AbsurdBeats

Planned Parenthood! Susan G. Komen! Abortion! Breast cancer! Pink ribbons! Want to hear more?

I didn’t think so.

One of the nice things about writing a blog on my own time, as opposed to for someone else, is that I don’t have to cover topics which have been more than adequately covered by plenty o’ other folk. I might cover them, if I am sufficiently moved to do so, but I don’t feel that I have to get a word in edgewise.

Okay, so that’s not exactly true: I do—often—feel the need to get in a word not only edgewise but front and center under a big ol’ spotlight. I want you know that I thought of this incredibly insightful profound provocative amazing idea and I want you to give a standing ovation to ME ME M-FUCKING-E ME!*

I am not pretty on the inside; I am a nine-year-old diva on the inside.

On the outside, however, I am a middle-aged broad who has learned, with some effort, to enjoy the freedom of not having to respond to everything all of the time. (Yes, I could link to that xkcd comic, but since you already know which one I’m talking about, well, there’s really no need, is there?) I may want a particular point to be made, but I no longer have to be the one to make it.

Doesn’t mean I don’t want to be, or that I don’t take a rather unseemly (for a middle-aged-broad) delight  in being the first to bang out the observation, but if someone else gets there before me, or better (or worse?) yet, says it in a manner more profound or pithier or funnier than I would have, well, I holster my hands and lean back.

Yeah, shit gets done and reputations made by folks who can’t help but elbow others to get in front, but as someone who used to go all-in every time, it’s kinda nice to hang back.

And, hey, if it also allows me to conserve my energy for those moments when I shriek BANZAIIII!!!! and leap into the fray, that’s just cake.

(*In homage to my friend M., who, twenty years ago, shouted this on a late-night downtown local train platform.)