This is a thing we tell teenagers, or young adults, about their first sexual experience. Maybe it's just girls we tell this to? I don't know.
It's totally true, though. Your first time is never any good. Mine sure wasn't. My first few times weren't very good. Possibly my first few hundred? It took a few years for me to get the hang of sex, and then I'm pretty sure it just happened on accident anyway. Now, I find myself at the ripe old age of 27, actively working at my sex life for the first time ever.
It's weird. The working at it is weird, I mean. I am not naturally a "worker." My natural state is much closer to "dilettantism." I am very good at doing nothing. I don't actually like to work at anything. That's probably why I flunked out of college (twice) and now have a mindless administrative job. So working at sex is something of an unnatural state of affairs for me, as my character is so unsuited to work in general, and that goes double for working at things that are supposed to be pleasurable.
I have been having better sex in the last year, though. So even I must concede that there must be something to this work thing.
A few months back, when I was riding high on some confidence-binge of unknown origins, I submitted a short story to a bonafide literary publication.
SCARY.
Almost immediately after hitting the "send" button, I wanted to take it back and be all like, "Oh, hai, can you just delete that? Don't bother reading it. Kthnx."
I didn't do that, of course, because that would have been stupid. Also, even though I knew I was setting myself up for rejection, I sort of wanted to see what happened. Expecting anything other than rejection on your first submission attempt is pretty much ego-suicide, and I know this. Much better, and much more deserving, writers than I have been rejected hundreds upon thousands of times.
But still, some part of me wondered if maybe I hadn't just stumbled into a good story, the way I accidentally stumbled into good sex.
I didn't. The expected (albeit VERY TARDY) rejection letter arrived in my inbox this afternoon.
And now I find myself in the distasteful position of having to work at something else. If I'm going to publish anything, clearly I have to clean up my act, write more, dedicate time to it, read about writing, all that nonsense that all those silly "get-published-quick" websites tell you to do.
How common. (I'm really a snob at heart. I don't pretend anything else, ok, so don't get all up in my business about it.)
Still, if your first try is never any good, and working at sex has made my sex better, maybe I'd better stoop to being common. Clearly I am not extraordinary, anyway, as the rejection letter in my inbox keeps yelling at me.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Friday, February 3, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
The Depths of Toddler Despair
My three-and-a-half-year-old is deep in the pit of an existential crisis. I know that sounds adorable and precocious and like a good opportunity for personal growth for a Mama that purports to be mindful, and it is all those things. It is.
But, no jokes, no funny business, it's also hell. A three-and-a-half-year-old existential crisis involves some pretty horrendous temper tantrums. You can't really blame her, really: it's got to be awful to be in the grips of angsty ennui when you don't even know the words "angst" and "ennui." As nebulous and imprecise as they are, they at least provide some sort of structure for your feelings.
It's been a really tough week for us, these past seven days or so. She's been moody, operating on a hair-trigger that sends her from smiling and delightful to anger ball monster in a matter of seconds. There have been lots of thrown toys, lots of screams, lots of "NO!" regardless of what is being offered.
After her angry outbursts, she always starts to cry and then tries to burrow into me. If I ask her to stop crying, she'll look up at me with tear-stained cheeks and whimper, "But I'm really sad, Mama. I'm really sad."
It's heartbreaking.
But for seven days, I have been unable to get her to tell me what it is, exactly, that she's sad about. She's either ignored the question completely when its been asked, or mumbled some throwaway answer along the lines of "I don't know."
Yeah, yeah, I know: she's my kid. She's MY daughter. This behavior makes perfect sense when you think about it that way, right?
Last night, after the fourth straight dinner-table meltdown, I took her upstairs to calm down. Time-outs weren't working, obviously, so I sat with her, instead - the two of us cuddled up in the rocker in her room.
And she said to me again, "I'm sad, Mama. I'm just really sad."
"What are you sad about?" I asked, again, with no hope or expectation of a response.
She lifted her chin, and the lamplight glinted on her wet, mottled cheeks. "I don't know who I am, Mama!" she wailed confessionally. "What's my fourth name?"
I was taken aback. What did she mean, fourth name? What was this about not knowing who she is?
"You're Genevieve Anne Findley. You're my snugglebug, and you are my best girl, and you are clever and strong and big and beautiful," I said to her. "Mama gave you three names. Genevieve, for St. Genevieve; Anne for Anne Shirley; and Findley, just like Mama."
She wasn't sobbing anymore, but there were still tears making tracks down her face, and her grip on my shirt was compulsively tight.
"But what about my fourth name, Mama? I should have four names," she choked out.
"Well, you think about what you want your fourth name to be. You think about all the names you know, and all the names you've heard, and when you find the perfect fourth name, you let me know, and we'll add it, ok?" This is me trying to be supportive in my absolute bafflement.
She snuggled deeper into my chest and stared at the wall. I stroked her hair. We sat and rocked, gently, back and forth, back and forth.
After what felt like an eternity, she straightened up and looked me dead in the eye.
"Bookwriter," she said. "My fourth name is Bookwriter."
"Absolutely," I replied. "Genevieve Anne Bookwriter Findley."
She squeezed out a tiny smile, and back we went to the dinner table, where she still didn't eat anything, but at least she didn't howl the whole time.
My three-and-a-half-year-old, who can't write her own name yet, wants to be a bookwriter. And is deep in the pit of an existential crisis. Perhaps some stereotypes exist for good reason. And perhaps all writers really are crazy, right from the very beginning. It would sure explain a lot about me.
But, no jokes, no funny business, it's also hell. A three-and-a-half-year-old existential crisis involves some pretty horrendous temper tantrums. You can't really blame her, really: it's got to be awful to be in the grips of angsty ennui when you don't even know the words "angst" and "ennui." As nebulous and imprecise as they are, they at least provide some sort of structure for your feelings.
It's been a really tough week for us, these past seven days or so. She's been moody, operating on a hair-trigger that sends her from smiling and delightful to anger ball monster in a matter of seconds. There have been lots of thrown toys, lots of screams, lots of "NO!" regardless of what is being offered.
After her angry outbursts, she always starts to cry and then tries to burrow into me. If I ask her to stop crying, she'll look up at me with tear-stained cheeks and whimper, "But I'm really sad, Mama. I'm really sad."
It's heartbreaking.
But for seven days, I have been unable to get her to tell me what it is, exactly, that she's sad about. She's either ignored the question completely when its been asked, or mumbled some throwaway answer along the lines of "I don't know."
Yeah, yeah, I know: she's my kid. She's MY daughter. This behavior makes perfect sense when you think about it that way, right?
Last night, after the fourth straight dinner-table meltdown, I took her upstairs to calm down. Time-outs weren't working, obviously, so I sat with her, instead - the two of us cuddled up in the rocker in her room.
And she said to me again, "I'm sad, Mama. I'm just really sad."
"What are you sad about?" I asked, again, with no hope or expectation of a response.
She lifted her chin, and the lamplight glinted on her wet, mottled cheeks. "I don't know who I am, Mama!" she wailed confessionally. "What's my fourth name?"
I was taken aback. What did she mean, fourth name? What was this about not knowing who she is?
"You're Genevieve Anne Findley. You're my snugglebug, and you are my best girl, and you are clever and strong and big and beautiful," I said to her. "Mama gave you three names. Genevieve, for St. Genevieve; Anne for Anne Shirley; and Findley, just like Mama."
She wasn't sobbing anymore, but there were still tears making tracks down her face, and her grip on my shirt was compulsively tight.
"But what about my fourth name, Mama? I should have four names," she choked out.
"Well, you think about what you want your fourth name to be. You think about all the names you know, and all the names you've heard, and when you find the perfect fourth name, you let me know, and we'll add it, ok?" This is me trying to be supportive in my absolute bafflement.
She snuggled deeper into my chest and stared at the wall. I stroked her hair. We sat and rocked, gently, back and forth, back and forth.
After what felt like an eternity, she straightened up and looked me dead in the eye.
"Bookwriter," she said. "My fourth name is Bookwriter."
"Absolutely," I replied. "Genevieve Anne Bookwriter Findley."
She squeezed out a tiny smile, and back we went to the dinner table, where she still didn't eat anything, but at least she didn't howl the whole time.
My three-and-a-half-year-old, who can't write her own name yet, wants to be a bookwriter. And is deep in the pit of an existential crisis. Perhaps some stereotypes exist for good reason. And perhaps all writers really are crazy, right from the very beginning. It would sure explain a lot about me.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
"The Artist"
Winter is my season for movies. It always has been. I enjoy a good summer blockbuster (What up, Inception? The Dark Knight? Love you guys.) but really, winter is my season for movies. Winter is the season of gems like Blue Valentine, like Tamara Drewe, like Biutiful, like jeux d'enfants, like Let the Right One In, like The Science of Sleep.
(I just realized that only two of those movies are in English and only one of them is American. I promise: I'm not actually a foreign-cinema snob, ok? Those are just the best of the best of the last ten years.)
This winter is shaping up to be no exception. Melancholia? LOVED it. Two separate social commentaries, elegantly spliced together into a single film, dealing with the reality of depression and the need to understand and accept life's impermanence. The message is strong and strongly delivered, the script is fantastic, the cinematography is lush and sparse by turns, and I cannot express to you how nice it is to see Kirsten Dunst actually *acting* again. Not to mention Charlotte Gainsbourg.
But I think the darling of winter 2011/2012 is easily The Artist. The trailer makes it look like a simple love story, and there is a love story buried in it, but it is so much else, and so much first, before it is a love story. The Artist is an allegory, an extended metaphor for Hollywood dealing with the internet. It is an admonition to adapt or die, but to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And it is an artfully drawn portrait of the sort of terror and absolute despair an artist feels when they feel as if they have no voice in a brave new world, or even a tired old one.
The Artist is (with two notable, and powerful, exceptions) a silent movie, shot in black and white. It establishes immediately that whatever hokiness we may see in old silent pictures of the 1930s, it is possible to effectively tell a story and engage emotionally with your audience in the medium. The story is of a star of the silent era that is hesitant to jump on the "talking picture" bandwagon, and who is ultimately nearly forced out of show business entirely. He is "saved" by a young starlet, in love with him, who helps him build a bridge between the world of his silent pictures and the talking pictures that she is such a hit in.
The allegory is clear, at least to me: pre-Internet era production types and distribution models are the silent pictures of our era; the Internet is as a big a change as sound in movies, and requires as big an adjustment to everyone involved in the business. That The Artist is distributed by the Weinstein Company, bastion of current Hollywood that it is, at first struck me as highly ironic. Hollywood understands the need to adapt, and to change, but it is making a movie about coming to terms with the need to adapt and change under the old system.
However, upon reflection, I'm not sure that it's ironic so much as it is self-preservation. The strong undercurrent of the "adapt or die" message is to be careful not to do away with the good things about old models when you do change. It is possible to effectively tell a story silently in black and white; we didn't need sound or color to do that. The young starlet in The Artist consistently recognizes the value and emotional resonance of the aging silent star's work. She cries for him, and his ideas and his vision. She understands that her medium is the future, but she doesn't want to lose the artistry of his medium. The Weinstein Company distributing this film is a broadside against irrelevancy, and it's a good one.
The secondary message of The Artist is the existential angst and terror of an artist, any artist, when they begin to feel as if they have nothing to say. The silent film star refuses to move into "talkies" at least in part because he doesn't think that people want to hear his voice. He's never told a story that way; he's never expressed himself that way. He doesn't think he can. The Artist is also the personal story of one artist facing the need to adapt or die, to find new ways to express what is inside, to be continually searching for new avenues to explore.
We, as individuals, as artists, as creators, must also adapt or die. And that is a scary prospect. We must constantly push forward, push boundaries, find new things to say and new and nuanced ways to say them. And when we, as individuals, as artists, as creators, feel stymied in that quest, the dark depths to which we fall are frightening.
This is a movie I need to own; this is a movie I need to be able to watch once a year or twice a year or maybe just whenever I feel like it. Adapt or die. Change is not the end. There is always a new way to bring your internal reality to the exterior world. Because that's what artists do, isn't it?
(I just realized that only two of those movies are in English and only one of them is American. I promise: I'm not actually a foreign-cinema snob, ok? Those are just the best of the best of the last ten years.)
This winter is shaping up to be no exception. Melancholia? LOVED it. Two separate social commentaries, elegantly spliced together into a single film, dealing with the reality of depression and the need to understand and accept life's impermanence. The message is strong and strongly delivered, the script is fantastic, the cinematography is lush and sparse by turns, and I cannot express to you how nice it is to see Kirsten Dunst actually *acting* again. Not to mention Charlotte Gainsbourg.
But I think the darling of winter 2011/2012 is easily The Artist. The trailer makes it look like a simple love story, and there is a love story buried in it, but it is so much else, and so much first, before it is a love story. The Artist is an allegory, an extended metaphor for Hollywood dealing with the internet. It is an admonition to adapt or die, but to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And it is an artfully drawn portrait of the sort of terror and absolute despair an artist feels when they feel as if they have no voice in a brave new world, or even a tired old one.
The Artist is (with two notable, and powerful, exceptions) a silent movie, shot in black and white. It establishes immediately that whatever hokiness we may see in old silent pictures of the 1930s, it is possible to effectively tell a story and engage emotionally with your audience in the medium. The story is of a star of the silent era that is hesitant to jump on the "talking picture" bandwagon, and who is ultimately nearly forced out of show business entirely. He is "saved" by a young starlet, in love with him, who helps him build a bridge between the world of his silent pictures and the talking pictures that she is such a hit in.
The allegory is clear, at least to me: pre-Internet era production types and distribution models are the silent pictures of our era; the Internet is as a big a change as sound in movies, and requires as big an adjustment to everyone involved in the business. That The Artist is distributed by the Weinstein Company, bastion of current Hollywood that it is, at first struck me as highly ironic. Hollywood understands the need to adapt, and to change, but it is making a movie about coming to terms with the need to adapt and change under the old system.
However, upon reflection, I'm not sure that it's ironic so much as it is self-preservation. The strong undercurrent of the "adapt or die" message is to be careful not to do away with the good things about old models when you do change. It is possible to effectively tell a story silently in black and white; we didn't need sound or color to do that. The young starlet in The Artist consistently recognizes the value and emotional resonance of the aging silent star's work. She cries for him, and his ideas and his vision. She understands that her medium is the future, but she doesn't want to lose the artistry of his medium. The Weinstein Company distributing this film is a broadside against irrelevancy, and it's a good one.
The secondary message of The Artist is the existential angst and terror of an artist, any artist, when they begin to feel as if they have nothing to say. The silent film star refuses to move into "talkies" at least in part because he doesn't think that people want to hear his voice. He's never told a story that way; he's never expressed himself that way. He doesn't think he can. The Artist is also the personal story of one artist facing the need to adapt or die, to find new ways to express what is inside, to be continually searching for new avenues to explore.
We, as individuals, as artists, as creators, must also adapt or die. And that is a scary prospect. We must constantly push forward, push boundaries, find new things to say and new and nuanced ways to say them. And when we, as individuals, as artists, as creators, feel stymied in that quest, the dark depths to which we fall are frightening.
This is a movie I need to own; this is a movie I need to be able to watch once a year or twice a year or maybe just whenever I feel like it. Adapt or die. Change is not the end. There is always a new way to bring your internal reality to the exterior world. Because that's what artists do, isn't it?
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Aging
I think being old has snuck up on me, and then jumped me in a dark alley and forever left its mark on my life.
I'm 27. True fact. I've traveled the world, been married and divorced, given birth, been abandoned. Now I've got a job and a 401(k) and I drop my daughter at kindergarten every morning on my way into the office. She takes dance classes on Saturday. I schedule phone calls with my best friends. I shop online because it's easier. I have a cocktail or a beer after work. I'm in bed, asleep, by 10:30 most nights.
This is what old people life is like, isn't it?
I mean, I could still go out on Wednesday nights if I wanted to, but getting five hours of sleep and being slightly drunk when I wake up is hardly worth it when all that's going to happen is I'm going to go to a bar (alone), sit there (alone) and then go home (alone). Plus, I'll probably end up spending more money than I ought to, considering I really want to figure out a way to rationalize the purchase of a ridiculously expensive dress that I have nowhere to wear, and it's really hard to do that when you just dropped $25 on craft cocktails.
So basically, it's not worth it to go out and be wild and crazy and young. I don't want to go out unless I have guaranteed sparkling conversation. Which means plans made in advance, and I am so horrible at asking people to do things and most of the time it doesn't work out anyway. So why bother? I can watch Netflix in bed or write about theater events I haven't seen or read 10,000 word articles about Dominionism instead.
I'm old, guys. I'm a fuddy-duddy. A spinster.
It won't be long until my jowls start to sag and my tits are around my knees and I wear support stockings and complain about my knees. (Actually, I already have some serious wrinkles and I am more apt to complain about my cartilage-less hips. For real. They hurt.)
I'm old. It's pretty terrifying. I'm shallow, and so being old also means no longer being pretty, and that's really, really scary. I honestly don't know if my self-esteem will be able to handle the blow of no longer being looked at by men.
But it also means that nothing I accomplish between now and my death will be as notable as it might have been. I am not a prodigy. I am not a wunderkind. Even if I manage to publish a book or write for the New York Times or really just about anything that I might want to do, it won't be the kind of show-stopping accomplishment that it would have been if I'd done it young. Somewhere in my head, I wanted to be Tavi Gevinson, and now I have to deal with the fact that I'm not. I'm not that great. Even if I manage to accomplish great things eventually, I'll not be great-great, just normal-great.
Nothing will ever come ahead of schedule. Now I'm stuck in the local lanes, slogging my way through all that detritus.
I'm old. I'm scared. I guess this is growing up.
I'm 27. True fact. I've traveled the world, been married and divorced, given birth, been abandoned. Now I've got a job and a 401(k) and I drop my daughter at kindergarten every morning on my way into the office. She takes dance classes on Saturday. I schedule phone calls with my best friends. I shop online because it's easier. I have a cocktail or a beer after work. I'm in bed, asleep, by 10:30 most nights.
This is what old people life is like, isn't it?
I mean, I could still go out on Wednesday nights if I wanted to, but getting five hours of sleep and being slightly drunk when I wake up is hardly worth it when all that's going to happen is I'm going to go to a bar (alone), sit there (alone) and then go home (alone). Plus, I'll probably end up spending more money than I ought to, considering I really want to figure out a way to rationalize the purchase of a ridiculously expensive dress that I have nowhere to wear, and it's really hard to do that when you just dropped $25 on craft cocktails.
So basically, it's not worth it to go out and be wild and crazy and young. I don't want to go out unless I have guaranteed sparkling conversation. Which means plans made in advance, and I am so horrible at asking people to do things and most of the time it doesn't work out anyway. So why bother? I can watch Netflix in bed or write about theater events I haven't seen or read 10,000 word articles about Dominionism instead.
I'm old, guys. I'm a fuddy-duddy. A spinster.
It won't be long until my jowls start to sag and my tits are around my knees and I wear support stockings and complain about my knees. (Actually, I already have some serious wrinkles and I am more apt to complain about my cartilage-less hips. For real. They hurt.)
I'm old. It's pretty terrifying. I'm shallow, and so being old also means no longer being pretty, and that's really, really scary. I honestly don't know if my self-esteem will be able to handle the blow of no longer being looked at by men.
But it also means that nothing I accomplish between now and my death will be as notable as it might have been. I am not a prodigy. I am not a wunderkind. Even if I manage to publish a book or write for the New York Times or really just about anything that I might want to do, it won't be the kind of show-stopping accomplishment that it would have been if I'd done it young. Somewhere in my head, I wanted to be Tavi Gevinson, and now I have to deal with the fact that I'm not. I'm not that great. Even if I manage to accomplish great things eventually, I'll not be great-great, just normal-great.
Nothing will ever come ahead of schedule. Now I'm stuck in the local lanes, slogging my way through all that detritus.
I'm old. I'm scared. I guess this is growing up.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
On Language
I'm sort of a language/grammar/word snob. Shocking, I know, but it's true.
So imagine the actual shock I felt when I found myself in the unusual position of being the more liberal, free-spirited party involved in an argument over the (d)evoloution of language.
I guess, looking at my writing style now, it's not such a surprise. Just look at that use of the backslash, and also "(d)evolution." That's some next generation shit right there.
I use proper grammar and punctuation for everything. I use periods and commas, colons and semicolons, apostrophes and quotation marks, and I am fond of parenthetical phrases. I use all these exotic punctuation marks correctly. (I think I do, anyway. I probably mess up now and again.) Also, I always spell words completely. This is such a compulsion that unless I am seriously pressed for space (meaning, using Twitter or sending a text message) I always spell out cardinal numbers less than 21. Because that, kids, is how you do it.
I know the difference between "your" and "you're" and also between "there," "their," and "they're." (And I am an unabashed user of the Oxford comma, as you can note. I nearly cried when that TOTALLY FAKE report that the Oxford style guide had dropped it was making the rounds a few months back.)
I also have a multi-million dollar vocabulary. Why say red when you can say scarlet or crimson, or even persimmon? Why say beautiful when you can toss pulchritudinous in the mix? I fancy myself a writer, and words are thus my bread AND my butter.
Idiomatic phrases are fun for me. For example, do you know where the phrase "mad as a hatter" comes from? Let me tell you. Back in the nineteenth century, mercury was commonly used in felting processes, which means that milliners (or hatters) were constantly being exposed to mercury. Most of them ended up with some degree of mild- or moderate mercury poisoning. Low-level mercury poisoning gives you the shakes; higher levels of toxicity can cause increased aggressiveness and wild mood swings. So, hatters (by consequence of their profession) shook a lot and were prone to outbursts, both of which will make you seem pretty crazy to the average guy who passes you on the street or has to sit next to you in the bar. Thus, most milliners were thought to be crazy. Thus, the idiom "mad as a hatter" was born.
I decry people that say things like "Wat r u doing 2day?" I weep for humanity and die a little bit inside when I see someone use the possessive second-person pronoun instead of the contracted subject and verb combination.
But I don't really have a problem with the way we've turned certain things into their own parts of speech, fluidly moving from noun to verb and back again. I do not take issue with the phrases "google it" or "email me." I don't see them as evidence of a widespread cultural ennui toward language, or a deep-seated laziness. They are simply evidence of the evolving nature of language.
Language is not a dead thing. If it was, we would never have moved from Old English to the current form we use today, and all of us would be able to read Beowulf without the assistance of a translator. There would be no dialects. British English and American English would be exactly the same. Someone from Scotland would sound the same as someone from Northern California. Someone from Alabama would sound the same as someone from Australia.
There would be no slang. "Cool" would still mean something that was warmer than cold but not as warm as warm. If the word cool had ever even developed in the first place, since actually we'd all still be speaking Old English and I don't actually know if the word "cool" exists in Old English because I don't speak it.
The constantly changing nature of language does not necessarily denote a devolution. Change is not always bad. Sometimes it is just change. Sometimes it is actually good. That is as true of language as it is of any other thing. Allowing the linguistic denotations of things as fluid and multifaceted as the internet and its brand-new ways of transferring information to also have some of that same fluidity by not tying them to a single part of speech is not laziness. It is a more perfect mirror of the concept that the grouping of letters represents.
Because that is the whole point of language, is it not? To facilitate communication by providing the tools to communicate both concrete and abstract concepts drawn from the world at large. As our world becomes greater and more complex, our language must keep pace or risk becoming dead. And so perhaps we must give up the sharp demarcation between noun and verb. That is a small price to pay for what we gain in the real world by doing so.
Just don't ask me to give up the complexity of "you're" and "your" in favor of the single "your." Because I will cut you.
So imagine the actual shock I felt when I found myself in the unusual position of being the more liberal, free-spirited party involved in an argument over the (d)evoloution of language.
I guess, looking at my writing style now, it's not such a surprise. Just look at that use of the backslash, and also "(d)evolution." That's some next generation shit right there.
I use proper grammar and punctuation for everything. I use periods and commas, colons and semicolons, apostrophes and quotation marks, and I am fond of parenthetical phrases. I use all these exotic punctuation marks correctly. (I think I do, anyway. I probably mess up now and again.) Also, I always spell words completely. This is such a compulsion that unless I am seriously pressed for space (meaning, using Twitter or sending a text message) I always spell out cardinal numbers less than 21. Because that, kids, is how you do it.
I know the difference between "your" and "you're" and also between "there," "their," and "they're." (And I am an unabashed user of the Oxford comma, as you can note. I nearly cried when that TOTALLY FAKE report that the Oxford style guide had dropped it was making the rounds a few months back.)
I also have a multi-million dollar vocabulary. Why say red when you can say scarlet or crimson, or even persimmon? Why say beautiful when you can toss pulchritudinous in the mix? I fancy myself a writer, and words are thus my bread AND my butter.
Idiomatic phrases are fun for me. For example, do you know where the phrase "mad as a hatter" comes from? Let me tell you. Back in the nineteenth century, mercury was commonly used in felting processes, which means that milliners (or hatters) were constantly being exposed to mercury. Most of them ended up with some degree of mild- or moderate mercury poisoning. Low-level mercury poisoning gives you the shakes; higher levels of toxicity can cause increased aggressiveness and wild mood swings. So, hatters (by consequence of their profession) shook a lot and were prone to outbursts, both of which will make you seem pretty crazy to the average guy who passes you on the street or has to sit next to you in the bar. Thus, most milliners were thought to be crazy. Thus, the idiom "mad as a hatter" was born.
I decry people that say things like "Wat r u doing 2day?" I weep for humanity and die a little bit inside when I see someone use the possessive second-person pronoun instead of the contracted subject and verb combination.
But I don't really have a problem with the way we've turned certain things into their own parts of speech, fluidly moving from noun to verb and back again. I do not take issue with the phrases "google it" or "email me." I don't see them as evidence of a widespread cultural ennui toward language, or a deep-seated laziness. They are simply evidence of the evolving nature of language.
Language is not a dead thing. If it was, we would never have moved from Old English to the current form we use today, and all of us would be able to read Beowulf without the assistance of a translator. There would be no dialects. British English and American English would be exactly the same. Someone from Scotland would sound the same as someone from Northern California. Someone from Alabama would sound the same as someone from Australia.
There would be no slang. "Cool" would still mean something that was warmer than cold but not as warm as warm. If the word cool had ever even developed in the first place, since actually we'd all still be speaking Old English and I don't actually know if the word "cool" exists in Old English because I don't speak it.
The constantly changing nature of language does not necessarily denote a devolution. Change is not always bad. Sometimes it is just change. Sometimes it is actually good. That is as true of language as it is of any other thing. Allowing the linguistic denotations of things as fluid and multifaceted as the internet and its brand-new ways of transferring information to also have some of that same fluidity by not tying them to a single part of speech is not laziness. It is a more perfect mirror of the concept that the grouping of letters represents.
Because that is the whole point of language, is it not? To facilitate communication by providing the tools to communicate both concrete and abstract concepts drawn from the world at large. As our world becomes greater and more complex, our language must keep pace or risk becoming dead. And so perhaps we must give up the sharp demarcation between noun and verb. That is a small price to pay for what we gain in the real world by doing so.
Just don't ask me to give up the complexity of "you're" and "your" in favor of the single "your." Because I will cut you.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
I Am A Girl Who Reads
Last year, as I was in the midst of realizing that the boy I was dating had a girlfriend and was a malignant narcissist, I discovered Thought Catalog.
I discovered it because there was a post that started making the rounds of social media. It was called You Should Date An Illiterate Girl, and it made me cry. I sat at my desk with tears dripping down my cheeks, my throat so tight I couldn't breathe, holding on to that knot desperately so that I didn't sob, so that my cries remained inside and only silent tracks of saltwater tracked down my face and over my chin and onto my neck and over the knot in my throat.
It made me cry because I saw myself as the illiterate girl. I saw myself as the settler and the one settled for, as the woman that would die with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of my capacity to love.
I shared it, of course, as I am wont to do.
And later, when the boy and I communicated for the first time since my sharing, he saluted me, "Hello, girl who reads."
I was confused.
I've been thinking about that piece lately, so I read it again.
And you know what? He was right. I am the Girl Who Reads. I can differentiate between the soullessness of someone that cannot love and the desperation of someone who loves too much. I can read the lie in the hesitation of the breath. I know the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and a lifetime's worth of bitter cynicism. I have said goodbye so many times I am comfortable with it. I can close a book and look at it with only a little longing, I can go back and reread the same words with nostalgia but not regret that the story doesn't change.
I do insist that my narratives be rich, that my supporting cast be colorful, that my typeface be bold. I demand these things because life is short and without good stories and good friends and beauty it is also boring. I will not be bored. I will not live a life unfulfilled.
And I'm sure that's why he couldn't love me. And I'm sure that's why I couldn't actually love him, despite all my best efforts.
I will tell my stories. I will read and read and read until I understand and then I will tell my stories. And my narratives will be rich and my characters will be colorful because that has been my life. I will live the stories I want to tell.
And it would be nice, at the end, when I am an old woman and I am fading into the dark of my own denouement, if someone was there to hold my hand and stroke my brow and whisper that our life was good. But I won't sacrifice my stories to have that person.
I am a girl who reads. I have words. I have rhythms and cadence and connotation. I can feel love and truth in my skin and I want nothing more than to absorb beauty into my bones. And if you can really understand that, then you won't fail me. If you can really live with knowing that my stories come first and everything else comes second, you're not too weak to love me.
I discovered it because there was a post that started making the rounds of social media. It was called You Should Date An Illiterate Girl, and it made me cry. I sat at my desk with tears dripping down my cheeks, my throat so tight I couldn't breathe, holding on to that knot desperately so that I didn't sob, so that my cries remained inside and only silent tracks of saltwater tracked down my face and over my chin and onto my neck and over the knot in my throat.
It made me cry because I saw myself as the illiterate girl. I saw myself as the settler and the one settled for, as the woman that would die with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of my capacity to love.
I shared it, of course, as I am wont to do.
And later, when the boy and I communicated for the first time since my sharing, he saluted me, "Hello, girl who reads."
I was confused.
I've been thinking about that piece lately, so I read it again.
And you know what? He was right. I am the Girl Who Reads. I can differentiate between the soullessness of someone that cannot love and the desperation of someone who loves too much. I can read the lie in the hesitation of the breath. I know the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and a lifetime's worth of bitter cynicism. I have said goodbye so many times I am comfortable with it. I can close a book and look at it with only a little longing, I can go back and reread the same words with nostalgia but not regret that the story doesn't change.
I do insist that my narratives be rich, that my supporting cast be colorful, that my typeface be bold. I demand these things because life is short and without good stories and good friends and beauty it is also boring. I will not be bored. I will not live a life unfulfilled.
And I'm sure that's why he couldn't love me. And I'm sure that's why I couldn't actually love him, despite all my best efforts.
I will tell my stories. I will read and read and read until I understand and then I will tell my stories. And my narratives will be rich and my characters will be colorful because that has been my life. I will live the stories I want to tell.
And it would be nice, at the end, when I am an old woman and I am fading into the dark of my own denouement, if someone was there to hold my hand and stroke my brow and whisper that our life was good. But I won't sacrifice my stories to have that person.
I am a girl who reads. I have words. I have rhythms and cadence and connotation. I can feel love and truth in my skin and I want nothing more than to absorb beauty into my bones. And if you can really understand that, then you won't fail me. If you can really live with knowing that my stories come first and everything else comes second, you're not too weak to love me.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
I Will Never Be A (Paid) Writer
This is a sad realization for me. Actually, it's a downright heart-shattering, soul-crushing revelation, but I guess it's time to face facts. I won't cry forever, I promise, just for the next ten years.
And the facts are, I will probably never get paid for anything I write. And no one will ever read it, apart from you few, dear, darling readers. (I love you. Don't ever leave me. No really: DON'T. Please.)
See, generally short-form publishing falls into two broad categories these days. Ponderous and heavily-researched tracts, and essays of emotional vulnerability humored up with liberal doses flippancy.
I don't have the discipline for research. Honestly. I just don't. I had a good run in college, and I'm sure that if you managed to find a professor that remembered me at all, they'd remember my stellar research papers because I always had interesting theses and I can actually construct a proper sentence and every once in a while I was able to make dry, dull, academia not make you want to slit your wrists through the judicious use of peppy adjectives and anecdotes.
(I am still pretty proud of some of the papers I wrote in college. "America shouldn't seek global hegemony because it is MORALLY INCONSISTENT WITH AMERICA'S VALUES" is one of my best works EVER.)
But, my papers would never be described as well-researched or well-annotated. I did the bare minimum in that regard, because I just don't like research.
Also, I never graduated college, so the idea that anyone would pay me to write academia is pretty funny.
On the other end of the spectrum, there is perhaps more promise! I mean, I do personal essays like no one's business. I can write about my life forever because I am just that narcissistic, and also because I have fully bought into the maxim that you must "write what you know" and really the only thing I know is my life. Everything else is mere theoretical knowledge, and that's not really knowledge so much as conjecture, since theory is grounded in naught but conjecture.
But then there's that "funny" requirement that is increasingly being satisfied by a display of flippancy that I just don't have. I'm not flippant. I am not ironic. I am intensely, terribly, vulnerably EARNEST. I'm like a puppy that just wants to be loved. (But I don't pee on the floor. I have a toddler that refuses to get potty-trained to handle that for me.)
I'm not funny. And I'm especially not funny when I'm displaying vulnerability because the last thing I want is for people to LAUGH at my EXISTENTIAL PAIN. Seriously. Who wants to have someone laugh in their face when they're crying? (On the inside, guys. I don't cry in front of people. I'm British that way.)
SO... that's that. No more dreams of a daily byline on Thought Catalog or hellogiggles. No more wistful longings that Salon would hire me to take over Broadsheet since Tracy Clark-Flory went back to being a full-time sex writer. (Added bonus of the Salon daydream: the idea that Alex Pareene would become my bestie. That man is ACTUALLY FUNNY, and about politics no less. Also, he smokes. It would be so great to have a bestie that smokes so I didn't feel so guilty about my still-occasional habit.)
I mean, I can keep plugging away on this collection of short stories that's clogging up my hard drive (and I WILL) and sketching out the outline of a novel, but no one's going to publish it unless my name already means something and my name will never mean anything because I'm a bad researcher and I'm not funny.
Life's a bitch.
(xo!)
And the facts are, I will probably never get paid for anything I write. And no one will ever read it, apart from you few, dear, darling readers. (I love you. Don't ever leave me. No really: DON'T. Please.)
See, generally short-form publishing falls into two broad categories these days. Ponderous and heavily-researched tracts, and essays of emotional vulnerability humored up with liberal doses flippancy.
I don't have the discipline for research. Honestly. I just don't. I had a good run in college, and I'm sure that if you managed to find a professor that remembered me at all, they'd remember my stellar research papers because I always had interesting theses and I can actually construct a proper sentence and every once in a while I was able to make dry, dull, academia not make you want to slit your wrists through the judicious use of peppy adjectives and anecdotes.
(I am still pretty proud of some of the papers I wrote in college. "America shouldn't seek global hegemony because it is MORALLY INCONSISTENT WITH AMERICA'S VALUES" is one of my best works EVER.)
But, my papers would never be described as well-researched or well-annotated. I did the bare minimum in that regard, because I just don't like research.
Also, I never graduated college, so the idea that anyone would pay me to write academia is pretty funny.
On the other end of the spectrum, there is perhaps more promise! I mean, I do personal essays like no one's business. I can write about my life forever because I am just that narcissistic, and also because I have fully bought into the maxim that you must "write what you know" and really the only thing I know is my life. Everything else is mere theoretical knowledge, and that's not really knowledge so much as conjecture, since theory is grounded in naught but conjecture.
But then there's that "funny" requirement that is increasingly being satisfied by a display of flippancy that I just don't have. I'm not flippant. I am not ironic. I am intensely, terribly, vulnerably EARNEST. I'm like a puppy that just wants to be loved. (But I don't pee on the floor. I have a toddler that refuses to get potty-trained to handle that for me.)
I'm not funny. And I'm especially not funny when I'm displaying vulnerability because the last thing I want is for people to LAUGH at my EXISTENTIAL PAIN. Seriously. Who wants to have someone laugh in their face when they're crying? (On the inside, guys. I don't cry in front of people. I'm British that way.)
SO... that's that. No more dreams of a daily byline on Thought Catalog or hellogiggles. No more wistful longings that Salon would hire me to take over Broadsheet since Tracy Clark-Flory went back to being a full-time sex writer. (Added bonus of the Salon daydream: the idea that Alex Pareene would become my bestie. That man is ACTUALLY FUNNY, and about politics no less. Also, he smokes. It would be so great to have a bestie that smokes so I didn't feel so guilty about my still-occasional habit.)
I mean, I can keep plugging away on this collection of short stories that's clogging up my hard drive (and I WILL) and sketching out the outline of a novel, but no one's going to publish it unless my name already means something and my name will never mean anything because I'm a bad researcher and I'm not funny.
Life's a bitch.
(xo!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)