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Was talking with, or at, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
athelind one day, commenting about my vanity. Because I really am vain. Intensely so. Due perhaps to my Canadian ancestry, I try not to show it. But damn, is it ever there.
Anyway, we were talking, and I said "I'm too proud to pretend to be anything."
He replied "So you pretend to be nothing."
Well, he's right. Stunningly right.
Of course I've been doing this so long that don't know what to do about that now. It wouldn't do any good to put on a costume or pretend to have, like, yanno, STYLE or something, up here in The Pickers. Everybody I meet around here each day knows me by name or at least by sight. It would just get the people who know me to say "That's Hafoc, dressing up weird. Who's HE trying to fool?"
Which IMHO tells you all you need to know about the difference between the urban style and the rural style, or lack of style. It's not that we lack style out here because we're too stupid to know better. It's more that when everyone you meet knows who you are and everything you've done for the past thirteen years, putting on whatever Identically Individualistic Black-Clad Minion getup happens to be in style at the moment doesn't accomplish anything except cost you more money and give you less comfort.
You folks living in Civilization, on the other hand, need all the style you can get. To 99.9% of the people you meet every day, you are what you wear, what you drive, and where you live. And that's all you are to them.
But that wasn't my point. As I so often do, I have wandered off into my poor conception of the wherefores and whys. I have yet again Gone Cosmic on you. Sorry.
What I wanted to talk about is the convention I'm visiting this week.
Now, when I get there, I will enjoy the little uniforms the different kinds of individualistic people wear-- the aforementioned Identically Individualistic Black Clad Minions, the people running around in their +3 Geek Mail of Much Con Attendance (a kind of chain mail made up completely of overlapping badges, buttons, and medals, pinned to a substrata that seems to have been denim once), the ravers, the people wearing the post-apocalyptic pseudo-military-anime stuff that seems about 50% straps, buckles, and chrome dog chains that don't do anything-- all those different interesting uniforms. And I like them. I really do. They're interesting. Sometimes I have to ask myself just what the hell they're supposed to signify, but they're COOL anyway.
And in the middle of all that, one poor old fat guy wandering around in khaki cargo pants and a green cotton shirt. The Uniform of Nothing.
Which isn't bad, except that...
They can't see me.
They can NOT bloody SEE ME.
I call it the Elevator Repairman Effect. All these people running around doing their convention thing, and there I am, in my Elevator Repairman camouflage. I look like I'm not part of the convention, so people walk past me with no more attention than they give the potted palm in the corner. Their eyes go right through me. They filter out the things that are not the con, and that seems to include me. They do it without even knowing they're doing it. THEY CAN NOT SEE ME.
This can actually be quite fun, in a sadistic sort of way.
One of my good friends, who shows up at these things, seems especially prone to this habit of blanking out the background noise of That Which Does Not Belong to the Convention, including me. So I spent half of one convention "stalking" this guy, if you could call it that.
Actually, there was no stalking to it. I would just wander up until I was about three feet from him, look him in the eye, and WAVE. He'd jump out of his skin. After a day or so of that fun, I gave up on that trick, though. Poor guy-- I'd see him across the room, with that deer-in-the-headlights terror in his eyes. He'd be looking around, desperately searching the faces in the crowd-- as his eyes skipped over me. He knew I was there somewhere...
Yeah, it can be fun. But mostly it's annoying, and a little bit sad, when you get right down to it. Especially for those of us vain enough that we want to be noticed, at least.
I don't know quite what to do about it. Get a purple Fedora with a Hunter Orange hatband and a tall canary-yellow plume, maybe.
athelind one day, commenting about my vanity. Because I really am vain. Intensely so. Due perhaps to my Canadian ancestry, I try not to show it. But damn, is it ever there.Anyway, we were talking, and I said "I'm too proud to pretend to be anything."
He replied "So you pretend to be nothing."
Well, he's right. Stunningly right.
Of course I've been doing this so long that don't know what to do about that now. It wouldn't do any good to put on a costume or pretend to have, like, yanno, STYLE or something, up here in The Pickers. Everybody I meet around here each day knows me by name or at least by sight. It would just get the people who know me to say "That's Hafoc, dressing up weird. Who's HE trying to fool?"
Which IMHO tells you all you need to know about the difference between the urban style and the rural style, or lack of style. It's not that we lack style out here because we're too stupid to know better. It's more that when everyone you meet knows who you are and everything you've done for the past thirteen years, putting on whatever Identically Individualistic Black-Clad Minion getup happens to be in style at the moment doesn't accomplish anything except cost you more money and give you less comfort.
You folks living in Civilization, on the other hand, need all the style you can get. To 99.9% of the people you meet every day, you are what you wear, what you drive, and where you live. And that's all you are to them.
But that wasn't my point. As I so often do, I have wandered off into my poor conception of the wherefores and whys. I have yet again Gone Cosmic on you. Sorry.
What I wanted to talk about is the convention I'm visiting this week.
Now, when I get there, I will enjoy the little uniforms the different kinds of individualistic people wear-- the aforementioned Identically Individualistic Black Clad Minions, the people running around in their +3 Geek Mail of Much Con Attendance (a kind of chain mail made up completely of overlapping badges, buttons, and medals, pinned to a substrata that seems to have been denim once), the ravers, the people wearing the post-apocalyptic pseudo-military-anime stuff that seems about 50% straps, buckles, and chrome dog chains that don't do anything-- all those different interesting uniforms. And I like them. I really do. They're interesting. Sometimes I have to ask myself just what the hell they're supposed to signify, but they're COOL anyway.
And in the middle of all that, one poor old fat guy wandering around in khaki cargo pants and a green cotton shirt. The Uniform of Nothing.
Which isn't bad, except that...
They can't see me.
They can NOT bloody SEE ME.
I call it the Elevator Repairman Effect. All these people running around doing their convention thing, and there I am, in my Elevator Repairman camouflage. I look like I'm not part of the convention, so people walk past me with no more attention than they give the potted palm in the corner. Their eyes go right through me. They filter out the things that are not the con, and that seems to include me. They do it without even knowing they're doing it. THEY CAN NOT SEE ME.
This can actually be quite fun, in a sadistic sort of way.
One of my good friends, who shows up at these things, seems especially prone to this habit of blanking out the background noise of That Which Does Not Belong to the Convention, including me. So I spent half of one convention "stalking" this guy, if you could call it that.
Actually, there was no stalking to it. I would just wander up until I was about three feet from him, look him in the eye, and WAVE. He'd jump out of his skin. After a day or so of that fun, I gave up on that trick, though. Poor guy-- I'd see him across the room, with that deer-in-the-headlights terror in his eyes. He'd be looking around, desperately searching the faces in the crowd-- as his eyes skipped over me. He knew I was there somewhere...
Yeah, it can be fun. But mostly it's annoying, and a little bit sad, when you get right down to it. Especially for those of us vain enough that we want to be noticed, at least.
I don't know quite what to do about it. Get a purple Fedora with a Hunter Orange hatband and a tall canary-yellow plume, maybe.
