I forgot to blog about my meetings with various people over the past week. It was a week peppered with more meet-ups than usual, for which I am glad. Despite reveling in solitude most of the time, there is some respite in having a laugh with old chums. Like Sartre says, "a man rarely feels like laughing alone." I am taking the quote out of context but it seemed appropriate.

I met up with Desiree and Shalene at Spize, 930pm onwards on a Friday night. I think we haven't met in months and months, but they are so carefree and laidback nothing needs to feel forced. I never feel like we lack any conversation or laughter. Half the time we reminisce about JC which is fun, we had quite a few laughs back then. The other half of the time we just talk about random things that come up, throw insults back and forth. Halfway through the night we opened my bottle of Belvedere and mixed some of it in with some really shitty, pulpy orange juice and gulped the stuff down. I hate the taste of alcohol but it undoubtedly loosens people up. Not that we needed any loosening up but it definitely churned out more laughs. Giggling, perhaps, sitting in chairs and laughing about stupid things, getting red in the face, sharing anecdotes. Feeling buzzed, we sat beside each other trying to describe how the alcohol was getting to us. Fuzzy. I say fuzzy. Of course I suppose a very accurate word would actually be "seh." Haha. That Belvedere was 50% and I hadn't realized it at the time I bought it. After they left I lay in bed and sent Gus a slew of messages that, upon reading them again in the morning, felt like a right fool. But Gus understood. And I stopped replying him because I fell asleep.

Then before that I met up with Tammy who just came back from her Aussie adventure. She told me all about her trip and I told her all about what's been happening recently (basically I told her nothing much), but we talked for a long time about other things, about society and about the role of the individual in relation to society. Whether we move in tandem or we choose to resist it... Tammy shares a lot of the same sentiments as me and so I like to talk to her just to reaffirm that my thoughts are not completely delusional. Sometimes we talk about things so seemingly dull, so mundane but we voice thoughts that are similar and I burst out laughing, because all of a sudden I think, this is so obvious, now two people have spotted it. Where is everyone else on this???

And lastly, last night I drove all the way to a condo in choa chu kang for Heitung's 20th birthday :) I spent most of the night cuddling the cutest puppy ever. He belongs to Yushan, and he's a really cute mixed breed who can be contained by leaving him on a table because he's too scared to leap off. One day I think he will learn, and that day will come all sorts of trouble. Other than that, again, we sat around talking about random things, eating satay and other barbeque delights. Talked about traveling, about twitter, about uni. For a long time Marley (the dog) lay down on my lap and took a nap, so cute I wanted to run off with him for good. Lots of laughs as usual, you usually get that in a big group. This is one group of my remaining friends from St. Margs that I still somewhat regularly meet up with. It's always a fun time, it makes me miss the simpler days from back then. Happy birthday Heitung! :)

So evidently this week I have met more than my usual share of the world outside my shell. I am happy because it came in a big dose, and I feel filled, if that makes sense. Sometimes you need interactions with the outside, once in awhile. You can choose to live like a hermit but you mustn't be completely isolated. Solitude is not isolation. I think it's important to draw that distinction. Thus, this was my once in awhile, and I am thankful for it.