Yesterday I had a long conversation over drinks with a new acquaintance. One of those meandering bar chats that feels like forging a path, hacking away at dense mental vegetation. But a path to where, and for what purpose? To nowhere, for no purpose. At such times I can be thoroughly enjoying myself but also questioning my motivations, wondering what people want from each other and why everyone isn't home reading a book or sitting serenely on a comfy sofa. Camaraderie can seem a little pointless. All the rituals and styles of attention-giving, what are they for? I hate hearing women greet each other in restaurants and bars, that shrillness. It's like being cut with a knife to hear it. These days I'm still too hyper-aware of how misleading new connections can be, one moment they seem revelatory and then later those impressions appear false and delusional, breathless teenage stuff. I met the coolest person today etc etc. No one really meets anyone interesting after high school. I observe myself in the overcharged moment and a wry voice does pungent play-by-play. "Here he is trying to be charming, look how easily he slips into that oily self-aggrandizing persona masked as comic self-deprecation. Someone must have once told him that conspiratorial smile is attractive. Mortifying. Back to you, Brent."

Today I have people coming over, more new faces. The world is full of people, apparently. And after that I'm going to need some serious decompression time, alone with my things, in the stillness of my tomblike room. I was built for a quiet life based on the crystalline beauty of dull crushing routine, punctuated with very brief eruptions of activity in the vicinity of fun or even directly abutting fun. I would like very much to continue doing things I feel faintly ashamed of the next day, tiny infractions against decency, wisdom, and good taste. In this way my quiet times have fodder, my normal habit of searing self-recrimination has something to chew on.