Another sunny day in Edinburgh--how nice! The sky is blue, there are no clouds, I am full of coffee, there's a party tonight. All is well in Seraphic Land.
I was saying to my neighbour yesterday that when I was in my late twenties I was very thin and high-earning, but I was miserable and angry, whereas now I am in my extended late thirties and plump and make very little, but I am happy. Young + thin does not = happy, and 39+ + plump does not = miserable.
I admit that this happiness has something to do with B.A. and the vastly interesting life he was having in Edinburgh and offered to little me. (Actually, the amount of plump does too. The very air has calories.) But I don't think he would have offered it if I hadn't striven very hard to be as happy as possible in my Single years. I don't think B.A. likes angry people because, come to think of it, we don't know any. At least, we don't socialize with any.
Oh, except me. Because I often get angry, usually at myself, most recently for leaving a plastic spoon to melt on one of the stove elements. But I also harbour grievances towards other people and institutions for this or that, and need to remember not to dwell on them. Particularly in social life.
Righteous indignation is rather delicious, like a martini, and has the same intoxicating effect, but too much of it becomes addictive and takes its toll on your personality and looks. It does add excitement to things like columns in newspapers, so occasionally I trot it out, like here, for example.
Personal unhappiness, though, is an even more dangerous drug, and if you wish to share your personal unhappiness with others, it is very hard to get the tone right.
Can you imagine if I had a "How come everyone has a baby except me?" blog? Shudder, shudder, shudder. Who but ghouls and Dementors would want to read it? I can't even read the fertility message boards; the grief, desperation and icky details seem to leak from the screen and fill the room with a dank fog.
But there is a good tone for expressing unhappiness and frustration and disappointment and all, and I think there is room for that on the internet rather than at parties and dinners and after Mass tea. The internet is still public, though, although you wouldn't know it from the frightening way people express themselves in other comboxes. Yikes.
Recently I defended the Duchess of Cambridge in a combox attached to the online Telegraph, and I was amazed at how people addressed me. I was tempted to reply that I thought the Telegraph was for thoughtful, educated people, but I did not want to demean myself.
By the way, I am always delighted when you tell me how much you enjoy the usually gentle tone of the combox. Once upon a time I felt bad about erasing and blocking comments, but I soon got over that. I think of my blog as if it were a magazine, and of myself as its editor, particularly its letters editor!
Update: Absolutely awesome metaphor for today's theme. "I'm a pirate!" Wah ha ha!
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