It’s Friday, I’m in hate.

I didn’t write anything here last Friday, save for posting the week’s final Duck and Cover. It was about an Embassy, which is supposed to be an extension of diplomacy and peace, being unable to open because of animosity toward the US. Which is inspired, in no small part, by the fact that said Embassy would not be about diplomacy and peace, but exerting control and influence, running a shadow government to ensure that Iraq functions as a colony for decades to come. It’s no coincidence that it’s supposed to be the largest embassy structure in world history.

Today’s Duck and Cover is about another subversion of peace, perhaps even more damning because of its source. The Nobel Peace Prize has long been sliding into some strange territory, but it wasn’t until today that I was really willing to concede that the committee has been corrupted or lost its way entirely. I had this debate with my Dad not two weeks ago, and now I have a heaping pile of crow on my plate and it’s time to dig in. I’ll be flushing it out with my fast soon anyway.

I know a lot you are thinking that my objection is laden in distaste for Al Gore as a person, his recent movie, and my disbelief in global warming as a concept (at least the way it’s being packaged to people). And you’re right that this sours an already low moment, but it’s not the core substance of my objection. Even if I were to grant that global warming is the biggest threat facing our planet today and that Al Gore is its leading crusader, there’s no justification for giving him the Peace Prize. Global warming has nothing to do with issues of war and peace, violence and non, human interaction on a basic living-together getting-along level. I know the argument you’re going to levy – global warming will eat our resources and living space, making the struggle for limited quantities that much more painful. So if Al Gore’s work were to figure out a way to divide resources fairly, or to negotiate conflicts based on refugees leaving the bay that was Bangladesh, or anything along those lines, then maybe (but still probably not). But he’s trying to “prevent” something that, if it is to be believed, is inevitable and insurmountable at this point. If you really believe in global warming, it’s time to batten down the hatches, start moving people to higher ground, and figure out how to vacate the Equator.

I’m getting away from my point. The point is that giving Al Gore the Peace Prize in 2007 is like giving Jon Stewart the Nobel Prize for Medicine because, after all, laughter is the best medicine.

And maybe you’d agree with that move. But if your lifetime aspiration were to be a medical researcher who cured something devastating, wouldn’t you feel like your goals were lost upon the announcement of Jon Stewart’s award?

It’s a familiar theme for me this week, despite all the anticipation I have going into this weekend’s fasting trip (see three posts ago, if you missed it). The struggles I have at work are reaching a boiling point (and now check two posts ago…) it’s really hard for me to anticipate where things are going to go. And as much as I love and embrace the unknown, a place of employ is just a hard place to do that. I can’t really engage all the details here, nor am I sure that this is how I want to spend my last few minutes before getting in the shower and starting up the track that inevitably leads to another work day. (Though not full, because I spent 11 uninterrupted hours there yesterday.) Suffice it to say that my pendulum swings radically between thinking I’ll be at Glide for the next five years and wanting to give notice. I can’t tell you why unless I do the latter, and I won’t want to if I do the former. Today, as on many Fridays, my pendulum has swung almost full-arc toward the latter.

Friday is usually a good day for people, especially at work. For a number of factors, some of them explicable, Friday is quite the opposite for me. Part of that may be sincerely wrapped up in holistically enjoying the work that I do and not wanting it to end for the week. I don’t think about it or feel it that way, but I think it must be a subconscious factor. Additionally, there are usually things that need wrapping up before week’s end, and that puts extra stress on its final day. And many people are often gone on Friday, shifting the weight of the workload.

I think it’ll be fine. I need to be on my way. The drum-beat of time still has me in its grip, for less than a day now. It’s decidedly October, and the butterflies in my stomach have the aura of sinister moths.

“Squint with one eye, hum a show-tune, and wait for your ride to say, ‘Oh, that’s where you must have lost your way.'”

All our accidents went purposeful and fell indeed.