We are social apes - there's no denying that.

You know it's a good show when you're singing so hard your forehead is sore. Or when your right leg is so exhausted you can barely stand, but once the music starts you don't even feel it anymore. When you're dancing so hard you can feel your brain rattling around your skull in its hydraulic buffer.

That was last night's show. It met yet defied my expectations. Thanks, Brendan. Thanks, Chris. I hope your mouth still feels OK.

The family next door had a party on Saturday. I'm assuming it was a 5-year birthday party from the balloons out front, but they had a DJ spinning a pretty good new wave mix. I only heard a few minutes as I stopped home to grab a few things and change my mode of transportation, but it was pretty cool. For once I didn't mind their daytime party music. Not that it happens often or goes late, so it doesn't really bother me at all.

On the way home last night, I saw a Scion billboard that said "*$#! The Joneses." I think this is a brilliant example of the isolationism promoted by car culture. I dont agree with the "keeping up with the Joneses" concept, but the whole "fuck them" concept isn't exactly the best response. Yes, there's no point trying to be someone else, or keep up with their consumption patterns; the idea that if you buy a *Scion*, you'll somehow be independent of that compulsion to consume is geniusly ironic. But we are all members of the human community, and while emulation serves to stifle our creativity and beauty, isolation stifles it just as well. We are social apes - there's no denying that.

Laura said I'm incapable of bullshit. I like that. I don't think it's completely true, but I'm glad I come off as genuine to those who know me well.

My day today was fucking long. Who would've thought? But man, do I feel like I've learned a lot in the last year; helping someone else do something you find basic for the first time is like that. But fuck, I spent all afternoon working with Marcela on this one patient who, frankly, was a pain in the ass. He was up to all the textbook behavioral delay tactics. It didn't help that his mom was coddling him as well. Shit, but that took fucking forever to deal with him.

So after some reading and a roundabout ride to get some stamps so I can renew my car insurance and dental license, I got home and had some eggrolls for dinner, along with a nice glass of green tea with honey. I finished reading Hey Nostradamus! It was a good book, but there wasn't much plot resolution. There was plenty of character resolution, but it was of the more realist non-transformative-life-experience bent. I'm sure that if/when I reread it, I'll get a lot more out of it. But, combined with the gray rainy long-ass day, and my own post-weekend exhaustion, I felt like crying. There wasn't anything in particular. I just was gloriously unhappy.

Sitting and reading and drinking tea made me realize that I don't have an armchair. Despite living here with this furniture for a year, it didn't strike me until now. For the last seven years leading up to last August, I'd always had an armchair that was mine, that I would sit and read in. That would be soft and supportive on all sides, that I could reach out from laterally and manipulate various objects on various surfaces. There was something territorial about it, but not really. It just was full when I was in it. Of course, I recall one ex-girlfriend who I shared it with, but that only made it better. But there was always a sense of completion in the armchair. Maybe I'll get one. I doubt it, though; I don't have room. I have my loveseats and my couch. I have my bed and desk chair. I have the floor. I have kitchen stools, and my kitchen chairs and table. Hell, yesterday I sat for a while in the sun at the kitchen table, reading, leaning back against the wall, and the feeling was almost as good as being in an armchair and relaxing with a book. But only almost.

Three things I'd like to get:
1. Vespa
2. Miniature schnauzer
3. Armchair

Man, am I fucking exhausted. No stolen poetry tonight.