something in the air
WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON
I can’t seem to string a decent number of words together and am reduced to posting creepy vintage salad recipes/advertisements on Twitter rather than talking about my life. Oh diary-readers of the future! Once you had a smoothly flowing personal narrative, from which you could construct a detailed picture of the writer’s life and society, now you have bullet points and memes and jumping from bit to bit.
I seem to dwell quite a bit on the idea that future anthropologists will read personal diary-style blogs as historical documents, which is ridiculous because even if they do they will not be reading MINE. I am very much a nobody. However, I recently took another look at my fourth-grade Snoopy and Woodstock diary and apparently I was taking that tone even then—lots of “Dear Reader,” jokes, and sarcasm. The earliest blogger!
At least my fourth-grade diary was vaguely focused on things that happened, as opposed to the teen diary. So self-involved! Such a misunderstood snowflake! I am getting to see the narcissism of teens from the other side now, as I listen to N’s endless tales of how different people in the eighth-grade class laugh and sneeze and dress and talk. N and friends are always picking each other up and comparing shoe sizes and texting each other EXACTLY what they’re doing right now, and they are so, so, SO into themselves. It’s normal, they’re all figuring out what sort of people to be, and it is vaguely cute that there is this tight-knit group of kids, many of whom have been friends since kindergarten, all very tolerant of (and fascinated by) each other’s quirks and foibles. I don’t necessarily want to hear all about it, though. On the other hand, I usually make the right sort of interested noises because at this stage of parenting I should be glad that she talks to me at all (and I am, truly).
Have you ever met someone who never grew out of that, though? It’s tedious. You want to have an adult conversation, and yes you want to get to know that person, but in an organic, polite way. But with that person, everything always circles back to OMG I’m so random! Like the other day! I just started singing for no reason! And I put salt on my watermelon! Like who DOES that! And I had the craziest dream, and I will tell you all about it!
Anyway, I should get off my high horse.* I am clearly typing all sorts of words about my very own self, so just because my desire for attention is a bit more sophisticated than the above example does not mean I am a better human being. We are all just drab lumpy root vegetables, jumbled together in a bin with all the other drab lumpy root vegetables, secretly hoping someone will see how very special we are. Ah! THIS potato! I pluck you from the pile of other potatoes, and cherish you for all time.
*Why is the horse “high” and not just “tall” that is very strange.
WEIRD SEX PEOPLE I KNOW OR DON’T
I had another horrid all-day meeting, the kind where I have to be at work by 7 am. It was so damn early I saw a skunk ambling home at the end of his night, like a club kid who closed down the place. Hey skunk bro. Have a good sleep. I decided to treat myself by taking the bus to the train instead of walking like I usually do, and as I was waiting on the corner in the dark I saw a guy standing in the window of the second-floor apartment right in front of the bus stop. He was shirtless, and eventually I noticed that he was masturbating while standing there.
Now. He wasn’t necessarily masturbating AT me. There was no eye contact, and he was kind of just staring off at the horizon. It wasn’t an explicit show—I could see what he was doing but not the details, as it were. And there’s nothing illegal about jerking it in one’s own dwelling, but it’s gauche and weird to do it right at the window like that.
I got mad about the whole situation, picked up a rock, and threw it toward the window. I did hit the window (which is kind of amazing, if you know me) but didn’t break it, and the guy took several steps back and stared at me, and then pulled down the window blind.
The bus arrived, and I spent the ride wondering how I got so impulsive so early in the morning, and what would have happened if I had broken his window. And if he had called the cops and we both had to tell our respective stories. We were both in the wrong but I was sort of more wrong. But QUIT CHOKING THE CHICKEN WHERE PEOPLE CAN SEE YOU, my god how many times do I have to say it.
Then, THE SAME DAY, at the aforementioned meeting, a guy I work with used the phrase “money shot” in his presentation. Multiple times. At a break I was like hey maybe don’t say that. I’m not offended, but you know. Phrasing.
Guy: Why not?
Me: Uh, because? Of what it means?
Guy: What? What do you mean? It’s just a phrase? Like, you know…the best part of our thing.
Me: [explains, delicately.]
Guy: Oh my god.
Me: Yeah.
Guy: I thought it was a filmmaking term.
Me: Well…it is, in a sense. But.
—mimi smartypants, close to her word limit.