My gmail must be broken

It’s been one of those long, exhausting days at work, and not one friend has chimed in with a friendly email as a balm to soothe my weary soul. Not one. Stupid friends.

Plus, our building management decided long ago that the workday ends at 5:00, and any poor suckers too stupid to stay in the building after that do not deserve fresh circulating air. Since it’s muggy and rainy outside today, it’s muggy and sweltering inside our office tonight. It feels like a jungle in here. Or a third-world laundromat. Or a mouth.

And while I’m being a big whiny victim, let me also complain about the new MacBook I got upgraded to at work last week. So far the computer itself is pretty nice, with noticeably faster speed and a keyboard that doesn’t have the last user’s crumbs under the keys and a slight whiff of new-computer smell every time I fire it up. It also came loaded with OS 10.5.2, which is—as far as my needs are concerned—basically the same but different compared to the operating system I’ve been using for the last year and a half. And it has a built-in camera above the screen. Call me paranoid, but I put a strip from a Post-It note over the lens because the last thing I need is some video circulating on the Internets of me doing something embarrassing at work like picking my nose or wearing last season’s Old Navy or scratching in a way that could be interpreted as an audition for Your Mama Don’t Dance. But that’s not what I’m complaining about. I’m complaining because my new MacBook came loaded with Microsoft Word 12.1.0, which sucks more than a family-values politician in a blowjob factory. I spend the vast majority of my workday in Word, and this stupid generation of what I already view as a stupid piece of software has built-in formatting defaults like automatic spacing after each paragraph that apparently can’t be globally overridden. I thought the Republicans were giving us less government. So how come they leave the subprime-mortgage and the poisonous-toy and the hate-a-fag-for-Jesus industries unregulated but I’m robbed of free choice every time I write a copy deck? Why?

But I can’t dwell on all that right now. I have to reformat some paragraphs manually. And fan myself discreetly. And check my gmail for any notes from my friends that may have gotten delayed in transit. Just in case.

Stupid friends.