It’s All About ME… Except When It’s Not

The weather today is beautiful, a fact I noticed only upon exiting my dark basement apartment at 2:00 in order to buy smokes.

I had the sneaking suspicion that this may be the last day where you could sit outside in shorts and enjoy the sun until, like, May 2008.  So I decided to take advantage of the situation and gathered up my book, a Diet Pepsi, the aforementioned fresh pack of smokes and parked myself in a lawn chair in the yard.  My outfit of choice consisted of a pair of shorts and the top from a really nice bikini I purchased way back in June and sadly did not have the opportunity to wear at all this summer.

In the interests of full disclosure, I must admit that I, like most women, have some body image issues.  I have some junk in the trunk– not, like, a flea market’s worth of junk, but enough to clutter a small closet.  Enough that I feel self-conscious when scantily clad, which results in a lot of squirming and tugging and artful body-positioning when my scantily-clad self is presented in public.  But the backyard is another story– there I am more-or-less protected from the critical eye of the general public, and despite the fact that the yard isn’t fenced in, the only people that could presumably see me are the neighbors on either side.  And I don’t see them much.  Therefore, my dysmorphic behavior is significantly scaled down– say from a 75 to a 20 (it never fully goes away).

So here I am, lounging about, enjoying my unemployment for the first time in several weeks.  I’m lying on my stomach, reading mental_floss’ excellent book “Forbidden Knowledge” (a boon for both trivia junkies and ADDers) and generally enjoying the weather, when I hear my (male) neighbor enter his yard.  I squelch my sudden urge to tug at my shorts and continue to read as if I never noticed the guy.  But then he says:

“Oh my, what a big bum!”

Time stood still.  In those few seconds, I had some decisions to make.  Should I ignore my neighbor?  Physically or verbally assault him?  Or should I beat a hasty retreat and shed shameful tears in the privacy of my living room?

In the end, I took a middle-of-the-road approach.  I turned over and said: “Pardon me?” in a partly-laughing, partly-threatening kind of tone.  My poor neighbor, he looked stunned and then very embarrassed.  Because his commentary on bum sizes was directed towards his new (and growing) puppy, which had just relieved itself in a rather spectacular way.

He hadn’t noticed me it all. 

Which leads me to wonder how often I have knee-jerk negative reactions to things that aren’t about me at all.  I mean, of course it’s all about me (in my head).  But is it possible that for other people, it’s all about them?  That they do not immediately notice me and feel compelled to comment on my oh-so-interesting self, because they are too busy doing their own thing?  Imagine the freedom!

So yeah, my neighbor apologized profusely for a few minutes, but in the end we both got a good laugh out of it.  When he went back inside, I tugged my shorts up a little and positioned myself so that my book shielded my central tummy-roll.  Old habits die hard.