The "Mean Reds."

Just for once, I don't feel like reading about dragons and princesses, romance and fantasy. I'm in a kind of dark mood today--what Holly would call the "Mean Reds." The kind of mood that dwells on empty cupboards, dirty floors, and trash not taken out of the kitchen. The kind of mood that reads about protests in Madrid and wishes to be there, raging against the system with all the rest. I know I shouldn't think about unemployment, dysfunctional families and what it's like to die. I know the world will not be a better place for thoughts like these. And yet I can't pick up a book about love today, and especially not the Bible. No preaching for me, because I won't buy it. I'm in the mood for a photo documentary about a country behind walls, or a stock market crash. Why? Because none of it would surprise me, and because now I feel prepared to live with the reality that, while life is not a pile of manure, it's not a rose garden either. Maybe it's a little bit of both. Manure growing roses, after all. I just have yet to see them bloom.