On tricks

I am tricksy. Sure, I am also dependable, nice, friendly, outgoing and pleasant. True, I can be annoying, overbearing, cruel, petty, lazy and disgusting. But most importantly for the purpose of this post, I am tricksy.


I play tricks, sometimes on others, but usually on myself. See, while I know I am dependable, I frequently ignore this because it is more comfortable to be lazy. While I favour being nice to people, I sometimes deliberately choose to be annoying or even cruel (why, how else could I justify being a “Cruella”?). However, whenever I go out of my way to indulge in my negative traits I simultaneously make an effort to hide it. I try to pretend I am not petty while I secretly take great satisfaction in the fact that others struggle too. But I won’t admit it (except I just did…). Likewise, I won’t admit that I have a weakness (apart from here on my public blog), and I won’t admit that I cheat or lie or fake (not that any of those things have ever happened. I give you my word!).

Many of my blog posts are written from my desk at the university. Ideally, nothing other than my skittish (I’m using this word because it fits on so many levels. The irony level. The “perhaps not the word a native speaker would choose, but interesting nevertheless” level. The “pronounce it with a Norwegian accent and it takes on an entirely different meaning” level) thesis should be written from this desk. Clearly, that is not the case. I’m willing to bet that 80% (at least) of the words produced here were never even intended to go into my thesis (blog posts and Facebook status updates included). Then about 80% of the words intended to go into my thesis are eventually edited away. This means that the percentage of the total words I write from this desk that actually go into my thesis is disturbingly small.

And yet I pretend to plod away every day. I’m not even sure I am fooling anyone, but pretending that I do makes me feel better all the same. Therefore, when I stare blankly at a random spot outside the window I try to look like I am pondering what caused the transition in US foreign policy towards the Middle East between 1956 and 1967. In reality, I am trying to decide whether I’d like to cut bangs again when I go to the hairdresser sometime soon. Until I have an answer to the very important question above (the bangs one, not the Middle East one) I spend hours watching my hair grow, pretending to solve important riddles that require footnotes.

One last confession before I call it a day. Lately I have pretended that I am too busy to blog. While it can be argued that I actually am, evidence suggests the opposite. The past two weeks I have spent an admirable number of blogable hours on Facebook; reading The Secret Garden for the 73927643th time; watching Glee (and some random sitcom that wasn’t even all that funny, but once I had started watching it was hard to look away); trying to remember books that I have read and subsequently plotting them into goodreads.com (thanks a lot for that distraction…); and having “serious” discussions with my friends in the cafeteria.

In short, I work my butt off to keep my good girl cover from blowing. I wonder how much I’d achieve if I put all that energy into actually being a good girl, as opposed to pretending? What an idea…