islands

Me: I’ve sent this reviewer several pleas and still have gotten no response. His review is very late. What do you want to do?

Him: Send another reminder and tell him it’s urgent.

Me: That’s what I wrote in the last two e-mails. The manuscript was submitted three months ago.

Him: Tell him again. Keep telling him. Some people just need that.

Me: It’s very rude.

Him: Some people are just like that.

Me: I don’t have to like it.

Him: But you have to deal with it.

That's true. This is an example from a big barrel of both personal and impersonal islandic episodes.

My boss just delivered another life lesson. This one I already knew, but at nearly age 31 I don’t want to accept it, like a 4-year-old. I give consideration to other people and think I’ll get the same in return from everyone. Living on the East Coast should have worked this out of my Midwestern system, but it hasn’t yet. This will be the thing that either brings me down for good or which I transcend—into drug-like bliss where I’m able to smile at it.

Or maybe I’m not as considerate as I think, and maybe I am getting what’s due to me from sources indirect. It’s hard to tell from inside.

Or maybe this is just modern human protocol.