I've been reflecting a bit on the last post. The stuff about my life being Not An Open Book What. So. Ever.
I am and almost always have been an introvert. But because I liked music and singing when I was younger and because I stupidly went to law school and became a litigation attorney, fer chrissakes, I am able to pull out and strap on the Not Shy persona* when necessary.
I think people who get to the acquaintance level with me experience kind of a whipsaw thing. I'm all Hail Fellow one minute and Ice Queen the next. I guess. I mean, nobody says so. But I wouldn't be surprised if more than a few people who sort of know me think I'm aloof.
I'm not really an Ice Queen. But I'm no Teddy Bear, either. I prefer my space and distance. But not because I'm some imperious chilly royalty.
I get it from my father. Paranoid, insecure, suspicious, and downright mean. That was my old man. But he was all raw woundedness on the inside (which, by the way, I didn't totally figure out until after he was dead and I had had substantial helpings of shrink-o-therapy. And his gooey-on-the-insideness may still be a rank fantasy, I dunno). AND, oh, he had the ability to be utterly charming. He could don a persona that included the ability to absolutely purr. PURR! Mean, twisty old Richard could purr like a big, fat just-fed tiger.
My mother, on the other hand, was once described by her father as one who "never met a stranger." Which is true. My mother could fall into companionable conversation with ANYone. She was simple, naive, and small-minded in many ways. But she could and would make chitchat with kings, bums, serial killers, saints.
This talent of hers brought her to achieve the biggest thing,
probably, in her life: My mother was elected the foreperson on the
Twilight Zone jury trial. That's right. My mother was the leader of the
first installment of the "celebrities can't be convicted in Los Angeles"
series. She was on the front page of the Los Angeles Times. I don't
personally know anyone else who has been on the front page of a major
newspaper. Well, not above-the-fold, anyway.
I will say that I'm really proud of her for the way
she conducted herself in this. If you care enough and Google like a mad
person, you will find the story of how she called into a local radio
show to dress down the disappointed prosecutor who was moaning on the
air about how starstruck and stupid the jurors must have been. Mom may
have been an open and simple person, but she wasn't stupid. And
she couldn't have been starstruck, since she had no idea who any of
those people were. I can only imagine how the folks answering the
phones at KABC that day must have peed their pants when they heard that
she was on the line.
So, yeah, how such disparate personalities as my mother and father ended up together and made three fucked-up children is a mystery for the ages.
I'm the middle fucked-up kid. But you probably could have guessed that. Paranoid, suspicious, hilarious** and occasionally charming. And introverted. Not aloof.
~~~~
*I always think of Carol Burnett belting the song "Shy" from Once Upon A Mattress whenever I think of myself as shy. But I am SHY, dammit.
**I am fucking hilarious in person. Not that you'd know it from this blog.
Recent Comments