Misery Loves Company... and a Blow Job.

The boundless winter has finally turned to an almost vibrant spring and now I can’t make it through a night’s sleep without sneezing myself awake.    My peepers itch so bad that there are moments when I’m actually contemplating the pros and cons of just poking out my eyes, so you’ll have to pardon my ingratitude for the flowers. It was one of those weeks where if a committee would have handed me an Oscar, I would have said, “What do you mean SUPPORTING actor?!”

I want you to know that if your feelings were hurt because of something I said (or something I didn’t say), trust me- you either deserved it or I’m sorry.  Use your better judgment to determine which applies. 

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When I feel so forlorn that I could skip a second round of drinks at dinner, I pause for a reminder:  Even a bad day has a best part.  Sometimes it’s simply a matter of asking, “Excuse me, uh, Self.  What was the best part of your day?” 

Go ahead.  Ask your Self right now. 

Try to push everything out of your heart that has ever made it ache and focus only on the beats it has skipped.  Try to determine the one moment today that made you smile in spite of your sorrows. 

Don’t think that your “best part” has to be something earth shattering like winning the lottery; you can’t expect something crazy-good like that to happen every day.  Instead, think more along the lines of, “I though they were out of my deodorant at Duane Reade but they totally had it. I just didn’t see it at first.”  Remember: it’s all about perspective.  The little things are necessary to make the big things feel special.  You deserve to reflect upon the moments you enjoy that surpass the tragedies you endure. 

Just yesterday I went out to dinner with a dear friend. We gnoshed, we kibitzed; we had a fabulous time and ate an entire Peking Duck.  When we were leaving the restaurant, my friend spotted a bowl of individually wrapped mints on the cashier’s counter.  Because he is Jewish, he took a handful so huge you’d assume he may never see a mint again.  Because I’m dainty (and management was watching) I only took one from the bowl.  My friend peeled open the opaque, white plastic wrapper to reveal a blue hard candy mint that looked like it would taste like toothpaste.  We were both so deflated by this because we hoped that it would be one of those delicious, puffy after-dinner peppermints that you usually scoop into your hand with a plastic spoon at a diner.  Instead, this blue yuk-mint was yet another fine example of life’s raw deals. 

But when I pulled back the wrapper on the solitary mint that I took, instead of finding the old people candy that I was expecting, I found the exact white, puffy after-dinner peppermint that I deserved.  That moment was insignificantly perfect and perfectly insignificant, which is exactly how a “best part” should be born.  It didn’t change the world, but it did make me feel like I had momentarily conquered the forces of mint evil.

So the next time you feel like throwing yourself off the highest building on the horizon, take a minute to hush your pie hole and ask yourself, “What WAS the best part of my day?”  And you just may find that there is comfort in knowing that even though it fucking sucks to be audited, it doesn’t sting so badly when Krispy Kreme is serving hot donuts NOW. 

Trust me: your happy is out there. 

Go find it.