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29 may 2002

first impressions

I can be extraordinarily naive sometimes. As in, you wonder how I can possibly navigate my life without knowing this stuff. I'm just way out of the loop on a whole lot of socially-relevant rules, apparently.

People send my URL to their friends. I send URLs to my friends. It's what folks do these days, by way of introduction. "This is my friend Kim. Here's her website. Friend, Kim, shake hands. Or something." Your web presence can serve, for good or ill, as a calling card of sorts. It's not such a bad thing.

So I get the poop tonight. "Yeah, so I sent your URL to a bunch of my friends, and they thought it was neat and stuff...but..." (long pause). Long pauses make my mouth squwunch up a little bit, you know?

"They said you have cats."

I'm still waiting for that scandalous part after the "but".

"No, you have cats. Like, your little cartoon Kim is standing there front and center with them. Don't you know about this?"

I feel my social IQ dropping about three points per second. I have no idea what we're talking about.

"Okay, look, the thing is...women with cats, there's this stereotype..."

And yeah, I know about the stereotype, but I'm so not her. Are we talking about the same stereotype? Like, women with seventeen cats in the muumuu and curlers who sends a Valentine and homemade brownies to Wink Martindale every two weeks? Yeah, but I'm totally not that girl. Two cats is the limit. I wasn't even a cat person to begin with. For crying out loud, I used to leave extra tip money at seedy foreign restaurants because I thought they were "taking care" of the community stray cat problem, if you know what I mean.

"No, well...it's just cats, period. I mean, I told them that you're cool and very not the weird cat lady. Mostly, you're not fat. That's the big one"

So it's explained to me. Cats, apparently, have the capability of being a social red flag to those who are not necessarily cat people. Presence of cats = weird. Presence of cats + a whole lot of extra weight = Run, do not walk. Note: Not a fair assessment of those who may have cats and a few extra pounds, but that's another discussion for another day that I'm certain we've already covered anyway.

And I can honestly tell you, I had no idea. Then, I started thinking about this whole website, but through other people's eyes. I'm surfing around, moseying the web, and blammo, I hit lionessden.com. Nice, bright, warm colors. Generally happy content.

Hey, wait, Cartoon chick with cats. And hey, there's a photo link. Must be a cat gallery! This could be a weird broad. This could be a broad broad. I gotta check this out.

And then I find myself laughing. Hard.

Alas, another stereotype averted. Another sorority not rushed. Another club's dues not paid.

I always tell people that if there were a club for people like me, it would be a damn small club. And I'm pretty good with that. In fact, nothing makes me happier than to be unexpected. Being unexpected is so much more fun than being avant-garde, because even the avant-garde are sort of predictable. They push envelopes. We expect them at art museums to gross us out and make us go "huh?". They do things like nail a pork chop to a telephone pole while spraying Windex into their belly button, and call it performance art. They are a subspecies of intelligencia whose job it is to be misunderstood. They're not just eccentric. They're just really fucking weird, and we expect no less from them.

Truth be told, I don't fancy that. The idea of being the sullen misunderstood chick who pulls out her arm hairs when anxious...well, that's not really me. And so it is with the cat thing. While I love Harry and Wilma, I can honestly say that I'm still not a "cat person". What I have become is a generally much more compassionate person to animals, period. Get a couple of groovy pets, and then get some good treatment for your lifelong allergies to them, and your outlook changes--a lot. There's this whole new source of joy. You make little cartoons of yourself and them, and plop them on your website.

In my case, it's just a little celebration. I'm not sneezing anymore. And hey, I've learned how to capably take care of little living things. Considering my track record with plants (think "black thumb"), it's pretty encouraging.

Being unexpected may not be a terribly cutting-edge way to live. It just means that you're full of surprises. It means you change, aquire new ideals, and find ways to meet them. It means you age with grace and optimism. I may never make any history books, and that's cool. I added some life to some lives.

That's enough.