Apparently, Portland’s weather, long responsible for Seasonal Affected Disorder, or SAD, is now altering people’s behavior in more deeply cognitive ways. That’s according to a nonscientific study of comments overheard in the Street Roots office and Backspace Cafe.
In a move beyond the typical whine, people are now crediting the grey skies and rain for their behavior as complete and utter assholes. Several people SR talked with say that until this winter, everything was going just fine.
“My marriage was great until my partner got depressed, and then things went to shit,” says one man. “We went to see a counselor who told us we should start communicating, and that maybe we needed to introduce some new ‘activities’ into our lives. We called the counselor on that crap. We knew it was the rain.”
Another man says that he didn’t leave his couch for more than three weeks, and believes that if he had the sun to keep him motivated, he might think about moving more often. “Maybe,” he said. “What difference does it make?”
“I used to call them sad drops. Now I call them angry drops,” said Ramona, age four. “It makes me want to hurt my dollies.”
At a local rain circle hosted by Pagans for Justice, one woman says this year has been especially bad, and that until people collectively got out of their funk, we may lose our ability to even recognize the sun, even if it makes its expected return in July.
A meteorologist for Channel 6 news says that he couldn’t support that line of thinking, but also refrained from making any promises that it would stop raining by July.
“I don’t care what anyone says, I love the rain,” says a punk wearing an Elliot Smith T-shirt who obviously hangs out at a local coffee shop and performs at poetry reading around town. “The grey skies are like earth’s cries. There’s something profound about it all.”