Comments

  1. petesh says

    May I suggest punching yourself in the face with your fist?

    But only if you also take your potatoes down to be mashed and make it over to that million dollar bash.

    (That is, me too.)

  2. weylguy says

    I say be thankful for every day that you’re alive, and that your family members are well. I lost my wife of 42 years last year, and believe me it has been a true bitch.

  3. Akira MacKenzie says

    Existential malaise is something you just can’t jump into. You’ve got to ease into ennui.

  4. grandolddeity says

    Watch a half hour of dash cam crashes, u pick ’em. It’ll make you feel better about not being “out there”. Particularly in snow country.

  5. robro says

    Ennui would be a relief from the anxiety rollercoaster I’m on. And watching dash cam crashes hasn’t helped me with that, grandolddeity. However, I have seen more music videos than ever which is enjoyable. There’s a lot of talent in our world, most of which we haven’t heard of but various social media outlets lets us access.

  6. says

    That was me a month ago. I was taking a shower and I generally shave in the shower. But about two days into lockdown I picked up the razor and asked my self “Why bother?”. Put it down, and now I have a 30+ day depression beard. Hang in there mate. We’ll get through this.

  7. cartomancer says

    Are we going to get artsy black and white videos in the style of 1960s French cinema to go with your new mood?

  9. Snarki, child of Loki says

    are you stuck in the house with Henri, the Existential Cat, of youtube fame? No? Count yourself lucky, then.

  14. davidc1 says

    I read that at first glance as you were struggling with an Emu .
    Off topic ,but i think there is something to be said for boycotting faceache .
    Just been battling with a stupid person on” Britain Belongs to The People “,she an anti vaxxer ,thinks Bill solid Gold Gates wants to kill all the children in India using Polio Vaccines.Also he and big pharma are working on a combined vaccine /identity microchip.
    Put up three replies by independent fact checking sites that proves what she says is false .
    She comes back with a photo of gates giving a young child a vaccines via the mouth ,and says he is practcing medicine without a licence .Plus a comment about the time when the US govt used Black people as Guinea Pigs in the fight against Syphilis ,trying to use that to prove all vaccines are bad .
    I think i will use faceache just to look at photos of cats in the future .

  16. wzrd1 says

    You complain of experiencing ennui. Consider how the Lysol people felt when they had to release a press release asking their customers to kindly not inject their products into their bodies, all because of the misleader of this nation’s maladministration!

    And so, just when I became depressed over my problems, I looked at the chap next to me and realized that he was even more fucked than I was…

  17. Oggie: Mathom says

    I feel somewhat lucky. With the neck surgery and not-quite recovery, I’ve basically been in lockdown since late September. I went through ennui back in November. Depression hit in December followed by worker’s comp admitting that yes, it happened on the job, yes, neck fusion was necessary, yes we will pay for it and oh, by the way, here is your back pay which has placed me in a very gently almost-retirement. I am reading books (for some reason I have descended down the dasypodid hole of South American megafauna). I am building model tanks (currently working on a Vickers Mk IIa). I am cooking (homemade pizza tonight). I am not shaving. I am not wearing underwear. I am not even wearing plaid right now.

    Anyway, I feel for you. Ennui. Depression. Acceptance. Home-made pizza, or (two nights ago, paella). It all falls together.

  20. says

    I’m rereading the Culture novels of Iain M. Banks (I’m in The Player of Games right now) and the Foreigner novels of C. J. Cherryh (her amazingly prolonged and deeply engaging series of trilogies). For some reason, I’m reluctant to try to break in brand new stuff because I fear tainting it with the misery of the period. Rereading stuff I know I liked seems a safer bet. A curious reaction on my part.

  21. grandolddeity says

    “I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet”
    ― Helen Keller

    or,

    “I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet. So I said, “Got any shoes you’re not using?”
    ― Steven Wright

  22. DanDare says

    You need a hobby. Can’t be spider related.
    Mine is writing a new role playing game called All Us Gamers. I have two parts released via DriveThruRPG and I’m struggling right now with The Book of Struggles.
    That requires playtesting which means spending time online with others.
    A few rousing sessions of Call of Cthulhu or Paranoia should do the trick.

  23. wajim says

    Hey, stop complaining; I have to shelter at home WITH my wife (Bada-bing) . . . wait, what, Honey? Crap, gotta go.

  25. vereverum says

    ennui – that’s a cajun sausage. goes great with rice & red beans.
    lots o tobasco. mmmm…mmmm.

  27. birgerjohansson says

    Read some really good science fiction, Alastair Reynolds has a new book, so has Neal Asher.
    Or a good British detective/thriller book, Sharon Bolton is good, so is Val Mc Dermid.
    Weird new film mentioned at New Scientist: Vivarium. Weird British film from a couple of years ago: Under the Skin, technically SF.
    Or get an old classic: Golem XIV, by Stanislaw Lem. His AI stories from the 1970s are better than most current ones.

  28. llyris says

    I’m filled with anxiety. And I’m in Australia (Melbourne). My state premier is pretty good, my country’s prime minister has tried some stupid stuff but has mostly come in to line. Our medical officers advice is listened to. Health care is cheap and available. Our hospital system is coping.
    I am stuck at home trying to facilitate remote schooling for a 5 year old and a 7 year old. I want some space and time back, but I am scared of reopening schools. Winter is approaching and the days are getting short and dark. I fractured my coccyx, and can’t exercise, unless you count running around after the kids, which I shouldn’t be doing – as if there was much choice about it.
    All in all, there are lots of things for me to feel grateful about. But this whole thing sucks.
    We watch that orange moron from a distance and there are no words to describe the amount of stupid and bizarre.

  30. starsend42b says

    @19-Re-reading old favorites is a very soothing experience. :) I am as well, Agatha Christie to start (she wrote something like 60 – 80 books, so that should take a few days at least-it gets confusing, USA titles are sometimes different than UK ones, so you can accidentally get the same book twice) and then I plan to move on to the Dune series…. hmmmm. maybe Cthulhu? Speaking of comfort entertainment, me and the hubby have been viewing the old 1950’s sci-fi/monster/space aliens/giant grasshoppers/leeches, etc movies. Many via MST3K, but not all. I decided early on to keep a running list of the titles viewed. So far we have watched 53. Yes, 53 wonderfully awful films. My friend suggested we write a book, “53 movies in Quarantine.” :)

  35. wajim says

    nondeplume @25: Solver linings? Slivered livers? Slathered lovers? Lathered Southers? Ok, sorry, yeah, I’ll go to bed. Got nothing/ So, another how many months of this? I’ll bet your name isn’t even real.

  38. nomdeplume says

    @34 yeah, you solvered the puzzle – old fingers, an ipad touch screen that seems to be going wonky, and a failure to proof read. Not sure what you mean about my name though, of course it is real.

  39. A. Noyd says

    I decided not to procrastinate my ennui and got it done on Friday. Unfortunately, that meant I did procrastinate the work I was supposed to be doing from home that day. Saturday was massive anxiety day, so I’ve just spent my entire Sunday working frantically with little time for any emotion besides frustration. (I’m teaching myself how to make videos for my students to study at home and I suck at it so far.)

  40. says

    @anthonybarcellos:

    C. J. Cherryh is a wonderful author. In addition to the Foreigner novels, she did a one-off called “The Paladin” which is about the relationship between a teenage girl and a past-his-prime hero. The hero begins the story having been exiled for many years but with a legend still undiminished. The teenager leaves home and seeks out the hero on the border of civilization because she’s been treated badly by the current ruling regime and wants to learn how to be a warrior as wonderfully skilled as the hero so she can go back & kill the king and bring justice to the land, whatever.

    What’s fantastic about the story is that the hero thinks the teenager is an idiot and is constantly discouraging er from going about a self-destructive path. The hero even teaches her some fighting skills, but why the hero teaches those skills is very different from other heroic-mentor stories I’ve seen. The relationship between them is incredibly believable and incredibly rich.

  42. grandolddeity says

    SM @28, I’ve got “Memoirs Found in a Bathtub” on Kindle…gonna give it a whirl. From what I’ve read so far (starting chapter 3 now), it is remarkable that it was written prior to being published in 1961!

  43. magistramarla says

    I suppose that we’re lucky that we are STILL opening boxes after moving into this house seven months ago.
    My husband has set up his study as his man cave/office filled with math/science, engineering, computer science and cyber security texts. It also contains a sizable number of science fiction books. He works from there Monday – Friday.
    He partitioned off half of the garage to make a multi-purpose room for me. It already was a laundry room. He installed some nice cabinets to make a large pantry and extra storage for me.
    The new bookshelves arrived last week, so he put those together for me this weekend. I’ve been busy setting up my library. I’ve found books that I haven’t seen since I left teaching, and some that I haven’t seen since college (in the ’70s).
    I’ve been organizing them – Ancient Greek (language, history, culture and of course, mythology), Latin (shelves of texts and language teaching materials, Latin literature, Roman history, culture and mythology).
    I also have a love for modern authors who write mysteries set in ancient Rome (mindless, but fun to read), so I have shelves of books by Lyndsey Davis, Steven Saylor, Rick Riordan, etc.
    I also love cooking and I own LOTS of cookbooks, some inherited from my mother-in-law, so I have a bookcase full of those, plus a shelf full of culinary mysteries by Diane Mott Davidson.
    I have so many bookshelves, I even have some space for his overflow of science fiction novels.
    Once I have my organization finished, I think that I will go through and re-educate myself with those wonderful books.
    I may even re-read some science fiction, and I will certainly keep trying new recipes and old favorites from my cookbooks.
    Boredom? What is that?