“You’re Just So Interesting To Have Around”

I reserve the right to be boring. I reserve the right to go on and on about my day to people who aren’t listening. I can and will give lengthy and laborious lectures about traffic, clothing, and this new salad dressing I’m trying, I’ll talk about all the least offensive jokes I saw on Facebook and I will refuse to curse in the company of people I don’t know all that well. I will bog you down in the details of my adventures in the parking enforcement office of a city to which I had never been before. I will drag out my love of physical books over digital ones. I’ll describe, in microscopic detail, all the reasons I can’t stand Larry David and why Jaime Lannister’s storyline makes much more sense in the books. And yeah, I’ll talk about the weather. I have a fully prepared speech about this Northeastern humidity and how it makes me feel like I’m wearing a sweater pulled out of the dryer too soon because I grew up in a dry heat and, yeah, there is a difference. I reserve the right to rant about reiki yoga, Pokemon Go, and this delightful Jeopardy contestant that I think got cheated because my identity is not for show. My life is not a Double Dare obstacle course and I am not the happy child beaming for the cameras under a cascade of slime. I am neither modern nor marvel. I won’t win you cool points with that girl you like and I won’t see how upset your mother gets at the sight of me. I am not your wrist tattoo, signed Elliot Smith vinyl, or Jill Stein bumper sticker. I am not a conversation piece — I am the conversation. I am my love of gouda cheese and my indecision over buying a Fitbit. I am my own desire to be uneventful, unexciting, and uncool because people who’ve actually been through shit don’t need to wear the problems of others as jewelry. So before your best intentions reduced my entire being to your laziest assumptions, what were you saying about Jennifer Aniston? Because the more I think about it, the more I realize she’s probably my favorite living actress.