I'm having to fight to make something of these chilly, under-employed days in this bleak place, scared of falling into the depression that is apparently common in the first year of sobriety. The internet is beginning to make me queasy and somehow more lonely, so I've been doing some odd things. I bleached my eyebrows for the same reason I booked a trip to the tiny, remote island of Papa Westray next week - an emerging philosophy* of celebrating and accentuating the essence of a given thing - having pale colouring, living on small islands - rather than trying to make it like everything else.
Last night, instead of going to an AA meeting, I went to the first meeting of the local Astronomical Society. I've always said that I stopped drinking to have a life, rather than to spend my time talking about having stopped drinking. Instead, I heard about how the increase of the size of the moon as it gets closer to the horizon is merely an optical illusion, as you will realise if you turn around and look at it upside down through your legs. I heard about how, because of the lack of light pollution here, under certain conditions the Andromeda galaxy can be seen by the naked eye - and started making plans to see it myself. I thought about how the moon is getting further away from the earth and although this is only happening at about 3.78cm per year, or the same speed at which our fingernails grow, it seems terribly sad.
*Haven't yet given a title to my philosophy but pretty sure it'll catch on
