Spent the night working on texture mapping the Daedalus for ATC, as opposed to fulfilling a previously arranged obligation. Unplugged one of the phones. One is on my desk, with the ringer turned off. The other one is on my coworkers desk with the ringer on. I remembered to plug his back in when I left work a few hours ago: no rude surprises for him.

This silence was enforced after the phone rang a second time, bringing the number of times I had been rudely interrupted at the worst possible time by a specific individual to five within 48 hours.

Generally speaking, I rely on tone and choice of vocabulary to convey emotional state. You can easily tell rather or not I'm in the mood to take a call by the number of words I use and the number of syllables in them. I'm extremely quiet if you're putting me off. Some people are good at this- which might serve as one possible explanation as to why some people seem to be completely oblivious to my attitude and persist in irritating me further. I tend not to voice my distaste, distress, or beef on the grounds that I'd rather some people go through life thinking I'm a cold, distant, heartless bastard than know that when given the choice, I'll not suffer the emotionally or mentally needy. I'm not the kind of guy that needs people around me in order to function. Doesn't work like that.

I've come to the conclusion that there is, obviously, a reverse. People who need people around them in order to function. The kind of people who always want you to come hang out- who call you at exactly the wrong times to ask you exactly that, after you've already made your plans for the evening clear. The kind of people who can physically see you trying to focus to write a journal entry on the bus and interrupt anyway. The kind of people who, despite replying "I got shit to do." two nights a week for years, start leghumping you with renewed ferocity at the drop of a hat. People who call you when they're bored and lonely and nobody else is calling them back because they're going to go completely bugshit and have a nervous breakdown if they don't. Because without people to hang out with, they are ALONE and they can't seem to handle this very well at all.

They seem to handle being alone about as well as they percieve the effect their clawing, cloying SUCK OF NEED has on my brain, my attitude, and my entire fucking day. Of course they can't see it. They're sucking it right the fuck out of me. Line of sight- they see the energy and the attention span and what they can't seem to pick up on is the fact that their fucking brain-claws have tunneled it straight into them. Looks normal! Fuck decency! Be invasive! INVADE MY FUCKING PERSONAL SPACE PLEASE! JUST LIKE YOU WANT ME IN YOURS. Bleh.

I suppose that the moral of the rant is to keep your mouth the fuck SHUT around people who need incessant handholding or mental babysitting, or you're going to find yourself babysitting them. You're going to find yourself up against the wall- unplugging a phone simply so you don't have to tell a person to fuck the hell off, and then go on to explain in great detail exactly what they've done over the course of the last three days to piss you off. The moral is one I've had beat into my head over the last couple of years: don't get suckered. Don't offer to do shit for people when there's no money or other incentive. Don't put yourself in a situation where "Yeah, I'll edit your short" starts picking up a string of and.

I like the barter system quite a bit. Unfortunately, the present situation seems to have me trading one of my more marketable skills for months of continued annoyance. I am, quite honestly, fairly pleased with the results. I am not, however, the least bit pleased with the amount of attendant leghumping and annoyance I have had to deal with outside of the editing room. I'm certain that were I bisexual and were it public knowledge, I would be covered in spunk as a result of this association, rather I was up for it or not. It is Known, and it irritates me greatly.

Dave, for once, has staved off The Ghey. That little anecdote cools off all but the most determined of idiots, which so happen to be the focus of my ire at present.

Nothing curdles my blood like the words Wanna come over? - especially when it's delivered in a tone indistinguishible from the deluded chauvenist catechism Hey baby, wanna fuck?.

I digress. By a hairs breadth.

There are people who kick ass, who I love hanging out with, love working with, and can work with or chill out with extremely well. And there are people who I'll work with when I need to- the kind I can handle professionally, but not personally. Two essentially broad kinds of personalities.

The first I don't see nearly enough of. We're professionals, or we're friends- we leave well enough alone and understand that there is, in fact, such a thing as "too much of a good thing." The second is quite firmly under the impression that they don't see nearly enough of me, and they persue their goal to the point of prompting me to force a complete full-spectrum shut-out just to get some peace and fucking quiet.

Fucking magnets. Make my fucking nuts hurt.