Friday, December 02, 2005

On Snarkification

I figured I'd wait to post until my ill-will had died down, but it hasn't.

And I should be happy. I have a cat. I have numerous comics. I have numerous comics that feature Hal Jordan getting hit on the head. I have a shift with little to no managerial inference. I have found nearly all of Morrison's JLA in trade at this point. I'm rereading Over Sea, Under Stone. I have a raise with my promotion. I have Democracy! I get along with my mother again. I have working heat. I am surrounded by humor. I'm in a good place spiritually. I am no longer living in the 90s. I gave to charity. I have nicely chilled custard. I have a Superman movie to look forward to. I have a job that allows me to actually work on the aircraft. I have cool music in the car for bad traffic. I have co-workers that I like. I have good tires. I had a Thanksgiving where I didn't fight my family -- or did I? I spent so much time drunk it's hard to tell. Anyway, something's making me spew perfectly awful, catty, cruel comments all over the net.

Why, yes, they are usually about Jade. Have you been following?

Anyway, there are three things I must do now to handle this feeling.

The first task is to accept that I am feeling bitchy lately. And I am.

For the second task, I must explore this feeling and its reasoning.

Maybe it's the the phase of the moon or the coming winter?

Maybe returning to work from vacation? No, I was pleasant and kind at work (although, in my old office I used to channel my poor attitude into customer service) today. I even found myself defending a supervisor I truly disliked before to the guy who replaced my old job.

Too much nicely chilled custard? No, you can never have too much nicely chilled custard. It's homemade!

Maybe it has something to do with Green Lantern Corps: Recharge #3 being delayed. Could Kyle Rayner be responsible for my sanity?

Most likely I'm especially vicious for lack of a true life target. In nearly every other office there has been "The Woman I Hate." I only work with one other female since I was moved across the hall to actually work again, and she's fun to be around.

So, then, if this is a necessity, but I'm happy with those that surround me, where would I aim my supply of bile? You know, the bile naturally produced by human beings because their mother didn't hug them enough, society represses them, or they are spiritual beings trapped in a painful fleshy body or whatever other bravo sierra self-help and inspirational experts feed us to explain our unhappiness?
At fictional characters is probably the safest place to aim excess vitriol. That's what could be happening's.

Or maybe it's all of the above, serving to cause a subtle pool of intoxicating toxic waste to well up from the deepest, dankest, snarkiest pit of my inner soul. And it's leaking, causing inexplicable moments of meanness, little things that just slip out and can't quite understand until the point when I explode in a shit-brown spray of curdled choler, the likes of which has not yet been seen on this Earth!

Actually, it would have been seen about 16 months ago, at the end of my first month of a customer service job.

Fat man and little boy, how I hated that job.

Maybe this is just the way I really am. In which case, my course is clear.

It leads me to my third task. I must embrace my irrascibility!

Yes, I will wallow in bitterness (or at least bad metaphors) like a maggot in dead pigeon guts, who just found his mother flew off before his birth, and that pigeon guts are a fleeting thing, and he is likely to be exterminated before he reaches flying age, never to know the sweet sensation of the wind at his wings or the gentle smell of potatoe salad wafting from the nearby Fiftieth Annual Ciezekowsky Family Renuin Picnic! I must do this to the point that it cheers me and affirms my love of humanity. Yes, I must go through snark and come out the other side!

And then maybe I can enjoy my comics again.

Sure, people will suffer, but they won't be me. When next you hear from me, I shall be a lot more cheerful.

I'll admit whether or not that will be pleasant for anyone else is hard to tell at this point.

Trust me. I know what I'm doing.

3 comments:

  1. Great post(s)! Self-knowledge, while a good thing all-round, often means accepting some things about yourself that you can't change (or wouldn't want to). Was it Star Trek 5 that was "The Search for God"? Even though the movie sucked hard, it had Kirk as one of the few people resisting a cult that's removing people's negative memories and bad personality traits. "I don't want to lose that stuff" Kirk says, "because that's part of what makes me _me_." What I hear you saying is that you without the bile wouldn't actually be you, anymore. The course you lay out is clearly the right one: Let Ragnell be Ragnell, I say!

    Yeah, I believe the key is to "enjoy your symptom." As you say, you'll be better off, and, presumably, the world will be, too. So give your irrascibility a full, rather than a half, embrace. And snark on, Ragnell, snark on!

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  2. Aww... Your encouragment just knocked all of the snark out of me.

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  3. No, Ragnell! Hold on to it! Ignore any appologies! Bitterness leads to great things-- ask Marylin Manson, John Bryne and--

    Oh, look! A Humming bird!

    (Eddie)

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