How odd

I think I offended someone earlier by simply not being offended by them. I'm not entirely sure of this, mind, but on reflection I think there were hints I should have picked up on that they were trying to be condescending.

While some people see condescension everywhere, I really don't tend to think of it applying to me, as a rule. I'm much more likely to link another person's strange behavior to gastrointestinal distress than to an attempt to condescend to me. This may seem strange to some of you. After all, I'm a disabled unemployed college dropout living on food stamps, too little money, and an appalling lack of a fashion sense. But it's true. I'm just enough of a geek to believe that who a person is matters more than how the person appears, so condescending behavior really has to be blatant for me to notice it. Sad to say, it appears that my appalling insensitivity to another good human's attempts to offend me has led me to offend them unawares.

So I must ask this favor of anyone reading this: If you are trying to condescend to me, could you please take time out to say, "I'm being condescending"? I understand that many believe condescension should be a subtle art form, but I really would appreciate it if you'd clue me in. It's a sign of something lacking in my constitution, I know, but I fail to get my dander up properly if I don't realize there's a reason to get my dander up. If you'll just do this one favor for me, I shall try to do my best in return to be sufficiently offended for your needs. You'll have to forgive me if I lapse into a gigglefit, I'm afraid, yet perhaps my silly laughter will provide you with more good material to inspire your act.

(no subject)

Do you ever start to feel like your tastes have been too influenced by other people's ideas, that you're not sure if the things you've been taking pleasure in are things that really please you after all? Do you ever feel the need to take a chunk of time to just enjoy something you know for sure you'd enjoy no matter what? It's not something you like because it's cool or something you like because it's uncool. It's not something that was recommended by your mother or your lover or your best friend from sixth grade. It's not something you like because you think it shows off your good taste or your bad taste. It's not something you like because nobody would ever expect you to like it. It's not something you like because it's like everything else you like. It doesn't remind you of a special time, special place, or special person from your past, present, or ideal future. It's something you're sure you like for the simple reason that you like it.

Suzanne Vega's music is in that category of things I'm sure I like because I like them. Before I'd bought any of her recordings, I'd heard most of her first album played on three different radio stations. One station was a kind that let the DJs play around with the playlist, playing mostly cool new New Wave or cool older punk while throwing in weird artists nobody ever heard of, famous singers most of us were sick of, and even bits of stand-up comedy albums (this station later became a standard corporate modern rock station); one station played lots of rock music from the sixties and seventies and newer music that fit right in (this station became all-classic rock); and one station on the AM dial played light rock that none of the other light rock stations played. None of the stations told me anything about what I should think of the music, and nothing made me associate listening to the songs with anything other than listening to the songs. All three of these stations helped me fall in love. I'd go around quoting from "Small Blue Thing," "Undertow," or "Marlene on the Wall," and my friends would nod indulgently or point out that I was, obviously, a weirdo.

Eventually I did find out that someone I knew had heard Suzanne Vega's album, but she would just tell me how much I needed to hear "The Queen and the Soldier," one of the few songs I hadn't already heard. When Suzanne Vega finally came out on CD (I'd been waiting for months!), I promptly paid more than 16 dollars for it, more than my allowance at the time.

After a while, other stations played some of the songs, even though none of them were popular here yet. One of those stations was a weak-signaled college station which mostly played punk, very early industrial, and music by college students who seemed to think that noise was a good substitute for melody (this later became a New Age station). The day that the afternoon student DJ got a copy of Suzanne's second album, Solitude Standing, they said they'd play one song from the album in each set until they'd played the whole record. I spent the day alone in the house, doing mindless things I don't remember, listening to mostly forgettable, noisy music which would suddenly be interrupted by the entirely different sound I was waiting for. The radio station received so many phone calls about the music that they decided to play the second side of the album straight through, no interruptions of any kind. I sat still on the floor in between the speakers and stared up at the ceiling, hanging on to every note.