Living Out Loud: A post by Southerngirl

It's always interesting to find out how people perceive you. It's always so different from how you perceive yourself. I consider myself to be a bit shy and kinda humble, but when I mention this obvious fact to my friends, they fall down on the floor, hooting and laughing, with tears streaming down their cheeks. It is not that funny.

So here are some of the things I've had said to me over the years. See if you can draw a picture of me from these descriptions.

Story 1

Upon meeting my college roommate for the first time, she said: "Well, I guess you're beautiful, but in a very strange way."

Now this chick came from Oklahoma and was very strange, albeit mentally, herself. When I asked her if she had a boyfriend, she said," Yes he's studying to be a dentist."

Not wanting to show how boring that was, I replied, "Oh, a dentist. Wow."

And she replied, "Yeah, we don't have a dentist in our town. They have one on the reservation outside of town for the Indians, but not one for Real People."

I should have walked out on her right then. But my shyness and humility overrode my desire to punch her in the face, so I decided to give her another chance.

I had the propensity not to spend weekends in the dorm. My roommate did not like this propensity and would often call around trying to find me in the middle of the night, which made for very grumpy boyfriends. Often she would call early on Sunday morning to ask me if I wanted to go to church with her (Miss Not Real People was, of course, a Christian). I NEVER went to church, but she would not give up—even after I threatened to send her to heaven Real Soon if she didn't stop.

The final straw was when I came back to my dorm room one Monday morning and found she had destroyed my JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR CD because it was "the work of the devil".

I moved to a different dorm room the same day.

Story 2

I met my best friend, Deb, when we were put on the same work project—me from the computer center, her from the library. Being a state employee sucks (although the Bullshit Bingo is always good) because the state NEVER has enough money to give raises, yet you have to have an employee evaluation every year. And it being state government, the evaluation process changes every year. Well, this particular year you had to have five other state employees fill out an evaluation on you. So I gave them to five friends who I knew would only say good things. These evaluations were done anonymously and I got copies of them.

I was reading through them, admiring how wonderful I was from all the great things my friends b-sed about me and I noticed that everyone had left Question 10 blank: "What does this person need to work on to improve him/herself?" And they were right. There was No Way I could improve myself. I was exemplary. But then I got to the last evaluation and someone had written on Question 10: "Needs more patience with herself and others." !!!!!!!!!!!

I immediately went to Deb and started ranting about how could someone, someone who is supposedly a friend, say that about me, a person who has the patience of Job and Mother Theresa rolled into one. Deb calmly listened to me until I wound down and then said, "That was me. As a reference librarian, I can't leave any question blank."

Story 3

I lived in Arizona for a while and worked as a press aide for a political campaign while I was there. The guy was running for governor. He was rich and totally looney. I would get him all this great statewide press coverage and he would come into my office and bitch about how the National Press was ignoring him. Of course, bozo, you're running for Governor. Anyway, the guy ends up losing (I mean, he was a liberal in Arizona, what can I say) and when the local paper called me for a quote, I said, "Well, that's showbiz."

The candidate was not pleased with this quote, but the campaign manager (who was from DC) came into my office laughing and said, "I'm always impressed by people who have that bizarre combination of competence and goofiness."

So there you are. Got a picture of me now? I wonder if it’s the same one I have of myself.

A post by southerngirl