"So, did you take November off from blogging or something?"

I went out both days this weekend, Saturday and Sunday. Both days I made a plan, got up, and mostly stuck to it. This is important because it really didn't happen at all for the rest of the month. Most weekends in November, except for going to work at football games, I have come home on Friday afternoon, closed my door, and ventured no further than the dumpster or the laundry room until Monday morning. I'm going to be honest, because it explains why I haven't had anything to blog about:

I've been having some trouble with myself.

Don't freak out. I'm not depressed, or suicidal, or in need of intervention. I DON'T NEED A PHONECALL TO CHECK ON MY MENTAL WELL BEING. I've actually talked to a therapist about this before a few years ago, when I was seeing one more often, so I know what's wrong. I've just had a little trouble shaking it off. I've written before about my introvert streak, and how that usually just translates into me doing stuff by myself a lot, but I've never mentioned that in the fall it tends to get a little worse for a while. After a few weeks of adjustment I come back around to normal equilibrium and everything's fine. This is my yearly cycle, and I'm aware of it, but this year has been worse than usual because I changed my fall schedule without stopping to think about what impact that might have and how I should plan for and address it.

Every year I travel in October, which I did this year, going to New Orleans and Providence, and then in November I go back to New York to see my family for Thanksgiving. This year I decided that I haven't done Christmas at home in forever, and it might be nice to have a change, but that meant that right at the time when I don't want to be around anyone but am forced to be because I am with my parents and have no car, so someone is in proximity twenty four hours a day for a week or so at a time, I was by myself for the first time in years. Unfortunately, most weekends it meant that I couldn't convince myself to leave my apartment. I'd get up, take a shower, shave, and then find the idea of going out and being around people too overwhelming to contemplate. All that traffic, all those cars, all those people I might have to talk to or be bumped by or just look at, it was all just too much to think about, and it was easier to just close the door and stay inside in my safe place.

I've known for a couple weeks that I really needed to shake it off, but was still having trouble. I still haven't seen the "Thor" sequel because both weekends that I wanted to the idea of going to the mall and having to sit near people made me anxious, but fortunately last weekend my friend Melissa invited me to see "Catching Fire" on Sunday, so I had to actually get up and leave the house or else I would disappoint someone else. This weekend, I drew up a plan for Saturday, and actually followed it, all by myself. After a month of not doing so, this feels like a tremendous achievement to me. I didn't draw up a plan for today, but a plan came together anyway.

See, yesterday was Small Business Saturday, and I decided that I needed to go out and support small businesses by going to the comic store and by looking for ties, thrift shop clothes, and vintage Pyrex. I've not shared my Pyrex collection here, really, mostly because I don't have a nice display space to show the entire thing, but since I started collecting a little more deliberately and less haphazardly I've done a lot of searching and reading on the internet. Friday night I even spent 45 minutes or so reviewing patterns and ebay listings so that I'd be able to recognize rarities and know if prices were fair. I was having an ok day, having spent more on ties than on Pyrex, when I saw this:



That wasn't anywhere in any pattern reference that I reviewed. I stared at it for a moment, wondering if maybe someone had taken a bowl that the color faded off of (this happens when you put vintage Pyrex in the dishwasher; a bowl and lid that I picked up at an estate sale for a couple dollars are so far gone that I just keep putting them in the dishwasher myself) and painted it themselves. People make weird art projects out of other things, so it could be possible, but I looked closer and saw that the design was fired on.

"Maybe it's Glassbake. Or Fire King. It can't be Pyrex or I would recognize it."

Intrigued, I picked it up and turned it over, and sure enough, it's Pyrex, but I had no idea what it was.

For the first time ever in my life, I wanted a smart phone that connected to the internet.

Instead of just buying it anyway, I put it back, rationalizing that it might be a newer, non-vintage piece, not putting together in my head until I got home that the Pyrex logo on the bottom had a crown on it, and none of the other dishes in my collection do. It has a crown because it's British. That piece is from the "Tally Ho" pattern, which was given out in the United Kingdom in the 1960's as a promotion for a tea company, and was manufactured there as well. I have no idea what it's doing in East Tennessee, but I kept thinking about it and thinking about it, and people on Facebook encouraged me to go get it, so today I got up, got ready, and went back to the store.

According to the Pyrex Facebook group that I'm in, I beat another shopper who was on the way to get it by twenty minutes.

I'm counting it as destiny. If I had stalled, or delayed, or not gone directly to the store according to my plan, then the bowl would have been gone when I got there. Instead, now it's mine.

I left the apartment two days in a row, and I had a good weekend.

I will be ok.