W! T! F!
What in the name of every unholy being that exists or my imagination can conjure is the matter with this world?!!!!! Do I look like an Agony Aunt?!!!!!! Does anything in my entire demeanor indicate that I'm waiting for the universe or the nearest direct male-line descendant of Genghis Khan to come and lay his/her/its head on my shoulder and "tell me all"?!!!!!!!

Me think it was Lord Vetinari......the man with the most impeccable advice in the history of Discworld drama, "Learn your lines" and the habit of throwing mime artists into a scorpion pit (there's a subtle connection, go figure!)........who said, "Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind" (At any rate it's there in Reaper Man, and someone who has the book at hand can correct me.) The point is I have crossed the numerical punctuational limitations of insanity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(and grammar can go figure, I know there's no such word as punctuational but if the good Bard can come up with spaniel'd, so can I, so Hah!) And spaniel'd means 'followed like a spaniel' [Antony and Cleopatra, I, 3, 55......if you disbelieve my words]

But to return to the primary subject of my diatribe, What?! What?!! What?!!! Do I even look sympathetic?!!! A few months back I remember feeling heart-broken because someone had called me 'manipulative' but right now I think I'd give every ounce of my better nature to be called something as simplistically nasty.

For those who are wondering what I'm babbling about, well! and well!! words fail me......I have just been at the receiving end of an unprovoked and to my mind unjustified temper tantrum. Achha thikachhe, so I listen to people. I nod my head and make the appropriate noises. I even offer advice (please note, only if solicited.) But does that really mean I have to drop all my work and let my life, studies, family, friends etc etc etc go to rack and ruin just because someone wants to tell me what is going on in their lives?!!!!!

Stop. Revise. Reverse track. And the contradictions begin. All this is not a general ranting against all those who have accidentally/intentionally or even drunkenly confided in me. Without looking remotely sympathetic or even friendly (and all those who know me can publicly clarify I'm an ugly witch) there are still people who talk to me. And this is not about those people. This is about one specific upstart who took into his head that just because I was friendly and (it galls me to admit this) sympathetic (!) that meant I was willing to forego all commitments and activities to spend time with him. I repeat.........wtf.......

Now I'm all sad-y-wady......... It just struck me that there are probably people out there in the world who find my presence as much of an imposition as I find this person's.

Woke up this morning with a terrible feeling that I'm not a very nice person....and I'm old and ugly and intellectually inferior to all the world and its studious younger second cousin once removed.......and I just looked in the mirror and realized I am all old and well, you know the rest........terribly sniffy mood......though the sniffles originate from my present Rudolphian state (I'm convinced Santa's foggy buddy was suffering from influenza or whatever the North Pole's equivalent of the common cold virus is)......also shniff shniff shneef nobody loves me...

So I shall tuck my tail between my legs and crawl away to a little corner under the table and settle down to feel all shorry for mythelf....glub glub.....goodbye cru-w-el world......