I decided to video myself giving a birthday messsage for a loved-one back in Oz yesterday and, completely against the spirit of the whole exercise, it led to two shame laps for me: the recording itself and then the play back.
In the recording my lips are slightly tighter than usual, my voice is rather shrill and my gestures noticeably more girly; twisting hair around finger, looking up as if to ask the camera to tell me what to say. While watching it, I started to do a mad robot dance on the spot to reflect my malfunction in front of the camera. In both instances I alleviated my discomfort by ducking my head into the chest of the Boy, as if by hiding it would mean that it didn't really happen.
Am I this lame?
I cheered myself up by spotting a blog entry by Merlin Mann:
I thought I was the only person in the universe who made an unconscious little noise when remembering something stupid I did or said.It is dedicated to the sounds one makes when one feels embarrassed or relives embarrassing moments. So, my sounds would be those of a dalek or some baby bush animal. When I am by myself, I relive the pedestrian moment in my head and then say dryly and slowly until the last two words, with exaggerated mouth shapes: 'I can't believe you DID THAT!' If it's particularly atrocious, I may add a Napoleon Dynamite 'You idiot' on the end.
I have a beach of shameful moments that are replayed from time to time (brought on by stress and fatigue). They range from grossly inappropriate things I have said (like when I was 8, I asked someone whose parents had died in a car crash whether there was blood and guts on the bumper bar. I had heard that line in a movie, Bigfoot and the you-ruined-my-life Hendersons, and thought it would cheer them up), done (a Jerry Maguire Mission Statement-style research funding proposal that I realised only after, having discovered more about the funding body, would have caused much amusement and was duly rejected) and worn (my androgenous phase of my late teens/early twenties makes me quite uncomfortable). I have plenty of noises and mannerisms that accompany these images.
What about you? What's in your shame file? What do you tend to do when you're being sent on that lonely, well-lit march off The Weakest Link?
2 comments:
Ha! Far too many to list here. I have got better about seeing myself on film or thinking about being in front of people, but I did used to physically shake and and turn bright red when I spoke in front of people. In my highly self-conscious stage of teenage years, I used to blush if anyone looked at me.
As for saying silly things? I am Queen Faux Pas. Let's just leave it at that - you can wrestle the crown from me later!
I'm a face hider. Which I guess is mostly because I'm a beetroot-blusher too. Hmm you don't blush do you? Anyway according to my Boy I also make little high-pitched mewling noises like an newborn kitten when I'm mortified/ashamed.
Can I just say - your confession has opened the floodgates for me, and I would like to formally state that I said similarly horrid things (including 'cool, do we get to see the body?!') when watching a fictional car accident fatality on TV, IN FRONT OF SOMEONE WHO LOST HER 16YO DAUGHTER IN A CAR ACCIDENT. It was my grandmother (so, my aunt) and I was, oh, 10 or 11. I still feel ashamed.
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