Yesterday at Ikea

I walked the whole store, starting at the As-Is and going the "wrong" way. I was going the opposite of all those little arrows they have on the floor. They want you to end at As IS -- but that's where I like to start.

As I was fighting my way through, section after section, I was really thinking about how hard it is to go against the grain. Literally, with every step I took, there was some kind of stammer from the person doing the "right" thing. But the weird thing was, people were getting out of my way for the most part. People were letting me go through. They were just shocked to see me there.

At one point near the end, I was thinking, is it even worth all this? I am fighting the flow like some kind of fish. I can't see as many of the things I want to see and everyone is watching me because I'm the only one walking toward them. It seemed like every single person looked in my cart (and I'm not exaggerating).

It was in the lighting section, while I was looking at the pathetic selection of table lamps that it all made sense. This is how I feel sometimes. And there I was, spending way too long in the lamps because I didn't feel like going back out there. Because I didn't feel like walking against those arrows anymore. Because I was tired of everyone wondering why my cart was filled with piles of fabric. And that's how I feel sometimes in my life. It's not that I'm radical. That would be easy, because when you're radical, your entire group is going against the grain -- and that's your identity. People expect it. When you look like everyone else, and you're doing these little things that aren't normal, people don't get it. You wish you could just start where the arrows start.

I got all my stuff to the register and one of the sales people spotted me immediately. She walked up to me and said "Is all this stuff AS IS"? "Everything except for this jar", I said. And she waited with me in the self checkout line until it was my turn. Then, she rung me up, giving me even better deals than my items were marked, discounting "just because". And I realized that she saw me from a mile away and she "got it". That there ARE other people that shop the store backwards, and she knew it. And it was like she rewarded me for it.

And all night I kept thinking, I have to remember to blog about this. All the times I've written about forgetting my thoughts -- this is an example of one I forced myself to remember.

So like an avalanche, this thought lead to so many other thoughts and a pride in doing it my way. My bill was $41.80. The real price would have been around $150. And the song below (my 'theme' at 27) that's really a spoken word poem, kept going in my head. (Note: Please read it. I tried very hard to find a link to it and have delayed posting this because of it. This poem made up the attitude of my late 20's.)


My IQ

when I was four years old
they tried to test my I.Q.
they showed me a picture
of 3 oranges and a pear
they said,
which one is different?
it does not belong
they taught me different is wrong

but when I was 13 years old
I woke up one morning
thighs covered in blood
like a war
like a warning
that I live in a breakable takeable body
an ever-increasingly valuable body
that a woman had come in the night to replace me
deface me

see,
my body is borrowed
I got it on loan
for the time in between my mom and some maggots
I don't need anyone to hold me
I can hold my own
I got highways for stretchmarks
see where I've grown

I sing sometimes
like my life is at stake
'cause you're only as loud
as the noises you make

I'm learning to laugh as hard
as I can listen
'cause silence
is violence
in women and poor people
if more people were screaming then I could relax
but a good brain ain't diddley
if you don't have the facts

we live in a breakable takeable world
an ever available possible world
and we can make music
like we can make do
genius is in a back beat
backseat to nothing if you're dancing
especially something stupid
like I.Q.

for every lie I unlearn
I learn something new

I sing sometimes for the war that I fight
'cause every tool is a weapon -
if you hold it right.