Damned if I do...

...and damned if I don't.

In the immortal words of Frank Sinatra, "That's life...." That's what people say.

What do I say? Not any too freekin' much tonight, Jim.

If I really opened up, you'd get the words you're too familiar with here: Lonely. Depressed. Angry. Frustrated. In other words, the same old whiny stuff from a weak-kneed shitweasel who just can't seem to cut himself a break. Or entice someone else to engineer a break for him.

So instead, I'll talk about Larry Craig.

No, I won't. I'll let his governor, the ever-popular Butch Otter, worry about him. It's an Idaho thing, and my experience tells me to avoid Idaho and all who inhabit it like the proverbial plague.

Nor will I talk about the 220-pound woman who waddles up and down the alley outside my window yelling into her cell phone. I listened to that for four hours today. Made trying to work just a bit extra-special.

I'm not gonna get into the emptiness of the mailbox, the silence of the telephone or the intense aggravation I feel towards my "profession" and people in general these days.

So many dreams, so little time, so few resources.

If you should see a mushroom cloud rising over Southern California in the next few days, it won't be because the errant nuclear missile-equipped B-52 lobbed one into the men's room of LA City Hall; it'll be because I have finally and irrevocably exploded.

No big loss. What's left can be shoveled over the bluff to feed the few fish that brave our polluted waters to live Where the Ghetto Meets the Sea.

Am I in a bad mood? You damn betcha, buckaroos.

Easily avoided. Easily repairable.

But unlikely to be repaired. That would be asking too much, I guess.