I write gratitude lists most days that I share with friends. Sometimes they aren’t all nicey-sweet. Sometimes I actually find them helpful for processing feelings of anger. Today’s is a humdinger (f-bombs abound):

Today, I am grateful— —to have had my first head-to-head run-in with an anti-masker who happens to be the security guard at my company’s building and refused to wear a mask when our customer politely asked while loading into our studios, causing massive drama. —that I can pretty quickly calm down from being murderously angry to try to find the friendliest solution to a problem: “Look, even if you disagree, can you please just do me this favor. Just wear it for an hour so our customer is comfortable.” —that I can become murderously angry again when a motherfucker won’t accept my very friendly human solution to the problem. —that it makes me sick to then be “that guy” who has to say “You realize that I pay your paycheck…” (now I’m that guy). —that I feel even more sick about the fact that, due to his dumbass indignance about such a simple request, I now have to come for this guy’s job, who is poor and has young kids (who he’s shown me pictures of, and vice versa). —that I can know this guy is a selfish fucking idiot and simultaneously lament the fact that the fucker is probably throwing his job and what little security he has away over his own dumbass pride because “he already said no” to several people. —that I relate to that kind of bullshit childish pride, and that today I can recognize it quickly when it comes up in myself. —that I know a family’s well-being shouldn’t depend on shit jobs and that being a prideful asshole one time shouldn’t ruin your life, and that I shouldn’t be in this position to hurt him this badly because our whole economy is fucking hooked up wrong. —that it probably (hopefully) isn’t going to actually ruin the guy’s life, and that it’s clear I’ve got employees who I’m way the fuck more responsible to than him. —that I can feel all these things simultaneously, and that none of them are right, or wrong, or me.

What a country.