A class to teach, at the end of a long and mostly peaceful day.

The class is peaceful and productive too, until halfway through.

Then the fucking Dean drops in, unnannounced and unwanted, camping in the back row with an idiot stare and a death’s head grin.

I do my best to just ignore it. My best is impaired, to a degree, regardless.

It isn’t right. It isn’t helpful.

He stays put like a carrion vulture until class is completely over, and then he’s the first one out the door, without a word or a wave.

It shouldn’t have to matter, but I’m infuriated even so.

Looked at calmly, it appears to me that his job is to make mine harder, and to make my life less pleasant via any means within reach.

I have to admit that–surprise–I have a problem with authority in general.

But I’ve had bosses I liked. Semi-noble shepherds. Managers with some humanity.

This one is far worse than useless.

In my fierce and adrenalin-pumped drive home, I fantasized about addressing this post to him, saying all the things he exactly deserves to hear, dropping the printed page on his desk in a few weeks or months when time ripens.

But it would only be pearls before swine.

A year ago this very incident would have wrecked my mind for the whole weekend at least.

Tonight, I spill to get the venom out, so that the three days ahead, away from the stink, won’t be wasted in worry and anger.

There isn’t anything to worry about, and I am finally beginning to believe that.

It’s still only January.

Depending on the angle of the yardstick, I have four, five, six months to find a slot less oppressive, in some place whose totem isn’t a pig, and maybe for a living wage besides.

I’m very ready and I’m very good at what I do now, and at a lot of other things besides.

My track record at jobhunting is mixed, but it’s mostly shiny. On paper, I’m charming. For the short sprint of an interview, I usually impress, with candid thoughtfulness and complete, fulfilling answers to the familiar questions.

Even at my worst in the last couple of years, I’ve talked two panels into something that seemed better than what I had before.

I’ll do it again.

I pray that the next is all it seems, and free of pompous hyenas in the woodpile, holding their rubber stamps high like mugger knives and wearing their trivial power complexes like cereal-box badges.

We don’t need.

No badges.