Echo

alright my love. tonight’s song is dedicated to you.

Reflecting on that last post, I’m thinking about expectations, how people who see me do something like that will assume certain things of me, expect me to be certain things, even only in terms of the most basic assumptions. And then they get closer to me and I’m not what they expected. Yet at all times, I’m just being me. But I think it’s hard to deal with constantly disappointing people. It made me feel how there are some things that look so different when seen from different angles, or from different distances. I think I’m one of those things, like how I can look so different in photographs and even in person. I think it would be easier if what people expected was in fact what I was, or if they didn’t root their acceptance in their expectations. The reason I like listening to the radio is that even if for the most part it’s what I expect to hear (same songs), I like that there’s still room for surprise.  I’m probably someone that you can feel comfortable with, because I’m a predictable person. My positive traits are pretty straightforward, my negative traits are pretty straightforward. But if you can accept that, you can enjoy the quirky little ways I’m unpredictable in my predictability.

Back to my original point, I’m thinking about how if someone didn’t really know me, what kinds of ideas or assumptions would they form about me as a person, as a personality, and how much of those are really me or can be me, and how much of those ideas are contradictingly misleading so if they really met me in a different light, they would be utterly confused if I’m the same person.

There’s this guy who plays during my dad’s open gym. He’s not a jerk, I don’t think. He’s just aggressive and always knocking me down. At least once a week. There was one weekend he’d already knocked me down twice when I was going for the drive, but I was playing really well regardless. On one of the last plays, I got the pass in the corner and went up for the jumpshot. He came flying into me and crashed, bumping my knee with his which was excruciating. I hit the floor and the pain made my whole leg weak, but I still got up and just walked it off quietly.  Found out later I hit the shot. I think that collision made him realize he could really hurt me and he has backed off since then, which is why I don’t think he’s intentionally a jerk, but he still knocks me down at least once a week. When it happens, I usually just yell “C’mon!” in a hot flash of pissed as I get up, but I always let it go immediately, keeping my mind in the game. Last week, he knocked me down again, and it was the same hot irritation frustration as I hit the floor. I got back up and the teams reset the play. He was standing facing the basket and I was walking by towards halfcourt in the opposite direction. As I passed him, on complete impulse, in one fluid motion, I slapped him on the ass. Hard. And kept walking back to my position without missing a beat, just my usual silent intensity turned obliviousness when I’m completely focused on what’s next. There was howling and disbelief from the other guys in the gym–my dad wasn’t there (he’s been in Taiwan) so it was his 50 to 60 year-old basketball friends who have a reverent relationship with him (he’s the Big Brother of the circle), and a handful of my coworkers. I don’t even know half of them (in fact, I don’t even know who this aggressive guy is and who he knows that got him a pass into our gym), but from their point of view, basically the boss’ daughter just spanked a guy for knocking her down.

On Monday morning, Jerry and I talked about it at work. “You didn’t just pat his butt,” he said. “You full on spanked him! Like a dominatrix. And it was completely natural, like you didn’t even think about it. You just did it.”

I smiled at him. That’s how you earn street cred.