Another record high temperature in Denver again today. I didn't really even notice during the day, but my house faces south and the main living quarters are in front. The bricks get miserably hot from the sun and radiate heat all night... It's midnight and my living room is still registering as 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

I attended a company picnic thing today and the heat didn't bother me at the park. Like a fool, I didn't ask to borrow any sunblock and now I can feel the skin tightening in my forehead that says, "sunburn." The entire group at the picnic are nice people, so I wind up asking the same question I always ask: why can't I make normal human connections with these people? It's just not my natural predilection to make good friends, but I should be able to do more than just chit chat and make myself seem boring. I'm not boring and I honestly don't think I'm self-involved (on-line journals notwithstanding!).

CDs listened to:

• Various Artists: Totally 80s (disk 2) (When you have a large music collection, you need to have an appropriate amount of cheese. I'm happy to argue that this 2-CD set isn't really cheesy, but anything with Nena's "99 Luftballons" automatically has a decent dairy content. There's something magical about pop-music confections. They don't set out to be "fun," it's really more of an unintended outcome. Somehow, the context of being "pop songs" liberates the recordings from the heavier requirements of more serious music.)
  
• Peter I. Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker (Complete ballet, conducted by Semyon Bychkov. A 2-CD set and I did listen to both disks today. Is it just me, or do Russian composers have better melodic skills than other groups? Such a treat to listen to the full score--even on a hot day when this Christmas-themed work seems a bit out of place. I've come to prefer the full ballet score to the Nutcracker suites. The brief use of a children's chorus and other touches in the full score show such a brilliant dramatist's mind. Plus, did any composer score for firearms before old Pete T?)