What I dig about the English language is that it's never been its own language at all, but merely the amalgamation and assimilation of other languages. But that's really another entry and perhaps a journal article, so I won't bore you on this gloomy Sunday morning with such matters.
The word "melancholy" intrigues me today. Its etymology pairs the Greek words meaning "black" and "bile" and thus refers to the excess of this humour, which causes depression and a period of deep sadness. My beloved OED does not, however, note the many benefits of the temporary increase of black humour, a fact which I have most recently discovered.
I came home from Reno feeling a little soul-depleted. Conferences are typically not fun places to be as a general rule, but conferences in casino hotels are even less so. I don't gamble and I rarely drink and I find that cigarette smoke in any form makes me feel nauseated. To be surrounded by all of these things simultaneously for even a short period is taxing to my senses. It makes me grouchy to take a shower and put on clean clothes only to discover that they smell like a bingo hall. Thus I smell like a bingo hall. There is no place to escape in a casino, either. Even finding the outdoors becomes a chore.
Our panel group was spectacular and the presentation part was lovely, even though the hotel put us into the bowels of the building and told no one of this - quite amusing. Hearing the papers for the panel I chaired was illuminating. I somehow managed to pull together four people who are all the same age and interested in the same things. We went to dinner afterward at a darn-good Mexican food joint called Miguel's, and the one thing Reno clearly has that Vegas doesn't is small-town politeness; for all its grit, Reno's townfolk seem really midwestern in their encounters with others, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. It's a place where older women with raspy voices call you "honey" but they mean it so it's okay. Both cab drivers to and from the restaurant were chatty and reminded me of how NYC cabbies would be if they weren't so regularly beleagured by rude tourists: kinda edgy, but happy for the company in an otherwise lonely job. We tipped the hell out of both of them. It was nice to spend time with other scholarly folk who don't subscribe to the pretension of scholars - those who forge their own paths without regard to status quo. We closed the restaurant down talking about teaching and books and movies and telling jokes. I had a nice time, but after a bit, I get tired of being around others and this is never personal.
It's hard to be overstimulated for too long - by surroundings, people - and the worst for me is when I have to perform for too long. Most people don't understand what this means, but as a reasonably introverted person, it's a lot of work to be around others, and even more so with others I don't know well. By the end of any given week of teaching, I feel like a car running on fumes. I need refueling and some down time, and I didn't get it in Reno to be sure. By the time I arrived in Denver, every single person in that airport was on my list. Too many people with too many smells, too many calls to be polite, too many things and individuals bumping into me or touching me, and it all gets to me. When Jamison picked me up with his visiting friend who's staying with us for the weekend, all I could do was lie down in the back seat and close my eyes so I didn't have to be polite or talk. Again, it's nothing personal; I just need some cave time.
I get depressed in this state, and everything quickly becomes overwhelming. School and work and teaching and family time and friends and even having to eat sounds like work and I get all existential about what the point of any of it is when we're just going to die anyway. Melancholy. Not ennui, as Jamison calls it. I feel quite certain at these moments that black bile is all that courses through my veins, and while it doesn't sound so, it's a positive thing in the end.
Most of Saturday was dedicated to being alone in the house whilst it rained, wearing my PJs and watching crap television and playing mindless computer games. One should never underestimate the need for Pajama Day, nor its many benefits. Nothing can revive my state of mind and top up my soul depletion quite like a self-indulgent day crammed with pointlessness and quiet. Today is full of renewal and I embrace the cold wet weather and look forward now to a trip abroad in less than a week. Perhaps the way to rebalance one's humours is not to up the level of the others to compensate, but to let the excess do its work.
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