The Most Depressing Day of the Year

As blog entries from Monday 1/14 and Wednesday 1/16 were left unfinished and inevitably deleted in disgust, I wonder if I have the stomach for this writing thing. Perhaps I need to lower my expectations about what is blog-worthy, since right now everything in my life just seems too painfully pedestrian to place pen to paper (so to speak).

Today, while I have ingested no more caffeine than I normally do, (and certainly less than I have on frequent occasions) I am feeling jittery to the point of distraction - after a frustrating, yet not particularly terse exchange with tech support, I briefly found my hands shaking uncontrollably. And while not even remotely suicidal, I am struggling to anticipate with pleasure, any event in my immediate future. What is wrong with me?

I am growing tired of malaise, tired of melancholy, and tired of the monotony of this same discordant tune that is playing behind me. I need better background music!

It turns out that several years ago, hired by the British tourism industry, a researcher named Dr. Cliff Arnall came up with a mathematical equation that takes into account things like weather, debt, salary, time since Christmas, etc. and calculated that January 24th is the most depressing day of the year. Perhaps I am simply celebrating early...