Notes on the Human Condition

A.M.: tour of something like a CSI lab.
P.M.: work onslaught for eight hours.
Current: ranking what must/will be done by Friday.

Right now there is way too much stuff on my desk. Many hours writing a report that I now believe is flawed but am not sure I have the mental energy to correct. Serious battle with the printer-fax-photocopier that decided to jam in four places. More upset when I realized I did not bring my high security clearance code to get back in the building with our new magic swipe fobs and would be forced to eat stale cookies stored in my desk or give up for the day.

Two people around me used the word retarded pejoratively today (because, like, so many people have embraced it non-pejoratively). I didn't correct them and resultingly spent several hours intermittently considering how this could be addressed in the future. I was embarrassed for them, yet they didn't seem to sense that my lag-pause in conversation was pointed. My normal instinct is to call people out on using words along those lines very publicly, but there are a lot of vindictive people in my field who don't react well to public humiliation. Is tact with the tactless ever appropriate?

Uh, yeah.

The guy I had been dating went through this phase last week where he updated a lot of thinly veiled messages to his ex onto his facebook status. Although we had no future, the impulse in me that will take the last vodka shot away from the man who is about to take off his pants in a crowded room intervened (mercy?) and I sent a message:

Step away from the status updates.

He didn't respond, as expected, but has stopped. I'm not sure where his friends are on this but I really hope that if my life were to turn to a sad recitation of Timbaland lyrics for everyone I've ever known to see, someone would step in.

It just occurred to me that this is a Canadian long weekend. Redemption is nigh.