Really Shaking it Off

So you all know the Taylor Swift music video. Just reading the title of this blog might actually get it stuck in your head. So let me show you this one:

I still haven't fully decided how I feel about Alex Boye. But this I can say about him: he doesn't care whether I like him or not. He's just doing his thing, and doing it pretty well. I don't think I can actually make the same claim about Ms. Swift, who I actually do like with one grown-up leg still in the closet.
What about me? Because of course I'm talking about me. I always talk about me. It saves me from gossip. It also saves me from the mistake of thinking I can tell other people how to be.
We create our self-image not only from what we know of ourselves in some sort of hypothetical vacuum, but from our contexts. That we see ourselves in many more contexts than anybody else does gives us an edge in judging ourselves as a whole being, but we're also pretty much the only people interested in ourselves as a whole being. My PhD committee, for instance, doesn't really care that I knit really awesome TARDIS hats, and my dad doesn't at all care what I write my dissertation about, although he does keep suggesting I write about Doctor Who. (if only. Doctor Who studies hasn't been invented yet, and neither has time travel, scientifically).
My job right now is to find money so I can write my dissertation. I'm supposed to be a grownup among grownups, an academic among academics. Since my discovery of impostor syndrome during coursework, I have stopped worrying so much about the truth that I am not like my peers. So I can't aca-twerk. I also can't really compete for fellowships, since there's like three for about fifteen students and I'm about as conspicuous as a cosplayer trying to join the Justice League of America.
Oh, and there's always teaching. Because I'm SOO GOOD AT THAT. *irony*
I'm cosplaying, then. I'm an imposter. I only look like an imposter until I go to comic-con, where nobody expects me to shoot lasers out of my . . . elbows (keeping it SFW). I need to find my league, or accept my role as flying-rat-girl (a demotion given to me by a pleasant little man who couldn't figure out if he loved or hated me) among the real superheroes, the real rhinestones on the jumpsuit of Justice. I find myself rubbing laser-elbows with some really sparkly people. I am among the greats.
So I have to figure out what people WILL pay me to do. I don't want to do the twist upstage of Coppelia. I'm smart. I'm dedicated. I'm good at this. Whatever THIS is.
So I'm in the chorus. Who will buy?

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