Hormones + beer = desire to curl up & stare blankly at wall.

Strange day.

The first tangible effect of the finance meltdown....a longtime colleague in my department was downsized out. (I missed the event and her dramatic exit....on the phone with my sister, deep in conversation about an equally distressing situation in her life, go figure.) To their credit, the CFO and president called the other client service rep and me in to explain that our jobs were not imminently in jeopardy. Unless, of course, things got a ton worse.

This was at 3 p.m. The market dropped a 200-point anchor by 4. Tomorrow the head salesman and I discuss what ex-coworker tasks fall my way. Grateful for my employment at this point, I guess....the benefit of being the only person who knows how to do my job.

So I was already in mid-afternoon tired when this happened, not focussing. Then the CFO -- the one I'm Done with -- reappeared in an e-mail at about 6. Not surprisingly, he apologized for his 3 weeks of silence. More surprisingly, he suggested that he had started "seeing someone a bit," which left him little energy except to see her and watch the Red Sox playoffs. (This is my celebrated ability...to meet men who don't want to be in a relationship until they meet the person they start dating immediately after me.)

Most surprisingly, he and the "someone" were discussing having an open relationship. Hence. He had enjoyed our time together so much he wondered if, once he got a few things sorted out, we could discuss "picking up where we left off" and seeing each other on a mutually agreeable level.

Yes. Getting my brain around this: A scheduled and approved other woman? Sounds peachy.... I could choose not to be the first woman in a man's life, but the second.

(I promise this is not the last commentary on this subject. The brain is moving slowly. And I feel like I got punched in the gut.)

A good thing the day ended soon after with a cathartic 5-miler, in the dark, in the brisk chill, around Southie's Castle Island, with my boy Bill, in from Holliston. (And who, ironically, is the first one who told me to be Done with the CFO, about a month ago....) The legs, still overaching from Saturday's hike, functioned in run mode when they had to, and it felt good. Then we went down to Shennanigans for some salmon filets and beer and talks about our grandparents.

The beer was the last ingredient....combining with the day to provoke the desire: to do nothing but stare, think, and weep a little for reasons I can't articulate. All of which I will probably do when this sentence is complete.