Baking brownies, and how are you?

Yesterday someone I haven't seen since before Christmas made the wretched mistake of saying to me, "how are you?"

And I proceeded to make the wretched mistake of telling them.

That vomiting up of how you're really feeling, then you walk away, and instead of feeling better, you feel like you've eaten too much fast food or you should have ordered the small blizzard, and they, quite possibly, do too.

H. Jackson Brown wrote a book, Life's Little Instruction Book. He wrote it for a kid going away to college. I've read it and it's chock full of good stuff. You can go HERE to read some of his best quotes.

There are two that have stuck with me for over 30 years:

#1 never turn down a homemade brownie. To me that means it was baked in a home, doesn't matter a bit whether it's out of a box or not. Anytime I bake brownies, and offer them to anyone, and they turn them down, I quote him.

Take the brownie!

but #2 is even better, and less fattening:

become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know

That doesn't mean everything is going along smooth as butter right now. It's not. But I believe our words have power, even unto ourselves. I can talk myself into an angry frenzy. I can think back to a wrong, or a right and it absolutely affects my outlook. And my output.

So I wish I'd just said, "I'm doing okay, how about you?"

Sort of like a grown-up, mature, the world-is-bigger-than-me person would have. The person who asked has had her share to deal with since I've last seen her and I didn't ask a single thing.

I've had a lot going on lately, much of it difficult, taxing, unpleasant, heart-wrenching.

So has everyone else walking around, still breathing. I'm not the only one who woke up this morning. Yesterday I forgot that, and maybe the handful of days before that too.

I detest self-absorbed people, especially when they're me.

Today I'm baking brownies. Out of the box.

And if you ask me how I am, I'm great, how about you?