Weirdness Is Relative

So, I realize that it's been a while since my initial blog posting sent me skyrocketing into the ranks of Almost Entirely Unknown Blogger, and I know that my negligence to post a follow-up pondering session could threaten my title exponentially (the 'almost' is in danger of being removed). However, I refuse to become one of those bloggers with actual subscribers and no real muse, so I decided to wait until inspiration struck. Tonight, it did.

I was out on a date with my boyfriend, and we had gone to one of our usual haunts; the bookstore. Oftentimes, when at the bookstore, we entertain ourselves with many intriguing finds. Not all of the books, cds, movies, and other various products are anything we would ever even consider buying, but many of them can be valued for their quirkiness and the inspiration (or lackthereof) behind them. Tonight, however, it wasn't just the products that struck us as odd, and we had a pretty good time observing the people around us as well.

The first stranger to pique my interest was a teenage boy about our own age. Dressed in your usual t-shirt and jeans ensemble, nothing about him would have caught my eye at all if it weren't for his behavior. The moment we came into view, he glanced jerkily at us, then returned his gaze to the book he was hunched over. We continued to walk past, moving at a relatively leisurely pace as we had all evening to kill and weren't really there for any predetermined purpose other than to be together. However, his eyes darted back to us at least once more, as well as to the people on the other side of the aisle that he was in. Odd though it may have seemed, one look at his reading choice explained his questionable behavior perfectly. The black and yellow volume that he had been studying was opened, its paperback cover drooping, but not enough for me to miss the title. Hacking For Dummies. Sounds like some kid with a need for excitement and a Zero Cool complex decided that the best way to research his newfound hobby was to go to the local bookstore, where they have instructional manuals on absolutely everything! While he was not wrong in his estimation of the variety of texts you can find there, he obviously thought he was doing something much more incriminating than he really was, as he was apparently expecting someone to come by and arrest him on the spot. Certainly says a lot for his intentions, or his experience.

The other individual whose quirkiness particularly seemed to stand out to us had much less motivation for his actions; at least, as far as we could derive from what we saw. We came across him standing in front of the manga section when my boyfriend wanted to get the next installment in one of the series that he is collecting. He seemed perfectly normal at first, some random guy talking slightly louder than normal for a bookstore, although it was understandable since the people he appeared to be talking to were a few feet away. It wasn't until the others started to wander farther off down the aisle that I realized that they weren't with him, and he didn't appear to be wearing a headset; at least, not one that I could see. Upon our approach, he had moved well out of the way of the manga that we were looking at, but although there was all the room in the world, when my boyfriend reached out to draw one of the little paperbacks off of the shelf, the man literally jumped to his left, a completely unnecessary and dramatic dodge.

Of course, these occurances got the two of us talking about the weirdness of some of the people that were out and about this evening. However, after a few minutes of thinking, I came to the realization that anyone who had been following us around for the day would have come to the same conclusion about us. Two teenagers who could spend hours wandering around the bookstore, looking at things that in all rights shouldn't (and sometimes didn't) interest us. A couple who would stand there for five minutes trying to decide how to tell which mushrooms in a field guide were poisonous, only to put it back and move on the moment we decyphered it. People who would go sit on the floor in the middle of a random vacant aisle to look at stuff rather than sit on the empty halves of the benches strewn about the place. I won't even go into the oddities that they would have heard had they eavesdropped on our conversations. Either way, it is a prime example of how beauty (and weirdness as well) is in the eyes of the beholder, and makes you sincerely wonder whether anyone in this world truly is weird, or more to the point, whether anyone in this world truly is normal.

Chaos Theory

So, this is my first attempt at a blog. I've decided to create one so that I could have my own little place out there in cyberspace. I'm planning on using it for two main functions. #1, I'd like to practice my writing skills on the way to eventually becoming a fiction/sci-fi novelist, and #2, I'm just dying to share with the world the insanity that goes on in my brain on a day-to-day basis. Be warned. This may not be something that the world is ready to read, but I figured that humanity has long previous doomed themselves to destruction, what does it matter if I speed it up just a tad. Plus, you never know, the applications my brain makes between the world of science and everything else in my life could someday inspire someone into a scientific breakthrough...or a plot to takeover the universe. Either way, it would probably make things around this little planet more interesting, and with that, I digress.

The topic on my mind today is the Chaos Theory. I'll have you know, the Chaos Theory is a scientific thought process that is quite near and dear to my heart, being, as I am, the teenager that one day sat down and said, "You know, it seems that the longer the world exists, the crazier it gets, and the more the unlikely becomes likely," only to have my dad butt in with, "That already exists, it's called the Chaos Theory." Ever since, I've been keeping my eyes open for examples of this theory, and this past week I have found more of them in a more concentrated space of time than ever. Lets begin with the trivial, shall we?

I started to notice something was breaking loose with the natural order of things whilst sitting in the local park with my best friend. In our town, the word park refers more to a pavilion sitting next to a small playground thingy (that is the scientific term, I assure you), and we were busying ourselves with sitting in the pavilion talking, texting our friends, and preparing a prank for a friend who was coming later. As we were doing this, however, we noticed some strange happenings, all occurring at the same time. First, we spotted an old man driving a riding lawn mower down the gravel path that runs alongside the park. This might have an explanation, but the insane, high-pitched gibberish he was squealing as he rode did not. It was no language I've ever heard, believe me. The long line of people that poured from the woods bearing picnic gear, clambering into nearby vehicles, and driving away at the same time as this man's unusual appearance was also a bit questionable. Then, later, there was the man who was riding along in a golf cart, a small shih tzu running alongside. He disappeared from view, only to reappear a few moments later with a boy about 7 sitting in the cart with him and no dog to be seen. So, ok, a crazy guy, some random picnic-ers, and a dog who can transform into a child. No big deal, right? It was then that the deaths happened.

They say that bad things happen in threes. Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson being a prime example. I would be willing to agree, if not for the fact that I knew of more. Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson both died on June 25th. And then what happens? I'm sitting at my computer on the evening of the 26th, phone in hand, consoling via text my friend who's grandfather passed away earlier that day. As I am doing this, my cousin texts me to inform me that her ex (whom she is still in contact with) lost his father today. Four deaths in two days, and those are just the people I know. Coincidence...or Chaos? You decide.