Harmless Office Supply Or Identity?

I'm slowly coming to grips with my newly purchased planner.

I finally went to Staples and bought a 2010 planner. I'd asked for an academic one from work back in September but kept forgetting to follow up with the guy who does the shopping. And by November's end, an academic year planner just seemed silly. And then New Year's came and went, and with each passing work day, I've been using that teeny-tiny "future planning" yearly spread in the back of my 2009 planner. This past Sunday was the day I finally decided things had to change.

Even though my old planner was a mere 'weekly' calendar with no bells or whistles, I had gotten used to it--used to not having the monthly spreads every four weeks or so, used to not having the super helpful month tabs on the side, used to the pre-printed meeting hours not matching up with my usual workday/week. If I was going to spend my own money on 2010 planner, though, I wanted to get the planner of my dreams.

So after about 10 minutes of ogling the aisle, I am deciding between a small brown weekly/monthly and a tall handsome green weekly [only], and I decide to go with "size." Saying that I went with vanity makes it sound like I am a beauty-over-brains kind of girl, but I knew that by choosing the green one, I'd get both vanity and size. I'd get to be business but not boring. And that makes me practical, right? A more-bang-for-my-buck thing.

And then I notice a smaller, same shade of green, monthly [only]. I'm thinking: I could get both weekly and monthly [yes], have vanity [yes!] , and spend twice the money for the inevitability of not wanting to lug TWO planners around [no]. So I tell myself again that I'm being practical and decide to take the weekly green planner up to the register.

And yet, three feet before the register is a small table touting a bunch of planners for the new year. I owe it to myself to look. I skim over everything quickly, still clutching my green goddess, and then I see the words "weekly/monthly" printed on one of the larger ones. I flip it open, and it has monthly tabs as well. Examining the 'week' pages, I see that a workday goes from 7am to 9pm--good enough hours for my unusual schedule. Everything about this new planner is screaming "I'm The One!" Every thing, except for the hot pink cover. It's Staples brand, so I quickly go back to the aisle, surmise that yes, indeed this planner is one of only two Staples weekly/monthly's left in the store--both 'pank'--said in my thickest Texan.

Part of me, a large part, doesn't want to look at a hot pink planner for an entire year. I don't want to see it on my desk, I don't want to pull it out of my otherwise sophisticated Timbuk2 during meetings with school principals or intern interviewees.  In short, I don't want to be the girl with the pink planner. I don't want everyone in 2010 who sees me to think I chose pink, and what a shade it is, over all the other possible colors available to me, as if I'm some sorority princess turned law school student. I may have once been blond, but I am not that girl.

I wanted the muted, olive green planner.
But my shame in my own vanity made me buy the pink one. Who am I to care what other people think (perhaps my biggest character flaw)? I don't have to fall prey to the simple gender binary. So what if I'm not a girly-girl. By owning one thing that's pink, even owning and loving one pink thing, I am not redefining my gender. It's just a pink planner.

(If you've read this far, then you probably understand why this detail has turned into a blog entry. No matter how many times I think it, this post is evidence enough that this pink planner is not just a pink planner.)

Maybe I have it wrong. Maybe my choices weren't spurred by vanity after all but by self identity (probably both), and I've been giving vanity all the credit. Maybe I needed to write about my Elle Woods planner to confirm for myself that my gender identity is not made by things that surround me, that I can still feel and be the girl who likes green even though I'm also the girl who sports pink.

And then somewhere in this thought I can't help but see this analogously, minutely, to how some people feel all the time. Some people, whether they identify as transgender or not, feel consistently let down by their circumstances. Maybe the clothes they have to wear match society's views about how they should dress but don't match their internal sense of self. And once I'm here in my thought process I start to fester about how crappy society's gender prescriptions can be and about how I support folks being true to themselves as frequently as they can. And then that thought of course leads me back to feeling bad about my pink planner purchase. Pink isn't me, so why did I let myself not follow my self? And then I feel doubly the schmuck because now I've tried to liken my trivial office supply list to a person's experiences with gender variance or gender nonconformity. Will the self shame ever end?

So, as I'm trying to come to grips with my purchase of the hot pink planner, I am forced to remind myself just how deeply Gender effects confidence.

 *   *   *   *   *

I used to think my planner said I was stressed but well time-managed, organized and yet fun. Now, I'm not so sure. What does your planner look like? What features are a "must?" What does your planner say about you? Is this an accurate description?