Tomorrow thank God is Friday. Have I mentioned lately how little patience I have for people who bitch and whine? They are coming out of the woodwork today, and want my immediate attention. Get in line, I say. Politely, of course, although despite the popular misconception, I am not in the business of customer service, oh no. Every other phone call contains within the insistent ring a voice with a demanding edge that fails to understand I have to follow those things called policy and procedure. And whining in my ear does nothing except elicit great eye-rolling; demanding my attention and an immediate response is not acceptable, especially when what they want takes time and computations on my part. Calling me at three thirty and requesting information that ammounts to a complete audit on the case, which can take me fifteen minutes to half an hour... no. That is not going to happen. Getting irritated with me and saying things like, "Nothing can be easy, can it?" makes me want to say, "You try and do my job." Or maybe, "Bite me."

Which is why tonight I have to dance; I have moves to practice and timing to perfect and muscles to stretch. And tomorrow evening I have to eat raw fish. It is a felt need; a requirement, even. Raw fish and rice and sake. And then we will leave town Saturday morning for an overnight trip to the wilderness, to those big rugged national forest coast range mountains where nobody lives for miles and miles. Elbow room, says I. It will be only for one night sleeping beside the sweet cascading waters but I really, really need to get the hell out of town.