Autumnal

I didn’t do very much this recent holiday weekend (except to attend the very first meet of the college swim season, about which I will soon have much to say). I’ve been out of sorts. I used to love election season, especially the presidential election, but it’s just upsetting now. I’m trying to stay optimistic and to remember that polls aren’t always reliable, but still - how is this close? HOW? 

For the past two weeks or so, I've been immersed - drowning really - in social media and political news, and it's too much. I'm stressed right out. I've also been reading a book of true stories about the fall of the Soviet Union, told by the people who lived through that time, which was of course absolutely dreadful for people without money and power, which was almost everyone in the Soviet Union. This book is another thing about which I will soon have much to say. Stay tuned. Preview: It's a great book, and I'm so glad I'm finished reading it. 

It might be time to read something a little more upbeat, but maybe not quite yet. I went to Barnes and Noble on Sunday and bought a copy of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, her graphic memoir. This is another book that I would normally never read - my interest in comics begins and ends with Charles M. Schulz and Lynda Barry and Roz Chast. But something about the cover appealed to me, and I had a gift card. I’m a few pages in and I’m absorbed in the story but the pages are so densely covered with text and visuals that if I paid full attention to the illustrations, it would take an hour to read a few pages. 

And maybe that’s the point. Maybe I should slow down a little bit and think about reading a book, and not just finishing it. And maybe I should turn off the news and put down my phone and go outside, and that's exactly what I'm going to do right now because it's 4:45 PM and my workday is done, and I have at least an hour of autumn daylight. After a walk, I'm going to make some chili. And after I make chili, I'm going to turn on the TV, because the Capitals are playing the Golden Knights, and it doesn't matter who they're playing because Capitals hockey makes pretty much everything better, even fall and winter. Even Donald Trump can't ruin hockey and college swimming and a brisk walk with a good playlist.