So, I met with my tax preparer this morning, and, well, the results weren’t pretty. Let’s just say that if I ever try to offer you financial advice, you’d be wise to simply smile, pat me on the head, and back away slowly.

Afterward, as if I hadn’t been demoralized enough by getting a thorough bitch-slapping from Uncle Sam, I headed over to Fashion Place Mall to buy a belt. I wasn’t looking for anything fancy or wanting to make a statement, I just needed something to hold up my pants. Should’ve been a snap, in and out in ten minutes, right? One would think so. One would be quite wrong.

I looked at every buckled strip of leather in every store in the damn place except Mrs. Fields Cookies. I don’t know exactly what it is I’m looking for in the belt department, but I sure as hell am not finding it. In fact, I didn’t see one single clothing item of any kind in that whole damn mall that I was even remotely moved to purchase. I have little interest, you see, in dressing like a baggy-pantsed hip-hopper or a scuzzy LA club guy who’s probably got a packet of roofies in his shirt pocket. Honestly, where the hell is an almost-not-quite middle-aged guy who isn’t ready for Sans-a-Belt slacks and Arnold Palmer golf shirts supposed to go for clothes? I walked out of there feeling unbelievably alienated from this brave new world of over-cologned douchebags and the trashy girls who love them.

My whole bloody week has been like this. Work these days is a tapestry of low morale and one damn clusterfarg after another. My daily train ride has evolved into a recurring adventure in aggravation and misanthropy. And on those occasions when I have to drive myself somewhere… oy. Hemmed in on both sides by bulbous SUVs and minivans stuffed full of kids (Utah and its famously high birthrate, you know), tailgated by jacked-up diesel pickups with laser-intensity headlights, and cut off to the front by punk kids darting around in small cars with huge, blatty tailpipes… it’s not exactly Mad Max’s “white-line nightmare,” but it’s pretty damn close. My day isn’t complete, it seems, if I don’t end up asking myself, “What is the matter with you people?!” at least twice between getting up and collapsing from exhaustion. Add to all of that the nagging spike of insecurity, a sense that I no longer belong anywhere (that’s a blog entry in and of itself), and that my life may have already peaked and I wasn’t even aware at the time that it was as good as it’s going to get for me, and, as you can probably imagine, I’ve been in something of a mood.

God, it’s exhausting to be pissed at everything and everyone.