Thursday, November 8, 2012

Hello everyone. You'll be glad to hear I'm in a slightly better mood today.

My blót for Hel the other day went very well, and I think She enjoyed the framboise. I was meant to hold Summernights and whatever I'm going to end up calling my "Beltaine" holiday yesterday, but I was so exhausted after the elections I didn't. I'd only had an hour or so of sleep because I always enjoy the elections in the States, and I didn't want to miss anything. Sleep deprivation is just a fact of life for me whenever I have to get up at a time everyone else considers "normal", so no biggie, but it does mean you end up eating a lot more than usual to keep yourself functional. 

The election was marvellously exciting. I know quite a few Americans, as I am on the internet and there are a lot of them around. I am sure you are the same way. So I was reassuring some of them as we went along and they started to panic at Romney's rising numbers. But Republican numbers always rise to begin with. The Democrats always have California, which is huge. Obama would have won even without any of the big swing states. But the important thing for me, I think, was seeing how many women turned out to vote and put their feet down, and how many women are heading to the senate. Elizabeth Warren! I love her, I really do. I've loved her since I first saw her on the Daily Show, her first segment, when she was nervous and jittery and a little intimidated, but then came back after the commercial break with new confidence and blew everyone away. It's premature, but if Hillary decides not to run, Warren's my pick for the US's first female president.

Really, though. Feminism has been under attack in the US recently, and seeing such a response to the War on Women was really moving. And a possible 51st state in Puerto Rico! That's tremendously exciting for those of us who have only ever known 50. There have been 50 states all my life and decades before it and it has always seemed so set in stone. It's so exciting to think that another star will be added to the flag.

It was a day of excitement and stress and of staring at the little video on the BBC website, streaming the results while the liveblog ticked along updating on the side. All that jittering on top of not much sleep and I was exhausted.

So those first-of-summer rituals will be held tonight instead (incidentally today is a much more "summery" day). In celebration of the changing seasons, a changing blog. Look at all the nice green. It's so pleasant.

I actually rather like early summer, despite my whining the other day. I suspect summer is bad for me on an emotional level, rather like SAD - I get tense, irritable and anxious in summer. It is too bright to go outside, I have a morbid fear of skin cancer (which is very common where I live) and I don't do well in either heat or humidity. In short I shouldn't really live where I do. But I do, so. That's that. 

But early summer has its advantages. The it's-been-far-too-long-since-we've-had-rain cracked earth of late summer is still a long way off. The humidity yet hasn't settled upon the country, and the sun, which at this point is not too oppressive, is tempered by cool sea breezes. The greens are very green. The colours are bright. The birds are happy. And the "holiday season", the long, laxed-out period of midsummer, of lying around doing nothing and sipping cold glasses of alcohol at any time of day, is on the horizon. Christmas and New Years here are pleasing just because everyone is so relaxed and half-naked and just has no fucks to give about anything. Fucks are for February. Until then? Beer, or gin and tonics, and the beach and lying around reading shitty books.

But that's in the future. People aren't relaxed yet. The world isn't relaxed yet. But that's on the horizon, and everyone can see it, and the pre-Christmas rush hasn't yet kicked in so they're all just anticipating summer with a small smile. Colours abound, and ease.

That's early summer. Late summer I can't wait to get rid of, when the heat really bears down and there's no escape from it and everyone remembers they have jobs.

I survived last summer quite well. There have been years I have not. But last summer was, despite the unpleasantness that was Christmas, actually not so bad. It wasn't overwhelmingly hot. So I wonder whether my emotional reaction is more out of anxiety at the coming of summer rather than during the summer itself. It's something I will be interested to observe in myself this year.

2 comments:

  1. I really envy you your holiday season after reading this. Stateside, well....

    The new background is lovely.

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    1. I'd like to experience Xmas in winter sometime. But the holiday season in the States in particular always looks so stressful and tense - you don't have enough of a holiday at that time of year, I feel like, to deal with the stress of it and then have enough time to really wind down afterwards.

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