SPRING SANTA SIGHTING

Live by this credo: have a little laugh at life and look around you for happiness instead of sadness. Laughter has always brought me out of unhappy situations.

Our principles are the springs of our actions. Our actions, the springs of our happiness or misery. Too much care, therefore, cannot be taken in forming our principles.

If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.

Rain can have a profound effect on someone inclined toward melancholy. I live in Los Angeles, and, as of this writing, we’ve just experienced three weeks of unending late-winter storms. The sky has been a limitless bowl of sludgy, hopeless gray. The ground, soaked and muddy, emits burbly, hissing spurts with every step, which sound like a scornful parent who sees no worth, hope, or value in their offspring. The morning light through my bedroom window promises nothing but a damp, unwelcoming day of thankless busywork and futile, doomed chores. My breakfast cereal tastes like being ostracized. My morning coffee fills my stomach with dread.

What’s the point of even answering this question?

The rain–it will not stop. Even if I say something that will help you–which I won’t, because I’m such a useless piece of shit–you’ll eventually die and I’ll die and everyone we know will die and this book will turn to dust and the universe will run down and stop, and dead dead dead dead dead.

Dead. Read Chicken Soup for the Soul, I guess. Dead. Dead dead.