Irony

I love irony. Irony is charming in its own right. Irony in stories and story-telling and movies makes one think that this would only happen in a story. The funny thing about irony is that it happens all the time.
Like how I’ve managed to write a few blogs now, but I never posted them and that’s irony in its own right because clearly it doesn’t matter if someone is reading it, it’s just that I’ve put the thought out there. Which is ironic since that is the intention of blogging since it is meant to be seen, it’s supposed to be public.
About a month ago I was in knee deep of irony and it was exhausting. When something gets disrupted once, maybe twice, even three times, I’ll put in a fuss, but after the fourth time, it’s just no use any more but to laugh about it and to accept that the opposite is going to happen when it shouldn’t.
Usually when a moment is ironic for me I say “of course”. And then it drags me into the line from Le Divorce where Naomi Watts’ character says “‘Of course’ The French always say "of course" to everything. Like everything is absolutely normal. C'est normale. Mais bien sûr. l'll never say, ‘But of course.’“ Because irony to me seems so normal. To expect or hope for everything to go smoothly is really the lie, and the reality is that it never goes smoothly, which is why you would say “but of course.” How could it be any other way?
Today’s ironic moments: the office phone lines being down yesterday and today. But having my phone rerouted through Calgary so that I could receive phone calls only to say “our phone lines are down” which defeats the whole purpose of the phones being down.
Another ironic moment: someone managed to jam every printer upstairs printing the same drawing. Oddly it was the same picture. How could only one picture cause the same jam in 3 different printers simultaneously? To top it off I called in for maintenance and happened to say the wrong printer unknowingly. The tech comes to fix the printer that I named, but then has to do another work order on the printer I meant to have fixed. After he leaves I have someone tell me that the printer that I called to be fixed, that I didn’t mean to get fixed got jammed again and needed a tech. How ironic.
The one that got me thinking was the book I had bought the day after my Dad passed. It’s called The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman. Needless to say I can’t remember what the sleeve said the story was about. Sometime last week I decided that after I finish Jane Eyre, I’m going to read this one. The book is about death and family; about a journey; about fulfilling wishes that normally aren’t humanly possible and so on. I’ve managed to read half of it in less than two days which is unusual for me. It’s not a thick book, the font isn’t too small. Of course the last section I read mentioned fate, which I like to ponder on now and then. Was there a reason that I bought this book on that day and am now only reading it? Maybe it hasn’t shown its full irony since I haven’t finished it. Or maybe it is coincidence. There’s something behind it. I can’t explain the feeling. Like I couldn’t explain the feeling of how vehemently I needed to buy The Alchemist and how strongly I felt about the book during and after my reading of it. I felt the same way about The Miniaturist too, but that was the summer prior to starting university. Something about philosophy was gnawing away at me before I even ventured to take a class in my second year.
It wasn’t until my second year that I decided to take philosophy to fill my schedule because I thought I wanted to minor in anthropology originally. But when I took a class not by Anderson, I realized that you had to write a paper and then present it to the class. After the first day and the syllabus I dropped the class and started searching for a new class to take that was in the same time slot. Some classes were already full and I happened to think “hey, let’s see what these philosophy classes are all about.” Turned out I fell in love with philosophy. It seemed so normal. So fitting. Like it was meant to be in my life the way it is in my life.  Is this book that I’m reading prior to my next journey that could be next year? That would be too hopeful. I don’t think I’ve lived long enough to speculate anything of that nature. At any rate I’ll probably be doing the same thing next summer as I’m doing now. That would seem right. Absolutely normal. As if there was no other answer, but that one. When would it ever be something else or something exciting?