shadow rage

How do you fight the shadows? How do you rise above all of the things that make no sense, have no reason? What do you do with the anger that arises after you've exhausted every resource, taken as much responsibility as you possibly can, rolled with the punches, tried 13 ways to Sunday to make things work?

I was on the bus today and the local wacko lady asked if anyone on the bus had a stamp. I had a stamp but I got so pissed that she asked, that she had the nerve to ask hard-working people for something they'd spent 42 honestly-earned cents on, that I just stared at her, I'm sure, malevolently, when she looked at me inquiringly. When the old man sitting in the front gave her $.42 and directions to the post office, she asked for an additional quarter for the bus ride home. Smoke issued from my ears. Now, I know, my rage has it's basis in the fact that I'm afraid I'll end up like her, and is rooted in my own not wanting to ask anyone for help, but I couldn't eke up one mote of compassion for this unfortunate lady, who wanders the streets of my town mumbling to herself and shouting at people across the street from her. I wanted to shake her and say, "BUY YOUR OWN FUCKIN' STAMP."

There but for generous family and friends...

I am furious with Mr. E. at the disability office. Mr. E. is a caustic civil servant whom I've never seen in the flesh, who is handling my disability cessation case--they are saying I made too much money in 2006 and that, therefore, means I'm no longer disabled. This guy must eat coal for breakfast. He is mean, abrupt, rude, nasty, sarcastic and humorless. He represents our mean, abrupt, rude, nasty, sarcastic, humorless government, who's abiding belief is that everyone is out to screw everyone else, and that, unless you're on the brink of death, you couldn't possibly be disabled. I know that Mr. E. hasn't experienced so much as a hangnail in his life. Gawd forbid the man gets a bad cold (or the plague); I've wished on him pubescent menstrual cramps, a scourge of armpit fleas, chronic, undiagnosable halitosis, and just one month of disability. He'd be on the street asking for a stamp in a heartbeat.

I cannot stand my anger. It's so victimy. I shake my hand at God, or whoever the heck is up there--why? Why are these things going on? Why are so many good people suffering? Why can't I have one day of simple health? One day when I can work and not have to take nausea medicine on the bus, come home, and go to sleep? I want to send my nieces to college, I want my family and friends to be able to stop worrying, I want to thrive financially, and physically, send my mom on an Alaskan cruise, buy my dad a piece of art, stay awake long enough to call my brother when he's in China, drum with my girls, dance with my boys, not take one more pill (the toxicity of which no one knows--better to swallow them now for the short term benefit or take them forever and have them kill you?), eat a green bean without making sure there's a bathroom nearby, arrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhh...

(Now I'm about to open a can of whoop ass on the neighbor boy playing his music so loud the wall is shaking. GET SOME DAMN EARPLUGS, YOU CRETIN!)

Who's got the bail money?

If anger was directly translatable into energy, I'd have run the marathon last Monday and smoked that smug Lance Armstrong like he was an old man on a Rascal scooter.

Grrrrrrrrr.....RUFFF!