I Said NO.

I despise you, I thought, trying very hard to relax my face from 'menacing glare' to 'they pay me to be interested and polite.' A moment later, I caught myself picturing him as a frog and realized my internal scolding was wildly ineffective. When I conjured a lovely picture of a car squashing the frog and staring at a flattened creature that would no longer hop about so annoyingly, I sighed and gave up.

I was a very angry Katie.

No, wait.

I am a very angry Katie.

"So we make a rule," I explained to Dad when I returned home from my latest trip. "And I try to enforce the rule - do what's right, toe the company line - and the damn people complain to my boss and he just reverses it all! And, well, fuck! What am I supposed to do if Baby can just run to Daddy every time Baby doesn't get what Baby wants?!"

Someone approached me for money at the airport, taking my boarding pass out of my unsuspecting hands while she talked about how families needed house and oranges and string beans. And couldn't I help?

"No!" I said, barely stopping myself from stomping my foot while I looked at her with shock and disgust. "And this is mine!" I continued, snatching the paper back while she looked surprised. "I may look harmless," I muttered to myself, "but people should Just Stop."

"Fine," I snapped when a colleague - my least favorite in the whole company - asked how I was. Do not be nice to me when you're going to go over my head as soon as I tell you no. Jackass. I rolled my eyes when he told me good night later that day.

It's unusual that I'm quite that blatant in my disdain for another human, I decided. Yet it seemed to be my dominant reaction to most everything.

Yet it wasn't until just now, when I curled around Chienne and her warmth soothed my crampy tummy, that I realized it was hormonal. The rabid anger had seemed normal. Seething impatience justified. Crazed need for chocolate - I nearly got up while the plane was taking off to claw the candy bar from my overhead luggage - a standard craving.

Excellent, I thought when I realized. Still only about 48% evil. It's just intermittent circumstances that make me hate everything.