Conversation

I've been thinking lately about how I seem to have lost the skill of starting a conversation. Somewhere along the way....in middle school I think....I started getting shy. I guess that ends up being when everyone starts with being a little self conscious. Over the years, I have mostly grown out of being really self conscious...as much as just about anyone does, but I still cower when it comes to striking up a conversation with someone. I want the conversation come to me. Get me started, and I don't always know when to shut up, but when it comes to me initiating something, everyone is bound for some awkward silence.

The internet provides plenty of nice outs for folks like me. We can make blog posts that start a conversation with no one in particular, but fill (in a weak way) the need to get things out. We can find answers to questions without ever having to ask someone. We can buy things without shopping around an having to talk to sales people. I think if I really let it happen, I could become the hermit that some part of me I don't like finds comfortable. I've got to working on the part of me that loves people. The joy of spending good times with friends is too much to keep passing up.

Playlist:
Tom Waits - Mule Variations
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova - The Swell Season
Jens Lekman - When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog
Smile Smile - Blue Roses
Sufjan Stevens - Michigan
Over the Rhine - The Trumpet Child
Richard Swift - Dressed Up For The Letdown
Red House Painters - Red House Painters I
R.E.M. - Accelerate
Band of Horses - Cease to Begin
Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs
Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight
Morrissey - Kill Uncle
AC/DC - Back in Black
Why? - Alopecia
Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks
Van Morrison - Moondance
Elliott - Song in the Air
Antony and the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now
The Appleseed Cast - Two Conversations