Sometimes I take entirely too much enjoyment from certain minor occurrences in life. For example, while walking around in public, I apparently am constantly listening to the brief fragments of other peoples’ conversations as they walk in the other direction past me. I don’t have any intention of doing so, and 99% of the time I tune it out completely; but like the constant ringing in my ears from attending too many concerts, it is always there. Every so often, though, I will catch some tidbit that completely catches my attention.

It doesn’t really matter what it is, necessarily. It could be something completely mundane that I zero in on for whatever reason, or it could be something incredibly interesting that makes me want to turn around and go talk to the person who said it. The majority of the time, though, it is something so completely vain or ridiculously stupid that I just burst out laughing.

This can be problematic when alone, garnering strange looks from other pedestrians; but especially so when it happens while walking along having a conversation with someone, as the laugh never comes at an opportune moment. If only it would happen immediately after something I am supposed to laugh at, but sadly that’s not how the world works. I then have to explain my whole “listening to tidbits of random passing conversation” thing, which at best gets me a strange look and at worst gets me in trouble for not paying attention to what they were saying.

It is something that has always happened with me, and as a result of it being somewhat abnormal, it is a very slight source of self-consciousness. I don’t exactly try to hide it, aside from trying to control my reaction; but I don’t talk about it either. My good friends have long since made fun of me for it, gotten that out of their systems and accepted it as part of who I am; and my girlfriends all learned to stop getting pissed off at me when I quit paying attention to them in the middle of what they consider to be an extremely important conversation about their cousins roommates pet tarantula and how gross it is.

One day though, I was walking with some girl having a conversation. I had never met her before, but we were introduced by a friend who had to leave for a few minutes, and instructed us to meet him somewhere shortly and then proceed to some party. So we walked. At one point in the conversation, my ear caught something hilarious from a gay couple in passing. Simultaneously, the girl and I swung around to look at the man from whom the remark was uttered; and burst out laughing. “Oh! You do that too?” was her reaction. It was one of the few times I have felt something truly in common with someone. Now that I think about it, I actually find that to be somewhat sad.

    In the course of my daily life, I have come to realize that while I am cynical a lot of the time; I also have flashes of childlike happiness, which often come from the most random, inconsequential, or strange occurrences. I don’t quite understand why, exactly. I guess I just never bought into the social constructs of what is SUPPOSED to make me happy. I take only rare enjoyment from television, movies (unless they are particularly well made) or tabloid magazines. Amusement parks fail to amuse me. Drinking and drugs, while “legally” not supposed to catch my attention, are encouraged by my peer group as a cool way to have a good time. Once again, doesn’t do much for me. I’ve given it all a chance, but everything I see my friends and classmates running around doing generally bores or annoys me.
    One trend I have noticed is that all of the things that are supposed to make me happy also involve the spending of the precious commodity that we all lust after like hyenas: Money. It seems that everything that is hyped up by our society as being a good time or source of entertainment also winds up being a financial drain. $60 to get into Six Flags. $20 to go see a movie. $40 dollars plus cab fare for a night out at a bar. And, for the most part, people buy into it. Hooray for blind consumerism, I guess.
    No, I get most of my enjoyment from free things. Hiking, climbing random things, mountain biking, exploring abandoned buildings, tresspassing and various other activities of the sort tend to capture my interest; while generally requiring minimal cash expenditure. They also, generally speaking, take me outside of any sort of social structure; as I tend to go alone. I guess I’m a loner at heart.
    Beyond all of that, though, I derive great pleasure from even simpler things in life. Not quite to the extent of me being such a dullard so as to waste hours giggling and swatting at some keys dangling on a string, but perhaps close. These smaller occurrences will be chronicled in the posts following this one; in a riveting series that will continue until I come up with something more interesting to write about...

    Well then, this is my first post on this blog. I always find this an interesting and frustrating position to be in. What do I say for the first post? Do I tell you about myself? Well, I suppose I could, but that would be pretty cut-and-dried. Do I tell you about what this blog is going to be about? Well, I could, but it's not really going to be about anything in particular, so scratch that. Do I just jump right into posting? Well, I could. Then again, I could jump right into conversation with a total stranger on the street for no reason; but it would seem rude to not introduce myself.
    I considered, briefly, finding my old Xanga site from when I was 15 and just copying my first post from there and using that as a substitute for having to come up with something interesting. However there were two issues with this plan: 1) I don't remember the name of it, and 2) The grammatically incorrect ramblings of a bored high-school student in this same position would likely be far less interesting than anything I can pull out of thin air at the moment.
    Now that I think about it though, I guess it really doesn't matter what I say for my first post. Nobody knows the blog exists so nobody will be reading this post anyways; and anyone I tell about it already knows me, so there is no need for an introduction. Hopefully people will read this eventually, and ideally by then there will be content for them to enjoy other than the first post. I'm not so sure what that will entail. Rants? Short stories? Political and social commentary? Valuable insight into day to day living? Well, maybe not the last one. I don't know, just stick around and we will see.