10:00 am | 28 October 2003 | social insecurity deposit

So, I am still struggling against this rampant insecurity, which travails include the following, of late:

• reacting with hurt defensiveness when a friend called a design task i had done "retarded," although he was, in reality, quite happy with the result and meant it as a joke, and anyway is not the sort of person to openly insult me anyway, which made me look like a total weirdo in the end;
• being pretty dang surprised at the sudden outpouring of move-anticipatory love from friends i don't know well enough, along the lines of "i hate that you're moving, you're one of the best people i have ever met," cut to yours truly, chocolate suspended in midair between hand and mouth, gaping in disbelief, as so: "whuuuut?";
• suspicion that pity motivated last night's random pseudo-victory in an arena in which i do not even compete;
• nagging doubts concerning recent deluge of creative energy that is not only productive, but seems to be overarchingly productive of good work, a new sensation, for sure; the weird confidence of "shit, that painting is GOOD" is wigging me out totally.

So anyway, though I have gotten better at accepting compliments and criticism with grace, it remains a veneer that is fooling nobody, cheap particleboard furniture that is so so so much heavier than real wood.

Part of it is an inverse fear that relates back to my own prejudices, of course. It's like this:

• If a genius repeatedly asserts his own genius, I agree and am therefore okay with it.
• If a person of average intelligence repeatedly asserts his own genius, I disagree but don't sweat it overmuch, unless it becomes totally obnoxious.
• If an idiot repeatedly asserts his/her own genius, it only serves to emphatically underscore his/her total non-genius, and drives me batty. (I am not prejudiced against people less intelligent than me--just those who constantly harp on it. i don't walk around being all, "I am one of the most technologically adept people I know").

I realize that to those who don't know me, this may sound insufferably snobby. Be that as it may, I do have a point, and I am approaching it, albeit in a sidling, coy way. That's how girls do things! It eliminates possibility of outright rejection.

ANYWHO, here I go. I am afraid to be like "Hey, assheads, check MY shit out, because it is totally sweet!" because I'm afraid that it is totally un-sweet-to-the-point-of-bitterness, like this terrible vegan cookie I wasted $3 on last week, and that my pointing out my own idiocy will elevate me to the level of "hateable," instead of merely "crappy, yet ignorable." You see? You see how that works? And leave it to me to be totally useless at any qualifiable task. Can't I just become a professor of reassuringly right-or-wrong math? Noooo, I have to be into "art" and "poetry" and "making pointless objects like matchbox puppet theatres while studiously ignoring the growing landmass of laundry that threatens to consume my home." Frick. clm.