Not too Proud Throwback-- 2005

This is a diary entry I wrote about the idea of being "Not Too Proud" nine years ago. My life is considerably more prideful these days, but the spirit of it remains the same.
4-04-05

When we were little, my dad and brother used to play a game called, “Not too proud.” First, you make a proclamation: "I'm not too proud to steal quarters out of the wishing well!" "I am not too proud to root through those rich people's trash!" “I am not too proud to go dumpster diving behind the bookstore for old copies of MAD magazine!” And then, you go out and do it. I realize that in many ways my life has become one game of “Not too proud” after another. I am not too proud to abscond with a mattress left out on the street as trash by the neighbors. I am not too proud to wear shoes the dog chewed up. I am not too proud to wait until T-mobile turns off my cell phone to pay the bill. I am not too proud to go to a Dolly Parton concert with my mother. I am not too proud to wash off last night’s makeup in Dargan’s bathroom over 9:00 am cocktails. When we lived in Los Angeles last year, frequently broke, we were often not too proud to write a check at the ghetto Ralph’s two days before payday that may or may not successfully clear so that we could buy groceries and cigarettes. I am not too proud to fill my broken radiator with urine I found in plastic water bottles amongst roadside litter (filled and then discarded by field workers and truck drivers, I presume) and fix the radiator hose with a clipboard. (I really did this, and not only was I not too proud to do it, it got us home and made me feel like frickin’ MacGyver.) Part of me kind of delights in these not too prouds, and certainly this game, whether consciously played or otherwise, is the source of a lot of adventure in my life, as it is impossible to do a lot of fun things if you have too much pride. I encourage anyone who worries a little too much of what other people think of them to embrace it: say it loud and say it proud (because this is the last thing you’ll be doing with any amount of pride for a while): “I AM NOT TOO PROUD.”

That being said, part of me really hankers for a lifestyle where I could maintain a little more pride. Sometimes I’m proud of being not too proud, sometimes I wish I didn’t have to be. I wish I didn’t live in a house where we do laundry only once a month, that perpetually smells of dog, and where our wine corker has been lost upstairs for weeks so that when I buy wine I buy a box of it instead of bothering to locate the aforementioned wine corker. I’d like to get my finances in order and become more organized and spend more time training our embarrassingly ill-behaved Rottweiler puppy, because right now he’s like a crystal ball of how fucked up my children are going to be. I’d like to swim every day, make more friends, read more books, write every day, and depend less on Tivo, marijuana, and alcohol as my main sources of entertainment. I want to be able to remember what I did to have fun when it wasn’t one of those three things, and do them.

I think I may have forgotten how to try. I must have known once. (In seventh grade, I even got an award at school for “Most Enthusiastic.” Where is that girl now?) If genius is 90% perspiration, I am sitting here on a paltry 5%. My chances of success with those types of odds are about as good as the accuracy of a 99 cent pregnancy test (which they do offer at the “Only 99 cents Store”, along with all sorts of other items I feel they have no right to sell for a dollar-condoms, douches, hair dye, and hemorrhoid ointment; call me extravagant, but I think that there are certain things you should pay full price for, and pregnancy tests are right up there at the top of the list.).

In David Rakoff’s acknowledgements for “Fraud” he writes at the very end: “And to David Sedaris, who reminds me, both in word and action, that I could still, at least, try.” Sedaris did not publish work until his late 30’s, spending his earlier years in a mess of self-destructive behavior, crystal methamphetamine, appallingly bad performance art, and menial jobs, all the while sitting on this gold mine of hilarious unspent talent. I see their success stories through the turmoil, turmoil easily matching mine, if not surpassing it purely on the basis of time wasted thus far—and I hear the echo of a Judd’s song, “Why not me?” If they can overcome such flakiness, why shouldn’t I be able to? However, I want nothing less than to look at Sedaris’ life as an excuse for myself, as a consolation that I have a lot of time to waste before I have to really hit the books and make something of myself (KD Oslin, was after all, over 40 by the time she made her first hit record.) because if I do fuck around for another fifteen years procrastinating success, I will be unhappy for the next fifteen years. I want to spend that time, instead, working to become something, and if I don’t become something, I will know that I have, at least, tried.