Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

There's something so tiring about being, like, involved and shit.

Let me preface this: I spent most of the last 18 hours in basements, doing stuff I love, with bikes and housing co-ops and all the love jams that I love jamming out on. But: basements are terrible places to be, and even loving bikes and housing co-ops doesn't negate the horrible no-natural-light factor of the whole thing. Plus, I spent a ton of money on takeout food, and drank two cups of coffee, and was overcaffeinated and under-vitamin-D'ed. Plus, my apartment is a mess. Plus, I'm bloated. Plus, I'm having one of those "I love my life, but why can't it be just a titch better" kind of days that mess with the best of heads. At the best of times, I am only a middling head.

It was a challenge.

There's nothing that irks me more that people who do what they love but complain the whole time (see: McLaren, Leah, who is contantly whinging about screwing up expensive cuts of meat when trying to cook them, etc., as if she has forgotten what it's like to hold two packs of chicken breast in Loblaws, hefting each, pursing the lips and making "these are expensive" types of faces), because, let's face it, life can be a challenge sometimes. It's January. My ass is cold. I got my new health card in the mail and in the photo, my head is square. I could be a Playmobil woman. This isn't a laundry list of things that are sucky about my life; it's a list of things that are annoying on their own; when they're heaped all over one calendar date, it feels like a total mess.

So: I bitch. There's something so primal about the bitch session. Just throwing your head back and howling at the sky, as though letting a little coyote loose will help. Often, it does. I tend to talk loud and fast when I get going. Some - others - favour the laconic drawl, as if drawing out the tales of woe will make them flavourful and rich. Others stew silently, but that is not my style. I like wild, Italianate hand gestures and shouting. It helps if you have compadres, folks who were in the trenches with you on the bad day, folks who can commiserate with the perceived crappiness and put-upon'edness and simultaneously reinforce that you're not a headcase for feeling like a martyr, and remind you that things aren't so bad after all. After all, nobody died.

I like to verbally hose down my hapless audience, since apparently the cure for my bads days goes something like Coke Zero + ridiculous multilayered outfit x (promise of beer later)^ some foodstuff covered in cheese / TALKING ABOUT IT LOUD AND FAST = ahhhh....bliss. Like the children's rhyme says: you can't go under it...can't go around it. You just gotta go through it.