Life of the Party
That's not me right now, I'm afraid. This cat business has exhausted me, and the five pills a day he gets are straining our relationship. Of course I understand—if someone grabbed me twice a day and stuck pills down my throat I'd view that person askance. But it's dispiriting, and he's up and down with his appetite and such, and then there are all the other things I fret about. I'll bet you know how it is.
Thoreau's phase "lives of quiet desperation" came into my mind this morning, as I made my second cup of coffee, and I suggested in my mind to Thoreau that he just shut up. What, like he was some fun guy? Devil may care, a song on his lips? Huh. He had some good thoughts about the importance of nature (I have Sierra Club friends, gotta be circumspect here) and he probably had the best observation on the vapidity of the electronic media ever made (they were working on a transatlantic telegraph cable at the time). But I've never heard him accused of being positive, or happy or fun.
No, give me Robert Burns. He had his bad days—that's clear enough from To A Mouse—but he was known for being fun too. In other words, when he was troubled with existential angst or any other sort of botheration he sucked it up and stayed positive. I read an undoubtedly apocryphal story in a high-school English text once, about how a traveler was approaching a Scottish in one night. The lights were blazing, there was singing and laughter and the sound of many dancing feet, and when the traveler got to the door he asked what all the excitement was. "Oh sir," a serving maid said, "Bobby Burns is ben." (Is here, in other words.) It may not be true, but it tells you something about his reputation, doesn't it?
So there you are. The cat and I will put our six feet one in front of the other until things are straightened out. He's a wee, sleekit, tim'rous beastie, but he's also fairly cheerful by nature, so with the twin examples of Robert Burns and my cat to inspire me I think I can soldier on.
Thoreau's phase "lives of quiet desperation" came into my mind this morning, as I made my second cup of coffee, and I suggested in my mind to Thoreau that he just shut up. What, like he was some fun guy? Devil may care, a song on his lips? Huh. He had some good thoughts about the importance of nature (I have Sierra Club friends, gotta be circumspect here) and he probably had the best observation on the vapidity of the electronic media ever made (they were working on a transatlantic telegraph cable at the time). But I've never heard him accused of being positive, or happy or fun.
No, give me Robert Burns. He had his bad days—that's clear enough from To A Mouse—but he was known for being fun too. In other words, when he was troubled with existential angst or any other sort of botheration he sucked it up and stayed positive. I read an undoubtedly apocryphal story in a high-school English text once, about how a traveler was approaching a Scottish in one night. The lights were blazing, there was singing and laughter and the sound of many dancing feet, and when the traveler got to the door he asked what all the excitement was. "Oh sir," a serving maid said, "Bobby Burns is ben." (Is here, in other words.) It may not be true, but it tells you something about his reputation, doesn't it?
So there you are. The cat and I will put our six feet one in front of the other until things are straightened out. He's a wee, sleekit, tim'rous beastie, but he's also fairly cheerful by nature, so with the twin examples of Robert Burns and my cat to inspire me I think I can soldier on.
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