Ananse the Spider of African folklore is both wise and foolish in the best tradition of tricksters. If you're like Ananse, you're clever and like to be thought well of, but sometimes you outsmart yourself. You're always trying to figure the best angle and you're intelligent and creative, but you have a crude streak. Still, you like to show off your knowledge and that makes you a good teacher..
I bring this up because it is surprisingly apt, particularly the part about the crude streak. And the showing off. Also, it brings to mind a list of topics that I posted several weeks ago with the half-hearted intention of picking them apart in writing, sort of a blogging to-do list. "Changing self-perception" or some such was on that list, as my nod to the Quarter-Life Crisis phenomenon. I've had this idea of self-concept thrust rudely into the forefront of my consciousness recently, as I watch myself operate in the workplace with a distant kind of shock. Personalities evolve, yes, but sometimes these days I open my mouth and barely recognize the person talking.
I've never thought of myself as quiet, but I've been told I was for years. Not any more. These days I don't get, "Still waters run deep," I get, "Put a sock in it." I'm finding that I talk. A lot. With force, and definite opinions. That I have a reputation for getting straight to the point; that people think of me as someone who cuts a swath through office rhetoric. A coworker recently called me "political" and meant it as a compliment: "You always know how to phrase things the way people need to hear them."
I'm finding that I'm impatient and sometimes openly arrogant, although I mock myself plenty. I'm the kind of person who goes head to head with the visiting physician who questions my judgement in staff meeting. I speak sharply to my boss when she asks particularly uninformed questions. I sometimes leap into conversations without warning, let alone invitation. I'm finding this, although when I first moved to Texas I went through a period of painful, gut-churning, panic-attack-in-crowds-or-with-strangers shyness.
I've never been a comic, but I'm finding that I'm a ham. And I'm not just seeking attention, I'm getting it, because when I shoot my mouth off people think I am freaking hysterical. "You're so funny, Sara," says JD, although I didn't used to be witty.
I'm finding that I volunteer to chair committees. That I have Leadership Skills. That the support staff get me the information I need on time because I know how to phrase my requests.
I have a Command Voice, the kind of voice that says, "You will not jump from the top of the eight foot ladder onto the tile floor," and is obeyed.
I snark at eight-year-olds and they like it.
I don't recognize my own voice these days.
That's not entirely true. Sometimes I sound like my dad, but I don't know how I feel about that either. Self-confidence, qualities of leadership--these are of the good. I'm not complaining about that.
I've been having a little break from fandom and the internet in general. I may still be having a break; I'm trying to decide if I miss the computer or if I'm merely finding other, albeit more productive, ways to eat up my time. Stillness as a pursuit is hard to track--productivity as a desirable goal is so deeply ingrained in my habits and thinking. It's so hard not to look forward, but to look around.
I went to Milwaukee this weekend with the Hubster to attend the Midwest Classic gaming convention. It was a tiny convention, with the con-goers split about equally between guys entering their cool retro 30's and boys in the throes of their incredibly awkward adolescences. I saw a lone young teenage girl there who seemed to be vying for a spot in a teen makeover flick: sweet round face, glasses, long mousy hair in a low ponytail, honor band competition t-shirt hanging over loose jeans, sneakers, and a fully-functional fanny pack. She reminded me of AC when we were young, right down to the computer skills. I didn't see her speak the whole time I was there.
Milwaukee is lovely. I know I have a natural bias toward any town north of the Mason-Dixon line, but I don't know that I've ever seen a more charming city. I don't much like bigger cities, even the beautiful, charismatic one I live in now; I grew up in a town where a 20 minute drive was a serious commute, and if you were feeling ambitious it was perfectly possible to bike everywhere. Urban areas flat out make me nervous. I think it's the size--I've lived here for four years, and there are still chunks of the town I've never even visited, let alone learned. Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles--I don't know that I could claim to live in a place where I could only ever see slivers. Milwaukee is big (at least 650,000 if the population signs are right), but it felt manageable. And it was green and calm with wide flat streets and northern architecture. The downtown was full of huge, carved, quasi-Gothic stone buildings, and walking through it I felt safe. Even in my own downtown I don't feel safe. Safer than, say, New Orleans, yes, but that's because I don't give a shit about vampires or voodoo or romance in the humidity, so I am free to admit that New Orleans is a hellhole. Every time I go there, and there have been many, I think, "This time I'll see the appeal, this time I'll figure out why people love the city so much." Nope. Every time I just end up praying I get out before somebody kills me to use my skull as a tequila bottle. But Milwaukee I liked. I could live there, I think.
The Hubster is going to lie on a blanket in the backyard. Think I will join him. Goodnight.
