When the red dog bites its emotional rabies infects me in different ways. Sometimes I’m a bit go eat worms*.  Sometimes I’m angry. Sometimes I cry a lot.

It’s been an angry few days, with a few bonus tears.

There’s always a dose of irrationality when I get red dog rabies. I try to remind myself of that. But it doesn’t stop me feeling pissed off at the world and the injustice of it all.

I am particular sensitive to feeling undervalued – I struggle with people not returning calls, Facebook messages, emails. And I read negatives into it when they do reply.

I’m also filled with rage by responsibility shirkers and problem deflectors … oh and the ungrateful, the unkind and the unnecessarily unpleasant.

Ooooh I sound like bulk fun, don’t I?

Anyways, I’m super dooper cranky.

Fortunately I’m also super dooper patient and polite. So I don’t think my new seven-week intern from Sacremento has cottoned on to my mood.

I’m teaching him to write news stories, a skill he will take back to America with him in November, never to be seen or enjoyed by me again.

He’s very sweet and reminds me of someone from Glee. The first story he wrote was pretty average, but he’s learning fast.

He may be slightly scared of me because I say obscure stuff like “don’t gild the lily” “daggy” in a weird accent he can’t understand. I have to repeat myself A LOT. But he also seemed quite entertained by my career tales. I told him I love “cracking the code” of what motivates readers at my various workplaces. I cracked the sexy Cosmo/Cleo code, I cracked the gossipy Woman’s Day code (until digital stuffed it), I cracked the scary parenting website code (he looked a little freaked when I told him how disheartening it was to realise the code for parenting was stories about children who had died or almost died in creative or horrible ways), and now I’m cracking the alcohol code. The alcohol code is one of the trickiest ones because it’s two-pronged. I’m starting to get the supplier side as it’s people based, much like gossip mags; but the trade side is still a bit of a mystery – why were my bolter stories last week the ones about a Tasmanian bottlo winning liquor store of the year and Jacob’s Creek rose winning three Gold medals in some obscure Denver wine show … why? 

I also come up behind him – accidentally, not on purpose – when he’s texting his friends, which must be slightly off putting. But I think we’ll rub along just fine, especially after the red dog runs away.

But heaven help you if you’re DD … I’m a little ferocious …

The poor bloke has been copping my rants about the endless things I’m furious about with both barrels. I’m a steam train of outrage. No, make that a bullet train.

My holiday with the kiddos can’t come soon enough.

I need the soothing sea. I need it bad.

Do you ever have your angry-with-the-world days? How do you soothe the beast?

Song of the day: Snow Patrol “Chasing Cars”

*Remember the childhood ditty … Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. I think I’ll go eat worms. Fat ones, skinny ones, short ones, long ones, ones that squiggle and squirm. Bite their heads off, suck their guts out, throw their skins away-hey-hey. I like them so much, I eat them three times a day.