Deep End

Every time I speak to my step-mom or my father I ask what they are up to and they tell me they are "working on being more shallow".  We laugh then catch up on family news or gossip about work.  Sometimes we discuss politics, my new married life or a good movie.  And sometimes I give my theories on whatever I've hitched my wagon to that week.

As I get older, I am coming to terms with ideas like:

A: 'it really doesn't matter what people think' 

and

B: 'don't do it just to please others'

and especially

C: 'do what you want, not what you think people want you to do'.

I think these are the standards behind "working on being more shallow".  I can get behind that. 

A: I'm worried people think I'm too weird at this office.  I cracked a joke during rush-hour in a packed elevator yesterday and as the silence choked everyone between floors 4 and 5, I thought to myself, 'THIS is the worst NYC-trapped-in-the-elevator story ever...forget the man who spent a Labor Day weekend in one...'

B: I keep trying to look cute.  Nobody knows my name, nor do they need to since I'm temporary.  That is the beauty and the curse of temporary.  I'm just waiting for the CEO to say, 'Nice Shoes Skura!'

C: I am going to admit it right here and now that I'm just buying time....time before I get to try to have babies and make my husband's breakfast every morning [and paint commissioned portraits of angels while living atop our luscious mountaintop vineyard in a castle...].  But since I am not living in 1887 or a Jane Austen movie, and I do consider myself an artist [lacking focus and audience...], I heard myself say I was a 'freelancer' yesterday.  I may as well have said, "I'm a person.  Yep.  Thaaaat'sssswhaaat Aye dooo."

There is another quote that my dad and step-mom say to me a lot, usually at the end of our talks. 

"Don't let the bastards grind you down."