RSI

Walked around the park five times this morning, after failing once again to smash our new alarm clock to tiny electronic smithereens. Then went to work at Ma's. Hours and hours of ass-sittery, focussing, today, on a handful of peer-reviewed acadmic papers.

In the history of Mankind, and probably, now I think about it, in the history of Womankind, there has - I guaran-freakin'-tee you - never been an occasion when one human being has turned to another and said: "You know, this Being Alive gig is all fine and dandy, but what I really need now is nine hours of peer-reviewed academic papers. That'd set me up jusssst right..."

I think, by the end of it, my eyes had given up. All I could see were little waving white flags in front of my face.

Then there was choir.
I like choir. I enjoy choir. But there have been occasions when going to choir has seemed like the biggest, most unlikely challenge in the world. Came home tonight, sat on the couch and thought "It would be soooooo nice to just sit here."

Went in the end, mostly because hard as it felt to do, explaining why I hadn't gone would have been even harder.

Why I wouldn't have gone was RSI.
Nono - not RSI as you know it. Not Repetitive Strain Injury. This was a case of Random Sadness Incidence.

Not sure what the Hell it was about, but from out of freakin' nowhere, I felt sad. Not breast-beating, woe is me sad. And not everything is futile and we're all gonna die sad either. Just...sad. Kinda...pull the bedclothes over your head and go to sleep till the world is better sad. Random sad.

Sitting in choir before the actual singing started, I texted a few friends to find out whether this had happened to them, and if so, what they did when it happened.

Sally-Anne said "Ah yes. That. Not really any quick cure as such. Just remember it's probably nothing to do with real life as it is right now."

Wendy, being Wendy, said "Remember everything good in your life, remember there are people that love you...and get the hell over yourself!"

She has a point - sometimes, great chunks of my day-to-day memory of things like that just float off into the Arctic distance, to disconcert the polar bears something chronic.

Sian, joint oldest of my female friends, said "Music. Loud music, full fat Coke and sing your head off!"

Which was quite handy advice in itself, sitting in choir. So I de-focused the sadness, did a stack of remembering, and sang my heart out. Got a special mention and a brief round of applause, even, for learning so much of the repertoire so fast. Clearly, they've never heard of my particular brand of fanatical musical geekery, so that was pleasing. Home now, RSI dissipated, supper doing, Stuff To Do list still bulging, but minus at least a couple of solid, immovable objects.

And on we go.