A list of the (not-so-clinical) symptoms of The Swamp blues:
1. You have no friends
2. You have no family
3. You have no day job, and no prospects
4. You live in one of the only states to explicitly ban gay adoption.
5. Mike Huckabee was signing books at your local Borders bookstore. Yes, that Mike Huckabee.
6. Everyone around you owns a monster truck or is a monster truck enthusiast.
7. You have to keep up with Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, and Erika more than you have to keep up with your aforementioned (lack of) friends and family. (This is why I refer to my current location as "The Swamp" and not "The Sunshine State" like the octogenarians who side-swipe you on the roads.)
8. Octogenarians side-swipe you on the roads.
9. Did I mention tropical storms? Oh yeah, right. Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, and Erika all came over for dinner... and they didn't wipe their feet.
10. Fire ants
11. Cockroaches (affectionately referred to as "palmetto bugs" by octogenarians)
12. Book mites
13. Moth-looking bugs that do. not. die.
14. Alligators.
Okay, so that last one hasn't affected me. Yet.
But a trip to the library, Barnes & Noble, and the liquor store solved everything. Yep, I'm set for at least a week. Embrace the hermitage. Time to go look for the first line of chapter 3 of Mender in my freezer, behind the bottle of rum.
And people wonder why writers are statistically more likely to be alcoholics.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
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I accidentally moved to a right-wing shit-hole, too. Though where we live is SO shitty, and so heavily populated by jerks, I am jealous of where you are despite the above list of its deficiencies. I have periodic phases of (undiagnosed) depression that sometimes get quite ugly. I have received the unwelcome advice that I may not want to imbibe quite so much alcohol during these phases (despite the fact that intoxication very effectively renders impossible any sort of suicide plans). I ignore that advice, but I do eventually come out of the funk. Sometimes the books and the bottle are just fine. Just don't let yourself feel too alone in it. We're everywhere.
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