anger management

It was a rough day. I've been angry. I got in the fight today with my bookstore boss. During our meeting, he was defaming a friend who was not present, and I got furious. He called her manipulative and hostile. I bit my tongue during the meeting and asked to speak with him privately afterward. I told him that I thought it was totally inappropriate to say those things about M and that I wanted him to know that I thought that. He said that that was my opinion and that he didn't care what I thought. He told me that he's known M a lot longer than I have, and that she is truly a rude, pushy, manipulative, hostile person. Even if that were true, and I know it's not, I don't think he should say it to a group of people during a meeting. Also, he didn't refer to her by name, but he did say that she had been treasurer of the society for 11 years. I wonder if everyone knew who he was talking about.

Anyway, my bookstore boss loves to talk shit about people, and I'm sure he's been talking shit about me since that little fight. Confronting someone is totally against my reputation, and I think I shocked him. But I didn't attack him personally in any way or tell him, for example, that he is cruel, and I do believe him to be cruel. I didn't insult him in any way. But he's very good at twisting words and situations to suit himself. So maybe rumor has spread--maybe he's said that I'm hostile.

Other things have been angering me too, smaller things. I don't know why, a lot started getting to me last night, and I haven't fully recovered. Erik and I took two walks today, so hopefully that will help. I have a lot I'm stressing about. Probably this fight was a bad idea. But I felt like I couldn't let him say that about M and not voice my opposition. I felt like I would have been complicit, like I had no choice but to stand up for M out of loyalty to her, though she may never know.