Kate Hahn in McSweeney's:
Get obsessed with celebrities, even more than you are now. What gaping hole inside myself was I trying to fill that I had to bend entire nations to my will when I just could have lain by the pool all day reading the tabs? That's what my spiritual advisor Angelica—her office is over the chip shop—made me realize. Don't even miss the bloody battles with Raj followers anymore. I'd rather speculate on what's going to happen on Dr. Who or look at pictures of Billy Piper on holiday.
Yeah, she's bloody worth crying speechlessly over isn't she? Oh, you're shedding tears for your lost ideals? You say you pissed away your Manifest Destiny? Yes, yes, I understand. All right then, if it will make you feel any better I'll, as Angelica says, share. Don't tell the Persian Empire this but when I first retired, I used to flat out bawl for hours. I'd whinge on about England and pith helmets. Didn't know what to do with myself. I felt as scattered as those tapas plates they serve here instead of a proper meal. Used to sit in my room in the dark and order Chinese.
Oh, bollocks. Sorry. Don't moan. You're not the only one hates those Mandarin bastards. Heard of the Boxer Rebellion? That empire tried to kill me but now if I want a good pool noodle I've got no choice but to buy it from them. Those buggers have import/export locked up.
More here. [Thanks to Nikolai Nikola.]