Delusions of Pretentiousness

I am of the firm opinion that I'm not a pretentious person.  In fact, if I were to make a list of all the adjectives that have described me--or even of all adjectives that could describe me at any given point in time, including the past, present, and future--pretentious might make the bottom three.  Perhaps.  But only because it's possible I may have reason to become pretentious in the future.  But then, I may have reason to become any number of other things in the future as well.

 

People who only come to know me in limited doses make this assumption.  Take, for example, the co-worker who caught me reading a poetry collection in my first couple of weeks here.  She walked into my office to drop off paperwork during my lunch hour and found me curled up contentedly in a corner, reading Billy Collins' The Trouble with Poetry.  And automatically decided it was the sort of thing I did to show how smart I was.

 

Not true.  I lunch with my door closed.  And I've read any number of books behind my closed door.  Some of them are plane reading--for example, I don't expect to be anything but entertained by the books in The Dresden Files--and some of them are classics I've wanted to read for a while.  (Anna Karenina is one of the most beautiful and most depressing things I've read.)

 

Some people are amused.  Once they know me, they find it funny that I can--in depth--analyze the most recent episode of America Idol, the lyrics of any song of their choice, and any given work of literature that I've recently read.  And sometimes not-so-recently read.  That I can sing along to Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, and a number of other Broadway shows, but that I give equal time to a variety of contemporary country artists.  Not to mention I can still belt out all of the Sesame Street songs of my childhood, along with the entire soundtracks of all of the classic animated Disney movies.

 

In fact, for every appearance of bordering-on-snobbery, people who know me for long enough will find its surprising equivalent in kitsch or pop culture that had its heyday.  (Yes, there is a Jesse McCartney CD in my collection.  No, I haven't touched it in years.  Yes, I am, as a matter of fact, somewhat ashamed it's still there.  I am, however, completely unashamed about my Clay Aiken CD.)

 

In spite of all that, here are three things I've always wanted to do that have struck me as decidedly pretentious:

 

1.  Write a poem while sitting outside a coffee shop with what appears to be a cup of coffee.  (I say "appears to be," of course, because I don't drink coffee.  But nobody walking by would know it wasn't coffee.)

 

2.  Go on Jeopardy! and say something ridiculously intelligent in response to one of Alex Trebek's random comments.  (Do they script those, by the way?)

 

3.  Conduct a discussion about existentialism with a friend while wearing a neck scarf and a beret.

 

Make it four.  I've always wanted to acquire a famous friend that I could offhandedly bring up in casual conversation as an expert on a certain area of expertise as my trump card.  "Well, you know [insert famous name here] agrees with me, because we've discussed this often."

 

But I know that these delusions of pretentiousness are just that: delusions.  I'm far more likely to entertain myself by randomly remembering I promised my roommate from freshman year that I would write a critical analysis of Jewel's song "Am I Standing Still?" and then I never did.  And then inwardly debating if she would still be entertained by whatever I sent to her if I decided that, five years later, I still owe her that analysis . . .