Life sucks, and other adventures of grownups

Well, Monday began full of its usual promise, then slowly unraveled. Gray, cold rainy. My office phone continues to ring: People are still pissed off that UST didn't invite Desmond Tutu to speak here. Our staff gets to listen to their self-righteousness. We have taken hundreds of phone calls over the past 10 days or so. It's tiring, and I wish these people would get over it. I was sympathetic, now I'm just plain tired of tirades from the left, tirades from the right, Israelis, Palestinians, anti-apartheid activists, peaceniks, blog-readers. Right now, they're all nasty.

The phone rings again: It's our new college graduate, due to begin his first "real" job that day, voice shaking. The job has fallen through. Some HR person has told him, "guess we weren't supposed to offer it to you without authorization from corporate" or whatever. Dozers. Jerks. Idiots. They haven't thought that they're cutting off a real person at the knees. I ache for him.

We hear that our next-door neighbor -- who lives in our old house -- has had a stroke and may not know who we are. We never see lights on there anymore. He and his housemate may have to sell the house, as it takes two incomes to afford the payments. His partner is a realtor, and you know how that work is going these days. Meanwhile, he's making breakfast at 3 a.m. because he doesn't believe the clock nor wonder why it's still so dark.

The pattern continues through the evening. Some of hubby's potential customers decide that naw, even though he's put in so much time on their bids and plans and projects, well, they've just decided to call someone else. Sigh. Customers often don't think much of your work being your family's bread and butter, your self-esteem, your raison d'etre. For some reason, these kind of losses feel like knife wounds. And in this economy, these blips are tough to weather.

I didn't sleep well last night, with all of these things aching in my mind. Even the cat was pacing. Ick.