FAME

I’ve always known that my perceptions of reality are a little off. Whatever I’m most convinced of, or most sure of always turns out to be completely the opposite.

When you’re me, you find out that the fun-loving gay man that you took for a cuddly, Judy Garland-singing compatriot of the arts will only end up showing up early for work one day so he can appear to be “getting a jump on things” for the boss, but will really be planning to catch you alone, in a corner by the coffee-maker, with no witnesses. Thus cornered he will spit out in stunted, rapid fire bursts, “Do you think you’re smarter than me? Really? With your ‘education’? You know, just because I didn’t go to ‘college’ doesn’t mean I don’t ‘know’ anything. You think you can do my job? Are you trying to get my job?”.

You will stutter out a response, mainly consisting of excuses that you haven’t even had your first cup of “joe” yet, hopelessly attempting to lighten the mood, your mind swimming as to how you are going to work all day with this psycho-path not two feet away from your desk… not working on his job, but gleefully chattering away about where he and his partner will take the camper this weekend and what “awesome” new mango-margarita mix they will use for the evening parties.

Equally harrowing are nights I spend alone, and in shame for harassing the few decent humans during the day. Those perfectly lovely people who I assumed were dull, stuck up, snobbish, or silly are now, at this moment, having delightful evenings out with their many devoted compatriots while I stay home and watch Pride and Prejudice… again… without any sense of irony, because I have yet again proved myself unworthy of being trusted with that rare jewel of simple friendship. So yes, my first impressions are consistently and dreadfully wrong and I’m always second-guessing the reasons why I’m doing things… but I supposed that’s human nature and I am a natural woman.

Given that, it’s only natural I should have a penchant for misreading or mistreating social situations. Far from being a personally unique attribute, the genetic nature of my malady reared it's head one Christmas at Midnight Mass when instead of solemnly reflecting on our mortality and the simple gifts of life, both my sister and I found ourselves choking back peels of laughter and unbridled snorts over our misinterpretation of the lyrics found in Oh Holy Night which inevitably earned us a withering look from the pastor. It’s not that I cannot feel deeply or glean the importance out of a solemn situation, or a Jackson Pollack, or the French cinema, it’s just that I’ve generally completed the task earlier and my mind feels at liberty to present me with abnormal considerations regarding the event and I feel I have no control over how deep or shallow these may be. This could be a character flaw… “Perhaps,” you say, “perhaps you could show some self –restraint”. Well yes, I suppose, or I could let my wanderings have their liberty and let it reveal to me the deep-seated truths of my own nature.

One particular nature-defining story of my mental wanderings took place when I was in middle school. I went to church youth group a lot and like most middle-schoolers, it was for purely social reasons. Well, we were sitting in a circle one evening talking about how we wanted to die. I have no idea how we got on the subject, but I was thinking really hard and I wasn’t listening to anyone else’s answers because I was so busy racking my brains trying to think of what I was going to say, so when it came to my turn… I sucked in my breath, lowered my eyes, and slowly (in what I thought was a reverant tone of voice) said, “ I want to die saving someone else”. I was so proud of my answer and so proud of the response it got. I just wanted people to think that I was someone interesting, you know, a something-more-than-what-I-thought-of-myself-at-the-time type person. And that’s how I knew… I wanted to be famous.