I don't really hate my job. I hate doing the same dumb thing over and over and OVER, day after day, without anything passionate and spectacular happening. I suppose "passionate" and "spectacular" happening day after day would eventually lead to some boring redundancy too, but at least it once was. I'm not sure my job ever was anything. At least, I don't recall in the early days of contracting leaping out of bed at dawn with a big smile on, rushing to put on my clothes and skipping out on brushing my teeth so I could GET OUT THERE AND USE A HAMMER! And next week: SHOVELS!

Oh well, that's what hobbies are for. Never let anything get in the way of your hobbies. Something about hobbies: make "work" one of your hobbies and you'll never make a dime, but if "family" is not one of your hobbies, the family will make you suffer no matter how much, or how little, you work. They'll resent you for it. Meanwhile, if you find time for your hobbies and truly enjoy them, all the miserable people you work with will resent you, too, so you can't win. That's life. The unhappy resent the happy, and thus will never take advice from them. And the happy know better than to take advice from the unhappy, because that just doesn't make good sense. None of it matters anyway because eventually we all get sick, making us unhappy. At that point the previously unhappy say "it figures", where the previously happy scream out "OH GOOD GOD, WHY ME?!"

Which brings me back to the voracious brain lampreys making their spawning run in my cerebral cortex. I had them at bay for a good night's sleep, but they awakened with me, emerging this morning and slithering in after my first cup of coffee. There must be a connection, I thought, but I went ahead and had a second cup anyway. I love coffee. It's like a hobby.

I think I have a sinus infection, actually. It happens from time to time. I feel that snot dripping down the back of my throat. Nasty. Such images should not be put into words. But how else should I describe "snot dripping down the back of my throat"? Anyway, it all hurts just beneath my face. At least it's Friday.

But it's Friday the 13th! Sh!t! Now I just know the inspector won't approve my very large holes. There's something vaguely soul-diminishing about having to call a city official and make an appointment with him so he can come and inspect and approve the holes that you dug. You just stand there with your shovel, thinking about all those university courses you took. Just yesterday, Mrs. Ditchman received the new booklet of bills for her old college loans. They come in a booklet! You tear one off and write a check and mail it in every month, wondering -since you never hear from them otherwise- if you are the victim of some decades-long, money-sucking scam. Anyway, I saw the booklet on the kitchen counter when I came home yesterday. It was like the government sending you a list of the next thousand holes you have to dig.

And you must dig them properly, according to state and local laws. They are subject to approval upon inspection.


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