Hiding in Plain Sight

I lead a double life.  Not like a CIA agent, nothing that exciting.  But the daytime, 9-5 me is an entirely different person than the evening and weekend me.  I keep the two careful partitioned. 

Evening and Weekend Me is much more exclusive in the company she keeps, mostly just the boys, the cats and the dog, and of course all of her Twitter friends.  Daytime Me deals with co-workers, clients, extended family, neighbors and everyone else. 

Daytime Me ducks the question of what-did-she-do-with-her-long-weekend by simply answering, "Oh, not much. Home repairs, ran errands, relaxed."  Evening/Weekend Me would answer, "Holy cats, I had so much fun!", and she would list all the boardgames she played, the video game levels she conquered, how she got her steampunk cosplay hat just right.  She would talk about painting wargame terrain and her plans for this year's zombie costume.  But, Daytime Me knows that when these are the answers given, eyes glaze over and explanations are necessary.

"Oh, you play boardgames?  Like Monopoly?"  "Cosplay? That sounds weird."  "Aren't you a little old for comic books?"

So Daytime Me gets to handle the day-to-day interactions.  She has a different tone to her voice.  She's more quiet and she rarely swears.  Don't get me wrong - she's really good at what she does.  I'd much rather have her handle the client meetings, with her firm handshake and direct eye contact.  She's friendly.  Daytime Me maintains the Facebook presence and sends out the Holiday cards.

Evening/Weekend Me gets to explore new content - new movies, new books and new games.  She gets to fall in love with a new Anime and binge-watch until her eyeballs are full.  She gets to make horrible jokes on Twitter.  She swears like a sailor and gets to make mixed drinks.  She gets excited about playing pen and paper RPG's.  She's waiting for the just the right moment to book her hotel and get her tickets for the next convention.  She gets to manage the blog.  (You will note, she's nowhere near as organized as Daytime Me, as there are a whopping THREE entries in this thing after almost a year.  Get on the ball, Evening/Weekend Me!)

This partitioning works for me.  I used to be very open with pretty much everyone about what I do in my off hours.  I got tired of the constant explanations and having no one understand what on Earth I'm talking about.  I know Daytime Me isn't perfect cover - I'm still pretty obviously nerdy.  But it helps in negotiating the World of The Normal if that's just simmering underneath. 

So I've learned to deal with people.  I know who I can geek out in front of and they're with me.  The guy behind the counter at the GW store?  I can absolutely talk about how stoked I am that Soulgrinder's been added to the Chaos army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle.  The girl at the comic store?  She and I can discuss how much we've enjoyed Sweet Tooth and how sad we are to see it end.  I can chat with the folks at GameStop when I reserve something new.  I know that when I buy the water gun that I'll mod for my cosplay, I'm probably not going to discuss it with the checker at Target, especially if I get that same lady who really didn't get that you can make cheese fondue with a fondue pot, not just chocolate. 

I know better than to tell my mother that I'll be wearing a corset Out In Public with that steampunk cosplay.  When she asks what I got for my birthday, I just tell her that I got a pretty, Victorian-looking window locket, omitting that it's got a gorgeous wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey motif on the interior.

I've learned to know my audience.  Sometimes it's lonely, but Evening/Weekend Me has such an excellent time, and Daytime Me is getting really good at pre-screening who we can invite into the off hours circle.  Thanks to the internet, that circle gets incrementally bigger, and it just makes me happy.   

Daytime Me says thanks for taking the time to read this, and Evening/Weekend Me says smell ya later, and she promises to post more.