santa, the awkward red-headed tween

I embrace the uniqueness of a quirky soul. I have a soft spot in my heart for the geeky. I want to bear hug the nerdy. I completely relate to the gawky and the lanky. And awkward to me is endearing.

I couldn’t care less that Patty Stanger of Bravo’s Millionaire Matchmaker blanketly hates red-heads (me). And ok, fine, I can even try to pretend that I didn’t hear her say that a millionaire dating a hair stylist (again, yours truly) is dating down. What I can’t handle is her changing her client, Daniel Kibblesmith, to be more “mainstream” so he can find the love of his life. I think he’s perfect the way he is.

So stinkin’ cute.

I may have mentioned once or twice before that I had an incredibly long awkward stage growing up. Seriously. Awkward. Though I do believe that my gangly misfortune from ages 7 to 15 lent itself in part to my ability to see the complete awesome sauce in the trip-over-your-own-feet souls of the world, mainly because I’m one of them. When I was growing up and smack dab in the middle of my shy, self-conscious, bean-pole era for the better part of a decade, I thought the cool girls were outgoing and kinda snobby and very pretty and the exact opposite of me. I thought the cute boys were cool and funny and unattainable for a quiet freckley red-head with braces. In grade school, there seemed to be a pecking order of sorts, but in the end we were all just kids trying to find our place and be accepted. And now, looking back, those girls that I thought were cool were actually nothing short of cold and kinda mean and I don’t know what I looked up to exactly. And looking back at the boys, well…the boys were still cute, that hasn’t changed. And as for my fellow awkward friends, I’m happy that I had them to commiserate with because we lived our lives in geeky denial, accepting of each other as cool in our own right and experiencing life together as our own little group of outcasts. And if I didn’t have my fellow nerds back then, I do believe I would have been left to play with the woodchips at recess. From what I hear, they’re not very good at conversation…

So why this sudden insight into my awkward childhood?

I’ll tell ya why. Because while I’m sitting here now, 34-years-old, completely comfortable in my own lanky skin, I accept that I’ll always have my twiggy calves and my knobby knees hiding under my jeans, I think my occasional stutter and surprise blush when I’m uncomfortable are kinda funny, and my ability to stand with a blank stare still waiting for the punchline to a joke a few seconds after it’s already been told will never fail me. I’ve learned to laugh at myself and accept my awkwardness that keeps me humble and content with life, yet for some reason there are still a select few people who just completely bring out awkwardness in me that makes me cringe and leaves me scratching my head hours later wondering why I said what I said or reacted the way I did. And I never ever see it coming.

My boss is one of those people. Like I’ll try to make a funny and he looks at me like I just called him an arse. Or once in a while I’ll try explaining something to him and I’ll get teary-eyed and have no idea why. Or he’ll try to make a funny and I’ll stare for a second then respond with a forced giggle because I don’t get it or didn’t realize it was meant to actually be funny and I’ll mumble something incoherent under my breath like gooooood oooooone theeeeere bosserrrroooo but he won’t understand me so he’ll ask, “what?” and I’ll repeat it again but much slower and it’s usually even more incoherent the second time around because now I know for a fact that he was trying to be funny but it really didn’t turn out that way and we’ll both just kinda pause for a moment because he’ll know I was just trying to humor him because he’s my boss and I’ll know that he knows that I was just humoring him because he’s my boss. And then I may or may not turn beet-red.

Are you cringing with me, yet? Just…ugh.

So this morning he walked in, pointed to my coat and scarf on the back of my chair,

and he said, “this week I keep walking in and seeing the red coat and white scarf and they make me think of Santa.”

My response?

“Yes, yes, Santa ho ho ho. Because you, know I am jolly. Jolly like Santa.”

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um schwhat?…

Since when am I jolly like Santa? Does that happen to you ever? Inquiring Santas want to know.