Thursday, April 21, 2005
The known blogosphere is pretty bad at conveying emotional complexity. Most blogs are uniformly positive about everything, or merely very impersonal. I'm increasingly guilty of that as readership grows. There's another subset (mostly on Livejournal) that are continually angsty. I thought I'd break that pattern today, possibly at the risk of alienating the 98% of readers that don't know me personally.
I started a new job three weeks ago, and it's been great. Hard work, and long hours but extremely stimulating. I've been learning new skills, and doing a lot of exciting academic writing. I've felt buoyant about the whole thing, particularly so because I was extremely anxious about taking on such a tough post in the first place.
Today my mood came suddenly crashing down. I can hardly ever recall being so emotionally labile. I think there are three main reasons:
1. There are 13 sets of neighbours with adjoining properties to ours. Of these only one set are barristers, and coincidentally they are the only ones who have complained about my beehive. Today those same neighbours got stung, and naturally were on the phone again to complain. Bees and the Law, an apiarist's legal casebook, provides scant reassurance that I'm not going to have to give up the bees. I've taken out bee insurance from the North London Beekeeping Association, but that's not really a satisfactory solution.
2. Dinosaur Jr have reformed. They used to be my favourite band. I saw them once live, and even met J Mascis one time. They're playing in London in June, and I can't think of anyone who'd actually want to go with me. I feel old and washed up for being excited about the gig, and that's compounded by not knowing anyone else who's a fan.
3. Perhaps as a result of those first two reasons I've been listening to Playground Love by Air (free MP3 download from Amazon (Vibraphone version)). One of the most depressing records ever.
I can't be bothered to hunt down the pubmed reference, but I remember a very persuasive study about depression. Healthy volunteers were asked to have telephone conversations with patients suffering from clinical depression. The healthy volunteers report not only finding the conversations somewhat aversive, but they end up rating their own mood as lower. On that basis I'm not going to harp on about how glum I feel. I'll return tomorrow with the usual ebulliant nonsense about robots/sneakers/lohan. If you live in North London, have a huge garden, and feel like adopting a beehive, do get in touch.
I started a new job three weeks ago, and it's been great. Hard work, and long hours but extremely stimulating. I've been learning new skills, and doing a lot of exciting academic writing. I've felt buoyant about the whole thing, particularly so because I was extremely anxious about taking on such a tough post in the first place.
Today my mood came suddenly crashing down. I can hardly ever recall being so emotionally labile. I think there are three main reasons:
1. There are 13 sets of neighbours with adjoining properties to ours. Of these only one set are barristers, and coincidentally they are the only ones who have complained about my beehive. Today those same neighbours got stung, and naturally were on the phone again to complain. Bees and the Law, an apiarist's legal casebook, provides scant reassurance that I'm not going to have to give up the bees. I've taken out bee insurance from the North London Beekeeping Association, but that's not really a satisfactory solution.
2. Dinosaur Jr have reformed. They used to be my favourite band. I saw them once live, and even met J Mascis one time. They're playing in London in June, and I can't think of anyone who'd actually want to go with me. I feel old and washed up for being excited about the gig, and that's compounded by not knowing anyone else who's a fan.
3. Perhaps as a result of those first two reasons I've been listening to Playground Love by Air (free MP3 download from Amazon (Vibraphone version)). One of the most depressing records ever.
I can't be bothered to hunt down the pubmed reference, but I remember a very persuasive study about depression. Healthy volunteers were asked to have telephone conversations with patients suffering from clinical depression. The healthy volunteers report not only finding the conversations somewhat aversive, but they end up rating their own mood as lower. On that basis I'm not going to harp on about how glum I feel. I'll return tomorrow with the usual ebulliant nonsense about robots/sneakers/lohan. If you live in North London, have a huge garden, and feel like adopting a beehive, do get in touch.
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