January 16th, 2009

The guardian of gates and hallways

Obviously, it’s better if your life just doesn’t suck at all, but that can be a tall order in January (if you’ve got it down, and it’s not “move south,” I want to hear your solutions). Sooner or later, spring will arrive and/or we’ll all have to address the actual issues in our lives. Meantime, though, here are some pennyante stop-gap solutions–

–Leave the house. You might well have a good time (Pivot of the last post was even more awesome than expected, as was the birthday dinner and both [gah]) movies I saw this week). Even if you don’t, you get the smugness of saying to people, “It’s minus *twenty*, but y’know, it’s not *that* bad.” Makes you feel tough.
–Go to the movies. Nothing like other people’s problems to make you forget your own. Even (especially?) if their problems are stupid.
–Do the thing you’ve been trying to get out of. Misery has economies of scale, I find. It’s far easier to agree to do something unfun on a day I already hate–I guess I figure things probably can’t get worse, and someone might as well get what they want. Occasionally, this will bloom into getting thanked profusely, which is nice, but don’t count on it; it is January.
–Learn something new: I thought the term “Janus” was a fancy way of calling someone a liar, ’cause he’s the two-faced Roman god, but it turns out that he’s two-faced because he’s looking both forwards and back. Janus is the god of hallways and doors and gates, portals and new beginnings. Which his namesake month, January, allegedly is. We’ll see.
–Whatever you do, don’t wear two pairs of tights of profoundly different waist-levels–the higher one will somehow push the lower one down (and down and down), and you will spend the entire day trying to reach unobtrusively under your skirt to recalibrate things. This final point, which I am currently living out, will probably discourage anyone from taking any of my other advice. So be it.

Your English is good
RR