THE SECOND HALF OF SEPTEMBER

I'm in a really weird way at the moment. I wrote four different blogs and deleted them all today.

One was about a debate I had with a colleague about how to mathematically ensure that a Secret Santa is random. I have no idea why that came up, in September.

Another was about the green dye that's polluting the lake. The story is that the owners of the business park were testing the roof for leaks, and the bright green chemical they were using got washed through the guttering and into the lake. The water is bright green.

The third was a dangerous question that popped into my head. How do you tell a girl (platonically) that she's beautiful... without it being totally creepy or weird? The answer is, of course, single gents, that it can't be done... unless she knows you well enough to feel safe. And even then... Note - this was hypothetical. I didn't actually try it! At least, not today.

Then the fourth, which sparked the third of course, was about the photograph I found in my drawer, that sent me and my fragile emotions spinning fifteen years into the past.

I actually got as far as publishing that one. Then I took it down again because it failed the THINK test.

So, all this maths, memory, pollution and awkwardness, has left me feeling quite odd this afternoon. In hindsight I think it might be the Second-Half-Of-September, the season when I predictably fall into melancholy, year after year. Tickety tock.

I can't be doing with intense maths about something that doesn't matter. I can't cope with seeing the ugliness of green clouds of toxic green dye billowing through the clear water, and then with feeling so helpless about the world. I can't ask that question or say that thing, and I absolutely can't afford to be hijacked by the past.

So what's to be done about this Second-Half-Of-September? Ride through it? Cheer up somehow? Buy a light box? Stock up on the old Vitamin D?

Well back to the old PQT list for starters I guess. What am I Thankful for? What would I like to see?

"Do those swans look kind of pink to you, against the green?" I asked my colleague on the bank.

"I think you see things a bit differently," she said.