Anglesea Road

This blog is a chore and I'm kind of tired of it... or at least, I'm tired as hell of it feeling like a chore.  I hate scrounging for halfway passable subjects about which to write because I'm trying to avoid talking about anything real, and so I end up abandoning this joint for weeks or even months at a time.  I'd like very much to be better about it -- I know I've said that before and it's always been a pack of lies, but I'm genuinely serious this time.  I've been pretty uncommunicative for a good long while now; even when I talk a lot (or write a lot, as it were) I don't tend to say much of anything.  I feel like changing that and maybe starting to talk about some serious stuff, but not today.  Why?  Because today is Wednesday.  No Whining Wednesday, to be precise.

Around the middle-ish of July, the luminous Lainey started No Whining Wednesdays, because she is wise and good (she's also smokin' hot and funny as shit, but we'll get back to that on Frisky Friday so keep it in your pants for now, pervs).  The idea is a simple one: for one measly day out of every week, try to resist the overwhelming impulse we all have to bitch about every last thing that bothers us.  It's basic human nature to whine and cry over what we don't like; it starts in infancy and progresses from there until it's so entrenched it seems like we can't function without bemoaning every little slight or inconvenience.  Now, the philosophy of No Whining Wednesday is not to turn everyone into some sort of mindless Pollyanna drone because EW, GROSS.  I'm pretty sure we all know one of those walking sunbeam kinda people, and we all want to kill those jackholes in the head because it just ain't natural to be that goddamn happy all the time.  That being said, it's a total drag to feel surrounded by people who are reveling in their misery, and it definitely feels pretty yucky when we get immersed in our own negativity.

It's so easy to fall back on the lazy habit of complaining, you know?  And lord knows, I'm pretty much the laziest bitch I've ever met.  When Lainey started No Whining Wednesdays, I thought it was a fun idea and I liked reading updates about it from her and the other people who had joined in, but I wasn't actually participating.  It wasn't a conscious decision to avoid playing; I just didn't jump in right away.  A few weeks ago, though, I found myself -- completely unintentionally -- looking at things a little differently.  It wasn't a massive paradigm shift that led to visions of rainbows and seraphim or anything insane, but I started seeing a difference in my mood on Wednesdays.  Even just those few people who were playing No Whining Wednesday in the early weeks were enough to noticeably alter my thinking for the better.  Not in some crazy thought police way, but there was this subtle shift in focus happening.  It's just a small redirection of energy, really.  And I liked it, so I started playing.  Just on Twitter, at first, but my Twitter feed automatically updates my Facebook status... there was no identifiable point at which it started bleeding over into actual conversation in my fleshlife, but it happened nonetheless.  Not every day, not all the time, but just that one day each week I was finding this lovely lifting of mood.

It's a bit addictive, really.  And it's so small; just a newfound balance in content vs. tone.  It's so nice when people can talk freely about things that upset them or disappoint them or anger them, without absolutely wallowing in the negativity of it all.  It sounds ridiculously cheesy when I try to describe it, I guess, because silly things like "silver linings" always seem to come to mind.  It's not even so drastic as that, though, but more about how I'm choosing to express negativity without whining about it.  After just one day each week for a mere few weeks, I find myself tending to end on an upswing when I mention annoyances, finding unexpected benefits to inconvenient circumstances, or getting a laugh out of ridiculous situations.  The whole endeavour does wonders for maintaining a sense of fun, even on the most irritating or miserable of days.

I don't know how many of you have noticed the No Whining Wednesday thing happening, but for those who have, are you seeing any change in mood on Wednesdays?  I was even in a super good mood on Thursday last week, because I went to sleep revoltingly happy on Wednesday night.  Also, it tends to seriously creep people out when I'm in a really good mood, so that was a delightfully unexpected benefit.  I live to give you bastards the heebie jeebies.  As for today, I woke up with a headache which provided me with an excellent excuse to consume horrifying quantities of caffeine, so YAY!  I got invited to a barbecue with RIBS tonight and I can't go which makes me hideously sad in the pants, but the reason I can't go is because of tonight's Showgirls Shindig with Lainey and Anna von B and the rest of those crazy bitches, and it's gonna be awesome, so YAY!  What about you guys?  What can you not whine about this fine Wednesday evening?