Denial, Anger, Grief...

I guess I'm responding to my job loss by going through the five stages of grieving, like my lame webmaster position at the theatre is a lost pet or a dead distant relative who used to write me checks for my birthday and Christmas. I was in stage one, denial, when I wrote my earlier post. Now I'm in stage two: I'm fucking pissed.

Okay, Society, here's what I did. I posted someone's first name on the internet. I did not post anyone's home address, or phone number, or social security number, and there's plenty of people on this goddamn planet who wouldn't have been so fucking courteous. What I wrote could not have possibly been more innocuous, and to be nailed for it is fucking ridiculous. What am I supposed to do, have my lawyer okay every goddamn thing I write, say, and think?

You know, Jay, none of this shit would've happened if you weren't so freaking judgmental. So antisocial. Yes, I do know that.

This is why I sit in the fucking corner and keep to myself, why I resent the living shit out of my loquacious ex-co-workers who seem physically unable to do that, and why I have to tell somebody, dear readers, about their ridiculous idiosyncracies. Let's pretend, for the sake of argument, that I'm not divine and I screwed up this time. Like I'm the first person on the whole freaking planet to do that. Why the fuck are those football players who lived on, and ravaged, my floor junior year getting away with their dumb shit?

And how about this; here's a little (true) Theatre Row story for you. The day before I wrote the offending post, I'm working on upgrading a computer and Erika, the Big Boss, calls me over the intercom asking for Adam, the second-in-command. Adam walks in a few seconds later and I tell him that Erika called for him. So he picks up the phone, dials her extension, and screams into the phone, "What do you want, bitch?" She (presumably) says something and he replies, "Whore!" Now, I don't know what fucked-up theatre planet these people come from, but here on Earth, calling your boss a bitch and a whore is a bit more firing-worthy than simply alluding to a co-workers existence on your blog. Where's Adam now? Still working at the desk next to Erika.

Where am I? Bitching in my blog.

Oh, yeah, here's another thing, speaking of "bitch." I have never called anyone a bitch to their (her) face. I'm being a little picky with my language there, and it's not going to matter for the point I'm about to make. One time, about five years ago, Anne and I were in her room and her sister was outside being, shall we say euphemistically, obnoxious. And I said, "Boy, she can be a real bitch if she wants to," (and, I'll note emphatically, saying someone can choose to be a bitch is very different from saying someone is a bitch). Anne freaked, as if I was the one behaving like a bitch. Now (a) what I said was the fucking truth, (b) it was probably what Anne was thinking too, if not for the b-word, and (c) if anybody who didn't share Anne's bloodline were behaving the way her sister was at the time, Anne herself would have quietly agreed with me. Something similar happened recently, which I, frustrated, won't write about here because it involves a friend who I'd like to keep a friend. Same idea — word "bitch" was used, out of context — whole freaking international incident about it. Adam calls his boss a bitch; nothing. Rappers call their escorts bitches; nothing. R. Kelly, for fuck's sake, takes a piss on one of his twelve-year-old bitches; nothing.

Maybe there's something to this. Maybe this passive-aggressive bullshit isn't the way to go; you should be just plain aggressive. If someone pisses you off, call 'em on it. Throw something, something heavy and preferably sharp, at them.... Hmm, I can't say that I see this working very well.

It's not what I want. I want people to follow the rules of society, and I want society to dispense with all the arbitrary, pointless, useless rules. I want good people to be rewarded — not in the next life, but in this one — and I want bad people to be punished. No, maybe not. I'm big into schadenfreude; I'd rather see everyone miserable. But maybe that's just because I don't believe anybody is really good. I want peace and quiet and introspection and zen, and I want an end to everyone's insecurities and their in-your-face, invading my personal space, self-aggrandizing bullshit. I want everyone to understand that the truth and a lie aren't kind of the same thing and I want the "Mission Accomplished" sign to stay packed away until the mission actually is accomplished. I want the meek to inherit the earth.

This is surprisingly cathartic. I should rant more often. Also, I'm disturbed that my blog got 23 hits from the Theatre Row IP address alone, when it usually only averages twelve hits total a day. Everybody's so curious....