Thursday, November 17, 2005

grrr. I'm always the girl campaigning for cheerfulness. For a departure from anger. For peace among the people. But today? I was more upset, anxious, angry, and frustrated than I've been in months. I couldn't find a source for it. I just knew I was worried and upset and I couldn't shake it. I was getting upset with all sorts of silly things: people being rude to one another in blog comments, people being rude to service people (actually, that's not silly, that's evil), people being rude to me on the bus, people being in my space... people being cruel in general. I got irritated because someone told me I was politically naive and questioned my ability to think critically. I got irritated because someone told me that my writing was lazy and silly. I got irritated because someone I love is sick. I got irritated because I can't seem to tell people how I think and feel clearly. I'm currently irritated because I can't even say all of this properly. I'm not one for depression, frustration, or angst in general, so I'm not really sure how to deal with all of it. Right now I hate money and I hate tension and I hate insomnia and I hate feeling like I'm about to get ill. And I hate hating things. Ahhhhh! I just feel like flinging it into the internet in the hopes that it will leave me for good. So. 6:15:37 PM    well, yes, but...  [] old man. He goes to the same coffee shop I do downtown. He's always in line a few people before me when I see him, flirting with the counter girl, ordering his morning repast. He used to come in with someone I assumed was his wife; they had such an intimate way about them, holding hands and laughing and whispering to one another. I haven't seen her with him in a while. He always wears the same old cap: a tweed poorboy with a tiny Union Jack button pinned on the side. He has the classic London Fog overcoat, the sensible shoes, the well-pressed pants of a former soldier. And his face -- a wonderful map of lines and crinkles and weather-beaten skin that bends warmly into a smile with the slightest provocation. To look at him is to be reminded of everything sweet and lasting in my own grandfathers, who I don't get to see each day. I hope I marry a man who ages so well. It just makes me feel more secure in the world to know that he is out there -- surviving, doing his best, drinking his coffee, charming the socks off of women a quarter of his age. Or it would, if the bastard didn't steal my muffin every morning. Okay, well -- he doesn't exactly steal it. It's just that they have a limited supply of each kind of muffin, and every time I choose one as I stand in line, he manages to take the last of its kind. It's actually kind of eerie; how can he know which one I want? How does he know I am having a blueberry lemon morning instead of a cranberry oat? Why does he choose an apricot muffin -- of which there is only a single, delicious example -- instead of the equally good, but-not-what-I-wanted-this-morning raspberry bran, of which there are six? Sometimes I'll change my mind right before he orders, just to see if I can break the psychic connection. But he never fails to take the muffin I want. I guess I should stop choosing those that are in limited supply, but if I choose one that has five or so left, everyone else in line chooses it, too. There is no system that combats the muffin-stealing. Nothing I can do. I realize the world does not end because I don't get the muffin of my choice. But one of these days, if Grandpa insists on taking the last Flaxberry (there's not even such a THING as a flaxberry! Why do you want it? Leave it for me!), well... Well... I'll... ...steal it off his plate when he's not looking. And run. Because he can really move with that cane. 7:02:15 AM    well, yes, but...  []

© Copyright 2006 Meg Fowler. Last update: 3/4/06; 2:30:04 PM.