My Rotten Mood

I'm in a pretty crummy mood tonight. I guess it proves that I'm human. Normally, I try to maintain a neutral tone hereabouts, but that's not happening tonight.

I got off work at my normal time, and then drove to my bank to deposit a check. Nah, it wasn't one of the largish checks I've been waiting for, but it's still money. You might not know it, but I do occasional freelance work for Upper Deck, writing creative content for one of their CCGs. That's where the check came from. Into the bank it goes, cha-ching.

After I put the check in, I drive to It's A Grind. The table I prefer was taken, so I plop down at another one. I must've been sitting wierd, or craning my neck in an odd position, because after an hour or so of that I started to get this dull ache in the right side of my neck. It was moving up, turning into a headache, before it really occured to me that I was in any kind of pain.

I'd only managed to peck out 800 words, which isn't bad for the amount of time I'd been there, but it's still not anywhere near what I wanted to get done today. I've learned that it's a good idea to cut your losses if you're feeling like crap, because no good writing can come out of discomfort. Sure, pain might breed art, but I prefer to think of that as emotional pain breeding art. Physical pain...well, it just sucks.

I drove home and got the mail. It was a waste of time, seeing as it was a handful of junk. Not even any bills in the mail today, much less paychecks or comp copies or month-late birthday cards. Hope springs eternal, I reckon.

I got home, and sent my wife off to nap. She was tired, and I always feel like she should get a break every so often. It's not like I'm out having fun, whooping it up with the boys at Hooters, when I'm writing, but I don't feel any less guilty for leaving her home to mind the child all by herself.

And what a foul mood he was in tonight. I think I must've uttered the word, "No," about sixty times in the first fifteen minutes. First he wanted to crawl on me, applying the force of his heavy feet to the more sensitive portions of my anatomy. It's not like he understands that my lap is not a trampoline, or that it's not normal for daddy to speak in a falsetto like that. He just thinks it's funny.

Then he wanted to stand on the coffee table. Bad idea. His little mind clicks and whirs and he thinks, "Well, then, if I can't stand on the coffee table...I'll stand on the sofa!"

Which earned yet another, "No," from me, along with an order to "Sit down."

He knows what that means, but he looks at me as if to say, "Oh, father? What's that? You can't possibly be speaking to me. I'll just go on doing what I'm doing. How else will I manage to fall and break a bone before I turn two?"

I ended up making him dinner, which consisted of macaroni and cheese, some apple sauce, and a pickle cut into bite-sized pieces. He ate a good deal, so he must've been hungry. After I'd cleaned up the mess, we sat and played Halo 2 until he began to rub his eyes in a manner that suggested he was tired, but unwilling to admit it.

So off to bed he went, after getting a shot of baby Tylenol to ease the agony of his newly-emerging molars (one on each side, at present). Teething is such a pain. Is it any wonder he was being bad? I suppose I'd probably run around being disobedient if I was in constant oral discomfort, too.

Surprisingly, he went to sleep pretty quickly. After his cooing and whining had tapered off to little toddler snoring, I went and got his mother up.

And here I am now. It's almost 10 o'clock, and I have to wake up and go to work in seven hours, after which I have to try to get some manner of writing accomplished before coming home and maybe doing some laundry.

A piece of advice to all you kids out there: don't grow up. It's a pain in the butt. Be nice to your mothers and fathers so that they will allow you to live at home in ignorant bliss of all the responsibilities you would otherwise be forced to accept as an adult.