Trouble

"You are trouble."

I'm cutting vegetables at the counter when his arms slide around me and his voice murmurs in my ear. I set my knife on the counter and lean back.

"Oh, really? You want to tell me how, exactly?"

I can feel him smile.

"I'd rather have you show me."

I forget about the vegetables.

***

I was once (somewhat sassily) described as a member of "the pearl-wearing, julep-sipping, classics-reading set" during an argument. 

As I was actually wearing pearls at the time and had just finished haranguing someone about never having read The Great Gatsby, I was forced to acknowledge the truth of the remark. I can be tightly wound. A book I finished recently (Sam Wasson's fabulous Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.) talked a little bit about the same phenomenon, admittedly in a different context. There are the good girls, the buttoned up girls in the world and there are the Holly Golightlys, the girls who can only be described as "trouble." 

My grown-up life, as I've written elsewhere, is remarkably buttoned up.

It's an approach that has served me well, especially while navigating the early years of academia and starting a career. It's not just easier but smarter to be cool and reserved, to keep your head on your shoulders and play according to the good girl rules. And for as much as it feels like [insert feminist rant about the patriarchy winning here] it just makes more sense to follow the rules.

Being a good girl paid off. It continues to pay off.

I hate it.

God, I even detest the phrase unless it's, you know, being used in some sort of transgressive specific context.

I have a naturally hot temper, a (at best) bawdy sense of humor, and an almost pathological need to stir things up.

But regardless of the desire to smart off to someone in a position of authority or the need to tell a dirty joke in mixed company, I manage to stay pretty buttoned up.

I manage to stay good.

***

I lied.

I misbehave.

Quietly. In small ways that either pass unnoticed or are so insignificant they pass without censure. I mosh at punk shows. I use "the c-word" and "the f-bomb" in familiar company frequently and with great relish. My favorite panel in Saga is dirty enough to be considered NSFW.

The tininess of the infractions frustrates me to no end. Because, admittedly, I don't want to be tiny bits of trouble, I want to be (as Sam Wasson puts so marvelously in his book):

Two big handfuls of heat-packing trouble.

I'm an adult. I get that you can't be the person you are with your best friends when you meet new people. I'm not looking for permission to cuss at board meetings or wear a mini-dress to work. I don't intend on making "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails my karaoke song. The problem is that the more time I spend working or meeting new people the more time I'm spending  in my good girl mode. The more time I spend buttoned up and toned down the harder it is misbehave even in the small ways that make me feel like the person I am.

It's been far too long since someone thought I might be trouble.