(The title is an homage to GQS)

Rant mode = on

Pet peeve #143

Women who cannot find it within themselves to behave in a dignified manner.

Imagine a woman walking through a parking lot shouting to her ‘friend’, calling that friend a whore and generally calling attention to herself. A woman who… really… shouldn’t want to call attention to herself.

I’m not talking about ‘acting out’ and being funny, or crazy, or whatever you call it, among friends. BE a loudmouth with your pals. Be the pushy broad, or the funny chick, or whatever.

But don’t subject ME to it in a setting that is inappropriate.

In fact, I know tough girls and larger-than-life personalities… who don’t take shit, and can dish it with the best. BUT… they still carry themselves with dignity in public. They don’t subject the entire world to “look at me, I’m so hardcore I can call my friends names from across a parking lot and they won’t do anything about it.”

They just ARE hardcore, because that’s who they are and they don’t feel the need to demonstrate it to strangers. (Unless said strangers decide to be offensive.)

A real woman, whether she is the quiet and reserved sort or the gregarious sort, does not need to broadcast and call attention to herself. If she deserves attention she will have it, and usually it will be because people notice her bearing, her self-assured behavior, and her ability to be appropriate to the setting.

You don’t need to call attention to yourself if you’re worthy of attention.

Meh. That goes for men, too, I guess.

Come ON people. It is NOT hard to be classy in everything you do. If *I* can walk around with a little integrity, why can’t you? I’m not so very special.

Oooh, let’s rant about superficial. Can’t abide that either. People who talk about celebrities, and avidly watch so-called celebrities who are celebrities NOT for talent or intelligence, but because they happened to have been in the right place at the right time and took their clothes off for the right person, or they once did something and got a ‘name’ and now to keep that ‘name’ out there they have to participate in some ridiculous charade, or something equally shallow. Seriously… you’re TALKING about this? You’re talking about the life someone else is leading, watching ‘reality’ with bated breath, because apparently it beats the shit out of YOUR reality? You want to be those people? You want to be that two dimensional? You make time to sit your ass down and stare at THEM prancing through the day being… whatever it is they are?

You and the rest of the sheep, I guess.

I shudder to think of it. I shudder more violently when I realize that people like ‘you’ (you who love that shit) are considered ‘cool’ and people like me are considered nerds, geeks, or dorks because we aren’t well-versed in the ways of the shallow. We are undesirables in the eyes of current society because we demand substance in our entertainment, in our conversations, in associates.

Perhaps you think I’m aloof and uninterested. Perhaps I require something other than the same thing, over and over and over. Perhaps I don’t have time to care about the daily artificial play-acting of life that some vapid dingbat displays for the camera.

I’d rather go live my own reality. It’s not always pleasant, but it does keep me busy.

I’m still working on it, but my goal is to live fully, conquer the day, and suck the marrow from its bones. EVERY day. How I conquer it may not be how someone else would, but I want to know that I lived that day, and not have it slide into the morass of all the days before and all the days after, each indistinguishable from the others.

Life is too damned short to waste on things I don’t need or care about. Focus on that which matters.

Ok… so let’s see. Carry myself with dignity. Check. Not make an ass of myself. Eh, usually. Avoid the shallow and superficial. Check. Live. No… REALLY live. Workin’ on that.

Right, then.

Rant mode = off