Well, as always, I’ll start with my numbers for the month …

Media consumed # (remaining/total)
Physical Comics Read: 10 (71/375)
Digital Comics Read: 21 (517/538)
Trade Paperbacks/Graphic Novels Read: 5 (24/82)
Books Read: 2 (120/161)
Movies Watched: 6 (112/118)
TV Shows Completed: 0 (38/38)
Podcast Episodes Remaining: 119

September is when school started for real, so just like last year, the amount I read or watched fell off. I guess the difference between this September and last September was that my LCS didn’t relocate and therefore they weren’t selling off an enormous pile of overstock that I dug into (and have since mostly read), and while I readjusted the numbers last month, I actually didn’t buy much beyond a couple of back issues that filled in holes in my collection (which is allowable) and a couple of books I’d been wanting for a while. Two extra trades/graphic novels were added because they were new preordered books. And hey, the podcasts went down!

That’s because for at least the first couple of weeks of September, I was still doing my regular daily walk, which is when I work my way through podcast episodes. I have slowed down the walking because of the busy-ness of work, but I’ve also spent some of that podcast-listening time watching episodes of some of the TV shows I’m trying to get through. Honestly, though, I need to make a list of those TV shows (or seasons of shows) because I can’t remember what exactly they are and my wife and I keep adding random ones to our streaming service lists.

This isn’t good for my mental health, I’ve found. I’m definitely a creature of habit. Okay, of course I’m a creature of habit. In fact, I’m a creature of bad habits and that’s why I have started this blog. But I’m also a creature of routine and those routines are really important right now because of how everything is much stranger than it had been. Having to change or disrupt them, in the past, has thrown me into a bad habit tailspin and I could certainly see that come back this week when it came to snacks and buying takeout here and there. But I didn’t realize how fulfilling stuff like listening to podcasts while exercises was until I found myself walking outside today and feeling much better about myself than I had since the beginning of the week.

Anxiety is something in myself that’s been recent; well, it’s more like it’s been recently acknowledged because I actually went to therapy and started taking medication. But I don’t know if depression is a regular thing for me or if I’m just affected by being stuck at home for so long. What I do know is that I spent the better part of this past week feeling very down on myself–when I wasn’t feeling angry at the news–and I coped by eating and sitting on my ass. Yeah, I got a fair amount of work done, but it seemed like for everything I finished, one more thing popped up.

I think what’s getting to me is that I’m doing that thing again where I let myself get overwhelmed by the amount I have to do and by the time I hit the evening, I’m ready to fall asleep and don’t want to do anything but just veg in front of the couch watching whatever television shows happen to be on. And yet taking the break that I need–as my boss likes to say, attending to Maslow’s–while feeling great makes me feel guilty. You know, because I should be working.

This is obviously untenable, as is a lot of what’s going on right now, but I guess what can help is reminding myself that I’m actually allowed to enjoy myself on a regular basis and recharge where I can.

A bit of a ramble there, I guess, as I fill space on a Saturday night while watching GBBO. Hopefully more coherent reviews will be coming soon.