Sunday, February 27, 2005
(5:06 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Don't blog angry
I'm not angry. Seriously. Whiny, yes. I stayed up late last night, for the Monica Bennett Birthday Extravaganza, in the suddenly much closer Milwaukee. A good reunion, with some nice new additions to the crowd. Of course, I woke up, completely and irrevocably, at 8:30AM, just like I do almost every day. So yeah, I'm driving down the expressway, and this guy is driving slow in the left lane and I'm the moron who is stuck behind him -- again -- getting passed like I'm the problem here, when really I hate this guy even more than any of my fellow drivers. And so, out comes the whiny, "Come on." Same thing, say, when I was at the house they were trying to kick me out of, and the garage door opener wouldn't work, and I'd say, "Come on." I had just gotten back from a long commute, after a full day of work and then class, and I wasn't ready to deal with it. Same thing with the toilet just now, taking "forever" to refill. The sound of the toilet refilling was almost more than I could bear. Or that one day last week when the drain in the shower was kind of slow, so I developed this major body of water in the tub, and I said, "Come on" and poked furiously at the drain with my toe, because that can fix things.Anger -- that would be a kind of righteous fury. A vengeful wrath with a goal. Anger is something that would stir up fear -- it's not really anger, though, if the average witness would be more inclined to laugh at the poor guy who thinks the garage door opener is out to get him, or for whom the humiliation of a dozen cars passing him because the guy in front of him -- not my fault, people! -- is going too slow might be the last straw, the tipping point between the full dignity of manhood and the spiteful self-loathing of a crushed spirit.
And wouldn't you know it! I woke up this morning, all stuffed up, again. Sometimes I'm like, if I have to blow my nose one more time, I'm seriously going to snap. And I do, and nothing comes out, and I just -- throw the tissue across the room! Or sometimes, the burden is just too great, and I want to just give up. I need a good cry. I just need to let loose -- but I'm too alone in the world for that! Who understands me? Whom can I trust with these tender emotions? Oh, the struggle of sinus congestion! Why did God choose me, out of all the billions of people in the world, to have this chronic malady? It's embarrassing! I've had women complain -- "I don't understand how anyone could ever share a bed with you." I can't help it! That's so unfair. Here I am, just trying to be, you know, the kind of man you need me to be -- but yeah, sometimes I sniffle in the middle of the night. Sometimes, admittedly, my scalp itches. What am I to do? How long can a man resist the urge to scratch? Oh, woman, if you only knew what I deal with on a daily basis!
A daily basis! And now, I just know it -- I'm going to push "publish," and this stupid thing is going to take forever to publish because it always does on Sunday, and that just pisses me off. Come on!
