Meditate

Go away

Ahhh...11:30 a.m. on a sparkling Saturday in Hilo. A breeze flutters through my window, birds chirp in the background.

This day is like a blank, sunny canvas and there is so much I could be doing.

But instead I have found an excuse for not doing anything.

I am waiting for my laundry to finish.

As lame excuses go, this is pretty much the apex since I'm doing my laundry at home, not a laundromat and therefore am not obligated to sit around waiting for it to finish.

I've been petering in and out of moodiness all weekend; I can't decide which side of the fence I want to be on.

As far as moodiness goes though, there is no better place to be moody than at home with my parents.

When you are moody, you need to be alone, basically. If you are around most people when you are really moody they will:

1) Try to cheer you up and

2) Grow annoyed or disgusted when the effort fails

This is NOT conducive to moodiness because once the other person grows annoyed or disgusted you may begin to feel guilty. You may put on a false face of cheerfulness in the hopes of alleviating the annoyance and thus, the guilt. Beware. This is bad. BAD. Because forcing yourself to be cheerful could lead to feelings of resentment towards the other person. The situation could esculate and get ugly.

This leads me back to my point of why it's great to be moody at my parents' house. Nine times out of 10 they are moody too. And like most moody people they are self-absorbed. So if you happen to be moody too, you can get away with it so long as you don't fall into steps 1 and 2 as mentioned above.

Basically I can hang around here and be moody and I won't be completely alone but the people who are around will just leave me alone. Moodiness is expected here. You needn't feel self-concious about it.

Anyway, back to my petering position on the fence. I am wondering if it may be worth it to drag myself out of this grumpy funk.

Chris called last night when I was REALLY grumpy, and he was just frickin' exuberant. As a compromise, instead of being grumpy I opted for neutral but even through the exuberance he could tell I wasn't being as humorous as usual.

Anyway, he said he wanted to do something really fun when he got back on Tuesday.

"Oh no," I replied, ditching neutral for good and embracing the grumpiness. "Fun? Like what?"

"You don't like fun?" he said. "Fun makes you grumpy?"

(This was actually an alarmingly succinct summarization. People who know me for years haven't been able to sum up my attitude that readily).

Anyway, he pointed out that it's boring to sit around the house all day all the time -- a point that in my current moat of moodiness, I could have argued but (probably wisely) chose not to.

But hearing him say all this made me think of my co-workers and the long litany of other acquaintances throughout the years who have constantly been bugging me to go out and have "fun."

In many ways I am still where I was all those years ago. Wondering if maybe there IS something wrong with me because I don't like to go out and socialize, etc. OR if I should just accept myself as I am and stop working to improve myself.

Maybe I should see a shrink?

Who knows

I say "I know" a lot.

It conveys empathy, it conveys understanding, it can even convey regret.

I think it's overused, though, and I have been trying to eradicate it. I was already trying when I had this conversation with some cops about a fellow officer who had hit a pedestrian while on patrol:

"Well, I was driving down that same street and it was really, really crowded," I said. "There was just so much activity going on. And then as I was driving this huge group of tourists just walked out right in front of me. I mean, I could have hit them. That gave me quite a scare. So I know how scary it must be to hit someone like that. I understand how you could probably panic."

The cop looked uncomfortable and said, "Yeah."

Then I thought about what I had just said and added, "Well actually, maybe I don't know. Maybe almost hitting someone and actually hitting someone are two totally different things. Maybe I have no idea what it's like. I think I say 'I know' too much."

The cop kind of chuckled, but no longer looked as uncomfortable.

Sometimes I wonder

I am so easily stressed out sometimes (a lot of times) I wonder how it is I haven't taken up smoking or drinking.

My dad smokes like a chimmney. Has since he was 13 or 14. It seems that smoking would be relaxing what with all the deep breathing, especially exhaling, that is involved.

As it is, I don't even drink coffee.

I tried drinking those frou-frou alcoholic drinks but the combination of sugar and alcohol makes me throw up. All the time. Without fail. I can drink a beer or two but I don't like the taste of beer.

I should take yoga or an aerobics class. Maybe kick-boxing.

It's a good thing I have this writing thing as an outlet.

Hmmmmm

I want to be somewhere quiet. I haven't been to Hilo in forever it seems. I wonder what my family is up to.