Tuesdays With Abhorrent Fiends vol. 27

Ah, another 13-hour day. I am getting far too accustomed to this.
My first couple times doing this were sufficiently bad that I don't mind gloating over the perks. Namely, in exchange for late-staying I get a day off (one that works for both me and bosspersons) and more often than not one of the bosses or managers will comp me some food. Today I'd managed to save half my bank-going cab fare by walking one way, so I'd gone and gotten myself a Potbelly's sandwich around three. I actually ate three square meals today! Muesli for breakfast, Potbelly's roast beef for lunch, and one of our Restaurant Week shortrib thingies for dinner.

While gossiping with Gustavo of course. It's like I tell him, I like hearing gossip because I like knowing things. And (like I don't tell him) I like interactions where the other person thinks they got more information from me than I from them, when actually it is the reverse. (As far as I know.) In a place like this, there is always someone whose job and their status in it / attitude about it / actions while working at it constitute news to somebody. I, ha ha, am usually the second or third person to know. Sometimes the first, not counting the in-charge-person who makes the decision.


Okay. When I wrote "the poison tree" back there, I was in a kind of shock. Because the whole question of the extent to which I am a controlling person, the extent to which I feel that need to control my surroundings, was one I didn't think about. Sounds ridiculous but it's true. I focused on controlling myself with such maniacal intensity I never pondered what that said about me as a person. If you'd asked, I would have said, "Fear. Technically dread, which is terror of a known evil, rather than one unknown." I know, knew, whatev, that I understand the people I am afraid of because I am similar to them, that in learning to master myself I was learning to resist their inevitable attempts to enslave me. But it had never really registered consciously with me that the hurt I fear to cause others is born of my desire and not my fear only. That the fear of being harmed or discovered in evil intent must coexist with the desire to possess and belong with.

And now the more I think about the things I like and the experiences I seek out, the roles I place myself in, the more I realize I like control. It's like saying a dirty word. It makes me want to cry to admit it.

But the first step is admitting your addiction, and calling on a higher power for aid, right?