Having fun is hard work

by genspecial

Is Tywin having fun?

I was thinking just the other day of what a difficult job having fun can be.  Special people don’t necessarily look to have fun.  They often look to either i) better themselves in relationship to others, particularly while others are out having fun (example: stay home on Friday night and read Shakespeare), ii) generally become more impressive to others (example: sit on subway showing others that you’re reading Shakespeare), or iii) remind themselves of times in their youth when they felt like they were true standouts (sit on subway daydreaming about past glories while showing everyone that we’re reading Shakespeare).  Man, we read a lot of Shakespeare!  But is this really fun?  Well it can be, but not always.  What are some of the ways, I asked myself, that are left for Special people to have fun?

1)  One thought was to read a so-called Shlocky book.  Let’s take “Game of Thrones.”  That could be fun, right?  The twisted tale of court intrigue, treason, bloodlines and blood lust.  HBO made a show out of it–it has to be a little bit juicy, yes?  Well it is juicy.  But it’s also extremely confusing.  This special person has searched the same name, “Tywin,” about fifteen times on his old kindle, trying to figure out who this little medieval son-of-a-gun is, which houses he’s now aligned with, whom he’s trying to kill, and with whom he fought during the great war of the Usurper king.  With this many characters and this much confusion, me thinks, I should be reading Shakespeare!

2)  Second thought:  Sports!  Sports are fun, yes?  They are, they really are.  But Special people get hyper-competitive when they play sports.  And when you’re hyper-competitive while playing kids at the YMCA who are younger, faster, and better than you, this doesn’t lead to fun.  Solution?  Organize a basketball game of people closer to your age and skill level.  Good suggestion.  Only what happens then if you still find that you are getting outshot, outhustled, and outplayed?  Your whole line about everyone being younger, faster, better than you is gone, and you’re left feeling totally unSpecial, which is just not fun for a special person.  Scratch sports.

Now I know where you think this is headed—Special people can’t have fun.  Oh woe is us.  Or perhaps, a desperate plea for fan mail about what is left that is actually, truly, uninhibitedly fun in this world.  And, well, yes, I would love to hear about those things.

However, I do have one such thing!  It goes by the name of Wall Street Bath and Spa.  This is a place of magic, and, well, fun.  There is nothing to fail at, nothing to lose at, nothing to feel like you’re unqualified for, no one to impress and no royal hereditary lines to forget.  After all, everyone can get hot steam blasted on them.  Everyone can walk around in a bathrobe ($5 extra but definitely worth it), listen to people speaking Russian, have some pickled herring, and do the cycle with your buddies: wet heat (like swimming in a liquid Halls), dry heat, cold brace pool, start again with wet heat.  Please note that Nothing Special receives no special consideration from Wall Street Bath and Spa.  We just finally found a place where we could have fun.

But other ideas are still very welcome!