To Nobody

Here is an excerpt from a book I found recently on one of my second hand book buying escapades.
It is now one of my most prized possessions, along with my first edition miniature Frankenstein.

It is called The Portable Curmudgeon and was compiled and edited by Jon Winokur.

"A curmudgeon's reputation for malevolence is undeserved. They're neither warped nor evil at heart. They don't hate mankind, just mankind's excesses. They're just as sensitive and softhearted as the next guy, but they hide their vulnerability beneath a crust of misanthropy. They ease the pain by turning hurt into humor. They snarl at pretense and bite at hypocrisy out of a healthy sense of outrage. They attack maudlinism because it devalues genuine sentiment. They hurl polemical thunderbolts at middle class values and pop culture in order to preserve their sanity.

Nature having failed to equip them with a serviceable denial mechanism, has endowed them with astute perception and sly wit. Offense is their only defense. Their weapons are irony,satire,sarcasm, ridicule. Their targets are pretense, pomposity, conformity, incompetence.
They have the temerity to comment on the human condition without apology. They not only refuse to applaud mediocrity, they howl it down with morose glee. Their versions of the truth unsettle us, and we hold it against them, even though they soften it with humor. "

I actually think this book found me.

For the first time in forever I am without self-doubt.