everyday agita

So here we are.

I know that a lot of big, bad things have been going down this week. But take heart, for it’s not the huge, grand problems in life that give us the most agita… it’s the many, many little things:

If I throw a few coins into this horrible musician’s guitar case, is it really doing anybody any good at all? Is it encouraging the wrong thing, or is it pity? Or does it not matter when you’re playing for money? I’ve already passed the guy. Do I double back? Is that worse?

That tweet I just sent... did people get it? Are they laughing? Or is it stupid? Should I just delete it? Or should I send another one to explain it? Why did that person I don’t know unfollow me? Why do I care if an egg avatar thinks I’m worthy to be followed? Wait, is Twitter just a giant game that I let myself get sucked into? Am I an idiot for only realizing that now?

Am I screwing up future generations every time I talk to a kid? Does the kid know I’m lying?

I need to re-grout. I don’t want to re-grout. But I probably need to re-grout, because no matter what I use on the grout, it still looks dingy. Should I get someone to come in and re-grout? Or will that be too expensive? Should I try to re-grout myself? Or will that make it worse? And does anyone really notice my grout, or is it just me? Am I spelling “grout” right? It doesn’t even look like a word anymore. Grout. 

I shouldn’t eat that muffin. It’s bad for me. But that salad could be full of salmonella. Do I want an E. coli salad to possibly be the last thing I eat in this life? Am I being overly dramatic or could I actually drop dead today, and not even necessarily from the salad?

Could my browser history be deemed unsavory in a court of law just because I searched for “cartoon character nudity” when wondering why Donald Duck and Winnie The Pooh are pantsless?

Did that dream I had last night mean anything significant? Or was it just a dream? Do dreams forecast the future or do they just amplify our fears? Is it a bad thing that I had that dream? I can’t remember all of it anymore. Why can’t I remember that dream? Am I losing my mind? Or is my mind purposely blocking out that part of the dream to protect myself? Why would my mind need to protect me from my own psyche? Am I going crazy? 

Can I pull off this green nail polish? Is anyone looking at my nails? Why aren’t they noticing the green nail polish? Or do they notice and don’t want to say anything because it looks so bad? Why did I buy that green nail polish to begin with? Is this what a mid-life crisis looks like? Am I old enough to have a mid-life crisis? Why do I care if people notice my green nail polish? Is it so they don’t look at my pores? Is that it? Do I subconsciously know that I need to distract from my pores with ridiculously green nail polish? And if so, what does that say about me?

It hasn’t rained in a while, has it? That’s not good. They say that our future wars will be fought over water and food. What if I’m really old when there’s a massive water shortage? Should I sacrifice myself and just dehydrate away? How would that work, exactly? Would we get water ration coupons like in World War II? Would I just not use mine, or would I give them to someone else? Would it be a painful death? Or will I even still be living when that happens? Maybe I’ll already be gone. Is that a selfish thought? Am I completely selfish?

(or) It’s been raining a hell of a lot lately. I keep hearing about the ocean levels rising. I wonder how much they’ll rise in my lifetime.

Why do I keep saying “in my lifetime?” Do I not care about the next generation? Is this that selfish thing again? Or is it just easier to think about my own lifetime, because thinking that far down the road makes me too depressed? 

Did I need to keep that receipt I just threw out? Do I need to prove ownership of this bottle of fabric softener? You never know. It could be my alibi in a murder trial or something like that, because it shows I was at a certain place at a certain time. Damn. I should never throw out anything ever again. But I don’t want to become a hoarder. Damn.

I hope that no one I know saw me buy this embarrassing personal product at this drugstore. I hope I never need to buy anything embarrassing once Google Glass is on the market.

How should I sign off on this email? Apparently “best” isn’t good anymore, according to that online article I just read. Some people apparently don’t like “best.” I don’t understand why not. Should I care? Should I treat it as sheer opinion, or as fact? Will I be considered a rebel for going against the norm, or will I just be considered annoying for signing off in a way that people don’t like? And how many people really don’t like “best,” anyway? Maybe the person who wrote the article interviewed the only three people in the entire world who don’t like “best.” Maybe the person I’m writing to right now prefers “best” to “sincerely.” No one is that sincere these days. 

Do I sound old when I say “these days?” I bet I do. Should I try to sound younger, or would that just sound ridiculous? 

Did that baby just give me the stink-eye?

Times are tough. Maybe I should grow a garden. But am I potentially taking away income from the people who have stands at the farmer’s markets if I grow my own produce? Is that bad for the economy? And would the rabbits just eat the whole damn thing, anyway? Should I be feeding rabbits? Is it like feeding pigeons? Where are rabbits on the food chain, anyway? Are they important to the ecosystem? Am I rationalizing all of this because I don’t really want to put the work into growing a garden and need an excuse not to do it?

I am way too embarrassed to ask if this trendy thing I am eating smells funny, because maybe it’s supposed to smell that way, and then I’d feel like an idiot who doesn’t know how this trendy food is supposed to smell. Am I worthy of eating this trendy food? Am I shallow for waiting in line to try this trendy food?

If I admit to being shallow, does it make me less shallow? What if I’m just a little bit shallow, or selectively shallow? Or does it not matter what degree of shallow you are, only that you are, in fact, shallow? Because I keep coming back to the green nail polish. Shallow no longer seems like a real word, either. Shallow. Grout.

Should I have used an emoticon in that last text I sent? Should I have not?

Should I bother dusting if the dust is just going to come right back? Is that a metaphor for life? You just keep chasing the dust, and in the end it’s all just dust? Should I be thinking this deeply about dust?

And this, kids, is why we self-medicate.

Yes indeed. Welcome to me.