Tired, Wet and Ornery: A Mild Rant

Christ on a pogo stick am I glad it’s the end of the week. Just one of those weeks, ya know? A string of days where nothing catastrophic happened, but it felt as if I was slogging through cold molasses wearing a backpack full of rocks (sharp, pointy rocks) while someone was flying a helicopter just behind me while shouting insults through a turbocharged bullhorn. Oh, and I’m wearing a silly hat.

Yesterday I had to flee my cubicle and make a run for it, in the rain, to sit in a parking lot where no one knew I was there except the seagulls and random passersby, listening to my new iPod while watching the rain slowly bead up on the windows. All this under a sky the color of old lead. Even the squirrels seemed to giving me the ol’ stinkeye. Yeah, well, f**k you, nasty ass old squirrels. Now go away, I don’t have any food.

Sorry. I’m feeling a bit ornery. Deep breath, bad thoughts out, good thoughts in. Whew.

I fled my cubicle because I kept getting phone calls while I was trying to focus on too many things at once. The callers weren’t nasty or anything. I was falling victim to the “Rock in the Pond” work method. Seemed like every time I was at an important point in any given train of thought ‘BBBBRRRIIINNGGG’ so and so is on line 801! KA-SPLOOSH! I hate that shit. For the love of Mike, people, just buzz off and let me get something DONE. It is only slightly amusing that I am in an industry that is, in many ways, a service industry. So dropping what you are doing to focus on the crushing minutiae, er, fascinating problem belonging to someone else is part of the territory. Or so I’m told.

I don’t mind dealing with people per se, but I want to deal with them on terms I set, ones based on mutual respect for each others’ time and talents. I am not a very good babysitter, especially if someone is being, well, unreasonable or selfish. I like to concentrate on something until it is done, not reset myself every ten goddamn minutes. “I ain’t no monkey, sure can’t climb no tree”*

Ah, idaknow, maybe it’s the weather. It’s been gray and raining for two days now. Not a deluge, but a constant ebb and flow of what we used to call ‘spit rain’. The fine drops and mist that don’t patter down so much as they slowly soak into your clothes, hair, coat your glasses and generally just annoys the hell out of you. I think of it as someone walking beside you, pursing their lips and going ‘tthhhhhbbbppppthhhhbbbppppffftttt’ off and on in your face until you are tired, wet and ornery. Too bad I don’t have a fireplace. As Pink Floyd put it:

“When I come home, cold and tired,
It’s good to warm my bones beside the fire”

I guess my cats will have to suffice. Stay warm.

*Did you catch the Led Zeppelin reference? Hee-hee. It’s playing right now. Hats Off To Roy Harper!