I tried for a while to think of a subject for tonight's post.  Ultimately, I couldn't, really.  Maybe a bit of rambling will get me through, at least I'll have put finger to key (pen to paper being somewhat outmoded; soon, I imagine, pencil and paper will be back in style, being "retro."  Give the typewriter another 15 years; in ten it'll be adopted by hipsters, in 15, it'll be "mainstream.")

I've never been much of a "group" person.  It's not that I'm antisocial, but I always end up on the fringe.  I've always been too reticent to throw myself fully and completely into a group of people.  When you're friends with just a few, you can choose to point out or ignore their follies - it doesn't have to be a commitment on your part.  In a group, though, when a direction is decided upon that you cannot agree with - that's cause for hatred.  The expectations are far different, and that sort of commitment to an uncontrollable mass has always scared me, if that's the right word or not.

My life spent apart from others has had one interesting side effect, though.  It has given me a rather detached, observational perspective.  When dealing with those with only marginal emotional connection to me, I develop a sort of Jane Goodall approach, in which I've been accepted as part of the events but am truthfully rather apart from the whole thing.  I find humor in events and situations through the continuous irony that underlies human existence, even when involved personally. 

Not to say, of course, that I associate with others with the intention of using them for humor.  I enjoy real relationships with others, of course, but I cannot help but observe the continual, impeccable comedy of human life when it rears its head.  The wise tiger Hobbes once stated, "If all the world's a stage, it must be a farce."