Moody Blues

Picture (adapted) from DeviantArt Laetyboy

SHE:

DON´T touch me, I´m feeling touchy!

HE:

Ok ...

(A little later)

SHE:

Hey! Why Don´t you touch me? Don´t You love me anymore???

Uhm ... yes, this, more or less, sums up these very female emotional swings.

These fits of moodiness that women have the questionable pleasure to experience are a total bitch, honestly!

Not that they happen that often, but once in a while is enough to be a real mood-killer for my most precious surroundings. And myself.

Out of the blue, my mind is darkened by horrible clouds of I´m-not-even-sure-what, and I start to be irritable, to say the very least. As I am watching myself bitching at my sweetheart (of course, it´s gotta be the beloved one who is invariably the victim of these fits), I know exactly that I am being unfair at that particular point, and I know that it´s not a discussion which promises a fruitful outcome.

So why on earth can´t I just stop? Or, more to the point, why do I have to start quibbling to begin with?

This weekend was a perfect example. It started so promising: The weather and feeling were almost spring-like: sunshine, twittering birds, a good cuddle (a VERY good one!) with my sweetheart to begin the day, an extended breakfast, and no tidbit stuff to do. In short, it started in a great, almost euphoric mood, and everything could have worked out perfect.

Could. If it hadn´t been for one of those ... fits.

So all of this changed as we set out for our long-expected walk. For no apparent reason, I started snapping and bitching at my love and managed to ruin the mood in no time.

OK, I was slightly hung-over from the night before (I had been out drinking with a friend who just passed his test to obtain his driver´s license), but the worst symptoms (i.e., a major headache) had long since receded. My head was not entirely clear (but when is it ever?), but there was really no particular reason to be moody, let alone leash out at someone who I care for.

I may also have been experiencing a slight hint of PMS. Not that that should be any excuse, because I think that as civilized beings with a couple of years of evolution behind us (not to mention the age of enlightenment and psychoanalysis), we cannot blame everything on animalic instincts. For a reasonable being (yes, I consider myself as such, despite being a woman), these primal traits should be controllable.

They are not. Come to think of it, I am not quite sure that these sudden mood swings are something limited to women. However, from what my male friends are telling me, I certainly do get that impression. And what they are telling me reassures me that I am not alone with these inexplicable emotional roller-coaster rides, and that, therefore, I am not a total psycho. (Phew! At least there´s some relief in that!)

Most of the men I know (and that includes my swetheart - never mind that we have been together for almost two decades) are just baffled and left wondering at these abrupt mood changes. I mean, all can be fluffy-flurry sunshine one moment, only to turn into tears the next, and back again to smiles and laughter, as if nothing had happened.

It might not be much of a consolace, but be assured, my male friends, we are just as confused as you are when we´re back to normal.

Which leaves me to conclude that as long as we XX-s don´t get a grip on what´s going on inside of us, how can we ever expect a man to understand us?

Perhaps testosterone would be a solution. But then we´d have to shave our faces, too.

Disorders

There is a certain beauty to chaos, and very likely a system behind it that fails to meet the eye at first glance. The construction of the trabucci , found around the Italian Gargano, are a case in point: They look like a mixture of planks, nets and ropes, which seem to have been assembled totally at random.

Which, perhaps, they are.

In any case, they are very well working devices for catching fish. (Unlike my own random system of non-order, which does not always work when it comes to deliver the catch of the day.)

For as long as I can think, I have been suffering from various types of disorder. Not disorders in the sense of some bodily or emotional or mental function which might be described as disorder.

I do, however, experience serious attacks of stupidity intolerance, authority intolerance, bigotry intolerance, not to mention very regular attacks of racism intolerance. Most of them might, in fact, be called chronic conditions.

But then these intolerances are nothing I would call "disorders". In fact, I think they are totally healthy, necessary, and in order. Which, in turn, is probably an expression of my state of mind, and a propensity to refuse certain types of order.

In any case, "suffering" is probably the wrong word, so I shall reformulate: I am a very disorderly person. Not only when it comes to authorities, but also in a more basic sense.

The other day, I had to sort some stuff for our tax advisor. Needless to say, due to my cardbox-filing (un)systematic, I had hours of fun getting all the documents into some kind of decent order. It was as if some evil ghost had taken them prior to my going through them and shuffled them like a deck of cards, so there were practically no two documents that were filed (or thrown into the box) in a (chrono)logical order. But of course, there was no ghost I could blame other than my own disorder spirit.

On second thought, "suffering" might be the right word after all, because this lack of order sometimes is a source of stress. Or at least one of inconvenience.

But I am getting better. Today, my sweetheart was looking for some tool. Now, we don´t have a toolbox in the classical sense, since none of us is very much of a homeworker/handicraft type of person. But we do have a cardbord box (yes!) where we collect most of our tools. So I dug through it and - tata! - much to my own surprise, I found the tool in question.

"There seems to be," I said, "some systematic developing in our system of disorderliness. We might throw everything into cardbord boxes, but increasingly, there seems to be some sort of logic behind it. We actually start finding things we are looking for, without having to plow everything under."

"Should I start getting worried now?" my sweetheart asked.

"About what - our imminent gentrification?" I asked back.

"Yes, exactly," he replied.

Personally, I think it is to early to start worrying, as long as questions beginning with "Do you have any idea where I might find ....?", followed by shoulder-shrugging, swearing, and, ultimately, giggling, are part of our daily experience.

And the day when above intolerances recede or stop ... that would be the day to start worrying.