show off

My self-esteem is tied up in some parts to my home. When I have guests, I want them to pay me compliments because I made a great deal of effort to hide the PJs and the garbage so when they walk in the door, the place looks so neat that they'll pay up.

Having a home to be proud of is tied into two elements. One is my desire to stay put because growing up my mom moved us around a lot. Two is well, I dunno if anyone knows this but I'm a woman and women tend to do this thing that people refer to as "nesting". Like the animal for which this behavior is named, its a little bit repetitive, cyclical you might say. Around and around we go. A little feather here, a little twig there, a little moss out, a little moss in. Pruning away with our hands and arms and heart the place we call home. My mom used to do it and it drove me crazy and then I realized that I did the same thing. She would rearrange the furniture, the frames, the beds, the covers, the towels. I couldn't understand why a person just couldn't be happy with the way things were and had to keep changing it and then I found myself in the same situation. Ambre noticed it too and called me out on it. Was my face red. Oh crap, I am my mother.

But since all or a majority of women do this, it can instead be said that well, women do this so I'm not my mother, I'm just a woman. And if you have an inkling of a creative side, this process never stops, much to the dismay of the husbands. There's this blog by a woman in Chicago who posts pictures of her projects and whose home was featured on the popular Apartment Therapy Home Tour. Perhaps the Pulitzer Prize of Nesting Achievement. The website is hugely popular with wannabe interior designers and the stuff they come up with is impressive and I visit it almost daily. Anyway, this Chicago woman, what other reason would she have to show us her home but to show off, right?

Which is also what blogs and MySpace and Facebook seem to foster. Showing off. No one posts pictures of themselves when they're half ugly or full ugly. They post pictures when they look hot, when they got married, when they had a baby, when they won an award, when they met a celebrity. I'm particularly surprised when girls I thought differently of post pictures of themselves in these outfits that are out of the norm for them. Boobies hanging out, short skirts, tight ass jeans. Guys have pictures of themselves with their cars, their bikes, their collections. And all of us have pictures of trips we took. Look at me, I went somewhere. Look at me, I have tits, bet you didn't know that.

But dammit, its what we want. I don't wanna stalk people and be lacking of information. I wanna know everything. Where you went, why you went, who you're going out with, where you live, what you do. I'm not actually going to call you and try to hang out with you, that's in the past. I want to know all the chisme, all the controversy and then compare it to my life and see how I feel after. Usually pretty good. Or sometimes very jealous (dammit Andy Barron and Andy Cervantes, why are you guys always going somewhere cool?).

Sometimes I use it as a research tool before I actually call someone. I like to stalk Ambre & Michelle's profile in case there was a key event I forgot about or missed that way when I see them I can get a full picture of what happened. And since I never see Man-D I stalk hers because she's a legitimately busy lady and I don't even want to attempt to steal time away from her doctor prep.

I maintain two blogs that spew basic verbal diahrrea. Sometimes they're insightful and hilarious. Other times they're trite, cliché, and boring. But I can't stop. I don't want to. How else can you get instant feedback on your writing and a justification of stuff you're thinking about? And though I have no qualms in letting you know just what I'm thinking and what I think of myself I'm not really trying to accomplish anything or change any minds. Its blah, its just words, just talking, just thinking. And just your basic showing off. Look at me, I can use analogies and alliteration.

I need an avalanche of aspirin. That EvY, what a show off.