I Shall Host You At The Waystation

Plumbing the depths of understanding who you are and who you were meant to be isn’t all bad.  At first, for most people, it's necessary.  We all need to know who we are and how we fit in.  After that work is done, you should just go and be that person.  Hunting for every scrap of your personality isn’t crucial to a healthy life. Although, when you write, you are essentially examining different aspects of yourself over and over again. You end up using every part of your personality buffalo.  It can get really dumb.
(Just like that opening paragraph.)

One of the many unusual parts of me is the need to be a host.  I friggin’ love to host things.  I know, I know. I’ve bitched and moaned about how anti-social I am and how engaging with others is foreign to me. That’s just it.  Hosting means you can control the social environment and be able to interact at the same time.  I like to entertain and cook and serve for people too. I like to figure out what to serve. My wife is the real chef, but I like to be in the kitchen. I like to wander around from conversation to conversation and try and dig into each one.  I like picking out background music. I like to organize games and all of that shit. 

Do I?  Hardly ever.

Here are some remaining daydreams and memories to further explain this fluffy, sweet, and lighthearted corner of my mind.

I have always been obsessed with waystations.  What the hell is a waystation, you ask?  Great question.  It’s the closest term I can use to approximate this emotion, so I’m running with it.  In every big epic movie, there is a scene in a bar, a tavern, a restaurant where characters from the story interact.  They get a new chunk of the story and meet new characters to further the plot.  It’s the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars, the Hogs Head Inn in Harry Potter, the Prancing Pony in Lord of the Rings.  It’s the place where you see the crazy drinks and butterbeer and dragon egg omelets.  I love those scenes.  I always wanted to be a part of a place like that.  I could take care of weary travelers, offer them food or drink and some time by a big fire. You don’t go on the adventure, but you are somehow an essential part of the story.  It appeals to me.

I love entertaining. I loved doing comedy, mostly for my friends and family.  I get a charge out of it too, but making people laugh is a goddamned pleasure.  I remember back in 1989, my grandmother was staying with us.  There was a reunion that year, and some of the obligatory family drama was bringing my grandmother down.  At that time, I taped every damn comedy special that came on HBO.  I remembered one by Alan King, who was close to my grandmother’s age and of her WWII generation. I asked her if she had ever heard of him and I believe she did.  I put in the tape for her and she laughed out loud for an hour.  She knew all the references and she had a good time.  That is one of my favorite memories of my grandmother, even though I didn’t tell her the jokes, I did help get her to laugh.  I turned my living room into a waystation for one afternoon.

It comes from a love of giving.  That sounds self-congratulatory, but it is a fact.  Hey, I don’t mind getting things, but I love to give things. I spent thirty years making mix tapes for other people.  Maybe 300 or so at my last count.  I liked barbecues and birthday parties and Secret Santa exchanges and all that corny shit.  I suppose you need someone who’s willing to make the effort to make those things happen.  In my life, it’s me.

If I like creating social events, why am I not social?  I have a few ideas, but the truth is I don’t care.  If I can find a way to create them again, I’ll do it. 

I think I’m supposed to.