Well, shit. It’s one in the afternoon–just after breakfast!–and I’m already writing. (I’m so excited, my nipples are hard.) The sun is shining full-on, but I’m not. Shining, that is. Rather, I’m sitting here in the slime left over from last night’s bad mood. You know how you get pissed off at the world and think, Maybe this foul spirit will be gone tomorrow. But then you wake up the next day, and that ugly mood monster is right there beside making himself at home in your bed, practically doing a reach-around. (That’s a sex joke, Mom.) At first you think, Get your grubby hands off me, Mr. Bad Attitude!, but then you think, Well, it HAS been a while.

So the bad mood stays.

As I’ve worked through my morning routine, I’ve been on the emotional fence. Part of me is tempted to overanalyze every single fucking thing that happened yesterday under the guise of “What went wrong, and how can I fix it?” And maybe it would start out that way–objective, constructive–but before long I’d just be beating up on myself and the world. I guess I already am. My god, your waistline is getting bigger, Marcus, and why is the stupid sun so frickin’ hot? Earlier I took some clothes out of the dryer, and the door squeaked every time I went in for a pair of boxer briefs or socks. You know how those things keep wanting to close. (They’re like furniture stores.) Well, it was seriously wearing on my nerves. I swear, who invented that sound–eeek–eeek–EEEEEEEEEEKK? Probably the same jerk who invented mosquitoes. Those little assholes are like my emotions this summer–all over me.

But really, Lord, why?

Anyway, the other part of me is ready to be done with all this irritation, and that part of me has been TRYING to ignore the other part of me, the pissed off part. I’ve been thinking, Yesterday’s over. Que sera, sera. It’s sunny out. I like the sun. I’m going to a show tonight. With a friend. Life doesn’t suck. (Completely.) This strategy hasn’t really been working (crap), nor has the pot of coffee I’ve been pouring down my throat (I’m trying everything). So I’m left with this wisdom–Sometimes a bad mood shows up, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And if an uninvited emotion shoves its hand down your pants–well–you might as well enjoy it. At least someone is playing with you.

God, I need to get laid. (And when I do, Lord–really–I’ll take back what I said about you and the mosquitoes.)

I guess there is part of me that enjoys a bad mood. It’s kind of fun to get all riled up, make a big damn deal about mosquitoes, a squeaky dryer, or an expanding waistline. In one sense, getting angry makes me feel alive, reminds me that I’m capable of responding to my environment, that I’m a part of things. For so many years I’ve sat quietly, idly by, watching life happen, being “okay” with whatever occurs. More times than I can count I’ve said, “It’s fine, it’s just fine,” even though it wasn’t.

Even though my emotions were telling me it wasn’t.

Since my trip to Nashville over Memorial Day, I’ve been reading a book called The True Secret to Writing by Natalie Goldberg, who also wrote Writing Down the Bones. Natalie’s distilled-down wisdom on writing is “Shut up and write.” As I understand it, this means that our minds can come up with a million excuses to not write, but so what? Writers write. We tell ourselves we’re all dried up, that we have nothing to say, that the laundry needs folding. This morning I thought all these things. Part of me knew that if I’d just sit down I could figure my interior out on paper, but I kept trying to do it in my head, a method that almost never works. In my head, I chase my emotions around in circles. On paper, I’m still chasing my emotions, but it’s easier to catch them. It’s like they want to be caught here. They leave me clues as to what’s going on inside me–in writing!

Earlier when dealing with the dryer door, I finally propped it open so it wouldn’t swing back and forth and annoy the shit out of me. (My next step is to grease the hinges.) I see this as one small thing I can do to not make my emotional day WORSE, even if it doesn’t completely make it better. But I’m coming to believe what I wrote above, that even if we can’t “enjoy” a bad mood (and I’m not suggesting you take it out on others–that would be sick), we can learn from it. Because I do think our emotions–all of them–matter. Like little children, they have a voice and want to be heard. They get tired of being shoved down and swept under the rug. Wouldn’t you? So of course they’re willing to show up uninvited, shove their hands down your pants, and–um–jerk you around. They’re tired of being ignored. This is why I’m reminding myself that being on the fence is an okay place to be. There I can see all parts of myself. There I can interact with all of my emotions, ask them, “Baby, what do you have to teach me? I’m finally listening.”