The Importance of Being Annonymous

There's not enough honesty in this world.

My boss once brilliantly said, "If truth were deodorant, most people would stink." She's onto something there.

People feel so much pressure to be good, passive human beings; but how many of us can be passive? I'm no Alpha, but I'm no Beta, either - surely, I cannot be alone in feeling that way.


What's funny, though, is how people regard you before they know who you are. It's like that girl at work who I would sometimes see walking around the building. Without fail, she would always eye me up and down, smirk judgmentally and, if we had to communicate for some reason, speak condescendingly to me. That changed the day she realized what team I work with and what role I happen to have within it. Her initial behavior was the truth. She didn't like my forever-unkempt hair, or maybe it was the lack of make-up on my face or my eclectic style. She judged me on that, and, while initially I found it amusing when she suddenly avoided eye contact and her tone changed to a polite whisper, after a while, I kind of preferred the judge-y behavior. At least it was honest - someone who takes a lot of time to look impeccable maybe wouldn't have much respect for someone who would rather spend her morning running than sprucing up. She had no problem being aggressive before she found out my name, when I was still anonymous to her. It gave me a chance to raise an eyebrow at her superficiality.

My name, ha! Like anywhere outside this company it means anything. I am neither famous nor actually important. The label I work for is exceptional, and through this job I shine, but what is Pedigree without a little pretension? Perhaps we all let it get to our heads a bit and maybe that's dangerous.

If I ever did create something worthy of being judged by others, I don't think I'd put my name on it anymore. There was a time I would have, but that ship sailed as I learned how people change their tone when they know they're speaking to you regarding your work. I even want the gender of the pseudonym to be androgynous and left to interpretation. I want the harshest criticism spoken plainly and in an impassioned manner.

I want that regarding anything I'd create.

Brain Garden aka My brain is a cofeehouse of internal dialogue.

I had a paranoid thought regarding a friend. It’s easy when you feel isolated from people, whether the isolation is caused by physical or emotional distance, to replay small things they said casually in conversations, take them out of context, and dissect them. This cannot be healthy, though it does appear to be a common condition I find myself in.

Before I explain about the conversation with B, I should explain as to why I have a hard time remembering conversations verbatim, settling mostly for the gist of what went down. The thing is, I constantly have a few conversations going on in an ever-going internal dialogue on top of whatever it is I’m talking about with those around me. One conversation processes everything I’m seeing. But then, I ask myself questions like, “Do I like the green hat because it brings out the butterscotch highlights in that girl’s hair or is this a color that is on the rise in popularity that I should probably incorporate into a top or some sort of accent, like binding?” 

While I’m studying the girl in the green hat, I’ll simultaneously be writing. I have had a list of characters filed away in my head to reference when I get to actually writing. Nevermind that I haven’t “actually written” anything in years. The list remains and continues to grow. At that moment, I was adding a character with chronic Asian hair envy to the list. This girl would notice something beautiful about asian girls everywhere she went; inspired by an earlier thought that only asian girls can bleach their hair and have butterscotch highlights and not have hair accents the color and texture of hay. Mediterranean gene FAIL.Although, that would be a challenge to translate into sci-fi.

While all that is going on, I’m also maneuvering how I can turn a conversation a certain way so I can casually bring up something I’m absolutely dying to talk about. It’s important to me to hear all about other people first before I dive into what feels like my MEmeMEme spiel. I don’t like to lose what’s important in life in the mix. There should be balance.

Oh, and on top of all that, I can sit on a bench with B, enjoying a hot, fruity tea beverage in the middle of a bustling Queens neighborhood, talking about politics. I do not think I can be the only person on Earth who consistently has multiple conversations articulating in my head. Also, those are not the subjects my mind is limited to while conversing; there are many, many issues on my mind at any given time. There is no back burner. There’s a massive garden and every person, place, or issue, big or seemingly small, has a flower pot containing it and that my brain feels compelled to feed. Nothing ever dies in my brain garden. As cluttered as that may seem, I’ve always preferred a baroque-esque garden with layers upon overgrown layers. 

However, those were just merely a few issues on my mind, the eternal coffeehouse in my head, me chattering away with myself and other versions of me, and sometimes actual physical people in the real world, like B when she called me a Republican even though I voted for Obama.

Why would I dissect that? I’ve admitted to being Republican in the past. Just lately, it feels like an insult; it no longer feels like part of me, or even relative. It’s another version of me, tucked away in the garden behind the thorny raspberry bush called Ex-Boyfriends. I forget about those plants sometimes. Why should it bother me if others don’t?

Why is this bothering me four months later?