Wipe that Face off Your Head

Or how to weather an exceptionally nasty mood day

In case you run into me today, know that I wrote the following several weeks ago, so the nasty mood described herein has long since dissipated. I’m in stellar spirits today. It’s the last day of school!

My mood is like the Texas weather; if you don’t like it, just wait a minute.

~ Me

“Wipe that face off your head, bitch” is what I wanted to say in scathing Parker Posey tones to everyone I saw today.

I’m in the mood to roast someone.

Only thing is, there is no one in the immediate vicinity, IRL or digitally, that needs roasting. Today, everyone is a dumbass, especially people in other cars in front of me driving too slowly, taking too long to turn, not being able to decide which parking spot they want. If I see you coming down the street, the look on your face is going to piss me off. I am perimenopausal, and I can’t find a job. That will make even the most sunshiny of us grouchy, I promise.

I opened my inbox this morning, real quick, before a call with a hybrid publisher who wants to publish my book. Mistake. In those messages, I found…

1. A rejection letter from Texas Highways - didn’t get the managing editor job

2. An email from a friend/colleague introducing me to someone who might have a job for me.

3. A rejection letter from Invisible City, where I’d entered a writing contest for short-form levity.

4. An offer from another indie hybrid publisher who wants to publish my book.

What. the. fuck. people?

I didn’t know what to do with this tangle of rejection, approval, ambivalence and possibility that washed over me in the space of five minutes. Here’s an approximation of what my brain did:

Man, I really wanted that Texas Highways job. Why did I not even get an interview? What’s wrong with my resume? Does my friend really think I’m a good match for this other company? They have a really great and noble mission, but I’m not sure I can do anything for them. Fuck Invisible City; They don’t know funny when they see it. Crap, now I have offers from two hybrid publishers, and I’m going to have to decide between the two of them or maybe none of them because hybrid publishing means the author has to fork over some cash upfront in exchange for better marketing and a bigger sales royalty and how much is that going to be? I’m so tired of spending money and not making any. WHY AM I TRYING TO THINK ABOUT ALL OF THIS STUFF AT ONCE?

BECAUSE I READ IT ALL AT ONCE, STUPID! HOW CAN I NOT THINK ABOUT IT ALL AT ONCE?!

Then I collapsed on the floor in a messy version of child’s pose with my hands over my head and cried because I was not sad but overwhelmed and frustrated with the irritatingly complicated nature of these processes I’m trying to do all at once. After a good purge of tears, I felt a little less like shrieking and kicking a hole in the drywall. I got up off the floor, changed out of my pjs and spent the rest of the day feeling tired and vaguely irritated at everything that crossed my path. Then…

I went to the grocery store because, for once, when the kids moaned, “There’s no food!” this morning, I agreed with them. I had to put Jason’s cashew milk on my cereal — ew.

It is exceptionally easy to be irritated at the grocery store.

There are all sorts of things to grumble about without hurting anyone: They’re out of the generic detergent, eggs are too expensive, they moved all the produce around AGAIN!

Seriously, I just want to drift through the store and put the same things in my basket I do every week without fully registering that I’ve left the house. I don’t want to have to be present enough to actually LOOK for something like carrots. You should not have to go in search of carrots; they are not a fun specialty item. They should be right there, where they always are when I buy them every week because they are the only vegetable everyone in the house will eat.

So! Now we are here. I am sitting cross-legged in the pushed-back seat of my minivan 50 minutes from my house in the parking lot of a massive soccer complex. I ate my dinner here — a ham and cheese tortilla rollup and a bit of kale salad that I brought from home. I had a little container of chocolate chips for dessert. Super-fucking interesting, huh? Aren’t you glad I’m taking up your precious time telling you what mundane slop I ate for dinner in a parking lot? (You see, I’m even irritating myself.)

But actually, I don’t mind being here.

When you’ve spent all day annoyed that other people exist, sitting by yourself in your cozy car where no one can bother you while you type complainy paragraphs on your laptop in an effort to vent and rid yourself of at least some of the demons, is kind of nice. I have the windows cracked, the temperature and humidity levels outside are comfortable, and the sky is a pleasant shade of dusk. (I know “dusk” isn’t a color, but you know what I mean, right?) This parking lot is some kind of off-the-wall, creative vortex. Here’s another time I wrote from my car during soccer practice:

The day is almost over. This is good because I will probably wake up tomorrow in a better mood. Sometimes the best I can do with a mood like this is wait it out and try not to scream at anyone too badly.

What happened on that call with the hybrid publisher?

Did I forget to say? Yes, because I am only focused on negative things today, and that actually went really well, damnit. It doesn’t fit in with this Tuesday narrative at all. The guy I spoke with was candid and friendly and told me the interesting history of their company, and I got an excellent vibe for the place.

But I managed to be crabby for the rest of the day anyway. Sometimes (maybe most of the time), my mood has only a little to do with what is going on in my life and a lot to do with what proverbial side of the bed I woke up on that day and where I am in my rollercoaster hormonal cycle. Another day, I would have let all those emails roll right off and focused on the good things I had going on. This was not that day.

That’s it. No point. Just a vent post.

As the writer, I have the privilege of tricking you into reading these things because you think if you keep reading, I just might make some insightful point at the end. I feel your pain. I recently read a book called “How Randomness Rules Our Lives,” and realized halfway through, I’d been tricked into reading a book about math. I finished it, though. I got something out of it. Maybe you’ll get something out of this, too. Or you know, at least…fuck, I don’t know. But if you like stories with no cohesive purpose for existing, here’s another one from last May. I’m starting to detect a pattern…

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Update

In case you’re following my search for both a publisher and a job with bated breath and, knowing I wrote this a while back, have your hands pressed to your cheeks Home Alone style while you moan, “But what happened?! Did she choose the hybrid publisher? Did she find gainful employment?? DID she ever come to grips with the fact that she is not a funny person, and that is probably why Invisible City rejected her levity essay???

1. I decided against both hybrid publishers and am coming around to the “hybrid publishers are bullshit ways to part authors with their money” point of view.

2. No. I am still spending money and not making any. Unfortunately.

3. Yes. Ironically, the most amusing thing I’ve said lately was, when asked what my strengths were during a group exercise, “Well, I can’t say I’m funny because I’m not.” Everyone at the table cracked up.