Instead of recording a list of all the molehills that I built up into a great mountain of annoyance today, I’ve decided to take the high road and not even name them. That’s not easy for me, because when I’m at odds with the world as much as I am tonight, I like to enumerate the reasons I think I have a right to feel that way. If I don’t do that, somebody might think my foul mood was my own fault.

Actually, I’m pretty sure it is my fault. When I do any heavy pondering, I can’t help but come to the conclusion that I deserve to feel put upon. The kinds of things that bother me are the kinds of things that happen in life, and if I could either ignore them or laugh at them, I’d be no worse off for their having happened to me, and maybe a little better off for not letting them eat away at me. It’s just that when it seems the whole battalion is attacking at once, it doesn’t matter that they’re just toy soldiers.

And there’s another reason I shouldn’t let myself get this far down over something that matters so little. It always passes. If not tomorrow or by the end of the week, then next month, or a hundred years from now. Sooner or later, none of what I’m so agitated about today will have any bearing on reality. It’s like yesterday’s political polls (or even yesterday’s election). When it passes into history, the urgency of it seems absurd and kind of pitiful.