Melancholy New Year

Today is the last day of my almost-two-weeks-off from work (I decided not to take Monday, December 23 off, although almost everyone else seemed to). We had a mix of busy-and-lazy for most of it: We went to San Francisco one day, Half Moon Bay another day, walked downtown on Christmas Day and got Italian for lunch, watched Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, watched a bunch of TV and movies at home, and had people over to hang out and play some games on New Years Eve afternoon. We’ve also been working on a puzzle, something we haven’t done in many years.

Debbi went back to work on Thursday, but I took a couple more days off, mostly hanging around at home.

But I’ve been feeling kinda down since New Year’s. A little of it is watching “The Time of the Doctor” leading up to midnight on New Year’s Eve – it’s not a very good episode – manipulative and frustrating in various ways – but its manipulativeness certainly includes the obligatory sadness that’s accompanied most Doctor Who regeneration stories since “Logopolis”. But this was the least of it – it just set the tone heading into the new year. (We shoulda just turned on one of the generic New Years Eve shows, but we had inertia after watching the far superior “The Day of the Doctor” previously.)

I think some of it is my age. I’ve been trying to think and talk about my age less since my birthday last year, but it’s difficult sometimes. This year I started thinking that I’ve probably got less than 40 more New Years to experience myself. Realistically unless I get in much better shape, I probably won’t be around to see 2060. We also have our 16-year-old cat, Roulette, who is really in great shape for her age, but we probably won’t have her for many more New Years either, and if she declines like Newton did over his last two years, it won’t be an easy time. Stuff I think of when the calendar rolls over, I guess.

Or maybe it’s a touch of seasonal affective disorder. Or despair over Trump’s latest act of idiocy and its fallout. Or not being ready to go back to work. Or being more ready to go back to work and get back to my routine than I realize. I dunno.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll get over it. I have a puzzle to complete.

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