How often is that my mood? ~.^ Interestingly enough, my Sunday consisted of the repentance of a few of those luscious alcoholics that feel the need to neck when they're married and drunk. And work. And commute. And oversleeping my alarm by about twenty-two minutes, forcing me to rush my shower, skip shaving, shoddily brush my teeth, and scream out the door, blaring Maroon 5 from my CD player. And rushing to my car and doing eighty-five on the highway, a little blue electron jetting into the dull, dreary city and smog and hadrons and concrete where his energy can be used and drained, and where a single photon can once again restore his life. Yes, Sundays are always good days, especially when no customers come into your store. It means no business, no action, equilibrium. It means paper football with a manager who's essentially having you as a guest, and talking in a pattern which vaguely resembles a parochial confessional. It means laughing and lazing, sitting still, and getting paid. It means dying to be outside while trapped in a cubby hole, refusing the urge to pollute your lungs while the last dregs of alcohol burn from the night before. But, somehow this Sunday felt different from all the rest, more surreal, more ethereal, like one of those strange trances you can induce with dry-erase markers or a small amount of hydrogen peroxide. I felt like the entire day I wasn't me, per se, but that instead, I was watching a performance that I had to give. A recital. A demonstration to myself about how to live and love and not care for the rest. And not worry. And react and think and pulse like the rest of the human race doesn't. My identity has never meant more to me than the past few weeks, and never have I been more defensive, yet I have also never been more introspective. While I watched myself today, somewhere in my calcium casing, I could feel that I was somehow clear. Somehow resolute and peaceful. Somehow clean, untarnished, brass newly Brasso-ed. For today, I had my deep Turtlewax shine. And all the blood and guts and glory and dirty faith and dirty ambition and water and snow can't touch it. Can't come near it. I'm only waiting for tomorrow, when the inspector will come up to my shiny brass buckle and scratch the steel wool over it, and I'll wonder when I get the shine back and work hard to get the gouges out. Until then, Sunday, until then. Just greet me next week like you did today, and I can mark my calendar.