A quiet evening

Sunday evening has rolled around again. It is almost midnight as I write this. Today has been humid and rainy, and the city is quiet, the usual calm before the week starts again tomorrow morning. I went for a short run earlier, and while it was a bit painful it was good to get out there and do it.

I've run three times in the last week, short runs. Constantly having aches and pains related to running is an irritation, but it is better than the alternative, that being the state I find myself in if I don't run. Exercise is one of those things where you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Over the last month I have been having a lot of trouble getting to sleep. I don't feel especially bad at night, but my body simply does not want to turn in for the night. It may be partly the warmer weather, and partly doing a bit less exercise than I was before. But it feels like more than that somehow. I hope that it passes quickly - I am getting tired of feeling fatigued during the day due to lack of sleep, then being unable to sleep properly at night despite being tired. Sleep is a simple thing, but it makes a huge difference.

I've been using some of my extra, unwanted waking time to read Game of Thrones, the first novel in George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. It is the first fantasy novel I have read in years, and it is very enjoyable. I really liked the first season of HBO's show based on Martin's story, and as I work my way through the book I find that the show is very faithful to the book. The people at HBO did a great job of realizing the world that Martin created in his book. Byzantine political machinations, a world with a history, a place similar enough to the history of our own world to be familiar, but different enough to be fascinating on its own terms.

As I work my way through the book, I find myself with a problem that faces all of us who find ourselves confronted with a good book or show - making it last. Some people sit down and read a book from cover to cover, or have a DVD marathon and watch all of a great series in one go. I always remember the case of an old university friend who, even after I warned him to ration it, insisted on going off and watching all of Band of Brothers in a single sitting. Unsurprisingly, he was pretty shell-shocked after that.

But for the most part, it isn't fear of bad effects that causes me to ration the good stories. It is wanting to extend the moment, to be able to spend longer in the various fantasy worlds, whether that is the Winterfell of Game of Thrones, the 1960s Madison Avenue of Mad Men, or the Baltimore corners of The Wire. Perhaps this is sad, that I need to depend on my time in fantasy-land to keep myself going. But sad or not, it is a necessity, and I'll keep rationing out the chapters as long as I can.

It is after midnight now, so i think I will turn in, read a final chapter, and then try to sleep. Hopefully this evenings short run will have convinced my body that it is time to sleep.

What do we say to the god of death?

I just got through watching the first season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, it was a lot of fun. I was really big on fantasy when I was a teenager, reading a lot of D&D related books, Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and so on. I never read anything by George RR Martin. In fact, I haven’t read anything in the fantasy genre for probably about a decade, since re-reading Tolkein’s books before Peter Jackson’s films came out. I had left the worlds of fantasy far behind.

But a few months back someone who had read Martin’s series was raving about it, and telling me that I had to watch the series. I wasn’t particularly keen, but tuned in knowing nothing at all about the story.

It is quite a good series. There is a lot of good acting, interesting characters, and a medieval world similar enough to ours to be familiar, but different enough to be intriguing. Where no one lives forever.

Which brings me back to the title of this post, a line spoken by a minor character, a fencing teacher to his young charge; “What do we say to the god of death? Not today.“ Despite all the interesting characters and remarkable scenes, it is that single line that has stuck with me the most.

The reason is not too hard to figure out of course. I’m still fighting depression, and while I am not suicidal, it is tough to get through every day. But no matter. For me it is not so much the god of death as the god of despair, of hopelessness. Of giving in and falling apart. And maybe that will happen someday. We are all mortal, and in the long run we are all fighting a losing battle.

The other day as I was out running in the blazing sunlight, sweating, suncream dripping into my eyes, my legs hurting. I wanted to stop exercising, to just say “bugger it” and give up and just shuffle home. But those two words came back to my mind, and I kept running, kept up the exercise routine that is helping to keep me sane.

The end will come someday. But it didn’t come that day. It didn’t come yesterday. And it won’t be today either. The god of death, along with his buddies, despair, delusion and defeat, can all bugger off as far as I'm concerned!