Ghosts appear and fade away

Sigh. The state of the world (see previous post) hasn't been good for my state of mind.

I haven't found myself in the clutches of a particularly bad episode in the Black Hole for a long time now; still haven't, and I thank modern medicine for that and hope RFK Jr. isn't able to somehow outlaw Zoloft so that can continue. But I do get into milder ones with what seems like increasing frequency.

Again, state of the world.

I've been gloomy for a week or so. Forgetful, slow to act, listless and prone the intrusions of sad memories.

Time of year has something to do with it, too. Time was, the approach of fall was a fun time of year—pennant races in full swing, shortening of the days (night owls of the world rejoice!), crisp evenings among the shed leaves—but these days I think of (a) my grandfather, who would be 104 years old today if he were still around and whom I miss a lot, especially around his birthday for whatever reason; and (b) my mom, who died ten years ago(!) this week. My mom would be apoplectic at the state of the US government right now. As a career public health professional she would be aghast and possibly in tears over what RFK has done to HHS. I think about her a lot even when I read the damn news because of that.

My distractions have been somewhat effective. Friends are good to have. Nerd TV is an excellent diversion (though I have a whole post's worth of thoughts on the good and less good of the current season of Strange New Worlds which may yet get put into actual words). Baseball—well, with the recent performance of Your Seattle Mariners, baseball hasn't really helped much. Books and other reading material. Enterprise fanfiction, comics, baseball histories.

The Ministry of Time was a good read, recommended to those who like character studies and fish-out-of-water scenarios and mysterious intrigue. And that can handle convolutions of time travelers, of course.

And, oddly for me, music.

I'm not a big music buff like so many of my contemporaries. I like the stuff I like, my musical tastes haven't really changed since the late 1970s, and live shows tend to be more annoying than enjoyable thanks to the deafening volume. But I did recently run across a new(ish) album from the great band Semisonic that has a title track, "Little Bit of Sun," that speaks to me. It immediately goes up there with Men at Work's "Overkill" as a go-to depression song. They're good companion pieces, really, with "Overkill" describing the experience of being in the grip of a depressive episode and "Little Bit of Sun" describing the first glimmer of climbing out of one.

Here's to finding a little bit of sun, a little bit of sky. I think I see it from the corner of my eye.