When what one really needs is their own personal Paris Hilton punching bag

emma says fuck tuesday

I try to keep my work kvetching to a minimum here, work kvetching if you are not the kvetcher is tedious at best, but this warrants a long and sustained howl of derision.

I had to go to a training session today, for "champions". Lemme tell you something employer, "champion" is fine if you are in kindergarten, or you are special olympian, but do not subject a room full of capable adults to 8 hours of condescension unless you want a fucking eye rolling mutiny.

And yet, shockingly, there were several assiduous note takers, there were hands raised, there was fucking willing participation in this moronic nonsense. When called upon to speak I found it difficult to contain the acid in my voice and the snark in posture. That said, I guess I am not a "champion", I was the covert subversive in a field of grazing sheep.

All this left emma deeply demoralized, with a watermelon sized headache and a great need of a supersized martini (which she had at the Pied Piper, with the Maxfield Parish mural and the chex mix, nothing as dissolute as an empty hotel bar at five o'clock) and since it so fun to beat the shit out of oneself, when one does not possess their own personal Paris Hilton punching bad, one proceeds to systematically literally and physically take oneself down.

Shout out to Paris - um, sorry, I am sure you are really a nice girl and all, and Tina Brown paid you a high complement when she referred to you as an otherworldly stork, or some such nonsense, frankly I think you look like a praying mantis, but I would still like to kick your teeth in for having nothing of substance but your great big piles of your great grandaddy's money.

So emma went for some pho, and that kinda, sorta helped. Excepting that the couple next to her was on a second or third date and the young lady was so obviously painfully smitten and shrill that emma was tempted to put a friendly arm about her shoulder and whisper in her ear to ramp it down a notch.

But then we are in mood to generally rain on anyones parade. We are behind in correspondence, we are hating our job, we are thumbing our nose at the stack of bills awaiting signed checks, we are in denial about our looming tax bill, we are distressed at the passing of Alistair Cook, and will miss Letter from America on the BBC, right along with our good friend Bob Edwards.

We sent a pissy email to the fuckwits at NPR for disrupting our morning ritual.

Also, after the martini had assuaged our frayed nerves and we thought it safe to board muni for the ponderous Bus Ride home. We read the New Yorker article about AJ Liebling, was beautifully written by David Remnick, and was duly inspirational, and I really want to read more of him. But, and here it is, I also found it dispiriting. No, correction, I was envious of a man who is thirty years dead, envious of his facility with words, envious of the gracious ode that Remnick wrote for him. Which is simply silliness, silliness that I cannot staunch or disregard. Then again, if I were truly brave I would not be lurking in the anonymous and legion netherworld of the blog.

(little ironies, how come, ever since Rufus wrote that song 11:11, every time I look at the clock it is 11:11)

which must mean that is bath time, time to shed my hairshirt and time to meditate on all of that good fortune that belongs to me, and perhaps take BOB for a quickie ride before dreaming.