Someone gave me a pair of tickets to the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss concert last night. For free! What a score! Unfortunately, I later found out I that couldn’t go and had to pass them on to someone else. Boy, were they happy! I had to race home after work because Mrs. Wife needed to attend a P.T.A. meeting and I had to put the kiddies to bed.

I just deleted a paragraph that was a shrill screed about how the suburbs will suck all the fun out of your life if you allow it to happen. I swore that my irritation had nothing whatsoever to do with not being able to attend the concert. Not going was, in fact, a metaphor for Much Bigger Issues. Then I reread my screed, turned to face myself and had to admit that I was just whining like a little bitch because I couldn’t go to the concert. Do you ever do that? Catch yourself being stupid? So embarrassing.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

Wm. Shakespeare

On a 1-10 scale with 1 being a Zen-like state of tranquility and 10 being a murderous climb-to-the-top-of-a-tower-with-a-high-caliber-rifle blood-red rage, where would you place a bad haircut? I suppose it would depend on how much of a narcissist you were. It probably shouldn’t count for much, right?

After five years of perfection, Jenny unexpectedly left the hair salon without a word of warning. She left me in the hands of a butcher. The Demon Barber of Route 35. Two months ago, Jenna, my masseuse, left the spa unexpectedly as well. Neither of those two trollops left a forwarding address. How much dumping can one man take in such a short period of time and not snap? Do you have any idea how time consuming and expensive it is to brainwash someone into delivering a consistently perfect haircut? And don’t get me started on training a new masseuse! Jenna knew just where I ached. I jest with Mrs. Wife that getting a massage is the only legitimate way I can get another woman to put her hands on me and not have it result in divorce proceedings. Celebrating 10 years of fidelity. Do you think that was easy? For either of us?

The daylight lingers a bit longer and a warm breeze blows down 5th Avenue. At Benevolent Dictators, Inc. that can only mean one thing: the summer intern season is finally here! You see them in the elevators and roaming the halls. Young, fresh faced fraternity robots and sorority chippies who bubble over with enthusiasm and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. New ties and cuff links for the fellas and a smart new Talbots wardrobe for the gals. They’ve spent their entire lives within the protective confines of a classroom (except for an occasional backpacking sojourn across Europe). It’s all they know! Their innocence is equal parts touching and nauseating. Theirs is the unsullied outlook of a people who haven’t been torched by reality yet, bless them.

If you see one approaching your desk to pick your brain, it’s best to hunker down underneath it and pretend you’re away at a meeting. Otherwise, be prepared to get trapped in a dull, time-sucking discussion about which of our investment vehicles are focus products and why.

Not a joke: Yesterday I rode the elevator down with two young, strapping bucks and one said to the other, without the slightest hint of irony or sarcasm, “If I had a rough night I could always just skip a class and sleep in, but this place expects you to be here every day!”

That’s right, junior. Every. Fucking. Day.

I was summoned to a conference room this afternoon. My boss sat across a table and said, “I have a script I’m supposed to follow.” “Ah,” thought I. “Here it comes.” And I got it, alright. But I didn’t get what I thought I was going to get. There’s a lot of administrative details that are too dull to mention but the gist of the meeting was that Benevolent Dictator, Inc. is asking me to stop job hunting and stay with the company. Big Bosswoman said she’s confident they’re done firing people—excuse me—reducing headcount. They want me to hang around for the rebuilding and they are offering me a retention bonus to not leave. It’s a pretty thick check, too. It’s payable after 90 days. They feel that after 90 days, the ship will have righted itself and they want to insure that I don’t head for zee hills in the interim.

I was a high school loser. Ask anyone who was there. I never had a girlfriend. Didn’t go to my prom. My grades were so bad that I couldn’t get into a university. I never took my SATs. There was no point. After all my friends disappeared into academia, I spent two years anesthetizing myself with as much weed as I could lay my hands on. I pumped gas. Tore movie tickets in half. Mowed lawns on the medians of strip malls. Made sandwiches at a deli. I got dumped a lot. My lost years. To go from that mess to being offered a retention bonus by an investment bank is an arc I never could have imagined. I am the poster child for late bloomers.

Party time.

Well, thank God that’s over. I wonder how the Dems will fuck it up this time? They have a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Perhaps Mr. Obama will lose his mind and select Dennis Rodman or The Reverend Wright as his running mate. I hope not, although it would make for some entertaining debates.

* * *

Today is the 51st Annual Puerto Rican Day Parade in Manhattan.

RUN!!!!