2/1 QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"The invisible are always so resolutely invisible, until you see them."
-Jonathan Lethem, CHRONIC CITY

I was on a plane over the weekend, sandwiched between a baby screaming at decibels that would freak out my dog, and a guy who kept chanting under his breath to cope with his fear of flying. Thankfully, I had the new novel CHRONIC CITY to pass the time. When I came across the passage with the quote above, I had to write it down. What does it mean to be invisible?

Do you ever feel like you don't exist to others? I do sometimes. Going from school to school, I have often done my personal best, which was award worthy, of blending in. This meant that instead of just fitting into the crowd, the halls all but sucked me in. As a means to survive, I made my self resolutely invisible to nearly everyone, even though I longed for people to notice me.

At my first high school, I had a massive crush on this guy whose identity was being the best hitter on the baseball team. To protect the guilty, let's call him Ted. Two months into going to school there, I saw a sign for play auditions, which was posted by the Drama Club for Shakespeare's great comedy, TWELFTH NIGHT. Though terrifying for me, I went to the auditions and actually got cast as one of the leads. Tim saw the play for English class credit and came up to me after the curtain call. He actually said I was amazing!

The following week, he called me and asked me out. We went for Chinese, and I couldn't believe that he was interested in me. Somewhere between the Peking duck and fortune cookies, Tim dropped his chopsticks on the floor twice (he reused them!) and made fun of nearly everyone with an IQ above Forrest Gump level in our classes (we had three together, though he had never paid attention to me before).

Of course, that was the last date I went on with Tim. I do thank him for teaching me one thing, though. As I figure out who I am, I now know that one thing I will never be again is invisible.