wednesday, august 25th 11:12 pm (2004)

I feel numb. I have a hard time having a conversation with R. Compassion and gentleness don't seem to affect him. He has so much anger there is no such thing as understanding.

On the way to the movie (The Corporation) tonight he had the talk radio blaring as per usual and grumbled about the points being made. I tried to just ignore it all. I hate talk radio! On the way home from the movie he told me he was wearing one of his anti-corporation T-shirts at work last night and a co-worker, "if I could understand his thick accent," said, "You just don't give up."

I told him he could take it as a compliment and he said, "But that's not how it was intended."

I said, "But you still could. You can take whatever is said to you to feed your anger or fuel your fight." (What I really said was "fuel your energy," but I meant "fuel your fight.")

He said, "Why would I want to take something other than the way it was intended?"

I said, "People are always misinterpreting what is said to them."

He said, "Oh, absolutely." And he said it in a way that sounded to me like "End of discussion."

But of course, I could've just been taking it the wrong way.