winter returns

Seasonal Affective Disorder is the name hypochondriacs have bestowed upon their reflexive dislike of the end of November. It is apparently the result of overproduction of melatonin, a sleep-related hormone that the brain secretes from the pineal gland when it's dark out. If the brain could be convinced to output even more melatonin, we might all hibernate through the winter. Hibernation would make us all happier, especially as we would then be obligated to devour potato chips and milkshakes all autumn.

Winter depression was elevated to Disorder status in the early 1980s by National Institute of Mental Health researcher Norman Rosenthal. I bet Norm and his colleagues were pretty thrilled by their acronym, SAD. I wonder how many other catchy names they tried. I'm guessing they started with Pinealic Enhanced Sleepy Sadness Induced by Melatonin In Snowy Months (PESSIMISM) and moved on from there.

You'd think that I would love the winter. My ancestors are all from chilly parts of Europe, many from isolated bits of Russia where they wear fur and drink vodka and slap each other on the back making hearty "brrrr" noises. The cold should unearth happy ancestral memories from out of my DNA, make me smile a great polar bear grin and go romping naked in the white snow under the gray skies before I come back to my senses.

Instead I lock myself up in a room with glaring artificial lights and play games of hearts on the computer. You can shoot the moon, over and over again, for an entire game of computer hearts. During November I sometimes wish I could shoot the moon, just to wipe the knowing smirk off its glowing face. "Yeah," I'd gloat, as it oozed blue cheese through the stratosphere and onto the sidewalk, "If I could float above the clouds, far out of the reach of the knife-cold wind, I'd radiate too." And then, glaring at it, I'd suddenly notice how pockmarked its face was, once your eyes adjust to the glow. The moonshine is just a cover, a furtive bathtub gin that can make even the stoutest Russian forget a lifetime of punishing abuse. Goodnight moon.

See, Seasonal Affective Disorder will drop you like that. You're on top of the world, taking out satellites, and next thing you know you're huddled in a dirty booth in a greasy diner, eating potato chips and chugging milkshakes.