Not only are we likely to be free to leave early tomorrow (not that anyone would really notice or care if I left early anyway), but all the managers are taking the day off. So I could probably get away easily with not going in. But I have a shit-ton of work to do.

I've been grouchy at work this month. I have at least three projects now which were supposed to be 1-3 weeks and are now dragging on into their third month. The politics are powerful and annoying, and I feel like we and the people we're forced to partner with keep dropping the ball, or having it kicked away by idiots. Sometimes I feel like my brain is rotting, from doing much of the same kinds of work over again (there's a standard formula for developing Web applications, and it works and that really is as it should be, but it doesn't help me learn, particularly), and from using Windows, which is intellectually unchallenging because it's completely opaque and when something goes wrong you have no information with which to figure out the cause. Literally. You just restart the service you're working on, or you reboot the machine. No log files, no meaningful error messages.

I could give up. That's really just a theoretical option, because I don't give up. The closest I ever bring myself is having a few drinks several nights in a row. Except I can't drink much any more and it leaves me feeling crappy, so it's about as frustrating as anything else.

Ah well. I'll find some way to amuse myself. On Friday I think I'll take the train up to the city and walk around a bit. Maybe go to Chinatown and get a potsticker filled with meat of ambiguous origin, then buy a sword or something. I can be grouchy if I want, but it doesn't serve anything. All of this, the loss with the joy and the wisdom and the foolishness, is the vast sweep of what it is to be human, and my irritation at how things are going will just peter out, like trying to erode a piece of granite with a bucket of water.