A bad-temper day...

...which started with the usual dull ache in the approximate area of my soul, then got worse.

My friend D., the photographer, called: "We have a job to do tomorrow!" Then he told me where we have to go, which is a mere three hours from here (each way). Then I checked the weather report for tomorrow at the photo location: clear, 102 degrees.

I suggested we not go and say we did. That didn't go over with him.

And then I suggested that we wait and do this story four or five (or more) months from now, which is when we might -- might -- get paid. He didn't like that either.

I swear to you I absolutely cannot understand his ability to stay enthusiastic about this shit. If we were making good money from this magazine, I wouldn't mind working up a bit of a sweat to get the job done. If they paid on time, I might be able to reply in words of more than four letters when told that we have a "story."

Since neither is true, my enthusiasm is, shall we say, well hidden.

Not long after I hung up the phone and got my blood pressure back down to its usual excessive rate, I happened to hear a radio commercial for the Hollywood Bowl. Such spiels usually float right in one ear and out the other. But then I heard the magic words:

Diana Krall.

I looked up the website, ready to buy tickets (which I can't afford, but hey, it's Diana Krall) for both of her performances. Then I looked at the dates.

I have committed to be 400 miles away on both nights. Can't get out of the trip unless I die, and even then I'd have a hard time making the shows.

There aren't many singers that grab me that way, and most of them have long since tapped out. I really needed the fix, Jim.

This has gotten to be a pretty joyless scene. And it seems each new event -- or non-event, in the case of the concerts -- does nothing to stop the growth of that big ball of anger and frustration in my gut.

Doing work I am coming to dislike more and more each day is bad enough. When I can't even listen to the music I love (which is not just sweet, swingin' gal singers, but that has tie-ins to other kinds of music for me) there is less and less reason to put up with the aggravations.

Might as well just find a cave somewhere. Can't make anything good happen.