Boo-blog

I don't know...I guess it all depends on your definition of "interesting." I'd be a whole lot more curious about the lady from the Target than I'd be about the Perigrine Pedigreed Prodigies. Why was she listening to "Oklahoma?" Why did she feel the need to justify her musical choice to you? What exactly is she planning to do with twelve bean-bag chairs and a lamp shaped like an elephant? I don't know, I think well-educated, creative and talented people are a dime a dozen, but real, honest-to-god, "average folk" ...they're the ones that stir MY minestrone.

Of course, that's probably because I'm boring.

I dunno Jeff, I don't think anyone could claim you're not... um... interesting..

See, this is why I love reading you so much! I even disagreed with you a little, and STILL you have the kindness and big-heartedness required to pay me such a wonderful compliment!

Next time I'm in your area, which I forget exactly where that is but I want to say maybe Boston, and I rarely leave the house anyway let alone the state so it most likely will never happen anyway, but I am DEFINITELY taking you out for mashed potatoes. "Interesting" mashed potatoes. And no, I don't know what that means.

That'd be super. Yup. Do you like clubbing?

What...you mean baby seals? That's TERRIBLE. I don't like you anymore.

(awright, yes I do.)

Clarification:

"yes I do.." like you, not clubbing. Clubbing is for nothing but raincoats and halogens and moustaches where I'm from. Maybe it's different out there. Or maybe you're a halogen.

(Or a moustache.)

Actually, um, I think it turns out I'm busy.

I don't know, I think well-educated, creative and talented people are a dime a dozen, but real, honest-to-god, "average folk" ...they're the ones that stir MY minestrone.

My agreement with this is immense.

Then maybe YOU'D like to go out for Mashed Potatoes?

I'm up for platonic mashed potatoes. However, I'm not up for romantic mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes of veiled longing is a gray area that we'd have to think over.

Platonic Mashed Potatoes it is then, as long as we eat them with the "Gravy That Is Our Mutual Ability To Be Intrigued By The Garden-Variety 'Workaday' Lifestyle."

And maybe some green beans.

What is this, the Republican National Convention? The air in here just got mighty GOP as we’re all stumbling over ourselves to identify with the Common Man and relegate those overeducated klezmer-playing pointy-heads back to the dustbin of elitism where they belong!

I’m exaggerating a little bit. I could understand this “just folks are best folks” reaction under different circumstances. For example, no one likes that guy who keeps bringing ever more arty, pierced, gay, bipolar, or otherwise non-mainstream companions to parties just to bolster his or her sense of uniqueness. That’s enough to send a girl running for the local Wal-Mart and an Original Cast Recording of Cats for sure.

But (obviously) I don’t think that’s where the Twins were going. I mean here they are outlining in great detail the glamorousness of our wedded friends (who in addition to being RFI are also very down to earth, affectionate and kind, by the way – lest you misunderstand), with the implication that Girl-E (while glamorous, down to earth, affectionate and kind herself) is somehow not as RFI as they… and yet, two days later, some poor woman in a Target parking lot is so overwhelmed by Girl-E’s RFI-ness that she felt obligated to loudly forswear her musical taste – just to feel like she measured up!

I think the Twins might be exposing something really vital and weird about American culture – that bizarre intersection of nonconformity and total aesthetic lockstep known as “cool.” Whether your style is Plain-Folks-and-Mashed-Potatoes or Margaret-Cho-and-Howard-Dean, seems like we’re all busy as bees trying to set a standard of cool and then live by it – except maybe those RFI people who are too busy starting klezmer bands and whom we might all be justifiably grateful to know.

Yo Girl-C-Dawg (Can I call you C-Dawg? Probably not, so ignore that.) You do bring up a good point, and since this is an interesting topic, at the risk of becoming caterwaul, I'll reply.

I am speaking as a non-artsy, un-gay, unipolar conformist, so take everything I say with a couple slices of white bread, but I did not mean to in any way degrade the RFI status of EV's (and apparently your mutual) friends. I'm sure they're not only as RFI as EV says, and as "DtEAaK" as you say, but they are probably also well-traveled, in above average physical condition, and good at chess and/or fencing.

But cliche though it may be, there's a little RFI in all of us, and sometimes the RFI-ness that's visible from the surface isn't as RFI as the the RFI-ness that has to be dug for a little bit. All's I'm saying is don't get all down on the showtune lady, as she very well might make the best motherfucking peanut butter cookies you have ever eaten.

Or she might collect human skulls or something.

That sounded awfully reasonable for a man who types entire blog entries in binary. What part of Crazyville are you from, exactly, son?

Kids, kids. This is a family blog, no flaming please.

Yeah right. Keep it coming for all I care.

This place you call "crazyville" lives within each and every one of us. In the dreams we don't remember, in the spaces between our words, and in the face you make when you drop your 50 cents into the jar at a child's lemonade stand, you drink from your dixie cup, and you wince because it tastes like lemony windex.

And I live in the part you can only see if you hold the map sideways and squint, C-Note.

Jeff is a rather loquacious commenter it seems.

Really Snowy, you're only encouraging him.

All right, Jeffy-pants, I guess my little ‘crazyville’ reference was unwarranted and probably deserving of your lemonade-fueled rant. So seriously, my response? I’m sure Homegirl makes fabulous pb cookies and/or shrunken-head necklaces. She’s probably a lovely person. But I suspect that the Twins dismissal of her as resolutely not RFI had more to do with her desperate attempt to validate herself than it did with the actual Target/Oklahoma/middle-America-ness of it all.

I mean, if you’re a lovely human being who makes great cookies, shops at Target and loves singing showtunes in your car, cop to it! Live it! Own it! Don’t throw out weak-ass denials just because some (no offence, Girl-E) snotnosed 20-something with a stupendous rack comes sauntering by your vehicle with a sneer. Don’t make that pathetic grab for conformity!

Because of course, here's how it ends up: with you driving home from Target having kind of given up a part of yourself, and the entire incident subject to a massive debate on some bright-pink website populated by maniacs.

I didn't sneer at her, I swear! I didn't even hear the damn music till she said anything.

I'm not saying I'm not snot-nosed, though.

Hey, I'm not justifying her justification. There is no justification for justfication, particularly when it's just justification for justification's sake.

You see, C-Span, I have a dream.

A dream in which cookie-baking, target-shopping, minivan-driving (I'm assuming) ladies can sing their showtunes in the parking lot without fear of being looked down upon.

Allright, no I don't. All my dreams are about Bronson Pinchot.

But I still can't help wondering whether maybe the general assumption of this woman's status as Non-RFI - whether correct or not - based on solely on her validation statement...could actually be the very reason she felt the need to validate herself to begin with. Even if no sneering took place (and I believe you, EV) maybe she's gotten so USED to being looked down upon by "snotnosed 20-somethings" who fail to see the value of her existance, that her statements of self-validation have become half-conditioned response, and half-defense mechanism.

Could this lady only be Non-RFI...because we as a society won't LET her be RFI?

Jeff: I think after Nikita's comment yesterday we failed to choose a safeword for our continuing interaction. That is really, really too bad.

How about "enough with the comments, weirdo." That's the one I usually use.