What's eating you, pal?

I was waiting for the crosstown bus on 23rd Street at Lexington Avenue. A young man, about 18, baggy pants, ballcap askew, comes out of Beach Bum Tanning on the opposite side of the street, crosses 23rd Street against the light, gets mad and curses a car that almost hit him, walks into a pizza parlor, buys a slice, crosses the street against the light again, and before going back into Beach Bum Tanning, dumps a huge handful of napkins onto the sidewalk. A gust of wind blows them all over 23rd Street. I wanted to walk into Beach Bum Tanning and mash him in his stupid face in.

In Congressional testimony this week, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase said that a financial crisis is something that “happens every five to seven years. We shouldn’t be surprised.” In other words, he had nothing to do with it. Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs said the financial crisis is like a hurricane that nobody could have predicted. See? It’s an act of nature and has nothing whatsoever to do with how these stupid greedy fucks conduct their business. Earlier, Blankfein said that at Goldman Sachs was doing “God’s work.” I wanted to reach into my monitor and bang their two heads together.

My phone had a glitch and the Verizon customer service techs over the phone couldn’t figure out how to fix it so I had to make a special trip into the store to get it fixed. It was such an obscure problem that it took three techs two hours to solve it.

Someone cut me off. He was driving a Toyota Sequoia; a massive, unnecessary pig of a car.

If you’ve ever done any heavy lifting in therapy, you learn that the things making you angry aren’t really the things you’re mad at. It’s not litter or investment bankers or bad drivers or phone glitches. It’s always something else. I wonder what’s eating at me?

Although, I have pretty good idea.

* * *

Saturday night. Mrs. Wife is out with the girls. Kids are in bed. Let’s see. On Ovation TV I’ve got:

Byron: British poet Lord Byron spends the last 13 years of his life longing for the affections of his half-sister and searching for a meaningful existence.

or

The Indianapolis Colts vs. the Baltimore Ravens.

Sorry, your Lordship. Let me know how that half-sister thing works out.