I'd hug you right now, but then I'd have to kill you.
04.20.2004

This column is dedicated to all of you who have emailed me, posted comments to my writing, written notes, signed my guestbook, and otherwise showered me with attention. It is dedicated to the stranger sitting beside me on the bus while I read Scientific American, to my father, who calls me to make a coffee talk appointment every week, to readers of my poetry who ask me to be their mentor, and to any other individual who has reached out and touched me with companionship, kindness, praise, insults, abuse, and other various whatnots of social interaction.

And got absolutely nothing in return.

I know you're there. I got your comments. I liked them. Thanks. There. I've now killed a few thousand birds with one stone. It's not that I don't like the attention. I'm an attention whore. I'm just an antisocial attention whore, which leads to some rather paradoxical life scenarios.

Frankly, I find the act of frenetically following people around saying "thank you, thanks, nice to see you, thanks, right back atcha, ditto, glad you dropped by, thanks again, no problem, I agree, sure thing, you go girl, give 'em hell, thanks, thanks, thanks, oh god make it stop, thanks" exhausting. Annoying. Empty. Tedious. Time consuming. If there weren't so damn many of you all over the planet, I might be able to hack it. Unfortunately, I have the concentration of an amphetamine-addled gnat. The idea of going to a night club, for example, makes me break out in hives. The blaring music, rooms sardine-crammed with sweaty, screaming, plastered dance bunnies, bathrooms sardine-crammed with sweaty, puking, plastered dance bunnies, and worst of all strobe lighting essentially render me about as mentally competent as a cocker spaniel who has been clubbed upside the head with a cricket bat. I short out. If you pay careful attention, you can almost hear the sizzle as each fuse in my cerebral powerbox goes *FOOMPH*. Welcome to my hour of darkness. Anyone got a 60 watt bulb I can screw into my temporal lobe?

I'm not reticent. No way, no how. "Secrecy" is not a word in my vocabulary. Just ask all the people whose secrets were passed on to me "in complete confidence". Confidence in what, exactly, I've yet to discover. It isn't that I'm bursting to tell others. It's just that I have this tendency, as previously mentioned, to say whatever comes into my head first when asked a question.

"So, what did Terry tell you that was so private?"
"He has a problem with his penis, thinks it might be crabs, and wanted to know how to trea-- oh damn."

To be honest, if you happen to get me alone when I have little on my mind (regrettably, a common occurrence), I will talk your fucking ear off. When I am able to devote my attention to one individual, I can impart my entire life's story, my hopes, dreams, opinions on world politics, the environment, my skin rash, and the crappy bar food in a continuous, uninterrupted hours-long stream of verbal spew. How does that make me antisocial, you ask? Simple. I never seek it out. Oh sure, if you happen to start a conversation and I happen to be there, I'm more than happy to participate, barring extraneous distractions. In fact, you can't get me to shut up. However, I rarely if ever make any effort to initiate the contact myself. Hey, I like gabbing. I also like to lie on my bed staring at the ceiling, play solitaire, write poetry, read anything with printed matter on it from menus to medical abstracts, masturbate, and any other solitary activity that comes my way. The balance achieved by reacting only to the social initiation that hits my verbal G-spot, while rudely ignoring all else, is just perfect for my easily-overwhelmed cranium, albeit not likely to help me win "Miss Congeniality 2004".

I recall only one incident where I actually went out of my way to keep starting conversations, and that was when the person on the receiving end was even more antisocial than I was. I must admit, the entire experience of initiating the contact repeatedly felt unnatural and awkward, rather like an ill-fitting pair of underwear. It just kept riding up my crack until finally I threw the whole thing into the garbage, applied some soothing ointment, and went to bed.

So feel free to write me, call me, serenade me, buy me beer, and otherwise lavish me. I might seem like a selfish, non-responsive, aloof bitch, but deep down I'm... uh. Gregariously non-responsive? Endearingly standoffish? OK, OK, I've got it now: easily blown.

And Dad? Keep calling. Eventually I'll pick up.


make idle gossip (10 comments so far)

come hither - back off


Last 5 entries:
01.14.2007:Finally, a support group we can all get behind
01.09.2007:The City That Ever Reeks
01.08.2007:Waiter, there's a uterus in my soup
01.03.2007:Long Lost Mummy of Nefertiti Found in Smoog's Apartment
12.30.2006:New Year's resolutions we can actually keep



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