Vanity, vanity

We all have our areas of pride, our spots of vanity. I am no different, of course. But lately I've been spending a lot of time thinking about my own vanity.

First, I am not vain about appearance, though probably I ought to work harder at being more attractive. But maybe because Mama had me convinced that I was ugly, and maybe because the mirror had me convinced that I was only average, at best, and maybe because the good-looking boys never paid me any attention (my Beloved Esteemed Spouse is the notable exception)--at any rate, I decided long ago to be only what I could be in that department: clean, neat, presentable, but not pretentious. It really bothers me when a plain (if not downright homely) woman slaps on too much make-up or does something totally outrageous with her hair, or wears clothing that is too tight, too showy, too provocative. I want to say to her, "Find something else about yourself that is exceptional, because appearance is never going to be your strong suit. Leave the wild make-up and hairstyles to the drop-dead-gorgeous girls whose only thoughts are about their outer facade, and learn to develop an interesting personality or something you can pull off."

Thus, it follows that I am not vain about my hair (too thin), my skin (too blotchy), my hands (too veiny and square with horrible fingernails), my feet (corns and callouses), my legs (one big swollen leg ruins the harmonious effect!), my teeth (stained and crooked), my ears (too big), my chin (which one?), my eyes (hidden behind glasses and under bushy eyebrows), my nose (too fat and too dotted with enlarged pores), my breasts (big but very saggy), my butt (we won't even go there), my stomach (also off-limits).... Well, clearly, there's not much to be vain about. I have reasonably good wrists. Okay, there's a plus for me, but hardly one worth bragging about.

I also cannot be vain about my accomplishments. I can't sing, I can't dance, I can't play sports, I can't play musical instruments. I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time. I can draw and paint better than the average person, maybe, but not well enough to be vain about my talents in that area. I'm terrible with foreign languages. I've studied three of them and can't read or speak worth a darn in any one of them. Face it: for someone brought up as I was, English was a foreign language.

I can't pilot a plane or a boat. I can't bicycle very well. I can't kneel down, so that limits a lot of things. (My knees are too painful.) I don't rock climb. I don't run or jog. I can walk pretty well (as long as I don't try to chew gum), which is good, since some people cannot even do that. I can't swim. I can dog paddle a little, but even after taking swimming lessons, I still cannot swim. I lack the coordination.

I'm a mediocre cook. I'm a terrible housekeeper. I'm an average "worker" (I'm a good teacher but a terrible organizer and a slackard at paper-grading and running committees). I can't do math very well, I don't understand the stock market (and don't even care to try), and I doubt I could rewire the electrical system of a house, the way my husband once did. I'm sort of good at crossword puzzles and terrible if not incompetent at sudoku.

I don't drive very well (good enough to stay out of accidents and avoid traffic tickets). I sew passably well, but don't do it often anymore. I crochet reasonably well, if the pattern is simple, but I cannot knit. I do calligraphy sort-of-okay, but nothing special.

So what do I have to be vain about? Apparently I am entirely too vain about my education. Let's consider for a moment the history: My father pushed me to do well in school so that I could get a college scholarship and learn to support myself. I took to school like a duck to water, but because the unspoken rules of the game were foreign to me, I had to learn to negotiate my way through the system, as often messing up as succeeding. My mother used to say, "An education is the one thing they cannot take away from you." True, Mama, but they can sure as hell make you sorry you ever got it. If I've been chastised for anything in my life, it's for being educated. Apparently a lot of people feel that I've tried to make my natural pig's ear into a false silk purse.

But I digress. (I love that line.) That reminds me of something else. My sense of humor is odd enough that I don't find a lot of stuff funny that others like. I deplore Adam Sandler. I hate the Three Stooges. I can't stand practical jokes. What I do laugh at--well, let's just say that I get stared at pretty darned often when I laugh at things that others just endure with stony faces.

I've got physical proof of both my education and my general intelligence. And it's a good thing I've got that proof, too, because it's the only thing that keeps me sane in a world where idiots are honored and celebrated and people tell me I'm wrong or bad for knowing what I know. I've got a high school diploma, a BFA (magna cum laude), an MA, and a Ph.D. I'm a member of Mensa. I'm a college professor with nearly 25 years' experience. I'm a critical thinker and an abstract thinker, and I don't settle for the first soundbite that some talking head spouts off. Thus, I am "intolerant" (because I'm tolerant). Mama would say I was too big for my britches, or, in her abbreviated form, too "biggedy."

So this is it, folks: I'm vain about my brain. Generally, it works pretty well, but maybe if it weren't connected to my mouth, I'd be better off. (Of course I don't have to speak to get myself in trouble. My typing seems to generate plenty of enemies on Facebook lately.) I've learned the hard way that what my colleague Doug Haneline posted is true: Don't get in a fight with an idiot, because people watching may have trouble telling the difference between the two of you.

As my husband tells me, there are a number of family members who are idiots. Most recently, he told me that a certain relative on his side of the family (someone who married into the family) is an idiot and I ought not worry about it. However, I don't suffer fools gladly. It's my job as a teacher to try to ameliorate idiocy where I find it, but I have to remember that most idiots don't realize that they are idiots. My students are forced to sit there, and they have, after all, paid me to help them avoid being idiots. My family members are under no obligation to endure my "correction" of their idiocies. They are happy being idiots and cannot imagine why anyone would want to be anything other than an idiot. As far as they can see, anyone who doesn't agree with them is simply irrational, so the harder I try to get them to actually THINK, the more they consider me a fool with no common sense.

Okay, that's enough now. I am vain about my brain, and the one thing anyone can do that will anger me and insult me is to imply that I'm not intelligent or educated. Especially if the implier is neither intelligent nor educated. That's when I want to slap the sass out of that person, but even idiots can file battery charges and put intelligent, educated people into jails. And I'm too smart to let that happen. I hope. :-)