Short...

...but not sweet.

There is a ready-mix truck in the alley outside my window, noisily pumping concrete into the back yard of a house that has been under reconstruction for at least six interminable months. I cannot hear myself think, and my noise-canceling headphones don't cut down the racket enough to help.

After a sleepless night, this is too damn much.

I'm supposed to be finishing up an article this morning. I can't. I can barely write this, which requires much less effort.

I'm getting angry. At the racket outside, at every damn thing else. We're talking high-blood-pressure, ready-to-lash-out-at-some-helpless-inanimate-object angry here.

And there's not a potential calming influence or mitigating factor in sight.

Not a good day for anyone to disagree with me or give me grief.