When I last reported in here, dear readers, it was mid-November, and I was recovering from jet lag and trying to come to terms with the pre-Christmas workload. I anticipated that the next few weeks would involve an increase in fitness activity, some reading, the completion of work to be done, and preparation for Christmas. The days since then have not gone to plan, though there may be hope for the restoration of normalcy.

There was a great dinner with friends at a local Himalayan restaurant, a screening of Skyfall, a big special needs Christmas event and some other stuff, which were fun. There was surprisingly little reading, and no exercise (I have to get that happening again), but above all there was hearing. Somewhere around ten days ago my ears became blocked, tinnitus roared, and my left ear especially lost a chunk of sensitivity. I saw my GP about it, had a hearing test, and pursued an appointment with my specialist.

I had an explained hearing loss in my right ear in February and was extremely concerned I was facing more permanent hearing loss. It threw me off completely. I did finish the Best of the Year, but I lost and had to rewrite the intro, and mostly worried. The hearing test showed that my right ear had recovered somewhat, and that my left was at approx. the same level as the right. Yesterday I spoke to the specialist who, given the tests, feels appointments can wait till after Christmas. The hearing may recover, but the tests show it’s nothing serious. I am vaguely relieved, though still concerned. This morning I see a dentist, just to be sure a tender tooth isn’t involved, and I shall hope for recovery.

Am I depressed? No. I wondered about that. I’d be depressed if my hearing deteriorated, but there is hope. There is also Christmas, family, a Bruce Springsteen tour and other good things go look forward to. I do have work to do before Christmas that I’d still prefer to avoid, but that too will pass. I read Neil’s new book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, this week. Unexpectedly, it proved to be the balm I needed.

So, I’m trying to work out where I’m at, two years into the 2010s. Back in 2002 I was a parent of two very young children, three years married, was a new homeowner, working a day job that I enjoyed and tinkering around with working at Locus. Ten years later I have two near teenage daughters, am thirteen years married, am living in the same house which now needs maintenance, have been acting in a job for 18 months that I don’t enjoy but feel I can’t escape, have been reviews editor at Locus for a decade, have edited over 50 books in one capacity or another, have been podcasting for two years, and am pretty tired out and stressed.

I’ve touched on this before, but I’m not really listening to much new music, not getting to do things I enjoy, and am even struggling to focus on reading because of my commitments.  I know I need to change, but I can’t work out how I want to/need to restructure what I do to make things work out.

I think all of the travel to the US for conventions has terminally distorted my ability to plan and pack for anything else.  It seems my default setting is to prepare for two weeks away from home without access to laundry facilities, and with enough entertainment on my person to cover two 24hr plus transit periods. As I pack for Melbourne – I leave in less than two hours – I’m finding myself more unpacking than packing. Taking things out I won’t need, remembering I can actually buy something I don’t have in Melbourne and so on. It does seem to be keeping the overall size of my packing down.

And of course, I’m going to Melbourne! I’m actually in my slightly anxious pre-departure phase, but I’m looking forward to seeing old friends, spending time in a wonderful city, and attending Continuum next weekend. It should, hopefully, be a wonderful time.

I will try to blog a little from the road, and to podcast if I can, but no promises. If I can’t, do look after the place and I’ll see you back here in a bit.

It’s heading towards bedtime on a Tuesday evening and I just need to blog the stupidity of this out of my system, so feel free to ignore this as you please.  I come from a family that tends to handle stress poorly. I could see this growing up in my father and in my aunt, and have seen a little of it in my siblings. At one point in my life I thought I had reached a point where I handled stress very well, and was even quite offended when a friend said I could be a bit melodramatic.  However, over the past ten years, since becoming a husband, a parent, taking on Locus reviews editing, anthology editing, and the day job, I’ve come to realise I actually handle stress quite poorly.  This has not been an overly pleasant discovery. It’s something that has come to a head of late, with reasonable but persistent stresses at the day job, and sporadic outbursts of stressors in my other areas of activity. It’s certainly meant that every day for the past few weeks I’ve had some incredible burst of stress, had to work through it, then try to sleep and so on. At the end of it I find myself tired and ready for a break. It’s probably all to the good that I’m heading off to Victoria for ten days. The loved ones are staying home, keeping the house safe and making birthday plans, while I simply hope to relax as much as possible and come back something of a rejuvenated person.