Sunday, November 29, 2009

Lizzy Loves Trouble, Shame on You, Shame!

Oooh I can't help it.

I like to flirt and it gets me into trouble. Doesn't matter if it's a guy or a girl. Doesn't matter if I like them or they like me, or if they're my age. Intentionality is never part of the agenda. I just like it, it makes me happy. How can I flirt so shamelessly? Because, dear Watson, I expect nothing in return. I don't think they'll take the bait, which has no connection to any fishing line anyway. I'm just throwing my little flirt sardines into a big lake and walking away. Ye know, existential nihilistic flirtation, n'at.

However, it occasionally comes back to haunt me in the form of an unwanted return.
Didn't they know it was all for good fun? That when I actually like somebody, I can't say a word--not one. I contort my body and stare at the floor. Avoid them.

I suppose I shouldn't hold anybody to blame but my recklessness, especially when I'm under the influence of some kind of substance, namely, alcohol.

I should do better for my future self by:
1) never giving out my number
2) never giving out my real name
3) never caving into having senselessly witty conversations for the sake of having them

DUH. Or...at least not when I'm drunk. Slap, slap! Get some sense in that little head of yours!

Ho-hum.

* * *

When I'm not having fun flirting, I enjoy being contrary. This annoys people but doesn't end up haunting me nearly as much as an unwanted flirtatious text message from...?...early in the AM. That's when the contrary side kicks in, where I've probably enticed something (namely in giving out my phone number) which I never wanted anyway.

Why can't people just read my mind?! I suppose that's why I've started this blog, to help translate for those who are ESP-impaired. (And so that my friends can blame themselves, and not me for listening to/reading ridiculous thought trajectories like this one. Clever me!)

When I'm not flirting or being contrary, I sass. I tend to sass inanimate or distant people or objects. I sass Rafiki, our cat. I sass the Project Runway contestants, I sass my parents, I sass my roommates and their boyfriends. I also sass the poor flirter-backers, perhaps out of my love of the contrary, or just flat-out annoyance, which is then often taken the wrong way (as they haven't gone through contrary or sassy impulses, and they are still on the flirting track). They think my sass is flirting, and it isn't. It's pure, unadulterated sass-afrass. And then, all of a sudden a flirty response. I'm back to flirting again, down the slippery slope to replying to the silly repartees that today's social media sites have facilitated to no known end. No known end but trouble for Lizzy.

And now what to do, what to do?




Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Amsterdam Opens its Arms to Me

And it lights its joints for my brothers...

That said, I emerge from the perpetual cloud for a few observations...

I like this city much, much more than I anticipated. The first time I came here it was with my best friend, and we had no money, no place to stay, no map, and, well, no money (that's no money, squared). We went to the Anne Frank house, the Rijksmuseum, then ate hash brownies and 2 for 1 Euro donuts in the street, walked through the red-light district, and went to bed before sunset.

Now, I'm with my folks, and they're paying for shit. And I'm not hungry or lost. I can just eat, humor my parents, and let my brothers teach me about the wonders of cannabis culture. My younger brother used the sweetest tone I'd ever heard him use when he turned to me and asked, "Would you like to try to roll this one?" With the help of a Dutch artist friend, I know all the little trendy gallery venues, which I can escape to when my parents have thrown in the towel. AND there's a film festival (the IDFA), a chocolate festival, and the cannabis cup ALL AT ONCE.


So I love this city right now. I can float along the streets as if I'm drifting along one of the many canals here, not thinking about anything really. My siblings talk and complain, and I can just look, snap photos, and happily not express any thoughts, opinions or feelings as the world busies itself around me. I'm not part of it, I'm an implant. I don't get upset about long lines, about the rain and the wind. Want to go out? Sure! Want to stay in? Sure! Ah! A canal! Ah! A handsome couple on a bike. Look! Graffiti. Snap, move on, open umbrella, get dinner.

At the end of the day, I take my friendly little pill. I sleep. And then a new day starts, where I don't have to go to work, or owe anybody anything, or be worried that I might bump into somebody. Or understand someone else's conversation, for that matter. My lack of opinions (even to me) seem utterly virtuous. My cellphone is off because I'm out of the country. No complaints. I'm not getting emails from work anymore, everybody's on break. It's just me, my loud, opinionated family & the Dutch (who generally keep to themselves, tend not to shout out to girls on the street, and are tidy and respectful!).

Yes. I can just drift. Like a house boat. Pirl. Like the fraternal smoke plumes that envelop me.

Thank you loud, opinionated family, thank you foreign lands. Amsterdam, I love you! Let me just drift, be. Sleep. I'll think later.

Monday, November 16, 2009

I think that not allowing your blog viewers to comment on your blog posts is just friggen' abusive. Stop your self-importance and let ME respond!

...in a public forum. To your thoughts and...everything. I keep going back for more, even though it's a totally one-sided, sterile, comment-proof relationship! Can't you at least PRETEND that you care about what OTHER people think? Or are you just tired of the life of a celebrity blogger?! I need the attention just as much as you do, even if you have a bigger fan base than I do!!!!

What the heck. Alison Bechdel allows comments on her blog, why can't you?! Are we just supposed to gorge ourselves on your wisdom? And what is there for a self-respecting blog reader/fan to do?

And, while I'm at it, as for the Crumb newsletter people--I feel utterly pooped on! Why would I want to buy Crumb's Illustrated Genesis for like five-hundred bucks? Oh, right, it's because there's a serigraph print inside. An opportunity not to be missed! Oh, god, Warhol's wet dream. Good thing I know better, having lived in Pittsburgh and understood Warhol's industrial roots. It's a friggen' silkscreen and it wasn't even printed by anybody of remote importance. I'll take my first-print edition of the book for $24 at the corner comics place, thank you very much. And you know what? R. Crumb would never, EVER have a blog unless he could have the chance to earn a hot dollar. You think I don't know him? Don't know what you're doing? Have you no finesse? Do you not understand how you need to stroke a lady with a perpetual hole in her pocket??! Any notion of my feelings as a mindless consumer of your products?!?!?! The comics world is vicious! Vicious, I tell you! They pretend that they have all the thought bubbles spelled out, but really you should read in between the frame sequences. This industry prays on its innocent fans' obsessions! Hey! Stop it! Screw you! I'm going to STOP THIS it before it starts to possess me!!!

* * *

You know what? If I take just two steps back, I instantly realize that I'm experiencing something akin to sexual frustration in the comix fan world. Pooh, what's a girl to do? Guess I better read more comics to console myself...gee wonder if Kevin H. has updated anything since...hmm noo...ah and I'll just top it off by writing an angry blog message to nobody.

Hooked, lined, and sinkered,

L

OMG



And she called me a week ahead just to remind me so I wouldn't beat myself up for forgetting.

Except I did anyway. And did last year....And the year before.......

I guess I was busy doing other, more important things. Like shopping. Or updating my flickr page. Or reading the Illustrated Genesis. Or....

As always, I'm so lucky to have friends who appreciate (and put up with) me. I love you all.

L

*Note that all these pictures were at some point or other taken...while at work. (gasp!) Sometimes, midday, you need to take a picture to document your state of mind. And it comes in useful later when creating spur-of-the-moment whoops I'm a jerk videos for your friend(s) whose birthday(s) you forgot.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Total Girl Crush



Her, allison bechdel, and my yoga teacher---ahhh!

Monday, November 9, 2009

On schlooping...

I found out that somebody close to me is probably sleeping with two girls at the same time.

When is this ever ok?* I dunno. He doesn't seem to be conflicted about it. At all! I also found out that two other guys that I know, and had thought were relatively stable, respectable individuals (the quiet, reclusive creative types) had opted into flings with one or more undergrad (or recently undergrad) art major girls (in half of these cases, the girls in question were between 5 and 12 years their junior). And no, we're not talking not the genuinely quirky art girl undergrad, who wears dreadlocks, funky outfits and has "deep conversations" over a joint, but the kind whose very being is enclosed in at least 14 sets of quotation marks, the kind who has pre-calculated every pose, gesture, and silly little comment.

Well, it goes without saying that I'm pretty disappointed in these guys ~ why are they doing this? They each seemed so great to me initially, like, they stood on their own and had cool thoughts 'n' stuff. But then I find out about their absurd, superficial and somewhat extravagant relationships with a girl (or girls) who make me seriously question the judgment of the guy in question. (I'm also sure that if I knew any of the girls in these situations, I'd be equally perplexed ~ why are they dating these guys who so obviously seem to be using them...)


A friend and I recently reflected on this trend, in light of the aforementioned discoveries. It was unanimously determined that this sort of thing is in many ways a major part of the 20-something arts/arts university community dynamic. I guess I'd never noticed it before, as I was an English major at an all-women's college, and the worst thing I had to deal with was the Mary Gordon devotees, or, perhaps even worse, the PoMo Possee. Anyway, my friend and I came up with a term for this phenomenon: we call it schlooping.

A schlooper is most often a guy, in his 20's, (30's, 40's etc,etc), who is just conscious enough of his shortcomings to feel at a loss. He wishes to be whole, or at least to appear as such. His books of theory, complete 4th season of The Office DVD, and vinyl collection fails to keep him warm at night; they can't adore him the way he needs to be adored.

So the schlooper seeks out and sleeps with a younger, artsy-girl type, often the powdery pastiche of self-conscious, utterly deliberate effervescence. Such types are commonly known as schloopettes. Schloopettes are often younger girls. They are the spritely, free-thinking, politically apathetic dippy dabblers of mankind, in all their artful, calculated effortlessness: sentinels of sarcasm, monitors of the monotone, harbingers of hip, who are prepared to spread their "perspectives" at any moment. And, perhaps even more importantly, they are more likely than the average joe to dish out praise to that older, mysterious, aloof guy who seems to know so much.

Schloopers and schloopettes engage in a symbiotic relationship that is wholly self-referential, masturbatory, self-perpetuating, and theoretically self-contained. Theoretically because the schlooping few think of themselves as isolated, but in reality, sometimes a non-schlooping individual gets involved, and they get hurt, or their heart gets broken, or they find out that the guy they like is sleeping with two girls at once. Or they are just disappointed in individuals for whom they'd had higher expectations. In this sense, I'm think it's also fair to say that schlooping, generally, is highly (self) destructive behavior.

Why** do the schloopers seek the schloopettes (and vice versa)?***

Because they are insecure. Could it be this simple? I think so. There's a fine line between knowing one's shortcomings and hating them utterly. Schloopers think for some reason that they need something to make them better, brighter, to give them the air of being more mature, more mysterious, more in control. And then they hop on the stationary bike of doing cute underfed art student after cute underfed art student for that quick burst of satisfaction, instant grat, and a nice stroke of the ole ego.

They build up a shabby armor of alternative music downloads, obscure film references and VICE blog material, and pad their lives with Achievements, and, even worse, Experience. The more they build, the better the compliments they get as their superficial relationships splay out. The result? Frequent, empty, amaurotic (am-erotic) schlooping.

At the end of the day, our schloopers and schloopettes are using people, each other. And they are inevitably disappointing to people like me, who are so ready to accept their kinder and relatively uninteresting, real selves. Because, in my book, real is almost always more interesting. Give up the gauze, folks!

When will our poor schloopers and schloopettes learn? They should just accept their imperfections and move on, curtail the incessant witticisms, shrug the showism and try to direct their affections and energies in a more genuine direction.

Glug, can't we all just be friends?!



* Crumb's different.
** Echoes of Olympia Dukakis in Moonstruck, "Why do men chase women?" I'd like to think that the case in question is a slight variation on this epic question, as it is particularly rampant in the arts university community.
***Or what, more specifically, do schloopers seek in schloopettes (as they so vigorously dig to the core of each one)?