BBC America took my show off the air for the fall season. Those bastards. All summer I got really into watching a show called Ballykissangel, about a really small town in Ireland of the same name. It's one of those towns where everyone knows you and your family, and you can't really get away with doing something because everyone's going to find out about it sooner or later. The characters were really likable, and it was just so much better than much of the stuff on American networks. I really got into it. Of course, that meant that BBC America had to take it off the air for the fall season, and what gets me is they haven't replaced it with anything yet. Sometimes they run David Copperfield from 2pm to 4pm a couple of times a week, other times they stick in other random shows. It makes me mad -- they kept Hamish McBeth and Monach of the Glen, but not Ballykissangel??

So now I have nothing to watch at 3pm.

Bastards.

Anyhow, lately I haven't really felt like doing much of anything. There isn't really anything TO do, that's the problem. I have my crafts, I have my books, I have the computer and the tv. But it gets soooo old.

So I've been fighting against a mild depression for a couple of months. It's because I'm actually a very social person; I like to be around people and have a good time, and the lack of that made my last year of college very difficult to deal with. But at the same time, and I know this sounds completely contradictory, I also suffer from social anxiety. Just the thought of going into a place to ask for an application makes me so nervous that I can't do it. Calling someone up on the phone that I don't know is the same thing. I know they have no idea who I am, but that doesn't help. I just can't do it.

And I was talking to my "play mom" Laura last night, and she was telling me that what I ought to do is go to a school and volunteer. Or to the library and read to kids for the story hour. Something to get out of the house and back into some form of a social life. She's right -- Kurt's been telling me to do that since I had to quit my job. The social anxiety thing gets in the way, though. I keep trying to brace myself up for it, and I usually end up not doing it.

I hate that it happens, I truly do. And I fight so hard against it, but it ends up happening anyhow. I was raised to be very strong and very independent -- the parents that raised me had better things to do than to give me any kind of support, so I got used to doing things on my own. But walking into Microcenter just to ask to fill out an application took all the courage I could manage to squeeze up. And I still had to make my stepmother drive me there, although she refused to give any kind of moral support.

Plus it's things like going to Kenya on mission work when I was in high school that people love to cite when I tell them how anxious I get. Well, sure, I went to Kenya, a completely different country halfway around the world. But I went with people I knew, some of them quite well. So I really didn't have anything to worry about. The trip to Italy less than a year later turned out completely differently. While I felt accepted in Kenya by both the folks that lived there and my fellow mission workers, I was a complete outcast in the group from my high school that went to Italy. I was the only student from an English class -- everyone else was photography, art, or art history, and I managed to get in on the trip because I was a pet of one of the teachers. So one week in Italy with these people felt like torture, when I should have enjoyed the unique opportunity I had to see the marvelous artwork and architecture of Venice, Rome, and Florence. I would have much preferred to spend another month in Kenya without electricity and among people who lived in shacks, where I felt like I could fit in.

But at least this holiday season will be a good one. The holidays are hard for me, partly because it's a time that my father absolutey abhors. He was raised in a children's home in upstate New York, and since his family was Jewish, they didn't celebrate Christmas. Neither did they celebrate any holidays, because they weren't that Jewish. And it reminds Dad of all the time during the holidays that he spent alone, and it's taken him a good chunk of his life to get over that. But if there's one stressful time in my dad's household, it's the holidays.

It's been passed somewhat down to me, always expecting that something terrible is going to happen, something I have to fight against. This year I have all planned out, you see, and it's just going to be one major travel trip for five weeks.

Pretty exciting, let me tell you.

Because in three weeks, I go to see my sister for five days or so. She found a GREAT deal on a plane ticket down to Florida.

Then my in-laws come for a week to see Kurt and me.

One week at home with Kurt followed by his going to Pensacola for a Navy screening, and my going to my father's house to see the family.

Then upon our return back to our home, we immediately fly out to Arizona to see Kurt's family for two weeks.

So from 19 November till almost the first of the year, I am one travelin' fool.

Better get some good travelin' shoes. :o)