I just read a fun zine called Listy #3 by Maria Goodman. It's primarily a book of lists. One of them is called "Awkward Moments" which includes entries that start out... When your throat makes that noise like you burped but you didn't...and
When you don't hear what someone said more than 3 times in a row...Maria has inspired me to make my own list of awkward moments, and at the risk of jumping in on the meme cliche (I hate cliches more than awkward moments), just maybe I could get you folks (my vast readership, that is) to make your own.
1. When you see someone you know while you are driving and you make eye-contact, which is no biggie (just wave and smile), except when you end up side-by-side at a stop light. Do you pretend not to notice? Roll down your window for some witty banter? Wave and do fake sign language at one another? Pray the whole time that the light will change quickly so you can be on your way, making an unnecessary turn which detours your whole journey but guarantees that you won't have to face the same pain at the next light?
2. When you're in Sunday school or a Bible study and you're asked to pray for a certain person in the group but you realize in that moment that you never learned that person's name. Or you suddenly blank out on their name, even though you totally knew it before you started, but you're already half-way through praying for them. Do you try to sound extra loving with my dear sister? Pray around it, making generic statements like, all of us who struggle with such-and-such? Leader: Amy, would you pray for this request? Amy: I'm gonna pass this time. Admit that you never cared enough to learn this person's name, even though you've been in church together for ten years? Do you just take a random stab at it? Mulva? Old-what's-his-name?
3. When you go to the doctor and they have that sign that says, PAYMENT IS DUE AT TIME SERVICES ARE RENDERED, something with the net effect of You wouldn't go out to dinner and tell the server, just send me the bill and I'll pay when I feel like it. WE'RE NOT RUNNING A CHARITY HERE. But you forgot your debit card and you don't have the $35. in your account to cover the copay anyhow, and you have to put on your best doe-eyed empty stare and tell the office staff, Just send me the bill and I'll pay when I feel like it. I think the doctor will understand.
4. When you have an open-house-party, and it was supposed to start at 7:00, but it's like 7:55 and nobody has shown up yet but the creepy guy, who you had to invite because he slinks around the edges of the group you invited, and he heard that you were having a party, and there's nothing really wrong with him but that he's odd, even though generally kind and harmless, and you have nothing really to talk about except how late it's getting and that no one else has shown up yet, and the guacamole is really good, and he doesn't really like hummus even though hummus seems to be surpassing guacamole as the party standard. Do you engage in a deep socio-cultural reflection on the implications of serving guacamole vs. hummus in various cultural settings? Do you start texting your other invitees under the table as you try to maintain eye-contact, nodding, and grunting, uh-hu, from time to time? Do you start going door to door, inviting your neighbors to an impromptu neighborhood get-together? Obsessively glance at the clock and secretly pray for forgiveness? Drink like four glasses of wine in one hour?
5. When you start a new journal, and you promise yourself that this time you'll actually keep it current, but after a week you forget about it except for brief flashes of that burning gut feeling you get during the guilting hour (which typically starts the moment your head hits the pillow and lasts until you fall asleep), and eventually you forget about it until you find it one day and there are only like 6 entries dated 9 months ago and 40 blank pages, all bound in a lovely handmade book that you thought would be just the thing to motivate you to turn over a new faithfulness-to-my-journal-leaf. Do you berate yourself for your lack of discipline? Do you slip it back into its hiding place and put it out of your mind? Do you make a feeble attempt at a new entry even though your original inspiration has passed and the new entry is all about how bad you feel about abandoning your dear diary? Fall asleep crying at 10:00 in the morning?
Awkward sign-off.
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