Just because you're paranoid...

...oooh, wait, I think I've used that title before.

Besides, everyone knows the rest of that old gag-line.

It's been a strange day. I've picked up some new work, but as usual the payments will come in their own sweet time, which will inevitably be after I need them. But hey, it's work....

I had a nice couple of hours while out for a walk mid-day, but things deteriorated from there. Talking to the editor who requested the new stories was a bit of a pain; his magazine pays when the stories are actually in print, which means I could be freekin' dead when they appear.

PARENTHETICAL POSTHUMOUS THOUGHT: Perhaps there will be a memorial compilation of my best work....two or three pages, anyway.

When I had to go out to run some errands this afternoon, I felt certain that someone was going to die. There are crazy people around here. The first was some clown on a crotch-rocket who had his broad-beamed girl on the pillion; he chose to ride in my blind spot (on a residential street) expecting me to pull over and let his stupid ass go by. If I hadn't been paying some attention -- less than usual, I will admit, since I was not in the mood for it -- he and his bike (and girl) would have been grease spots on the road.

Not much later, some shitweasel in a pickup truck also tried me on while we were going down yet another residential street. He ultimately whipped around me -- in the parking lane -- and chopped me off decisively, narrowly avoiding taking the right front fender of my vehicle with him.

PARENTHETICAL DALE-EARNHARDT THOUGHT: It was my reflexes that saved him, as I stabbed the brakes to let him through. The late and very great Mr Earnhardt taught me (by example) to lean hard into anyone (what used to be called "using the chrome horn") who tried to pull that stuff; I ignored his teachings this time....

Be that as it may, I was beginning to feel that everyone on this "sweet, swingin' sphere" -- as Lord Buckley so aptly termed it -- was out to mess me up.

I came home, and wanted nothing more than to have someone reach out and tell me everything would be okay.

Of course, there was no one here to do that.

Real Men are not supposed to admit that they sometimes need the comfort that only warm, sweet women can provide.

But I admit it. And I'm not getting it right now.

What does that make me?

Lonely, that's what.

Some days are like that....