I'm a loser baby

Or not, apparently. According to a friend of mine, "drama-nerds" and "music geeks" are now "in."

Vomit. Firstly, who decides these things? I get it. TV shows like Glee have made the idea of being a drama or music nerd "cool."

I don't like the idea of cool though. On the very first day of my very first "official" acting class, our teacher shared an excerpt from a book on the topic of "coolness." I agree with most of what it says. The idea is to stop being "cool." Cool implies cold, collected, distance. Cool implies a lack of interest. Cool implies little effort. Instead of being cool, be hot. And not hot as in "OMG he's so HAWT." Hot like fire. Controlled fire, but fire all the same. Leave a mark. Try, fail, succeed. Don't stand there leaning mysteriously against a brick wall; it's frankly annoying and does not make you look mysterious, except in the sense of "why is s/he leaning against a brick wall and how can I make them stop." Don't be distanced. Be who you are, passionately and freely.

Perhaps my disdain of "cool" comes from the fact that I've never been one of the cool kids. At the Montessori school which I attended for ten years (preschool through eighth grade), I was a tomboy. Before 4th or 5th grade, there isn't even a really defined sense of coolness, so I suppose that doesn't count. I wasn't an outcast. There were kids less "cool" than me, so it's not like I was the loner of the group. I was the misfit though. By the end of 6th grade (I know, it took me this long, what?) I had finally realized (and more importantly accepted) the fact that if I looked at the girls around me as if they were pieces from a jigsaw puzzle, all fitted together and nice, I was definitely the one piece from a different puzzle that somehow got thrown in.

They made an effort, but the distancing feeling was enhanced when, at the start of 7th grade, two things happened. One, a new girl came to the school. She was definitely "cool." And she was, more importantly, not like me at all. She fit into the place that, for a while, I had thought was being saved for me. I realize now that I didn't miss anything by not fitting in. As expressed here and here, I was not your average cookie cutter pre-teen girl. Secondly, the new girl, me, and another boy in our grade, were moved up to take classes with the 8th graders.

Eighth grade came and my drama teacher introduced us with the year's show that would become a symbol of my Montessori (but mostly 4th-8th grade) years. We were to be performing "Honk!" the musical story of the ugly duckling. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but I'm pretty sure she kind of picked the show for me. She did the same thing for my sister two years previously. Needless to say, I was Ugly, the confused and ugly duckling.

I didn't really feel like a swan though, even after the transformation into high school.

I don't know what bird I most am, but I don't think it's a swan. I'm not trying to bash myself, I've just never felt graceful enough. I mean, I'm the girl that walks into doors and apologizes.

I guess the point of this post is pretty well summed up in the title. "I'm a loser baby." And proud as hell of it.

Cheers, and happy Sunday.

-T.A.D.