To put it bluntly, life, my dear reader - or if I'm lucky, readers - is not currently sitting in the easy chair of gratitude, putting its feet up and popping the top off another pale ale. Last night, as I lay down to put my brain into whirr madly mode (known to normal humans as going to sleep), the ingratitude grumps started to take over, and this morning, they'd gone supernova.
It's at this point, when there are distinct feelings of miffdom on the rampage, that the need to find gratitude is most apparent, and hardest to hold onto.
The Bluebird of Happiness, as I remarked to a friend, was well and truly back in Bluebird of Bitterness territory, and any attempts at landing on my shoulder and singing a happy tune would undoubtedly have ended in me giving it a lesson in just how unlucky it is for a bird to crap on someone, despite beliefs within the Jewish faith to the contrary, as there's no good luck in having your feathers used in a new and interesting headpiece for the racing season.
But as I lie here now, post Weekend of Whoah, mulling over this pile of Prussian blue plumage-related poo, and daring that bloody BOB to whistle anything other than Johnny Cash's 'When The Man Comes Around', I recognise the following self-evident truths.
Despite all the sorrow, all the anger, the truly heart-shattering words, encounters, and elements that made up the last 72 hours, I couldn't say I didn't find gratitude in them... nor grace.
Because both were present in so many small gifts I am grateful for.
Gabo was a friend to Castro. He was a Nobel Laureate. He was an outspoken critic of the corruption of the Colombian government - a dangerous thing to be, especially in one's own country. He was, in many ways, a modern day Simón Bolívar, with a pen instead of a sword. His books contained a source of magic and his language a lyricism which it is impossible to reproduce.
It is strange to love novels which have at their heart a profound sense of the loneliness of life - and in many ways, of disappointment. But this is the way of true life, and it was the way of Márquez's own life. He drew from what he knew.
I realise that this is rapidly sounding like an ingratitude post but it isn't. I just need to state, for the record, that things aren't necessarily rosy.
Which is why it's all the more important to be grateful for the everyday bits of bliss.
It's the unguarded moments, the 'sneak up on you and hug you' good things that happen which we need to learn to appreciate more.
Respectability is for old men, not my Popsicle.
Look at that photo. That is (fairly obviously) my mother and father on their wedding day. I would like to say that my dad looks as dashing as my mother looks beautiful, but basically he just looks naughty. It's quite possible that he was also feeling extremely hungover or even inebriated, but as that's not my story to tell I won't tell it - oh wait, I just did.
I have never understood, I admit, how Diana Prince just had to undo her hair and turn around really fast to become Wonder Woman. Maybe the dudes were distracted by her golden lasso? Smirk. It's like Clark Kent - a pair of black rimmed glasses is a truly craptacular way to hide your secret identity. Yes, people are a bit on the thicky side sometimes, but seriously...
Batman on the other hand - how the hell would you know who was under that rubber blankie? Kudos to you, Bruce Wayne, on actually wearing something which could be considered under the definition of an actual 'disguise'.
The best friends are the ones who give you a hard time when you talk rubbish. Who don't roll their eyes (too badly) when the 3 a.m. text comes through saying 'I need to talk to you now'. Who catch your eye at a social gathering when things are a bit tricky biscuit and make you bite down on the inside of your lip so that you don't snort with inappropriate laughter.
They are the ones who catch you when you fall. And fall hard.
I realise this may sound too twee for words, but seriously - we get so wrapped up in whether we ourselves are happy or unhappy that at times, we tend not to celebrate our friends and families' exciting moments in a way that does them justice. I am not talking about hiring a blimp or skywriting 'CONGRATULATIONS ON TURNING 38 AND THREE QUARTERS' across Sydney, mind you - I am just saying when there's something big going down, let them know how fantastic you think it is. Take time out from your own blather and bullshit for just a moment and say 'Squee!' Or, in the immortal words of Babe the Pig, 'la, la, la!'
But for me his work has never been about the Eldorado cabaret posters of Bruant, or the cynical twisted grin of Mlle Weber as she enters a restaurant on the arm of her sister. It has always been about his fascination with the demi-monde and his - and I mean this - respect for the girls who made their living sleeping with men for money.
Much to the mutual bewilderment of the Man and myself, despite the Four Horsemen of the relationship apocalypse, Illness, Moving, Family, and Work - under the leadership of that capable Lucifer, Stress - giving it their best shot at bringing on the end of times, we’ve clung on to our own personal piece of driftwood; and five years on from saying ‘I do’, we are both yet to say ‘I don’t’.