Webster says vainglorious is: boastfully vain and proud of oneself...YUCK. Who likes someone like that? Nobody.
SHOWING OFF...was one of the many cardinal sins in my family. You couldn’t even LIKE yourself or your pretty dress or your little watercolor painting. You were humble.
For example, I was shocked when my dear older friend Elizabeth (who was indeed quite famous) came home from Nieman-Marcus in Chicago and said, “Aren’t these shoes adorable, I think they look great on me”. I was 27. She was 58. I still remember that I thought she lacked character by ‘showing off’ that way.
But honestly, isn’t it a temptation - when one is rather down, or unrecognized, or undervalued or demeaned or diminished in some way, or overlooked...or old and wrinkled...isn’t it human to drop a few hints into the conversation that remind folks of your moments of glory, your publications, or your famous friends, etc. :)
Speaking of famous friends...did I tell you that I once rode in the Presidential cavalcade of Richard Nixon, of all people? I was driving a red buick convertible with a 4x8 sheet of plywood propped up in the back seat...when, by accident, I entered an on-ramp the security people had failed to close off and suddenly I'm forced to merge between the huge black presidential limo with the stars and stripes aloft and a station wagon with 3 armed security guards sitting facing me... gesticulating wildly for me to get out of the cavalcade. But all the off-ramps were closed...so, with heart racing I sped along Pennslyvania Avenue at 60 miles an hour - past the tidal basin, past the White House ... almost all the way to the Capitol...where I am questioned, and released!
Another silly remarkable moment was seeing Liberace about 1’ away from me in a pink blazer outside of Woolworths on Michigan Avenue in Chicago!
Once, about 50 years ago, they ran an article about me in the Chicago Sun Times...and the photographer who took the pictures won an award for 'best photojournalist'.
Here’s one of his pics in which I now think I looked quite glamorous - for a librarian :) That's hard for me to say 'out loud'.
Did I mention that once, in the 60’s, I was a speaker on the same program with writer Clifton Fadiman (is anybody old enough to remember CF?) at the Mark Hopkins hotel in San Francisco? Yep.
It is actually a bit of fun to SHOW OFF - on purpose. A bunch of us old crones threw a ‘shadow party’ up in Canada one year, and we all came dressed as parts of ourselves that we daren’t express.
One friend came bearing her dissertation abstract, a picture of herself with the Dalai Lama, an award trophy and a book she’d written ....we loved it.
It is such a relief to be just a wee bit proud of yourself! But don't let it go to your head. And let's encourage our friends to strut their stuff too...why not?
YES and you are still glamourous. I've always thought of it as marketing ourselves. Love, love, love your posts.
Posted by: Beverley Cooper | November 18, 2011 at 07:00 AM