a small demon called Spleen.

OED: Spleen n. (second meaning) this as the supposed seat of the passions; moroseness, irritability, spite...

i was, alas, filled with hideous venom and what i can only refer to as Spleen during the latter half of yesterday, and i think a public apology should go out to anyone and everyone i may have/did encounter.

it was that Gross directionless Spleen that very likely comes from sleep deprivation and complete anxiety, and tempered with a lovely side order of despair and melancholy that was beyond excessive.

Spleen. ah yes. that ruddy little demon that surfaces and takes over and is worse than a gremlin in your toilet that comes up to bite your bum on a tuesday. i tried to leave Spleen at home, but it eked its way out the door as i was locking up and jumped on my back beyond my reach.

as i biked to work i veered crazily through traffic at break-neck speeds trying to dislodge it, but it just cackled gleefully, shouting YEEHAA!, frog-legs flying asunder as drivers everywhere shook their fists and hoped for the end of cyclists everywhere.

i feel fairly sure that Spleen arrived at Coach House before me (while i was locking up my bike no doubt), and installed itself in the cd drive of the computer i was using and made it do the kinds of things that make one wish for a jackhammer and a job at mcdonalds.

the momentary death-defying leap of a squirrel to the sill (?) of my window almost distracted it and took it on its merry way, but alas, Spleen found the weekly Now and figured the squirrel wasn't nearly as enticing.

sigh.

i tried to coax Spleen into my digestive tract with some malai kofta (ghandi roti for the uninitiated, or "ten shades of gustatory bliss", as i know it). i knew my stomach juices could give it a go, given half the chance. but alas, Spleen decided it had already eaten, and just sat and waited 'til i was finished to accompany to my next destination. i tried lieing in the park for a spell of sunshine and peace, but Spleen was wearing impermeable sunscreen.

i tried at some point to sit Spleen down and reason with it, or at least get itself to behave around my friends until such a moment as i could deal with it in private. i won the debate (so i thought) and made it sit in the corner of my brain with a dunce hat, but then it folded the paper cone into an airplane and started banging it against the walls of my cranium.
GAH.
i had planned to fill downtime of the evening with work on a deadline of Impending Doom, but since it seemed i was intended to babysit Spleen instead, i mired away the time (i didn't have a book, a sign of Something Gravely Wrong) google-mapping, reading memepool, and googling every single person i know, including myself.

well, lest i end this posting on a foul note, i did find this unexpected little parting in the thunderclouds in rm vaughan's national post reviews blog archive with this tiny little reference about Hysteria last year: "...and the Edward Gorey-esque oddities of painter Stef Lenk..."
yes that's all, but to anyone who understands that i'm easily pleased as well as a religious fanatic of Edward Gorey and all of his ilk, well, it was a Moment.