Speak

Blah blah blah.

Pig Rush (1960) by Leonora Carrington

Obnoxiousness is one of my core values. I was outside pulling grass out of the gravel in my driveway when I had this insight. When I say something faintly off-kilter or boundary-pushing… Let’s not call it boundary pushing. Let’s call it boundary stretching. When I stretch a boundary, I’m just trying to give us all more territory to roam around in.

But most people really don’t like to wander outside of a very small square of land. They don’t want more room to explore. They want to sit in the middle of a 6’ x 6’ lot and say the same things they always say, and they want to hear the same things they always hear in response.

And when someone else walks up and says, “What about that nice tree over there, with the pond and the creek? What if we expanded this fence slightly?”

They don’t like it. They think that the other person is being pushy and annoying and she’s probably crazy, too.

“I’m just obnoxious,” is my obnoxious defense. “I’m not trying to fuck with anyone.”

When I say something that’s not quite normal in mixed company, all I’m really trying to express is: I think we can do more with this conversation. We don’t have to state the obvious or repeat ourselves. Not necessarily. We can do more with this tiny lot, spruce it up a little, throw in an outdoor daybed and a tea set and a few banjos. We can knock down this wall and plant some flowers. We can dig a tunnel to the center of the Earth or plow a path all the way to the ocean.

But no one likes it when you say “we.” We feels like being overpowered, particularly when a woman is saying we. And honestly, the people who follow my we without hesitation are mostly men who like obnoxious women more than anyone else and also other obnoxious women and also gay men and lesbians and people who are very very very very bored and want something new to happen for once.

Sure, that’s a lot of people. But there are still enough people who hate obnoxiousness that I don’t get to have much fun most of the time. Sometimes I’m sitting in a 6’ x 6’ square area with not much in it – college basketball, say, or bird-watching – and I think about all of the things I could bring to that square. But I can’t lug in all of my shit without making everyone unhappy. So we have to politely talk about birds for an hour instead.

I like birds. But even talk of birds should be maximally obnoxious, in my opinion. People should talk about the birds they love the most and why they love them, and they should also imitate bird calls and act out a bird’s various behavioral tics and say things like “If you could import any bird from around the world into your yard, which would it be?”

Now you’re thinking that it must be burdensome, to always have an ideal conversation in your head that isn’t matched by your surroundings. But that’s not how I think around the clock. It’s only how I think after many, many days on end of not having one good chance to be extra, super, massively obnoxious. This is rare, but it usually happens when I’m away from home. I can’t blather endlessly and digressively to my husband or sing made-up songs to my dogs, songs that are usually from that dog’s perspective, which is aggressive and hopelessly narrow and therefore amusing.

Maybe I myself am aggressive and hopelessly narrow and that’s the problem. But I don’t think so. I think that right now, I’m just trying to figure out how much of myself I can give, and who I should be giving it to.

***

I mentioned this to my therapist last week. I explained that I’ve been quieter than usual lately. I’ve been trying to be less extra for a while now, in fact. But at this point, I feel like I’m not bringing much to the table in most social situations. So I asked him: How do I figure out how much of myself to share?

 “Before I speak,” my therapist said, “I try to ask myself three questions: Does something need to be said? Does it need to be said now? And do I need to say it?”

That’s smart, I thought. Since most things really don’t need to be said at all.

But then I imagined my therapist walking around silently, smiling tight-lipped, appreciative smiles, while everyone around him talked.

And if I’m being honest, I think that anyone who sets the bar that high on speaking words out loud probably doesn’t have nearly as much amazing shit to say as I do. I mean, I’m sure my therapist has opinions to offer. He probably has helpful and important insights, too. He’s probably brimming over with wisdom that he could share, but he doesn’t, because it’s not always necessary or it’s not important that he personally speak up.

And that’s all well and good for him. But listen up, bitch: I have a lot more than just wisdom to offer. I mean, for fuck’s sake. I have full-throated admonitions and bad jokes and experimental jazz vocals. I have digressive anecdotes about my recent trip to see the total eclipse and looming questions about your current methods of prioritizing what’s important in your life. I have thoughts on eternity and permanence and the best hard cheeses to pack on a trip to the lake. I have creative ways of insulting myself and creative ways of building you up. I have sweeping generalities and odd fashion initiatives and a lengthy analysis of the bad design elements of most upper-middle-class homes in the Southeast.

This doesn’t necessarily make me special. Many of us have a literal shit ton (i.e. 16 regular tons) to say about a vast array of subjects. I’m not trying to sound like the author I read recently who bragged that she’s been writing bracingly honest prose since long before it was on-trend. I was like bitch, please. I can’t think of a single good writer who hasn’t been bracingly honest for decades now. Besides, no good writer I know pays the slightest bit of attention to writing trends, let alone follows them.

My point is not that I alone am TRULY GREAT (although that’s obviously the subtext of most of what I write). I just mean that some of us have much, much more to say than just what is absolutely necessary, and when we walk around believing that we should shut the fuck up most of the time, we’re playing by the rules of people who either 1) don’t have a lot to say or 2) don’t say interesting shit that often or 3) don’t want to listen to other people that much or 4) don’t believe that people should go around sharing themselves with each other willy-nilly or 5) think that encountering big personalities with big ideas online or in books or on TV is perfectly appropriate, yet making room for these blustery types in real life is somehow awkward and distasteful.

I mean this is a shockingly common attitude, actually: You watch made-up people on TV or the internet getting dramatic or romantic or audacious or yes, obnoxious, and you say, “Mmmm, I love this person!” But in your everyday life, no one is allowed to break out of a tiny conversational and behavioral cage, or you start to feel unsteady.

To which I say SNAP OUT OF IT, motherfucker. You only live once. For the love of god, be less boring.

Anyway, at the end of our session, I asked my therapist, “When do you get to just… you know… blah blah blah?”

“I guess I don’t blah blah blah that much,” he said.

“Well,” I replied. “Blah blah blah is my whole way of life.”

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