The buildings of my apartment complex encircle a small pond.
There are ducks that live in the pond. These ducks have provided me
with months of amusement. Every time I see a duck, I laugh, at least on
the inside. No, it's out loud, for everyone to see and to be made uncomfortable.
There's like 3 pairs of ducks that live in the pond, and one of
the lady ducks is always squawking at the others (I actually have no idea if
it's the same one or not... they're ducks, they look exactly the same, at least
from my vantage point). It's not really a straight up 'quack,' either,
more like a 'whak,' or even an 'ack.' I don't really hear the 'qua' at all, and
being someone who has never really paid attention before, I don't know if
that's normal or not. Onomatopoeia isn't
an infallible practice! Maybe they've never quacked!
Maybe Big Grammar is just playing us, LIKE USUAL. Everything I know
is a lie!
I bet if I was some kind of duck scientist, I could tell them
apart and know the secrets of her caterwauling. I
wonder if Ornithologists can specialize in water fowl, or if it's like just a
blanket knowledge of birds and bird-related particulars. Without looking
it up, I'm gonna go ahead and say yes. Yes, you can specialize in duckology.
I wonder what strain of duck is the one that you can get fried up at
Chinese restaurants. Probably not some greasy mallard, that'd be
like being served a street pigeon and being told it was a fancy squab*!
*I don't
actually know, maybe that's offensive to all my duck-enthusiast readers.
I claim ignorance and apologize.
Anyway, this loud lady duck is hilarious. I immediately anthropomorphized her:
Mrs. Eunice Duckington
She's a naggy old lady, always gossiping and disapproving of
others. She gripes to her old ducsband (duck husband) about, 'the world today,' and
generally pesters him about taking out the trash and stuff. Just blah,
blah, blah, all day. Always has an opinion about something. Mr. Duckington, Harold, had his spirit broken by
the incessantness long ago. Now he paddles around
with his weird, webby feet in my pond, eyes glazed over,
tail feathers lackluster, half-listening and half-alive, waiting for the day
someone drops an entire loaf of bread in the pond so he can eat all of it until
his stomach explodes and he dies. Damn, Harold, hopefully your lifespan isn't
too long. I really know nothing about ducks.
Sometimes, when I'm watching the pond, she's acting all feisty. She
not only 'acks,' she rushes the other gals! Feisty Duck, in my mind,
looks like this:
Brittanie CharityJasmine Mallard
Brittanie CharityJasmine (yes, that's ONE word) Mallard just lives
in this pond until her lawsuit pays off, or her man gets out of prison, or her
baby-daddy starts being responsible and pays her the money she's owed.
Miss Mallard is personally offended by most things, and often thinks she's being
insulted and/or challenged to fight. When that happens, she takes off her
earrings from the holes on the sides of her head where her ears presumably are (ducks
must have ears, but I've never seen one. Omg, I've
never seen any type of bird ear! There's just so much in this world I do not
know, you guys. wow), pulls her beaded and braided hair back into a fat rubber band
that she stole from her part time job at the auto parts store, and flaps herself
right over to bust some bitches up. She's mostly talk though.
The
other ducks will be all, "W.T.F?!"
And she's all like, "Yeah, that's RIGHT! I'll mess
you UP if you disrespect me again!
Sylvia Plath is most DEFINITELY the best
representation of feminist authors in the last century!!"
Just kidding,
she's mad about meth.
It's always about meth.
The ducks also waddle when they're walking around, looking for crumbs (bugs? grass? Spicy Salsa? Yet again, I know almost nothing), and that is also the most fun. They
have those flappy webbed feet and it's just so
ridiculous. I have no idea why, but they make me giggle with delight. Not those Canadian geese
though. Those guys can get fucked. Go back to Canadia!!
I have seriously thought about these ducks
a lot. My bedroom window faces the pond, and I can hear the quacking all
the time and I think it's just the funniest.
It has recently come to my attention that not
many people see the world like I do. I mean, ducks?? That's a weird
thing to find amusing when you're not a toddler.
But I think I've always been off like that
though; my favorite movie when I was 12 was Terminator 2. Total Recall
was a close second, very good, watched it a lot (open your mind, Qaaaaid). But I also loved Tiny Toons and played
with my Aladdin-themed Barbie dolls and had a pink bike. Then every
Saturday I would stay up to watch Saturday Night Live. Is that
weird for a kid? Maybe I was just poorly supervised.
Looking back on things, I feel like my much older sister taking me to see Natural Born Killers at the local theater when I was 13 may not have been appropriate. But it was funny and weird and super
violent and she thought I'd like it, and I did. My dad had all the Monty Python movies on video tape, and we'd
watch them all the time, and then quote it to each other. A LOT (neeigh).
There are other things that make me feel
slightly off in the world. Not completely out of place, superseding lonely
or miserable, mind you, but just a shade different:
- I'm the only person in my entire family
that is left handed. Aunts, Uncles, all sorts of cousins, on both sides
of my family are all righties.
My kids and their dad and his family are all righties too.
I know a bunch of lefties, but a lot of them are ambidextrous. ('I write with my left hand, but
play sports right handed.' 'I pretty much only write with my left, but
everything else is with my right.') I am 99% left handed (ambi-mouser). Let me tell
you, it is not easy finding a small sized baseball glove for a left-handed 11 year old.
Interesting side note: I remember when I was really young I had
terrible hand writing. 'Well, she's left handed!" was about all the
feedback I'd get. I was a hopeless case when at six, doomed to write messy and be backwards forever, just 'cause. Grandma gave up trying to teach
me how to crochet after one session because I was doing it backwards. Or at least she thought I was. Maybe Grandma had a drinking problem...
- In middle school, I was seemingly the
average, normal girl: blonde hair and blue eyes, good smile, not a fatty, was generally nice, friendly and
non-threatening. But, when boys started to realize their own cuteness and
tried to flirt with me, I would freak the fuck out. Remember sixth grade
flirting? So terrible. Those cocky kids that thought they were
amazing made me want to punch their teeth out. My virulent reactions
scared them all off eventually, which is exactly what I wanted, but completely unexpected. I mean, what gave them the right? Is that weird?
I feel like my other friends loved it when
Cutie McPopular came over to our girl-circle on
the playground and said, "Hiiiiii, Giiiirls!"
I saw his shit-eating grin and heard that condescending tone and told him to
fuck off. Twice.
There are many, many other examples.
On the one hand, I like being the way I
am. I find so much beauty and amusement in so many things! I am comfortable with and excellent at layering my weirdness, dialing it
way back when the situation calls for it. Not really because I want to 'fit in',
I that's not going to happen, it's more because I don't want to
waste my time. I don't want to explain that joke, I simply have other stuff to do.
Dialing it back means I try to carefully pick out things I'm going to say, because most of the
time I don't think my points come across properly, especially when they're peppered with quotes from the Simpsons; it's made me more concise and direct (or... maybe I just THINK that I think differently than other people.
Maybe it's a defense mechanism against my own banality.
Maybe everyone feels the same way, but I'm just uncouth and or conceited enough to break
that 4th wall. Ugh, I'm exhausting. It's like this ALL the time in my head), which can only be determined to be a good thing.
On the other hand, I don't connect with
most people very well, even if I do try. Practice has afforded me the ability to get along
with most people, most of the time, but being friendly and having friends are
two very different concepts. I don't mind having only one or two friends, but that's just one more thing that makes me feel
slightly askew.
I'm not very good at romantic
relationships either. I can say things pretty directly, and it has hurt people.
I am generally inquisitive and ask questions, and not everyone
appreciates it. I don't have judgmental and/or invasive intentions, but that's
the way my actions seem to be interpreted. Aggressive people make me anxious, so I usually end up with quiet, passive people that either don't know how or don't want to deal with that level of introspection.
Example: When someone says, "Oh yeah, I
have real issues with XYZ," and someone else (i.e., me) asks why, it doesn't
usually end well. Folk get defensive,
and rightly so. I'm no psychologist, and even if I was, they most likely weren't looking for therapy. I can't help it though, questions just come out of my face! Not knowing, in general also makes me anxious and I'm trying to let some of that go. I'm working on it, future-boyfriend-that-probably-doesn't-exist. I promise.
It also hasn't done me any favors. I
haven't been able to use my differentness to stand out in a crowd and get that
big promotion, or shine in academia or achieve success in some other arena. It mostly just makes me not want to drink the proverbial kool-aid, which gets you labeled as 'uncooperative,' and 'churlish,' and 'prone to setting fires.'
Sometimes, not as much as it used to, but
sometimes, these discolorations make me feel broken. Unlovable. Useless. Maladroit.
But, on the other other hand, ducks.
