cookie-cutter comments

This week’s been one big “WTF” moment.

As most whines go, I hope this is one’s the least self-piteous or self-flaggelating. Chances are, this one will be a whole load of crap accumulated over the weeks. I need a break from work, but knowing this means also knowing that I can’t afford to stop now; it’s got nothing to do with ‘rooting for the team’ since I’m pretty ambivalent about ‘the team’ in the first place. It’s just the usual demands from people who are too used to getting what they want, and I mean clients, not bosses.

(Well, ok, we should include bosses in the above.)
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“On the theme of the military uniform Bertrand could have supplied some such theory as this:

Once upon a time it was the Church alone that was exalted as judge over mankind, and every layman knew that was a sinner. Nowadays, it is the layman who has to judge his fellow-sinner if all values are not to fall into anarchy, and instead of weeping with him, brother must say to brother: “You have done wrong.” [more..]

I felt the uncertainty over breakfast today. It was a dodgy vibe I got off him; avoiding looking at me when talking to me, lips pursed and face blank. It isn’t as if we were destined to have a sophisticated relationship: I have grown to despise him, he has grown to despise me, I think. He doesn’t give me sleepless nights, but he pricks my comfort bubble whenever I’m around him. From what I’ve learned, he’s blabbed quite a lot.

I can’t say I’m surprised anymore. You’d expect umbrellas and typewriters to meet in some bizarre but somehow appropriate way: just not in this instance. I’d be tempted to toss the typewriter right in his face. Which was what I almost did today.

Something must’ve snapped in my head, because I forgot all restraint and just went for the jugular. My other friends looked at me with raised eyebrows or knowing smiles. I didn’t care and persisted with my own brand of insensitivity vs. his and he relented in the most unsporting of ways: by dismissing me.

I suppose I could’ve expected less, but an outburst from me — I don’t scream and shout very much in real life — cost me my own peace of mind.