Thursday, March 19, 2009

Stuff in my head

When I got home from work today, I got into a bit of a bad mood--admittedly over a kind of petty thing . . . but, well . . . doesn't everyone get irritated with stuff from time to time?

I could go into what irritated me . . . but the ultimate point, and the more important things to write about here are twofold:

1. As a way of dealing with my irritation, I played the angry things I might have said and the angry things I thought mostly in my head. Do you do this? Surely this happens a lot, right? We are taught to control our anger and to be nice, so when we get upset about something and we are in a position where we have to be nice, we play out the alternate options in our head. I always think of this as the Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn scenario. Remember when Tom and Huck staged their deaths so they could be secret witnesses to their funerals, allowing them to hear the kind words of their relatives and friends that they never heard during their "living" interactions. I've been doing this sort of internal monologue for years. I specifically remember doing this when I was a younger teen (or preteen) and was struggling with my relationship--or more specifically my LACK of relationships with girls. I imagined people reacting sadly over my passing and wishing they had been nicer to me when they had the chance.

(And YES, I am very aware how narcissistic this makes me seem--especially when you factor that I am discussing my internal fantasies on my own blog page. I should probably just leave it right there before I embarrass myself irrevocably.)

(I am, of course, assuming that I haven't crossed the irrevocable line already . . .)

2. But the most important thing to point out here is that I got over my irritation and told my inner angry voices to shut up. How did I do this? Mostly by getting outside with Grace and Hannah and enjoying the pretty--if chilly--late afternoon. As Lynda mentioned on her Fb page a few days ago, a improvement in the weather, along with the decision to get out there in it and experience it, can do wonders for a bad attitude.

So I got over my feelings and enjoyed a bit of relaxing time with my daughters.

*****

Here's another thing that I can tell you about, to help you cheer up on whatever day you are reading this.

Look at this picture:


Isn't this amazing?

It is more specifically extraordinary. This is an extraordinary chicken, no?

If you don't think so, they you, my friend need to reevaluate because this is a picture of a chicken in a calendar called Extraordinary Chickens. And while this calendar is not specifically mine, it is hanging in my cubicle.

You see, one of my coworkers did not have a 2009 calendar a while back--back when her birthday was coming up last month. So, as a joke, another of my coworkers got her this chicken calendar. And the recipient is definitely NOT a chicken calendar type of woman. She laughed, of course, but she chose not to hang it up. Eventually it migrated to my desk and, since I have no scruples, I hung it up. In part, I hung it up as a perpetual reminder of my friend, my blogging companion, and former coworker Lulu. She could probably identify the breed of chicken that this is--and if not this one, the later ones to come.

Because, I'll be posting the other monthly extraordinary chickens as the months go by. 

Look forward to it.

It you don't enjoy it, then you can conduct your own disagreements inside your own head--Tom & Huck style.

Or share them publicly in the comments. It's your choice.

1 comment:

Sven Golly said...

so many comments, so little time. if we couldn't write about our petty irritations, what would there be to write about?
1. The old "they'll all be sorry when I'm gone" gambit is a classic.
2. Lynda is right, of course. My new motto is: Don't watch the weather on TV; be a participant-observer.
3. That, sir, is an extraordinary chicken.