I need to read something that will cheer me up.  The selection of reading material in my house and backpack has either gotten too grim, or I am such an emotional wreck that everything puts me on the brink of tears.  In just the last few weeks:

Diary of a Bad Year, by J.M. Coetzee.  His characters are so pathetic, and the way they intersect with each other so sad, and the way they assert themselves in political terms so depressing…but I guess all his books are depressing.

The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch.  Based on the last lecture this computer science professor gave, and it is sad because he died.  Whaddya going to do, death is sad.

A short story by Alice Munro, wherein a character recalls how unforgiving children are of each other.  This, too, can kill you.

Catching up on a backlog of New Yorkers this past week, I read this article about kids in the slums of Mumbai.  Unending poverty will crush your soul.

Reading about “The Match” and talking to friends who just “matched”.  An old classmate recently published a book about it (that I did not read), and my first thought was, “why would you want that self-centered piece of nerve-wracking history to be documented for posterity?”

I also read about a recent case of Hodgkin’s lymphoma that presented as constant itching (the kid died), morbidity and mortality statistics in Japanese NICUs (better than the U.S.), neurodevelopmental disabilities in late-preterm infants (nearly as bad as very preterm infants), increases in meningitis caused by non-vaccine serotypes (just plain scary.)  I think it’s a given that my medical reading is usually kind of ho-hum — interesting on a please-satisfy-my-curiosity kind of level and dispassionate on another.  But lately, it has just been plain depressing.

Not even this giant bag of Sour Patch Kids has cheered me up (cereal box next to it for scale).  A string of depressing reads, a giant bag of candy…apparently, I do nothing in moderation.