Dour day.

Ever since I was a kid and I saw my old man's once-high-falutin' career crumble like a sandcastle at high tide, I've perseverated on the Willy-Loman-ization of the workforce.

Lately, perhaps it is a pre-vacation miasma, I am feeling particularly lugubrious. Too much work is too often dumped on me. Too vague assignments allotted too little time. It all leaves me with the feeling that the world, in Wordsworth's words, is too much with me.

Willy, like my father, was done in by old age and his belief in the old, stale blandishments of the Powers that be. Willy believed the promises of his boss--that he'd always have a job, that his dedication and toil was appreciated and would pay him life-long benefits.

My old man grabbed that bait as well. Reckoning that he deserved recompense for years of labor. But when new management came in, for both Loman and my father, both were tossed out on their asses. Leaving them, really, with little more, in the words of Arthur Miller, "a handshake and a smile."

No conclusions to be drawn from any of this. No real point, just--time for another literary reference--a tale of sound and fury, told by an idiot, signifying nothing.

That's me in spades.