I am aware

of how easy it is to irritate me. I joke about being a curmudgeon, but wish it were not true.

Happily, it is not people I know and like who irritate me very much.  My good friend L was in town over the weekend and stayed with me. She is, despite being very bright --we have very similar IQ numbers-- a pretty liberal woman, and works for an uber-liberal organization. Yet I enjoy her company and friendship very much and we can even disagree without me, at least, being personally irritated at her. She left this morning and even though she'll be back next weekend, I feel her absence.

B rarely irritated me. About 98% of the time I found him easy as pie. He infuriated me, made me murderously angry, yes. Merely irritated, hardly ever. In fact, I find my capacity for being provoked even less ok since knowing him, because his almost relentless good humor and upbeat attitude gave me a glimpse of how to live --at least on the surface-- more happily.
 
Certainly having a blog that includes politics is going to run at least partly on irritation. Especially if you are pretty conservative and the current President is Barry Hussein O.  Sometimes I feel like I'm watching an episode of "V". And if your attitudes are at odds with a lot of the current culture, you are also likely to get provoked more than once a week.

I do not claim that I have only gotten irritable since my politics changed. As B once said to me of himself, "I experience the full range of human emotions." Me, too. And anger is certainly in my repertoire.

But I don't enjoy it. Some people seem really to like the rush of rage. And a lot of my irritation is over things I can do nothing about. Seems like a waste.