WARNING! Common Sense To Follow

In the past few days, I have been reminded that the outcome of my day is almost entirely dependent on my expectations. I expect a day to go well or badly, it will. Some mornings I wake up to the neighbors' music that is too loud for 7 a.m. in a house shared by strangers and I get all pissy and I have a pissy day because I can't let go of the early morning bitterness. Other days, I listen to good music on the way to work, smile at people on the Metro, and have a generally good day because I've made a conscious decision that no one can ruin my mood.

I'm ashamed to admit that the pissy days are a bit more frequent than the happy days, as is evidenced by my bitter diatribes on Livejournal. Believe me, I don't want to be a bitter, sarcastic, angry person, but I often don't even notice it's happening until I'm ranting to Emily at the end of the day.

Today started out as one of the pissy days. I woke 45 minutes earlier than necessary becuase the neighbors were listening to some guy talk on the radio (WAY TOO LOUDLY!). I got in the shower earlier than normal and was able to take time straightening my hair because Emily had to be at work at some crazy hour this morning. Getting an early start allowed me to make some eggs with hot sauce for breakfast. My Metro ride was uncrowded and uneventful and my randomly shuffling iPod played Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture for me. Sounds like a mostly good start, eh?

Then I got to work and was welcomed by a stack of 27 submissions that needed to be copied. No problem! I have a system that makes copying these things a breeze and in my nerdy way, I like implementing that system. However, the stack of work was accompanied by a phone message from La Super. I don't even remember how many of these submission packets I copied and sent last year, (it was probably around 250) but La Super decided that she needed to leave me a three minute message explaining the process!! I know it's not a big deal, I should just take it in stride, but sometimes I just want to scream something like, "Do you think I'm an idiot??!!"

But I held my tongue, as per the usual, and chalked it up to experience. Then, I went about the multiple hours of copying and stamping with an intentional bounce in my step and ignored the implications (that I am a moron and can't remember how to do anything) of that phone message. Since then, it's been a pleasant day. What do you know about that?