re-introduction

I have just re-acquired the internet in my home after a long dearth, in the form of dsl. The flow of bits is now constant, according the flashing green light on my little electric box, mailed to me via the ubiquitous network of brown vans, sporting the fashionable "UPS" symbol.
If I could get one of their jackets... I'd be the talk of the scene.

Scenes.

I had a conversation tonight, during which someone told me that they'd had to leave the scene for awhile, as a reaction to a bad experience within the scene.
I asked, "What is a scene?"
I was told that it was the poetry scene.
"Ok, " I said, "I've never really been in the poetry scene here. Just in and out a lot."

This is in Chicago. Scenes seem really foreign to me now, but it didn't used to be that way. When I lived in Utah, the first scene that I became a part of, outside of the horrid high school scene that I had fought for survival in, was the rave scene. I was definitely a scenester, then. I knew who everyone was, and I knew what was going on. I got satisfaction from that, and felt badly when major events took place that I wasn't aware of.
Later on, I became a part of the poetry scene. I was getting to know circles of people in that crowd, and I wanted to know when and where the events were. Satisfaction.

The person I was talking to went on to say that s/he was back now, and feeling alright about things. A quick bearing of hir immediate sense of wellness.
How much is my own ability to feel good about going out and socializing a measure of my own mental health?
Like everything, I feel that it's the middle ground that is the nice place to walk. Go out, talk to people, communicate as a happy human, and then go back to aloneness, and find some satisfaction in that solitude.
The solitude allows me to write this. The happy human gave me something to talk about.
We're all happy humans, sloshing about in my belly. With some beer. And tea. And a squishy little rice cake with a dot of sweet, red bean paste in the center.
Welcome back to my home, internet.