zeldafitz

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Please Notice When You're Happy

What I don't know about Kurt Vonnegut could fill a reservoir. I wasn't even going to read this article, but, as I balanced a salty lukewarm bowl of Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup in one hand, I read this and I was so delighted and impressed. The only thing of Vonnegut's I know is his play "God Bless You Mr. Rosewater," which I saw at Arena Stage many moons ago. It is a blot on my internal literary canon, to be sure, that I have not read more of his stuff.

Beyond art, he says, he lives for what he calls "mini-epiphanies -- very nice events that last maybe 10 minutes."

Love it! And what a coincedence, that is what I live for as well. Mini-epiphanies. After all, that's all there is.

"Please notice when you're happy," Vonnegut has been advising audiences for years. It's a cheery notion that carries an unstated implication: Unhappiness will recapture your attention soon enough.

Unhappiness has my FULL attention right now, but I am going to be really ATTUNED to noticing when I am happy.

Today has been brought to me by Franz Kafka and Eugene Ionesco's love child. Oh yes! That must mean we had Computer Guy Roulette! The bureaucratic return of Mr. Nibby Nose! Who is very lucky that I was "raised well" because instead of saying, as I WANTED TO, "You're such an ASSHOLE," I merely said, "You are very EXASPERATING."

Oh, he of the cocked head, the obsequious questions, the gratuitous humor reserved for the pretty girl I have helping me. "Don't break this computer too, OK? Heh, heh," he says. That's computer nerd foreplay for ya.

Yeah, get lost Nibs.

Grrrrrrrrr.

Anyway, Kurt Vonnegut has always been a misanthrope too. Hooray! When I crawl out of this vice, I will read him forthwith.