I Crank, Therefore I Am

Just call me Ms. Cranky McCrankypants. Yes, it's true: like anyone else in the world, when I woke up this morning I had a choice of which attitude I would take toward the day. I had the choice between irritability and despondency, and I chose irritability because it really brings out the color of my eyes. (And no, it's not PMS unless my body has decided to play yet another of its clever practical jokes.)

This would be the perfect day to decide to write a political blog, wouldn't it? Crankiness is de rigueur for the topical bloggerati, you know. Democrats are cranky because people voted for Bush even after the Democrats told them that only stupid people would ever vote for Bush. Republicans are cranky because there are still American citizens who are not singing the praises of the Great Leader (and who keep calling them stupid for voting for Bush). As a registered independent, I can wish a pox on both your houses--and mean it. Dang it, you should have voted for Howard Dean. Launchcast had an ad the other day for Yahoo! Local featuring Dean talking about his tour of the country, yelling out the names of the states he visits. I like Howie. I want to have all the other politicians and their apologists replaced with a roving band of uninhabited animatronic hand puppets, ones looking like that talking hand in the Hamburger Helper commercials. The country and the world at large would be better off with that kind of help.

And in local news, people are being petty. At least one person decided to stop being quite so petty as they could have been, but their pettiness still got into my crankiness and made a sort of satanic Reese's Cup in my mind.

Am listening to Launchcast and putting off attempting anything useful till after lunch, mostly because I feel like it won't be in the least bit useful and I will have wasted all that energy for worse than nothing. This journal entry is pure escapism, yes. It's better than pure despondency.

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Earlier today, while searching for something else online, I found a couple of phone numbers which look like they might possibly be places I could call for help. I've been trying to convince myself to call them, but now I'm not sure I want to, at least not today. Why? Because I'm a teensy bit hopeful now. If I call these phone numbers and find out they are just more dead ends, my mood will go even further down the dumps. If, on the other hand, I call the places I was already planning to call today while thinking that I'll call the new numbers tomorrow, then even if nothing else today seems useful, I will still have some hope when I go to sleep tonight that things will get better.

No, this attitude isn't really logical and I may call one of the numbers later today anyway. We'll see.

And just when you think there's no hope left...

...suddenly the radio which has not worked reliably in years switches itself on as the Beatles are singing "I Feel Fine."

Sometimes the universe has weird ways of communicating.

(no subject)

If people ask me what was the first album I ever acquired, I usually answer with The Carpenters' Ticket To Ride, which I won at a school fair in the fifth grade when the people running the cakewalk ran out of cakes and decided to give away records instead. While I did have other records to listen to when I was small, they were Disney read-along things and LPs specially made for kids, not music I still listen to today.

If I'm asked about the first album I ever bought, I say Nik Kershaw's Human Racing, which I simply had to get after my friend Jenny told me it was impossible to find. (Okay, the fact that I loved the six Nik Kershaw songs she'd forced me to hear had some influence as well.)

But by some quirk of the mind, a word in another person's LJ post triggered a memory of going with my parents to Amway conventions when I was a child (yes, really), which reminded me of going to this ranch the summer before seventh grade. The ranch was (and is) run by Skip Ross, who was an Amway Crown Direct (rich guy, in other words) and still is a motivational speaker. Now that I remember, he was also the first person I ever bought an album by, though I can no longer tell you which one of these it was. (Why do they have no CDs on that page? Cassettes? What century are they living in?) Yes, my first music album purchase was by a motivational speaker. Scary, isn't it?

For the record, the first record (non-album) I ever bought was the 7" single of Carole King singing "Pierre" and "Chicken Soup with Rice," with lyrics and cover art by Maurice Sendak.