A bad taste in the mouth?

by Gareth Edel

I remember the occasion of my third encounter with a beautiful girl in high school. Although illicit smokable drugs aided my mood, I had high hopes that the young lady who had been very friendly on two previous occasions would be so again. I had hopes that the concert we were to see would be good, and that I would at least have a fun night out late with chemical refreshment. I started the night lightly stoned, and chatted with the pretty young woman. I was hopeful even after she explained she found me beneath her and irritating. I forced myself not to take it personally, and as I spent the evening in the large group of which we were part, I managed to ignore her opinion and go to the concert. The opening band was terrible, and I hoped for more from the band to come, which without fail, disappointed. Leaving only one thing to rescue the day, drugs. I went with friends to purchase them. Only to find out that our supplier, had been beaten and hospitalized and exposed to such a vast quantity of LSD in the future he would never recognize any of us. What does all this mean, that even the best mood can't help the worst days. However, what about bad moods on good days?

Some days no matter what you do, the result is that you look down into the bottom of a cup, and realize that it is empty and you don't have a good taste in your mouth. I do not mean that you didn't enjoy the day, but that no matter what you did you just couldn't shake that bad taste.

I don't know what it is, maybe I should have used more psychological Listerine, but today was a day like that. I went out, I spent time with someone I really like, I did enjoyable things, and yet, I didn't enjoy any of it that much. I don't know, maybe other people don't have days like those; days they should just have stayed in bed.

There are some days where things go wrong or turn out badly, there are days, on which nothing happens, and then for me there are those days where everything goes right and you just can't enjoy it. For example: On Valentines Day a few years ago, I was seeing someone, and woke up early. I went out and got her flowers and candy and a gift. She was tersely polite about the gift and such when I gave them to her. Which left me wondering why, I then saw friends whom complained about Valentines Day and had no sympathy for my strange morning. They didn't care that I had to overpay for flowers because they had no one to buy them for. So I wandered off alone, and convinced myself it would get better, was not allowed in to the cafeteria for lunch, I was locked out, and saw a fellow student who I hated. In the end, I stopped by her room when I thought she would have time free, and found her in bed with a fellow who wasn't me. Now we had not extended our relationship to the commitment of exclusivity, but I was saddened nonetheless and left to find drink and companionship in my now morosely bad mood. I still wonder if she kept the gift or threw it away. I offer this as an example of the type of day where everything simply goes badly. On another day I remember, I was supposed to meet friends for lunch, and sat expecting their call, at home, I eventually ate at home and had a fairly pleasant day sitting on the couch holding the telephone. This is an example of a day on which nothing happens.

Both of those should be familiar to most people. If you have survived long enough to read this, without a day like those, you are either a fictional character or I hate you, and hope you bleed from your eyes. However, what do you do when you have a very nice day and can't enjoy it? Today, I went out and had lunch with a beautiful girl. We sat and watched the cast of the lower east side walk by during a meal of good Indian food, then good coffee, had pleasant conversation, wandered around, sat in a deserted park and all the while I felt bad. Perhaps bad is overstating. I simply didn't feel good. Moreover, I know I should have. This isn't one of those writing pieces where the author defines an observation and analyzes it, and says why it happens, I won't suggest a psychological cause. I simply haven't an answer for you, or, more importantly myself. So as far as I can tell the thing about it is, some days are just like that, and if you want a conclusion, guess which days they are and cancel your dates, stay in bed and read a bad book, or watch TV, a good book would be wasted.