“And after all this, woncha give me a smile?” What a difference a day makes. Yes, yesterday I was crestfallen. All I saw was bleak. It was ot good and it was mainly financial. Something I don’t want to talk about much less write about. You don’t want to know mine, I don’t want to know yours.

Things improved greatly overnight. Assistance was asked for and given and a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Not totally, but enough to relax a bit. I didn’t want to tell Bill who is on the road, lest he would worry, and being away, he would be unable to offer a hug.

We talked on the phone and I was reluctant to tell him what was going on, but I needed to talk to someone. And he found out mostly. I didn’t show all my tarot cards.

Work was easier today. My supervisor was able to explain a few things that I did not know about. Apparently, it was in an email but obviously, I didn’t read the whole thing. If there is another employee evaluation, that would likely be brought up. Even though I knock it out of the box 99% of the time, it’s the cracks that they go after, sticking their noses into wherever they’d like.

I think people were more or less helpful and friendly today. There is one woman though who I respected and last week asked her if she was afraid of me. She hesitated which showed me that yes, she was afraid of me. That is her problem and not mine and like Bill says, I freeze her out.

It may be an Irish thing. This isn’t like The Banshees of Inisherin where she is Colin Farrell and I’m Brendan Gleeson. And I can’t say it’s permanent, perhaps there will be a thawing out. And she’s not exactly coming forward to chat anyway.

I slept nicely last night though at 5:20 AM the carbon monoxide detector went off, not due to carbon monoxide in the air but because the battery needs to be changed. There’s a mechanical voice in the detector announcing ‘Warning! The battery in the carbon monoxide detector needs to be replaced!’.

You can’t ignore it and it just repeats. It’s not a calm voice like HAL 9000 either. So I got out of bed at 5:20 AM and got the stepladder and started to climb in the dark with no glasses on. Even in my groggy state, I knew that it was not a good idea.

I turned on the light and removed the detector and removed the battery which silenced the mechanical voice. I did go back to sleep but not to the depths of slumber where I had been earlier. I knew I’d be getting up roughly ninety minutes later so that thought was doing it’s jumping jacks in my head.

I got up earlier than usual, not by much, and proceeded to start my day again, only not so forlorn.

I have spent the day on the shores of the river of sadness. The river of sadness leads to the gulf of despair and the trade winds were blowing from that direction. I really miss Bill. I wish he was home or coming home tonight. When he’s around I focus everything on him. When he’s not all I got is me and that is no fun. It’s a lonely existence.

I am fed up with this world and at some point, I thought death would be preferable. Then I said to myself I couldn’t do that to Bill or the family that I have. The family would get over it surely, but I doubt Bill would. Bill and I have a running gag about who’s dying first. I would prefer to go first since if Bill went I wouldn’t last long and more than likely do something by my own hand.

Actually, I would prefer an asteroid to hit the earth and take everyone out all at once. No favorites, everyone’s gotta go.

It’s this time of year that lends itself to this depression.

Work was a joke today. We use a highly popular computer program, and I’ve been using it for over a year. I know that clicks and whatnot and got things done in a streamlined manner. So much that was basically done with the bulk of my work before noon.

Then came the 2:45 break that I get and when I came back I was told there was a new method to the program. It’s supposed to be better but all I saw were additional steps that were added and with the people whose requests I fulfill, well not much got done.

Those people have to add info to the program so that I might follow up and send out the produced requests. But they hadn’t and my hands were tied. I did send emails asking them to fill more information out but they hadn’t.

The supervisor who mentioned this in passing had left for the day and I actually needed to ask him what to do in these situations. Perhaps walk me through it rather than standing 5 feet behind me saying things in his accented Guyanese English.

When I leave for the day I like to leave nothing undone, but here I was marking things to be done in the morning since it was not going to be done without the supervision that I apparently need.

The Legume and I really do not have much to say. That was a realization that I have been coming to for a while since July. We say Hello and that’s about it. This was a guy who I always made it a point to stop by his desk and shoot the shit as it were. Now the relations are threadbare.

During the sit down meeting on July 8, with the supervisor, the Legume and the inhuman resources director I did emphasize how much I liked that guy. Now it would be hard for me to say anything worthwhile on his behalf.

I see the hypocrisy in the office with missives from the inhuman resources director aout keeping one’s voice quiet when most of the time if the Legume is in, I hear him all the time.

His jokes, his interaction with his IT team, and most anyone who walks by his office. It was an awful way to end the day. Then again there was an awfulness at the start.

As I was headed to the train this morning and descending the steps, I saw an older woman struggling with her cane, her bags, and the cart she was using at the bottom of the stairs.

I thought about helping her but was swept away by the thought of how I had to catch that train. And I regretted it then and I regret it almost 12 hours later. I used to be that guy to help out those in obvious need, but not this morning.

I had to go to work and be miserable rather than help someone else out of their misery.

Such misery, such despair.