Emoblog/2017/11/21/fun

Sydney posed the question "if life isn't a rehearsal, this is all there is... and if it's a rehearsal, who do you want to be when the curtain rises?", which inspired me to answer thusly (I probably should have answered in the future-past-tense, but this is what came out):

I want to be someone
with friends
who will look me in the eye
while I look into theirs,
and lean on me
as I lean on them,
who will stay with me
as I stay with them,
who will find joy
in being together.

I'd been thinking a lot about the idea of "fun", and what it would look like for me. At first, the only thing I could think of was that moment in the fall of 1981 when the four of us (Jenny, C, E, and me) were still friends, and we all were sitting on a picnic table at Quaker Lake enjoying the warm evening and talking and leaning against each other. I feel like I've been trying to find a way back to that moment ever since then.

But then Sydney and I were playing silly spelling-games on Mastodon the other day, and I actually made her laugh... and I realized that playing those sorts of games is also fun. It was tinged with a bit of sadness because I knew it wouldn't last forever, but it was fun doing it.

Between those two aspects, I found myself in that headspace where quiet hysterical laughter so easily becomes crying. I was missing it already, even as I was in it... and I think that's partly because it reminded me of Tigger. (I have previously lapsed from hysterical laughter to crying when thinking about Tigger.)

The first time Tigger and I encountered each other in person after actually getting to know each other, I was still living at home and we'd only ever been in touch via letters – so we were both ridiculously nervous around each other, and every attempt at conversation seemed to die into awkward silence... until I started saying random words, and observing how woody or tinny they were.

And that's when the conversation really got going. I think we must have gone back and forth for about an hour on that theme, as we walked around the neighborhood. Nothing else was discussed; just [random word/phrase] plus an observation of how woody or tinny it was, usually accompanied by some sort of pretend small-talk ("simply ghastly... can't abide that sort of thing"). I can't remember any of them except "telephone pole" and "shower curtain" (particularly racy, that one).

That was fun. I think we played other games like that, later on, but I don't remember at the moment.

So that's two or three things that are fun. Surely there are other things?