Friday morning

I've just awakened from another round of uncomfortable previous career dreams, punctuated by an allergy attack.

My allergy problems seem to occur in the middle of the night and again at mid-morning. By afternoon I'm usually feeling pretty good. The allergy attacks usually go away completely in early- to mid-October.

But what I actually wanted to post about was that my regularly scheduled spell of depression has not appeared. I've had two really bad spells of depression that lasted more than a year - one in 1971-3 and another in 1997-1999. But most last only a few days.

I've mentioned before that these brief spells seem to be mostly physical in nature and not strongly related to anything external. When I get them, I tend to treat them as if they were a bad head cold - annoying, but something that has to be temporarily endured.

I see three possible reasons they've stopped: retirement, and the removal of stresses related to work; the additional exercise from almost-daily bike riding; or the further elimination of personal attachments.

I think it's probably a combination of all three.

I want to post more about bicycling, but I think that can wait until later.