Simple invisibility

It's easy to go through life being unseen. Just never, ever do anything worthy of notice.

This is not something I have much skill with. Not that I seek out recognition, but rather that because of whatever it is I AM, I am recognizeable.

(Sometimes as someone else, but that's another matter for another day, and has already been explored here once (or, you know, maybe twice, but I'm way too lazy to go back to the archives to figure out how many times I've flogged THAT particular dead horse).)

Take, for example, my laugh. Well, OK, a lot of you CAN'T take it for example, and sorry about that, but you should believe me when I say that I have been tracked down across entire buildings because someone heard me laugh and just followed the sound. There are people who have commented that a place seemed empty when I'd gone because that laugh wasn't there anymore. (an aside - I hope this is a good thing, and not a cry of relief from the assualted few who were unfortunate enough to be in proximity to the bellow.) In college my friends imitated the up and down swoop of it, which made me self-conscious for a few minutes, and I tried to tone it down to a gentle twittering few-second flight rather than it's natural bursting guffawing zoom. As it so happens, well after college one of those friends told me she'd love to have a laugh like mine.

Now, the laugh isn't something I've cultivated. It just IS. I can't change it any more than I can change the color of my eyes or the thickness of my ankles. Somehow it has become noticeable, an identifier, and thing that makes me forever not-invisible.

And boy howdy, you know that if there were a way to make some money off of it, I would SO do that, because what's the use of having a hallmark if you can't reap some payout?

Anyway, because a life of simple invisibility has eluded me in the real world, I present a somewhat more skewed version of "me" through using a cartoon avatar in the virtual world. Yes, yes, you've seen a picture of me on this blog once, and I was a mere floating eyeball for a long time, but that pink-headed gal is "me" now to a lot of people. She's my little fake, my "other" personality, my cloak of invisibility that allows a lot more freedom than the "real" me might dare take.

(Those of you who know me, feel free to rebut. This is simply my perception, and as such is very likely untrue.)

Which leads me to this: I notice that a lot of people lately are changing their avatars. A lot of people who come HERE have changed their avatars. But why? Why did YOU do it? Why do you not just have your picture up there? Why protect yourself from the rest of us? What makes us relish invisibility? What are the freedoms we afford ourselves through the use of a floating eyeball or pink-haired ghoul or some other not-me choice?

I anxiously await your insights....and maybe an explanation of why you picked what you did.