Gentlewomen, start your SAD lights

McBeth.

I think it's safe to say you're a real Wisconsinite when you confidently drive with car windows and sunroof open on October nights. The cool weather isn't the least bit affecting if one wears her warm woolen cap and she turns the heater just slightly up past 'low'.

I was lucky enough to find a local gentleman selling his few-year-old SAD light recently. He'd placed the ad online back in August, heard from a smattering of interested takers but nobody did that final (and somewhat important) 'show up and pay for it' step. I came across the ad a few weeks back. Thinking I was far too late and far more than a dollar short, I emailed the gent anyway figuring 'hell, the worst that'll happen is that I'll get an email from a fellow down in the dumps person emanating some charming Eeoreyish 'ooOOhhhhwell, the light's gone, the same thing that happens to all the good ones, they just up n'leave you, sigh'.

Turns out the fellow was a former coworker. Though the term is used loosely we both were paid by the same employer. I have to wonder if it wasn't just the workplace. ooOOhhhwelllll.

He told me the lamp never seemed to help him a whole lot, so I asked why he'd kept it for so long. Turned out his cat loved the thing and he felt good about making his cat happy so the light stayed. For the cat.

I think that's a story about a therapy modality having positive results despite the formal application of close-minded rules.

So I am the new owner of a used and alternately-effective SAD light. YAY. Yay? ahem. YAY!

This might sound stupid but uh, this is one damn bright light. I've been sitting in front of it for 1/2 hr. to 45 mins. the past two days. I believe it's too early to start peeking for signs of change after so short a time, but I sure the hell need to turn up a few other lights after I turn the SAD light off or I can't see ANYTHING after the room returns to its former darkness.

So as the autumn skies begin to drift us into sleepy winter snowflakey hibernation, my SAD light and I will be keeping one another company here at the desk.