Would you like some acid with that bile?

Not a good day. Wait, let me be honest: it's a crappy day here.

PARENTHETICAL THOUGHT: I am, of course, toning down my invective, as I will try to do throughout this short entry.

No checks have arrived. A package I have been waiting for since August (irreplaceable recordings I sent to a "friend" to have copied onto CDs) has not arrived. People I need to talk to about new work -- and I need to get a bunch of new work pronto -- are hiding behind voice-mail systems.

After yet another night of fitful, non-refreshing sleep, I have spent much of the time since 6:15 this morning trading phone calls and emails with an editor in the East who, after restricting an article I did for him to a pitiful 1500 words (and then complaining because I couldn't get it below 1800) has decided he wants information added to the story. Now, it doesn't matter to him that it will go well over 2000 words.

Will I be paid more for the extra work? Nuh-uh. Do I dare tell him to get stuffed? Same answer.

For your sake, I won't even go into the other things that are spreading poison through my mind. Also because it won't do me any good to go into a rant about them. The guilty will go unpunished, the innocent might be offended.

But hey, I learned one thing: I'm a pretty damn good guy after all.

Why? Because I don't want a single one of the people who have shat on me in various ways to feel as awful as they've made me feel.

That, friends, Romans and countrypeople, ought to qualify me for sainthood.