Grumble Time

It’s hard to be a person this morning. I find myself tired and angry, unsure of what to type, read, or do. My brisk early morning walk around the block is usually enough to jolt me awake as there’s ample time for a dazzling podcast or a blog post read in line waiting for coffee. Then—bam! The day has begun; it’s suddenly clear how much writing there is to be done, how much design there is to be designed. There are questions and feelings without any clear answers. I often have to restrain myself from sprinting back to my apartment with endless ideas and caffeinated enthusiasm in tow.

I usually burst into the apartment and start ranting at my fiancé: Did you hear about the Fall of Constantinople and how the Ottoman Empire dragged their boats onto land and lifted them over the hills to then drop them into the Golden Horn???

But not today. I’m just mopey, I guess. A phased-out, turned-off sort of feeling with a headache off far in the distance; apathy has got its nasty grip on me.

Today I am the preface to Delight by J.B. Priestley:

I have always been a grumbler. All the records, going back to earliest childhood, establish this fact. Probably I arrived here a malcontent, convinced that I had been sent to the wrong planet. (And I feel even now there is something in this.) I was designed for the part, for I have a sagging face, a weighty underlip, what I am told is “a saurian eye”, and a rumbling but resonant voice from which it is difficult to escape. Money could not buy a better grumbling outfit.

This morning I am wearing my best grumbling outfit too, but I know that if I just sit here long enough something will snap, my malaise will evaporate, and the day will fall into place.

All I need is the right sound in a song, the right string of words in a sentence...