I'm in the mood to be in a mood. Lonely and angry and hating myself, not for the feeling but for the inability to channel the feeling. Humans make bad decisions in the throes of passion, or maybe they make less genuine decisions when they consider themselves the most level-headed. Or this is a false dichotomy and there's more here that I'm not seeing.

Perhaps what I'm feeling is the result of all the great deals I found and purchased on Amazon. After the initial surge of satisfaction for getting neat things for low-prices, I fell into despair. Technically, I now owned the things, aside from the slight temporal disparity. Yet, I was no different. Still me, just with a few more things that flood and fire could still easily take away.

I did purchase Star Wars Battlefront 2 for the nephews. It's their birthday present, but it didn't come out until today. I suppose I'll have to set an EA online account or whatever so they can play multiplayer. There's much ado at the moment about Loot Boxes and pay-to-win. However, the nephews don't have a reliable source of income to spend on loot boxes, so grinding it is.

Ah, it's that wonderful time of year for employees and employers everywhere: Annual Reviews.

Smiling at each other with bared teeth while shoving piles of BS back and forth. Long-simmering rage sublimates into passive-voice aggression. There is much copying-and-pasting of last year's review because nothing has changed except the ever-higher expectations and the ever-increasing workload.

It's not a good time to point out the myriad new processes that have been implemented, many of which directly contradict the others. These reviews are linked to pay increases, naturally, and it's super important that the employer/investors feel like all their attempts to improve the employee are worth it.

Under no circumstances must the employee let on that they are doing the same thing they've always done. The employer MUST believe that what they do makes a difference.

The true function of the process, of course, is to provide the cheapest relief to a symptom without having to resort to curing the disease. Cures are expensive, bandages are cheap, and offices are kept cold because everyone is wrapped up like mummies.

Time to dress up, put on the old dancing shoes, and do the Right-To-Work State Shuffle. Don't let the name fool you; it's mostly a two-step, with a lot of bending over.

Stayed up too late and dreamed about having superpowers. I could talk to cats. It wasn't that useful.

My surgeon is trying to get me scheduled before the end of the year. Allegedly, I'll be mostly incapacitated for a while. Much suffering awaits.

One concern is my dogs. They like to jump on me when I'm in bed. That could be extremely painful. Probably the easiest thing to do is get a dog cone and put it myself.

It will be prime time for brooding, watching scary movies, regretting lost loves, planning my bathroom renovation, staring wistfully into the distance, not talking, reading, and maybe even some writing.

Organizing/shedding non-essential items. Contemplating the institutions that exist solely to squeeze money out of a human being, then drop them back into the work bucket until they absorb some more cash and are ready to be squeezed again.

Maybe I'll get those space station curtains for the game room. Those are neat.

Whirlwind! Just the usual, really. Time flurries, reality storms, memory hail. Typical weather this time of year.

The radiologist says my knee has no glaringly obvious damage. There is a "tiny" Baker's cyst, aka fluid-filled pouch (bursa). Maybe it's tiny now, I wonder, but could it increase in size when I run? Hmm, a quick Google search says there's also something called a popliteal aneurysm that might look like that. I remember that long flight to Hawaii I experienced crazy knee/leg happenings. Maybe a clot that pushed through and didn't kill me.

I'll go to a specialist next and see what they think. Have them try to drain the cyst, and if it's full of blood I'll make sure to shout "HA! TOLD YOU!" before I collapse into brain failure.

It's easy to be right when I'm not the one who can do anything about it.