Speaking of self-righteous and stupid:
Natalie and I went to a show at Dick Street last night and might have argued those dirty patchwork assholes on those moldy sofas on the front porch if it had even been worth it. Which it wouldn’t. They fashion themselves Bike Punx and stink to high heaven and graffiti the railroad bridges around Greensboro with catchy slogans like “The Revolution Will Not Be Motorized,” which is ridiculous because the placement makes it look like their problem is with trains. And wouldn’t trains, nay, wouldn’t better public transportation IN GENERAL solve some of their issues with the evil capitalist car culture? Because I don’t see Nana on a ten-speed.
More to the point, what revolution are they talking about? You hear a lot about the revolution, but no one can answer me the basics like, “What’s it about?” or “When is it happening?” (though everybody’s pretty sure their crappy screamy emo noise band will be playing ). I’m pretty sure I’m not invited to the revolution because, as has been pointed out MANY TIMES by MANY PEOPLE, I am a poser (I'm not actually an anarchist, I just dress like one). Which is fine. I don’t need your shitty revolution anyway.
I do need coffee.
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE DECAFFEINATED.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Michaelmas: Journal, Late September 1993
Don’t you love weekends? What are weekends again? Remind me.
This weekend I spent exactly 24 whole hours off campus, which
borders on a record length.
Last night my mother decided we should have a family night
so we set off in the family vehicle, a black Taurus she named after a buffalo
in “Dances With Wolves,” and made our way to the Poplar Lodge in
Hendersonville, where the family ate steak and looked with pity at the meatless
members of the family (moi).
I do enjoy eating there. It’s all big stones and fireplaces
and view and looks like the kind of place you might slay Grendel on the way to
the salad bar. I hope to one day live in a place like it, perhaps on a bluff
over a lake in Scotland. Hie Thee
Hither!
I’ve fallen into all these weird depressing moods of late
and last night I got rather pissed off at my mother and left the table to go
cool off literally on the front porch. I sat on the hole-y velvet seat of an
old horse-drawn sleigh parked beside a dead tree and I wondered what would have
happened if I’d actually managed to run away to California when I was fifteen.
Would things in my life still be so grotesquely surreal?
The Chapel Choir sang downtown at Trinity Episcopal with a
chamber group this afternoon. Honestly, I’m not really a good enough soprano
for the high parts, but I love being lost in a cantata. I can easily imagine
all of my friends in elaborate 18th century costume running around
the court of Louis XIVth complaining about how much Versailles sucks. Also, Bach is wonderful.
I’ve lost my Morrissey tape. I’m pretty sure I left
it in the Taurus, but my mother says not. Maybe she’s a secret fan and stole
it.
Faking It: Journal, Early November 1993
The whole cast of “Blithe Spirit” is mostly in trouble with The
Director right now because we can’t be bothered to learn our lines. Yesterday The
Director got so angry that she threw the script at the wall and screamed and
walked off stage threatening to quit. And Alex whispered “That would be amazing,
you crazy old drunk hag.” Then, he and I went to [the pool hall across the
street] and pretended to be Bobby Joe and Olga[1].
Anyway, we’re all so bad at our parts that the headmaster
gave us a day off classes to study lines. Which is kind of awesome because I
don’t have to see how disappointed Mr. M is that I didn’t do my math homework.
Anyway, I’m still on this rotten sofa, reflecting on the
personalities of the people in the play and listening to the fluorescent bulb
buzz over my head. I don’t have to go back on stage for another twenty pages so
I can just hang out here and watch the pipes.
God, I need a cigarette.
We took a break during conference period and Denise & I went
down to leave an offering at the homoerotic chapel[2]
and then we hung out in the grass by the chapel and tried to pretend it wasn’t
witch’s titty cold outside. Frank came by and tried to talk to us about knives and
Denise kept trying to make the same joke because Frank is Swiss and Swiss Army Knives.
Next weekend is the Christ School Game. I could die before
then therefore not have to watch football[3].
There might be a party at the S & G [4]house.
Denise is going to try and talk Rebecca into it. Hopefully, this time she won’t invite all
the guys from Asheville High and I won’t puke all over the back hallway again. I
will never be able to show my face . . .
[1]
My high school was located in the center of, what had been for decades, a
predominately white, blue collar quadrant of the city (it has significantly gentrified since then). There was a seedy pool hall across the
street, largely frequented by a shitkicker clientele and the occasional
boarding student looking for a place to smoke without getting busted.
I’m amazed they even let us in there, but no more so the fact that Alex never
had his ass handed to him for being an entitled shit in a polo shirt putting on
his best broad Eastern Kentucky dialect and acting out offensive Appalachian
caricatures with me over the pool table.
Have I mentioned recently that I am ashamed of my past? Because I am.
Have I mentioned recently that I am ashamed of my past? Because I am.
[2]
A small-ish bronze cast of “The Good Samaritan” set back in the alcove in the basement of one
of the Boys’ Dorms, in which both parties were naked, well-endowed young
men. Denise & I regularly left clover and pennies and paperclips in the
Samaritan’s bowl.
[3]
Our school’s historic football rivalry. Student attendance was compulsory at
the game, despite the fact that we weren’t much of a football school and most
of us couldn’t give a rat’s ass about who won. Mostly games consisted of our
side (a coed school) taunting the other side (a boys’ school) with non-sports
related cheering—“We don’t mess with sheep. Hey! —and laughing at how the other
side would actually hire out cheerleaders from a local county high school (our “cheerleaders”
were members of the boy’s soccer team wearing pre-“Braveheart” blue face paint
and girls’ field hockey kilts). That particular year, my friends received a
censorious look from the administration for leading an “On the altar 1-2-3, get
the nails, Kill Kill” cheer just before halftime.
[4]
Due to the very small degree of parental oversight and the very large amount of
readily available alcohol, my friend Rebecca’s house was known as the “Sodom and
Gomorrah” house for much of my senior year.
Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind: Journal, February 19, 1992
Oh My Lord I am so busy with the play and it’s going to be
AMAZING even though I still have this thing on my face[1]
after the whole Valentine’s debacle[2].
I have decided not to think about that anymore as it will only lead to the sort
of negative feelings that may affect my performance.
I am really glad that Erin & Steve have each other[3].
Today the green room Greg and Stewart got in trouble with The Director for
playing the stereo by the rotten orange sofa. I don’t think I even knew that
stereo worked, by the way. Anyway, they played Nirvana[4]
and it was very noisy and abrasive and minor keyed. I could see that Steve hated
it. He just shook his head and said something like, “They’re making fun of
everything I care about.” And Stewart said, “Yeah, dude, that’s sort of the point.”
All five of the girls that have crushes on Stewart just stood
there and rolled his eyes and Steve walked off like he was better than everyone
else. I know I should be over this, but there was piece of me that wanted Steve to
like the song and a part of me that was glad he hated it because I like it and
he doesn’t know everything[5].
She definitely told Stewart about it. Gross.
[1]
Two black eyes from hitting a concrete floor. One large scrape from where my
right cheek hit the meeting place of industrial carpet and brick wall.
[2]
In which I decided to tell my crush—Steve—that I had feelings for him, so went to
campus on the night of the Valentine’s Day dance in my new pink fuzzy sweater
to find him working in the light booth at the at the theatre with a close
friend of mine, who I didn’t really know he was dating. I discovered them in a
private moment. My friend ordered me out. I remember taking a step down the
metal ladder that led up to the booth and the next thing I remembered was being
flat on my back at the bottom with a concussion (above) and a romantic date
with the CAT scan at Mission Hospital.
[3]
There’s no typographical shorthand for martyrdom, but this should be read in
roughly the same tone as your mom’s “It’s fine. You kids go out and have a
great time. I’ll just stay here in this dark kitchen washing all your dishes by
myself.”
[4]
I’m pretty sure this was the first time I remember hearing Nirvana, by the way.
[5]
Translation: “I’m still in love with this asshole because I’m fifteen and I
neither know any better nor have any self-respect, so as a result I’m loathe to
say anything terrible about him because what if he finds my journal and reads
something that he won’t like and decides to never love me? But basically, I
think he’s a shitty shitbag and fuck him for ruining my Valentine’s Day.
Nirvana Rocks!”
[6]
A school-run required three-day event. Widely regarded as Inquisition-level
torture.
[7]
We did this. I could not possibly tell you why. It was freezing cold and foggy
and rainy. I was covered in mud by the time we found a space to get off alone
and do it. I mostly remember than we ran down into this glen through a bunch of
winter laurel and by the time we got back to the campsite the sides of my boobs
were all scratched up. Stewart missed the show (much to Kara’s chagrin) because he was
too busy canoodling with the other four girls on the camping trip that were
into him. There was, however, a Taiwanese exchange student that spied on us. He
just pointed and laughed uncontrollably when he saw us, which made Kara and I feel
marginally better about everyone making fun of his Calvin Klein cologne (worn even
in the woods) and his battery-powered electric socks.
Sophisticates: Journal, August 25, 1996
I hung out with Kara for the first time since Mom’s wedding.
She told me all about how she ran into Kim Gordon at the SoHo Dean & DeLuca
and how her friends in the fashion industry[1]
decided that pale and sickly was kind of passé and gave me a JF[2]
fifth grade lunch room “Ew.” I probably deserved it because I am the color of a
slug under a rock in a world of never-ending night, despite the fact that I did
go to the beach this summer (and spent the daylight hours writing in the back
bedroom).
Anyway, we read all of Dad’s Vanity Fair and she showed me
pictures of all the people she’s kind of connected through {Ivy League
University]. Later we had those
terrible, over-cilantro-ed burritos at Laughing Seed that have sucked since we
were in high school (and yet we still eat them . . . why?) And then we went to
New French Bar and ordered drinks and neither
one of us were carded.
Last night, it was pretty downtown and everyone was out on
Lexington. We walked down to Vincent’s past the requisite combo of hipsters and
homeless people (and some homeless hipsters . . . I mean, this is
Asheville). We had an argument about
Archers of Loaf (Kara doesn’t like them . .
. What?!)[3]
and some guy in the Vincent’s courtyard chimed in and Kara tried to decide whether
he was cute or not. She has an amazing, smart, funny boyfriend. And that guy in
the courtyard looked like a greasy Rastafarian vampire. “Is that your type maybe?” she asked me.
Jesus Christ, No.
It’s the little stuff with her that always begins to work at
me . . .
[1]
Read: Interns at Condé
Nast.
[2]
The girl in my elementary school with a permanent stink-eye so pronounced that
even giving her a second glance in the lunch line was like challenging a Gorgon
to a staring contest. Her wordless appraisal was so utterly ego obliterating, I
swear to God it took me years to recover my ability to look a girl I didn’t
know in the eyes. I hope she’s found an
interesting use for all that power (fyi, government agencies: she’d be super-effective at
non-violent interrogation), but I suspect she’s sitting in some fancy restaurant
now, making all of the other patrons feel fat, ugly, poor and useless.
[3]
Obviously, I was really into this particular parenthetical construction for
about a minute.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
68 Vintage Dresses: Journal, December 18, 1996
Tonight at Nana’s I was feeling super-lazy and not in the
least inspired to do something so busy as decorate her bejeweled Faberge-ish Christmas
ficus or whatever is happening right now by the lowboy in her dining room.
Banking crisis # 429[1]had
yet to spoil my fun so I went to the awesome Goodwill by Hollins and bought
four absurd polyester dresses in four obscene, yet awesome shades, at least one
of this a richly brocaded rust that I intend to wear to tomorrow’s bullshit
exam.[2]
By latest count, I’m the proud owner of 68[3]
vintage dresses. Soon I’ll have to move to accommodate them all. I’m absolutely
desperate, dahling, for a garment rack and a vodka tonic. Thank you, Nana, for
the latter.
Over dinner at Luigi’s, Nana asked me about my non-existent
love life and I didn’t tell her that I was still sort of infatuated with that
guy from Olympia[4]
with the punk patches sewn on his shirt who “studies revolution.” I doubt
that’s the type she envisions for me. But then again, this is the same lady who
watched this past election season and told me, with great affection and all
sincerity, that I was just like Elizabeth Dole and I didn’t even know how to
respond to that.
One thing’s for certain: I’ve got to stop crushing on
anarchists[5].
[1]
Number approximate. No further reference to this fiscal mishap exists, though
I’m betting I overdrafted myself, which was something I did with near-recreational
abandon in those days. At twenty years old, I lived like I had lots of money to
spend until I didn’t, hence the difference for me between “not broke” and
“broke” was simply a minus sign in front of my bank balance. I’m ashamed to
tell you how long it took for me to accept that there might be a better way to
live my life.
[2]
My favorite creative instructor scheduled an “exam” in the last hours of the
last exam day of the semester. The actual test was an ungraded quiz on our
fellow students’ footwear and what sort of story we thought they told. We then
spent three hours workshopping three stories (mine was one of them) and then
retired to the pool hall on Tate Street for “mandatory” drinking with the
professor. I left early and sober in order to drive to Asheville, thereby
missing the moment when the class plagiarist (there is always one) hit someone
in the head and cried about veganism outside the ladies’ room.
[3]
I still have maybe six of the nicest left from this era. The vast majority were
patterned polyester shift dresses of the Janeane Garofalo “Reality Bites”/Peggy Olson Season 7 vintage. Cute, but not exactly practical. I wore my favorites,
generally with hole-y black tights and Doc Marten Mary Janes until the dresses disintegrated
at the seams and smelled so strongly of sweat and cigarettes smoke that I could
barely stand my own scent.
[4]
I do not remember this guy’s name, or even really what he looked like, but I
met him briefly in Portland when I went to Oregon for Thanksgiving and spent a
good solid night trying to surreptitiously take a decent picture of him as sort
of a souvenir of temporary infatuation, but none of them came out and I wasted
at least half a roll of film in the process.
[5]It
took until about 2006, but I mercifully—finally--grew
out of the type.
Positive Attitude Orientation: Journal, September 1994
My mother grew up in this town. It
was a railroad hub. It has a giant star by the zoo on the mountain overlooking
downtown.
I've been coming here for most of my life.
I stare out the windows[1]
of my first dorm room over the green fields toward the Boob Mountains and
half-disappointed/half-relieved that my unpronounceably named double Georgian
roommate[2]
didn’t show up.
There are a lot of horses here and a lot of girls with
blonde hair.
I hate it.
This morning my mother drove me to campus in a borrowed van
and unloaded my life into this cinderblock cell and told me I should give the
school a chance, that just because it doesn't seem like a place I belong, I
shouldn't let my feelings get in the way of what could be a great experience.
"It's probably not as bad as you think."
"I'll probably kill myself if it's as bad as I
think," I said.
My mother like the suicide commentary. She said something
about being disappointed in my attitude and helped me make my bed and plug in
my computer in this mostly empty room. I wish I were my no-show roommate
because at least she's NOT HERE.
Every single girl on the hall is playing that fucking Counting Crows
song. We're supposed to go out to the quad to play get to know you games. I
cued up Mozart's Requiem
and smoke. I heard giggles and screams from the other girls in the dorm. I
wrote CUNT on my white board. Then I erased it because Mom came back.
"I think you're really going to like it here," she
said after some tea thing at the President's House.
I told Mom that I'm totally fucked and she should probably
leave. She did, but only after making my promise that I wouldn't sit around and
pout, which of course I'm going to do. I'm going to cry and pout and scream and
temper tantrum all night if that gets me out of the fucking ice cream social.
On the way out the door, she told me that the girl across
the hall[3]
looked miserable and has shoes like mine and I should probably go talk to her,
which probably means that she's nothing like me and horrible.
Everything is wrong with my life.
[1]
These pages are in my general freshman year notebook, but their placement
suggests that I wrote this sometime after these events took place. I think it
was part of some very serious autobiography project I was going to write about
myself at the time.
[2]Here’s
how this went: I got my roommate assignment sometime in July and the name was
recognizably Georgian (I’d gone to high school with two kids from Tbilisi) and
the only contact information I had for her was a mailing service in Atlanta, so
double Georgian. She never showed. Incidentally, I answered my Hollins housing
questionnaire in some tantrum state of nihilistic rage. If the residential life
office had even tried to match me with a like-minded individual, I suspect she
would have been a real piece of work.
[3]
She actually ended up being the first real friend I made in college. So go, Mom,
I guess.
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