1. I'm not at my best in the fall - depression takes over and takes me for a ride. It's interesting - I can feel my depression creeping up on me as October marches on, and I can feel my brain starting to come back online in fits and starts as December progresses. It's an odd thing to feel your thinking turn back on.

To be honest, I can think of nothing worse than not needing sleep. I like the eight-ish hours of unconsciousness I embrace every night. Being on all the time is hard, especially if one lives with a brain that's ambivalent about making good choices. If your life is about performance or prevarication, the promise of more time feels like a curse.

1 I've abandoned any number of writing efforts this month. I hate everything, and that's a hard mindset to push "publish" with. I can't seem to find my feet when it comes to thinking, doing, and feeling. It doesn't help that my motivation is in the toilet. None of this is unusual for me in October - it's my second least favourite month for a reason - but oddly, I forget that it can be problematic until ennui arrives.

'Doing the right thing' and 'being fair' are virtues I aspire to, and this has been true much of my life, though I look at other people's situations with kinder eyes now, now that I'm older. I could be harsh in my youth when I perceived failure in these areas. This was an especial problem with my eating disorder. The behaviours it demanded led to me breaking my moral code in all kinds of ways.

Once upon a time, early in the aughts, I had a thought - they're rare, so I try to mark the occasions. I thought that maybe I'd buy an old, 1982 Honda Civic station wagon to repair and get back into running shape. I'd had one during my first few years at university, and loved it. I thought I could get one of those "All About" car repair manuals and work on it with my son.

Taking a shopping break. A little over a year ago, I decided I needed to take a break from shopping. I had in my possession too many possessions, too much of almost everything, really, save money. I'd made shopping into a daily recreation and socialization activity, and justified the relentless consuming by sticking to thrift stores. It doesn't count if I buy it used, right?

Bits of my brain are busy trying to engage the rest in an existential crisis. I tend to them when I'm stressed. It's a bit of a quirk. We all have our maladaptive coping mechanisms, though I seem particularly blessed in that regard. I'm old enough to feel my inner Kraken wanting to speak to some kind of manager. My brain is also busy trying to convince me that all would be smooth sailing if I could perhaps see my way clear to losing ten pounds, which is a definite "Danger, Will Robinson" moment in my eating disorder recovery.

The times, they are a-changin'. It's been a minute. What's new and exciting? This was the question I asked my kids when they came home from school, back when they were small. It's the question I ask my grandson now. I rarely ask it of myself, as I'm well aware of the changes as they happen. We've had all kinds of change here on my version of Walton Mountain this past summer.

I thought about opening a restaurant for a while. It wouldn't have been a stretch - I have quite a bit of experience in the food service industry in various capacities. I liked the idea because, when I imagined things, it felt a lot like Cheers, and who doesn't want to own a cool joint? I decided I would call it "You'll Eat What I Give You, and Like It." It would be one of those breakfast and lunch places you mostly find in office and industrial areas, and the menu would be whatever I felt like making, leaning heavily on sandwiches and noodle or rice bowls.

I had plans for the beginning of August that didn't include chaos. I was thinking maybe camping. The chaos isn't originating with me this time, though I come to it easily enough; it's coming from my daughter's. She is ready to pull the trigger and leave the abusive relationship she's in, which is fabulous news. She's going to be moving into my home with my two grandsons, also fun, if requiring some adapting on my part.

The finish line. July has come to an end, and so has my commitment to 30-Soft, the plan I decided to follow to kick myself out of an extended period of stalled ennui. It was a simple plan, on paper, and the changes didn't seem too onerous: follow a healthy eating plan; drink enough water; exercise at least twice a day, once outside; read at least ten pages of (inspirational) non-fiction; and take a daily selfie.

I decided to make some changes in my life to kick myself out of the depression and grief-based inertia that was doing a good job of keeping me fairly embedded in mud - or at least feeling that way - for the past several months. Luckily, synchronicity reared its head as I hoped for inspiration; I started seeing social media posts about the…

What would I change about "modern" society? Are we so sure we're modern? What does that even mean? Some of us are technologically advanced. Some of us have lots of toys and stuff. Some of us aren't sure we'll have food or water today. Some of us will die today because we lack healthcare or clean water. Are we including all that under the banner of "modern?"

I I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, and this has been true for most of my life. I’ve never been a huge fan of meat. It’s mostly the taste, though the eating disorder also made it about the calories. On the other hand, I can’t think of a single fruit or vegetable I’ve tried that I’ve disliked, though some I perhaps wouldn’t put into regular rotation.

I'm fifty-six years under my belt, and so far, I've made quite a few mistakes. I've also managed to learn a thing or two. Sometimes, I try to pass life lessons to my kids, but they're in their twenties, and, as is customary at that age, they know everything, so I have to dispense the pearls elsewhere. It's not unexpected - I knew everything myself at that age.

Conspicuous consumption I have a lot of dresses for someone who mostly doesn't wear them. The owning and holding is something that started about a decade ago, shortly after I returned home from an inpatient eating disorder treatment program. Before that, I had only a few, special occasion dresses in my closet, old faithfuls that I'd haul out for weddings, funerals, and Christmas dinner.

The why of my 30-Soft I've been struggling this year. Everything felt hard, and I felt extremely unproductive. I was rarely happy with what I'd managed to accomplish at the end of the day. I felt like I was engaging in too much lateral movement - reorganizing things is fun, and helps calm me down when my anxiety is spiking, but truthfully, it's not changing much.

I'm not a music snob, any more than I'm a literature snob. I've never seen much reason to exclude anything simply because of a category. I dislike things based on individual metrics, not by its inclusion in a genre. Many people don't understand about personalizing their dislikes; they're willing to hate across categories instead. I've a friend who rejects all country music as a matter of course.

FIFO I've worked quite a few food service jobs in various capacities in my life. A couple of the lessons really stuck with me. The first was, work clean. "Clean as you go" was a big part of my early fast food training, along with "time to lean, time to clean." Work at anything long enough and you become an expert.

I've always wanted to take good pictures. I'm hampered in my desire by a few things. I don't have a camera. I don't read books or watch how-to videos on taking good pictures, and I haven't taken any photography courses. It's as though I expect the skill to show up in a savant-like manner. I want to be good at it, so that's how it should go.

In A Rut I've been in a rut that I can't quite shake. Part of that was the annual spring depression, though that's waning now. Unfortunately, the rut hasn't filled itself in, nor do I find myself magically out of it, ready to start walking up the street. It would be easier to get going if the rut didn't appear to be filled with heavy mud.

I didn't read much this month, or rather, I didn't read much in the way of books. I read journal articles instead, along with blog posts and news releases. Inquiring minds want to know. I worked hard at staying informed and educated until about the twentieth of the month, when the state of life, the universe, and everything - thank you, Douglas Adams - became all a bit much.

I lose a fair bit in the way of thought and phrases as a result of not writing things down as they occur. I tell myself I'll remember the train of thought. I tell myself I'll remember the circumstances that led to the inspiration and make lightning strike twice. Neither of those things ever happens. Sometimes, I forget I've had an idea at all.

*trigger warning, discussion of self-harm, attempted suicide Fine Forearms I used to tell people that the thing I liked most about myself was my forearms. It's true. They're aesthetically very pleasing. They're symmetrical, which is a win on the human approval scale right off the hop. We're wired to like symmetry. I suspect that's one of the reasons my nerve-damaged chin bothers me so much - it sits slightly askew.

Prove You Earned That Air I struggle with feeling that I’ve not done enough to earn my air at any given moment of my existence. These long-standing feelings of insufficiency, of not being enough just as I am, without improvement, provided a door that my eating disorder used to sneak into my psyche with, and there she set up camp.