On Americans and Such Things

So it's time. Time to blog about a specific person that forces untold are pressuring me to blog about. Whereas she may not be "my bestest estest friend ever," I will begin to proceed to blog about someone who has greatly impacted my life: Reagan Hartley. The first questions that come to a person's mind when they think of someone impacting another person is influence in political values, economic, physical, or mental support, or a model for inspiration. Hysterically enough, and with NO offense to her, Reagan has provided me with none of these things, although she has brought me delicious treats to school (and is scheduled to give me pancakes tomorrow). :) No, Reagan has provided me with something much more valuable. Reagan and I are two completely different individuals; she is a classic "American" girl who does "normal" things and lives a "normal" life. I am a cultural relativist who challenges societal pretenses and is constantly pursuing xenophilic endeavors. She is a staunch Conservative and I am a subversive moderate who squeezes out of political boxes. She listens to "regular" music and I have everything from North African Rebel Rock to Alternative Country on my Zune. According to society and common friendship patterns, we should not be friends. As a matter of fact, we should repudiate each other's presence. Yet this does not happen. Reagan's friendship is something i value greatly because it has taught me great lessons about life. No matter how much she says that she's part of the group, Reagan is, inevitably, different. Now I don't believe she would like for me to discuss those differences on my public blog **coughclayaikencough**, but she has her own unique quirks about her that put her in a category of her own. Thinking upon this, if the classic, normal, American girl is different form everyone else, then is everyone else the same? The answer that was bequeathed to me by our friendship is one that I will never forget. No, everyone is not the same, in the sense that everyone everyone has their own mannerisms and attributes that set them apart. Initially, I thought that i was a freak. "Maybe I am out in left field because of my diverse interests?" was my initial thought. But with this newfound revelation, I realized that I was not a freak, and that EVERYONE exhibited their own oddities in some form or the other. For Reagan, it was Clay. For me, it's my relativism. For everyone, it's different. In order to truly see this message, one must think outside of his/her self and reflect on what he/she likes to do. Is what he/she likes to do all that normal? Take baseball for instance. American sport, right? Nothing too fancy or strange, right? Normal, right? Wrong. Who would have ever thought that people would waste money to scream and jump up and down gorging on slender slabs of animal flesh wrapped in baked grain all because a guy on a field hit a ball with a stick? Sounds like they let the freakos out of the Wacky Shack to me. Which brings me back to my original point. We are all unique, no matter how "normal" we try to be. So it's best to just embrace what you like and don't worry about what others think because they're just like you in the sense that they have weird likes. People are people, and I'm glad that I had such a great person as Reagan to help me realize that. :)