Quirky, am I?

When I mentioned to WonderAunty that Dana’s latest link-up required me to list the ways I’m quirky, she grinned a glinty-eyed kind of grin (the kind I often grin), and she laughed under her breath. It was the kind of glinty-eyed grin I could have taken affront to (had I not known that she loves me completely and only wants good things for me) as it had ‘overtones’. Mum’s reaction was almost identical. Apparently my nearest and dearest have such knowledge of the breadths and depths of my quirkiness, it goes without saying…but not without being giggled at.

YOU, my lovelies, may or may not know something of my quirkiness. WonderAunty (shortly after the aforementioned conversation) pinged me an email with a link to an online dictionary which defined ‘Quirky’ as “We all know her – the one with pink hair…”

 

SC: And that pissed you off, didn’t it? To be so easily and transparently pegged as ‘one who is quirky’ because of that ridiculous pink fringe of yours. And by an ONLINE DICTIONARY, at that! Something utterly generic has you slotted neatly into a weirdo-shaped hole, with every other self-professed non-conformist who ever attempted to un-mundanify their existence with bleach and a bottle of cheap dye, and that really pissed you off. You’re quirky alright – just like the rest of them.

Um…Hi, Sub-Conscious…you’re back. You didn’t get kinder while you were gone then?

SC: *feigns surprise* Yes! Look at that! I’m *back*. How utterly unexpected I must be. I’m sure my presence here is in no way related to you attempting to demonstrate your quirkiness to your ‘dear readers’ (how many even bother with you now, I wonder?) because you have absolutely no way of putting your bizarre personality into words in a way which won’t make you sound like a complete nutcase.

Thanks for that. To be honest, I was doing perfectly well until you showed up, and could continue to do perfectly well should you take it to your head to sling your hook.

SC: Seeing as I’m IN *your* head, it’s hardly likely, is it? Besides, I’ve missed being able to show your ‘lovelies’ what goes on beneath the surface of your ‘oh so pretty, don’t you paint a luvverly picture with your words’ posts. Which, by the way, whatEVER! Who do you even write them for? The kind people who’ll bother to comment? The ones who share it on social media and make you feel like you created something worthwhile? The people who used to read you and now don’t have time for you, hoping that they might come back and decide you’re worth bothering with again? It’s surely not for yourself, is it? Otherwise you’d write all your *twinklysparklybullshit* in a journal someplace it didn’t need anyone else’s validation…

This is a piece about my quirks, if you don’t mind. And shut up if you can’t say anything nice. Which you can’t ever, so if you could shut up FORever, I’d be grateful.

SC: Wouldn’t THAT be convenient. Ha! Quirks then, seeing as even your colleagues have you pegged as ‘quirky’, and it’s gotten you in hot water with them more than once. “People sometimes don’t know how to take you” – wasn’t that said? “She just hasn’t got used to you the way we all have…” – and that. TRANSLATION – you’re a fucking loon and don’t know how to ‘people’ without being face to face so that the poor sod you’re interacting with can SEE you’re a fucking loon and use their ‘bloody hell, here we go’ mental filter to understand you.

I was going to say something about glitter…

SC: Yeah – craft herpes – and the way you scatter pestilence and sparkling filth over your poor unfortunate friends, who then have to clear the damn stuff up every time they hear from you. It’s cute in a toddler but you’re nearly 33, for goodness sake. Is THAT a quirk? Trying to be cute with things little kiddies do, when you’re meant to be a grown-up? Are you making it ‘retro-cool’? No! Loon.

…or blankets…

SC: Wonderful! Tell everyone how you spend every minute you can wrapped up in some disgusting fleecy thing probably last washed when the Israelites found the Promised Land. Or how you got nicknamed ‘pink slug’ after being relentlessly coccooned day in and day out. THERE’S an attractive quality in a grown-up – a blanket addiction. Perhaps you’d like to regress to thumb-sucking, too?

…or naps…

SC: Probably a bad idea to boast about how exhausted you make yourself by staying up too late, which enables you to nap inside tiny moments. Not to mention the ridiculous amounts of carbs you consume late at night and try to pretend doesn’t happen. You’re running on empty half the time, no WONDER you damn well nap.

…or veganism…

SC: Great, now the entire vegan community will troll the shit out of you for reducing a responsible, mindfully-made life-choice to a ‘quirk’. Whatever is wrong with you, it’s no small thing.

FINE! Tell me, then, seeing as you’re so all-knowing – how do YOU think I’m quirky?

SC: This is assuming I choose to look at ‘quirks’ as something charmingly off-kilter and a little bit adorable, rather than something which might get you locked up, like the way you have a semi-constant flow of self-narrative running in your head the whole damn time? Or how you have to wipe your hands on a ‘safe’ fabric if you touch one you don’t like the feel of? Or how it actually upsets you to accidentally open packets upside down?

Yes…the charming one, if you please.

SC: Your determination that #LoveWins and your insistence on living life in #SilverLinings (always hashtagged, weirdo) are vaguely charming I suppose, but…nope. I got nothing.

THEN WHY DID YOU EVEN…?

SC: Let’s make no bones about it – you’re quirky – *some* people probably do find you adorable or charming, and I’m sure you propagate it by writing *littlesparklythingsinstars* and going around blessing their boots, but don’t you think it’s time to grow up a bit? Get a bit of a grip? You write pretty things and send glitterbombs and I’m sure it’s all very nice, but where does it really GET you? You make some friends. You matter a bit to people who otherwise would never have known you. Big fucking deal. All this obsession with writing, with connecting, with damn well meaning something to someone (or anyone) whose geography is utterly and irretrievably at odds with your own…what does it actually achieve? Surely you’d be better taking a look around you, like you keep saying, and living in the NOW – enjoy the people you’re with. Spend time with them. Stop obsessing about how much you’re missing out and look at what you’re included IN. Knuckle down, do some actual work for once, instead of skating by on the least you can do, and perhaps THEN you’ll get somewhere.

*sulkily* Ten Things of Thankful is a good thing. That matters. That makes a difference. So does 1000Speak.

SC: Neither of those came from quirks, though, did they? They DO matter. They make a difference and are meaningful to people but you can hardly claim ownership, or even that you’re integral to either, now they have their own communities and operate under their own steam…as they should, because unlike YOUR little slice of egocentricity (as I know you like to call your ‘niche’), they’re bigger than you. Gratitude and compassion are inherently Good Things, not quirks you manifested.

So you’re leaving me with, what? Pink hair (like every other weirdo) and blessing people’s boots?

SC: Pretty much. Any attempt to distill the bizarre charm of your personality, wit, or humour, into anything more comprehensible than an Arabic translation of Dostoyevsky, via a group of Montessori 3 year-olds, will surely fall short. People will just have to meet you in person.

BRING IT ON!

SC: I just thought of one – you’re melodramatic in the extreme and tend to scream whilst you’re cooking.

Oh shut up…

SC: You wore a tiara home from ‘Murica and cried the entire way

Seriously, stop now…

SC: You think you’re good at accents and are not-so-secretly crap at all of them, even your own.

Okay, we’re done. 

SC: You’re socially inept and utterly oblivious to it a lot of the time. COME ON I’M WARMING UP NOW!

This post is over. Finished. No more. Goodbye.

SC: You suck.

YOU suck.

SC: You also argue with yourself…

I hate you.

SC: Shoes and hats?

Okay. THAT one we can agree on. Shoes and hats. The funkier or rainbowier the better.

This was part of Dana’s ‘Who Am I‘ series, co-hosted by Bev. Feel free to pop over and read the other entries for March (ignoring, if you will, that this piece was technically submitted in April (TimeZoned, Late, Lazy…whatevs) and join in next (this) month.