Last week I was driving home, touting my characteristic meditative (plastic) smile all over the place.
Note to potential smiling meditants: I know it's hard to smile for five whole minutes when you're starting out. But after a couple of days--seriously, less than a week--your face gets used to it and the five minutes are over in a flash, and then suddenly you look at the clock and realize you've been grinning like a ninny for 10 minutes... then 15... Trust me. It's good for you.
In fact, my girl Kristy was telling me a pretty traumatic story the other day and I'm sitting there thinking, "When is this going to get funny?" Because her eyes are sparkling and she just has this cute smile playing at the corners of her mouth through the whole thing. But then the story is over, and I burst out, "That's awful! I kept waiting for it to get funny because you were laughing the whole time! But it never did. If it had happened to me I would be so serious, tormented even."
"Well," she explained, "my natural face looks really angry, so I just trained myself to smile instead. So now everybody thinks I'm just really happy all the time because a smile is my default face."
How much nicer this is than my default grimace. Everyone probably thinks I'm a huge bitch (I have some testimony to back this up), or that I am the most unhappy person ever, or that I take myself verrrry seriously. On the contrary, I am quite a sweet girl, if I do say so myself, and I'm actually one of the more existentially happy people I know, and I don't take myself THAT seriously. I should work on this.
Back to the story. So last week, as I meditated the shit out of my forced smile, I got cut off. Twice.
Now, my normal reaction would have been to start (harmlessly and good-naturedly) cussing out these incompetent drivers under my breath. But my road rage was surprised to find, instead of a ready glare, a silly grin in its place. I could feel my face contorting as the two expressions battled for the front-line real estate of my visage. But the smiling meditation, with the element of surprise on its side, sent the anger scurrying off into a dark alley somewhere with its tail between its legs.
This all happened very slowly. I got this really odd out-of-body feeling that I had just witnessed a crucial turning point in history, like the Shot Heard 'Round The World or the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Or maybe the invention of the internet.
The compound effect of this bizarre phenomenon was that I started laughing at myself, which totally dissipated the entire idea of road rage, and even sparked a hint of sheepishness about the fact that I'd gotten upset about unknown idiots who can't drive properly.
Aside from the shock factor, I maintain that smiling is a superior facial expression to the poor dejected glare, and that in a power struggle Happiness would win out over Anger. I am not by any means downplaying Anger's very real potential to consume, and perhaps this is just another facet of my "happy endings depend on where you put the period" theory.
Either way, in my life, I accept this as one of the Obvious Universal Truths. As you have probably gathered by now, I am a firm believer in the healing properties of laughter. Also, if I had to choose one weapon to vanquish all the world's forces of negativity, laughter would be my first and instantaneous pick. Call me naive, happy-go-lucky, idealistic, and I will laugh it off and move on with my life. It's really a win-win situation.
***
Speaking of happiness, Kristy and I discovered on Friday one of Wilmington's most famous happy hours, at Dead Presidents. A great way to end a universally weird week, with half-price appetizers from 4-7 and $3 rail drinks after 6pm. We actually missed the half-price apps, partially because Kristy set her ID on the computer desk at my house and we had parked in the Dead Pres lot before she realized it was missing. Partly because we weren't really looking for food anyway.
The drinks, though, were strong. This bartender kicked my butt on the heavy-handed scale, which is saying something. Nobody's complaining.
On the way home we stopped at this bakery we'd passed earlier, and noted for the delicious baking-bread smell hanging over the whole neighborhood. We stopped there at 9:00, looking for pizza--but it closed at 6:00 and didn't have pizza anyway. Just your standard bakery fare.
So we hit up Yummy Pizza instead, on the corner of Old Capitol Trail and Newport Gap. I ordered a small Hawaiian pizza, and 10 minutes later the girl at check-out waved a box at us. She told me how much I owed and as she counted out the change, she said, "You ordered a medium, but they gave you a large. But we charged you for the medium."
I tipped them well, and smiled at the guys peeking out of the kitchen, and as we stumbled out into the street I asked Kristy, "Did they do that on purpose?" And she replied, "Yup."
Again, nobody's complaining.
Note to potential smiling meditants: I know it's hard to smile for five whole minutes when you're starting out. But after a couple of days--seriously, less than a week--your face gets used to it and the five minutes are over in a flash, and then suddenly you look at the clock and realize you've been grinning like a ninny for 10 minutes... then 15... Trust me. It's good for you.
In fact, my girl Kristy was telling me a pretty traumatic story the other day and I'm sitting there thinking, "When is this going to get funny?" Because her eyes are sparkling and she just has this cute smile playing at the corners of her mouth through the whole thing. But then the story is over, and I burst out, "That's awful! I kept waiting for it to get funny because you were laughing the whole time! But it never did. If it had happened to me I would be so serious, tormented even."
"Well," she explained, "my natural face looks really angry, so I just trained myself to smile instead. So now everybody thinks I'm just really happy all the time because a smile is my default face."
How much nicer this is than my default grimace. Everyone probably thinks I'm a huge bitch (I have some testimony to back this up), or that I am the most unhappy person ever, or that I take myself verrrry seriously. On the contrary, I am quite a sweet girl, if I do say so myself, and I'm actually one of the more existentially happy people I know, and I don't take myself THAT seriously. I should work on this.
Back to the story. So last week, as I meditated the shit out of my forced smile, I got cut off. Twice.
Now, my normal reaction would have been to start (harmlessly and good-naturedly) cussing out these incompetent drivers under my breath. But my road rage was surprised to find, instead of a ready glare, a silly grin in its place. I could feel my face contorting as the two expressions battled for the front-line real estate of my visage. But the smiling meditation, with the element of surprise on its side, sent the anger scurrying off into a dark alley somewhere with its tail between its legs.
This all happened very slowly. I got this really odd out-of-body feeling that I had just witnessed a crucial turning point in history, like the Shot Heard 'Round The World or the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Or maybe the invention of the internet.
The compound effect of this bizarre phenomenon was that I started laughing at myself, which totally dissipated the entire idea of road rage, and even sparked a hint of sheepishness about the fact that I'd gotten upset about unknown idiots who can't drive properly.
Aside from the shock factor, I maintain that smiling is a superior facial expression to the poor dejected glare, and that in a power struggle Happiness would win out over Anger. I am not by any means downplaying Anger's very real potential to consume, and perhaps this is just another facet of my "happy endings depend on where you put the period" theory.
Either way, in my life, I accept this as one of the Obvious Universal Truths. As you have probably gathered by now, I am a firm believer in the healing properties of laughter. Also, if I had to choose one weapon to vanquish all the world's forces of negativity, laughter would be my first and instantaneous pick. Call me naive, happy-go-lucky, idealistic, and I will laugh it off and move on with my life. It's really a win-win situation.
***
Speaking of happiness, Kristy and I discovered on Friday one of Wilmington's most famous happy hours, at Dead Presidents. A great way to end a universally weird week, with half-price appetizers from 4-7 and $3 rail drinks after 6pm. We actually missed the half-price apps, partially because Kristy set her ID on the computer desk at my house and we had parked in the Dead Pres lot before she realized it was missing. Partly because we weren't really looking for food anyway.
The drinks, though, were strong. This bartender kicked my butt on the heavy-handed scale, which is saying something. Nobody's complaining.
On the way home we stopped at this bakery we'd passed earlier, and noted for the delicious baking-bread smell hanging over the whole neighborhood. We stopped there at 9:00, looking for pizza--but it closed at 6:00 and didn't have pizza anyway. Just your standard bakery fare.
So we hit up Yummy Pizza instead, on the corner of Old Capitol Trail and Newport Gap. I ordered a small Hawaiian pizza, and 10 minutes later the girl at check-out waved a box at us. She told me how much I owed and as she counted out the change, she said, "You ordered a medium, but they gave you a large. But we charged you for the medium."
I tipped them well, and smiled at the guys peeking out of the kitchen, and as we stumbled out into the street I asked Kristy, "Did they do that on purpose?" And she replied, "Yup."
Again, nobody's complaining.
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