“We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don’t care for. ”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Such was the daily quote on my Google front page today.  This just cracked me up, it is so true!  I almost care more about the opinion of people I don’t care for – and who don’t care for me – than I do about people I do care for!  What a strange phenomenon.  I don’t care if I get caught by someone I love and who loves me when I’m in the grocery store looking like I just fell out of bed.  They take me as I am.  It’s the person who stabbed me in the back somewhere along the line that I worry about running into when I am sans makeup and my hair looks like hell and I have my most unattractive pants on and a t-shirt that, although it might reflect my sports team of the day, is totally the wrong color for me.

Isn’t it human nature to want to show the person who thinks little of you that you are really big – big – big?  And getting along fine without them? And if truth be told I am doing better without them mucking up my life?  Or is it just me and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach who are that vain and insecure.  Cmon be honest.

Tomorrow I am going to a day long seminar regarding the business of home health.  I have spent more of my precious lifetime than I should wondering whether I’ll run into the all-too-recent PT graduate who took the job as supervisor at my last job and let’s just say we did not share the same ethical framework.  I left the job and am much happier where I am (isn’t that often the way?) but I dream of running into her and making it clear that I am now in a supervisory position myself and don’t even think about applying to the company I work for.  That’s terrible!  And yet I’m so vain I even care that a snippy little girl who can’t hold a candle to me intellectually or ethically knows I’m not just doing ok but doing GREAT and I’ve lost weight, too.  That’s pretty vain and thank God there was someone like Maria von E-E who can make me laugh about it and feel a little normal.  I promise tomorrow I will not scan the room looking for my nemesis and if I do run into her, I will simply tell her that I’ve been advised by my lawyer not to speak to her until I have decided what to do.  Which is nothing.  I don’t even have a lawyer. But she doesn’t know that.

I would like to purchase one ticket to hell please, clearly I’m going to need it someday.  Of course I’ll have to make sure every hair is in place and that I’m wearing a gorgeous shade of red with lipstick, shoes and purse to match.  Wouldn’t want the Devil to think for a moment that he’s gotten one over on me.