I'll start with a little note: it's looking like the newest posts are all going to be In The Now for a little while, since there has been some talk (not by me) of turning The Year of Living Electronically into a book. As I was told, "You do not give that story away for free." So we'll see what happens with it, but until then, I'm keeping the South Central Diaries off the InterWebs.
And back to The Now...
Right. So, all my sweet, sweet babies know that I have now officially moved to Rust City, a mid-sized, industrial city in the Midwest--a political center with its fair share of sketch, a city with more grime than glitter. And I show up in Rust City in a bit of a frenzy and more than a little disorganized. I had less than a week to pack up my place in South Central and hit the road, so I arrived here with a giant-ass moving truck full of stuff, yes, but without having forwarded my mail, or cancelling my TV, or setting up up things like a phone or the internet at the new headquarters.
Where this leaves me is driving around in a new city that is about 114 times the size of South Central, trying to find a place with free WiFi. The closest place? Panera Bread. This makes me crabby on a number of levels, but sometimes a girl has to swallow her pride in exchange for free access to the InterWebs. So here's me, minding my own business, plundering the free WiFi in the frinkin' Panera Bread in Rust City and trying to suck up all the air conditioning I can before returning to the stifling humidity outside.
So I'm typing away in my little rose-gold, wire-rimmed, cat-eye glasses, wearing a tissue-thin, rose-pink cardigan over an avocado green tank with a pink rose pattern on it, one reminiscent of antique wallpaper. I'm in my own head, typing away, with a good 10% of my brain occupied with the strangeness of the conversations all happening simultaneously at the Panera: the two senior ladies fighting over which one is hardest of hearing; the mother lecturing her sullen teenage son on responsibility and communication; the guy on the cell phone sending photographs of his wife's hideously burned arm to people and then calling them to say, "Gross, huh?" All of it is registering on my radar while I continue to work.
At the table right in front of me, two men in white oxfords and black pleated pants--late 40s, you know, pushing 50--are talking about sales and markets and how to talk to the customer in their loud, assertive, "confident" (and definitely not "inside") voices. And I take a moment to think, "Really? Panera Bread is where the movers and shakers of Rust City cut their deals? Huh...." before I go back to my thoughts. Then I guess the more talkative of the two businessmen, so I'm assuming the Alpha, had gotten up to go to the soda machine for a refill, and on the way back to his table he stops in front of mine. So engrossed am I in my laptop, it takes me a minute to notice him standing there, staring at me. When I do notice, I look up at him.
"Has anyone ever told you that you look just like that woman from Criminal Minds?" he asks, standing there.
I laugh, because actually, yeah. I had never watched the show until after the Christmas when my Aunt Patricia went on and on about it--not in a bad way, just in an extensive way--saying, "Oh my god, you look just like that woman on Criminal Minds! Have you seen that show? You have to see that show! You look just like her. Really, it's a good show, and you guys could be twins, I swear. You look just like her--the hair, the face, the...everything. That woman took your part!" It was only after watching the show that I realized that Aunt Patty meant that I looked just like that character on Criminal Minds, Penelope Garcia--not the actor playing her, Kirsten Vangsness.
The character is the token techie eccentric. She's a round, vaguely vintage-y looking bleach blonde who sits behind a computer with her statement glasses, accessing valuable information for the team to solve the crime, but it's not as sophisticated a comparison as it sounds, for those of you who have never seen the show. The way I just described the character, it could be a whole librarian-by-day, burlesque-dancer-by-night situation, which would be such an awesome comparison that it would inflate my ego to such a size I would become absolutely unbearable to be around. But that's not the case.
This character is a round, vaguely vintage-y looking bleach blonde who sits behind a computer with her statement glasses, yes, but the computer is surrounded by those wild-haired plastic troll dolls and little toys, and while vaguely vintage-y, the character is cartoonish in an un-nuanced way (which means yes, I think it's possible to be cartoonish in a nuanced way). But you know, her lipstick is always a little too loud. And she's decked out in about 4-to-6 too many baubles at any given time--jeweled headbands and hair clips and big necklaces and earrings and bracelets and multiple rings--none of which really go with each other. And while she's got some retro going on, she'll wear a little vintage wool cardigan with passemeterie trim...with a blousy, summer tunic in an ikat print. Those will never look appealing together, not even to the most rebellious of fashionistas. It's a clumsy, ham-fisted attempt at an eccentric style on behalf of the designers, a TV interpretation of what an eccentric looks like.
Okay, this should explain it: during the episode I watched after Aunt Patty's insistence, Penelope was asked out by this lovely, charming man who took her home at the end of the date and said, "I've been thinking about doing this all night"...and shot her in the chest. (Not a nice thing to watch happen to someone who looks just like you.) And while trying to crack the case, FBI Suit #1 asks FBI Suit #2, "Why would anyone target her?" And FBI Suit #2 shouts, "Come on, look at her! She wears her individuality like a shield! She screams 'single woman'!" (Yeah, I didn't say it was a good show.) Basically, the character (not the actor, who is lovely and talented and hey, a girl's gotta pay the rent) is Way Too Much.
Apparently, I look just like her.
So, "Has anyone told you that you look just like that woman from Criminal Minds?" he asks, standing there.
And I do laugh, and I say, "Uh, as a matter of fact, yes--my aunt has said that to me quite a few times."
He says, "Have you seen that show? That's a good show. You look just like her. I thought you were her, so I had to stand here for a second to ask myself, 'Wait a minute...is that her?' You look just like her."
I laugh again and say, "I promise you, I'm not her. My paycheck would be quite a bit different if I were," and I'm thinking, "And I would probably have had an assistant set up wireless in my house so I wouldn't have to steal it from the frickin' Panera Bread."
"OH MY GOD, you even sound like her!" he exclaims, and my laughter begins to wane...this is a little much, dude. What's your game?
Thankfully, he turns to his associate and says, "Doesn't she sound like her, too? You've seen that show, haven't you?" And The Associate says, "I could tell she'd seen that show from the look on her face when you said that." And they proceed to talk about me and my resemblance to Penelope Garcia in the third person, so making like an eccentric techie, I simply return to my typing.
But I listen.
The Alpha makes some business calls--insurance is his game, and he deals with the elderly because I hear him mentioning Medicare, and "having to switch during the grace period", and afterwards, he says to The Associate, "See? That's how it's done," and proceeds to break down exactly what he did during the course of the phone call. And I'm thinking, "Are you swindling old people, Alpha? Is that what you're doing? As a job? In the Panera Bread? And you're teaching your Associate how to do so, too? Is this what's happening? Are you, in fact, the first villain I have encountered here in Rust City?" And while I'm employing my SuperHuman Eavesdropping to determine if this is a case for Great Big Girl, I hear the two men begin to discuss me in the third person again in regards to my uncanny resemblance to "that woman from Criminal Minds".
They go on about it for a bit, freely, as if they are somehow entitled to do so even though I am just at the next cafe' table, a maximum of four feet away. Then The Associate looks at my face and says, "She hears us talking about her right now!" And The Alpha turns around to look at me.
I fix them both in my sights and say, "I hear everything." I repeat, "I hear everything...."
Let that be a warning to you, gentlemen. Because it's the truth. I'm still finding my feet in Rust City, so I don't know exactly what you're up to, but know this: Great Big Girl is keeping an eye on you.
These days, it's hard for a girl to tell a villain from a guy who's just trying to pick her up, especially after living in a place that staunchly demanded that all indications of unmarried female sexuality be kept under the heaviest of wraps, under penalty of...well, that part was unspecified, but was clearly something very bad. Like shunning. Or firing. Or being permanently emblazoned with the Scarlet "A". And let's be honest--stripping myself of my sexuality is nearly impossible for me. Just look at my list of superpowers, yo. (See June 4, 2007. It's a narrative, people.) I mean, with the exception of eavesdropping, it's all hips and soothing and smiles and magic underwear. That's what I got to work with. And after almost two years of reigning all that in, I'm a little off-kilter. Are you trying to distract me from the fact that I have uncovered your plot to bilk the Rust City seniors of their retirement funds, you villain? Or are you just some regular dude trying to charm me and see if I'll take the bait?
And I'll admit, sometimes it's hard for a girl to tell someone who is trying to pick her up from someone who is just being Midwest Nice, especially after living in a place that, while technically Midwestern, had no traces of the Midwest Nice. From the second Sugar Magnolia and I pulled into that town, I was met with coldness and pointing and suspicious stares and Evil Eye Curses from the dreaded South Central Stink-Eye Gang. So running into a gas station to pay and having some woman say, "Hey, I like your shirt!" leaves me a little thrown. "What? Huh? Me? You like...? Is something happening? Oh...hey, thanks!" Like I've forgotten how to interact in the regular world which, while imminently dangerous and fraught with peril at every turn, I have always thought to be filled with lovely, warm, friendly people. So it's like being a cop under deep cover who has to learn how to re-enter her "real life" again after the assignment is over.
That's a lot to try to process at a Panera Bread while two middle-aged men are talking about you like you're not in the room, when really you're practically sitting in their laps. So I tell myself to save the Philosophy of Human Nature for home and decide that since this was the Alpha Salesman, I'm ruling "just Midwest Nice" out. I wasn't born yesterday, ya know.
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