August 2: Bad Mood, "Cowboys & Aliens," More Bad Mood

When I originally started this blog, I meant to write about my attempt to become a better person.  A saint.  All the saints I read about as a child always seemed so calm and relaxed and happy, even as they were being burned alive, disemboweled, or fed to hungry bears.  Even the portraits of saints, with their other-worldly peace, made me want to take whatever they were on--the Holy Spirit or Valium or Xanax.  This blog was my attempt to reach toward heaven, in a way.

Well, after a little over a year-and-a-half, I'm just as screwed up, cranky, and petty as I was when I started.  Today proves that point.  I woke up in a terminally bad mood, and, for most of the day, I have stayed in a terminally bad mood.  This state has nothing to do with the fact that my friend and coworker got an iPad2 yesterday for her birthday.  (I'm happy for her.  Really, I am.  Dammit, I'm happy.)  It has nothing to do with the fact that I didn't win that chapbook contest a little while ago.  (My entry fee for the contest entitles me to a copy of the winning chapbook.  I can hardly wait to read what a piece of crap the winning book really is compared to my chapbook.)  It has nothing to do with the fact that my daughter is away at camp for a week.  (I'm sure she's absolutely miserable without me.)  In fact, I don't know why I'm in such a bad mood. 

I am sure that saints never allow themselves to wallow in self-pity, which has pretty much been my modus operandi all day long.  Actually, it started last night when my wife told me she was having car problems and I started imagining the cost of the impending repair.  I've been in a nose-dive ever since.

Tonight, my wife and I are meeting some friends for drinks and a movie.  We're going to see "Cowboys & Aliens" with Harrison Ford.  I persuaded my friend from the university to attend by telling him it was a postmodern, deconstructionist version of the American western.  He said he would go if Derrida got his ass kicked.  I told him Derrida might be disguised as a really ugly alien or Daniel Craig, but he would get a thorough ass-kicking.

I wish I could say that, after a year of trying to be more saint-like, I feel the presence of God more in my life.  I don't.  I wish I could say I can perform tiny miracles now (cure a hangnail or ingrown hair).  I can't.  I wish I could say my life is more manageable.  It isn't. 

What I have learned, over 259 posts, is that I'm not alone.  I have friends and family, people who care about me.  I have a love of poetry and writing, a passion.  And I know that prayers can be answered (my friend's biopsy result yesterday is proof of that).  Faith.

I may be in a terminally bad mood today.  I'm human.  Just like every other saint I've read about or written of.  Saints are flawed.  They're crabby.  They're self-centered.  Sad.  Angry.  Happy.  Joyful.  Jealous.  They're everything I am.  They're everything I can become.

Saint Marty isn't giving up hope.