Finding Emo

It's hard to know what to say about this.

Saturday morning, I had a small parcel waiting for me. At first, I thought it had come from Australia -- a while back, a friend had vaguely mentioned about perhaps sending me something. I thought, maybe this was it? But then I recognised the clean, neat handwriting and saw it had come from Japan. I was disappointed. However much I love getting things in the post, and was flattered San would send me anything, I expected it to simply to be her returning a DVD I sent her a week or two back.

Instead, I opened the envelope and found this inside. In case the picture isn't totally clear, it is a black cotton wristband with a shark on it.

Far from disappointed now, I was instead surprised and amused -- and instantly reminded of this post about dolphins. If you can't be arsed to read it all, I draw your attention to this particular section:

"The Black dolphin has a bit of a goth thing going on. They should make a movie about them called "Finding Emo". Then they'd be popular."

I emailed San almost right away to thank her for the wristband, and to tell her that to celebrate it, I was going to grow an asymmetrical fringe. I also announced my intention of wearing black eyeliner, and generally going for the "emo Peter Parker" look.

From the other side of the world, the subtle nuances of the email would have been hard to pick up on -- San discouraged me from adopting the emo look (I'm 26, for chris'sake, I don't think I was really serious about it), but said she hoped I did like the wristband, and she'd been unsure if I would wear it.

I do plan to wear it, though, because I think it's great. I think San remembers I used to have a blue wristband several years ago, and I wore it all the time. I think she stole it -- and it's more than likely I have mentioned several times since then that I want it back. But I can't see me thinking "What my 'image' really needs, to set it off, is a black wristband with a shark on it".

I expect the trouble with me might be finding the line where ironic amusement ends and being serious begins.

A postscript to this story, over lunch yesterday with my uncle, my parents started to tell him about how San was teaching English. I forget how the subject goes up (had decided not to wear the wristband outside the the house), but they started the conversation along the lines of "Jay's girlfriend is in Japan teaching English and--"
This is where I stopped them.
"She is not my girlfriend, and in fact hasn't been for about...oh, three years now."
"What we meant was...she's your friend, and she's a girl, and..."
I just stopped bothering. They probably hope we'll get back together, and it's way too complicated to explain to them why we never will. But then again, they also hope I will get back together with Fiona, and I haven't dated her in six years or more. I just thought I'd share it with the class.