3/06/02 - 10:46 p.m.

Started a new short-term contract today. I was so happy yesterday, having the gig lined up. But I guess the massive drop in my free time has been a jolt...

Today I started begrudging the things that kept me from returning to leisure. (Traffic on the way home, snafus with an important package at the Post Office, too much rain...) This afternoon I went from slightly depressed, to strangely euphoric, and then irritable. Suddenly I found dozens of other things to gripe about. Even with no traffic the commute is a half hour, so I have to get up very early. I hated having to squeeze important personal phone calls into a 45-minute lunch break. (Not to mention the hassle of trying to find a pay phone that actually worked.) And as usual, they really could've organized -- or explained -- the work a little better before we started.

The gig itself is pretty easy. I think I'm just emotionally unsettled. I'm trying to figure out why else I could be so irritable. Am I tired? Do I have a fever? Are my glasses on crooked, showing a world that's dizzyingly askew? Or -- is it something Lady Friend said in her last email?

It was just one word. At the very end of her email, she'd prominently included the word "friend." I took it as a deliberate reminder that she's not condoning any stronger feelings I may have for her. Beyond the one's she's personally sorted through and approved of my having. The ones that she also makes a point of not talking about.

She's having some health problems that she also doesn't want to talk about, and she said it's got her in a bad mood. Maybe this is how irritability gets passed on from one person to another?

Because without that, yeah, I really was building up a nice flow of euphoria about life in general. Dang it; why can't my good feelings have a little more autonomy?!