Plain

I received perhaps the best compliment ever from a coworker the other day without him having said barely a word.

This coworker happened to be the self-proclaimed douche I’ve mentioned in past posts. While I find him hilarious to work with, I can understand why some people would find him offensive. Mainly, because he is offensive. He has no qualms about telling people exactly what he thinks or giving them shit when he thinks they are being ridiculous. He enjoys spending the work hours he shares with me doing this exact thing, because he finds my flirtatious nature absolutely ridiculous, yet we get along great, because I have no problem agreeing with him on his self-proclamation of ass-holery.

Anyhoo, we were discussing a coworker’s wife who had come in to dine, and I pointed out that she really was quite plain. As always, the conversation turned to the subject of me (because, after all, everything IS all about me) and I stated something along the lines of- “I realize that I am very plain, but that woman was expecially so.” At that comment, the self-proclaimed douche’s eyes widened and he shook his head as I continued to ramble on about the saddery of plainness. When I noticed this, I stopped in my lecture, and he simply said, “Sparkle, you’re not plain.”

Coming from someone who finds me mostly ridiculous and frivolous, I found this to be a great compliment, especially since I am deathly afraid of being unnoticeable.

With all the beautiful people in the world, I find it most exhausting to try to even reach the bottom rung of the Beauty Ladder. While I admit that I do have relatively nice skin, when I wake up in the morning, I find nothing whatsoever in the mirror that stands out (at least in a good way.) I am pale, my eye color is an un-interesting poop shade, and my nose is too bulbous to be defined as “small”. I jazz all this up by swooping on brightly colored shades of eyeshadow, and applying glitter or blush to my cheeks.

It is true that my wardrobe reflects my inner showgirl. I own almost nothing that doesn’t sparkle or shine. However, I still find myself to be a plain girl playing dress-up in Dolly Parton’s closet.

So, it’s nice to see that at least one person has noticed my excessive tries to avoid Plaindom. Even if he is a douche.

P.S. I must point out here that looks aren’t everything, but to quote Freud- “Beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any clear cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it.”

Content

I was sitting on the couch only partially paying attention to Pierce Brosnan’s appalling acting in Stephen King’s Bag of Bones last night when the twitching feet in my lap distracted me. My Rockstar was sprawled haphazardly across the couch and not even the suspensful music that’s written to startle you by ending in shrieks or unexpected scenes was enough to keep him awake. I had to smile to myself at his feeble attempts to maintain consciousness, because they were interrupted by those snorts that begin as snores but are cut short when the person emmitting them realizes they’ve drifted off.

There were a few weeks recently when I was questioning my sanity by staying in a relationship with this man. There was no heart-shattering behavior, no; and I have no doubt that my Rockstar is planning on having me around for a good long time. The issue is that he didn’t realize it takes a little effort on his part to keep me here. I wouldn’t exactly call me high-maintanance, but excessive hugs and affection are required.

But as I sat rubbing my excess supply of Island Breeze lotion on his stinky formerly-perfect feet, I watched him sleep. The ever-present concentration crease between his eyes was still there, even while he dreamed. I think it’s probably too late for anything to be done about that, despite my best efforts to remind it won’t go away if he continues to scowl. His well-worked hands rested just so I could spy the faint scars of years of woodworking criss-crossing the skin. Even though he was wearing a stained pumpkin-orange t-shirt, his pale skin and faded red hair still made him look like an angel in a Michaelangelo painting.

I rubbed lotion between his toes and appreciated the fact that the hair on his toes wasn’t of the creepy sort- no one would confuse him with a family member of the Wolfman. He let out a little sleep groan at the exact time as Annabeth Gish’s disturbingly aged face flashed across the T.V. screen and I thought, ” Why would I want to leave? I’ve got the stinky feet of the man I love sitting in my lap.”