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critical condition
03/01/2006 = 05:13 PM

I hate everything. Everything.

Mostly Happy News dot Com.

The premise of their website is good, but they had a cash prize essay contest, and I wrote what I thought was a pretty decent essay for it, and didn't even get an honorable mention.

I'll own my jealousy, and yeah, I could definitely have used the money, but I think what bugs me most is that I haven't been able to slog my way through any of the winning essays.

Not to impugn their respective authors, but I feel like they were totally bullshitting their way through the assignment just to get the money, and it worked.  

Ain't nothin' like somethin' like this to make you wish you sucked as bad as them  Which fact galls me no little.

I had issues with the poor punctuation and abysmal writing on the first few I tried to read, as well, but the underlying problem was that they were, for all intents and purposes, insincere baloney, and I was appalled that the judges of the contest rewarded them for it.

As Happy News didn't even bother to thank me for my submission, I believe I may safely assume that they have no interest in publishing it. Rather than have it be lost and unappreciated for all time, I may as well put it here, since I can't very well say, "Click this link to read my winning essay at Happy News dot Com, who do a great job of presenting good news, and also recognize good writing," when it's nowhere to be found over there, now, can I?

When I was nine years old, I used to volunteer at the office where my mother was a paid employee. Amongst my other go-fer dirty-work let-the-kid-do-it tasks was one job I loved: operating the switchboard. This was not a full-time responsibility for me; I would just cover the phones for an hour so the regular operator could have lunch. However, I got to be very proficient at it, and I learned the ins and outs of speaking pleasantly to a customer on the telephone, including how to smooth over relations with an unhappy caller. The most efficient way of doing this, taught to me by my mother and still the way I manage it today, is to smile when answering the phone. Whether or not I'm feeling happy, my voice will reflect the smile, and I've found that the unseen telephone caller is just as responsive to a smile as is a person facing me.

Over the years, I've learned one other lesson: if I'm feeling miserable, and I smile deliberately, as hard as I can, really pushing the muscles, and hold it for thirty seconds, then relax, not only does my face retain the smile, but so does my whole attitude. I'm not sure why this works, but it does.

And thank goodness it does, because sometimes, when I see the news of the world, I feel so very, very, bleak.

I don't want to be some chirpy, Pollyanna-esque, life's so wonderful type of person. I am a realist, not an ostrich with my head in the sand. I see bad things happen, often to good people, and often for no reason, and it upsets me, because I am a human being.

Besides, I find chirpy, Pollyanna-esque, life's so wonderful types of people to be incredibly annoying.

For a long time, especially after September 11th, 2001, I was interpreting any frightening, destructive, or even just wacky news as being another "sign of the Apocalypse." If it wasn't being done by nature, such as the tsunami and the hurricane, we were doing it to ourselves, with war and dishonesty and hate.

I joked about this quite a bit, which is my equivalent to whistling in the dark, but I also genuinely believed that every single incident that had never before occurred was a signal that I had better be prepared for The End. Eventually I realized that I didn't want to live in constant fear, and so I began applying my "smile really hard and fool myself that everything is all right" technique to my life on as regular a basis as I could manage.

It hasn't always been easy to do that. Sometimes, I still feel pretty bleak.

But I've also concluded that, if the world hasn't ended by now, it probably isn't going to do so at all.

Which led to another realization: we are really incredibly resilient.

We fear, and we mourn. Then we take action, and we start over.

We heal.

We do this over and over — not just as individuals, or as communities, or even as nations, but as a species, as a planet, as a microcosm of the universe through which we're spinning.

"This, too, shall pass" isn't just a trite saying. It is truth. Whatever "this" is, it always does "pass." Our reputation for buoyancy precedes us.

The future will take care of itself (another trite-yet-true saying), because that's its very nature. How can you not like a concept that does precisely what it is meant to do?

That, above all else, is what gives me hope. No matter what else happens, the future will take care of itself — and it's hard not to be optimistic, knowing that.

Except, of course, that at this particular moment, I am not at all optimistic, unless the definition of "optimistic" suddenly has changed to mean "very, very bitter."

If I believe in karma, then perhaps, someday, those judges will be reincarnated as Broadway producers, and I will be given the opportunity to John Simonize them to DEATH.

But for right now, I still hate everything. Everything.

And March sucks. Already.

So there let us leave the art critic to strangle his wife and move on to pastures new.

Speaking of art critics ...

I'm so glad I don't have children.

When I was twelve, I was damned well old enough to know that I shouldn't even be chewing gum in a gallery or museum, let alone taking it out of my mouth (except to dispose of it in the proper receptacle), let alone sticking it to a $1.5 million painting.

If that were my child, I'd die of embarrassment just on the basis of not having emphasized to my offspring that defacing someone else's work, whether worth $1.50 or $1.5 million, is completely unacceptable.

So it's good I don't have children, 'cos I know someone is going to tell me that I'm wrong, and that that rotten little bratfink wasn't misbehaving, and that I am supressing his creativity.

Why is it okay to pick on reality television but not the Olympics? Is it because one is really real but the other one is only fakey real? And, if so, which is which?

I saw the documentary about the Edmund Fitzgerald on the History Channel again last night and, again, it was very moving, informative, and interesting.

And it's sad that there will never be a conclusive explanation as to why it sank, but I'm glad the families got the closure they themselves were looking for.

And I still think Gordon Lightfoot should be shot for "As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most." Your heart was in the right place, Gordon, but your lyrics are for shit.

I'm not going to get more specific than this, 'cos it's worky, but I have this person asking me for changes to this project every damned day, instead of specifying what he wants to begin with.

Including his asking me to replace correctly spelled words with incorrectly spelled ones, adding apostrophes where none are required, and inserting images that he could have requested at the start of the project but chose not to, for whatever reason.

I feel as though he is saying to me, "I cannot make up my mind, yet women will continue to retain their reputation for indecisiveness. And I love my penis."

drinking: strawberry fruit₂o
listening to: STP, Plush
optimism: my arse