Ella ella ella ella

When the editor told a boldfaced lie in order to steal my umbrella last night, it was the straw that finally broke the back of a day already rife with colleague-inspired stupidity. By the time I reached home, I was soaking wet and the cleaner had only just arrived, which meant we had to spend another hour away from home, in the rain, as grocery shopping was pretty much the only option.

I’m okay now, though I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the divorce papers were on their way to my office. I’m not sure what it is that sometimes replaces my good-natured optimism with blind rage, but it’s bigger than me and I’m just thankful that it makes an appearance in my life much less frequently than it once did.

Tomorrow Bruce flies to Jordan, where he won’t be tied to a cluster bomb of Israeli insurgency and dropped on a hospital because those things don’t happen there and anyway, he’s going for business, not journalism or politics or anything that would inspire someone to want to hurt him! Unless they take offence to his interpretation of the founding member of the organisation on the opening night of their play. I wish I had Bruce’s job, I really do.

No, instead he will be in a resort, meeting friends from all over the world, drinking, dancing, and taking his lunch breaks all bundled up by the frozen outdoor pool. It’s only one week, though, and I am slowly inventing ways to feel less lonely.

I’m having dinner with a colleague next week (the one who never lets me do anything) and a common friend sometime in the next few days. There are drinks on Friday, because there are always drinks on Friday - somebody at work makes a cup of tea and that’s cause for a drink on Friday - so I may just attend this time around. Except in my case, I’ll have a thimbleful of wine and fall over, because my tolerance has failed.

I also thought about. Well. About writing something I guess. I mean, I always come up with some idea or other when I’m walking to work, which is nearly every day. It seems wrong to not explore those things, although whenever I read or hear about the act of writing from any writer, new or established, I feel a bit queasy in the irony organ.

I’m thinking the only viable place for words nowadays are down a trash compactor or on an internet server where they can be chewed up by ads or replaced with different words altogether or die in a fiery blaze of FLICKR IS HAVING A MASSAGE or DIARYLAND’S FALLEN AND CAN’T GET UP.

Because it preserves the impetus, while eliminating the embarrassing issue of detritus.