vanity*

Although it looks like I pasted by face into this picture, that's not the case. It was just a lucky, very in-focus shot. (difficult to do in a mirror, actually.)


I think about how people will respond to me much too often. This is a difficult thing to admit, as I loathe self-consciousness. Lack of self-consciousness is one reason I love my husband, who cares not what people think when he decides to climb the rock wall outside of an uppity shopping mall, and who wears a rotation of two or three outfits to work in any given week. To turn this around to myself (as perhaps I am prone to do), I generally fear that all his coworkers will know I am a terrible wife who doesn't do laundry or iron his shirts regularly. (Correction often made by Brian: awesome wife, but mediocre housekeeper. This, however, is justified since I work 70 hour weeks and am getting a PhD. See how I did that? Turned it around to make myself look not so bad. That's my modus operandi. lame.)
Anyway, this paranoia about people and their undoubted scrutiny (of me) often is expressed through ridiculous actions I take to avoid their disapproval. Note: this applies primarily to strangers, which is totally illogical.

One Saturday Brian was working, so I decided to spend my time reading my book (Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius- excellent). I planned on taking it to Barnes and Noble, and curl up on an overstuffed chair to bask in the rare gluttony of reading for hours.
When I drove up to the bookstore, I pictured myself, curled up, reading amongst the books, and then walking out after several gratifying hours with the book in my bag...

---Dream sequence begins here: Imagine harp music and foggy vision, or something.---

The store manager stops me.
"Ma'am...I notice you have that book in your bag."
"Oh, it's mine...I bought it a while ago" (smile!! I love books so much that I buy them brand new!!!)
"It looks brand new."
"Well, I am only on page 92, so, it isn't quite broken in." (I am gentle when reading...no cover creasing.)
"Hmmm- I'd like to take you to the back"

I know deep in my heart that "the back" isn't a glorious, book-stuffed room with sun rays beaming in to highlight the dust. It's the interrogation room- complete with a bucket of water to threaten my book if it must come to torture. (You see, water-damaged books are one of the tragedies in life**.)

---Ok, end dream sequence. Imagine the harp again, but in DESCENDING melodies. That's how you know it's the end rather than the beginning of another dream. Important.---

I needed to prevent this inevitable interception by the B&N manager. I am constantly frightened of people thinking I am stealing things. I blame this on my sister, although she doesn't know it (until now):

When I was very young, I was in an electronics store with my family. My Mom asks a simple task: to hold the calculator we were going to buy. I: obedient, unquestioning, and valiant, follow through. I follow through until we leave the store. In the car, I realized I was still holding the calculator, and it wasn't in a bag.
"Mom! I still have the calculator!"
"Oh- we decided not to get that! Ooops."
No one relieved me of my duty.
Anyway, it was my sister who went off on a dramatic spiel about how I stole this calculator, that it was a really serious crime, how the cops were already after me, et cetera, when we conveniently heard sirens in the distance.
I panicked.

My mom laughed more, and ran it back inside the store.
My sister continued to goad, and wield her power as the elder for evil. (She's since grown out of that habit and apologized. I took that apology as confirmation of my perfectly righteous childhood.)

But back to Barnes and Noble: I had to find a way to undeniably prove the book was mine. I decided that the only irrefutable proof would be an inscription...to myself...as if it were given to me. I know. Ridiculous. Why am I admitting this? (To unload my shame.)

So I had to write something in it that NO ONE would EVER write to themselves. I sat in the car outside of B&N thinking on a clever inscription to myself.
I settled on this: "Kara, I hope your genius appreciates his. -B" (The book is entitled "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, just as a reminder")

I chuckled at what I thought to be an exceptionally personalized and creative inscription.
Two months later: loan book to a friend. mistake.

H: (reads inscription aloud) "Who is B???"
K: *uncomfortable chuckle* "Brian gave it to me." (quickly diverted eyes to floor.)

Summary: I wrote an unnecessarily flattering inscription to myself in my own book so that I might avoid an imaginary scenario of being accused of stealing, and then lied to a friend about it.

end story.

* title is referring to both the "trivial/pointless" use of the word, and the pathetic fact that I actually think people are caring enough about my presence to scrutinize my actions.
** Seriously- one time I saw a bag of encyclopedias on the street in Memphis sitting out in the rain and destined for the dump. I almost cried. You think I am exaggerating, I can tell, but the destruction of knowledge AND books in one sitting was too much to handle.