12:30 on a school night
It's windy, and I can't sleep. Looking out the back door, the flag at the church a block away is blowing west hard enough that it looks like a school child's drawing of a flag. My maternal grandmother hated the East wind. She told me as a child that a strong East wind blew a brick off of the chimney and it hit her. I thought at the time that was a funny reason to not like a particular subset of air movement, but whenever I notice that a strong East wind is blowing I think of that story now. There has always been something unsettling to me about wind out of the East, even before I was told that story. I don't know what it is, maybe there's a part of my subconscious that expects the general weather to move from the West and gets riled up if it encounters something contrary to its expectations.
It sounds like the random junk in the driveway is clattering around, which is funny because I've moved it all inside the garage. On Friday I even gathered up all the spare lumber from the build and moved it into a semi-organized pile near the back of the garage in expectation for this weeks storms, and I even managed to get a couple lengths of rain gutter hung up. It's almost strange to look out the back and not see the big silver tarp looming over the back corner where the sheeting lay for almost a year. I really wanted to get more done before a lasting snowfall, but it looks like this may be it.
To be honest, though, this has never been a good time of the year for me. Not anything to do with the holidays in and of themselves, but from when the days start getting noticeably shorter the dark depression hangs over me. I often wonder if it's as silly as being afraid of the East wind. Does it hit because I expect it to come with a sun that doesn't rise very far above the horizon?
This year has even had an added bonus. The first cold and stormy day I found a pair of gloves in a hat and bundled up to go to work. Something in the combination of the extra outerwear and the snow took me back to the January before last when I was going for my chemotherapy every weekday, and for a few minutes I had a reaction just like I was back on the Interferon. They had told me that I needed to dress extra warm and take precautions so I didn't get sick, because the chemo would have me weakened anyway, and if I got sick then my immune system would have to fight two battles, or something like that. Normally I don't wear anything other than a coat, and in High School I even toughed it out a couple years in an unlined Levi jacket. Maybe it's my way of saying that if it's not winter, then I won't get depressed.
Anyway, when I would go for the infusion I wore a nice coat that Jack gave me when he ungrew out of it. I'd also put on gloves, a hat and scarf. Something about the ritual of it every morning was comforting and unusual. Combined with the pain of the treatment and the cheerfulness and compassion of the Huntsmen Cancer Center staff it made a complex impression on me that I think is embedded in my already turbulent winter gestalt. There's something really confusing about a feeling that makes your joints ache, your stomach fall and puts a happy smile on your face at the same time. But I hadn't expected the feeling to hang on this long, and for some reason I don't remember it happening last year.
And maybe that's why sleep just won't come right now. The East wind is blowing and I fear that somewhere out there lurks a brick with my name on it...
So I was kind of looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend, and I thought I'd do a couple things around the house. I don't much like to go out in public (or wilderness) on the big weekends, there's too many bozos out and you can't throw a rock without hitting one of them. My todo list wasn't big, or at least I didn't perceive it as anything tremendous. I even thought that by hitting the hardware store on Friday night I'd be ahead of the game.
Seems like I don't find the time to write ever. Even when I have something, I always find some reason to let it pass. Like the time last week (the week before?) where dell delivered the 160-odd servers for our new mini cluster each packaged in its own individual box complete with power cord, 2manuals, 2 cd's and service disclaimer, none of which we were going to use. And we spent two days unpacking them and finding places to recycle the cardboard and packageing. 
So today I went and picked out my wedding ring.
So the actual first day of winter starts tomorrow, which means in my self-prevaricating ways I'm cheerfull that winter is almost over. The days are going to start to get longer and I can start looking forward to the January thaw. Not that winter has been too bad, but it's only 18 degrees farenheit out there right now and it doesn't feel much warmer in here. 
Well, I tried to get the kayak out again yesterday, but the weather didn't cooperate so I just took the kayak for a ride. I had thought it was a great idea to head up to the Uintahs, but evidently so did about another hundred-thousand people. Just before we got to Washington Lake we saw the remains of a really bad car wreck with one car upside down and another that looked like it had been hit head on at high speed. I've looked at the news and havn't seen any reports, but I can't imagine everyone survived it. 
So I'm on my way to play European Boardgames at a friends house, and I pick up a blue Raspberry slurpee for the evening, disdaining the usual cola products. Now, I'm not sure how things are done in your corner of the world, but here when we get slurpees we tap the cup a few times on the counter after filling to disgorge some of the air pockets from filling and top 'er off. I only mention this, not only because this little ritual baffled a Bostonite, but it also lends to the story. I noticed that the semi-solid beverage did not settle in any appreciable fashion and little room for topping off was procured. I shrugged it off as just one of those things, and proceeded to the checkout counter. 
Theres a map of Perplexcity on the back of some of the cards, so as you solve them you begin to get a map of the city with information about different buildings and areas of the city. Jack's been ordering cards for awhile now and he's handed me down his seconds, so I finally broke down and started figuring them out. It's pretty addictive and some of the puzzles are really challenging so I've ordered a set just to see what I can do. So far I've solved 25 of the 256 cards and I'm ranked an even 4000. I'm not sure how many cards have been released altogether, but most of the cards from the third series have been solved. I've been showing the duplicates of the duplicates around and nobody has shown much interest, except Sam at work. He's helped me with a couple and is curious enough to have looked into buying some, although I don't know if he's set up an account yet. 
