The Occasional Bad Day – And Taking It With Humor

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I knew today wouldn’t be my best day ever. I had to face a few quite hard facts. I was behind everything, but in particular, I was delayed on a few things I had to do – and should have done quite a while ago.

After waking up with a hammering headache, the prospect of getting something done that I had secretly postponed day-by-day-by-week wasn’t compelling. However, I knew it was time to get it done and over with. I was still within ‘the deadline’, but I was definitely on the ‘late’ side, which I don’t like. But so far, everything else has seemed to be more intriguing than sitting down and getting that stuff done.

But a deadline is a deadline is a deadline. And yes, Douglas Adams has something to say about deadlines:

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” ~Douglas Adams

I knew I couldn’t wait until that deadline flew by and moved over to my office. On the way, I stumbled over Charlet, my black tabby cat, who decided to cross my path just as I surrounded the corner from the living room to the office.

Thank God I could catch myself and didn’t fall, but in my haste to see myself, I hit two fingers on my desk, and one of my fingernails folded over – backward. Now, if you have nails as hard as mine, that hurts! I howled like a hungry wolf on a full moon. But that was no reason to delay. However, it was a reason to go back to the kitchen, get me a glass of buttermilk and wait until the pain had lessened a bit. Unfortunately, from yesterday to today, the buttermilk in question has gone sour.

Well, I got myself apple juice and shuffled back to the office.

Then I sat down and worked intensely for five hours to get my task done. That worked fine… until I found out that this wasn’t the only task I had. I promised to record something and send it out – which I did too. Two jobs are done. And I had to write a blog post for tomorrow, which I am doing right now, three tasks done.

I had to go to the bathroom in between, which I didn’t bother to slip into my house shoes, and stepped with my bare feet into a cat hairball… what a mess!

When I returned, I found out I had not finished the September Newsletter yet, which means, instead of getting ready for bed, I’ll get ready to get that done as well.

After all, it wasn’t a perfect day for me today. When I surfed through some quotes for this post, I found that quote from English author Douglas Adams and laughed loudly.

I know precisely, my day could have been much worse! There are people with horrible problems! (Even though I do have a few things that cause me stress and anxiety…)  But this quote made me laugh, and only the laughter made me feel better!

And I remember that very often, laughter can help. Look for something to giggle, for something to laugh about, look for a movie, a quote, a memory, or a couple of kitties, that tickly your humor center – and you will survive!

And with that, I’ll let you read a few more giggles from Douglas Adams. Giggle – and feel good about it!

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Douglas Noel Adams was born on the 11th of March 1952 in Cambridge. He was an English writer and dramatist. Adams went to Brentwood School in Essex from 1959 to 1970. Until then his interest lied more towards Science rather than Arts. It was not until the age of ten when after achieving a full score in an essay, his teacher Frank Halford, encouraged him to follow a career in writing. While Adams was studying in Cambridge he hitchhiked from Europe to Istanbul, working various jobs to generate funds for it. After he left school in 1970 to follow his career as a writer, Adams was certain that success was eminent. However, the truth was far from this. After being discovered by Graham Chapman and John Lloyd he also made brief experiences in the series ‘Monty Pythons Flying Circus’. But Adams writings were not aligned with the style of radio or television of that time which proved to be a great hindrance in his success.

To make a living Adams tried several jobs including hospital porter, barn builder, bodyguard and chicken shed cleaner. Nevertheless Adams continued his efforts, though few of his works were accepted. In 1976, however, his career escalated a little when he wrote and performed ‘Unpleasantness at Brodie’s Close’ in a festival. But by the end of the year, he was in strife again. This left Adams with great depression and low self esteem. Slowly he learned to cope with his situation and decided to keep working hard for success.

His early works include ‘The Burkiss Way’ (1977) and ‘The News Huddlines’. In the same year later he worked once again with Graham Chappal to write an episode of ‘Doctor on the Go’. Adams most notable work is ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ which reached immense heights of success with the book being the number one seller in UK. He also became the youngest author to have received the Golden Pen Award for his book. ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ moved on to become a television series, a record album, a computer game and also theatrical plays. In 1980 he wrote another successful book ‘The Restaurant at the End of the Universe’ followed by ‘The Universe and Everything’ in 1982 and ‘So Long and Thanks for All the Fish’ in 1984 and ‘Mostly Harmless’ in 2002. Douglas Adams sold more than fifteen million books in United Kingdom, The United States and Australia and was a best seller in many languages including German and Swedish.

His works received many awards some of which are the ‘Imperial Tobacco Award’ (1978), Sony Award (1979) and ‘Best Program for Young People’ Society of Authors/Pye Awards for Radio (1980). In 1982, three of Adams books made it to the New York Times bestseller list and the Publishers’ Weekly bestseller list making him the first British author to achieve this target after Ian Fleming. His phenomenal book ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy’ was at the 24th number in the Waterstone’s Books and Channel list of the 100 greatest books of the century.

Douglas Adams died in Santa Barbara, California in May 2001.

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All pictures in this post are courtesy of Google.com