...Are we human, or are we dancers?

Dunno. Some gay drivel i heard on the tranny at the gym.

Today was the first day in rather a long time i felt at all like a human.* Last night i breached the mind-warping looney bin of pre-xmas Wal-Mart 'cuz i was so desperate for glucosamine. This was unwise, and i left in a blank stare wondering if the universe could really tolerate such a dense profusion of entropy in such a small area; but i prevailed.

Seriously: electrons are not particularly intelligent or predictable, but they do what they're supposed to do. That is, they stay the hell as far away from each other as they can manage. Wal-Martians, on the other hand, although approximately on average of the same intellectual bent as electrons, are mutually convinced that they, individually, are the only ones in the damned store. While electrons are arguably not convinced of anything whatever, they do strangely, by their God-given aversion to other electrons, thereby acknowledge the presence of the others.

i found myself, with my glucosamine, deodorant, and contact solution in the oxymoronically labeled "fast lane/self-checkout" line. There probably exist stores where self-checkout kiosks are a fine idea, but if i'd noticed that caveat on the sign when i got in the line i'd have nipped off and found me a nice half-mile long line with a cashier. i was second in line to check out. Second.

You get numb to hearing about the brain-dead exploits of the Wal-Mart crowd, i realize. Normally, though, they're just irritating-- maybe in the same way you or someone dear to you becomes wretched and irritating upon entering Wal-Mart. But this woman had three children and long about 200 items in a self-checkout line. That'd be plenty irritating, but she apparently thought it'd be socially acceptable to let her 11 year-old girl scan everything. Hijinks ensued. The lady behind me (and very likely several of the ladies in the 2 miles behind me) started cursing and gnashing her teeth. Fifteen minutes later, after learning which bit of each package she'd need to scan in order to make the robotic voice stop accusing her of theft, and having fetched a cashier from an otherwise smooth-flowing line to help her scan a picture frame with no tag on, she mercifully paid to end our misery. Only, lo and behold, the eleven y/o had reserved several items in the cart she wanted to pay for with her own money. Finally, she turned around and apologized to me that she'd never have expected it might take so long to check a mere 200 items (or however she phrased it in Ghetto). Then the yotch traipsed off, left her effin' cart parked right in front of me (like that's where, as far as she knew, Wal-Mart tends to store their carts), as well as her sparkling daughter, who was still trying to figure out from which complicated hole her change was gonna emerge when i took my receipt and bolted.

It was worth it though. i went to the climbgym today, and felt like i was gunning above 50% for the first time in months. Still not close to full-bore, and my ring-finger tendon and biceps still bark at me, but they let me climb. Retro-flashed a v4 endurance problem, almost got my project 4, and then tagged the penultimate hold on another 4. Nothing earth shaking, but it was awful encouraging to know i can still climb. Now to address those new year's resolutions...




*Or rather, like myself in a previous, better state. Couldn't rightly say i've ever felt like a human. Never been close enough to one of 'em to say if we've anything in common.