So the above comic is a beautifully hilarious description of how I feel about Life sometimes. I love how it marries Linguistics and paranoia/neuroticis ...and well, total lame-nerdiness.
For most of my life I have been accused of being strange, weird, bizarre, neurotic, paranoid... and usually by those nearest and dearest to me. My best friend spent most of high school calling me P. W. -short for Paranoid Wacko- and she still slips back into her old ways whenever I do or say anything she deems worthy of such abuse.
Once, when I was working part-time during my uni days, I cracked a joke--admittedly it was a little obscure-- to a lady at the office. Instead of laughing, she looked me straight in the eye and said, deadpan, "You are really strange." That's it. No "but you are amusing!" laugh followed, nada. And we were just introduced a day ago.
Oh the arrow of pain and sorrow that pierced my fragile, fragile soul.
These days I embrace my weirdness. I like to think I am funny-weird (quirky? pleasantly eccentric?). I also hope that maybe, because of my unpredictable take on situations, my friends look forward to CherTime. I mean hey, at least I'm not an extra-social freak. At least I don't need mood regulating meds or stalk people I just met--no offense to people who do, and if your doctor says you need meds, take them; and if you stalk people, well, that's pretty creepy (Don't justify it by saying "God kinda sorta stalks us all by definition then, so I can do the same" because man, that's crazy talk). At least I have a really good handle on social skills/norms/etiquette. I met several people through the course of growing up who were so truely strange that I by comparison am as dull as dishwater. But I do love strange people(they make me think, and they're usually blessed with amazing senses of humour). Well, the nice ones anyway . Not the crazies who make you fear for your life. And trust me I've met a few of them--dated a bipolar, lived briefly with a pathological liar, endured daily calls/texts from someone I only met twice before. Don't ask. They gravitate towards me, I've been told.
Anyway, one of the nicest, strange people I've ever met was one of my Linguistics lecturers. I love him so much I wish I could adopt him! He is a twice-married, vegetarian non-practising Jew who is an active member at his local synagogue--he reads holy scrolls at the synagogue on special ocassions. (Do you see the irony?) He has three children, all about my age, and all of them are truly wonderful people who are definitely not mainstream, in appearance nor in character. (The oldest son cross-dresses in ultraviolet stockings, top hats, floral summer frocks and pointy ankle boots, topped off with a full face of beard. The second son wears a monk's costume. Daily.)
So this lecturer of mine, he has on his office wall a couple of pictures. One is an adorable drawing his daughter drew for him like 15, 20 years ago (the paper is totally yellowed now): a snail, saddled up. Above it, in crayon: "To daddy, Royal Snail. Love, Reyna." Awww. And then, "Huh??"
The other is a poster that I wanted (and still do), just because it was so him. It's purple and has a picture of a man peeping sideways over a wall: "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
Well said, well said.
