I've got a case of the Tuesdays.

The first day back at work after a three-day weekend is awful, much worse than a regular weekend. On Mondays, my hatred of every person, place, and thing is pretty high, but on the Tuesday after Memorial Day it's off the charts, as if I woke up this morning and wrote in my diary, "Dear Humanity: FUCK YOU."

This morning I almost tripped over the legs of a surly high school-aged girl on the train. They were outstretched into the aisle and were almost touching the feet of the woman sitting opposite of her. This is morning rush hour, my friend. Retract those legs! I ignored the girl, however, and when she stood up at Armitage and loitered in front of the seat, I patiently waited for her and her stupid book-bag covered with hilarious (I'm sure) phrases written in white-out pen to move so I could sit down. But before that happened, a surly middle-aged woman pushed me out of the way and grabbed it. I let it go, but only because she looked like a man and that must be really hard for her.

Also, Mondays are when I come out of my alcohol-induced dreamland and remember, "Oh, wait, I HATE my job!" Every Monday I sit here, contemplating calls to staffing agencies to "check in" and all that shit and UGH I'm tired of writing about how I hate my job and hate looking for a new one. So, just to get it over with, here's the real clever / depressing thing I realized this morning: I haven't even begun to pay my dues and I'm not even at ENTRY-LEVEL yet.

I'm eighty-six pages into Atlas Shrugged because I'm desperate for some kind of affirming philosophy that will make me care less about others and how they affect my happiness. It's not really working yet, nor do I expect it to because I already know Ayn Rand is a See-You-Next-Tuesday, but it was either her or The Secret. The nice thing about Ayn Rand is that her books are pretty much like The Valley of the Dolls, only there aren't any drugs, the sex is rougher, and they have "philosophy." I love Ayn Rand because she was so delusional: Atlas Shrugged is just chock-full of rich, corporate types who want to help out the underprivileged. And they're the bad guys.