little fucking platos

i have a passion for good, well-built furniture. my quest to build it will now commence. i don't think i'm up for the carpentry apprenticeship; maybe not enough pay or work, possibly no benefits. i think i'll stick to state jobs until something good comes along. maybe i could work part-time somewhere for the benefits and part-time learning the trade in a shop. my job couldn't be more annoying right now, with its bureaucracy and employees afraid to do anything lest they lose their jobs. furniture isn't bureauctatic, nor is it afraid. furniture is just nice lines, good wood grain, something solid. possibly the apprenticeship might help me go where i want to, but i'll have to postpone it until next spring.

an interesting discussion developed among a very sick patient, some other pateints, and me. he came in during my social group and announced to all of us in the room: "my psychologist just told me that there is no past and the future, only the present. the past and future is just another delusion i have." the room immediately burst out laughing. after about twenty seconds he got his own joke and could laugh at himself, which was good, since he could just as easily have assaulted me. stifling a laugh has always been difficult for me, even at the level of self-preservation. he was laughing as though his mood were lighter, so i snuck in a quip: "tell dr. ----- that, behaviorally speaking, the present is only observable through sense data, which means that from the time your sensing mechanism senses something to the time you observe it, time has elapsed, and what you now see as the "present" is really actually in the past, so to speak. so does the present exist?" another patient chimed in, "but what are you doing when you are sensing? isn't that the present?" another patient answered him, saying, "how can you know since you aren't conscious of sensing?" "So you can't know if the present is really taking place, since you can't sense it, because you don't sense sense?" "but i know that i'm sensing..." suddenly, another patient, all 500 pounds of him, boomed from the corner where he was working on a model: "hey you little fucking platos, i'm sensing my foot up your asses if you don't shut the fuck up!"