Update

I went off on the happiness tangent Sunday and posted the
mess below--a diatribe of sorts. Within 5 minutes of posting
it, my sister called me. Her best friend's son was killed in action
in Iraq. Her friend had been notified about 30 minutes before
I posted this ridiculous thing about happy people.

Her son was also one of my daughter's high school friends.
They didn't hang out often, but often enough that they
were good friends.

It's been days of calls and taking food and trying to arrange
travel and that sort of thing. I know his mother and father
well. I didn't know him well. Long story. Send prayers.
Light candles. Whatever you believe offers comfort.

Been in training all day and will be all day tomorrow.
I will be working, when I am on call, at a psychiatric
hospital. The training is designed to help us know some
techniques to use when we are verbally or physically
assualted. Much, much to learn.

Heart heavy. Tired. Wondering what it all means.

and so here is the Sunday post I pulled--it is clearly
so ridiculous I don't know why I am posting it.

LIfe. Ever changing. Who ever knows.

Where are the happy people?

I wonder. I know people who seem content
with their lives. I know people who enjoy going
places, doing things, their work, their families,
their lives. I know people who have a positive attitude
about life in general. And I know people who laugh
often and laugh robustly and who never seem to take
themselves or this life too seriously, but happy? Maybe
those are the happy people.

happy: Lots to read about happy. Let's try this.

unhappy: Pretty much just a matter of adding "un" before many
words under the happy definition.

Just what in the hell is happy? Is there a happiness gene?
If so, it didn't make its way into my system.

But the point of this little rambling message is not to belabor
my unhappiness. Just to wonder. About happiness or the lack
thereof.

I don't even think I can finish reading Learned Optimism. It's
boring me to death at this point. I guess if I were more optimistic,
I would believe the best of the book is yet to come, but he hasn't
given me any reason to think so thus far.

*****************************

A friend came over for dinner and a movie last night. I wasn't
crazy about the movie. She said we needed to lighten up and watch
something light. She chose Guess Who. I was largely rather bored
through the whole thing and didn't find any of it particularly funny
or even mildly interesting. However, after the movie was over,
we watched the first 20 minutes or so of SNL. Once again, Tina Fey
had me in stitches. I can say that Sarah Palin has done this for the
country--given us some much needed comic relief. Here's
what another friend sent to me about Palin in an email
I got yesterday:

Palin has revealed her real self in the Gibson and Couric interviews, and clearly knows nothing and offers only rubbery expressions and glib repetition, for all the world like a rasping myna bird, of a stream of memorized slogans that sound as though they were disinterred from a time capsule originally buried in William F. Buckley Jr.'s back yard several decades ago.

**************************************************

Speaking of Palin, did anyone notice during the debate
how many times the camera panned behind the podia?
If I recall correctly, we never had any a** shots of McCain
and Obama. Nor did we see any of Joe Biden's
backside as the camera panned only Sarah Palin's rear end. I suppose
we are to note the size of the ankles, the small waist, the perky butt.

My friend said that she could not, in good conscience, cast her vote
this November until America got the same opportunity to check out
the guys' rear ends. She suggested they wear speedos or biker shorts
for the next debate, and then perhaps, she could make her decision.

Good point!

******************************

I have only worked three days. I am having some pretty messed up
dreams. I always dream quite vividly, but these have been stranger
than usual.

There is just such a damn boatload of hurt out there
and I just can't figure out why people have to suffer
the way they do. I know on a macro scale, suffering
is rampant, and the degrees to which people suffer varies, but
I am speaking more today about the people I meet in my community--
the people who are very deeply wounded. I'm not talking about the
"worried well" (I fit that category--my name would be beside the
definition). I'm talking about stuff I'm gonna stop talking about!

Boatload of hurt, folks.

Wow. What an uplifting entry today. I'll just add some more to it
with some quotes (one of which Laurel had on her blog not too long
ago):

Then trust me, there's nothing like drinking
So pleasant this side of the grave;
It keeps the unhappy from thinking,
And makes e'en the valiant more brave.
—Diaz, Porfirio


One is never as unhappy as one thinks, nor as happy as one hopes.
—La Rochefoucauld, Fran c° ois, 6th Duc de


All happy families resemble each other; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
—Tolstoy, Leo Nikolayevich