how to have fun, a primer

I am not sure that I have much talent at having fun. It seems like when I think "I should be having more fun," I think about going out more at night, generally to events in bars. But I already do that several times a week and I don't really want to do it any more frequently, so then I think, "Oh, I must be having all the fun I can handle."

This is not true. I could be getting massages in Chinatown (let us maintain some purity of thought here, people). Or visiting museums (I don't really like museums ... but maybe I just don't like museums with other people. Hmmn). Or riding the Cyclone in Coney Island (I'm not sure if I even like roller coasters).

One time I thought about visiting some other city, maybe Montreal, and then I thought up a list of things that might be fun to do, but since I don't know much about Montreal, none of them were specific to that city; they were basically things I could do in New York anytime, like "try new restaurants" and "visit independent bookstores." (I never went to Montreal).

I think I might enjoy visiting a department store from time to time, something I have done in New York exactly twice, once when I stopped into Macy's to buy a suit (black with fine turquiose pinstripes - fabulous!) after a long day at the corporate job I held in 2003, and once when my mom came to visit and I coveted a lovely bedspread that I couldn't afford at the time but maybe could now.

Of course those are frivolous things to do, but I think that's the point of fun (I think; I'm not sure). I think I could be looking at bedspreads and, um ... trying different types of baklava ... instead of consuming alcohol I didn't really want anyway in bars because it's polite to buy something while you're watching performance art or ironic nu-wave or whatever.

Don't people go make pottery in the middle of the day* or something? I don't think I know those people.

*I work continually in the evenings and on the weekends, since most of my living is made teaching and tutoring kids when they are not in school. I am basically never free on weekend mornings and afternoons, but this is fine by me, because all of the things people normally want to do during those times are much less crowded when I do them, or when I theoretically could do them, on, say, Tuesday at 1pm.