Lately
Gabriella Flournoy
Lately, I’ve been having a bad feeling about my perceived “nice-ness”; I’m not sure
if that’s a word but it’s true. I need to feel nice. I want to feel nice. Bad. The past decade has
been spent polishing my back-talk, sassiness and crap-shooting. I have become proud of it
even. I have a way with disrespect. But I’ve had this feeling for the past couple of months,
a sneaking suspicion that the evolution of my psyche is shedding a new light on who I
believe I am. I think my self-perception is molting once again, ‘once again’ because this
isn’t the first time I’ve felt this way. I remember around the time I graduated high school,
the totally conscious realization that I didn’t know everything. I remember thinking that;
I remember thinking I knew everything. And then I didn’t. Suddenly things became a lot
more interesting. I had something to learn. I am realizing now that I am not as nice as I
thought I was. It doesn’t just happen; you have to actively want it and give it. You have to
consciously give good will. This is gonna be a hard couple decades acclimating.
“I don’t want to seem presumptuous, but I think you’re effing crazy.”
That’s what I thought for the first three months. I think that’s just how friendship
works. Shannon does not apologize. She makes me laugh until I pee my pants. She is the
Queen of Darkness. She is the Japanese schoolgirl of your dreams. She will give you a dose
of your own, worst medicine. I learned most of this from working with her for several
years, in customer service. I have learned you can learn a lot about someone based on
their style of handling the ‘general public.’ Shannon had a no-holds-bar style that employed the eye-roll, the loud exhale, and the general disgust that I could never commit to.
I always felt too bad about it. Shannon made you feel vindicated, she was the girl giving
it back to these old ninnies, telling us about how much they donate and how much we
owe them. Shannon handled it the worst. She was “too old for this” and “she didn’t need
it anymore.” I was long gone by the time she finally left. Our friendship never even really
blossomed until we were both rid of the place. She had a way of dealing with people that I
never could quite understand. She would ask a question as if it was an accusation, always:
“You want to eat a hamburger?” Face screwed-up and her inflection making the –urger
sound spatted-out. Shannon doesn’t need to feel nice. I need to feel nice.
The best times I’ve ever had with Shannon have involved sex, drugs and rock ‘n’
roll. Literally. Cocaine off guitar picks, boys from California and the tour bus. We’ve been
there. Shannon is an uppers girl. Living for the thrills of blow. I can’t stand the stuff. I sit
backstage puffing away with the old roadies while Shannon puts a weeks worth of money
up her nose: provided by the band. This side of her is manic. This side of her is demanding
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