It feels like winter. It's sunny out there, bright blue sky and shafts of orange-tinged light brushing the trees outside my window, but the light will only last a few hours, the appearance of nice weather is belied by the biting cold that hits as soon as you step out in it.
Winter gets a lot of people down, especially in Scotland and all the lands north of it. I know a few people who probably just shouldn't live at this latitude, knowing they will have to get through months of depression every year, and one or two who've flown a long way south for that very reason. Mostly it doesn't affect me so much, but I'm not immune. For a couple of weeks or so I've had that feeling of being chased by the darkness, knowing I can stay on top of it if all goes well but if I slip then my head will go under. Maybe I can still swim my way back to the surface and stay there though, we'll see.
I took part in this year's Samhuinn Fire Festival, so nicely written up by gnarl, at the end of October. This was my second Samhuinn as a performer. Last time I played the part of one of the Valravn, corvid embodiments of inevitable death - not the cheeriest of roles, but sometimes I think embracing the shadow is the best way to deal with its existence. This year I opted to co-run the Summer Troupe, leading a gang of huge, sunny, fabulous animal puppets dancing obliviously down the Royal Mile to our inescapable, gruesome doom. It was a lot of fun, and I got on well both with my group and the wolves destined to eat us, but I wonder if I'm finding it harder to adjust after roleplaying that militant unawareness of the change of seasons.
I've been putting a lot of 'work' into E2 lately - re-doing the front page after Aerobe solicited suggestions for what needed to be done for it, playing with a nodegraph visualiser I wrote in Processing, fixing up a few other bits and pieces, and meanwhile working on some writing, because in the end that's what I'm here for. I'm feeling pretty optimistic about the future of the site - we're well on the way to fixing most of the really stupid stuff in the interface, and after that I'm hopeful about it starting to grow again. I realise some people may see this in much the same light as the Summer Troupe dancing happily towards a pack of wolves, but I plan on staying hopeful until I'm proven wrong. Wish us luck.