Tim Samoff // Weblog (old)

March 31, 2004

Blogger Idol - Week 11: Blogger Pageant ("Pageant Passage Paradigm: A Postmodern Parable")

Update: This is the first Blogger Idol entry that I have written that I feel may need some preliminary explanation — or rather, the first entry that quickly solicited questions about what it meant. All I will say — as I do hate to explain my creativity — is read the conditions of this week’s Blogger Idol theme, look up the word “parable,” and think about the transition between modernity and postmodernity (if that’s something you are at all inclined to think about). Enjoy. (TS, 03/31/04, 2:57pm)
As the spotlight shifted over to me as I tried to walk as gracefully as possible to the podium towards what would be my chance to answer the “big question,” something in the back of my mind was nagging me. I wasn’t wondering what my question would be or even how I should try to calm down a little before I attempted an answer. No, something was wrong. I just didn’t know what it was.

This entire beauty pageant felt a bit odd from the start (and I couldn’t figure it out then), but at this point, I really began to question why I was even there. I mean, I am beautiful — at least, that’s what I have come to believe. I had been preening myself for years in preparation for this moment — I had been entering beauty pageants since I was very young, just with the hope that I would one day be here, hadn’t I?

So what was the problem?

The anticipating crowd gazed on as I arrived at the podium — the pageant host smiled at me expectantly and the spot light hit my eyes in a way that I can only imagine made them shimmer like cool ocean waters.

This was my time, but I just wasn’t feeling it. What I thought was going to be the most exciting pageant of my life just felt…wrong.

But I continued to smile and stand at the podium with poise and pride.

Then, the pageant host asked “the question”: “If you won this title and your boyfriend was upset, which would you give up – the boyfriend or the title?”

I paused. Everything around me seemed to stop in an instant. The sound of the shuffling audience, the host standing next to me — everything went still and silent. The only thing I could hear was my own breathing and the pounding of my heart.

I looked down to find my hairy arms hanging loosely from my light blue evening gown — my chest showing very much hair through the low-cut front.

Then I quickly looked up at the audience and then to the host…

“Whoa?! What? Boyfriend? Just who do you think I am buddy?!” My voice crackled its husky male tone as I angrily looked at the pageant host.

The host’s expression barely changed and he only looked to be still awaiting my answer.

That’s when I knew what was wrong. I wasn’t supposed to be here at all. No, in fact, nothing about this pageant was correct. Nothing was “real.”

I stood there looking around me at the other contestants on the stage — all beautiful girls awaiting their turn at the podium. I looked again at the audience and the pageant host. Then, I looked back down at myself. Yeah, this was definitely wrong. I was a full-grown man, standing in the middle of a stage wearing an elegant evening gown. I felt the slight pain of one diamond bracelet grabbing the hair on my left wrist. I reached up to feel clip-on earrings dangling from my ears; my shaggy hair — in dire need of a cut — tickled my fingertips.

Then, as everyone around me still seemed to be enjoying every moment of this scene, I sat down, crossing my legs, my evening gown riding up, and placed my head in my hands.

“What is going on?” I asked aloud.

All of my memories were wrong. I could remember entering my first pageant when I was only six years old. I could taste the frosting on my twelve-year old birthday cake and remember my mother telling my not to eat any cake on my sixteenth birthday for fear of my gaining weight.

But I also remembered everything else... Learning to ride a bike, climbing trees, falling from fences, kissing my first girlfriend… Everything else I knew was real too.

The duality of all I was thinking about was almost unbearable.

And all of this was spurred-on by one question. Boyfriend? I was a boyfriend! And now I’d never win this stupid pageant.

My tears ran down through my fingertips and stained the dress that was bunched up on my hairy legs. My feet hurt in the silver high heels I was wearing… My world was totally devastated. And I had no where to go.

Posted at 12:41 pm

Blogger Idol Week 11 Top 5
You made my top 5: My top 5 as usual in no particular order…
Sent on April 03, 2004 at 05:29 am , via s’lent tr’bute

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