{"id":26198,"date":"2020-05-15T07:23:12","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T12:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=26198"},"modified":"2020-05-14T15:43:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-14T20:43:29","slug":"she-hit-me-right-in-the-fissure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/15\/she-hit-me-right-in-the-fissure\/","title":{"rendered":"She Hit Me Right In The Fissure"},"content":{"rendered":"

So a cousin of mine shared a Facebook video called Which ZOOM Caller Are You?<\/a>, one of which is “The one in front of a bookcase”:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To be honest, I’m actually more of the kind that will avoid including video on these calls. In the past, when the team I was on actually had video calls, I had a slow Internet connection, so I didn’t want to tax it. Now, if possible, I try to avoid it because, if it’s a group call, you end up with tiny boxes which kind of subverts the point. And if I have<\/em> to, I’ll do a video call, but I end up spending the whole time looking at the camera and not the screen, so it does me no good at all as I cannot but glance at the person with whom I’m speaking.<\/p>\n

Which is not to say I don’t look<\/em> at the video on the Zoom calls. When my current employer had a company-wide meeting a couple weeks back, I completely spent the call scrolling through the hundreds of people looking to see who would have more books in the background than I would (if I shared video). A couple people had a bookshelf or two, and my immediate manager might have been close with a wall of books.<\/p>\n

I commented on my cousin’s post with a photo I did for a bit on another blog<\/a> about framing your video so the bookshelves show but the bladed weapons do not:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To which her sister responded:<\/p>\n

Quit showing off all your wealth Brian! Not all of us can have the huge riches that you keep throwing in our faces. All I have is a plain wall<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And I was all like, wuh?<\/em><\/p>\n

Because, gentle reader, I worry that I’ll have forgotten where I come from or that people, generally people I knew when I was younger, will think so. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I won’t let you, gentle reader, forget that I come from down a gravel road via the trailer park and city housing projects. I’m like Everclear without a recording contract and, face it, any musical talent whatsoever.<\/p>\n

When I was younger, I was sometimes told that I was arrogant and a bit of a show-off, as I was always ready to tell you I got good grades or was really smart.<\/p>\n

I like to think I’ve gotten better about it, especially in person, where I won’t even tell you I’m any good at anything at all.<\/p>\n

But here on this blog, and probably on Facebook, I am prone to putting a good face on things. I mention I get a lot of books and some number of CDs. I’ve mentioned some periods where I’ve spent dollars a day<\/a> on trivial things. I have a gym membership and a martial arts school membership. My boys go to private school. I drive a Lexus (albeit a twelve-year-old Lexus we bought with 100,000 miles on it). So, yeah, we’re doing okay, and I somehow have bumbled into a career that isn’t as satisfying as being a best-selling novelist but that leaves me not exhausted and physically not beaten down at the end of the day.<\/p>\n

So am I flaunting wealth? I don’t know. I don’t think so. I hope not. But I would have to leave that for you, gentle reader, and for my cousin to assess. I’m not out here trying to be as artificial as an Instagram model but with a dad bod and flabbier prose. I’m just tapping out bits of my story, mostly for myself in a decade when I’m looking back at 2020. (I hope you like some of it.)<\/p>\n

Maybe my cousin was just referring to my posting lots of pictures of books, which is what she meant by wealth. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. But I got a blog post out of it, anyway.<\/p>\n