My retail therapy isn't working.

[constance]

I've found that the best way to deal with holiday lines in popular discount stores, when you're forced to set foot in them to buy dog food, when people have two cartloads of things and at least four of them need price checks and the cashiers would clearly rather be anywhere else but standing behind that register (and who can blame them?), is to stand in line and daydream. That way, when the guy in front of you has talked his way through the line and then the checkout process and refuses to get off the phone even when the cashier has a question for him, your brain doesn't collapse in on itself like a dying star from sheer rage, you just think about how you're going to arrange the new picture frames on your wall.

Hypothetically speaking. (Although the frames do look kind of pretty, if I do say so myself.) Today's meditation wasn't about frames, it was about why I love imperfect things. Because I do, you know. I used to have this car, for example, a ten-year-old Nissan. It was one of those talking cars, remember them? Except by the time that I inherited it (from my baby brother), the car had long since stopped talking when it was supposed to talk, and had taken to introducing conversational non sequiturs at random times. I kind of loved that car for its fucked-up-ness, and also the fact that I understood it, that I knew what how to stop it from telling me ten times in a row that my door was ajar when it was actually firmly closed, that I knew how to tell when the blinking Check Engine light was kidding and when it wasn't. It was a car which would've made most people homicidal, but I actually missed it when it was gone. I still remember it with an exasperated kind of affection, take pleasure in the oddnesses that only I appreciated. My secretly fabulous car.

I pretty much love everything and everyone I love in this way, am as fascinated by the flaws as by the beauties. I wish that more people were like me, because I'd kind of like for people to see me this way. Not to think, ho-hum, now here's a woman with nothing to recommend her, but take a little time to let me get comfortable and discover that the extra effort was somehow worth it. That I'm smarter than I look, maybe, or not quite as ludicrously ordinary as I seem. I mean, I don't know that those things are true. But there must be something unique about me, some combination of beauties and flaws that makes me worthwhile in a one-of-a-kind way, mustn't there? If I can see that in pretty much everyone else, it must be in me too, even if I don't know exactly what it is.

Because you know what? I've reached the point, as I do sometimes, where I'm tired of being a factory second. I'm grateful for the one or two people in my life who understand me well enough to think I'm worth spending time on, don't get me wrong. But. But. I wish people would listen to me. I wish people would ask me questions, and think, when I answer them, that the answers were worth the asking. I don't know how to make people notice me, don't know how to step up and demand to be heard -- I'm not wired that way -- but I wish I did; I wish I knew how to live my life on the surface so that people thought immediately, wow, there's someone worth knowing.

Well. Anyway, it was a long line. And even though I got back into my car depressed, at least I didn't lose my temper. Right?

Comments

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

Hey, we listen to you. Of course, we're mostly introverts, too, but we love you anyway. :)

*hug*

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Yes, you guys do listen to me! I'm glad you're around -- I would be lost without my beloved internet. :*

[tilney.livejournal.com]

I'll just let you know that when I see a new entry of yours, I always open it in a separate tab and when I'm done with everything else, I read yours, slowly and very frequently with amazement at your understated yet indisputable wisdom and sensitivity, thoughtfulness and delicate sense of humour. It's like dessert, in a way. There are some journals that I couldn't care about without the picspams or fiction or funny links. Your is perfect the way it is, and I don't need anything but you in it to keep me infinitely interested.

So yeah :D.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhh... how lovely, that you knew exactly what to say to make me feel instantly better. *holds your hand tight*

[tilney.livejournal.com]

You're very very welcome :)

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

I totally agree.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

:*

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

You know what tilney said? Well, same here. I always get a little thrill in my kneecaps when I see a post from you, and then I save it till I'm done reading all the others. And after that, I usually read it again.

I love this observation about loving the flaws in people/things. Your secretly fabulous former car sounds like a quirky friend that only YOU understand, and I love relationships like that, whether it's with people, appliances, or animals. Sometime when you have time, I'd love to hear about more of the imperfect things you love. You have a way of describing things that just delights me.

The world really isn't set up to notice quiet people, is it? When Heather and I were friends, it bothered her that I didn't toot my own horn about stuff she thought should have been, I dunno, advertised, and was forever tooting it for me. It was like having a publicist. And that was sort of fun for about a year, because woo! Being noticed! Heady stuff! But ultimately, that didn't feel right, either, because of course it's not the same when you're letting some loud, brash extrovert do the, "Hey, check this out!" for you. Nowadays I'm back to my usual invisible self, and people who take the time to listen are thin on the ground, but last week I met a lady who did, and it made my whole day.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Someday I will maybe make a list of some of the pathetic castoff things I love, just for you! :D

You are very right in everything you say about being one of the quiet people. I can't remember every having had an extrovert to brag on me, but I can imagine it might get a little embarrassing after a while. And mostly I don't so much mind invisibility or anonymity as seek it out, and so it's nobody's fault but my own when I start to chafe.

Those people who come along and listen to you, they make all the difference, don't they? I am very glad that we have each other to listen to, even if we are an entire country away from each other, and I'm also glad that some of the smart people on your end are stepping up.

[xanthophyllippa.livejournal.com]

I'm sort of tired of being a factory second.

I went through eight years of grad school feeling like the student they let in because the better ones all went elsewhere, and like the student they were biding their time talking to until the one they *really* wanted to be discussing research with got back from lunch. Some of this is myself talking, but a lot of it came from things that my advisor said to me in particular. Like, I'd go to talk to her about my paper, and she'd start off by saying, "I just read Jennifer's draft, and it's SO. COOL." Then she'd tell me about it. Then she'd turn to me and say, "So what's up with your paper?" And I'd sit there desperately feeling like I should apologize for not being as cool or as smart as Jennifer.

For eight years.

Anyway, I have a similar interest - for me it's failed ideas. I come from a field that was highly influenced in the 1970s and 1980s by sociological thinking about "symmetry" - that is, the idea that we as scholars (and also consumers, a bit) should treat failed ideas or technologies with the same analytical scrutiny and fairness that we treat successful ones. That is, that we shouldn't dismiss something as useless because it failed, but rather should examine the reasons behind its failure as legitimate thought- and value-processes. I have to tell my students this all the time - that they can't just say, "Wow, were people ever stupid in the 19th century to believe that!", but rather they need to ask, "Wow, what did people believe to begin with that made this idea so successful?" It's all very cool.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, I feel for your experience, I do. I ended up out of architecture school after a particularly dispiriting lecture from a professor who said even with the best designs in the world, I'd never be a decent architect if I couldn't learn to SPEAK UP FOR MYSELF in crits.

I think you're much cooler than Jennifer, by the way. And that your advisor is sort of awful. What kind of fucked-up teaching method is that, to imply a comparison of one student's work to another's?

I agree that this idea of academic symmetry is incredibly cool. I need to think about that some more; it just pleases me enormously.

[octoberstory.livejournal.com]

There is an infinity to recommend you, and you are so much more than worth the extra effort. Although I would argue that there is not so much effort involved in getting to know and love you as you might fear--that your natural consideration for others counterbalances your introversion very beautifully.

But I concede that yours is not a personality type that people recognize as dynamic or attention-grabbing, that ours is not a country that values soft-spoken reason over screaming invective. You may never get the credit you deserve for the simple reason that you don't demand it loudly enough. I'm sorry things usually seem to work that way.

Still, I maintain that to know you, Cam, is to love you and to respect your judgment. And anyone who dismisses you out-of-hand clearly doesn't know his anus from his ulna, because your flaws are about ten times more attractive than most people's best qualities.

♥

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Oh, Ameleh. I would crawl into your lap, but I might squish you. Instead I will just say this: ♥♥♥♥♥♥!

Speaking of sizes, could you email me your t-shirt size -- S or XS? I am making a project for you for Christmas that makes this knowledge imperative.

[octoberstory.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, t-shirt! XS please.

And sweetie, you can crawl into my lap any old time. I think there's some sickening dried syrup or frappuccino base stuck to it, but it'll wash off. *hugs*

[lindyhoppr.livejournal.com]

Ditto on everyone who has already said that they look forward to your posts. They've said it better than me already.

I agree with you on the crazy special things to love. My cats are surly and have taken to clawing the door at three in the morning, knocking off christmas ornaments just to see them on the ground, and putting their butts in one's face only to fart. Mr. Cohn hates them because of this, but I love them even more - I think it is because it is a challenge.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

It's a challenge, and it's also like holding the key to an important secret, one that everyone has access to, but only you have taken the time to figure out.

And thanks, you. I am feeling much better today, after reading such lovely things.