Second and third thoughts

A few days ago a friend sent me an entry from the Urban Slang Dictionary for the word 'hobosexual.' It's defined as someone who doesn't care anything about his appearance - the opposite of 'metrosexual.' Michael Moore and Peter Jackson were listed as examples. "This is you!" she wrote.

I was in a bar tonight where a couple of women said I looked like Dr. Johnny Fever from WKRP in Cincinnati.


Yes, there's a resemblance, I suppose, but Johnny Fever wasn't as overweight as I am.

From about 2001 foreward, it's been within my grasp to create almost any kind of image for myself I desired. I couldn't imitate Mark Cuban or Brad Pitt, but I could jettison what blogblah! once described as "that shambling Who? Me? exterior" (read the comments here for more) in favor of something more sleek and fashionable. If I wanted to trade in the hoodie sweatshirts for Armani, I could do that. If I wanted to dump the minivan in favor of a Lexus or BMW, I could do that, too.

And sometimes something or someone comes along who make me wish I had done so - but only temporarily. I had plenty of experience in television with the business of remaking myself into something I wasn't. I discovered that while I could keep up the act for a time, it left me emotionally and intellectually exhausted – and I always let the real 'no class' me slip out eventually.

Fortunately, I no longer have a job that requires me to project any particular image. But sometimes I'll meet someone who catches my interest and tempts me to remake myself to suit her preferences. Intellectually, I know that's a sucker bet. Even so, it sometimes gets tiresome being me, and I think maybe the minuses have come to outweigh the pluses. Certainly playing the role of the affable, slightly dumpy and lethargic 'big brother' figure has its downside.

But why even have a concept of being me? Why even have words in my mind that describe the difference between who I am and who I 'ought' to be? Where does all that come from? It's more of the stuff that I've created in my own mind - often with the help of mass media and other people who have similar stuff in their own minds.

So I say that this desire to remake myself according to other people's preferences occasionally manifests itself, but only for a time. The real happiness comes not from being the 'real me', but from putting aside notions of there being a 'real me' and notions of some 'other me' I might become.

I still don't have any electricity, by the way.