Here’s to not fitting in!

I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.
-Orson Welles

Via Meg

Not to get all emo, but I need to be more appreciative of those moments at big parties where I feel out of place and those intimate conversations with really introspective people where I feel like they’re overanalyzing. Cause maybe it is just me. And maybe I’m just not as indie as I think and a lot less with the mainstream than I thought. Being just left of any given situation inevitably gives us a more interesting perspective than whatever 99% of the crowd is feeling at that moment.

Or at least more unique.

Fitting outside should be a reminder of what we are not. Affirmation that we should embrace. If we like the feeling we should be proud. If we don’t like the feeling we should just get over it.

These are my misfits, Maggie and Yogi. I have a soft spot for big dogs and dogs that other people think are ugly. They are often less loved than other cuter, prettier dogs, but they are just as funny when they sneeze, just as huggable when your day has been complete crap.

Maggie in the background is abnormal. Abnormally loving of everyone she meets. Also abnormally large, at 160 pounds. Unfortunately, she stinks and slobbers a lot. I am careful to greet her in specially designated play clothes whenever I go home.

Yogi in the foreground is abnormal. He was abused and feared everyone when we brought him home. Through months of tough love of leashing him up and forcing him to sit with me and watch TV, he has become my boy and I have become his play thing. Whenever I come home (without Bill, who Yogi doesn’t love – yet) he becomes the puppy he never got to be in his past life.

I absolutely love this picture because Yogi looks like he’s smiling at me. I know if he actually had a tail instead of the rottweiler-esque stub on his behind, he’d wag it every time he saw me. And Maggie? Maggie just looks weird and kind of crazy so it’s hilarious. Maggie wags if you just wave in her general direction, so that’s nice.

Together, the two have squished me and sat on my chest and given me a couple of bruises with their love-smashings. But in the end, I think that’s the only type of place where I need to fit. (In the middle of a love-smashing.)