Complaining is easy, much like opening a two-lb bag of Doritos and finding yourself licking the empty bottom corners of the bag.

I’ve had my apartment for two years today. I miss the two known drug dealers who once graced us with their presence. They don’t even send me Xmas cards anymore. If you have 14% of your apartments occupied by those, leaving your box of Barbie dolls unattended in the car is difficult. People who sell drugs aren’t dangerous by themselves; they do, however, often attract people you’d see on the Washington County detention roster. (You know the ones. They often look like they’ve spent the entire night in a carnival porta-potty.) I miss my huge mismatched art project that once dominated the fences outside. I took it down a year ago. Earlier this week, I pulled the commemorative purple tile I’d made to remember it. I’ve occupied myself otherwise by leaving strategically placed items in a LOT of different places over the last year. Somewhere, my large tile with a secret message on the back still towers above the ground, high up in a tree that I probably should not have climbed.

One such secret prank I did still amuses me, though I’m not proud of it. A particularly angry person at some point walked out of their residence to discover a gift certificate to Shakes, in hopes that it might lessen their angry, aggressive attitude. I left a note encouraging them to be silent if they couldn’t ever say anything nice. But I also wrote that there is hope for everyone if they’ll just slow down long enough to see that there are blessings and people around them worthy of appreciation. I doubt my attempt helped them. I would call it catharsis, but fancy words like that violate standards in the South.

The last two years seem tenuously stretched to accommodate five times as many days as they contained. That’s a good thing. Time flies, but it also distorts, like bargain-bin yoga pants.

Back to complaining. Complaining serves us in small doses. It allows us to vent and release pressure. It works until we find ourselves beyond the wall of negativity. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Or altitude. (Go lie down for an hour.) Continuing to spew negativity past that point infects the people around you. Do what normal people do: drink excessively or dive into capitalism by collecting penguin trinkets to fill your walls. It’s easier to cure alcoholism than negativity. You can hide the alcohol, but there’s always going to be a reason to bitch and moan. Or moanbitch, if you need another invented word. As you read this, I’m sure you have such a person in mind. If it’s me, I will take the news better if you write it on a $100 bill and hand it to me.

It seems like I started with a unifying point. But I’ve been listening to political speeches and can’t seem to conclude anything. I noted that it gave me the urge to tell many other people what to do and how to live their lives while simultaneously becoming wealthy at taxpayer expense.

Have a happy Sunday.

Love, X