How not to be angry

You tell me.

I feel angry all the time recently. I feel angry about the cars that cut me off while I am biking. I feel angry about men or women who say, “Uh-huh” when I say thank you or when they bump into me and I say “Thank you.”

It kills me when someone asks for my opinion, I give it, and then they start an argument. It’s worse when they say I am argumentative because I have defended myself.

People are absolutely ridiculous when they defend derogatory words, like “tranny,” while still pretending to support the “LGTBQ community.”

I find myself upset when a friend asks me why I wasn’t at a party, why I didn’t stay later than 3 in the morning, that he would have loved to see me there later, that it was charming to see my boyfriend there.

Drugs and the importance we place on them as mind-opening, as subversive, as something one has to do to be interesting makes me angry.

And it makes me angry when people on drugs think they are being conversational, or clever, or funny when they make non-sensical remarks or sounds or motions when they are high. Boring, I just want to start screaming THAT WASN’T A PLAY ON WORDS, THAT WASN’T CLEVER, AND YOU ARE NOT FUNNY. These remarks are pertinent for people who are not high, who don’t do drugs, too.

I am angry when people don’t walk on the wrong side of the sidewalk even when they see that the sidewalk is full of people walking in both directions and bikes and trying to get by them.

I find it disgusting when people try to quote Foucault or Marx and get it all wrong but pretend they are telling a TRUTH. Don’t even talk to me about the people who still have an interest in Freud. And on the other hand, I find myself ruffled that people would completely dismiss some thought or opinion or feedback just because a speaker invokes a philosopher.

I’m irked when a person believes they are producing something better than other people we know and yet they’re just deluded, narcissistic, and hypocritical. Your party isn’t better. Your art isn’t revolutionary.

I’m hurt when I share an idea and someone ridicules it, or becomes short with me about it, or will not begin to consider it and brainstorm with me, but rather shoots it down, dismisses it immediately, and I’m left thinking its better to always keep my mouth shout.

Here’s the thing: all these things are minor things, issues to be shrugged off and forgotten. We’re all busy, our minds occupied on other issues, on other projects. We don’t fully consider what we’re saying; an off-hand remark or response, something insignificant to one person can take on a completely different, more significant meaning for someone else. And all of these issues, all these things I’ve listed above, I know logically I have committed these crimes. I have been inconsiderate. I have made others angry. I have made other people feel like shit. And I know I have to you forgive and you have to forget and we all have to get over it and get over ourselves and just move on.

But right now, I just can’t. It’s just anger. And I can sit down and relax. I can meditate. I can have a drink. But I just feel more anger. I think this will pass but in the meantime, it just seems like there is nothing I can do right now. It’s a quagmire and I’m pissy.