Familiarity Breeds Contempt

Someone mentioned that familiar saying in reference to this blog.

At first, I was a little defensive and annoyed because blogging is a fun little creative outlet that I enjoy, and implying that my blogging would cause others to view me in a contemptuous light elicted nothing but a huge mental 'whatever' from me. At first. Then, I listened to what they were saying (a genius idea when someone is trying to make a point) and seriously considered the merit of the point they were trying to make.

What do people mean when they say "Familiarity breeds contempt"? Basically, that the more you know about someone, the less respect you have for them because you are overexposed to them; more specifically, you are more likely to find fault with them and more likely to notice their flaws.

Though I try to not to reveal identifying details about my life and that of others who wind their way into my life's narrative, I must admit that I do reveal a lot about myself emotionally—my feelings, my thoughts, my likes and dislikes, my hopes, my fears, my experiences, my views. One could learn about me quickly and easily via my blog what would take time and effort for one to learn about me the old fashioned way. And that makes me wonder if the ease of access to personal details that characterize some blogs combined with the ubiquity of the Internet that allows them to exist allow not only an effortlessly gained hyper-familiarity, but also produce a contempt and lack of respect (or rather, less respect than would be otherwise had) due to that hyper-familiarity.

We call people who physically expose themselves to strangers exhibitionists. (We also consider them sickos and would never hope to be unwitting witnesses.) But what about people who emotionally expose themselves to strangers? Would we call them emotional exhibitionists? No? Oh . . . bloggers. At least the Where-You-Can-Find-Me-ish type.

The allure of blogging comes from having a built-in, overwhelmingly (most of the time) sympathetic audience. Having a bad day? There are people out there who feel your pain. Relationship woes? There are people out there who experienced the same thing. Wondering what would be best? There are people out there willing to lend you $0.02. Embarking on an adventure? There are people out there who want to virtually experience it with you.

I don't see anything harmful about any of that. At best, it's therapeutic, at worst, it's self-important. But my misgivings have to do not simply with people knowing about me, but because of that knowledge, in the long run, affecting people's esteem of me. And not only that, but also making it too easy to know about me without truly getting to know me.

I'm not saying I want to stop blogging altogether. But I've really been challenged to reevaluate the effects and consequences of it.

"Self-knowledge," a Poem

by C. K. Williams

Because he was always the good-hearted one, the ingenuous one, the one who knew no cunning,

who, if "innocent" didn't quite apply, still merited some similar connotation of naïveté, simplicity,

the sense that an essential awareness of the coarseness of other people's motives was lacking

so that he was constantly blundering upon situations in which he would take on good faith

what the other rapaciously, ruthlessly, duplicitously and nearly always successfully offered as truth. . .

All of that he understood about himself but he was also aware that he couldn't alter at all

his basic affable faith in the benevolence of everyone's intentions and

that

because of this the world

would not as in romance annihilate him but would toy unmercifully with

him until he was mad.

(P.S. For whatever reason, Blogger won't allow me to maintain the integrity of the line breaks in this poem, but there it is.)

Things That Probably Only I Notice/Care/Think About

Paint ain't
I was going to WalMart and saw a sign on a paint store that I'm sure was printed "PAINT SALE," but a little flap of the sign was blown over, so instead it said "AINT SALE." I don't know why that was so amusing to me. "Sorry, son, you cain't buy no paint here. You saw the sign. Ain't no sale."

Butterfly cards
Upon arriving at Wally World, I was elated to find a package of blank cards that were just imprinted with me-ness. Lavender-rimmed with a lone butterfly in the middle. I almost believe God knew I wanted to buy some blank cards, and He knew what kind of cards I wanted in my heart of hearts, so he aligned a series of events so that I would walk in to Wal Mart and see those cards and buy them with a sense of destiny.

Blowdryer
I have a dilemma. I keep breaking my blowdryer attachment combs, so I constantly buy replacement attachments. I used to have a Vidal Sassoon but I don't anymore. But the only replacement attachments I can find in town that come close to fitting are Vidal Sassoon. But the attachments don't fit exactly right on my blowdryer because they're not the right brand, so they break even more often. So I resolved to give in and just buy a new Vidal Sassoon blowdryer of the right model so that the attachments would fit. But WalMart didn't have any, the brutes. So I went to one of those special stores that has an array of "ethnic hair care" products along with a better variety of blowdryers. The store is run by a polite, efficient Korean lady who usually gives me the hookup with the attachment replacements. But today I walked in and was shocked to see an old, starkly white man manning the register. Seeing him juxtaposed with the entire wall of hair weave packages behind him was mildly amusing. Meanwhile, I eavesdropped on the Spanish conversation of two Hispanic women at the register ahead of me. I thought of the events in World History that allowed my existence, the man's existence, the Korean lady's existence and the Hispanic women's existences to converge in that beauty supply store.

Pimp to punk
Listening to the banal Christian radio station on the way to Panera Bread, I noticed that the word "pimp" is replaced with "punk" in what I guess is the radio version of tobyMac's song "Lose My Soul." (This comes after Mr. Franklin steps up to the mic.) Like, it's a Christian song, but they had to Christianize it even more in order to make it acceptable to a mainstream Christian audience. But, how is a punk more Christian than a pimp?

Panera vs. Starbucks
Upon arriving at Panera, I was excited at the prospect of getting to use my fully stamped card to get a free drink. Each time you buy a drink, you get a stamp on your little card (if you present it, which I always promptly do.) You have to get that puppy stamped eight times before you reach the status of free drinkdom. Then you get a new card and it begins anew. Then I wondered why Panera doesn't seem to have the prestige of Starbucks. It has so many more advantages: the free drink card, free Wi-Fi, and they offer actual food in addition to good coffee. Maybe because the more accessible something is, the less prestige it has. Or rather, the more prohibitive elements surrounding something, the more prestige it has. At Starbucks, you have to pay for Wi-Fi, for example.

(Sigh.) I know that I must enjoy these last few days of wandering musings and enjoy them well. For the day approaches where my brain will once again be held hostage to work.

It's Maddening

'Maddening' is a word I like to use in lieu of 'frustrating.' 'Frustrating' sounds so blah. Like a word only tightly wound, anal, obsessive-compulsive people use to describe situations that don't go their way. 'Maddening' has deep violet shades of meaning. 'Frustrating' only messes with your head. But 'maddening' perturbs your soul. Or maybe I'm just making that up.

Anyway, I'm really trying to see this state I'm in in a fun-loving light. Expect the unexpected! or Life is a highway/I'm gonna ride it all night long. Or, better yet, It's my life/It's now or never/I ain't gonna live forever/I just wanna live while I'm alive. Since I don't know what's going on, just kinda carpe diem my way through it. I'm even trying to look at it in a "Footprints" way. You know, I saw one pair of footprints in the sand and I got ticked at God for leaving me, but then He was like,"Cool it, my child, that was when I was carrying you."

Uncertainty is maddening. Facing decisions within that uncertainty is maddening. Trying to figure out what's best: Balancing the fact that you really care about what people you really love think with the fact that whatever decisions you make as a woman who is literally 4 years shy of 30 are your decisions alone and that you are the one who will have to live with them. It's humbling. It's daunting. It's maddening. It makes me cry.

A week from tomorrow, I board a Spain-bound plane. It doesn't even seem like it. But once I get there, WHAM! Just imagine a hefty pack of three intensive, month-long graduate courses in Spanish. Then, as soon as I get back, WHAM! An amalgamation of Meet the Parents, packing, moving, unpacking, and Graduate Teaching Assistant orientation. And what are you writing your thesis on? Durned if I know. Wonderful! And what are you doing once you graduate? See the aforementioned. Here's the kicker: I signed up for this. It's not like life has blindsided me with a rush and tumble of events. I knew what was coming. You can't whine about being unprepared when you were given ample notice, and not just notice, but you prompted this series of events of your own free will. But what could I do to prepare? Other than steeling myself? anesthetizing my heart? (Which is impossible.)

Wait-and-see is maddening. It seems that no matter how much I knock-knock-knock on Heaven's door, "wait and see" is the hollow reply. It's a new and uncomfortable sensation for me. Feeling at the mercy of factors beyond my control. And I suppose I always was at the mercy of those elusive factors, it's just that I haven't been dealt such a raw slice of that reality until now. And this from a girl who claims to relish her steak medium rare.

Born-Again Flosser Goes to Birmingham

I woke up this morning with remnants of swordfish and pork between my teeth. Had I known that I was going to spend the night away from home, I would have brought some dental floss. I need dental floss. I begin to suffer from withdrawal if I don't have it. I became addicted to it once, for the first time in my life at 19, my dentist discovered a cavity. I've been a born-again flosser ever since.

The swordfish got in there when I went out to lunch with one of my guls in Birmingham (more affectionately known as B'ham, or, simply, The Ham). It may have been the first time I've ever had swordfish. It just sounded exciting, so I got it. It was covered with creamy sauce, too. Then we skiddadled off to the Galleria, and my gul got me a shirt that made me feel like a Greek goddess when I put it on. If I had to choose, I'd choose Athena.


Later, the illustrious M made us a splendid dinner of stuffed pork tenderloin and asparagus. That's how the pork got in there.


A dessert of warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream topped with caramel and whipped cream did me in. It also caused me to have bizarre dreams: I had an argument with my mom because she didn't want to shake hands with one of my friends. I began to cry and yell at her saying, "Mom, how can you call yourself a Christian and treat people that way? It's not fair!" Then I ran away. She called after me saying, "Girl, don't you know I was just kidding?" LOL.

And look at the breakfast I ate this morning! That's what I'm talking about. I could subsist on breakfast food indefinitely.


So, maybe some bacon got in there, too.

Oh, but once I made it back to the Gump, I whipped out that dental floss before you could shake a stick. Glorious. Look, I've got some sizable chompers. I've gotta keep those things right.

I remember

taking a walk throught the neighborhood with my mom and asking her what "S-T-O-P" spelled.

seeing a homeless person for the first time.

crying during Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" video.

being elated that Santa Claus had come, not realizing that I had actually caught my parents redhanded.

not wanting to get on the school bus, but being happy once I was shown the Cheetos and M&Ms in my lunch box.

my Minnie Mouse backpack.

not liking Grouchy Smurf and getting offended if I were accused of being like him.

loving Piglet.

tennis shoes with no shoelaces but two velcro straps across the front.

watching an old Italian woman at the beach cut a sea urchin in half and slurp out the insides.

Parmalat milk.

feeding raw hotdogs to a stray neighborhood dog.

throwing rose petals on a float of a patron saint and a Virgin.

fighting a boy over a swing.

having a crush on the pizza delivery boy.

swishing my mouth out with fluoride once a week at school because there was no fluoride in the water.

jumping off the high dive into the deep end.

wishing I could paint "Waterlilies" by Monet.

playing the flute in Beginning Band and walking home with a boy who played the sax.

feeling more out of place in the United States than in a foreign country.

punching in a lunch number at the cafeteria register.

the ecstatic catharsis of speaking in tongues for the first time.

being a candy striper over the summer.

the dread of my first kiss.

the smell of Bath and Body Works Pearberry body spray.

the complete darkness, booming, dramatic drum beat and piercing, heartwrenching bagpipe which began the version of the play Macbeth that I saw in high school.

a boy who wrote "We Did It!" on his torso in body paint and lifting his robe to show the audience after he got his diploma.

sorrowfully crying after my parents dropped me and my belongings off in a dorm room.

the feeling of getting a new life every semester.

feeling the impact of my car hitting a telephone pole and gritting my teeth against crushed glass.

watching alternating stretches of graffitied urban sprawl and countryside speed by a train window.

observing a butterfly with a torn wing flutter on the curb.

. . . and Hillary is an honorable man

Mark Antony's funeral oration in the Shakespearean play Julius Caesar has been a long time obsession of mine. Basically, Mark Antony acts as if he's being all complimentary of Brutus & Co. when he's actually inciting the mob's anger against them. (If you have a nerdy streak, I'd click the above link and read the whole scene to get the full impact. But if not, just scroll down to where Mark Antony begins with "Friends, Romans, countrymen.")

Okay, now read this article, and tell me that it doesn't remind you of Mark Antony's funeral oration! I don't think Obama is trying to deceptively incite the plebians' anger against Hillary at all, but the whole combination of an orator, booing "plebians" in the audience, and the orator's appeal to an "offender's" noble character just channels that scene in Julius Caesar for me.

The Wedding

It was yesterday, and it went over wonderfully. Thankfully, I was feeling 100% myself, no more, er, resurgences, I was able to do my little duet and keep the hyperactive flower girl focused. Surprisingly, I didn't cry. Like, usually I'm a softie, but I guess I was just so excited and happy that no tears came to my eyes. Instead of feeling this bittersweet oh-my-friend feeling, I felt like Yay! And I couldn't stop smiling. A few pics:

Oh, and here are a few pics from our fiesta themed wedding shower. Caliente!

Anyway, tomorrow I fly away from the boonies and back to the Gump. Then I have to repack for España in about a week and a half, and then I'll eventually have to pack up my entire apartment to move to Auburn . . . and there will be other mini-adventures in-between (sigh), but we'll cross those bridges when we get there. Well, NoDak, ta-ta for now!

Why Me, Why Now?

Ugh. All day yesterday, as of 5:30 a.m., I was wretchedly sick. The details would be, in short, tmi, but suffice it to say that it was not pretty at all. Even today I feel a little fuzzy, but at least things that I take in are staying down, youknaaimsayin? And the weird thing is that I never get sick. Seriously, I very rarely get sick. And when I do get sick, it's a little head cold, or at worst, a fever. Never an extravaganza of grossness.

But, holy buckets, now is not the time to get sick! I'm the maid of honor, and the rehearsal, replete with keeping the flower girl in check and singing a duet, is tonight. Meaning that the wedding, the real deal, the thing that I've come to the boonies two weeks early for, is tomorrow!

Fuzziness, fuzziness, go away, come again some other day . . . Or better yet, go away and never come back. This is not the business.

Another Non-Update

(sigh)

I'm still in NoDak. Tomorrow (well, today) is the bridal shower. It's a fiesta theme, and we're getting all this fun, festive, spicy stuff . . . I'm in charge of getting the games together. We're going to do a really interesting one dealing with candy bars. lol.

I talked to the guy that I'm getting to know today. (Well, yesterday.) And there was nothing radically different about talking to him this time than the other times I've talked to him. It's just that I'm all overly analytical and he's totally chill. That's comforting. Like, if he were also overly analytical, that would just be too much. That is all.

My Wedding Dress Story

As you know, weddings have been on the brain. I can't help it. On the eve of the bridesmaid dress alteration marathon I have to look forward to tomorrow (when my time comes, I am NOT ordering those bad boys online), my mind turns to the extraordinarily weird story of why I am having a wedding dress made for me despite the absence of some integral things that would elicit the need for a wedding dress . . . a groom-to-be, for starters.

(sigh.) Where shall I begin? The kind of wedding dress that I want is weird. It's not something from which you can get the hook up at David's Bridal. I want a medieval/Renaissance/Shakespearean kind of thing going on. I want a Maid Marian/Queen Guinevere look with draping sleeves, a bodice kind of tie up thing in the front. In fact, I have posted about it before, but it was in reference to a random guy that I met who happened to have had a whole medieval themed wedding.

Anyway, there's a lady at my church who's into sewing and stuff, and she was with another lady at my church looking at patterns and what not. They both saw a particular pattern and both said, "That's Chantell." She later told me this, and mentioned that I just had to see the pattern for this dress, and that she wanted to make it for me. I thought it was just some dress that I'd wear to church or whatever. Months passed, and she finally remembered to bring the pattern to church and showed it to me.

"This is a wedding dress," I said, wide-eyed. She nodded, smiling, and said that she wanted to make it for me. She always wanted to make a wedding dress. The scary thing is that it is exactly what I want. The draping sleeves. The bodice tie up thing in the front. The Renaissance look. The model in the picture on the pattern was even sporting a circlet of flowers on her head. Alas, fair maiden! How I have longed to finally rest mine eyes upon thee. I have traversed land and sea in pursuit of thee. I have braved many dangers, toils and snares. I have traveled many kingdoms near and far, scouring the earth for thee. And now, at long last, my weary soul hath found sweet relief. O, maiden! At long last, I have found thee. And dost thou have a blog? Where You Can Find Me? Aye, I have found thee.

So, anyway. Lady at my church brought swatches of material as well as trim for me to choose from, took my measurements, and is ordering everything to get to work. Weirdness! I mean, this is totally unsolicted. It's not like I came up to her and said, "Sister, by faith, I'm getting married, so I'm asking you to make me wedding dress. I claim a husband in Jesus' name!" lol. What was I supposed to do, tell her no? Like I said, it's exactly what I want. Maybe by the time she finishes it I'll need it. Who knows?

Fist Bump

Is it necessary for me to go on and on about how elated I am that my boy clinched the nomination? I didn't think so. I was going to go all out once it was announced, but, let's just say that the words have already been taken out of my mouth (well, I guess it depends on whose words they are.) But once I saw this on cnn.com, I had to break down and post a little something to give my boy props. It's hilarious!

Why Not Minot?

Freezin's the reason.

That's the proverbial Air Force joke about Minot, North Dakota. (More affectionately known as NoDak). Thank the Lord it's not freezing right now . . . I wouldn't be able to take it. I have heard horror stories of brutal winters here. Like, 30 below zero, a ridiculous number of inches of snow, people having to plug in their cars so the motors or whatever don't freeze. Yikes. Anyway, right now, the weather's super nice. A welcome reprieve from the sticky sweet torrid heat of Montgomery (more affectionately known as the Gump).

What have I been doing? Well, for starters I've been perfecting my Midwestern accent imitation. "Do you want your receipt or do you want it in the baeg?" Um, the bag? "I pledge allegiance to the flaeg . . . " Um, the flag? People also say "You betcha" a lot. I had a delightful conversation with the deliveryman who brought my friend's parents' new oven in. I had on my ancient "COLLEGE" t-shirt (a la "Animal House").

Deliveryman: Soo, you're in cahlege?

Me: No, I've been out for a while. I've just finished my third year teaching elementary and middle school kids.

Deliveryman: Ooh. Ya knoo, Iy've been tryna keep my son invahlved, ya knoo, with reeding and ahl oover the sahmmer, Iy would lahve fer sahmeone ta tooter em sahmtime, Iy'd pey ya a reesonable amount every week er soo . . .

Me: Oh, I'd love to help . . . I tutored kids in my extra time when I was teaching, but I'm leaving in about two weeks. I'm sorry!

This dude totally didn't know me from Adam and was trying to get me to tutor his kid. I guess the whole friendly, small town thing is for real.

Anyway, I've also been running around town doing stuff for wedding preparations, and having a devilish time buying a bunch of risque stuff to embarrass my friend for the shower. I'm pretty pleased with the way I wrapped her present:

Ay, ay, ay! :-)

The flower girl's mom wanted me to meet her since we'll be walking down together during the ceremony, and she wanted her daughter to get to know me so she'll be comfortable around me, etc. We hit it off right away. And she looked so darling in her flower girl dress!

And of course, the happy couple:

Yep. My fellow former military brat friend is settling down with a homegrown NoDak boy. They joke about the prospect of having Norweigan-Polish-black babies.

I'm overjoyed for my gul. She's such a godly, beautiful person and she deserves all the happiness in the world. The lucky groom is such a great guy. I know they're going to make each other happy.

(Sigh.) Weddings have SO been on the brain lately. This is the second summer in a row that I've been in one. It doesn't help matters that a lady at my church has taken it upon herself to make me a wedding dress. I realized that I haven't divulged that bit yet. Yeah, it's a crazy story. But what's cool is that it's EXACTLY what I want. It's scary. But that'll be for another day. You betcha.