and now, joy?

And suddenly, out of nowhere, I feel joy.

I don’t know where it came from—does it ever come ‘from’ anywhere?  I’ve been having a hard time of it, lately, as you’ve probably guessed, given that it’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted anything.

And sometimes, even for a compulsive writer like me, saying things on paper is a little too intense a thing to do.

but suddenly, I feel joy. 

I thought it was worth mentioning.

Usually, there’s crabbing, complaining, bemoaning—and not just from me (although I do a lot of that, too, I hate to admit)—but just in general, all around. Rarely do you hear someone say that they feel joyful, unless it is to mention that they’ve accomplished something, as in losing 10 pounds, or getting a new job, or suddenly being in a ‘relationship’ with someone new.

In which case, if you’re on Facebook and you choose to say so. it announces this relationship for you IN GIANT LETTERS.
Whoa, there, social media…calm down.  Your friends are going to be happy for you, but there’s no need to SHOUT IT IN THEIR FACES. With a PHOTO.  Often in some odd circular formation, depending on what FB feels is interesting that particular week, because they keep changing how they do things, as though that will get more people to join their service.
Yeah, uh-huh.  Sure.  Because you don’t have enough users already, guys. (and I’m talking to YOU, Zuckerboy—because by now you probably own this blogging platform.  *eyeroll*)

At any rate, our culture is obsessed with constant accomplishment, and so our happiness, sadly (see what I did, there?  Heh heh) tends to be tied with that.
Well, not this time (she brags, having accomplished joy without having accomplished anything…see what I did there?)

Okay, so I’m in an odd mood.  It’s the happy thing.
Maybe it’s the freshness of the air.

Although that sounds so inspirational, you’d think I was about to launch into some poetry of the sort you would have had to read in high school English class.  Not likely, however; I wasn’t a big fan. Don’t get me wrong–I don’t hate poetry at all.  Just that stuff.

Okay, now I’m veering perilously close to the crabby lane, because pretty soon I’ll be talking about authors I hate, like Ibsen and Steinbeck, and I’ll be off on the rant of the century.

[…and just what does she have against Steinbeck, you ask?] 

Okay—if you want to go there.  He writes in what may be the longest sentences known to humankind, and he spends so much time describing the setting that you are half asleep before you get to the action.  Which takes awhile to happen, because his sentences are so loooooooooooong.   The only one who even tried to compete with him on any of this and succeeded may have been Michener, who, when he described a setting, would start back around the dawn of history and keep going until he got you to the present-day dust on the road. 

My father was a huge fan, and we used to get into debates about this.  He savoured the description. “It gives you a real feel for the setting,”  he would say.
“Well, ya, if you’re an archeologist” I’d reply, which would get him laughing, which would then get me laughing, which was why we kept having these ‘debates’.
In fact, the only Michener book I enjoyed was entitled ‘The Drifters’, which is about various people from different places who decide to give up what they are doing and seek meaning through exploring and meeting others.
Hence the name.
My father disliked the book because it focused on characters and it had no single location, so there wasn’t much description at all.
I liked it for those very reasons.
Which is why we kept having those ‘debates’.

Eh…tricked you, there, right?   No rant about Steinbeck or Ibsen, just a lengthy description (see what I did, there?  Heh heh) of Michener and how my father and I differed in our opinions of him.
And no high school poetry, yet still a schoolish analysis of literature.
Complete with a vague book report.

Well, chalk it up to my having just written my son’s homeschool curriculum for the year.  (See what I did, there?)
And I’ll bet by now you really wish I’d quit saying that.  Writing that. Whatever.

Okay, wow.  THIS MUST BE MY MOST THRILLING BLOG ENTRY, YET.
And you thought that my writing about what I was going to be writing about was bad. 

~ these are merely the fruits of my joy ~

  ♪♫  ♫ ♪

Okay, gaaah, get me away from this BLOG, right?  And may I never meet this woman in person.