went to $1 margarita night tonight. first of all let me just say this: i need more girl friends. because inevitably it ends up being me and a table full of boys, each out-macho-ing the next. i love them dearly, my boys, my posse. but it would be awfully nice to talk with grrls during my rare nights on the town. i suppose what i really miss is what Younger Brother calls my "wine-drinking art parties," at which few people actually drank wine, but the conversations were always filled with wry puns and witty banter. i'm getting tired of discussing people's love lives and gossip and cars and music. does anybody around here read for pete's sake?

i'm probably being unfair. i know that my friends are interesting and intelligent. and maybe they just want to relax for an evening without thinking too much. but that's the way i'm wired. i think solving word problems out of the mensa quiz book is fun. nothing energizes me more than a challenging debate. chances are i'm just weird, but it does explain my fascination with diaryland chat; so many interesting people.

on my way home tonight i stopped at the Local Convenience Store for some late-night munchies, and walked in on about five policemen busting a couple kids for shoplifting robitussin. i'm not sure i understand kids today. i'm less sure that i understand parents today: it was 1 am, why was this thirteen-year-old kid anywhere, let along in a convenience store shoplifting cough medicine to get high with? i hate the fact that so many kids have nobody in their lives who gives a damn. they deserve better, and they deserve it before they do something dumb and land themselves in juvenile hall. because in my opinion, juvenile hall is the place where petty theives learn to be real criminals. there's something really wrong with a society where kids' punishments turn them into hardened criminals.

in other news, i voted today for the first time. and the person i voted for won. somehow i feel really good to know i contributed to his victory. it's a pretty cool thing, this whole democracy idea. capitalism is a whole other story, and i'll get to it some other time. the system has its faults, but it's still nifty that i get to help choose the people in charge. here's hoping they're the kind of people who deserve to be in charge.

too tired to keep going. signing off. -beatpoetgrrl

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