Feeling kinda low

Some days you just feel like things will never turn around.  I'm not at that point, but it has been a tough few days (or weeks really).  The weather just will not turn, and I'm starting to develop a bad cough.  I think even just a few days above freezing here and there would have helped.  Or if the rec. centre had a sauna or hot tub.  I'm really not sure there is one anywhere near me.  I do appreciate the fact that there isn't a ton of competition for the swimming lanes (even if the actual days/times it is open are too limited) compared to Vancouver, but those pools were a lot fancier and all the ones I visited had some kind of heated area for after swimming.  I guess it's something I'll have to look into.

What really gets me is how the cold has really sunk into the basement.  Even with a space heater running, it is just cold, cold, cold.  And at the moment, it is the only place I can write the blog, so it feels like I am trading off these updates against my health.  Not a good feeling.

I'm probably most bummed out about Leonard Nimoy's passing.  Spock was by far my favorite character on Star Trek.  It's always hard letting go of part of your childhood and realizing that time is ticking away.

I was really disappointed in As I Lay Dying.  I really can't explain why the recent Faulkner post was so popular, but it kind of feels like I built everyone up and then there is this anti-climatic climb-down.  (SPOILERS) I thought Anse's quest to bury his wife was absurd and quite frankly disgusting by the end (not simply because the corpse was rotting and attracting buzzards but the willingness of Anse to repeatedly endanger his family on this fool's errand), but I think what I so disliked about the writing itself was that over half the characters had completely disorganized thoughts to the point I often couldn't tell what had really happened.  I still don't know if the brother who was blamed for setting the fire was actually the one that did it.  In contrast, there is only one "feeble-minded" character in The Sound and the Fury, so more of the time, the action can be followed.

I guess in general, I just thought it was too much.  Too many characters whose thoughts were totally disorganized, too many characters I outright despised, too many enablers that allowed Anse to get away with being monstrous.  I could basically relate to the neighbor's wives, who hated Anse, though Cora then revealed herself to be a fanatical Christian, and the doctor and maybe Vernon Tull (though he was far too much of an enabler).  I didn't take a shine to anybody else in the novel, and generally felt the world would be a much better place without folks like Anse and his family living in it (and yet they seem to be fruitful and multiplying even to this day).  While I expect for most of Faulkner's novels, I will loop back around and read them a second time (perhaps in that internal chronological order) I just can't see reading As I Lay Dying again.  I was actually angry at the book or at least the characters in the book pretty much the whole way through.  I don't need that much aggravation in my life, particularly now.

Well, let me end on a more upbeat note.  I did hear back that my short story was successfully entered into the Toronto Star contest.  I had to work late most of this week, but I did manage to write a scene (and one that I think reasonably highly of) for Sing-for-Your-Supper.  I'll probably hear late tonight or tomorrow if it is going to be staged on Monday.  It won't be too difficult to turn this back into a chapter of the novel.  I've found what may be a local writing group and will see about joining, so it looks like I am actually over the psychological hump and that I am finally ready to write this thing (after toying with it for close to 15 years!).  Here I discuss a few cultural events I have planned for this weekend which should be fun, and I am hoping to squeeze in swimming and/or sledding with the kids.  And maybe the weather will finally turn.  It appears as though we may break freezing on Wed.  Something to look forward to for sure.