The last post was a disingenuous description of my marriage. Being married to Vlad is fantastic. I am ridiculously and utterly myself to every last morsel of quirk and paranoia my brain can possibly fathom, and for some reason, he eats this stuff up. Really. And it’s amazing because I am a deeply “unique” person. And allow me to expand violently on that for a moment.
I am NOT a “Zooey Deschanel-er”. I don’t think it’s super cute to be as awkward and retarded as a duck who just took a bat to the head and is trying to tight rope walk. I haven’t watched her show, but I’ve seen enough movies with her perpetually-mistified-by common-sense character to know what she’s schilling. And I HATE it. It’s like being a quadriplegic watching a movie about being handicapped where the lead actor clearly isn’t struggling. BECAUSE SOME OF US ARE ACTUALLY THAT WEIRD and it’s never cute. She’s just appropriated the strange white girl version of the word “nigger” and I want it back. Because being as weird as a twelve dollar bill is really, really important.
You see, I painted my nails black once….in 1998, way before it was cool. I suffered a “mental health” talk with my mom as a result, and was made to take it off. My honey-like sister had boys flocking to spend peaceful moments around her all the time. I chose my first boyfriend at 11 because I was impressed by the fact that he knocked me out three times in one fight. I wore tee-shirts inside out and backwards for YEARS as “my thing”, and probably looked just as strange and homeless as you imagine. I am proud of a twisted incisor I have and refused braces. My breasts are two different sizes and I decided, at the age of 15, that I would tell guys they were lucky because they had a “selection” to play it off. I listen to Sting, Enya, Natasha Atlas, any kind of Bluegrass, The Offspring, NIN, Rammstein, William Fitzgerald, Garth Brooks, Metallica, Tool, pretty much anything from the 90’s, Classical, African Tribal music,Throat singing, Orthodox or Gregorian church chanting, Flogging Molly, Sigurd Ros, Regina Spektor, Andrea Boccelli, Ron Pope, Beirut, Cobly Callait, Static X, AFI, Rob Zombie, System of a Down, and a lot more that I won’t write because I’d like to sleep tonight. Most of these are named you recognize, but some you might not, and there are probably somethings which you probably wouldn’t have admitted to (like Bluegrass, which is only hated by the very lame). In a startlingly hipster way, I’m saying I did the awkward thing way before it was cool, and it was an essential part of what got me where I am in life.
Because, a lot of people can say, “I’m soooo weird”. But not many people are comfortable acting on it. And it’s not that I’m trying-it’s that I have no freaking clue something I’m doing is outside normal bounds. I’m pretty good about things like fences (I’m not stupid), and in general I try to respect people’s feelings and not be offensive, but I tend to be a bullhorn like personality and often a bit too honest, at least about myself. Very regularly, I find myself mentioning some video that I thought was awesome at the dinner table, only to realize I’m describing something really graphic. The realization that either I’m being asked to not discuss x topic or that everyone’s just turned green is always humbling and irritating. Or I’ll just share what should be very personal information to commiserate or get a laugh because I don’t have a very well defined sense of privacy. Sometimes, this shocks or overwhelms my unsuspecting, puritanical audience. It’s not even exhilarating for me-it’s just true, so what’s the big deal?
I am a bucket of disaster with guys. My most successful flirtatious have occurred in traffic, in a car, so that I could promptly drive away. Dating stories are alwasy gems. Like, trying to play it cool while eating dinner with a cute guy, miss my mouth completely, get fork full of corn in my hair, guy retrieves stray corn sweetly, and I proceed to bolt to the bathroom with a mouth full of vomit because he touched me. Or the time I stood in a guys way to leave a room until he kissed me…literally. I could not think of a smoother way to lock lips so I just stood in painfully stubborn silence until kissing me was his only option for escape. I WAS 19. There’s also the wonderful time I scrunched myself between a guy and his steering wheel and refused to let him out of the car until he’d kissed me. (hmmmm, I’m noticing a trend). There was the time I asked a previous boyfriend to not think about ways we’d fooled around because I wanted to start fresh in every way possible with a new boyfriend. I also spoke for well over 30 minutes straight about absolutely nothing once due to ridiculous nerves on a first date. That was with Vlad, and the bizarreness paid off.
You see, I realize if I could just throttle the jack-in-the-box of psychoness in my head, I’d be a REAL catch. I am one now, and would be even more if I were in shape, but I’m funny, really caring, and I make a hell of a pot pie. I bake nice looking kids in my baby oven, too, and I know how to make then behave. But I just have this intense streak that not everyone can handle. And it takes someone devoted, someone who’s kind and really cares, to deal with the faulty automatic sprinkler system of craziness that goes off in my head. For all the difficulties it’s lent me, my oddities have helped me weed out the riff raff. I’m not a girl who really cares about money (I have standards, but they mostly involve paying bills and decent food), and looks have never been a big deal to me. I have always wanted to know that the person I marry would be equally wonderful to be around when young or wrinkled by time as a naked mole rat (which are animals I can’t stand, actually, so the description is quite poor). I wanted someone I knew was understanding, and so I used myself as a stress test for life. If they cared too much about what other people thought, or if they just couldn’t handle my sometimes tempestuous character, they probably weren’t ready for life.
And, just like everybody else, I want acceptance. True to my character, though, I’ve never thought it was a good idea to seek acceptance by being your best. It may be a backwards idea, but I feel like being yourself full throttle, even in the worst moments, and finding out who’s standing after the storm serves as a good test for the quality of your companions. It does mean that, very often, you’re lonely. But it also means that, the day you’re not, you probably never will be again.
I enjoy Vlad immensely. He’s a wonderful person with a kind heart and a great sense of nobility. In a lot of ways, he’s more refined than I am. He does have a dirty sense of humor, so I can comfortably “let rip” around him, both literally and metaphorically, and know that it will be well received. He loves to laugh and have fun, which is one of my favorite aspects of his nature. Everything can become a game, and even if he’s the only person enjoying it, he’s REALLY gonna enjoy it. He can be brave well beyond my limits, but he’s much saner and more practical than I am. He’s also satisfactorily impressed when I am brave and doesn’t call me out too much when I’m looking for reasons to get out of something that’s making me nervous. He pushes me to be better in only the ways where I’ve set parameters already. He’s not out to change me and he accepts my needling questioning with tremendous grace. He enjoys my out bursts and my tendency to suggest violent reactions to pretty much everything, citing that I make life “exciting”. And I wouldn’t have gotten any of those wonderful things if I hadn’t been unabashedly myself. So, to all those girls out there trying to be Zooey Deschanel-stop. It’s not cute. If you’re looking for happiness or Prince Charming, dive into those things that make you uncomfortable or quit trying to be strange when you aren’t. Either way is fine, but by being her, you’re costuming your character and slowing your steps to Prince(ss) Charming. Beside, I was cooler than you before it was cool! I was weird when it really was WEIRD. You’re not revolutionizing anything and neither was I! Just go with you and get over it!
And I take creepy pictures of people while they sleep.