Antimatter.

Have you ever noticed that putting vanilla in hot chocolate makes it less chocolatey? It's like antimatter for chocolate.

Some days you can just feel that things are going to be bad. I was in a fine mood before I left the house, but as soon as I stepped outside I thought, Uh Oh. There was a palpable sense of danger and madness in the air. I wouldn't even have gone out had I not had dinner plans with two friends I hadn't seen in ages.

Sure enough, all the humans were being nasty and belligerent and stupid (except for our waitress, who was pretty awesome). And on the way home one of them nearly ran me over, and then tried to tell me that since there was no bike lane on that street I was not supposed to be riding on it. And that it was somehow my fault for him backing into me. And that it was downright terrible that his window might be in danger of being broken (by my gloved hand smacking it to alert him that he was about to run me down with his giant car).

I was so angry and so flabbergasted and so steeped in adrenaline that I couldn't breathe well enough to get any sensible words out. I ended up trying to yell through sobs and then cried the whole rest of the way home. I don't think I was so much scared as impotently furious.

And I devoutly wished for summerboy, primarily because he would've been able to articulate to the guy just how wrong he was, and why, and then I could've had someone to cry on.

I ran into him unexpectedly at a party a few days ago, and it was a little emotionally charged to see him, but it also made me miss him. We were friends, and now we're not, and somehow I just feel the loss of someone I Iiked having in my life, rather than anything more defined by relationship boundaries.

I am kind of hoping we will become friends again.

One of the friends I was having dinner with confided, when our third member went to the bathroom, that she, too, had detested 2009. I've always assumed that the absurdly resilient hopefulness I seem to carry around in my chest was a permanent characteristic, but lately I am getting skeptical. I am wondering why I bother to make excuses for the horribleness of human beings. It may be, simply, that I wish they weren't so horrible, and so I tell myself that these are simply clouds obscuring the sun.

That might be a lie. Whether or not it's a necessary lie I don't know, but I am getting awfully angry, and I think maybe I am done making excuses for other people.