Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

Although I haven’t been keeping up with it recently, I’m a big fan of Ze Frank’s The Show. On the show from December 18th, Ze talks about taking your emotional temperature. Just close your eyes, turn off the outside world, and take a moment to examine how you’re feeling. Not the things that may or may not be the cause of your feeling, but the feeling itself.

So, how am I feeling today? Not so fantastic. Yesterday’s crippling ice fiasco was capped off with some highly undesirable news. Those of you who know me can probably figure out what that news was. It’s not the end of the world, but as for my emotional temperature, it’s hard to find the right adjective. Upset? Depressed? Disappointed? Profoundly disappointed? That one comes pretty close.

Suffice to say that I was not a very cooperative commuter this morning. The station nearest my job is one of the MBTA’s busiest. Inevitably, half the population of Boston comes flooding out of its doors, while I am seemingly the only person heading in the opposite direction, like a salmon swimming upstream. Ordinarily I do my best to quietly sidestep the unrelenting flow of human traffic like a neutrino silently passing through solid matter. Jokes for nerds!

Today was different. My emotional temperature allows for many things, but “polite” is not one of them today. It was all I could do to keep from screaming, “GET OUT OF MY WAY, ALL SEVEN HUNDRED OF YOU!” Have you seen the very beginning of the The Fellowship of the Ring, where Sauron is blasting back twenty men with a single swipe of his mace? That just about captures my temperature on the commute. I practically walked through people. I think I might actually have knocked someone out of my way at one point.

After eighteen months of quietly squeezing myself through the cracks every morning, it felt really good. To the few people I probably bashed directly into without blinking, I want to let you know that I’m not sorry. At all.

So, what’s your emotional temperature today?