Yesterday, one of my facebook "friends" (I need to find a different way to punctuate friends in this context to indicate that I know a facebook friend is not the same as a flesh-n-blood friend and yet a way that does not diminish the charming relationship that can exist between facebook ~friends~. Does that work?) posted a link to the Infinite Summer project - maybe just in Portland? - that encourages readers to read or reread David Foster Wallace's 1000+ page novel Infinite Jest.I admitted in my comment to the post that I was daunted and ultimately defeated a few pages in. DFW's brilliance intimidated me, and it felt like too much work. He was an amazing writer, technically brilliant, very clever, and very infatuated with footnotes.
Non sequitur that's actually a sequitur - I heard a story once on NPR about cashew harvesting, explaining why they cost so darn much. Apparently, cashew husks are poisonous, so in order to get to the nut, the plant stalk has to be burned first. It's hot, dangerous work, hence the $5.00 per can cost. Made me think, who figured out that there was a tasty nut inside that poisonous wrapper?Infinite Jest is, to me, 1000+ cashews in a poisonous wrapper & I just wasn't able to burn through it all. But I wanted to. I was embarrassed that I gave up so quickly.
It's not the first time, however, that I wanted to maintain an appearance at odds with reality. I know that there have been other things I pretended to like or understand or master just to keep up appearances.
This facade preservation first started when I was in elementary school & attended Girl Scout day camp out at Warner Lake. I struck up a pen pal friendship with a girl from Foley, and based on her initial admiration of the big city I called home that I carefully described to her ("We have a big mall called Crossroads!"), I kind of embellished the details of my life in our letters so as to paint an Orphan Annie Once She's Adopted By Oliver Warbucks tale bound to impress anyone from Foley. I recall telling her I was a doctor's daughter (um, my dad is a professor with a doctorate, but let's be honest, I didn't add that my dad was a prof at SCSU who biked to work) and that we lived in a two-story house with a "grand" banister and upstairs hallway that overlooked the living room for its full length.
This stretchy description will mean more to those who've been to 507 8th Ave., but come on. We had a regular sized staircase that went upstairs and met a hallway with two modest bedrooms and a small bath. Yes, it was open, in the way that 100 year old home hallways are open. There were wooden spindles, but I'm sure I hoped she'd think they were granite. Oh Angela, did I impress you?
So confession time, now that I've admitted my pen pal debacle. Anything you've stretched (I don't want LIES!, just details meant to impress the listener)?
When I first met Kyle, I pretended to be really into The Beastie Boys and I bought him a Beastie Boys t-shirt for our first Christmas. I only knew one of their songs at the time ("Girls") because someone (Regan Johnson) played it repeatedly on our choir bus trip to New York. Later, I ended up really liking "License to Ill" and "Paul's Boutique" but I was totally posing.Am I the only faker?
8 comments:
I pretended to know (and care) much more than I really did about Led Zeppelin to a guy who kept asking me out when I was in love with Allen.
Though I liked talking to him, I was not romantically interested, and he kept coming 'round. My roommates were encouraging me to go out with him, because they were sick of me mooning around about Allen when he was clearly still in the "friends" stage. Anyway, the guy (can't remember his name . . . Chris? Mike? Dave?) gave me the coolest Led Zeppelin t-shirt I have ever seen before or since: dusty black with a grey angel logo. It was then stolen from me by a subsequent roommate. And we never went out.
The moral: Uuummmmm . . . what goes around, (exaggeration) comes around (theft).
PS- Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" definitely falls into the "instant classic" category for me, as per your previous post).
I got ya on this one. I pretended to like writing a DICTIONARY for a Spanish novel when Brent and I were dating. It was painful. Excruciatingly boring. But he was so cute. So earnest about it. We wrote the thing and even sold it in the BYU bookstore.
I catch myself faking that I read much fancier books than I actually read sometimes, "Oh yes, War and Peace again" and I often exaggerate my successes at the office. Sad, sad. My reading television reviews allows me to discuss TV as if I know all the latest shows, and ... really, I tend to exaggerate everything. But nothing as charmingly as you do!
Please note the pool and slide in Erin's Summer Fun Post. It is actually a picture of our pool at our former 507 address. I think Erin mixed up the photos.
Fred the Dad/Dude/Dud
Brilliant dad!
Too bad our house wasn't in the 400 block Erin - a big red brick mansion and the house wouldn't have been far off.
I used to tell people my name was Cornucopia.
Once I was walking downtown (the BIG city of St. Cloud) with a friend practicing our ASL signing - we were in a class in high school which skills now see archaic compared to my Interpreter Training -- anyway, we walked into a coffee shop and she was practicing to see if she could understand what I was signing and some people came up to us and were like, are you deaf? They were taking sign language at a different school (I was at Apollo then and luckily, didn't know me - since I can hear). Tasha said - oh I'm just with my deaf friend so I had to play the WHOLE NIGHT at the table like I could read lips and sign (hello my skills were so elementary) - I'd even look away until Tasha would wave in my direction "catching" my eye. Oh the shame - amazingly it showed that my sign language skills were better than I thought -- oh and my ACTING!
I have also faked that I was from Britain - did this a couple of times with various friends who had younger sisters and they had friends over - so everyone was in on it and yes, I spoke with an accent and talked about my house, my life - totally made up.
The sad thing about Angela is that St. Cloud EVER seemed like a big city - I mean, even WE drove to Foley to go on the Summerland waterslide (singular - not plural) - I remember how "The Cities" seemed mammoth to me - and now that I live here, well, it's still big but it's not like I live in Sao Paulo, Brazil - with like 30 million people; Andrew went there for Marian's wedding and said it's "BIG" (that's the understatement of the year!)
I have a saying-"NEVER let the truth get in the way of a good story". :) Isn't a story so much yummier with a few stretched details? I'm sure it made the pen pal letters much more anticipated, and savored, right?
When Alyssa and I were young, we used to tell everybody we were twins. We quickly found out that this evoked much more animated responses from people..."Oh, you two little blondies are so cute", "Why you both have the most beautiful matching big blue eyes!", "Oh, twins! How sweet...here are two dollar bills...go have fun!".
Yes, yes...we were posing...posing for many years to many people (a good handful of them from different wards we used to travel to with my dad when he had some stake calling). I think all the lying we both did in various church buildings, will perhaps one day come back to haunt us...oh well for now...I am still daydreaming of the days when I would hear the words "Ahhhh...twins!!! You deserve gifts...how about a nice chocoalte", to which Alyssa and I would quickly respond, yes please!
Although I must admit...the triplets kinda stole our "we are twins" thunder--ahhhh, we'll forgive them:)
Erin
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