My Dear Hard Drive

How often do you wonder if you’re weird… Or deviant… Or if there’s something wrong with you? Currently I’m thinking that I’m weird and there must be something wrong with me, because I can’t remember ever seriously considering the possibility that there might be something WRONG with me. Of course I’m aware that I am weird in more than one ways, and that I’m not like everyone else, but to me that’s always been kind of cool. I mean, why would you want to be normal anyway? Normal, completely normal, is boring. If you do everything like the average person and there’s nothing weird about you that people can describe you with, what kind of an impression do you leave? Yeah. None what soever. Except being kind of creepy for being completely normal.

As you may know, I collect Barbie. A lot of fellow collectors have at least started out by lying to cashiers that they’re buying gifts and even have Barbies gift wrapped because they’re too embarrassed to be buying toys for themselves. I’ve always found it kind of fun to announce that “no need to gift wrap, it’s for my own plays” and then pay attention to the look they give you. Sometimes it is amused, sometimes admiring, sometimes it questions whether or not you were joking and if they should wrap the Barbie anyway. I just love to see the reactions, what ever they are. During several interviews I’ve given to Finnish media about Barbie collecting they always ask me if I play with the dolls, and if they are allowed to tell the audience that I do when I tell them I do. My standard reply: “Oh, do tell if you want, I have no shame.”

And that’s what it is about, isn’t it? Being ashamed for not fitting the norm. Who has created these expectations? Who are we trying to please? Or you, I should ask, because I have no idea. I think what helped me was the fact that I have had no cousins but I had 3 aunties and 2 uncles, all of which were quite… Well weird. Especially my Auntie-Hilkka, my mom’s eldest sister. She is a hoot, I tell you. She never thinks twice if she should jump squares in the middle of the city at the ripe age of 60 if she wants to, or if she should blow bubbles or take a few dance steps while she’s at it. When I was a kid, I collected poems and aphorisms from friends and family into my little book. She wrote, I can’t remember the whole thing, but it finished: “…and never be too old to sit at the store stairs for a scoop of ice-cream.” I have carried that with me all my life, and no matter how successful I’ll be, no matter how “professional” people expect me to be, I will not give up my right to be weird.

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