Cynicism

I recently found myself watching a video talking about how when you are younger you imagine yourself as a different adult than what you actually become, because your perception of what constitutes adulthood changes as you move into the age where larger society considers you an adult. While I understood the point made (my mom always says things about still not feeling like an adult) I found that this was not at all my experience. Thinking about how I've always envisioned myself, I realize that what I'd thought I'd be like is really not that far off from the truth. It's sort of ridiculous, but I always thought of myself as some sort of single independent woman, bohemian and all, living in an apartment with brick walls and an exposed beam ceiling, and green glass bottles against a window. This is a big part of the reason that I tried to be a vegetarian in 7th grade. Not because I had some huge guilt or political agenda about eating animals, but because it fit into the type of person I wanted to be. I'm not sure just how shallow this is. Probably a little bit shallow.

Over the past four years or so, I've become fairly comfortable in my single living stance. Not that I want to be single forever, but in the "God if I'm going to be single forever, that's completely OK, you know, just as long as I know" way. I also have become pretty comfortable living in Troy, and I can't imagine being willing to move somewhere for someone. That someone would have to mean quite a bit to me. I would have to love him more than Troy. It could happen, I suppose. I mean..... it isn't an impossibility.

For a hot second I allowed myself to get swept up and lose my callousness. No more.

Someone posted a twitpic of Daria on DVD. I've been searching for this show on DVD since TV on DVD was first a popular thing. I love Daria. I decided to look up some old episodes on the internet. They weren't too hard to track down.

Ever since I was young I looked up to snarky, cynical, sarcastic women. My favorite Christmas song was always Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses. Ladies like Daria, Margarate Cho and Janeane Garafalo inspired me in the nineties. More recently we've got the sass of Jenny Lewis, and the dry deadpan wit of Zooey Deschanel. I've always been one of those ladies who get along with guys better than with other ladies, but this kind of lady really appeals to me.

I think this has to do with a lot of factors. I'm sure my family dynamic had something to do with it. Though my dad might have been the breadwinner, my mom certainly wore the pants. When I picture myself in my ideal job, I think of my favorite art class in high school and replace my favorite art teacher with myself. My favorite art teacher, of course, being a guy. I knew plenty of female art teachers, but I never envision myself doing things like they do them. I don't know that I picture myself as a guy, but rather, that I see myself as genderless in those situations.

When I pictured myself, I never really imagined what sort of career I'd pursue or what sort of education I'd have, but allow me to be conceited for a moment and say that with finishing up my Master's degree, I feel that the type of articulate discussion I am able to have, the cutting way in which I am able to defend my point, the depth with which I am familiar with my interests, this fits in very well with who I had hoped to be. Sarcastic women are smart women are strong women.

My mom always encouraged me to be the type of person I want to be, but at some point she started worrying out loud that my outward appearance might scare off boys. My stance has always been that if they wouldn't want to date me because I have short hair, I probably wouldn't want to date them either. It's like a douchebag filter.

I start to worry that having such a jaded personality will be more of a wall than a filter, but if other people have gotten past it to break it down in the past, I suppose I shouldn't be worried that such things won't happen in the future.

Just when I thought seventh graders were bad...

Yesterday I worked at the middle school in Troy. There were no sub plans. Last week of school and I haven't even been given a task to TRY and keep the students on. I found a word search in her filing cabinet, and to my great relief, most of the students attempted it. There were the typical arguments. You give an inch, they take a mile.

After work, I spent some time in my garden and drove up to Saratoga, dodging a possible tornado to go get some road trip supplies with my mom. We went into Wal-Mart, which would be my alma-mater, if that somehow was latin for significant high school / freshman year place of employment.

Walking on the right side, as we have so carefully been taught to do in America, my mother and I found ourselves head to head with a woman pushing a shopping cart. We moved over to the far right, assuming she would do the same, and we would awkwardly bypass one another. However, this was not what happened. The woman with the cart, as though we were invisible or perhaps this was some sort of game, came right at us with her cart. She did not slow down or make any attempt to not run us over. My mom said it felt like she actually was trying to push her cart into us. Having to lean far to the right, and lift up a leg for safety, I shot the woman an incredulous glance.

"This is the EXIT, ladies," she scolded, with a self righteous smirk.

I lost my mind right there. Scraping it off the black corrugated rug, I paused, rotated back in the direction of the woman, pushing her cart into the parking lot. "B*tch!" I said, though she could not hear me. A guy about my age behind us gave us a sympathetic glance and gesture. I talked for about twenty minutes about violently hurting her, or verbally abusing her.

"That was theee RUDEST thing I've experienced ALL DAY! And I subbed at Doyle today, so that's gotta be PRETTY rude!"

My mom told me that I have to let it go. The next time someone does something like that to me, I'll pull it together quick enough to react in a constructive way. I am going to follow whomever and politely inform him or her of why his or her actions are entirely unacceptable. Sort of like when I'm subbing.

Sorry, Mom. I can no longer agree with you that the people in Saratoga are sweet, kind, and polite. I have NEVER had such an experience in the public in Troy.