A Small Victory: every day is like another new slogan

I'll give you a little advice right now. Don't even attempt it. There is nothing I hate more than someone trying to force a good mood on you.

Like Jeff, I am grumpy. I will remain grumpy for another day or so. I wallow in my grumpiness. In fact, in the terror-alert scale of my mood levels, I am moving along at a record pace from the greenish stage of grumpiness and will probably bypass pissed off and move right to the high alert of force of satan.

The anniversary of September 11, 2001 brings back many sad memories, and the days that followed were moving in untold ways. Amid the loss, shock, and fear, people reached out to one another. New Yorkers, so often stereotyped as living too independently, treated each other tenderly and patiently. The grief shared around the world in those days opened many hearts and eyes.

September 12 can be our ongoing reminder of those positive emotions, a way to remember and repeat that surge of warmth and togetherness.

There are few things more annoying than someone coming up to you and saying "Smile, it can't be all bad!" If you want to be all happy and prancing and lead a flash mob of clown-faced do-gooders down the street singing "Put On A Happy Face," by all means, go right ahead. Just don't involve me, don't expect me to stop and applaud your efforts and don't be suprised if I start revving my engine while you're skipping through the crosswalk in front of my car. Your smile is not contagious, bumper stickers stating as such notwithstanding.

Never force a person to smile when they don't feel like it. It only leads to resentment. And maybe a well-time punch.

Comments

sigh..and to think most of us would never have know about this site without you letting us know how much you dislike it.

If your happy and you know it clap your hands

Posted by: john | September 10, 2003 01:29 PM

Hmmm, I've found the easiest way to make someone smile is to, well, smile at them, naturally, not forced, as if it were planned by some website. And if you don't feel like smiling, hey, that's ok too.

Posted by: andy | September 10, 2003 01:37 PM

Yeah, there's a good idea. Substitute annoying "cheer someone up" slogans for the good feelings of the real outpouring of sympathy and help following 9-11-01.

I dig the general concept they are going for here, but it would be a helluva lot better if they could focus on something a little more genuine than a slogan.

Posted by: Sherard | September 10, 2003 02:29 PM

When I'm in a bad mood, the surest way anyone can make me smile is to let me smack 'em.

So, guess what I'll be doing to those trying to make me smile on Friday.

Dang, I'm grinning now just thinking about it.

Posted by: McGehee | September 10, 2003 02:35 PM

Infinitely more appropriate would be spending the 11th in mourning, and the 12th with a look of determination, of grim resolution, on our faces. Make it a day when we realize that there's still work to be done, and it's up to us to do it.

For inspiration:
http://www.archives.gov/media_desk/press_kits/picturing_the_century_photo_gallery/flag_making.jpg

Posted by: Matt | September 10, 2003 05:34 PM

Well, maybe it's just me, but the overthrow of the Taliban, eviction of S. Hussein and imprisonment of so many senior Al Qaeda officials will at least have a shot at putting a grim smile on my face fome Friday.

Posted by: Anticipatory Retaliation | September 10, 2003 05:53 PM

Michele, you beat me to the 'punch' line - as I was reading down I was thinking "The only thing these dweebs could do to make me feel better on 9/11 is to let me pop 'em one in the kisser." :-)

That's all they could do to said end on any other day too, but my gawd, if you can't legitimately unhappy on 9/11, when can you?

grr. where's my inflatable bozo punching bag got to?

Posted by: perletwo | September 10, 2003 07:41 PM

As I said elsewhere, just a few short moments ago:

I smile everytime an Islamofascist freak gets blown away. Let's try to make me smile a few hundred thousand times.

Posted by: Ken Summers | September 10, 2003 10:26 PM

this just strikes me as so typical - suggest a simple solution (make someone SMILE!) to a complex and deep problem (the emotions that this anniversary stirs up; the fact that a large number of people are still in mourning/angry)

what I saw on Sept. 12, 2001 was a grim determination to get on with the business of life - with people rolling up their sleeves to donate blood, giving money, joining the military, sending supplies to the searchers, solemnly embracing those who were hurting, etc. I didn't see a whole lot of smiling. Why should we smile now?

Like most of the other commenters have said, nothing pisses me off faster than someone trying to make me be in a good mood. Especially when I am reflecting on something like Sept. 11.

What I'd like to say to the smile brigade is this: "feeling bad" (which is doubtless how you'd describe it) is a normal natural part of being human on this earth. Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it's better to deal with the pain - face up to it - instead of slapping a happy clown face over it and pretending it doesn't exist. Now go away and take your smile with you.

Posted by: ricki | September 11, 2003 08:32 AM

You're absolutely right John, if Michele hadn't given us a 'heads up', and a link to their site, we would have no idea what the URL of their blog was, or their email address.

Thanks for the target of opportunity, Michele. This sort of happy horseshit must not be allowed to go uncontested, just on general principles.

Can anybody imagine our grandparents carrying on like this around the two year anniversary of Pearl Harbor? It's embarrassing, is what it is. Sheesh.

Posted by: Mike James | September 11, 2003 01:30 PM

Oh come on Michele.

Don't you know that a frown is just a smile turned upside-down?

Posted by: Dean Esmay | September 11, 2003 05:07 PM

ISRAEL MUST FULLY COMPENSATE ALL DISPLACED PALESTINIANS FULLY FOR THE 50 YEARS OF ABUSE, HUMILIATION AND THEFT OF THEIR LAND AND POSSESSIONS INFLICTED UPON THEM.

Posted by: zionists are criminals | September 12, 2003 07:44 AM

Oh, come now, zac, where's your smile today? Think fuzzy bunnies, kittens, and puppies!

There, don't you feel better now?

Posted by: Meryl Yourish | September 12, 2003 02:20 PM

Ummmm, it was never the Palestinians land to begin with, moron.

Palestinians are just ugly Arabs, so there.

Kiss my Zionist butt.

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