Cabin Fever

Cabin Fever.

Wikipedia defines it as : "an idiomatic term, first recorded in 1918, for a claustrophobic reaction that takes place when a person or group is isolated and/or shit in a small space, with nothing to do for an extended period."

I just call it Cabin Crazy.

Too tired to raise my hand

I've been suffering from CF/CC, or whatever you want to call it, for the past couple weeks.

I'm tired of winter. I'm tired of snow and slush and cold and dark and having to run my damn car for twenty minutes before it wants to go anywhere. The other day, I got so tired of this shit that, I swear, if my crazy ex had asked me to visit him in Texas for a few days, I might have considered it. Thankfully, that mood has passed, but... If this winter keeps up much longer, I might feel that desperate again.

My attitude has more cabin fever than I do. Everything is irritating the crap out of me. I can't even stand to read the news because, if it's good news, I'm jealous. If it's bad news, I'm hateful. Don't even let me catch a glimpse of a TV ad where some skinny bitch is eating yogurt on a beach. My brain goes into stalker mode and the only thing stopping me from finding that happy heifer and cramming a yogurt container down her throat is the fact that I'd have to go out and warm up my fucking car first.

Ugh!

I need to live somewhere with seasons that know how to come and go on a normal cycle. Who the hell wouldn't have cabin fever or murder on their mind living in a place when winter starts in October and lasts til it feels like leaving? I mean, we might see light-jacket weather sometime around the end of May. And that's only for between the hours of noon and maybe four o'oclock. Yeah, the sun will be up half the night, but it won't be so you can show off your booty-shorts and tank tops.

Seriously, I need a vacation. I'm not talking hotel and planned events. I'd settle for a roadside inn or truck stop and a decent vending machine selection - as long as it's somewhere warm and sunny. And the idea of any kind of a vacation brings up the other thing that makes me crazy about living here: you damn near have to cash in an IRA or some stock options to get out of here. It's not like you can just hop in your car (after warming it up) and take a day trip to a neighboring state. Even if we wanted to take a two-week trip and drive through the mountains, we can no longer just cruise through Canada anymore. No. Now it takes one of those passport card things to do that. It's like the universe is working to keep us here.

The only thing saving me from going completely mad this winter is my Netflix subscription. I've watched entire seasons of shows that a person with a normal life would never have time to squeeze into the past three months. I just ran out of episodes of "Breaking Bad" and there are still weeks and weeks and weeks  to go of this winter.

Someone (who happens to live where they feel the warmth of the sun on their skin all year round) made a comment to me about how living here must be good for writers. You'd think, wouldn't you? All this closed in solitude and darkness, right? Think again. Most writers are people who create characters they can hold conversations with and create worlds out of nothing because they have problems dealing with the one they live in. We're already a little crazy. I don't think solitude and darkness are things we need more of.

Yeah, so...

This coming week, I'm going to force myself to be more social. I'm going to get my head out of the book I'm writing and touch bases with all my social networks. I'm not really in the mood for people I have to actually deal with, but I can handle logging in and out of Google and Twitter. Maybe. We'll see.

Peace
--Free