(no subject)

Calling out the depression seems to help a little: proof will be over the long holiday weekend.
Part of the sign, as i mentioned, was the general anhedonia. I think that gets triggered over certain cycles of procrastination -- oh, the long dysfunction of grad school! Thus attending to the singular load of laundry that has been abandoned by the door for a week will unknot a tangle of a gotta-do that strangles the will-dos. I propose.

Walks, walks, walks! I think back to the first Thanksgiving Christine and i had together in Philadelphia, before we married -- a month before we were engaged, i think. She was still living in North Carolina at the time and drove up for the holiday. Walking together under the marvelous plane trees in the West Philly neighborhood, kicking through the autumn leaves.... That walk resonates across time with the walks we take now, the walk we took on Sunday, kicking through ginko leaves. In a cosmology where love is eternal, these in-time walks on afternoons with long slanting northern autumn and winter light all seem to connect together via a quality of the eternal. (Although it may just be how strongly i am affected by both our love and the quality of the light.)

Friday I'll work on the app with Christine (who has had her own intense blues and sees the trauma therapist today as a family-blues prophylactic).

I am pondering Yuletide gifts. I will probably order the GoldieBlox and http://littlebits.cc/kits or maybe this kickstarter for my sister's kids. The robotic toy is far beyond my usual price point for gifts. (I keep telling myself the cost of a tank of gas is a small gift, but i can't get past years of dollar limited thoughts.) I balk at the thought of buying a kit for each of the boys. My brother is financially able (from all appearances of his family's resort vacations) to choose to buy things like this for his kids. My sister's family's financial situation seems less clearly affluent. My more conscious mind, adult mind, thinks that there's no reason i have to get all the kids financially similar gifts. Christine's pointed out comics might be a cool gift for my brother's kids, and she's right. "Thought that counts," and all that.

But then another voice points out the real thought is that my brother and his wife don't make any effort to really connect with us except when they are in the area. (They do a good job then.) I've bought gifts and made gifts and have NO IDEA how the boys received them. And, gah, i don't want to splurge on a vacuum. "They'll be in the area this Yuletide," says another thought.

And, again, i grumble, communication: there's my brother's itinerary that my mother recited that has his family in the US at Yuletide to get their adopted daughter a US passport, but email about plans has gone unanswered.

This little eddy of cranky thought about my brother's family, doesn't need to detract long from my WOW at how kickstarter has helped create some absolutely cool toys. I'm so excited my niece is just the right age for Goldiblox, and while i wish i could* buy the robot toys for myself , having a nephew who will really dig the toy is great. (One Christmas i gave him a tube of various scraps and craft stuff and he delighted in that.)

*I could, but where would i put it? When would i play with it? I've got a lego kit i bought for myself two years ago that is still unopened.