I hate conformity. Not to say that I don’t do my share of cow-towing conforming, but I hate it. Squeezing everything and everyone into the same package just makes me feel so… closeted somehow. What brings this existential thought on at this moment is Google. Google has just told me that I have to use the new, “better” Blogger editor. And suddenly I can’t find the font size that I want anymore. The text is either too small or WAY TOO BIG!!!! The font size I liked in the old editor just isn’t an option anymore. I must conform to Blogger’s interpretation of progress. I hate conformity.

I had a social worker boyfriend once who told me that I was oppositional-defiant. Apparently, I was supposed to feel some shame about that. It’s apparently the clinical diagnosis that they give kids who are on their way to being officially labeled sociopaths once they’re adults. But “oppositional-defiant” has a ring to it that I like, somehow. Whatever it means clinically, I like to think of it as a highbrow way of saying that I march to the beat of my own drummer.

And so when I must conform, I’m resentful. The brilliant minds at Google not only have recently told me that I must conform to use the new, “improved” Blogger editor, but I also have been using Google Groups all wrong for the past year. Despite them having a web address, I’ve been informed that the two wrestling fiction group sites I administer are not, in fact, “websites.” I must migrate all my wrestling fiction and graphics somewhere else, because they will delete my pages and files soon. I’ll be happier, they tell me, following the directions and conforming. Straighten my tie, they tell me. Part my hair down the side, they say. Don’t be too outrageous or “alternative.” Be happy with the choices that they’ve given me and forget about what I was already quite happy with that I can’t have any longer.