Meanwhile, I'm desperately trying (and failing) to think of advice to offer another friend who's become embroiled in a messy emotional situation. ... It's so frustrating to see one person upsetting other people so much while apparently remaining completely oblivious to what they're doing, and I wish I could intervene constructively, but a) it's not really my business, and b) the person who's doing the majority of the upsetting would react very badly if I tried to talk to them. I just wish there was more I could offer than hugs to the people who are on the receiving end of all this, but at the moment it doesn't seem like there is.
In other news, I seem to be getting more and more hysterical. I ended up in fits of something between giggles and tears last night while trying to beat Microsoft Word into submission so that I could fill in a job application form. Today I found myself once again struggling to choke back nervous giggles as more and more problems emerged with the data I'm working on -- which has reached the point of absurdity, but even so. In the end I had to hide in the toilets until I'd calmed down, and on the way there I noticed the sign on the wall between the Ladies' room and the Gents' room, which says
EMERGENCY
EVACUATION
PROCEDURE
and that nearly finished me. It's still making me giggle; the familiar shaky feeling just keeps welling up somewhere between the lines of the sign. Oh, feel free to laugh (with|at) me -- it's comical. Tragical. Comical-tragical. Scene individible.
I didn't get more than about 4 hours of sleep last night, due in part to the amount of coffee I'd consumed by the time I went to bed, but special thanks also go to the cretins who decided that our street was an excellent place to hold a drunken shouting contest.
I've got one thing left to look forward to this week, and if the bad news I'm half-expecting turns up tomorrow, that may well be off as well.