tuesday, may 18, 1999

I think I wrote about my feelings about record stores in an earlier entry...

(from february 11 entry)

now i remember buying the cd, too. i bought it at home, i think, at record rev, and i have this weird thing for boys working in record stores. even if i'm not actually interested in them at all, i always feel the need to impress them. i've probably bought some of my music just to impress whatever indie/punk/doorknob lookin' boy was working.

for a long time, i wasn't really aware of it. now that i am, i don't think it's as much of an issue. not that it was ever a real big problem in my life. but it is weird, you know? i wonder if other people suffer from some sort of indie inadequacy feelings too, or if it's just me? there've gotta be others, surely. i mean, right? or maybe it's not just records, though that's how it manifests itself for me. but i can see someone buying an outfit or something because the salesperson thought it was cool, or they thought the salesperson would think it was cool. i wonder if they take this stuff into consideration in econ classes. a pressure to be cool, to be indier/punker/hipper than thou.

So yeah. Me and my weird thing for record stores. I was in record rev again today. Had to go buy the new Backstreet Boys for Anna, but of course it turned into a half hour long escapade because I had to look through all the new indies and used cds. I ended up buying fuck's new album. (Or, as I announce them on my radio show, "the band whose name has four letters and I'm not allowed to say them.") I felt it complemented the Backstreet Boys' "Millenium" very nicely.There weren't even any cute boys working today... the whole mission might have taken even longer. What is it about cute boys in record stores? It's still such a weakness. Does anyone else suffer from my affliction? Please, write me and let me know.

Yeah. Being home is weird. I don't know how to be eloquent about it. It just feels funny. Another example of the strange stuff that goes on here that I don't have to deal with at school: so I have to log onto aol to check my email, work on my webpage, etc. Earlier today I got an instant message from some random boy from Tacoma (the crack capital of the US, according to Jen) who wanted to ask me all about my radio show. I guess I mention it in my aol profile. Even if it's not explicit, I always feel like there's this sexual tension that underlies all aol encounters between strangers. Maybe not all. But when strange boys write to me saying "wanna chat," I don't think I'm far off the mark. I always wonder what it is about my profile or whatever that makes them choose me. What keyword did they do a search for that they found in mine? I went and looked at my profile. I hadn't updated it since last summer. I didn't really feel like bothering to do it, so I just changed "rising sophomore" to "rising junior at swarthmore college." I have no interest in flirting with people I've never met over aol. (flirting with people I have met over email is a different story...) Still, this narcissistic part of me really wants to know what it is about me that others find intriguing enough to send me a message. Or, in real world terms, it's that same part that wants to know if people have crushes on me, or whether they talk about me, what they might say...

I've thought about this a little. Is it purely narcissism to be curious about this or is it more than that? One of the things I came up with as a possible explanation is that maybe this desire to know how you're seen partly has to do with wanting to be authentic. Wanting to know whether the way you see yourself is the way others see you. If not, what does that mean? Are you being dishonest with them in the way you present yourself? Do you have a misconception of yourself? I'm sure that's one of the reasons I'm curious about what others say about me. I want to know if it matches with my own concept of myself...