A Knife in the Back

"Joseph, your temper." "Yes Mom, I know, my temper; my temper, I know."

Some people are not meant to keep blogs. I am one of them. I hate blogging because there is a public element to private thoughts. Blogs are not diaries, but I treat them as one. I have to correct that; I have to start writing in my diary.

Today was a stressful day for stupid and personal reasons. It began with someone leaving my milk out to spoil -- accidentally, of course, but it angered me. If you're going to bang around the kitchen at some hour of the day or night, at least have the common decency to put other people's belongings away. Especially if they involve their morning ritual. Morning rituals are sacred in my family, they ease us into the trivial and stressful minutia of life. They are small personal moments -- moments that are increasingly valuable when you must live in communal housing.

In place of my soothing coffee in my bedroom, I had to head to PrimeStar. I spend money I didn't want to spend, but the walk and soothing moments reading Gogol in a cafe calm my nerves. All is better, until I get to Anatoly's class.

We sit at Anatoly's luxurious table, he at the head, and he announces his concern. It had been relayed to him that we were not understanding what we were seeing; we were not taking the intiative to find out about the plays we are sent to, and thus not understanding what was going on. He was relying on hearsay; he was wrong. He made me angry -- not at him, but at the perceived source of the hearsay.

My anger came forth in my blog. My remaining personal ritual for the day. In retrospect, I was too harsh. In retrospect, the majority of the day was a series of missteps and miscommunications.