"Be careful what you wish for." Not one of my favorite clichés. If it was a good one, I could wish myself into a happy, sorry state with no regrets. And I didn't really wish for anything, but I guess I did set myself up for this kind of trouble.

Last night I slept until 4:30 am, and that was it. So around 5, I got up, made tea and did my "morning pages". Since that involves three hand-written pages, I'll summarize. I have this tendency to let the little things get me down. Monday night, for example, a car that cut around the corner when I was one step for the edge; a truly loathsome, selfish thing to do and the kind of thing to enrage me and really drag me down. I managed to avoid that reaction. Instead, I waved cheerily at the car, "Hi, I was there, hello" not because I thought the driver would but it made me feel better. So this morning, in my morning pages, I wrote about how I need to be careful for just that reason: not to let the little things drag me down.

Sigh. If only I had written "Don't let all the beautiful women distract you as the offer their bodies and checkbooks."

Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but I just couldn't do anything right today. I forgot my lunch, and that was the least of my problems. After walking to Tully's and using their free wifi (rare in Seattle), I walked to work — arriving hot and sweaty yet icy cold in the fog. Then after work, which I left early, I headed out to go pick up some blankets so I'd have something warm in my new place (all my belongings being down in Corvallis and doing me no good at all). Just to make a very long story (nearly four hours) short, every direction I walked was the wrong direction. I must have walked five or six miles, up Capital Hill, over the Convention Park, past a dog park that I did not know even existed; and then, when I gave up on the first thrift store I was heading to (I eventually concluded it does not actually exist), I tried to find the Salvation Army store. Which I did, after another forty-five minutes of wandering in ever-widening circles.

Trust me, I cut that way short.

And through it all, as every turn I made, every decision to "look up here" turned out as fruitless as every other decision, I was reminded of the challenge I had stupidly set for myself: Don't let the little things get me down. Gawd. So I couldn't rage, have temper tantrums, indulge in gulping self-pity. I had to remain cheery, albeit very tiredly. It's not that I've become such a fine example of maturity. All I was doing was not making a succession of bad choices worse but by beating the shit out of myself. That doesn't make me pure or morally elevated. It just makes me smart enough not to exacerbate an afternoon that was crappy enough without an attitude.

So I set myself a challenge and God took me up on it. Thanks heaps. Not sure how or why the universe would want to screw with me like that (Douglas Adams called it "playing silly buggers" in one of his books), but it's given me things to think about regarding the nature of God, something I am still trying to understand. I am fine with not knowing much about God; what I need to know is how to live with this great mystery. I don't think our life on earth is meant to be a struggle or a burden. Life is such a sweet, wonderful thing; even the most down-trodden beggar or slave clings tenaciously, beyond what might seem reason. How much, then, should I enjoy life? Why let something as trivial as walking around Seattle a bit too much be a negative thing? Hell, I can walk; I found what I was looking for; and even if I was really hungry, I had plenty of food when I got home. Food, a shower, warmth.

But I'm going to be more careful in what I decide I need to work on in life. What if I had written about bearing up under extreme physical duress?