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Twice in the last two weeks I've come home feeling under the weather only to fall asleep for three hours or so. Then, I wake up with every muscle aching, cold sweat, and burning hot skin. I figure that it's just my body reacting to the laissez faire approach I take to my health when ennui or depression sets in.

I had one of those moments of clarity where I saw myself yesterday, and I realized that I really am odd, that people aren't just messing with me when they tell me that I'm weird. I saw the asceticism and the love of expensive things; the slow, shambling demeanor and the passion for ridiculously fast, insectoid vehicles; and the perfect manners highlighted by the farm-hand vocabulary. I thought about all this. I thought about the nice Japanese meal I was eating, the French polo shirt I was wearing, the Japanese car waiting out the door, and my blandly middle-American looks. I thought about everything I've done and seen and gone--from small-town Montana to the here and now. In that moment of clarity over my niku udon, I came to a simple conclusion for one of those questions that always bother me: why do people think I'm weird. The answer? I'm really not all that odd inside; it's just that different things matter to me than other people.