So I went to a BYU basketball game Saturday night. We got to sit in the the good Student Life Vice President seats--and everyone gave us suspicious looks, and asked to see our tickets. But as we were sitting down, to my horror, I noticed that sitting two rows directly in front of me was Matt, of "Plat for Matt" fame (see blog entitled "I've Arrived in 2005"). Any normal, well-adjusted person would have thought something like "hm. There's that guy I went to high school with. What was his name again?" But I, on the other hand, immediately panicked, thinking "he's read my blog. He knows everything! What will I do??" And THAT'S how blogocentric I have become: thinking that any ol' person I see on the street is a) reading my blog faithfully, and b) able to recognize me immediately. It just seemed like too much of a coincidence, seeing this fellow who I recently remembered in a blog at a basketball game with 12,000 other people. What are the chances??
It's lucky that I have Mike in times like these. He's someone I am not embarassed to be seen with. Plus, he's good at pretending that our life is perfect and that we are deliriously happy--which is the way I always want to appear when I see people I went to high school with (close friends excepted). I don't know what it is...I just NEED all those people to see that I've come a long way from Botany Club Vice President. It's like those interviews with famous people in magazines and on TV. They always say something like "I'm in a really good place right now." And you just know that they are protesting too much. (I especially hate it when people keep going on and on about how busy their lives are. They just never have time for TV, etc. I HATE that.) But when I see people from high school, I really want them to think that I am unbelievably beautiful, happy, and successful.
So for the entire game I felt that I had to yell out funny things to the coaches and refs, hold Mike's hand and stroke his face lovingly, and toss my hair around a lot. Deep down I know I am being ridiculous, that Matt didn't even see me, and that it doesn't really matter what anybody from high school thinks. But I can't control myself. It just comes out: "look at me, I'm having the best time in the world right now. Don't I seem better than I was in high school, despite the fact that you just read my blog about how much I used to have a crush on you and the ridiculous lengths I went to just to give you a ride home one time?" You'd think that years of graduate school, marriage, child-rearing, and college teaching would have purged any residual high school insecurity from me. But--surprise--it hasn't. When I see those people, I turn into a 16-year-old all over again. Only this time, I am a 16-year-old with a BLOG.
As you know I prefer to comment on content rather than form which requires some restraint on my part but, it really must be said, this blog is priceless. It is the perfect blog: Hilar. A tiny-bit revealing. 100% self deprecating. 100% relateable. This blog is exactly the blog I would want to write.
ReplyDeleteI got "It really must be said," from "Stepmom" with j. Roberts and Susan Surandon. I just love saying it and have been sayint it a lot lately. J. Roberts tells the pre-teen to say it to a boy who scorned her "I'm dating a high schooler now and, it really must be said, we laugh our a**es off when we talk about you." something like that. (In mentioning this I mean in no way to take away from your perfect blog.)
I agree with Kacy, this is the perfect blog. V. hilar.
ReplyDeleteI also love that you are a paranoid blogger because I am too. I was in church yesterday thinking that I bet Jonas has read my post about all the stupid things I've said to him when a. I don't use my real name. b. I didn't use his real name. c. I don't even really like him/know him at all d. I even took the city off my location on my blog profile so that it just says United States in case anyone in my ward might blog and search the area and figure me out.
Ah, Clete we are good, irrational friends.
Now that I am "semi-retired" I get bugged when friends and former co-workers ask "so what are you doing these days" and I have to list like a million mundane things to make me look busy, but I really am busy! I blog and write drafts of bolgs that I never post and I read other peoples' blogs. I don't know how I ever had a full time job and got anything done!
ReplyDeleteI assume that no one reads my blogs, and that alieviates a lot of paranoid public scrutiny.
I'm just sitting here laughing. I went to a wedding of a friend from Junior High and when I saw all of those "popular girls" I went into a full-fledged panic. I'm 32 and if I saw them I would still go into a full-fledged panic. And one of them is a full-fledged porn star - what would I have to fear from HER?!
ReplyDeleteThis is beautiful, just beautiful!! I think the best part is Matty pants was sitting in his chair, stealing glances at you every chance he could get thinking, “Damn if I had only let her know my try feelings that day we rode in her car together.” But it wouldn’t have mattered because you found Mike and would have found Mike no matter what and then would have had to break poor Matty pants’s heart.
ReplyDelete