I Like All Types of Music, and My Sense of Humor Is So Random

Image by Moviestore collection Ltd Alamy
Image by Moviestore collection Ltd / Alamy

Everybody has a thing—the thing that makes each one of us special. My thing is that I love all types of music and that my sense of humor is so random.

When it comes to music, I'll dance to anything with a good beat. I don't really get hung up on genres like some people do. For instance, some people say that they don't like country, but, to me, as long as it's a good country song, I'm totally into it. Then, when other people are all, "I don't like rap," I'm always all, "What about good rap?" and they're always all, "Shut up, you're so random!"

Seriously, people are always telling me how random I am. Especially when it comes to my sense of humor. For example, the other day, at lunch, Josh was telling us about the B. and B. he and his wife were going to for their anniversary, and I interrupted him and was like, "My wife!" I said it all funny, like that Borat guy does in that Borat movie. Everybody laughed, and then Jenny said, "You are so random." I do stuff like that all the time.

I just remembered something else that is sort of my thing: I like all types of food. Seriously, as long as it tastes good, I love it. My friend Jessica is always saying how she doesn't like Mexican food, and I just tell her, "Jessica, that's because you haven't ever had good Mexican food." I'm from Southern California, which is basically where Mexican food originated, so I know what I'm talking about. But it's not just Mexican food that I like. Mexican, Tex-­Mexican, Chipotle—I'll eat literally any genre of food. Except for falafel or whatever shawarma is.

Another thing about me is that I'm spiritual but not religious.

Have you seen that movie “Garden State”? Remember the scene where Natalie Portman wants to do something totally original that nobody has done before and then she spazzes out and makes all those weird noises and Zach Braff is like, "Shut up, you're so random”? I do that exact same thing. I have been doing it ever since I saw "Garden State" three times in theatres.

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I know that every person is unique, but I'm very unique. I hope. Being more unique than everybody else is also kind of my thing. Sometimes, I entertain the possibility that being unique isn't actually my thing any more than it's the thing of the other seven billion people on Earth, and it's like I'm staring into a soul that is my soul but also everyone else's soul—a sort of soul hall of mirrors that renders personal quirks meaningless.

Blarp! Can you believe I just said “blarp”? Is that even a word? LOL.

Another random thing I do is, when my friends and I are drinking at a bar, I'll take a sip of beer and say, "This is my first time drinking beer!" even though it obviously isn't, and that will make my friends laugh. I do it every time. So random, right? And then, sometimes, when we're out drinking, I do this other thing where, as we stumble into the street, I throw my head back in laughter, then catch a glimpse of the night sky and become awestruck by the true randomness of the stars—gentle, pin­prick illuminations penetrating the darkness, an accidental spill of glittering sea salt on a concave obsidian slab, twinkling down on us across unimaginable stretches of time and space. At that point, an indescribable awareness of our insignificance in the chaos of the universe overcomes me and a passage from my high-school A.P. English class, about the "gentle indifference of the world," floats through my mind. As I try to think of where it's from, I hear one of my friends calling back to me from up the block, because, without realizing it, I have stopped walking and fallen behind. With tears slipping down my face, I open my mouth to reply, but my words are gone, and my friend will have to come back and grab my arm, pulling me forward as she says, "Were you just looking up at, like, nothing? You are so random."

And the thing is? I really am.