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doldrums
Doldrums: what a great word for an awful state of being.
In the fall when every day is shorter and it's full dark by seven, the doldrums are just digging in around here. The full effect won't be felt until December when the days are so short it's almost not worth getting out of bed. And yet, I'm usually hit with insomnia at this time of year. A cosmic joke, or hormonal havoc? You decide.
One of the advantages to not sleeping is that I get a lot of reading done. Five novels in a week! Unfortunately three of them were really disappointing. Also, I cleaned off my desk, but now of course I can't find anything. Four in the morning is a great time to harvest Tom DeLay jokes off the internet, but I can't wake up my husband to share them.
Research for the book that's just started: a major character needs to learn a lot about the history, collection, sale and repair of fountain pens. If he has to learn it, I have to learn it. I once had a fountain pen I loved, a Namiki retractable point fountain pen in a lovely shade of green. Then I had my bag stolen at Heathrow and the pen was gone, along with (I added it up) about seven hundred dollars worth of odds and ends, from a leather bound notebook in which I had four years of notes on my daughter's language acquisition, and a signed first edition of The English Patient that was supposed to be a gift for a family member.
That was so upsetting that I never replaced the fountain pen, and now here I am having to learn all about them so this character can do what he needs to do. Here's the question: if I had unlimited funds ala Mr. Gates, would I spend five hundred dollars on a fountain pen? A beautifully made fountain pen, even?
I can't imagine it. I can't imagine spending four times that much on a rare collector's item fountain pen, either. But I'm in luck: neither can my character. He has to learn about the business, but he doesn't have to get on the bandwagon.
Everyone is in bed. Even the puppy boys are snoring, so I think I'll give it a try.
September 29, 2005 11:55 AM
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Comments
I can't help you with the fountain pen information but I can suggest something else to do during the doldrums. Have you ever seen Firefly? The way it was treated by TV studios and the fan response to its cancellation has resonances with Farscape. Its quite a different show altogether but might be worth watching on DVD if you haven't seen it already. Plus the movie of it, "Serenity", has just been released and its a good movie. It delves a little (quite satisfyingly) with each character's small narrative arc (perhaps even better than PKW did) and does give some hope that something similar may be able to be done with a FS movie. Here's to more good Sci-fi on the big screen.
Posted by: Jacqui at September 30, 2005 04:30 AM
Okay - spill. Which novels did you read and which did you like/dislike? This is a cruel tease. Share!
Posted by: Beth at October 2, 2005 07:58 AM
The dulldrums just suck. I live in Redmond, WA, not too far from Bellingham, and when the days started to be darker in the mornings, I had my usual issue with getting up early to work out. when I exersise I always feel better, but I can't seem to get out of bed! I hate it! I'm going to start adding B12 to my vitamins again, that seemed to help last year. I'm sorry you are stuck with the same crappy feeling Sara.
The person who suggested watching Firefly has a point, they are so funny and well written that you would love them on many levels if you are into the Sci-Fi type thing, and if you're not, well give them a shot, you may find yourself liking them anyway!
I'll be thinking of you in the weee hours when I'm forcing myself out of bed to hop around like an idiot at step class, and when I go to punish myself on the cross country machine...Kelley
Posted by: Kelley at October 2, 2005 11:03 AM
Dear Sara, just for information - my parents are retired teachers and their income is not high. But my mother loves fountain pens so much (she hates computers) and they are important enough to her that one of her few luxuries is a fountain pen which cost I think about eight hundred dollars. She gets special accessories etc for it and her old-fashioned desk (ink, blotting paper etc) in a much-anticipated yearly trip to Melbourne. All her letters are written with fountain pens. I have another friend, who works in libraries and is writer and musician, who also writes all his personal letters with a fountain pen of reasonably expensive make. So it is out there, this profound appreciation of the fountain pen and the appearance of letters written with it.
Posted by: Sheena Walsh at October 2, 2005 04:35 PM
It sounds like you take advantage of the insomnia pretty well, but I found that St. John's wort helps me sleep through the night especially now. It is routinely used in Scandinavia to help people cope with the unending winter darkness.
I live in Maine, and there is nothing more depressing than the time slide from when the clocks change in late October to the winter solstice. It seems to get dark around 3:30 in the afternoon between November and December, and it rains a lot here on the coast, so we need all the help we can get.
Posted by: murgatroyd at October 4, 2005 12:47 PM