The weight of the world

I started off today with a mental health crisis. At first, I wasn't sure what was happening. Despite getting a full night's sleep for a change, I thought maybe I was still worn out from staying up until 3 a.m. on Saturday. Then I thought maybe it was a cold. All I really knew was that the thought of simply getting up and getting myself ready for work seemed nothing short of overwhelming.

After having my tea and some cold cereal, I e-mailed my boss with the news that I would be in late. Then, as I sat in bed pondering my next move, the cat came and cuddled with me, which led me to try napping. I slept about an hour but woke up to find myself with the same dilemma.

I tried to think of who might be able to help me out of it and messaged my pal Dorkchop, who's a licenced therapist. That was apparently enough to get me out of bed and into the shower. Reading his encouraging responses brought tears to my eyes. I guess it comes as a pleasant surprised to find there's someone that invested in whether I make it out of the house or not.

I still dithered for another hour trying to figure out what to wear, since my plan was to attend the opera with my brother bunj after work. I tried on two pairs of shows, two pairs of slacks, a vest and a suit jacket. After all that, I'd narrowly missed the 12:26 shuttle to work and ended up taking the 12:55, so what with leaving early, I'll only end up logging about three hours at my desk.

It's going to be a long three hours, I can tell. I still have that puppety feeling, like I'm a little person holed up inside a big person suit that I operate by strings. At least it was the push I needed to finally contact the Center for Grief Recovery and see about an appointment. (No response yet.)

As for what set it off, I'm not really sure, but it may have something to do with my phone call with my sister Sunday night. We're finally at a point with dealing with M.'s apartment and Dad's rehab woes (today may be his last paid day) that we could talk a bit about how we're coping with the grief. She was saying it "dribbles through" rather than coming in a flood. Maybe this is just a slightly bigger leak than I've dealt with so far.

Autumn naughtiness

Today's depression caught me even more off guard by coming on the heels of a delightful weekend. Sure, Sunday I was moody and draggy, but that's typical when I've been out late. It usually doesn't carry over into the week.

It was also a beautiful day, so I wasn't the least surprised to find that I'd managed to schedule a four-hour RPG session for the heart of it. This was JB's idea, and I was looking forward to it. He told us to scare up some players, so I asked Sad Cub, who initially agreed, but never asked me the time and then informed me that he had to run errands.

I find it ironic that JB initially objected to him because he'd thought he'd be "dull" given that the player he did invite didn't seem to contribute much. To be fair, I don't think any of us was at our best. I even dozed off at one point. (In my defence, it was after the homemade apple pie with homemade ice cream.) The game itself was another PbtA, Zombie World, with the twist that it used cards as a mechanic rather than dice.

We ended with about an hour of fading sunlight left so I got to fit in a bit of a stroll. I suspected the leaves would be particularly striking after having been washed clean but the previous day's storms and I was right. Any doubts I had about how pretty this fall would be have been laid to rest.

It was a marked contrast to my stroll along many of the same streets the day before. Then it was pouring rain and so, despite being the same time of day, quite dark out. I was too stubborn to call a ride, a decision I came to regret almost immediately. Thankfully, I wasn't completely soaked when I got home and my friends came to pick me up for the next event.

The afternoon get-together was another wine-tasting at mikiedoggie's. It was one of the best yet: everyone agreed that there wasn't a stinker in the pack and the final tally was very closed. Yet again, I placed near the bottom, so I think my faith in Independent Spirits may be wavering. After the prize was awarded, I inadvertently started a run on Mikie's 12 year-old Yamazaki (which I would feel worse about if he hadn't been going around himself giving generous pours).

However, the most interesting feature of the tasting from my point of view was a beefy daddy from Boston. He and his husband were friends of the organisers and in fact spearheaded a similar club in Boston. At first, I tried to be subtle in my appreciation, balancing my time between chatting him up and chatting up his husband. But after tasting a dozen wines, that caution went by the wayside.

Just before our outrageous flirting got too out of hand, I discovered that he was going to be at the same Halloween party that evening. I didn't know quite what to expect from it; I knew the crowd was mixed, so there would have to be some breaks on lewd behaviour. But I also knew how to get away with quite a lot even in an environment like that.

So I showed up ready, but even I wasn't ready for the Bostonians to arrive in TERRYCLOTH BATHROBES. It was only a wig party, but apparently their friends thought they needed to put in a little more effort. Although I appreciated the easy access this afforded, it did make it rather difficult to pretend to care about making conversation with everyone else.

Finally, after a couple hours, I invited Beefy to "tour the upstairs", which I'd seen once before. After a bit of Feydeau-esque comedy, we finally slipped out onto the upper deck for some hanky-panky in the cold rain which had thankfully slowed to a mere drizzle. He urged us back in before we got too carried away, but he connived with me to engineer a couple more opportunities over the course of evening. It probably ended up being more fun than a straightforward hookup would have been.

I ended up mooning over him a bit the next day. Besides being sexy and very into me, he was also smart and interesting, a prison psychologist who was happy to talk wine and gay media and probably a bunch more topics if only there'd been the opportunity. I was left with that familiar melancholy of being reminded how many supremely attractive men there are out there and, at the same time, how I don't have one to come home to.

At least I found a temporary respite from that in a three-way with my hosts. I'd had it in my head as a possibility ever since meeting them, so when it unfolded it did so very naturally. Given how drunk and exhausted we were, it was surprised we had as much fun as we did and we agreed to pick up again at more convenient time.