SoMa Literary Review - The Boring Interesting Person

The Boring Interesting Person

By Jimmy Chen

The interesting person was sort of boring, though her life was very complicated. Spent her summers in France, and traveled throughout the year. She was particularly fond of Southeast Asia-Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand-and the people there. She dined with the locals, because she did not want to be a tourist. Because of compromised international diplomacy her country was undergoing, she, when asked about her nationality, said she was an expatriate.

The boring interesting person lived in San Francisco. All of her friends were artists, designers, writers, musicians, dancers, etc. They all had day jobs which they indignantly went to, and frequently had dinner together, talking the evening away over wine. They liked to see films with subtitles, and to talk about the film afterwards. They wore glasses with thick rims, to embrace the fact that they wore glasses. Stupid people didn't read, so they preserved their eyesight. Vain people, who happened to have read a book or two, wore contact lenses. Only very smart, unvain people read thick books and had thick glasses.

The boring interesting person's father was a successful real estate man. He was a landlord of a handful of properties in San Francisco, one of which the boring interesting person lived at, a newly renovated 3BR apartment in Noe Valley. Because the boring interesting person shunned corporate capitalism, she didn't like to work. She took graphic design classes and did a lot of yoga and pilates. Not working presented a minor fiscal problem, because money was inextricably tied with society. The boring interesting person's father's solution was efficient and marked the spirit of a true outside-the-box thinker: to have a few of his tenants pay their rent to the boring interesting person. The exact amount was unclear, for the boring interesting person didn't like to talk about money, which was evil, but her friends gather that it was around $3,000 a month, not including rent, which was obviously waived by her father.

During the day the boring interesting person shopped for clothes and CDs. Her favorite store was Urban Outfitters because its fashion was edgy and punk. Lame boring people who lived in the suburbs shopped at the Gap and Old Navy. Nasty rich ladies shopped at Neiman Marcus and Sacks. The boring interesting person, who went to India last year and had a transcendental experience, wanted her clothes to look more ragged, like humanity. She found a cute top with holes already worn in. There was a picture of a bomb on it and the boring interesting person felt this, when worn on her, could be a comment about the war in Iraq. With this shirt, the boring interesting person could say: Look, the irony of war.

It was 4:45PM, and her friends were about to get off work. They were all going to meet on Haight, so the boring interesting person went to Amoeba records in the meantime. She loved the White Stripes because the riffs reminded her of Led Zeppelin, who she loved when she was in high school.

But one time at a dinner party she mentioned how she loved Led Zeppelin, and some bald guy with a corduroy blazer and thick glasses said it was yet another example of how a cultural movement is only legitimized when it becomes white. She had no idea what he was talking about, so she stared down at her food. Her friends nodded yes yes no fair so she nodded yes yes no fair as well, but the bald guy with the corduroy blazer thick glasses, owning the subsequent silence, looked at the boring interesting person and smirked. You are boring, the smirk said. I see you.

She stands on the curb and unwraps a new CD. She never heard of the band, but the cover looked like the band was cool. Her theory was if a band was smart and made good music, it was their obligation to have a cover which demonstrated it. No great band should get away with a lousy cover. It's very windy and the evening fog rolls in thick and languid; each note of moisture is prickly on her face. Some hippies utter something incomprehensible. She opens the CD booklet and begins to read the lyrics: who knows/life blows/life sucks/what a scam. What stupid lyrics, she thinks, but then remembers. Ah yes, they're probably being ironic and embracing the artifice of commercialism in music.

Nobody needs 20,000 songs in their pocket. She doesn't even like half the stuff on her iPod. She leafs through the songs, spinning the wheel, stops at 'Redemption Song' and listens to it. From inside her headphones, she cannot hear what the hippies are saying around her, only make out what the words might be coming from their lips. Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery she puts in some guy's mouth as she hears it sung in her ears. He starts waving his arms madly and making the letter Os with his mouth. Woo hoooooo!!! Woo hoooooo!!! For a second, maybe less, she thinks he is talking to her but then catches herself. It's only a song.

Jimmy Chen’s writing has appeared in Failbetter, Fourteen Hills, Hyphen Magazine, Opium, McSweeney’s, Juked, among others. He lives in San Francisco. His website is www.jimmychenchen.com.