I did it! I left the house! We went to an open mic night at a coffee shop. It was, um... At any rate, the point is that I went out and did something instead of just sitting on my ass in my house waiting for work to begin again.

But the point of this entry is really to mock the mentally ill. In case you had some respect for me, this will be the entry that causes you to discard the remainder.

So, to get right to it, the highlight of the open mic night was this 12-or-so year old kid who was sitting in front of me who appeared to have some kind of mental issue. He spent the entire evening turned around in his char facing me, waved compulsively and repeatedly at me. Like if you saw someone you know across the street at a bus stop, and you waved at them. Except from 3 feet away, in a room full of people who are trying to listen to a bad guitar player with big hair, and at a person (me) who you did not know from Adam.

This, of course, is my worst nightmare, since whenever I go out I want nothing more than for no one to notice my existance. Nothing could be worse than taking a seat next to a 12 year old who is constantly drawing attention to you, calling down scowls from the surrounding folk-musing-enjoying AARP members at the "Espresso Garden". The first 3 or 4 times I waved back. Then I tried not making eye contact. Then I tried staring at my coffee, and then the floor.

Don't get me wrong, the mentually ill don't make me uncomfortable. Quite the opposite, in fact; I enjoy the spectacle of watching (to put it politely) an alternatively functioning nervous system. (Santa Barbara has much to offer in this regard.) Not to mention the smug relief that goes with being reminded the continence is a privilege and not a right which I have luckily been granted. But interacting with said people is another thing entirely, something I'm completely unprepared to deal with. And so that's why I have decided to come home and write nasty things into my blog. That and the fact that our network is down and writing in my blog is about the only thing my computer can even do.