Répondez s’il vous plaît

Another great painting by Jonathan Koch, this one called Oysters and Lemons. I use it perhaps to illustrate the abundance in my life right (joy, spring bloom) and the tartness, as I was pondering something that tends to make me cranky.

Aha! That makes it a Cranky Doodle Day as well as a Fat Tuesday in the blog.

Why do I always feel a little guilty for leaving out Cranky Doodle Day? It's good not to be cranky, right? Um, remember Bright-Sided, by Barbara Ehrenreich? Yes! Because I just returned it to the library. Well, hey, sometimes crankiness and complaining is good because it 1) points out crap 2) can lead to change 3) is part of real life, not falsely optimistic oversimplified unreal life. OK, that got me in the mood to crank!

So, what was making me cranky was the lack of response in several areas of my life. I won't go into it too much, but some is in personal relationships, and I can handle that in 1) risky conversation and 2) poetry. In fact, while today's poem-a-day prompt is "a particular kind of tree," the title of the poem I got from that is actually "Répondez s’il vous plaît."

Aha! That makes it also a Random Coinciday in the blog.

Anyhoo,...hmm, by now I am perfectly cheerful and have lost all crankiness, but I'll still try to crank it up. Yes! One of my poetry workshop participants was lamenting the lack of response to some of her submissions, and I'm sure a number of you can identify with that. I got a response today to a submission. It was a rejection! But even that doesn't bother me.

What bothers me is when a person (or organization) only contacts me when they want something from me. And they want it right now.

But if I need something from him or her or them, there is often no response. Usually, I just need more info, some kind of clarification, etc. If it has to do with what the person wants right now, I might get a response, so that I will give the person what he/she wants right now. If it is information that is important to me but not deemed important or urgent by that person...I will probably not hear back at all.

Or there will be a long silence.

Sigh...

Was that cranky enough? This crankiness actually led to a deep and important insight that I will share with you at a later time. Perhaps on a Thor's Day!