Rambling: Feelings of Dread in your Basement or Attic

You know that Seasonal Affective Disorder thing? I always assumed I didn't have that problem, because I wasn't depressed in winter. But I've realized this year that I do seem to be increasingly anxious as the winter rolls along. Has his happened every year? Is it SAD? Should I get one of those light therapy things? You know, like Walt in Northern Exposure? Did you ever watch Northern Exposure? Good show.

Um.

You can tell that this is one of those "write something!" posts, right? Right. Twenty-odd days since the last post. My verbal creativity seems to be largely nonexistent. And I'm not even daydreaming fiction. I usually daydream fiction. It feels sort of lonely not to have those characters ambling through my head.

Some sewing has been happening, so that's good. I fitted that skirt pattern, in two different lengths, and and made...did I make two? And a slip, with the same pattern. And a divided slip. And I feel like I've blogged all that before, but I don't see it in my past few posts.

I have three more of the skirt planned, one in red wool, one in a nice black and white houndstooth cotton that the bolt called "denim" though it's neither a denim color or a denim weave, and one in a cotton/linen fabric that is a denim color. The chances are respectable that the houndstooth skirt will be done by the end of the weekend.

Oh, and another one in a yellow silk/linen or silk/cotton or silk/something, and yet another one in a sage green rayon. That's...seven skirts? Yep. Will it really happen? My goal--did I mention my goal?--is to eliminate pants from my wardrobe. Pants are Not Flattering on me, in the understatement sense of Not Flattering.

Oh, and I got a length of red silk with yellow-gold polka dots. Bwaha! Not sure yet what I'll do with it. My goal is a bathrobe, but I don't have a robe pattern I'm happy with yet.

I've been doing a surprising amount of hand-sewing on the skirts. Surprising for me. Slipstitching the hem and the inside of the waistband, and pick stitching the zipper. I kind of enjoy it. It's like I'm bonding with the garment.

I still miss all those characters in my head. Sometimes when I'm sewing or gardening or some such thing, I find Columbo wandering up to ask me friendly questions about what I'm doing, like I'm a murder suspect. Wandering up in my head. I don't actually see him. Or hear him. Don't schedule the commitment hearing, please. But he's not talking to me right now. This is sad.

Sometimes it's Quincy instead. Did I ever mention my crush on Jack Klugman? It's also sometimes seen as grounds for that commitment hearing.

Um. That is all.

Firehouse Image: By Phillip Ritz. Wikimedia Commons.
Wanderers Image: Wikimedia Commons.
Columbo Image: Wikimedia Commons.
Quincy Image: Wikimedia Commons

IttyBittyFictionScraps: Bus Stop

(This one was about the difference between summary and scene. This was scene.)

Raining. Of course it had to be raining, on the one day that the car was being serviced. Joe leaned on the post of the bus-stop sign, as if it could provide shelter. And why wasn't there shelter? He'd seen those little glass-walled things in other cities; why not this city? What, the locals weren't worth the money? Probably somebody hadn't filled out the grant application, that was it.

He snatched his phone out of his pocket and made a note: "Complain to City re bus shelters." Rain ran over the phone as he did so. Probably going to ruin it. That would be the city's fault, too.

"Excuse me, sir?"

"What?" Joe turned to glare at--glare down at--the face of the little woman standing next to him. Little woman in a rain coat and a rain hat, little woman looking contented and dry and bleeping friendly. He hated her, just looking at her little contented face and its curls of hair, dry hair, probably warm hair, under the hat. Stupid woman. Didn't she know that she should be angry about bus shelters?

"What do you want? I'm waiting for a bus here."

IttyBittyFictionScraps: Coffee Break

(A tiny sample scrap written elseweb for a discussion of whether you need italics to get into thoughts in third person.)

He sat, thinking, toying with the coffee cup. How to handle this? He could address it with Mom, but Mom was...well, Mom. Mom had that crying jag last Thanksgiving, just because the turkey sat for an extra fifteen minutes. Mom had the brains, but she couldn't handle stress. Sue was the opposite--Sue would have been unfazed by the cooling turkey, but she would have handled it by throwing it in the clothes dryer on High, or something.

It had to be Joe. Dammit.

He shoved the cup to the middle of the table and dumped a handful of change next to it as he stood. Better get the call over with.

Dammit.