The Center of the Universe
So, get this: once again, it has been made very plain to me that I am NOT the Center of the Universe.
Can you believe it??
It's true. And are you ready for THIS? I am not personally responsible for every horrible thing that's ever been done in the whole history of the world, either. (Despite what my kids say.)
Today, the Yarn Harlot posted an entry on her blog all about blog etiquette and how we shouldn't trash one another on our blogs or in the comments we leave on other people's blogs because blogs are PUBLIC and therefore the odds that the Trash-ee will see what we have written and take great offense are pretty good.
My first reaction to reading that was to panic. I thought, "Ohmygosh, what did I say?" I went back and reread my blog and then I tried to remember where I've left comments. I don't read very many blogs and I'm so new to the whole blogosphere that I could remember most of the places I'd been. It was only after I'd done all that and tried to figure out if I'd written something that would have offended someone else that it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, the Harlot was talking about something that has, get this, nothing to do with me.
Did you ever see the movie After Hours with Griffin Dunne? It's a dark comedy about a guy who finds himself in this strange subculture of New York City on this one night and everything in the world goes wrong for him. At some point, after there's a vigilante group hunting him, he happens to look out a window and into someone else's apartment and sees a woman shoot her abusive husband. He looks right at the camera and deadpans, "I'll probably get blamed for that."
That's exactly how I feel! I don't how I got this way but it does give me a good insight into my older daughter Ana and why she thinks the Principal of her school is singling her out if the Principal talks to the student body about something perpetrated by a student, or about her expectations of the student body while visitors are in the school or whatever. She also assumes that I am directing everything I say within her earshot to her. And now that I think about it, so does my younger daughter Jane. Is this some sort of trait people are supposed to grow out of?
And the thing is...I never do the opposite of this where I assume that people are giving me credit for something someone else did. Hell, I usually assume that people won't even remember me after meeting me. But for some reason, it made perfect sense to me that the Yarn Harlot, who has thousands of readers and friends, most of whom have been reading her a lot longer than *I* have and most of whom could actually talk KNITTING with her, must have been talking about something I wrote that trashed someone else. Because I've written so many posts that talk trash about other people.
I think maybe I have either an overactive sense of responsibility OR an inflated sense of my importance in this world.
I can probably find a way to feel guilty for that.
Can you believe it??
It's true. And are you ready for THIS? I am not personally responsible for every horrible thing that's ever been done in the whole history of the world, either. (Despite what my kids say.)
Today, the Yarn Harlot posted an entry on her blog all about blog etiquette and how we shouldn't trash one another on our blogs or in the comments we leave on other people's blogs because blogs are PUBLIC and therefore the odds that the Trash-ee will see what we have written and take great offense are pretty good.
My first reaction to reading that was to panic. I thought, "Ohmygosh, what did I say?" I went back and reread my blog and then I tried to remember where I've left comments. I don't read very many blogs and I'm so new to the whole blogosphere that I could remember most of the places I'd been. It was only after I'd done all that and tried to figure out if I'd written something that would have offended someone else that it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, the Harlot was talking about something that has, get this, nothing to do with me.
Did you ever see the movie After Hours with Griffin Dunne? It's a dark comedy about a guy who finds himself in this strange subculture of New York City on this one night and everything in the world goes wrong for him. At some point, after there's a vigilante group hunting him, he happens to look out a window and into someone else's apartment and sees a woman shoot her abusive husband. He looks right at the camera and deadpans, "I'll probably get blamed for that."
That's exactly how I feel! I don't how I got this way but it does give me a good insight into my older daughter Ana and why she thinks the Principal of her school is singling her out if the Principal talks to the student body about something perpetrated by a student, or about her expectations of the student body while visitors are in the school or whatever. She also assumes that I am directing everything I say within her earshot to her. And now that I think about it, so does my younger daughter Jane. Is this some sort of trait people are supposed to grow out of?
And the thing is...I never do the opposite of this where I assume that people are giving me credit for something someone else did. Hell, I usually assume that people won't even remember me after meeting me. But for some reason, it made perfect sense to me that the Yarn Harlot, who has thousands of readers and friends, most of whom have been reading her a lot longer than *I* have and most of whom could actually talk KNITTING with her, must have been talking about something I wrote that trashed someone else. Because I've written so many posts that talk trash about other people.
I think maybe I have either an overactive sense of responsibility OR an inflated sense of my importance in this world.
I can probably find a way to feel guilty for that.
Comments
(or was it so bad that it can't be repeated?!) hehehe
Very funny. (And it's not you.)