Dotty Parker

working hard, yo.

As you now know, I am the wind. Whooosh.

As you may or may not know, it is v. v. windy. Oh yeah. It's so windy that the windows seem like they're going to break. I hope that won't happen. I prefer it when glass is intact. It's not quite as pointy or dangerous. Sometimes dangerous is good, you know, the danger of a Cuban cigar or saying naughty words when standing next to the Pope. But pointy shards, I have to vote no.

They hurt.

But the wind, you see, is so frantic. More frantic than even I am (when I'm not being the wind) most of the time. Not all of the time, of course. Sometimes the frenetic pace of Her Royal Highness Dotty Parker rivals the energy level of a gas molecule on fire. Whoa. Spaz.

Speaking of spaz, I watched a clip of Ali G, a cuckoo guy that CoolCat told me about. Ali G was talking to Boutros Boutros Ghali. Interviewing him.

Click on the first clip (even though it looks like it should be the second clip, at the time I am writing this, it's the first clip). Check out the spazzy nature of his spaz gesture.

That spaz could be me.

There's a small part of me, the breezy part that switches direction for no reason at all, that thinks that I might be a bit, uh, excitable. When I'm in public and meeting new people or trying to behave as I imagine other people behave, often I wonder what I look like from the outside. Do I look the way that I feel? Do I look like I have weights on me so I don't fly away? Does it look like I have spray-glued my face so that it only conveys a certain range of emotions?

I bet that it does. An advisor of mine summed up my behavior in two anecdotes.

One--I described something that was insignificant, but freaked me out. He looked at me with that wise old owl face and said, "You've got the panic knob turned up a little high, there."

Two--Keeping that in mind, I decided that at least once I would be professional and not let my mind wander. Although I always wanted to talk about the birds' nests on the roof of the biology building, (Named Winston Hall. The Chemistry Building was called Salem. The art museum was Reynolda House. Can you guess which tobacco company had lots to do with our founding?) this day I sat still, did not let my eyes flit around to read the cartoons he'd posted or the spines of the books he'd read. This day, I was determined to be good.

Yeah, well, good doesn't look very nice on me. It isn't my color. He, once again, gave me the professor owl look and said, "What's going on? You seem like you've been holding back...like you've tied yourself down."

Then, of course, it came pouring out of me. Blah de blah de blah! Exclamation points everywhere. Babbling all over. Explanations of how I was wanting to pretend to be a grown up.

He looked amused. I'm sure he was. I would have been disappointed if he hadn't noticed how scientific I was being. I guess I'm glad I failed. I would have been horrified if I'd had to repeat the performance day after day. Bleeehhhhhh.

And so, I'm coming to believe that I'm just going to be like that. I may have to not sit still sometimes, but, in fact, it may not look as seizure-like as I imagine. And even if it is, I'm going to have to find a new way to deal with it.

Currently, I see, from afar, that I take up as much physical space as any human being is allowed to. Flapping around, gesturing wildly, sticking my legs out weird when I walk. See the Leonardo drawing if you have any questions.

In real life, this can't be true because almost everyone I know still has both eyes and my ankles seem to work well. What I must do is rethink the Leonardo drawing. Instead of focusing on these arms and legs flapping, slaves to the wind, I should look at the divine proportions that have been noted for centuries. Most authoritatively in the book, The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown.

Yes, Dotty, think, as the breeze blows through your hair, you are still excitable, but in oh-so-beautiful proportions. Like that man said in that book.

Posted by dotty at December 1, 2004 11:59 PM