I'm on a roll, with all the girls I know

I had an interesting discussion about authenticity last night. Of course, this is a discussion I've had many times, and my position on it is difficult, to say the least. It's hard convincing people that the authentic self that everyone is looking for is not our instinctual selves, but rather the modified self. For example, someone who tries to correct potentially annoying behaviour because she cares whether she is annoying those around them. Let's say she wants to say something, but doesn't. I would argue that this person hasn't betrayed her "natural" (authentic) self at all. She *is* that filter. We are our minds, and that is what separates us from beasts. In general, I think we must believe that we are our modified selves, or that we could never improve and that we are slaves of instinct and habit. I am quite aware that I do not act the same way with everyone, but that is because I'd like to act in the way best suited to the person I'm around, and that is me. I like to please, or I'm happy when others are happy. Whatever you like.

Richard cancelled on our session at the last minute last night, again. I was already on my way to Linda's house, in fact. We still had a fun time, playing this new game called Lunch Money, but it was rather annoying. I am bothered by two facts about this incident:

a) there was no advance notice
b) Richard has given different reasons to different people

I'm exhausted. I can't remember if these kinds of things always happened before, or somehow our dynamics have changed into this retarded environment. He told Sabrina that he was to work early and didn't want to stay out late, which is something he left out when he talked to Linda. He told Linda that he just didn't have anything prepared, and he had not known we were playing so he didn't want to prepare it, and he didn't want to spend his holidays preparing it. There are a lot of valid reasons in there, and I could accept any of those (except that he didn't know if we were playing, because we play unless someone cancels), if he told us in *advance*. Linda said she got the impression that Richard feels like he's the victim in all this, which just makes it worse, because he'll be on the defensive. I don't think I'm going to touch this one.

We went to MexiTaco and I asked for some hot sauce. The waiter/proprietor/dude prepared some and as he put it on the table he told me "You're on your own". That could explain my stomach turbulence this morning.

Mark and Linda got into another argument last night, with Mark threatening to leave and Linda telling him to do so. Mostly I just sit back and try to let them resolve it, until Mark was gathering his stuff, then I tried to saying something. The argument was about how Linda's Meloku deck was pretty much entirely Mark's creation and he tells her that "a smart person would do this". Linda has mounting frustration over the poor performance of her deck and is enjoying Magic less. So I said that in the end we really just want her to have fun and no matter what we say and how we come across, we still want that. And if the changes we suggest will make her enjoy the game less than by all means ignore them. Things calmed down eventually, but I still think Linda was unsatisfied by the end of the night.

I got home at around 1 and Nads and I talked until 2:30am. I got five hours of sleep.