having fun | Bertram's Blog

Fun? Me?

January 22, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Daily writing prompt

List five things you do for fun.

Five things I do for fun:

Yep, that’s right — I don’t do anything for fun, don’t even know how to have fun. Even as a kid, I didn’t know how to play let alone have fun. I used to like paper dolls, but after I did the work to cut out the clothes and tried them on the dolls, that was it. I never knew what to do with them afterward. I remember once I spent hours building a small town out of paper, complete with houses and streets, but since I didn’t know what to do with it, I let my younger siblings play with my creation while I sat and watched.

(Apparently, I was born with that trait. My mother often told the tale of baby me and how my eleven-month older brother would play with my toys, and as long as he stayed by my playpen so I could watch, I was content.)

To be honest, I don’t even know what fun is, so I had to look it up. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, fun is “light-hearted pleasure, enjoyment, or amusement; boisterous joviality or merrymaking; entertainment”.

Boisterous joviality and merrymaking are not part of my makeup. I am quiet, the one sitting back and letting other people get rowdy or drink too much or “party” (whatever that is). On my twenty-first birthday, I went to a bar in Central City with a friend for my first drink, but she dragged a friend of hers along. I sat and watched the two of them get raucously drunk. Finally, I went up to the bar and started talking to the owner. Even though he didn’t know it was my birthday, he seemed to feel sorry for me, especially as all I did was order a soft drink. At one point he asked me if I wanted to see his new icemaking machine and I said yes. I know what you think: “Hey, want to come up and see my etchings?” But no. He was thrilled with his new machine, and wanted to show it off. So typical of me! (Typical, too, that I had to drive those two drunks home, stopping periodically so they wouldn’t mess up by new car with their retching.)

I read a lot, but for me, reading is not a “light-hearted pleasure or enjoyment.” I’m not sure it’s even enjoyment. It’s more of a thing I do the in the same way I breathe — as a necessity, a mechanical act that keeps me alive, something that supports calm, and keeps me centered. It’s just what I do. Sometimes, if the book is not particularly stimulating, I let my conscious mind follow the story while my subconscious deals with whatever problems I might have, or even deconstructs the story to see what the author did.

I also like to learn, but that fits in with the whole “reading” thing.

As for entertainment: the last time I had a television (until I moved here to my permanent home, I rented a room in a house that came with a television), I decided to watch Hallmark movies. I figured I’d never spring for television programming, so it would be the last time I had a chance to watch those movies. So I did. But for me, it wasn’t entertaining so much as a study in how to put together a Hallmark movie. So much time for an introduction. So much time until the meeting. So much time for the characters to get to know each other. At exactly what time the big breakup/misunderstanding occurs. And finally how long for the happily ever after ending.

Despite being a rather quiet and serious person who spends most of her time alone, I still do like to laugh and chat with friends, but sometimes days pass without my seeing anyone, especially in winter. (Sometimes it takes more mental energy than I have to make the effort. Luckily, my friends make the effort for me.) In the summer, when I am out working in my yard (again, not really fun for me, though I do like seeing the results of my work) I often visit with neighbors across the fence, in the alley, or in the middle of the street depending on where those neighbors live.

A friend posted on her blog that instead of making New Year’s resolutions or intentions, she’d heard of a different way to start the year: pick a word to be a theme for that year. Sounds nice. Maybe I should choose “fun”?

But no, if resolutions tend to set us up for failure, then trying to live up to a word that is not in my nature would set me up for even more failure.

I suppose not being “fun-loving” is something I should worry about, but I’ve lived this long without being able to list five things I do for fun, so I suppose I can live my remaining years the same way. And anyway, I’m contented, which should count for something.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

Posted in being me, books, life. Tags: dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1826, don't know how to have fun, having fun, reading is like breathing, twenty-first birthday, what is fun. 8 Comments »

Just For Fun

January 26, 2023 — Pat Bertram

Today’s blog prompt: List five things you do for fun.

Knowing me as well as you do, I’m sure you’ve figured out what the first thing I did was. Yep, I Googled, “What is fun?”

I had to research the word because the truth is, I don’t really know what “fun” is. To me it’s about doing something with pleasure or joy or playfulness or laughter or silliness, and very little of what I do includes those feelings. That kind of fun connotes fellowship of some sort, going outside of oneself. I mean, it’s hard to be silly and laugh when one is alone, especially someone like me who spends so much time inside herself. Admittedly, I do a lot of things to “spend” time, such as reading or blogging or playing a game on the computer, but there’s no real element of what I’d consider “fun” to any of those things. I just do them. Especially reading. Reading is as necessary to me as breathing, and I don’t consider breathing to be “fun.” It’s just something I do, something I need to do.

I enjoy the company of others (though preferably just one or two at a time). We talk and we often laugh, but despite the lightheartedness of many of our conversations, I don’t consider them “fun.” Being with people is about connecting, about creating a space for friendship, about feeding the soul, an experience that goes so much deeper than the easy entertainment and party atmosphere that “fun” connotes. If reading is akin to breathing, then friendship is akin to food, and while food can be considered “fun” at times, it’s too necessary to ever fall strictly into the category of “fun.”

Things like hiking and traveling weren’t strictly for fun, either. There was a deeper intent there — sort of a vision quest, or maybe even just a quest (though I was never sure for what I was “questing”).

Writing certainly isn’t fun for me — despite a playfulness that sometimes shows up in my books, writing is way too hard for me to classify it as fun. (And it goes back to the idea mentioned above of spending time within myself.) Gardening is the same — too hard to be fun, as well as serving to pull me deeper into myself.

As it turns out, my idea of fun (the word “fun,” that is) is pretty close to the mark. Various online definitions of fun include: “pleasure without purpose;” “lively, joyous play or playfulness;” “light-hearted pleasure, enjoyment, or amusement;” “boisterous joviality or merrymaking;” “hedonic engagement and a sense of liberation;” “diversion, amusement, mirthful sport;” “a cheat, trick, or hoax;” “foolishness, silliness.” Also “any activity on the positive side of valence” (whatever that means).

So what do I do for fun? I’ll have to get back to you on that — when and if I ever manage to think of something to do just for the fun of it.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: don't know how to have fun, fun, having fun, reading and breathing, what is fun, work or fun. 3 Comments »

Is It Fun Being You?

September 25, 2014 — Pat Bertram

I watched a tape of an old “Boston Legal” show the other night. Although I don’t particularly like the series — it was mostly smugly rich lawyers in a large firm behaving badly — the byplay between William Shatner (Denny Crane) and James Spader (Alan Shore) was riveting. You don’t see many instances of male friendship in movies or on TV, which is compelling enough, but the two characters often talk about matters that are beyond the general fare of television. (Not that I would know — I seldom watch television, though I have a couple of series and a couple of partial series on tape for no other reason than that I have them.)

One such conversation occurred during the show I viewed. Denny, despite his growing Alzheimer’s, had just experienced a triumph over his ilness by having a significant impact on a trial, and afterward while decompressing with Shore on the balcony of Denny’s office, Denny says, “It’s fun being me.” Then he turns to Shore and asks, “Is it fun being you?”

Such a simple question, one I had never considered. Is it fun being me? Although I can’t get the question out of my mind, I truly have no answer to it. I have fun, of course, and while fun is not my raison d’etre, perhaps it should be. Life dumps plenty of sorrow and responsibility on me — I certainly don’t need to heap more problems on myself, and besides, having fun would help balance my life.

But that was not the question. Denny did not ask, “Are you having fun?” He asked, “Is it fun being you?” — which is something completely different.

I’m the one in glasses.

I’ve always taken life and myself too seriously to have fun being me. Oddly, Alan Shore once described me when I was young without knowing he was doing so. As he says to one of his female associates, “When I look at you, I see one of those little schoolgirls, running around in her plaid skirt, always to class on time, the first to raise her hand, the neatest of . . . penmanship.” Yup. That was me.

I’m trying not to take things so seriously, though it’s hard when I seem to be always in the middle of other people’s life and death situations. Still, I need a more lighthearted approach than simply not taking life so seriously. Since I will need to find a new focus for the next twenty or thirty years (assuming I live as long as my mother did) perhaps that focus should be not just being me as I’ve been trying to do, but having fun being me.

And I’ve already taken the first step. Dance class is teaching me many things besides dancing: to be accepting of (and maybe even celebrating) imperfections in me and everyone else; to be committed to something life changing outside my normal purview; to find joy in movement, especially synced movement; to be happy in the moment; and most of all, to enjoy being someone who enjoys dancing.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.