Yesterday was my birthday party. Well, it wasn't officially a birthday party - I haven't had a formal birthday party in many years - but I've found that you can declare wherever you are on your birthday to be your birthday party. Naturally, it helps if there are other people around. Otherwise, it's just sad.

I danced some, which is something I don't get to do often. I even had a partner for the Charleston. I think that the person I marry should know how to do the Charleston. I don't think that most people have a favourite dance, but I feel some sort of spiritual connection with the Charleston, because if it's done improperly it looks absolutely ridiculous, but if it's done correctly, it looks absolutely ridiculous.

At one point, I was overcome by a feeling - it wasn't loneliness, exactly, but something akin to loneliness. Is there a word for the feeling of being around people but not with anyone? I know that you can feel alone surrounded by people, but I didn't. It wasn't alienation, but an internal incompleteness. I felt... single? No, that's not a feeling, that's the default state of being - one is only single because one is not anything else.

Besides, if being single were a feeling, I imagine it would be more like Adelaide from "Guys and Dolls" ("In other words, just from waiting around for that plain little band of gold, a person can develop a cold.") or Gustave Colline from "La Boheme" ("Essa bella, io non son cieco, ma piaccionmi assai pi una pipa e un testo greco! [She is pretty, I am not blind, but I would be happier with a pipe and a Greek text.]") Although Colline was the single guy in "La Boheme" because he didn't have a girlfriend, if you'd read "Scene de la Vie de Boheme," you'd know that he had a wife who you never meet. (If you haven't read it, I found a translation of it online while searching for the above quotation. I enjoyed it, but, as with many things I enjoy, I don't expect anyone else to.) So, really, the one portrayed as being single was the least single of them all. Wrap your brain around that one a few times.

Returning to an unrelated thought, I pondered how profound Prometheus' torment was, and how Thor's goats were not even being punished for anything in particular. Still, to the Norsemen, simply being magical goats was crime enough to justify such treatment.

... but I still think that Musette had the right idea: "Io detesto quegli amanti che la fanno da mariti... [I can't stand boyfriends who act like husbands.]"...

Then I thought, "If I were Catholic, would I have to celebrate my birthday nine months early?" Wondering about that kept me occupied for most of the rest of the day.


wish you were here...