I did an interview today with someone from the Daily News, in charge of covering immigration issues. She told me that some guy (also Mid-Eastern, also Muslim) had his citizenship test (which he passed) in early 2005 and his background check is also still pending. 14 months.

A lot of people thought my bout with depression which hit earlier this year, was tied to receiving the news that my citizenship was going to be heldd up indefinitely while the FBI did their little dance. I maintained, at the time, that it wasn't true because I don't get sad when things don't go my way. Today, I'm certain I was right in my little self-assessment. The reason is, when things don't go my way, I become enraged, not sad. Especially when you've done everything by the book. Maybe it's a product of the age of entitlement we live in, where we believe, to a scientific degree of certainty, that if we take 1 and add 1 to it, we get 2. The world doesn't work that way, as prehistoric hunters will attest. You could do everything right and something could appear from a blue sky and stun you into futility.

I'm being philosphical because that's how you're supposed to be when you're disappointed. But the truth is, I'm enraged as hell. Because the truth is, I count my life as a series of disappointments and console myself with the hope (nee aspiration) that other things will come through for me and make it up to me. My own personal misguided sense of entitlement arises from a personal misguided sense that the world owes me for all the shitty deals I've had to put up with.

What a joke. Me, not what the fates have conspired to do to me. I know I'm a ridiculous man. But all that does is fuel my rage and while some people aim that rage out towards the world, I just simmer with endless resentment and self-loathing. Attractive, isn't it?

Great. I guess I've become a hater. Well, why the hell not? Somebody has to be. I mean, if I wasn't a hater, you wouldn't get the gratification of being able to leave me a comment telling me that I'm not. I underline your lack of hater-edness!

Daily News piece appears Sunday or Monday.