I don’t recall exactly the details of the conversation but I caught the new coworker looking at me funny.
“It’s okay. I’m weird, I know,” I told her.
“Oh, no, no. You’re not weird,” she sputtered.
“Oh, no. It’s okay. I’m okay with weird. I embrace the weird. You’re not insulting me.”
“No. I didn’t mean you’re weird. You’re not weird.” The girl was still trying.
“Sweetie. It’s okay. I would be offended if you think I’m normal,” I ensured her. “Because normal is fucking boring.”
I think the cowroker was a little startled at the F bomb, but she’ll get over it. That’ll teach her to stop patronizing me again when it comes to embracing my quirks.
A while ago I wrote a mini manifesto on coming out of the geek closet. Since then, I haven’t made an excuse for being a blogger/Tweeter/gamer. But I found myself having to defend my other choices that Normal People call “weird”.
Like dressing and talking like a pirate. Like doing Thrill the World. Like loving chicharone (fried pork skin). Like knowing there is such a thing as bacon of the month club.
Blogger friend Pond has raised the question on weird recently as well. I told her I was drafting up a manisfesto on the war on Normal.
I started writing it, and it’s pretty much the same as the Geek’s Declaration of Independence I just wrote. Substitute geeky for weird and there, you have it.
I must admit it’s a bit sad that I’ve been out of high school 13 years and I just now realized that John Mayer was half right, there is no such thing as the real world.
The “Real World” is actually High School 2.0.
And I’m done being in high school.
Again I will say, fuck Normal.
Vive la WEIRD AND WONDERFUL!
Hi, My Name is Amy and I Am Weird.
What you describe as being “weird” to me is just having the courage to be authentic, to be who you are and express your individuality. Everyone in that sense is, fundamentally, weird. “Normal” is little more than a social construct, a shelter for people who are terrified of embracing their inner weirdness for fear of rejection. So they don their mask of normality and endeavour to conform. If these people were a colour, they would be beige.
Beige people. Beige lives. Beige jobs.
Personally, I LOVE that you dressed up as a pirate to go see POTC. I giggle every time I picture the scene – one lone pirate adrift on a sea of beige!! Vive la Weird indeed.
Cap’n Bubbles for president I say…..
Viva la Weird! I’m going to make a banner…and a t-shirt. It’ll be a movement!
Thanks, guys!