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.