Irascibility

                It dawned on me that I’ve been on a roll here with how irritated I’ve been. So much so that I may actually be reaching the point where my irritability it irritating me! I thought, for a brief moment, about making a New Year’s resolution to be less irritable. But as New Year’s resolutions are by definition irritating, I dropped that idea quickly.

            Then I realized if I couldn’t be less irritated, I could maybe try to be more – well not happy exactly. I was looking for something a few degrees lower than happy. I haven’t found the word for it. Most of the words – like perky and cheerful and jubilant are just over the top. I was looking for something slightly more in the fair to middling range.

            I thought briefly about meditating. But serene smiling mediators irritate me. So, I decided to take some lessons from the dogs. They are always beep bopping around, so maybe it could rub off on me. I sat down to talk to Ben about how he does it. Ben promptly put his head on the ground and his butt in the air and looked at me through his legs, upside down. I figured, what the heck, maybe it’s all about a change in perspective. I got down on the ground, put my head down, looked at the world upside, and all the blood rushed to me head and made me dizzy. Maybe, I thought, that’s the goal. If I’m unconscious, I’m less irritable.

            But I have work to do, so I needed a different plan. Then I read A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman, about a total curmudgeon. And I was – Happy! Because no one really reforms Ove. He starts out a curmudgeon. He ends up a curmudgeon. He embraces curmudgeonhood. And that’s what I intend to do, along with a regular dose of Ben therapy, and all the humorous writing of Fredrik Backman, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Christopher Moore, and Jasper Fforde I can get my hands on. It beats meditation and New Year’s Resolutions, any day.

Dealing with The Giver

                So, my novel, which I’m proofing for the last time before sending it out to potential agents (who I know are just going to eat it up), is about a girl whose response to almost anything – is to want to hit something. She is apparently much like me. And, it would appear, I have not been hiding the fact I often feel this way very well – because someone just gave me a sign that says, “It’s National ‘Slap an Idiot I Know’ Day.”

                Currently on my list to slap is the furnace off the children’s room which for the third time in seven years has decided to have a leak in the condensation pan; the person who decided the furnace should be in a room above the elevator mechanical room, so that when it leaks it can also wreck havoc on the elevator; and the cold weather that apparently helps the whole process get going. I am an equal opportunity smacker – wanting to hit inanimate objects as much as people.

                So, Bruce stopped by the office and saw the sign. “Where’d you get that?”

                “Sarah gave it to me.”

                He nodded. “She’s figured you out.”

                For the record, I have never smacked Bruce even though he did drop a rock on my head once. Which probably explains a lot.

                I also like to read books about girls and women who smack things. Even if it’s only a verbal smack down. As I explained to the kids’ writers’ club the other day, “try writing a scene where you slay them with words!” Which I was told is what girls do.

Which brings me to the books I’ve been reading with the Jr. High Book Club. They are proving to be trying, because they involve feelings, and ideals, and thought provoking concepts. And I can’t smack them. Take the The Giver by Lois Lowry. I’ve avoided reading The Giver for years – because really those dystopian rule-oriented stories make me want to hit something.

                Here’s, of course, the issue with a story like The Giver. As a control freak and librarian, I’m all for order, rules, and control. But I want them to be mine. I want to be the one who imposes them. I don’t want anyone else making up the rules and telling me what to do!

I know Lois Lowry was making a mind blowing social commentary that will make us think and possibly change the way we behave. But, really, it just makes me want to hit something.

Sheepicorn

Once there was a sheep who wanted to be a unicorn ...

She wished and wished and wished for a horn and one morning she woke up .....

with a horn.

All the other sheep were jealous. They wanted a beautiful unicorn horn, too.

So the sheep traveled to the land of the 3-D printer, because they knew that's where horns come from.

The End!

If you need a horn, or a sheep, check out the library MakerSpace open Tuesdays from 5-8 pm and Wednesdays from 6-8 pm.


Plans for the sheep and unicorn sheep can be found at Thingiverse. Attributions are as follows:

Unicorn Sheep by cohlwiler

Published on September 15, 2014

www.thingiverse.com/thing:464418

 

Wooly Sheep by pmoews

Published on May 29, 2013

www.thingiverse.com/thing:95721