The apartment has been a real relief, but some of the unpacking is hanging over my head. There's still a lot of work to do before the place will be totally baby-proof and comfortable; I just hope we can get it all done in time to enjoy it. I've recently been suffering from an inexplicable desire to have friends. I think it's a good desire, so I don't intend to resist it, but I do worry whether these visitors to my thought-life will subtract from my internal monologue. Other humans, non-myself, are in a way frightening; what if their pleasantries only cover up a deeper extension of my negative expectations, waiting to be revealed as soon as I begin to feel myself connecting with someone? I've always been a sort of open-book (to a fault); what does vulnerability even mean if not that? Maybe I'm just a normal dude and I haven't really had the opportunity to be friends with people for the past few years, on account of all the stressful stuff happening to me and my family?

I took the 9-axis political test on the toilet recently, hoping it would be a better indicator of where I stand. Here are the results:

I feel pretty comfortable with these results.

Anyway, here's the next transcription from my notebook. I'm gonna call this one, "the chorus". (btw, I finally took the time to figure out why my paragraph spacing has been weird. I guess blogger automatically changed the default. I'll be switching back and forth now that I know how).

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you are the sum of me, but you are not me.

you only repeat back to me what i tell you.

you repeat back to me the words i could never say.

in telling you, i learn about you.

in trying to learn about you, in hearing you talk, i learn about me.

our love is a one way street

that loops back on itself

and ends in the place where it began

but not before making that place totally new.

i am to you every word spoken

and so i am neither thought nor audition

i am somewhere in between

i cover you with a mask of dark stripes

so that i can see your real face.

we costume ourselves together

in hopes of learning who we are

in hopes of discovering that i am someone else

in hopes of reviving an old friend.

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"I'm the president of the hypothetical club"