raybear | I'm not begging for no sympathy.

January is usually a pretty introspective month for me. I mean that word neutrally, as well as the extreme versions that can come with it, whether the introspection leads to major life changes (breaking up, starting new relationships, starting new jobs, quitting jobs, etc.) or whether it leads to major depression or whether I'm just fcking sick and I have to lie around on the couch for days (or weeks) on end and look within to my cellular health. This year is no different, though it's a milder version, I just feel more introverted. Which is highly conducive to the schedule I'm keeping.

The week before last I decided it was time to get over my fear (and loathing) of white wines, and I started with a bottle of sauvignon blanc¹ which I finished over the course of the week by having a glass everyday at lunch. My schedule was this: wake up at 8 am when DYA would kiss me goodbye, do prostrations, take dog out, make breakfast, drink coffee and check e-mail and putz online, read/write/researh a couple hours, make lunch while listening to music, eat/drink, wash dishes, take a nap, wake up, shower, get dressed, go to work. At work, I probably do office work for about 3 solid hours of the 5 I'm here -- the other two are spent doing puzzles or reading the news or putzing online. Come home, watch tv while snuggling on couch and drinking tea, go to bed.

Then last week I was sick and I did lot more watching tv/movies and no wine or cheese. This week I'm back to the other schedule. I am enjoying myself. Occasionally I run errands during the day. Sometimes I watch half a movie while eating lunch. Sometimes I watch porn. Sometimes I nap on the train, sometimes I'm reading manuscripts instead.

Things I am thinking about during all this luxurious introvert's schedule that I very much appreciate:

- I almost never get bored, rather I experience times when I want to be doing something else but I am unable to do it, so I feel resentful of the circumstances I am stuck in and hate them and I call that 'bored'. But given lots of time and space and flexibility, I can entertain myself a long time. I'm not always the most 'productive' in this, but I'm trying to eschew obligations of productivity, as it just makes me feel guilty and worthless and miserable and, most importantly, produces mediocre art. I don't have to be happy to write better, not at all, but I need to have real emotions, not just vague feelings of obligations and ennui.

- I am surprisingly bad at chess, but I can see some immediate improvement through the bit of studying I've done. I am slow at sudoku puzzles, but I always complete the puzzle, whether it's an 'easy' or 'extremely difficult'. I am pretty fcking talented at cryptograms. Yet, I still suck at crosswords.

- There are white wines I like, but mostly I am in love with bordeaux from Saint-Emilion.²

- I think I would do well in Europe, given my schedule of working from morning to noon, spending the middle four hours of the days eating/drinking/sleeping, then working from 4 pm to 9 pm.

- In Styron's essay I read awhile back, he talks about how his depression manifested in the afternoon, how in the morning he was hopeful and confident and proactive and fine, but as the sun moves along, the storms in his mind come too and the darkness become visible before it arrives and he struggles to get through the evening and make it to the night, when he usually would get a brief respite around 9 o'clock until bedtime. I am the same way. My worst time of day is mid-afternoon. It is actually perfect how my life is now arranged such that I'm forced to get it together and get out of the house at 3 pm every day (exercise helps, even if it's just walking to the train) and offices and cubicles are depressing grey places occupied mostly by boring zombies so no one notices I'm slightly broody compared to my usual state (in fact, I still come off as personable and charming here in the office), and I'm given mindless tasks to pass the time until I recover. Which is just in time to leave and go home. It's truly perfect. Knock on wood, except maybe I don't want to believe in superstitions.

I am being social on the weekends. Sometimes I even call people. And other times, I feel totally shitty. After all, it's January. But all things considered, I don't know if it's the global warming or getting older, the month doesn't seem so miserable.

¹: A New Zealand sauvignon blanc by The Crossings, a $14 wine I got on sale for $8. My book talks about wines that are defined by their crispness, and new zealand was one of them and supposedly the sauvignon grape is doing magical things there that it usually only does in France. My reading on wine is about the weather and farming and soil and chemistry, which appeals to me. I also am appealed by Binny's whenever they put wines on sale for more than 1/3 off and I will always buy them which is how today I went home with 4 bottles.

²: I knew I liked bordeaux and my favorite cheap wine is Chateau Combray which is $8 and can be found in both wine retailers and corner liquor stores (thebrownhornet and wearemany, this is the wine I brought to thanksgiving dinner in Orange County) but it doesn't hurt when you drink it -- that's my biggest complaint about cheap wines that popular with others, is that they hurt my mouth and throat when I drink them, and if they don't hurt you, more power to you and your two-buck chuck. Because I might be snobby about some things, but I'm not universally snobby -- some of my favorite things to put in my mouth are mcdonald's cheeseburgers and little debbie snack cakes and dunkin donuts coffee -- so if I could pleasurably swallow the wine made by kangaroos, I would do it, but I can't. So anyway, when I went wine shopping a few weeks ago, I went with a list of things to look out for, based on my readings, and I ended up with a 2003 bottle of bordeaux from Chateau Commanderie in Saint-Emilion, I splurged on it at $22 and I shared it at dinner with foxycoxy and broqued and liked it, though I was still a bit sick and couldn't fully taste. I savored the last 1/3 of the bottle alone this week and I could fully taste it and it made my mouth happy. So today I decided to try a similar wine -- same region, different vineyard, and so I got another bordeaux but from Chateau Laplatasomething [ETA: Chateau Laplagnotte-Bellevue, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru, 2004] I can't remember but I have the bottle at home because I restrained myself to only one glass at lunch today. It's from 2004 and was $19.³ It was also orgasmic. Next paycheck I will go back and try another wine from the region, and then another, and then another, if I love them all, I'm booking a flight to France.

³: I don't know why exactly, I just feel compelled to talk about how much I pay for the wine. The most I've ever paid for a bottle of wine was $28 for an oregon pinot noir, but generally I stay under $16. There is an $80 one I tried (Scholium Project) that made me cry it was beautiful tasting and I found a bottle to buy from online (it's super limited and hard to find) but I still can't quite commit to it, even if I tell myself it's for a special occasion, like perhaps my 30th birthday in June. My pseudo-frugality in the matter of wine is what tempers my snobbery, I hope. Or maybe it's just what tempers my bank account.