As always, let’s get started with the numbers …

Media consumed # (remaining/total)
Physical Comics Read: 11 (42/53)
Digital Comics Read: 3 (472/539)
Trade Paperbacks/Graphic Novels Read: 2 (40/73)
Books Read: 2 (114/174)
Movies Watched: 4 (103/146)
TV Seasons Completed: 0 (90/101)
TV Shows Completed: 0 (28/38)
Podcast Episodes Remaining: 201

A quick note that the total for physical comics has changed because I had been zeroed out for a while and now I have a small pile because of my Baltimore Comic-Con trip. I’m sure that in the next month or two it will be back to zero and I’ll decide what I want to do with this part of this list for next year and beyond.

Speaking of the Baltimore Comic-Con, if Free Comic Book Day is the official holiday of the Quarter Bin podcast, I wonder if the Baltimore Comic-Con is the official holiday for this blog? Or maybe for Pop Culture Affidavit and for this it’s an anti-holiday? I guess that if The Uncollecting had an “official” holiday, it would be New Year’s Day, because that’s when I officially started this whole project and it’s also a day where a lot of people take stock of things. I guess that’s as close as we get to a “National Cleaning Day.”

I’m not sure where I am going with this. Maybe I’m just in need of an occasion to mark because this fall has been incredibly tough. It’s my favorite season of the year and so far, I have barely had a chance to acknowledge it because I have been nothing but busy. I’ve also been depressed, which has meant that when I have had the opportunity to acknowledge those things that I enjoy, I haven’t wanted to.

This isn’t I liked admitting to myself, or even asking about. Truth be told, I have always felt that my circumstances and place of privilege in life and society disqualified me from depression. Yes, I know how stupid that sounds, but every time I feel depressed, a voice pops up to scold, “What do you have to be depressed about” It’s just that this time, the feelings had gotten so bad tat I actually talked about it to my therapist and she asked me all of the necessary questions before exclaiming that I may have been dealing with some mild depression (on top of my already-present anxiety, of course).

So I guess I do qualify.

Anyway, this does make me wonder about the psychology of things like hoarding and shopping or spending addictions and overeating. I don’t have any data, although I am sure that I could look something up, but the accumulation of stuff might have a correlation with mental health. Not that depression or anxiety always cause someone to just mindlessly buy stuff or overeat but I notice in myself that the discipline goes out the window when the stress rises. Compounding this is a perfectionist streak that causes me to swing between all or nothing extremes.

Paying attention to mental health is a pain in the ass.

But right now, it’s time to keep going. With work. With life. With making my way through all of this stuff so that I can get closer to zero.