Man, I've been in a shitty mood this week, and I think it's probably been showing a little - see my bitter, self-righteous rant against Wired magazine and my sad ode to a girlfriend who doesn't actually exist for the pathetic proof. I was just sitting here a few minutes ago, in fact, thinking about why I might be in such a bad mood this week all of a sudden, when it hit me: Oh yeah, that's right, I haven't had sex in almost a year now.

God, I hate that my libido has the ability to sway my non-sexual emotions so profoundly, but there it is; ever since losing my virginity, anytime I start going more than nine or ten months without getting laid, I just start getting grumpier and grumpier until I do. And it doesn't help, of course, that the weather here in Chicago has shot up to an unseasonable average of 95 degrees during the day this week (33 or so Celsius), which has everybody in The Land of the Beautiful People (a.k.a. Lakeview, the neighborhood I hang out in a lot) walking around wearing as few clothes as humanly possible. And it especially doesn't help that it's Pride Weekend as well, and that the sidewalks are cluttered with all these hot little punk-rock lesbians, with their short hair and their black socks and their braless undershirts and their not-wanting-anything-to-do-with-me. Ugh. Anyone feel like fucking an unemployed travel writer, just as a public service to the rest of humanity?

Someone left a rather nasty comment the other day over at my business blog, [metafeed], which has had me thinking; among other things, they asked how I plan on dealing with this short fuse of mine when it comes time to actually open this arts center I'm trying to open right now, and to be a legitimate businessman in the community without alienating half the people I'm going to have to deal with. And the answer is that I'm not sure; this is probably the one biggest issue concerning the center, in fact, that I don't yet have an answer for. (That is, it's the one most pressing issue that I can't solve by looking something up in a book.)

I like to think that my public lashing-outs derive primarily from a feeling of helplessness; of being in situations where I have no power, and am getting fucked over by people with power, and having literally no other options in my life for dealing with it other than writing nasty little screeds about them. I also like to think that, once this center is actually open and I actually have some power, that this lashing-out tendency will naturally ebb away; that when I actually have the ability to solve problems in my professional life through smart, quiet means, I actually will. But who knows? I can't predict the future any more than you can; there's always a chance that I will remain the same ranting, screaming, smug son of a bitch I am now, even after the center is open and I'm actually in charge of my own destiny.

I've spent a lot more time thinking about this than I think a lot of people realize, because I readily admit that my temper is going to be a major problem when it comes time to actually open and run the center. As this commenter at my site mentions, even business owners have to deal with assholes on a daily basis, and in most cases that business owner doesn't have the luxury of simply flipping the asshole off and telling them to suck their gigantic red dick. And I agree with this, and over the last nine months I've been spending time thinking of very specific scenarios in the future that will likely piss me off, and how I'm going to deal with such scenarios when they do occur. What will I do the first time we book someone famous, who comes in and acts like a complete prick to everyone on my staff? The first time some drunk 22-year-old poet starts a fistfight on the premises? The first time one of my employees steals from me? The first time one of our audience members refuses to shut up during a performance? The first time one of my volunteers has a bad experience, and writes a bitter, self-righteous little rant about me at their blog?

It's virtually guaranteed that all the things mentioned above will happen, and that they'll all likely happen within the first three months of the center being open as well. And how will I deal with it? I like to think that my reaction to such situations will change from the one I have these days, because I'll finally be the one in charge; I won't have to scream and yell, won't have to call people soulless whores, because I'll actually have the power to change the situation rationally and for the better. I like to think that I'll remember all the humiliating, degrading ways I've been treated as a bottom-rung employee at various companies over the years, and be determined to never treat my own underlings in the same manner, hopefully eliminating many of these crises before they actually occur. I like to think that I'll listen to the complaints of others, have a small-enough ego to be able to admit sometimes that they're right, have the courage to actually change situations when those situations are causing people to be miserable. I like to think that when all of these things are in place, I won't actually have to go around screaming and yelling and flipping people off, that I can simply deal with situations in the calm, rational way that hundreds of mid-management asshole bosses of mine over the years couldn't.

But like I said, who knows? Maybe I'll be just as bad as I am now, and eventually I'll alienate everyone I need to make the center a success, and I'll spend the rest of my life rotting away in some debtors' prison in the wilds of Australia. I mean, I don't think that's going to happen, or else I wouldn't be spending the tremendous amount of energy I am right now actually trying to open the place. But like I said, I can't predict the future any better than you can. For those who are curious, though, it is something I think about a lot, and something I'm already making plans to deal with when it's time for the center to actually open. That's all I can do, I suppose. Well, that and get laid a little more often.