Good manners

Thought #1: One summer when I was home from college, my sisters, mom, Judy Langen, and I went to a sales party together. It was a candle party, I think, or maybe something involving pampering products. Not Mary Kay, but you get the idea. The consultant for the products was definitely new at it. She was rough around the edges, she wasn't very polished, and definitely lacked sales skills. She didn't look like someone who would be selling beauty items either. My sisters and I noticed. We whispered to each other a little bit (at least I think it was them - sorry if you guys weren't there and now I'm implying that you were less than graceful with me. I could have been doing this just with myself. That's very likely, actually. The more I think about it, the more I think it was just me). We (or perhaps just me, myself and I) weren't rude, but we definitely took note that the saleswoman was still learning. It was noted.

And then I noted something else: Judy on the other side of the small table. Judy, one of the classiest women I know, well-traveled, well-read, cosmopolitan, elegant, and so on, politely engaging the woman during her product presentation. Judy asked sincere questions, sampled the products, and behaved in a way that helped the saleswoman/consultant feel more at ease. At that moment, I felt like a heel. I took mental notes from Judy. This is how a lady behaves.


Thought #2: My first grad school fiction workshop submission was a story called "Employee of the Month," all about a young woman who worked hard and pleased everyone around her while working a summer job at a restaurant. Yeah, it was autobiographical. Ellowell (to use Becca's favorite jargon). And no, it wasn't used as the basis for that Dane Cook/Jessica Simpson movie I wish I hadn't seen in the theater. My story was well detailed and fully elaborated, I know that. It was also, apparently, insufferable. During the group critique session, my fiction advisor spit out what he had written in the margins - "Somebody get a grease fire going. This story is boring as hell."

"But, but, but ..." I sputtered, trying weakly to defend my efforts.

"Every story needs conflict, Erin. This character is completely unbelievable. No one wants to read this kind of nonsense," he said firmly. He was right, though it stung to be taught so directly. A good story needs conflict (man vs. man; man vs. nature; man vs. self; man vs. society; man vs. the supernatural ... take your pick). Conflict makes us care. Conflicts creates tension, suspense, drama, and allows for the possibility of resolution. There must be opposition in all things. 

Therefore, if I wrote a light-hearted description of my first SA outing and coated it with sugar and spice and everything nice, it would be boring. It would also be untrue.


Thought #3: I am a chameleon. I like people, and want people to like me back. I use my chameleonic gifts to court relationships and connect with people. By chameleonic, I also mean that I am usually "reading" others and sussing out what it is I think they want to know or what I want them to know. I want my family to know that I love them. I want church folks to know I love the Lord. I want friends to know that I love music/books/foodstuffs/activities/hobbies/movies. I want my kids to know I love being their mamasita. So sometimes I bring out the side of myself that I think will most please the person I am with. Don't we all do that a little? I'm not the only person with this kind of personality equivalent of lighting gels, am I?

Like all of you, I am many people at once. Like all of you, I sometimes compartmentalize those parts of myself, so if I'm talking to someone who isn't very sarcastic, I definitely put a hold on the sarcasm when we're together, and perform the same muting with other traits (religiousness, bossiness, flakiness), depending on whomever is sitting across the metaphorical table. And just as I mute parts of my personality, I enhance other aspects. Thus it is that some of my associates believe I'm quite outdoorsy, while others would never imagine me setting up a tent. I can be many things to many people. Again, this is not unique to me, but it is sometimes compulsive to me, and, to use Marni's term, diagnostic.

With writing, I can't quite be the chameleon, however. I put down the words, and then others react to them. I can't pretend I haven't written them. They're there, fixed. Shaded, sure, and maybe ambiguous, but put down and given away. Reader-response theory in action. When what I show to everyone is the compartment of snideness, self-centeredness or rudeness, I get a little itchy. Sadly, the truth is that I sometimes am rude, self-centered and snide, but if you didn't already know that about me, I didn't want to be the one to tell you.

Thought #4: I don't want this retelling of my New Year's Eve dance shame to seem snide or rude (cause that would make you not like me), even though it is a little bit of both. The snideness makes it funnier. I want you to think it's funny. The snideness makes me less likable. I want you to like me. Oh boy, I've got a conundrum on my hands! I want people to laugh, because the laughing is like carbon, and absorbs the awkwardness of the night. But I don't want you to be displeased with me either. Problem is, all this wanting is out of my control. I can't control the way people will perceive me, and so this impossible people pleasing need is one of the things that makes it hard for me to take my writing to the next level. "What would ________ think if he/she read this?" I ask myself, and then get a little nervous. Of course, there's something really false about trying to hide your flaws the way I sometimes do. False because it's wrong and inauthentic, and false because the hiding doesn't even work. As a writer, I am going to have to come to grips with this truth, that some people will not like me or what I write.

Thought #5: When we sold our house, heaps of ward members came to help. They carted boxes, loaded trucks, cleaned floors and windows, and helped move the fridge. I was so ashamed by the state of the floor under the fridge (the now-christened "underfridge") that I started to cry. I did not want these ward members to know how filthy it was. Goodness knows, I'd had no idea! As I stood weeping in the kitchen doorway, believing on some level that people would now think less of me having seen this accumulation of gunk, another Judy, our RS president, came up to me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. "Erin, we haven't learned anything about you today that we didn't already know," she said wisely. Meaning, the filth and flaws that I thought I kept under wraps (or under large appliances) were already evident to those who spent time with me, and yet they still cared. They came to help not because they thought I was flawless, but because they knew I needed assistance. Meaning, I am sometimes rude and snide, and I am also openhearted and empathetic. I hope you'll forgive my sometimes inconsistent manners, but I'm guessing that you already knew that side of me.