I've taken to measuring my stress in the morning, during my commute, in PPH. It gives me a pretty good indicator of how my day is going to go and whether I'll be able to work through lunch or if I'll have to take my book and go to the park and eat ice cream, just to keep from killing whoever happens to walk through my office door.

PPH is profanites per hour.

It takes me about thirty minutes to get into work on an average day -- give or take an Eddie Bauer Expedition-driving idiot or two -- and if my PPH stays anywhere under four, I can be pretty sure it'll be a good day. Four to ten or so and I have to put some time aside to stare out the window and breathe deeply and look at pictures of my kids. Ten to twenty PPH -- and if you think five or ten curses in a half-hour commute is a lot, you don't live in LA -- and I'll shut my door as soon as I get in to work. Twenty to forty and I'll tell my co-workers to nail it shut behind me. Above forty and--

The restraining order forbids me from talking about above forty.