the devil in the details
the domestic minx
21 Comments
The Devil and I are friends.
I see him whenever I can.
In fact, I see him everywhere. He's in everything I do.
Lurking, hiding sometimes, especially in the details.
Oh yes, the Devil is in the details.
And he loves me because I can see him, when everyone else just passes him by.
Never one to see the forest for the trees, I am often at pains to see The Big Picture, distracted instead by the minutiae, the sub particles and those details.
We have a love/hate relationship, the details and I.
While I often willingly accept another's blindness to them, I simply cannot ignore them myself. My dalliance with them is immoderate. I tweak incessantly and with fervour.
My attention to uncommon details is excrutiating, obsessive.
And random.
It is not unusual for me to deliberate over the structure of a paragraph for an afternoon while dirty dishes collect on the sink. I will paint a wall five times to get the right shade of white while four weeks worth of bills lay unpaid. With religious fervour I will scrub the grout of the wretched white mosaic bathroom while the window remains smeared.
My ability to obsess or ignore such details at will is both impressive and inconsistent.
I am nothing if not The Mistress of Manipulation.
There are always details I wish I didn't notice of course; the thin film of dust on someone's shelves, the chip in the coffee mug, the smudge on the glass, the picture hanging crookedly.
Yet while some of these particulars, askew and awry, will annoy and repulse me, there are others I look for and love:
A gap between the teeth, a freckle on the nose, a slip of the tongue, a mincing of words. I love the assymetric smile, the crooked nose, the dimpled chin and the wandering eye. Curiously, it is such dysfunctional details both in nature and within people that enchant and compell me, not because I want to play with them, as I do with my own little abberations, but because I see them as a mark of soul.
Just as an Indian woman weaving her blanket leaves a flaw in it to let the soul out, there is beauty in the blemish.
But my obsession with details, obscure or otherwise, should and can not be confused with a desire for perfection.
On the contrary, the very idea is abhorrent!
While delicious details can be remastered, manipulated and tweaked with compulsive glee, the concept of moulding and managing them into a state of perfection is really rather tiresome.
"Just as gold cannot be pure, people cannot be perfect."
Take this Domestic Minx, for example.
I fear I am as shameful and imperfect as Sin itself.
Oh, my detailing may appear
sweet and innocent on the exterior
but inside there is
a plague upon my house.
And I rather like it.
My deliciously dysfunctional details are abundant.
Some coat me like sugar,
a sweet titillation,
a mischievous pixellation,
a vexation at worst.
The more devilish lurk underbelly deep,
dark and dangerous, seething perfectly imperfect and delectably undone.
Details Diabolical.
Devilish and Delicious.
The Devil is in the details.
And I do so like to play with him.
So now I ask you, gentle reader, for your details,
please...
I'll show you mine, if you show me yours.
Do you dally with details yourself?
Which of your own details is the most delicious?
Which the most diabolic?
You know how much I love them...
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Reader Comments (21)
I am a sucker for getting lost in the details.
I chose my kitten, Ravioli is his name, because he's a perfect little flame point himalayan with beautiful blue eyes that you could swim in. He also has a huge freckle on the bottom of his milky pink lip, which in purebred terms makes him imperfect. I thought his freckle made him interesting, and grabbed him right up.
Noodles, my other cat, looked like a human hand when I first saw him. He'd had mange, fleas, and had been completely shaved to relieve him of his troubles. He was on the chopping block at the animal shelter - his days were numbered, but I knew from the moment I saw him that while others could not see his beauty, I could. I brought him home, and he turned into a beautiful butterfly, who will never leave my side.
Like you, I'm even charmed by my own flaws. My crooked smile was always so troubling when I was little. I looked like a Disney villian. Now I've grown into it, and people say that my smile is their favorite thing about me. I couldn't agree more.
And best yet, I look for these details that others may so brazenly call flaws in others as well. Tommy, my boyfriend, has asymetrical eyes, one crooked renegade tooth in the front that breaks an otherwise perfect smile, and flaming coarse red untameable hair...and I think that he is probably the most beautiful person that I've ever seen. The details, you see, when observed individually may be a bit shocking, but overall, they create so much interest...so many small things for me to fall in love with.
I love the devil, just like you, my dear.
"But my obsession with details, obscure or otherwise, should and can not be confused with a desire for perfection..."
I am reminded of the words of the late, great Ivor Cutler: "Imperfection is an end; perfection is only an aim."
Kind Regards
THJnr
Oh those devilish details are really so divine!
Kitty, I love it that you chose Noodles when his faults, so diabolical and detrimental, had determined his sad and imminent fate. I would have chosen him too, because I, like you, would have seen such beauty in that picture. No wonder he loves you.
And no wonder you love Tommy. Your Irish lad sounds absolutely cracking! (to be sure...)
I think his renegade details are delicious and it is that very twist, that very imperfection that draws me towards such a visage.
While I cannot abide it if I put a word wrong on a page or I have hung something crookedly, I so love the crookedness of the Human State. Imperfection is a beautiful detail, it ushers forth the Divine.
“A beautiful thing is never perfect.”
Your details are delicious, Kitty, and reveal such beauty of spirit.
Perfect.
x
Each day, I like to remind myself of these words,
"Perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well." by Angelique Arnauld.
Delighting in those details, appreciating the asymmetry, tweaking when compelled...
I can be extraordinarily compulsive...
So please share some of your delicious, or diabolical details, Mr Hamburger...
Other people have told me that I don't pay enough attention to the details.
I do, I tend to see the big picture first and then zoom in later.
One of my own particular details that I appreciate is my ability to judge character. I'm usually pretty good at summing someone up, good or bad.
One detail I dislike about myself is my procrastination.
Why do today what you can put off til tomorrow.
I sicken myself sometimes.
There are piles of things to do, growing by the day...
I love your attention to detail Minx.
You don't miss a thing, and that, while scary, can also be very generous...
I often wish I was better at seeing the big picture Eddie.
I become so focused on a detail, delicious and compelling as it is, that I spiral round and around the single point of interest so that, before I know it, I have disappeared right up my own bottom.
I can be stuck up there for days...
Why is my book not finished? Yeah...
Well, I disagree. The Devil mooched my beer all night Thursday, made out with my girlfriend, and then kicked my puppy.
If you SEE The Devil, please tell him I want my CDs back.
AND my car.
And your dignity, I presume.
I'm glad to see he didn't take off with your sense of humour!!!
Nice of you to visit, Lobo. I'll hide the Devil in my details so you two don't have a face-off here next time...
Here's an asymmetric detail for you, dm ... I reached the age of 35 without knowing that one of my ears was smaller than the other.
My mother never told me, none of my friends ever told me, my wife never told me and (since I was never much one for looking at my own ears in the mirror) I never told me.
Not until I had an affair with an objective woman did my unbalanced ears come to light. And I thank her for that, even to this day. (if you're reading this, LH, thank you for that, even today).
je me maquille toujours un oeil + que l'autre
As-tu la solution, domestic minx, toi qui est mon impératrice à tout jamais...
Oh Violette, Votre Impératrice?
Vous êtes vraiment adorable
Quant à l'oeil + plus que l'autre...
Ah, ceci est un problème commun mais un qui peuvent partir du porteur regardant plutôt aliéné...
Il est tout une question de regarder des choses à l'envers, avec quelques mathématiques jeté dedans.
Je suggère que vous fassiez les deux yeux d'une façon plutôt forte (+ +) et réduisiez alors lentement, lentement (-) et également jusqu'à ce qu'ils soient tous deux égale.
Voila! (?)
Peut-être cela fonctionne à l'envers...
J'espère ainsi...
Bénédictions et Beauté...
C'est les détails qui importent...
Oh Thomas,
An affair with an objective woman...
How deliciously, refreshingly, honest...(!)
and how wonderful too that your ears are asymmetrical. I think that is gorgeous.
Both my ears are small and rather sweet,
but the lobe piercings for my earings, fashioned when I was 14, and obviously back in the Dark Ages, was done by hand (not with darning needle, thank God) but with something that was, quite clearly, the girth of it's older, wider sister.
For some reason, my holes (here and no where else I assure you) are huge.
Well, you couldn't drive a truck through them, but you can easily fit more than two earring thingies in them, at once. I've always felt conscious of them.
I've often wondered if I shouldn't just go with the flow, Dyak style, and just hang heavy domestic implements from them until they droop unashamedly down to my shoulders...
Hello Minx
In a merSYNdol fug today but your post was balm for the abandoned soul
Oh my poor Thinista xx
I know the fug of which you speak...
You are not abandoned at least, darling, for I am always here - and there at your blog - when you need me.xx
I am glad that, at the very least, I have been balm.
I AM The Balm...
xx
I am the big picture gal...until I become obsessed with something. Then I can zero in with unrelenting focus. My current obsession is this devil of a dog who will only stay small and inside of his little crate for so long...and then I shall be in dire need of a trainer.
The most distracting detail is my hair...which refuses for the most part to cooperate at all. I therefore find myself often obsessed and wondering why that particular hair color, highlight or pair of scissors seemed like such a good idea. Then the details are in fixing the catastrophic hair disaster.
Ah, the joys of being a girl.
xox! Mistress M
How curious that you should mention the hair ...
I am, at present, experiencing A Hair Crisis, A Hair Malfunction, A Hair Meltdown, which is proving utterly and diabolically devilish.
I will spare you the grisly details...
suffice to say that this new plague upon my head of house is one that is driving me to distraction.
My husband is The Big Picture Man.
Our differing approach to detail has been deliciously symbiotic.
It also means that he can't see why I am having a meltdown over my hair...a bonus, of course.
The incalculable joys of being a girl...
xox
Not really aware of the details. See them but dismiss them. Not overload per se just too much to envelop.
So the forest is not really it either. Looking at things I see what I need to see. Dismiss the rest.
Hi Andy!
Oh you sound like a discriminating man...
And there is much to be said for being discriminating.
Picking and choosing what really takes your fancy, discarding the things that don't ring your bells and blow your whistles...
I think you are clever enough to notice the details that matter while ignoring the ones that might waste your time.
I wish I could do that...
I'm sure I would avoid disappearing up my own bottom with so much regularity.
ahhhh the details ms minx,
well I was always taught that a lady concerns herself with only the details, so much so that the duties sometimes slide. for example, I always put my workout, run and yoga practice before laundry or dishes, things can be piled high and I am content with a warm sweaty glow and an endorphin rush. Spending money on a massage instead of lunch, sacrificing a neccesity for a manicure... it is all in the details and the devil inside me makes me do it. It is after all the pleasure of one's own company that we are seeking and we do deserve the very best company.Yes minxy the details count, In true form, here I am on the internet blogging away while I have a messy house that looks like a crime scene and I couldnt be happier..
cheers kk
Darling Kimmykat,
Your place sounds like mine...
My attention to detail is impressive - and random.
It is, of course, only the delicious details I am really interested in.
While I don't entertain the idea of perfection I like to think I can do the things I am involved in to the best of my ability. It is usually when I am doing something for someone else - it is my sign of respect.
And it is love. The opposite of love is, after all, indifference. I cannot be indifferent to those precious little things I adore.
I guess I do see the big picture - I am a great one for projects and grand plans. I just prefer to tweak the details. After all, it is those little things that create the whole...
Now, back to my own crime scene... urrrgghh
xox cc xx