Why does weather make people depressed?

I believe that the weather is merely a tool that people use to think that it’s okay to be depressed. 
There might be a more underlying cause of someone’s sadness or depressing but if the weather is crappy they say that it’s just the day.  The weather is crappy so I am going to be in a crappy mood all day. 

I, for one, strongly dislike when people think this way.  The weather cannot possible be perfect everyday and neither can a person’s life.  Which then leads to a question that I have.  Why let the weather determine your feelings? 

It bothers me when a person can be happy on a bright and sunny day but then if it’s raining the next day they are depressed.  Even if they are happy and are a generally happy person (only upset or sad when the weather is bad) they seem to switch that on and off whenever the weather is anything but bright and sunny. 

I am one to think that if you are a happy person then why let the weather bother you.  The weather is not going to hurt you.   It’s not going to destroy your happiness.  The weather, just like life, is far from perfect. 

Let’s all just live life to the fullest.  If we do that then we can generally be happy and why would we want to deny happiness to ourselves? 

Here is something you should be reading.

Andrew Leon, who wrote the excellent book "The House On The Corner" (My review of that here), has been serializing his latest story, "Shadow Spinner," in chapter form.

Shadow Spinner is for some reason being billed as YA, probably because its star, Tiberius (or "Tib") is 10-going-on-11.  It's not pure YA, though:  Like Harry Potter or the Narnia books, this book so far reaches beyond a YA level to be interesting to adults, and that's probably because the first five chapters so far have less in common with Potter or the Pevensies than it does good Stephen King.

Shadow Spinner takes place in an anonymous suburb populated initially by (seemingly) Tib and his mom, and of course there's something weird going on, dealing with shadows, but Leon manages to do a great job rolling out the scares quickly and subtly, from the amazing first chapter to the latest one I read this morning, Chapter 5, in which the villain of the story as well as a whole other weird character are introduced and everything jumps up a notch.

To put it bluntly, Shadow Spinner so far well exceeds The House On The Corner and that is saying a lot.  I've been getting each installment as soon as it's up, and I love that Leon is serializing it, because that's the way a story like this should be read:  The author doling it out, piece by piece, slowly revealing the entire terrifying world I'm sure is in store for us.

You can get Chapter 5 HERE, on Amazon, for just $0.99 (it may be free at times, as Leon is doing that), but if you haven't been reading it so far, start with chapter 1 here, and I'd bookmark Leon's blog, Strange Pegs, to keep up with new installments.

I'd say Leon is reinventing the book, but really what he's doing is reintroducing the book to us:  He's taking what books should be: great writing, great stories, great charactrers -- and making them even better by serializing them. If you like books and reading SUPPORT THIS MAN.  Go read his stuff, and leave reviews.  That way, we'll get more from him and more from people who want to do writing like this.

PROJECT CXC TAKES A BREAK:

I am on a one-week hiatus from working out, after spending another fruitless... depending on how you look at it*... day in the ER yesterday.

After my triumphant return to the below-10-minute miler club on Monday, I began to have the same kinds of problems that have plagued me in the past and while I made it to work on Monday, I had to leave at about 3:00 and go home, where I spent the rest of the night resting.

("Resting" in my house means "only occassionally giving in to Mr F's demands that I play "Ding-Dong" with him, with Ding-Dong being a game where I pick him up by his arm pits and hug him and then swing him like a bell, while saying "ding dong ding dong" until he gets tired, which takes a while, and "resting" also means that I only spent about 20 minutes playing Guns with Mr Bunches, using his new NERF pistols that I can't believe Sweetie got him because they're so clearly dangerous that she must have been distracted at the time)

When it came time to go work out yesterday morning, I opted to try to sleep in, since I hadn't so much slept the night before, and then when it came time to go to work, I instead opted for a dizzifying drive to the ER, where I was run through the usual series of tests to determine how serious my inability to breathe was this time.

(Their answer:  not very serious, in terms of inability to breathe.)

So I spent the day having X-rays taken, and pictures of my heart taken, and a stress test given

(Actual dialogue:

Doctor: So you passed the stress test.


Me: That's because I studied.)

and a student doctor sent in to talk with me for practice -- turns out he used to be a photographer for Sports Illustrated but gave it up to come back, at age 29, to medical school, so there's probably something inspirational in there for someone to latch onto.

And in the end, they decided that it wasn't my heart this time, just like it wasn't my heart last time, and sent me on home with directions to follow up with an entirely new set of doctors

(Actual dialogue:

Doctor:  I'd recommend Dr. [Name Redacted]

Me:  Is he good?

Doctor:  Well, he's funny.)

and now I have agreed with Sweetie that it wouldn't be the least prudent course of action to take a week off of working out, insofar as I somehow passed that stress test despite nearly throwing up during it and having to stop it earlier than they wanted.

So the song for today is Some Nights (Intro), by fun., and it's not the same song you heard the other day if you listen to these. 

*While I didn't get to work and I didn't get to work out and I didn't get any closer, really, to finding out why I can't do all those things as regularly as I'd like, I did read a lot of short stories by John Cheever and bought a new book about the Periodic Table Of The Elements, so there's that.