The Bloggess wrote a not-funny post about feeling like crap most of the time, and asked people to honestly  share how many days out of the month they felt like they were kicking ass. My memory is inherently faulty, though. On the days when I feel like crap, I think I feel like crap 98.98793% of the time. On the days where things are okay, I think I’m okay 98.98793% of the time. One of the reasons for this is actually Jenny’s mantra: depression lies.

One of the comments she got was from this guy and this is what he said:

You spend real time with your daughter every day. That right there is amazing. It’s not “curing Lupus” amazing. It’s not “dunking a basketball … that’s ON FIRE” amazing. But few things are. Few people mow their lawns, pay their bills, read the paper, and eat breakfast all in one day. Most people don’t change the kitty litter, walk the dogs, go to work, spend time with their kids, AND don’t owe their parents money.

Seems like the bar that we measure amazing keeps getting higher and higher every year. Anything that smacks of weakness is just so GROSS, isn’t it? I mean, we’re meant to be these beings who are completely in touch with our emotions, yet in total control of them, yet express them whenever we are supposed to, but only in the correct way, and the correct way is sometimes killing bad guys. Like Romulans, Klingons, and Vulcans, all rolled into one person.

Those people don’t exist. Albert Einstein wasn’t that person. Have you seen that photograph of his desk taken the day he died? It was a MESS. His marriage fell apart. The man was a disaster. A brilliant, beautiful disaster. One of those disasters that streaks across the night sky, so amazingly, serenely gorgeous in its descent, that we can’t help but watch as it makes its lovely way before it plops right into the horizon. There it remains, indelibly marked on our landscape, right above the dashboard, just below the mirror.

Truth is, none of us can offer you sage advice or candid disclosure beyond to say that we are enjoying watching you arc. Amazingly, gracefully, like a metal rooster, stuffed with dead animals, streaking across the night sky, totally on fire.

Once a week, you are successful.

Typically, whenever you talk to us.

Hands down, his was my absolute favourite answer. He wasn’t just trying to appease her with platitudes or sharing his own burden without speaking to what she had said. He listened, and he replied, sans BS. And it was pretty.

I want to give this man a hug. In lieu of creepy hugs from total strangers, I will send him readers.

Sally forth, my intrepid readership. His name is Craig Norton and the post explaining how to get banks to stop calling you is absolute genius.