Underneath my yellow skin

The most wonderful time of the year

SAD is Seasonal Affective Disorder. Basically, it’s depression that is brought about by a season. For most people, that’s winter with the darkness, the coldness, and the gloom. One of the ways to deal with it is a SAD Lamp to bring you light when it’s dark out.

It’s annoying. The way SAD has come to mean depression in the winter, I mean. I can understand that’s the more prevalent time it happens, but it’s not limited to that.

I get it in spring/summer. I hate the heat, the outdoors in bloom, and everything about not-winter/autumn. We got snow last night, which makes me both happy and nervous.

I need to get my roof fix. I was going to do it last week, but then I had to deal with the aftermath of my Covid shot. I honestly don’t remember it taking a week to recover from my previous shots. I mean, my arm was swollen/had the welt for several weeks, but the aches, chills, sweats, and tiredness didn’t last that long. Or did it?

My totally unsupported theoriy is that it was because I got the Moderna this time instead of the Pfizer. It’s supposed to be fine to switch between the shots, but it seems plausible to me that there would be a stronger reaction to one than another.

I’m still very tired. The chills and sweats are almost completely gone, and I’m slowly adding weapons back to my practice. I don’t want to do the fallacy of going from zero to a hundo and hurting myself doing it.

I had a classmate who was frustrating in this way. He would not jog for the whole year, and then when it got the least bit nice out, he would run like ten miles. Of course, he would pull something nad then complain about it. Loudly. I never said it, but I would think, “What the hell did you expect?” It’s so antithetical to Taiji that I could only shake my head.

But he’s a dude with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove. He actually ripped a tendon, I think, doing this. Part of my annoyance is directed at myself, I know. I tend to be an all-or-nothing kind of person. I have to be careful because I will go all out and ignore my body’s signals that I should stop.

My goal is to add one weapon a day and then gauge how I feel. Today, I did the drills for the staff. Yesterday, I did the Double Saber Form. I’ve done all the weapons this week at least oonce–except I think for the Karambit Form. I don’t think I’ve done that one. Maybe? It’s hard to say. I think I did it the day after I got the shot because Friday is the day I do that form.

I would rather do too little than too much.


Also, it’s really frustrating to have such a shitty immune system. I know that sounds obvious, but it’s not for the obvious reason that I am disgruntled right now. The obvious reason is that it sucks to be susceptible to every cold, flu, and ailment that crosses my path. But what I mean in this particular instance is that it sucks because it sounds like I’m lying or making it up.

There’s this thing called invisible disabilities. I’ve read a bit about them and how people feel they have to prove thatthey’re actually sick.

The bottom line is that it’s dififcult to get other people to see tihngs from your point of view. That’s human nature. But some of us can do it, either because we were born with the ability or because we learned it (or both. Meaning, honing the innate ability). but in general, people see things from their point of view. Especially dudes. More especially white dudes. Cishet white dudes. But to a lesser degree, most people think their own lives are the standard.

I realized this when I was a kid. My home life was shitty and dysfunctional. Not to mention abusive. Yeah, I thought it was the way everybody lived until I was well into my twenties. It was embarrassing how long it took me to figure out that my family was deeply problematic. And not normal at all.

It’s funny. Well, it would be if it weren’t pathetic. This is a lesson Ive learned over and over in my life–that the way I view things, feel, and think, is most emphatically not the way other people are.

I don’t expect much from people any longer. No, that’s not true. I expect a lot of people, and I’m usually disappointed. But in the case of them being like me–I don’t expect that at all. I know I’m a weirdo. I know I’m a freak. I am fine with that now that I’m in my fifties. In fact, I would go further and say that I’m happy about w ho I am (in general. I have my flaws, obviously, but for the most part, I’m good with who I am).

I know that asking people to look outside themselves is more than most people can/will do. I don’t know why that is, iexcatly, but I have accepted that it’s true.

I wish that more people would see that the way they live is not the standard and/or the norm. Even for the typical white bread real ‘Murikan, there is enough diferences in the details that no one can really say they are ‘normal’.

We can talk about the generalities such as it’s most common to be married and have children. I’m talking about Americans, by the way. Married, kids, church. Those are three things that are considered the norm in this country. Still very persistent in the year 2023, which is discouraging to me. Not that people want to do these things, but that there is so much pressure to do those three things. Still.

I had hoped back in my twenties which was thirty years ago that by the time I was an old person (now), we would not push women to get married and have kids as hard as before. In other words, I wished that gender roles weren’t so fucking terrible and rigid. That is, of course, another post for another day.

Anyway. I love winter. Here’s to the cold and snow.

 

 

 

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