Monday, June 02, 2008
a fraud in the house of cool
I’m going to be pretty light on the postings for a bit - first, this week, I’m on the road and very much booked solid for the whole time; I probably should be prepping my site visits right now but lord love me it’s late and I’m in a hotel room in the wilds of San Diego and I’ve got three more nights and two more hotels to go, so I’ll cut myself a shred of a break here. And then there’s some news on the home front that has rather taken my attention and will continue to do so for a very long time, but that’s for another conversation, eh? Maybe once we eject the lurkers and you and I can have a real heart-to-heart. Anyway. For now, here’s a tale of self-image gone awry:
It was probably when I was most sure of myself actually, finally, being cool. We were having some kind of party, and the cool kids came. But as is so often the case when immortals come on the scene, their comportment was unsettling. They unsettled me, anyway.
The cool kids were the friends of the cool co-workers, a penumbra of hip that had spread wide enough to appear to include even my unfashionabe self. The connection was all the more precious for its tenuousness: Kel had found a good entry-level gig at a co-op where the staff was generally young, smart, and interesting. She became friendly with a certain subgroup and we all started hanging out. They were cool; it was fun. And then one of them, the quiet dude with the goatee, introduced us to some of his other friends. I guess he knew them from waqy back but to me they seemed trendmeister fresh. Dave was tall with lank black hair and long gangly limbs, a puckish face and eyes of pure complicity. One look at him and I knew he was up to something; one look from him and I felt like I was, too. And it wasn’t like he actually was up to anything in particular, or particularly bad - but the way he looked, it seemed as if that wouldn’t have been such a big problem for him either. Dave looked like he’d welcome the excitement.
Along with Dave came the Idle Girls, two tall leggy slices of hot crumpet, fresh-faced and powerfully built, both improbably named, fashionably slim, and ready to rachet any party to 11. When Kel and I walked, one fine evening, into a packed bar full of Mission hipsters, and a good booth down the side wall erupted with cheers and calls for our company, and then the Idle girls burst out of its dim depths like sirens, one with long red hair and one with short blonde locks, and they drug us to their lair of beer and cheer, I really felt as if my own credibility had been well and truly established.
So: We had a party in our little crib out at the bottom right corner of Pacific Heights, and Kel’s friends from work came, and some of them brought their friends too, and thus it came to pass that the Idle girls were hanging out in our tiny little kitchen.
This was a truly efficient galley - I could reach every part of it without moving my feet. Plus, it had a window wiht a real view - if you leaned out far enough you could see the tip of the TransAmerica pyramid building. And you needn’t worry about leaning out too far, because there was a handy fire escape just outside, offering forged-steel assurances of safety. And since it was a party, and our place was, as realtors say, “cozy,” and our guests were, as social analysts say, “hip,” the fire escape on that particular day had been converted into an additional fractional room, which one entered or left via the kitchen window. I rather approved.
The Idle girls were hanging out in the kitchen, one lounging against the cabinet and one sitting on the stove opposite the other, framing the kitchen window like the valkyries of Partytown. Feeling my oats, I glibly excused myself as I breezed past them to take some fresh air out on the emergency lanai.
“Oh good,” one of them said, “let’s see some local style.”
“Local style?,” I asked, bemused.
“We’re ranking people on how cool-ly they get out to the fire escape. And this is your turf so I bet you’re smooth as hell.”
I smirked. Of course I’m smooth as hell. This was my house. Here’s how it’s done, I thought to myself, and launched.
Just because it was an emergency exit didn’t mean the window was easy to navigate. It was skinny and made skinnier by how the window swung open; the sill was higher than my knees. With one hand on an upper portion of the side of the sill, I kicked up and through, rotated sharply, propelled, re-rotated, withdrew my hand, and turned gracefully to receive my adulatory assessment from the judges. My supercilious smile to them, however, was met with grimaces of aghast disappointment. “Ya wanna try that again?” It sounded like charity. I grasped for it.
“Yeah, sure, I think my foot stuck on the rotation, or, um, yeah, lemme try it again....” I hopped back inside (an easier maneuver), eliciting renewed unenthusiastic glances. Putting their interim opinion behind me, I addressed the equipment, focused my ki, and made a righteous job this time around of the transit from inward to outward self. Nothing was rushed; everything flowed smoothly, from the lifting of the first foot through its extension forward, the levering and shifting of my hips, the transfenestration, and then the light, balletic landing onto the flat steel slats of the escape lounge. I took a moment to perfect the gesture, letting it come to a natural rest on its own terms. Only then did I turn around, secure in my having executed my own ideal traversal. I didn’t care what the Idle girls thought - I was satisfied.
What the Idle girls thought was obvious from the dismissive derision each of them amply expressed on their mutually beautiful faces. Their eyes said “fail” and their smirks said “dork.” Light poured through the window onto them, glowing in their alabaster skin and green feline eyes. I had let them down. I had been judged far from cool. Perhaps I was being seen by them, for the first time, for my true self.
Did I care about their opinion, now that I knew what they really thought? Part of me wanted to be mortified, or at least disappointed, by my ignominy, for having been unmasked before them as a fraud in the house of cool. Another part of me was fairly resigned to that fact already, though. I knew how cool I actually was, and at this party, it wasn’t “-est.” It had always been fun to hang with them and to consider myself cool, but the days of my perceived coolness were clearly numbered. However, as of that moment, those days had not yet ended with finality. It was still my crib, my party, my friends. While the good times lasted, I drank them deeply. For what can be more cool, than to revel in one’s own essential nerdiness?
That was a rhetorical question, by the way. Do not tell me. I’d rather not know.
