There are a lot of things going on right now - big and small - that are making me very sad. As someone who suffers from depression, I have good days and bad days. I suppose that's normal for everyone who suffers from depression. But today is a really, really bad day. It didn't start out that way.
It started out as a normal day, and all I was really thinking about was the upcoming $250 charge for the tires I have to have put on my car. You see, I had a blowout on the highway Tuesday afternoon, on my way to Austin to finally see and meet one of my favorite authors, Dave Barry. He has a new book out and I was going to meet him and have him autograph my book. I was also excited because I was going to tell him that I was the person behind the moniker Suzie Q. Wacvet when I sent odd items to him for his blog. AND I was going to confess to being the webmistress of his (un)Official Dave Barry website. I figured he'd either be elated to meet me or he'd hit me. Either way I was looking forward to it. But I barely got out of Gatesville before my tire blew out. My spare is one of those little doughnut tires that limits your speed to 50mph, if I'm not mistaken. I was actually considering continuing to Austin on my doughnut tire until I saw that it had begun shredding in my trunk. (I guess that's normal when you have a tire that's 16 years old.) So the trip was cancelled, and I had to have a tow truck carry me and my car home. So I'm going to have to buy two new tires. Believe it or not, the doughnut tire costs more than the full-sized tire. So money is my first issue today. (It's almost always an issue, anyway.)
My second depressing thought is that it's getting closer to February 17th. I can hardly even type this without sobbing. February 17, 2012, is the day that Rosie died. This will only get worse for nine more days.
My third depressing thought is that my younger brother, who has always been an outspoken republican, and who has always jumped on any chance to bad-mouth our President (whom I voted for, by the way), has finally fallen of the deep end. He has gone so far as to compare the President to Hitler. It's difficult for me to find acceptable words to describe just how I feel about anyone who compares anyone to Hitler. Come on. Hitler was responsible for the annihilation of approximately seven million people. The only acceptable people who can be compared to Hitler are Stalin and Sadam Hussein. (There may be more but my knowledge of history isn't great.) Once people I know - or people I don't know - start comparing the President to Hitler, I put their names in the "completely insane" and "ignore completely" categories of the list of friends and acquaintances that I keep in my head. I never thought my brother would be in either of those categories, but he is, apparently and disappointingly, that stupid. I still love him though. I just don't like him very much.
Fourth is a tiny thing that shouldn't bother me at all, but it does. Someone read something I wrote on Facebook, misinterpreted it, and banned me from a pet-related group. I don't go around trying to insult people, and I don't ever act like I'm better than someone (even though I often think it). But when I wrote something about irresponsible backyard breeders, she took it personally. I don't know why. I'm hoping she will let me know. She is a breeder of Olde English Bulldogs, and I thought I had made a clear distinction between people who breed responsibly (like her) and people who don't. But she, like I said, misinterpreted or misread what I wrote. So, Facebook. So what? Happens all the time. Right? Shouldn't be such a big deal. Right? Right. But I think we all are bothered, to some degree, when someone dislikes us. And Facebook makes it difficult to iron things out with acquaintances who don't know you. There's a lot of jumping to the wrong conclusion. It's one thing if someone dislikes me for good reason, but it's annoying when someone dislikes me for something they completely misunderstood. In fact, in this case, as a responsible breeder I would think that she would have been one of the first to agree with me. What makes it worse is that, after I wrote what I wrote, I asked for the group admins to read it and comment. No one said anything negative. The person who was offended said nothing at all. She just banned me. No discussion. I've contacted her since then, which is how I found out what drove her to banning me. She has said we can discuss it (when she get home, later). Maybe it will get worked out.
Still, I'm annoyed by people - even people I barely know - who fly off the handle about something that didn't happen! There are a lot of them. I confess, they're mostly on Facebook, where I shouldn't give a damn about this sort of thing. I should just get off of Facebook. But I have intelligent friends there who I enjoy and who, I've heard, enjoy me and my posts. I think I'm just going to go over there and quit some groups and unfriend some "friends," and my life will be better for it.
Add all of this to the things that "normally" depress me and you'll see that it's a bad day. It's just a bad day.
