day nine, yesterday, was the first time i managed to take advantage of the other benefit of new york: everyone passes through at some point or another. eva's parents (as i noted to them, i've been promoted from "eva's ex-boyfriend" to "family friend," so hitherto "the holtzes") were in town, so we got together for dinner, which was nice -- them, the family friends they were traveling with, the latter's son and daughter-in-law. it was just a really nice dinner, and i once again astonished myself by being able to be at least vaguely charming despite feeling that i was running well below 100 percent.

this last part, which keeps happening, is actually a rather alarming development. most primarily because it proves that i don't actually need as much sleep as i thought to have a functional life and even to make a (small; i have no delusions of grandeur even when i'm at a hundred percent) positive impact on others' lives. which is sad, because i really like sleep, and it's sad to think that it might ultimately be a selfish act. i mean, black-box-wise i really seem to be okay in this form (although the emotional balancing act is somewhat more tenuous); even before dinner, when i was at danielle's, i was leaving as her parents and brother (newly age 13) were arriving, and i even pulled out a classic mike develin 30-second talk-incredibly-fast whirlwind routine on my way out.

of course, one thing that helps is that by and large since i've been in new york, it's been groups of people. i came to an epiphany (even capable of having epiphanies here!) the other day -- it's almost tautological that when you're with one other person, you talk half the time, while when you're with say 5 other people (as was the case at dinner the other day) you talk 1/6 of the time. but this factor of 3 is difficult for me, and seemingly it's a universal problem: the number of things/smart things/whatever that i come up with certainly doesn't go down by a factor of 3. if anything, it goes up, because you have 5 other people to feed off of instead of 1. now, of course, with 1 person you can have more intimate conversations; i'm certainly not saying that i'm not still a 1-on-1 person fundamentally.

i mean, i am, even if in new york it remains to be seen whether i can consistently pull that off. but the group-of-6 thing: i feel i can never strike a balance. either i'm quiet, or i talk half (or ... more than half) the time, just as i do with one person. something that occurs to me is that this no doubt has something to do with whether someone is perceived as quiet or loud. i doubt we're good at adjusting for the number of people in the room when we make these impressions of people.

anyway, day nine progressed and is over. still alive, still sane.

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