Ach.  The January blues have me by the throat. I am grumpy, yes, and think that the only solution is to take to my punching Wii game and work out some of my inner phlegm.

It’s a sucky time.  My uncle remains entrapped in the hospital. I feel so badly for his family, coping as they are with the uncaring busyness of the health care system – people’s hearts may be in the right place, but the system is overworked with flu patients and so things are not going well for him.

Why are the hospitals overwhelmed with flu patients?  Because people decided that since the pandemic wasn’t as scary as it could have been, they didn’t need their regular flu shot. And there are the anti-vaccine lobby who are still arguing that vaccines cause damage even though the study that supposedly showed that has been proven to be fraudulent. But hey, why not argue with scientists with years of experience? After all, we’ve all heard about science on TV…

Everyone is talking about guns and how we need them. Or talking about how Haiti is still in ruins. Or looking for Michael Ignatieff and wondering how the heck we are going to have any liberal representation in government? Or beating their heads against the wall looking for ANY media coverage of the NDP, which for some reason never appears. Or, for heaven’s sake, reading aloud books by Snooki.

People are posting me email about how tired they are about paying taxes that support the lazy. Egad. Yes, that $500/month the average single person gets on Ontario Works is astonishing.  What CAN they be spending it on?  Surely not rent! And yet the same “I don’t want to pay taxes” whiners complain regularly about the lack of city services, the health care system, the roads, school closures….where do people think the money for these things comes from?

Maybe I’m just in a bad mood because of too much red wine (my project – Alcoholic writer – is progressing apace. It should be easier now that I’ve tossed the friend who drank all my scotch – it was getting unaffordable to sustain! Even a casual customer at the liquor store expressed horror at the scotch slurping: “Single malt?  That just ISN’T done!”) and not enough sleep (my puppy is a morning pup, alas). Or maybe it’s because I was all psyched up to skate today and the snow ruined the canal conditions and I’m too chicken to try when the conditions aren’t good. Or maybe it’s because I am getting so good at procrastination from writing that I am actually contemplating moving my (many) bookshelves from one side of my den to another to avoid writing.

I just feel grr. Add to that the feeling that I’ve wasted hours of my time on people and things that don’t matter. I’ve got to get moving, reinvent myself again, find some kindred spirits to go with the lovely ones I do have (many of whom are related to me)(and some of whom are so far away), get myself going on the writing stuff, train my dog to sleep in, stop drinking wine (well, maybe not that one), get used to blended scotch…

And then there are the bright spots – the tulips I found today at the grocery store that made me smile and that everyone in the line enjoyed, the staff at the checkout who laughed with me, the way Chutney the puppy plays in the snow, the beauty of other’s writing that will gradually hone my own.

I need to learn how to be on my own again, after a long time with a chum.  It’s not easy, and every once and awhile the sky seems grayer than usual.

But a news fast (sorry CBC) and some exercise, and maybe lashings of water, might just bring me around.  That, and a cozy fire, and a cuppa tea.