I'm writing or editing a movie. I feel good when I show them to others. Learning about those things might not be a bad way for me to figure out what exactly I want to do.

I've been questioning my ability to make decisions lately, but I think this might be a good one.

An Update

I already know this post is going to be one of the more difficult ones to write - not necessarily in a technical respect but an emotional one.

I'm schedule to head home for about a week to go back to the day treatment program I was in last year. For reasons I've mentioned before and reasons that are beyond me depression has hit me in an awful sort of way. The days have felt long and I feel as if I've turned into a person whom I barely resemble. My mom came out this weekend because she was worried about me and found herself even more worried. I can't blame her. Though I'm in one of my better moments right now, there have been occasional moments where I've barely trusted myself alone.

The irrational, emotional and depressed part of me feels like this is a failure, going back in the same program I was in last year. The other part of me realizes this is probably for the best. The irrational, emotional and depressed part of me feels hopeless, like I'm going to be like this forever. The other part of me knows that this can't be true. The difficult thing is getting the quieter voice to speak up above the louder, pessimistic one.

I realize this post probably comes off as terribly bleak, but please don't worry too much. Like I'd said: this is far more preferable than me not getting help and doing something awful.

Finally - and this is particularly for my friends in college - if you know of anyone who doesn't read this blog who's curious as to where I've been lately, don't hesitate to tell them what you've read here. The last thing I want to do is make anyone freak out.

Dorm Life, People on TV, Mope Mope Mope

Now that I'm back at school I have to get up at a decent time and read things. One of my classes is about poetry and fiction, so I get to read honest to goodness stories.

I like stories. What I really like that I don't get enough of are object-based stories. Those are the kinds of stories that have limited to no direct human involvement in them. Consider a greasy haired kid lying facedown and motionless on a table in a library. Books and papers surround him. That's an object-based story. Though a story is never explicitly told, one can connect the pieces and create some sort of narrative based on clues they have.

Picture books can be good at object based storytelling. So can video games. So can rooms.

Still don't have my U-Pass yet. Apparently I'm going to have to wait about a week to get it. It's frustrating but I suppose it's not to be unexpected. These things happen when you have a large organization attempting to work with a college that has ties to another large organization.

My roommate came back sometime around midnight last night. Kind of an odd time to move in, but whatever works, I guess. My first indication that he was back was when he started putting the sheets on his unmade bed around four in the morning. I pretended I was asleep. Some hours of the day do not make a good time to say hello.

I don't think the medication has kicked back in yet again. I'm functioning, but I really have to force myself to do stuff. Some of the stuff is harder to do than other things - for instance, getting out of my dorm to socialize is often much more of a struggle than it should be. Tomorrow I intend to seek out a therapist. I'm hoping to purchase a generally positive outlook on life and I hear they sell them.

A certain person I talked about was on American Idol a couple of nights ago. Again, though I was never really close to her in school, seeing her on TV was really neat. The only surreal thing about it, though, was the backstory that they presented her with - that her dad had divorced her mom and she'd been having trouble at home as a result. While I don't doubt that that's true, reality TV has a way of handpicking particular portions out of a person's life and tailoring them to fit a narrative's purposes. And the way that Katelyn was presented on Idol, her entire life and persona was condensed to "I'm sad because my dad left," which is obviously no genuine way to portray a person as, you know, a person.

Depression, U-Pass and Paper Thin Walls

A lot of moping and a phone call to my psychiatrist later and I'm back on my medication again. Again, I'm not ashamed of this in any way - it's definitely for the best. One can only mope and cry and not eat for so long.

I still don't have my U-Pass. For you non-Chicago folks: a U-Pass is what we students get so we can access the El and bus for free. Except it's not really for free because it's in our tuition. But they like to say that it's for free and we like to pretend that it's free, so we just say it's for free. But currently there is a U-Pass shaped hole in my life. I don't know how much I would be using my U-Pass over these days, seeing how I've got business to take care of and a dorm to reinhabit, but it's nice to know that I have the freedom to get off campus if I need to, which I usually do. It's one of those things that makes me feel less trapped.

Note how I referred to it as a "U-Pass" rather than a "UPass" or a "upass." This is because whenever someone neglects to use a hyphen, I read it as "up ass." Which would make the first sentence of that last paragraph, "I still don't have my up ass." And I'm not saying that's not hilarious, but I don't want to lie to you and say that I want an up ass when I really don't. Although it would indeed be true that I have "an up ass sized hole in my life."

I'm going to try to stop thinking about that last sentence.

The people in the dorm next to me sometimes have sex. Sometimes they have loud sex. That's okay with me, aside from the me hearing them thing. So usually when they have loud sex, I turn my speakers up so my music will drown out the sex noises. But today I thought: what if every time that happened, I played the same song? Could I unknowingly create some bizarre psuedo-aroused Pavlovian response to, say, "Build Me Up Buttercup" or "Chaccaron?"

The only things stopping me from doing that are a.) knowing said people personally and appreciating them as human beings and b.) the fear that this strategy would backfire, causing me to associate one of those songs with certain people I know having sex.

A Ranty Sort of Post

Okay, time for a ranty sort of post. If you prefer your blog posts along the lines of pop culture and mundane observations, move along and look at this picture of a woman whose dress is a cake.

I'm back in Chicago. Class starts Thursday. The drive here was really odd, especially since I went to bed last night around 3 and woke up at 6:30, which meant that I spent almost the entire ride up here asleep. The drive from home to Panora is 45 minutes. That's what this drive felt like.

Not everyone is back yet and I still have yet to get into a regular sort of routine, so I'm feeling really weird. It's a combination of something sort of like homesickness and anxiety about anxiety.

The homesickness is pretty self explanatory. Despite my really long winter break fluctuating between periods of "this is awesome!" and "I'm so bored," the "this is awesome!" periods were awesome enough to override the boring ones. Combine really wonderful friends I've known for years with not really doing any work with nostalgia and you have yourself a recipe for wistfulness.

I realize that staying home wouldn't make me feel good, though. I tried that last year when I attempted to transfer to Drake. Though that taught me a lot of important (albeit painful) life lessons, it's safe to say that it crashed in burned in a big sort of way.

The anxiety about anxiety, though, might be a little harder to understand. Let me explain: with my psychiatrist's go-ahead, I decided to stop using the antidepressant I was on over the past year. Though that worked pretty well at home, I'm wondering if that's having any influence on the way I'm feeling here. That could be true; however, I also realize that it could just be one of those transitional phases that little old why-can't-things-stay-the-same me goes through every now and then.

If I continue to feel like this for a while - I think five days is a good deadline - I'll probably call the psychiatrist up again and discuss starting the medication once again. I'm not at all ashamed of doing that. Like Sarah Silverman said in an interview once, it would be silly for a diabetic to stop taking their medication if it was helping them out.

In the meantime I am going to be productive and do things.

Dexter, Traveling, and Facebook

I think this is going to be another one of those three-posts-in-one posts. A Holy Trinity post, if you will.

Speaking of Trinity: just finished Dexter Season 4. I realize that segue will make no sense if you haven't seen it (and trust me, I'm staying pretty spoiler-free with this post) but ah well. I guess that means you have to start watching it to understand that little reference, right? Right?

Anyway, fantastic stuff. The best season of Dexter since the first one. I was originally a little wary of it because one of the show's best elements - its moral ambiguity - was disappearing more and more as the season progressed. Halfway through, it's pretty clear that Dexter is becoming more and more of a "good guy," but thanks to game-changing events by the last episode, it becomes clear that Dexter as a character has nowhere to go but darkness.

On a related note: Michael C. Hall, one of the executive producers of the show/the guy who plays Dexter, recently revealed that he's dealing with Hodgkins Lymphoma. The cancer's currently in remission, so here's to hoping it stays that way.

Tomorrow at seven in the morning I'll be heading back to Chicago. I'm really looking forward to it, but before any sort of voyage I ever go on, I'm always hit with the desire to just stay home. Even if it's something great, like going to a college town to visit friends or heading somewhere awesome for a vacation, part of me will just go, "Naah, why don't we just stay here?" Inevitably that will change when I get out of bed and get in the car, but the stubborn and bass ackwards part of my mind never wants to cooperate in cases like this.

Finally: I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd become a little more ludditic in my approach towards Twitter and StumbleUpon. The same thing has happened to me now with Facebook. Not long ago I realized that mindlessly browsing on it is a.) kind of creepy and b.) a waste of time. I now access Facebook on an alert-only basis. Otherwise I stay away.

Every now and then, though, when I'm on, I'm hit with the urge to update my status. The thing is, though, I don't like updating my status with the usual things that occupy my news feed. You probably aren't interested in what I'm doing or the song lyric floating through my head or the color of my bra.

Lately, when updating my status, I've tried to take a different approach: writing posts that will get information about other people rather than myself. Typically it's been done through a mundane sort of question - like the ones you'd used to get in those annoying ABOUT ME chain letters - but I'd like to change that to something more interesting.

Katelyn Epperly and American Idol, or: Shoving News Down Your Throat That You've Only Heard Ten Thousand Times Before

I'm not entirely certain where I'm going to go with this post. Usually I've got a beginning and end when I write these posts (middle = rare), but with this one I have no idea where I'm going with it beyond a glimmer of an idea. So this ought to be interesting.

The majority of you all who read this blog - the ones responsible for the 246 visits from Iowa - probably already know by now that Katelyn Epperly, whom I went to school with (and let's face it - if you're reading this, you probably did too) is going to be on this Tuesday's episode of American Idol. Word via the grapevine and spoilery sorts of sites indicate that she "made it to Hollywood," which I guess is the last barrier between being a person auditioning for American Idol and being a person on American Idol.

By the way, I realize putting "made it to Hollywood" in quotes makes me sound like a total grandpa, but I've gotta be honest with you: I've still never ever watched a full episode of American Idol, so I'm not in the least bit hip with the vernacular beyond phrases like "voted off," "won," or "William Hung." So when my sister told me that Katelyn "made it to Hollywood," my reaction was, "Cool, that's great. I mean - that is good news, right?"

I find this all pretty cool. But I also find it really weird. If I were to fractionize it, I would probably call it 40% cool and 60% weird. Now, I don't mean to say that it's the least bit surprising - I'm pretty sure that in eighth grade she won some sort of award like "most likely to be on American Idol" and none of us even batted an eye.* In fact, if she were to make it "past Hollywood" ([GRANDPA VOICE]: "Is that what the kids say?"), we still wouldn't be surprised. Hell, I'd say that if she didn't make it past that stage, there would be at least one angry mob of West Des Moines Community Schools denizens demanding a recount or whatever you do when you want to protest the results of a reality TV show.

See, there are two things that make this weird for me:

1. This means I attended high school with both an Olympic athlete** and, if you pardon my jumping the gun, an American Idol contestant. At first glance, sure, this is kind of cool - it's a neat conversation starter, that's for sure - but upon further inspection it makes me feel like such a slacker. I can just see my high school reunion. "What've you been up to?" "I was on American Idol. What about you?" "Well, over the past few years, I've managed to get out of bed at a decent time. On weekdays. When I have stuff to do."
2. This means that I know someone relatively famous. Call me weird, but I find the prospect of knowing someone famous to be way more exciting than being famous. I have no problems with occasional attention - you know, publicizing shows I'm in or stuff I've made and trying to an attract an audience for that sort of thing - but the prospect of actual, widespread, being-regularly-recognized-on-the-street-fame is kind of freaky to me, for reasons that relate to excessive publicity that ought to be obvious to anybody who's been alive for the past fifty years. Plus, I would imagine that, like many things in life, fame, if you ever get it, loses its excitement and novelty. Knowing someone famous means that you don't have to experience all the crappy parts of fame, but on the plus side, your role is a little different from that of the average audience member.***

I was never terribly close to Katelyn in school - we were both in a junior high play and I think we had a few classes with one another, and that's about that - but I'm rooting for her, even if it means that the rest of us look like underachievers. It's the hometown pride thing. It's the knowing someone famous thing. It's the hope that those prophecies that we've constantly put upon her ("Most Likely to Be On American Idol") will finally come true in the most fantastic fashion. It's the hope that her talent and hard work will get the recognition it deserves beyond the boundaries of the pop. 50,000 town I used to live in and the occasional positive YouTube comment. For these reasons and others that I can't quite think of I wish her the best of luck.

If this goes well, a miracle will occur. I will actually utter the words, "Hey, you guys wanna watch American Idol?" on a regular basis.

*Somewhat egotistical and totally self-serving side note: In eighth grade I got three of these sorts of awards: "Most Likely To Be The Next Jerry Seinfeld," "Most Likely To Be The Next Orlando Bloom," and "Most Likely To Be The Next Bill Gates," which has to take the cake for "Most Unlikely Combination of Awards." I'm pretty sure - no, make that damn certain - that the Orlando Bloom one was the "this guy can sort of act" award rather than the "this guy is physically attractive" award, but still. Put all those awards together and you get some sort of freakish creature that I'm pretty sure I bear little to no resemblance to.

**I would like to note that if one types "Shawn Johnson" into Google, the sometimes helpful, usually disturbing Auto-Suggest comes up with "shawn johnson dead." At first I was, to put it politely, fucking baffled, but then I remembered this piece that The Onion did that neither Shawn nor her parents were too amused by.

***However, I've got nothing but spite for those who attract sorta-fame for themselves solely on the premise of sorta-knowing someone.

Thomas, Meet Thomas

One of the first things I did when I first went on to the internet was look up my own name.

Actually, that's a lie. For one thing, I don't think I found an actual honest-to-goodness search engine until I was about eight. (That's what using AOL did to you back in the day.) And secondly, I was about five and had had the "don't post personal information online" talk given to me about twenty times. Though it was good advice - and still is, albeit for different reasons* - I took it to certain extremes. I figured that if I typed my first and last name into a search box, pedophiles would come knocking at the door at any second.

But still, I've got a weird and semi-egotistical fascination with typing my own name into Google and seeing what pops up. I know I'm not the only one who's like this. Otherwise, there'd be no reason for the word googleganger to exist.

About every week I get an email that lets me know every time my first and last name are used on the internet. Usually it's nothing exciting - just an occasional link to my Facebook or Twitter account, or maybe a mention of my uncle who shares my name. Every now and then there's mention of yet another googleganger of mine, a Linux programmer from New Zealand who is fond of making posts on support mailing lists.

This week uncovered a new googleganger: a seventh grader from Downer's Grove, IL who recently made the honor roll. I don't doubt that the older this kid gets, the more he'll start crowding my weekly email with news of his scholarly achievements or whatever. And the fact that he exists kind of weirds me out - even more than knowing of the guy I share a name with in New Zealand.

I think what weirds me out so much about this kid's existence is that, as far as age goes, he's not too far away from me. Eight years sure seems like a long distance when you're measuring between college and middle school, but it isn't that big of a deal when you consider that we're both part of Generation Y. (At least as it's currently defined, but that's another story.)

Maybe one day he'll find this page. Maybe one day he'll decide that it's a good idea to register his name dot com and realize that it's already taken by some guy eight years older than him who has written a lot of blog posts. Maybe he'll come across this one some day and go, "Holy shit." Or maybe by some act of ludditism he'll never know that I exist, and I'll unwittingly catch snippets of his life story as told by the internet.

If you're reading this - you know who you are - I'd like to say this: it's a small small world.

*Nowadays I avoid posting certain information for the sake of personal privacy and employment, whereas back then I avoided posting personal info for the sake of not being sexually abused by some creep online. I suppose the latter could still happen, but something tells me I'm far less desirable to Chris Hansen bait than I was before.

Little Changes

This blog is nearly eight years old. Though I've changed quite a bit as a person and a writer over those eight years, this blog hasn't changed much as far as format and layout goes.

So, may I introduce to you: titles. For a long while I've resisted using titles. Not only was I not sure how to implement them (since this template is actually pretty old), but I felt like they'd be unnecessary in a lot of cases. That's because I used to write a lot of short, sentence long posts that would exist solely to direct you to some other interesting place on the internet. I don't do as many of those posts now, thanks to Twitter and the Things of Note sidebar, so that alleviates that bit of resistance.

And secondly: I'm aware that a lot of you are subscribed to this blog through RSS readers like Google Reader. As a Google Reader fan/user/addict, I know that it's not exactly asthetically appealing to see posts labeled [no title] in your feed reader. Not only is it kind of ugly, but it's less than informative. I think readers will be more inclined to read posts if they have some inkling about what they might actually be about.

This probably doesn't mean a whole lot to you. It's a small step/giant leap for me.

For those of you who don't care either way, I have two words for you: self potato.

Stalkers and Stumble

I mentioned earlier that I think this weather is partially responsible for my lethargy over the past few weeks. Well, that and the fact that this is winter break, and nothing is generally a good thing to do over break. Anyway, this lethargy may or may not have something to do with why I installed StumbleUpon again. If it makes any difference, I only installed it on my netbook. I think that's a minor consolation. I rarely use my netbook to actually do important things, so it shouldn't distract with from things like writing papers or running errands. But that doesn't do anything to change that StumbleUpon is highly addictive. Maybe me saying "I installed Stumble again, but don't worry! It's only on my netbook," is a little like saying, "I started smoking crack again, but don't worry! I only do it on the weekends."

Something I was thinking about as I was trying to fall asleep last night: I'm subscribed to a lot of blogs. A number of these blogs belong to people whom I'm casual acquaintances with. These people don't know I read their blogs on a regular basis. I think that's kinda weird. Because I'm subscribed to their blogs, I know mundane (yet somewhat personal) details about these acquaintances' lives - and they probably have no idea that I know these things. It makes me feel kind of creepy.

On that note, though, I've always thought that nearly everyone with social networking engages in internet creeping on a semi-regular basis. I'm not sure if that makes it okay (or not creepy), but I guess it brings up a related point: there are probably a few acquaintances I have that read this blog on a regular basis - and I have no idea. But I don't find that weird. I'm okay with that. So does that mean I should be okay with my own internet creeping?

The internet: creating a community of creepers since Al Gore made it up.

One of my big technological hates - right up there with printers (seriously, printers suck, I've used them for years and years and they still freak out at the most inopportune times, not to mention that the price of ink is just riddiculous) - is voicemail. Navigating through one's voicemails is never as easy as it should be. It seems that whenever I want to listen to a voicemail that somebody left me, say, two hours ago, I have to sit through a good five minutes of voicemails circa 2006 to confirm that, yes, I do want to delete those old messages. So I signed up for Google Voice not too long ago. The key feature for me is that Google automatically transcribes your voicemails for you and sends them to you via text message. If the transcription doesn't work so well - and in most cases it won't - you can listen to your messages online as if you were checking your email.

Pretty cool stuff, except for the whole "in most cases it won't" thing regarding transcription. Note Google Voice's take on my dad's message to me:

Hi Thomas, just adds up in 4 and i just stop by and will be worth there and wondered if you took part of the bats. So the matter. Talk to you later.

What he actually said was:

Hi Thomas, just Dad; nothing important. I just stopped by home, you weren't there and I wondered if you'd took the car over to Matt's. Doesn't matter. Talk to you later.

Typically the transcription isn't that bad, but if anyone called it flawless, they'd be lying. Even the most mundane messages have an error or two; still, though, even when they're mangled beyond belief, there are still usually a few key words (i.e. "Saturday" "soon") that help me figure out the meaning before I have to actually listen to the message.

As a test, I left a message to myself, reading the first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities. This is what it came up with:

It was the best of times. It was the worst of time, said with the H E wisdom. It was the age of foolishness Boysie at box. The lease it was act Exit Realty know if this evening flight. If with the season starts at what the spring of hope. It was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us. We were all going direct to have in we're all going to read the other way. In short, the period myself. I like to present period at some that's noisiest authorities instead on it's being received. Recruiter for you both the superlatives degrees comparison all day.

Q: First: why are you writing a post like this?

A: I'm feeling in the mood for a good old fashioned rant. The thing is, though, is when I write them, I feel like they're really unstructured and generally unfit for public consumption. I thought that this might be a better way to go about writing something like what I had in mind.

Q: How have you been lately?

A: Alright, I guess. Not "alright" in a content sense, but more "alright" in just a "here I am" sort of sense. I think break has a lot to do with that. See, I like being on break, and it's nice to be home with friends and family and all that, but lately I've been feeling really lethargic, and I think that break has a lot to do with that.

Q: How do you mean that?

A: One of the great things that I learned last year is that if I do nothing for a long period of time, I start to feel really blah. A prime example of that is the time between Thanksgiving of 08 and mid January, when I was supposed to start classes at Drake. It was nice at first, but by the end I was just very, very tired. So I kind of feel like the same sort of thing is happening now. That, because I haven't been doing anything really for the past few weeks, I'm beginning to feel really tired.

Q: So why don't you just do something then?

A: That's a really good idea - and trust me, I've thought of that - but the hard part is actually doing something. Thinking about doing things is really easy. In fact, I'd say that even when I'm feeling really productive and at the top of my game, I spend a lot more time thinking about doing things than actually doing things. So I've come to accept that that's the way things will be with life, but the trick is to just have that part of the pie chart that's devoted to actually doing things as big as it can be.

Q: You're not answering the question.

A: I'm getting there. Anyway, to go back to what I was saying, actually doing stuff can be really hard sometimes. It's especially hard when you haven't been doing anything for a really long time. It's like what I'd imagine quitting smoking to be like - or changing around any other bad habit, for that matter. So yeah, I've been trying to do stuff lately, and I've had some minor successes, but I still don't feel like I'm doing things as much as I could be. If that makes any sense.

Q: So is that why you think you're feeling "blah," as you put it?

A: Mostly. I think the weather has kind of put me down, too. I like clouds, but so many cloudy days in such a long succession kind of does things to you - may that "you" be an internal clock or your consciousness I don't know. Plus it's been really cold lately, and I find that I'm pretty reluctant to go outdoors when it's pretty cold. But still, I don't mean to put all of the blame on the weather; I think it's mostly my own fault that I haven't really been doing anything these days.

Q: Let me get this straight: the reason you aren't feeling great - weather aside - is that you haven't really been doing anything for the past few days.

A: Basically, yeah.

Q: Are you saying you're a workaholic?
A: I don't think I would say that, no. I've heard one definition of the word workaholic to be - and I'm paraphrasing - "A person who works obsessively in order to avoid everyday life." And by work or doing things I don't mean relatively meaningless stuff like taxes or organizing my sock drawer. Instead I mean doing stuff that I like, like writing or making little videos or making blog posts. I don't think doing that sort of stuff is avoiding real life; I think it enhances it. But I can see how you came to that conclusion.