No one knows except the both of us. We'd best keep this to ourselves and not tell any members of our inner posse.

I am cranky today.

I say that as a kind of warning. I woke up in a pissy mood, so if you don't want to read something written by someone in a pissy mood, I'd recommend you stop reading.

The mood I woke up in was just foul. I'm glad that I'm physically unable to sleep past 8 without waking up, because my phone had turned itself off in the middle of the night, and, therefore, my alarm was off as well. I would have been screwed if it had been Monday, the day of the 8:30 meeting, but since it's Friday, it turned out OK.

Then I grabbed my last breakfast muffin off the top of my fridge, all excited because I'd deliberately saved the chocolate chip muffin for last. It was supposed to be a good combination, you know? Friday and a chocolate chip muffin. However, it turned out to be a blueberry muffin, and that made me mad.

I have nothing against blueberry muffins, mind you. I love blueberry muffins. But when you're in the mood for chocolate chip, blueberry just doesn't cut it.

Also, my mailbox is overrun with a huge ant colony and their gross-looking eggs. I need to Raid the thing.

I went for a shortened version of my "run" yesterday. It was shortened partially because I wasn't really in the mood for it and partially because I had something on my mind, and it's hard to concentrate on breathing so you don't die when you're thinking so hard about something.

Being vague isn't something of which I'm a huge fan, but in this case, I can't really explain the details. Partially because I don't want to and partially because I haven't gotten them figured out for myself.

The situation I find myself in is comparable to playing a board game with a 5-year-old. There is a specific set of rules by which you're supposed to play games. They're usually written down in booklet form within the box in which the game is sold. Whenever you play a game with a 5-year-old, there's a good chance that some of the rules will have to be altered, either to make it easier or to make it so the game doesn't last for three hours. OK, that's cool. You decide on how the rules will go (for example, if you get stuck on that square on the board, you only have to wait for the dice to go to everyone else playing one time, rather than the three times instructed by the official rules. Or if you're about to run out of money, you can take out a loan with someone else who's playing so you're not actually out of the game if you're out of funds. Things like that.)

I'm a fan of rules, so when they're changed like that, I'm not always entirely pleased, but I understand that sometimes in life, things have to deviate away from the norm in order to, one, keep people happy and two, make sure things are as fair as they can be. Life isn't black and white, despite what my high school Ex will tell you.

The problems, for me, begin when people start changing the rules midway through the game. It's like landing on a space that will cost you $500, and you'd originally agreed that you could take out a loan from someone else who's playing, but then, all of a sudden, you can still take out the loan, but along with it, you're being charged 6% interest for every turn during which you haven't paid back the entire sum.

Well, wait a minute. That's not what you said originally. But, you know, OK, I'll do it. Because I don't want to be out of the game. Because it's a fun game.

So I'm still playing the game, in debt $500 x .06 per turn, and I land on a space that sends me to jail if, upon rolling the dice 3 times, I don't rack up a collective 15 points. Since the game is being played with a 5-year-old, that number is moved from 3 to 5. I have 5 chances to roll 15 points. "But no, Liz," someone says. "The rules now dictate that if you don't get a 15 after the first three throws, you can have the extra two, but it'll cost you $10 per throw, on top of the $500 x .o6 per turn."

That's not what you initially said. When we started playing this game, you said you wanted me to play, we'd have to change the rules a little, but as long as everyone was on the same playing field, so to speak, everything would be cool.

So the question I'm sure you're asking at this point would have to be, "Elizabeth, why are you still playing the damn game?"

And to that, I'd have to say, because, for some reason, it seems worth it. To see that 5-year-old laugh when they hit the jackpot and clap their hands when they feel like they're going to win. It's those moments that keep you from overturning the board and scattering the pieces all over the living room and having everyone shake their heads and say, "What a poor sport!" when you walk out of the room.

I don't expect to win the game. When you start playing a game with a 5-year-old, you can't expect to win. But what I really want is to know that I played the game knowing all the rules.

So enough of being vague and pissed off. I should really put this entry in my Livejournal of Angst, but, for some reason, I feel it should go here.