If you’ve read my blog before, you are aware that I try to write in a positive light. A funny anecdote here…a poignant little “Life Lesson by Lori” there. Not today. Consider yourself warned, and stop here if you’re looking for a little Mary Poppins/Little Orphan Annie positivity. I am fresh out.

I am three stomach pills and two pain patches into my evening, and right now one child is screeching “everybody haaaaaaaaaates me!” at the top of his/her (okay, her) lungs, while two more deal out their self-imposed righteousness on her, because clearly they are FAR too cool to play with anyone besides each other, and they like cutting her down. They are a very small, very obnoxious little gang. What they fail to remember is that this is my turf and I am the ultimate warlord in this house. Oh, sure—I’ll let them build their little enterprise of snobbery for a short while—give them the false illusion of power. Then I will crush them in true, spectacular warlord style. The whiny one will mistake my annoyance for benevolence and pledge her lifelong allegiance to me. I’ll take it. I could use the spy power, frankly.

The remaining two children are in their room playing a game where the apparent object is to “KILL! KILL! DIE! DIE!” I do not endorse this game. I have vocalized this. Several times. That’s all I will say about that. For now.

Why the fury? That’s the thing—there are some really craptacular things going on (see below), but honestly, they’re all manageable. I just feel like being mad today about all of them at once.

*My dad is back in the hospital with some crazy things going on that no one can explain.

*I was rejected by the Mayo Clinic today for help with my GI stuff, basically because I am only very sick. Not very, very sick.

*I am up to my eyeballs in work projects that are high-visibility and very complicated and SO NUMEROUS.

*I have to present to 175 people in NYC in a few days and I’m a little stressed. When I’m stressed, I can’t stray far from a bathroom.. I can’t find a bathroom that will hold all 175 people to whom I need to present.

*My husband is awaiting a job offer that seems to be forever in the making. For. Eh. Ver. He’s certainly tenser about this line item than I am, but tell that to my intestines. I dare you.

*I am tired. I am so tired. I feel like the demands of work, parenthood and being a human are a Hefty bag over my head and somebody’s cinching that &$@#&! Cinch-Sak a little tighter every day.

I hate myself just a little for being stressed out about all of this. However, I am writing this in case you just feel like being mad too. Here’s the best I can do in the Pollyanna department, friends: if you feel like you could drop kick a kitten and smile about it, you are in good company. Angry high fives all around.

I love kittens.

I love my family more than words.

I trust God and His plan for me.

I love my job.

I am grateful for my life.

I am not terminally ill. I am just miserably ill.

None of that has changed my inability to stop scowling today.

Of course I’ll pray tonight and ask God to help me dial my sassy pants back a notch or two, and I am confident that tomorrow I’ll be better equipped to handle things. Tonight though—TONIGHT– I am going to Hulk it out. Silently, but spectacularly. I don’t yell when I’m mad. I get really, really quiet. Terrifyingly, ominously, atmospheric-pressure-changingly quiet. The pets run away. The birds stop singing. Nary a chirp from a cricket. And then it passes, and the woodland creatures cautiously poke their heads out of their homes and I can “glass half full” it again.

Hulk it out if you want to, friends. The warlord will not judge you.