avphibes

So, For the past two years or so, I've been trying to be "incognito." Now I once again want to be incog-NEATO! (oh god, please make me stop!) But seriously, identity can be a slippery eel that's hard to keep a grip on. I had a dream when I was a young whippersnapper that my life would be interesting and exciting. The price one pays for this is facing a greater number of challenges, both internal and external. When I was younger, my battles always seemed to be external: Me vs. the world and other people. With age, the battles became more internal: me vs. me vs. me. The downside of an "interesting" life is that it has to change all the time and you have to change with it.

Often, when I'm in transition between one "self" and another, I withdraw into a sort of neutral place and re-emerge when I feel like I'm on steady footing. Often the transition involves rejecting the past self. Sometimes I have this visual picture of myself from one year to the next, all the me's standing side by side, then I see all the me's make a 90 degree turn to the right and slap the preceding one upside the head. And so I rejected the past self.
Only problem is: then I started thinking "but wait! my past self DID have so much fun! I STILL WANT THAT!" and so, in the process of rejection, there was a sort of re-integration. Thank god, because this "neutral" phase has gone on for almost three damned years.

Much of my problem stemmed from placing my "self" out there for public consumption. I made myself a "brand;" and not only my social life, but my career was tied to it. I chafe under the pressure of having to behave a certain way and live up to specific expectations and when I perceived the "expectation" as coming from some anonymous consciousness in the outside world, I started hiding inside (if that sounds way neurotic, I assure you...it is!)

Now, being "incognito" has been kind of a lovely learning experience in itself. When I was a kid, I felt like an outsider involuntarily... I was "different" and didn't want to be. When I was a young adult, I decided to be "different" on purpose. It became very important to me to be seen and to express myself in everything I did. Once that became a duty instead of a privilege, it just wasn't as fun anymore. It felt burdensome. I didn't want other people to be telling me who "myself" was. I went from "freedom" meaning being able to express myself to meaning I didn't have to express myself.

These incognito years were my chance to feel what it's like to be "normal." I mean, there's only so "normal" a person can be in New York, but I just tried to be as neutral as possible. I still have a certain "physical expressiveness" (aka: awkward nerdiness) that gives me away, but if I dressed normal, I could get away with it. It was nice not to be pre-judged. It was nice to be able to conceal or reveal myself willfully. It was nice to feel invisible. It was nice to be happy letting other people shine instead of clamoring for the spotlight. It was nice to watch from the outside for awhile.

Now I'm trying to take the timeline of my life and take all the disparate parts and re-assemble them into some integrated whole of who I am now. I'm also trying to balance the negative and the positive. I've always veered between either extreme. Either from the egotistical "I WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW HOW GREAT MY LIFE IS!" to the paranoid: "Oh god...everyone just thinks I'm a name-dropping attention whore! Maybe I'm giving the wrong impression!" And the problem when you "put yourself out there" is that people will confirm both sides. Trouble was, I was at the point where I was like "I CAN'T BE WHAT YOU WANT ME TO BE! I WILL ONLY DISAPPOINT YOU! I CAN'T TAKE THE PRESSURE!"

So, yeah, self-re-assembly. Stay tuned.

This is from an AMAZING album of japanese covers by Andrew W.K. I think the fact that I've been listening to this on repeat for three days proves that my inner 15 year old boy is alive and well.

Originally posted here. 

I believe I got the idea around the time that I was called in for a legal deposition by the defense lawyers in my ongoing copyright infringement case.  The lawyer for the defense seemed to be building his entire case around the hope, or perhaps the assumption, that I am an idiot.  His arrogant attempts at semantic intimidation were, at the very least, misguided, but, personally, I found them to be horribly insulting.  The reason being: I hate people assuming that I'm dumb.  This, then, prompted the thought:  "I need to prove that I'm smart!"

 

Now, it's easy enough for a person to assume I'm not smart.  In the aforementioned legal deposition, I was obliged to disclose my entire collegiate and employment history.  Neither of the above would convince anyone that I was smart.  I went to three colleges of no renown and got a degree from none of them.  For 6 years, I worked a string of slacker jobs, most of which were unskilled labor and paid peanuts.  How, then, could I objectively prove that I'm smarter than the average bear?  My own conviction that I was smart came from anecdotal evidence and the fact that I totally fucking OWNED at standardized testing when I was in public school.  

 

In elementary school, I had to take an IQ test.  My score was 136.  All I knew was that 140 was "Genius" and I had fallen four points short.  At the time I was sure it was a mistake.  I convinced myself that the four point shortfall was just because I was hungry and distracted.  Unfortunately, subsequent IQ tests through my school career kept proving the same thing:  136.  This was maddening.  I wanted to be a Genius!  I wanted to be able to say "why should you listen to me?  Because I'm a fucking GENIUS, that's why!"  But, instead, I had to live with the chagrin of being not-quite-a-genius.  It was not until later that I realized that 136 still put me in the top 1%.

 

And so, in a huff after being treated like brainless Jane by some fancy schmancy Harvard lawyer, I decided that I would join Mensa.  For those who don't know, Mensa is a club for people who test in the top 2% of the population. I told some friends I was going to try to get into Mensa and the responses ranged from "hmm. Maybe I should try that" to me basically getting laughed at for five solid minutes.

 

I called my Mom and asked if she happened to still have any of my old test results.  Since she didn't, I figured I could just take the Mensa test.  It honestly never occurred to me that I would NOT pass the test.  I mean, I had a historical precedent of OWNING at standardized tests!  I once applied for a job at Cheesecake Factory and they made me take an intelligence test.  The guy interviewing me seemed almost unnerved as he told me "you've got the highest score I've ever seen."  Then he didn't give me the job, which, in retrospect, makes sense because clever ducks in lowly positions can figure out really fast how to circumvent the rules and steal shit. 

 

And so, I paid my 40 bucks and scheduled the test time.  In an interesting twist, the mensa person in charge of test scheduling ACTUALLY KNEW WHO I WAS.  This was trippy in the fact that not that many people  know who I am, and the fact that this was a mensa person, so I had that feeling of "AHA...see?  See? I'm totally in with the smarties already!"

 

Taking the test was a learning experience.  Firstly, On the day of the test, I was wickedly hungover.  This taught me a lot about my "live in the moment" mentality: that while I was funning it up the night before, I wasn't thinking "I should refrain from drinking so that I don't have to take a test hungover."  I was just funning it up, tomorrow-be-damned.  Still, I dragged myself to the testing room and prepared to kick ass, even in my sluggish state.  

 

I looked around the room and the first interesting thing I noticed is that I was the only girl there.   Mensa, is, judging from that room, a total sausage-fest. (I told my laughing friend this and she said "it's because they've all got small dicks.")  Second, I started looking over the test, which lead me to totally ignore the test administrator.  This is the main thing I learned about my self:  I am terrible at listening to verbal instructions.  I always have been a little bit, but my years of self employment have definitely cemented it.  So, for some reason, I thought she said that "wrong answers don't count" which would lead to the logic that you should answer every question whether you know it or not.  

 

And so the test began and the learning continued.  Thing learned:  I own at verbal skills and suck at math.  I should have known this based on my performance on the ACT, in which my lameoid math and science scores dragged down my awesome verbal and reading comprehension score and gave me a barely-get-a-scholarship-at-state-college 26.  Still, since I hadn't taken a standardized test in so long, it all felt fresh and new.  It's not that I couldn't do the math questions, it's just that I had to WORK REALLY HARD at it. 

 

When I was doing the math problems, my brain felt like some creaky Rube Goldberg device which took way too long to come to it's conclusions.  I was lucky if I could finish half of the problems before the time was up.  Meanwhile, with the verbal sections, my brain suddenly turned into a kung-fu master doing a backflip and kicking ten ninjas in the face before landing.  I'd zoom through effortlessly and finish way before the time was up, then sit there tapping my pencil for ten minutes.  I was like "please! more verbal!  Give me definitions!  Give me comprehension!  Give me analogies!  I am to analogies as superman is to leaping tall buildings!"

 

The test sections seemed to be these alternations between things I was good at (verbal skills, sequences) and things I sucked at (anything with numbers...except sequences!) And so I was ping-ponging between thinking that I had the test in the bag and I was totally going to blow it.  

 

Anyhow, I finished the test and turned it in, and, as I was doing so, one of the guys turning in his test said to the administrator "If you only get counted for right answers and you only answer one question and it's right, don't you get 100%?"  And that's when I realized... you DO get counted off for wrong answers!  Which means that all the last-minute fill-ins I did were going to completely fuck me!  I left with the sinking knowledge that I had totally muffed the test.

 

Sure enough, I got the letter later on saying that my score did not qualify me for mensa. But here's what I learned about myself:

 

1.  I am a drunken hedonist.

 

2.  I am a loose cannon and play by my own rules (ie. I am bad at paying attention to verbal directions).

 

3.  My mental alacrity sways strongly toward words and pictures rather than numbers, which makes me realize that "superior intelligence" can be compartmentalized into specific areas.  In a room full of mathematicians, I'd probably come off like Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel. 

 

I suppose I could have retaken the test and seen if I could have passed if I followed the instructions, but I didn't really want to pay another 40 bucks.  Besides, what if I WERE in mensa?  It's not like I could tell mister fancylawyerpants "Excuse me, I'm not dumb...I'M IN MENSA!"  since this would not only make me sound like the douchiest douche in douchetown, but also the nerdiest nerd in nerdtown.  So, really, was it all just some hollow exercise in self-reassurance? Did I just need to KNOW that I was smart? Didn't I already know that I was smart?  Is "smart" even something that can be objectively evaluated?  Isn't it just a matter of how many questions on a test skew toward your strengths?

 

I realize now that all of this is beside the point.  The real moral of the story is that that lawyer is a patronizing dick and needs to get punched in the nuts.  

Posted at 08:37 AM in my life stories | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally posted at:  http://tinyurl.com/yg626rm

So I saw this box of toothpicks laying on the table and noticed something:  These toothpicks were calling themselves "chewing sticks."  I guess being called a toothpick isn't good enough for these pretentious assholes, they have to be "chewing sticks."  Oh, hello chewing stick.  Would you like some champagne and caviar?  May I take your top hat?  How about I roll out a fucking red carpet for you?

 

Look, give it up.  You're a toothpick.  Why do you have to play games?  Do you think that just because you have tea tree oil, you're  better than everyone else?  Oh, excuse me... you're "impregnated" with tea tree oil.  La-dee-fucking-da.  Don't expect me to give you my seat on the bus. You're not impressing me with your fancy vocabulary, toothpick, you're just making yourself look like a douche.  

 

Oh, and where did you get the idea that you could impress people by saying you're australian?  This just shows that you are totally fucking clueless.  What?  Did you think we would think you were "exotic."  Did you think you would conjure up images of the Sydney Opera House and crystal goblets of robust Shiraz?  News Flash:  here in America, when we hear "australian" we just think of Crocodile Dundee throwing shrimps on the barbie while he gets drunk on Fosters.   Maybe you should grab your digeridoo and your Kylie Minogue CDs and fuck off before a dingo eats your baby.

 

Okay, so you're a stick and maybe people chew on you, but you know what other sticks people chew on?  That's right:  TOOTHPICKS.  Some of them are even minty, and you don't see them putting on airs.  Seriously, get over yourself.

 just found this in one of my old work notebooks.  I think I drew it around the time that I realized I hate customer service.  I find it both funny and TOTALLY TRUE!

Oh, and PS... I've got my "real blog" going over at theoverexaminelife.com.  So, you know, if you were maybe planning on buying something from Amazon ANYWAY, you might wanna, say, click on my affiliate link and do it.  Just sayin...

 So part of where my thought process came from in the previous post is the fact that, everything I've done for the past few years, even if i got paid for it, hasn't felt particularly "real."  If you've been reading for awhile, you've surely noticed that every year since 2005, I've described my activities as "dicking around."  

What happened in 2005 was that I was on a rollercoaster going up, up, up and was, soon enough, on a rollercoaster going down, down, down, and I realized that I really had no control over the situation.  That my good fortune wasn't because I was awesome and productive and my bad fortune wasn't because I was suddenly horrible and lazy.  Things just changed and it was external to me.  I worked for my success, but I would not have had it (or my subsequent failure) if not for random market forces that I had no sway over.

I think the major thing that happened at the cresting of that rollercoaster was that I stopped thinking of the things I did as being real and concrete.  Most of the things I did started seeming pointless.  I just do things. I'm waiting until something "catches" again.  Until I'm making mad dough again, I keep considering everything I do to be "dicking around."  Still, I keep doing things because that's all one can do.

And if it's all dicking around and nothing is "catching", the only way to evaluate it is based on how good I am at it and how much I do it.  I am an artist in that I very occasionally create a piece of art.  I am a designer in that I often design things.  I am an comic actor in that I occasionally am in plays and they're usually comedies.  I am a writer in that I write things.  I am a housewife in that I keep house. I am an entrepreneur in that I have a business that still makes some money.  I am maybe a cartoonist in that I've drawn cartoons, but I haven't in quite some time.  None of these things feels any more "real" than the other. None of them seems to make a definitive "what I am."  

I've spent a lot of my life "talking up" my modest accomplishments to make them seem important... usually more important than they were:

"Cartoonist A.V. Phibes has began publishing her comics in underground zines, and soon grew an enthusiastic internet following!"

"Artist A.V. Phibes has done illustrations for for Penguin Publishing, Andrews McMeel  and Steve Madden Inc!*  She has had 3 solo shows of her work and recieved a jury prize from the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival."

"Entrepreneur A.V. Phibes founded Evilkid Productions, a six-figure art licensing business that had products in Target, Spencer Gifts and Hot Topic!"

"Sideshow Performer A.V. Phibes has performed all over new york in venues such as the Slipper Room, The Cutting Room and Webster Hall, she also spent time on tour with the Modern Gypsies!"

"Actress/comedian A.V. Phibes has appeared in two off-broadway comedies!"  

Hell, even writer A.V. Phibes "has been blogging since 2001, been published in the Audacity Productions "In the Works" anthology** and her one-act play "Grading on a Curve" has been staged in in the US and Hong Kong.  Her work has been described by the the Dallas Morning News as "quite funny" and having "...lots of garrulous, good lines..."  

And all of this feels like just anecdotal "stuff I did."  None of it feels like I was doing it "for real" (except maybe the entrepreneur bit).  Most of this was "dicking around."  I have told people before:  "The key to having an exciting life is omission.  Omit everything except the exciting parts."

I still don't have the sense that I'm doing what I ought to with my life. And so that's how I came about to my previous thoughts: Since most of my credentials seem tenuous, if not borderline bullshit, do credentials even matter? Shouldn't we just consider what we're good at?

 

*Totally got this job because of nepotism.

**My friend published this and printed it at kinkos.

 

I've always had trouble with the "what do you do?" question. I went through my phase of just answering "office manager," but now I usually stick with the vague "designer,"  which, of course, is true enough because that's actually what I more or less make money at.  Only recently have I been internally questioning: can I self-identify as a writer?  

The New Yorker in me says "Don't say it unless you can put your money where your mouth is," the hater in me says "Self-identifying as a writer when you don't do it for a living is for pretentious douches."  And yet... and yet...

Here is what's been rolling around in the ol' brain pan:  The "publishing industry," or, that which, for all of my life, has been the gatekeeper of what is "real" writing and what is just fucking around (if it's published it counts, if it isn't it doesn't) Is undergoing a tremendous sea change right now.  "books" and "newspapers" and "magazines" and "being published" as we have known them in the past, may be going the way of the corded telephone and the fax-copier.  

What I'm saying is, with all the game-changers of the past decade, blogging is kinda the new writing.  At least, that is to say, it's the most contemporary medium and it doesn't seem to be going away.  Sure, 95% of it is crap, but the 5% that isn't is getting read by people as much as a newspaper or magazine.  Also, as digital distribution replaces those cumbersome paper books and renders printing and shipping costs irrelevant, it's going to change the types and amounts of writing that publishers publish. It's also changing how important a "publisher" even needs to be. From the "gatekeeper" standpoint, the times they are a changin'.

But all this is just random thought.  What I'm trying to get at is:  Bitches, I'm a writer.  I know how to write.  I may possibly know how to write better than I know how to do anything else.  I have never been published, I have never TRIED to get published, for all I know, I may never BE published, but I've been writing for ten years and people have been reading it.  Sometimes a lot of people have been reading it.  Possibly more people than have read those novels with their covers torn off in the sale bin.  Also, since the publishing industry is often trying to turn a buck by pandering to dullards, is publication really such a badge of quality? Have you read "Who Moved my Cheese?"  I mean, have you? If so, how is your head feeling after you felt compelled to beat it against a brick wall? Mine is still a little tender.

Anyhow, being able to string together a grouping of sentences that aren't retarded and don't bore people to sleep is not a skill that everyone possesses.  In fact, I am learning that it is rarer than one would think.  I was once sent an excerpt of a book that someone was planning on self-publishing and it took me about 15 minutes to read the first two pages because the writing was so cumbersome that every laborious sentence was like a pit of quicksand bogging down your progress to the next.  And this was someone who clearly thought they were "a writer." 

And, that, perhaps, is why the hater in me is so down of self-proclaimed "writers:" because the claim is so often accompanied by a certain pomposity and self-delusion.  I didn't want to be "that guy."  I feel like I'm perfectly competent at writing, but I have no "credentials."  Still, I read a lot of stuff on the internets and some of the writers whose bloggy bits I most anticipate aren't even writers.  They're chefs who are good at writing or artists who are good at writing or whatevers who are good at writing.  Is one a writer by merit of being good at writing?  What say ye, netizens?

So remember how, like, a month ago I was all like "I'm going to start blogging again!" and then, I kinda didn't?  Well let me tell you about how that came about:

 So a few months ago, my Darling Boyfriend decided that he was going to go to India with one of his college friends who was a Buddhist monk for some time.  I met said friend when he was still a Buddhist monk wearing the orange robes and the whole shebang, and, if you've never had a buddhist monk watching football in your living room and shotgunning marijuana hits, then your life is less interesting than mine.  Haha!  Sucks to be you!  But anyway,  being still active in Tibetan Buddhism since leaving the monkhood, he invited my darling boyfriend to come to the temple of his Lama and shoot some video so he could make a short film that might encourage bourgeois New Yorkers to donate money to it.  My Darling Boyfriend, never passing up an opportunity for foreign travel, said "yes!"

The other thing about my Darling Boyfriend and foreign travel is that once he's going to one place, he feels like he has to visit every place adjacent while he's there... so the planned trip to india started turning epic.  He planned to visit another friend in India, then a meet up with another friend in Khazakstan, a visit to Tajikistan, then a long-ass train ride through russia to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg to meet up with ANOTHER college friend (who's been living in Mexico the past year) and the two of them would do a whirlwind tour of eastern europe hitting approximately 15 different locales.  By the end of his planning, the trip was going to take two months and one week.

So my thought was just "two months and one week to myself? AWESOME!!!" and so I started planning what yours truly would do with that particular time.  My first thought was "Since I'll have peace and quiet and not be endlessly doing laundry, I can work on writing."  

And so I thought I would take to blogging as soon as he left.  What I didn't count on was two factors:  1.  That it was going to take me a long time to get the house clean after he was gone, and 2.  That I was going to be partying down to a distracting extent once he left.  

To address the former:  My darling boyfriend is a slob.  He is entropic to the max.  He spends a day in a room and it's like someone was tearing it apart looking for secret documents or jewels or something.  Since I am a tiny bit OCD and like things to be a bit tidier, my role has become that of countering his entropy and maintaining a state of equilibrium which is usually "sorta, but not embarrassingly, messy." 

Naturally, the idea of him being away for a long period of time introduced a tantalizing possibility:  I could actually get AHEAD and get our condo clean, and have it stay clean for two months!!!  Drunk on possibilities, I started cleaning as soon as he was out the door, thinking that a focused two days would whip things into shape.  hahaha...no.  I am STILL cleaning this place.  There is some hardcore organization that needs to be done. I am feng shui-ing like there is no tomorrow.  

Secondly, addressing the latter:  it seems that once I am in a state of simulated "singledom" I revert back to single habits.  This means going out a lot; hanging out with friends a lot.  It's strange because I don't feel like these are things I CAN'T do when my Darling Boyfriend is around, but I seem to do them less.  Maybe it's because I'm tired from cleaning.

But, getting back to the point:  Darling Boyfriend has been gone for two weeks and I'm just now getting back on my feet again as far as getting shit done.  (GTD?  Fuck that, I GSD.) So I'm only now starting to get on the Blog thing.  It took me awhile to come up with a good title that I could buy a domain of.  I finally landed on theoverexaminedlife.com.  I thought about just using avphibes.com, but, here is a little pearl of wisdom for you, Youth of America:  When choosing a pseudonym, PICK SOMETHING THAT'S EASY TO SPELL AND PRONOUNCE.  It will save you a lot of heartache.  

Anyway, I'll be setting that up shortly.  In the meantime, here's an awesome pic of my cat in a lobster costume from OMGkitty.com:

So now that I'm trying to get blogging again, I find myself stymied as to what my "theme" should be.   In much the same way as in art, the key to success in blogging seems to be consistency.  Figure out your thing + keep doing that thing and that thing only = ability to build a following.  But--also in much the same way as in art-- I find it nearly impossible to pick ONE THING.  When people ask me what I'm passionate about, I tend to reply "It's irrelevant, because what I'm passionate about is always changing."  

So themes I'd like to write about (other than my cat... she's already got a blog, so that's taken care of) include:  food, travel, new york, art and design, snarky cultural critiques, books and general observations.  So, since I don't want to set up a zillion blogs that I probably won't maintain, I'm going to put it all in one and wreck my ability to be consistent and therefore, by the laws of "how-these-things-work," not have a good chance of blogging success.

On the other hand, since one of my objectives is just "practice," I suppose I shouldn't even care.  In the course of being all-over-the-place, perhaps I will determine what works best.  It's my general life strategy of "throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks."  Of course, then there's the thought that I'm 35 and shouldn't  I have more shit stuck to my wall by now?  

Can anyone out there tell me what I'm good at?  What's your favorite thing that I've done?

 There comes a time when the only thing to do is throw out your old life and start fresh.  

 

Several years back, my whole fake-famous,/attention-whore schtick turned on me and suddenly the idea of people out there in the world and internetland knowing about me, combined with the fact that so much of my persona was a fragile maquette constructed to impress other people, made me turn super paranoid and reclusive.   There were times when I would write something and be afraid to post it because "people will read it and think things about me."  This was a bad time.

 

Anyhow, after lots of therapy, I am emerging from my lair.  But emerging with new boundaries and new intentions.  I want to be real with you internet, so let me lay it down for you:

 

1.  I no longer want this to be the "look at me and how lovably eccentric I am!" journal.

I will not be trying to impress you with how quirky and "interesting" I am.  I'm not going to post photoshopped pictures of myself in hopes of being told I'm hot.  I am not trying to prove anything to you.  If I get called "quirky" again, someone's getting slapped.

 

If you enjoyed my LJ of yore for my tales of partying and promiscuity and hipster shenanigans, well, I'm sorry, but that shit is played.  So unless you want to read posts like:  "whoa dude, that game of Cranium was fucking INsane!  I had to sculpt a frying pan out of clay!"  that's not likely to be happening anymore.

 

No more games, baby.   I don't need the cool kids to be my pretend friends anymore.  I know that this disappoints some people who think I'm too boring now and would feel more comfortable liking me if I just wore flashy outfits and did kitschy hipster stuff  and fronted that I was always at glamorous events.   Sorry kids, but I'm 35 damned years old.  At a certain point, my life had to stop being performance art and start being a life.  Also, the tragic irony was that in order for my life to appear to be that exciting, I had to spend, like, 7 hours a day in front of a computer making it look that way.

 

2.  No Drama

Look, I apologize for being a drama queen in the past and making everything into a huge deal.   I'm getting over my crippling insecurity,  I'm on medication.  We're cool now.  I don't mind if you friend or unfriend me.  If you get sick of me, I ENCOURAGE you to unfriend me.   If I  hate something you like or like something you hate, it's not the end of the world.  It's just the internet.  

 

If someone gets uppity or an argument breaks out, I'm just going to ignore it. I know that I will never convince anyone of anything.  When I get obnoxious, dumb comments I'm not even going to waste time on snarky replies.

 

So what is my intent?  

 

I've been contemplating my life for awhile, dear reader, and trying to figure out what I'm actually good at  so I can do more of it and be genuinely good at something. I feel like much of my life has been an exercise in wasted potential.  I am a knife in need of sharpening. 

 

I am fairly good at writing and fairly good at writing funny things, so I want to polish and hone those skills. I'm taking back to the internet like some kind of  writing Rocky running up writing stairs to get in writing shape for a writing boxing match...or, you know, just writing.  Since I've never really studied writing or written "for real," I figure I still have stuff to learn about style and editing and structure and discipline and whatnot.  I also want to be dilligent and quicken my wit until humor flows from me like urine from a hobo! Then maybe I can "do something with it."

 

Your job is (hopefully) just to be entertained. You can help me just by telling me when you think something I write is interesting and amusing so that I know what's working.  Also, if you know anything about "real writing" maybe you can tell me what's what, because I really don't know much of anything about it.

 

I'm going to start off slow because I have other work to do setting up a congruent "real blog" since, well, as much as I like it, most of the internet thinks LJ is amateur hour and you can't really monetize it (these cocktails don't pay for themselves!) and one young friend recently mocked me for being on LJ, by saying "get with the times, grandma!" 

I expect things to get seriously rolling by mid-september.  Glad you're still here!

 HERE'S THE DEAL: I've had this journal for eight years and it's gotten a bit muddled and hasn't been the same since 2005 (yes, I'm sorry.) But, internet people, I want to win you back! I will try harder to amuse you!

BUT, since I want to start with a clean slate, I have UNFRIENDED EVERYONE SO THAT I CAN FIGURE OUT WHO IS STILL ON HERE AND WHO IS NOT. I will be adding people back gradually. If you are still around, pipe up or unfriend and refriend me so you show up on my joule and I will friend you back.

I will keep you all filled in as I get my internet life in order. Meanwhile, I have started a tumblr page for random stuff I find that amuses me:
http://aliastuff.tumblr.com/

And a twitter for my "deep thoughts": http://twitter.com/avphibes

I do not advise trying to facebook friend me because I am a fanatic about my facebook and really only want family and friends on there.

You can, however, facebook friend my cat: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000155004366&ref=mf

or follow her twitter: http://twitter.com/OMGkitty


I will keep you all posted as things develop.

Oh gentle reader, there was a time when I used this journal to plug a lot of things. Some of them were worthwhile...but...some of them were not-so-worthwhile and I was simply obliged to promote them because I or my friends were involved in some way. I feel like this may have damaged the trust in our relationship, but, baby, I've changed and I want you back.

When I tell you that you have to go see the off-Broadway play Cocktails at the Center of the Earth please believe that I mean it, girl, and I always will. Yes, you may be suspicious, based on the fact that I and my friends are involved in this play, but I am not promoting this play because I have to. It's because I want to. I want you to want to see this play because it will give you pleasure. Your happiness is my #1 priority.

It was written by ravenface who is, in all honesty, probably the best writer I know in real life. His imagination and deft wordplay never fail to delight. Check out his Livejournal and see for yourself. This play is a comedy that will make you laugh. Don't you like laughing? Let's laugh together.

This play features steampunkery, high-society shenanigans, a robot who makes puns and a song about Jazz Hands. What more do you want? I'm not superman.  I'm just a girl, standing here in front of a computer monitor, asking you to go see a play.

Reserve your tickets post-haste.

I actually made this cake for an election night party, but I'm posting it now in honor of the inauguration.



Now, first off, I'll admit, it took me awhile to drink the Obama kool-aid. He was my pick to win from day one (I was 99% sure...I would have bet money on it), but I was actually supporting Giuliani, who I knew didn't have a snowball's chance in hell. I wanted to support John McCain, since I wanted the republicans to start moving to the center again, but his campaign was so badly run (and since Obama was an ace in the hole anyway), there didn't seem much point in it. Also, I finally just succumbed to the irresistible pull of Obama's charisma and air of cool-headed intelligence and went Obama-happy with everyone else. And how do I express support? By making a cake.

( and here's how that went... )

So, in much the same trend as the previous two years, my first inclination was to say that 2008 sucked ass. Again, it would seem that even a suck-ass year is still a pretty good year for me. I decided to take the pursuit of mental health more seriously as the year progressed and so things should be looking up.

I got to travel around a bit. I got to go dogsledding in Quebec, swimming in the Hamptons, wine-tasting in Napa Valley and gallivanting in the Pacific NorthWest. I played tourist here in New York all summer and learned a lot about the city history. I got to eat a lot of good food. I also got to be in a very fun off-broadway play.

Unfortunately, I did not win the lottery, but considering last years resolution to "be more incognito," even if I did win the lottery, I wouldn't tell you.

Speaking of last year's goals, I think I managed to nail about half:

1. Be more incognito. I managed to avoid being on national television three times (for three completely different things), but didn't avoid being in the New York Post. This lead to getting smack talked a bit on the internet, but I did not participate or get involved. Overall, I think I managed to not have much of a public image for the past year, so I'll consider this a win.

2. Talk less smack. This was a challenge and a struggle. It seems that, at heart, I'm kind of a hater. While I tried to be more diplomatic and not participate in slagging sessions, I would occasionally slip up. For example, I was at a benefit party one night and was introduced to a woman with whom I proceeded to make small talk. I said to her "Wow, this DJ kinda sucks, right?" and she said "That's my husband." Which really summarizes why I shouldn't talk smack: Because when it bites me in the ass it's super awkward. I think I neither entirely succeeded or failed at this. We'll call it 50/50.

3. Travel to a continent other than North America or Europe. FAIL! The only other country I went to was Canada and that barely even counts as another country.

4. Become knowledgable about wine. This I would call a success. I read a book, started keeping a wine journal, took a four week class and did some tastings. I managed to get my terminology down (all this time I had "dryness" confused with "tannins") and while I'm no sommelier, I can go into a wine store or look at a wine list and make selections based on criteria other than price and wild guessing. While I still can't seem to guess wines in blind tastings, I'm proud of the fact that I am even able to make educated guesses ("this oaky, buttery white must be a California Chardonnay! Wait... it's not? Well, at least I know that California Chardonnays are typically oaky and buttery!"). Since the point of learning about things is typically to enhance one's enjoyment of them, I would say that this endeavor was both successful and beneficial.

5. Read 30 books. WIN! I read 32 books, although several of them were pretty short.

6. Get a reservation at El Bulli. FAIL! I thought I was really on the ball with my ninja timing this year, but I still failed to get a reservation. The last legend I heard was that there are now 2 million people vying for the 7,500 reservations every year. So, since I couldn't get a reservation to "the world's best restaurant," I got a reservation to the best restaurant in the Americas instead and went to the French Laundry for my birthday.

And now, Goals for 2009!

Unfortunately, my top three goals are secret and I can't tell you what they are. So:

1. Secret!

2. Secret!

3. Secret!

4. Get in shape and drop my weight back down to 54kg / 120lbs.
Although I initially blamed my boyfriend for my weight gain, I think "middle age spread" and general lethargy is also at fault. I'm not sure what I weigh right now, but I presume I have 10-15 lbs. to lose. I'd like to go down a pants size and no longer look like I'm in the early stages of pregnancy.

5. Read 30 Books
It worked last year, it can work again!

6. Revamp Evilkid.com
Definitely time for a redesign. I've already been working on it. Have to actually execute.

7. Travel to a continent other than North America and Europe.
I'm just gonna carry this one over from last year.

Okay, so I went to see "Twilight" the movie the other night and my humble opinion is that it schooled the fuck out of the book. I'm not saying it's a great movie - there were definitely some scenes that were a cheese casserole - but I liked it. I wheedled one of my friends into going to see it with me, with her threatening to make me refund her ticket price if it sucked too bad, but (maybe because her expectations were set so low) she actually liked it. Also, Robert Pattinson's portrayal of Edward made me love him as an actor, but I'll get to that later.

There are four reasons I thought a movie of Twilight would be better than the book and all of them proved to be true:

1: The time constraints on a movie would cut out all the repetitious, rambling, empty filler in the book and get straight to the meat of the story.

2: A picture is worth a thousand words and since a thousand of Stephanie Meyers' words were "glare," "gorgeous," "perfect" and "chagrin," I figured the story could only be vastly improved by showing instead of telling.

3: Since Meyers' idea of character development doesn't seem to go beyond describing what people's hair looks like, I thought actors would be able to give the characters a little more substance to grab onto.

4. A movie would get the story out of Bella's first-person narrative so we could watch the story without it being filtered through an impenetrable veil of "OMG EDWARD IS TEH HOTT!!!1!"

See, I started out reading Twilight genuinely wanting to like it. I wanted to go on a fantasy adventure and fall in love with Edward Cullen and make him mix tapes and gay out on some vampire high-jinks, but I felt like I was thwarted at every turn. Every time a new character or intriguing question or potentially interesting conflict was introduced, it was never really followed through or fleshed out or given any interesting insight. As a reader, I felt constantly blueballed (and not just because there was no sex.) Never has a book made me so badly want to write fanfic, if only because I wanted to fix everything wrong with it.

I got the feeling that the filmmakers felt the same way, because everything that the movie changed from the book made the story better. New York Magazine did a whole slideshow thing on why the movie is better than the book, which I mostly agree with. Everything in the movie that was funny on purpose? It wasn't in the book. You have the screenwriter to thank.

I was optimistic about Catherine Hardwicke as director because I thought Thirteen was a compelling and believable movie about teenagers, so I thought she could take the one-dimensional Twilight characters and real 'em up a little. I think she did the best job she could. Bella's high school friends were all much more fun in the movie than the book and Bella seemed realer and smarter.

Mostly, though, I left the theater loving Robert Pattinson TO THE MAX for what he did to Edward. While the book relentlessly emphasizes how suave and gorgeous and perfect and dazzling Edward is, Robert Pattinson plays him as kind of an awkward, twitchy weirdo who's borderline psychotic and occasionally a whiny little bitch. What this tells me about Pattinson, as an actor, is that he really put some thought into the character. I mean, Stephanie Meyer was trying to make him this ultimate romanceturbation hero who she keeps trying to tell us is nonstop dreamy 24/7, but (as many have pointed out) a lot of the stuff he does in the book is kinda creepy, stalkerish, self-loathing, condescending, crazy-mood-swingy and borderline abusive. On top of that, he's a guy who's been 17 for 100 years and never had a girlfriend... and then he starts liking a girl who he is fighting a primal urge to kill every time he's around her. Honestly, that guy would not be suave. That guy would be an awkward, twitchy weirdo who's borderline psychotic and occasionally a whiny little bitch. It's like Robert Pattinson "got" the character more than it's own creator did.

This performance helps the story somewhat by reminding the audience that there actually IS a conflict in the Bella/Edward relationship: That Bella is attracted to Edward even though she really shouldn't be because he is genuinely dangerous. So it makes it feel a little more like a tragic good-girl-falls-for-bad-boy romance than the book is willing to let it be because book Edward is all "yeah, I could theoretically kill you but instead I'm going to give you butterfly kisses and spoon you because I love you like whoa." and Bella's all like "you can do anything you want, no matter how creepy, because I love you and you're perfect and the possibility of you tearing me apart with your teeth and injecting me with excruciatingly painful vampire venom doesn't scare me because yr hot." The sense of danger is never really tangible.

Unfortunately, although the movie did the best it could, I still find myself not 100% buying the romance. I'm still just not quite feeling it. And, for the record, after I saw Twilight, I saw" Zack and Miri Make a Porno" which I thought WAS romantic and made me feel all mushy and want to go home and cuddle my boyfriend.

Still, if someone hasn't read Twilight the book and been like "WTF," I'm not sure they could appreciate the movie for improving on it. I'm sure all those people who actually loved the book and thought it was good will be like "boo! this movie sucks! It changed stuff and left out tons of stuff that was vitally important!" And people who have never read the book at all will be like "are you fucking kidding me? Sparkly vampires?" So maybe there is really no winning.

So I'm sure at this point everyone has heard of this hit book Twilight and the movie thereof. While I have not seen the movie, I have just finished the book and the thought that kept coming to mind throughout was: Are you fucking kidding me?

Look, this book is bad. Shockingly bad. But it's bad in that epic, unselfconscious sort of way that makes me kind of obsessed with it, in the same way I'm obsessed with Showgirls and Trapped in the closet. Although it's bad, it's not that surprising that it's popular. It's full of romantic grandiosity and shoots straight to the heart of teenage girl fantasies about being special and unique and being loved madly by a dreamy bad boy. But... oh god... IT'S SO BAD!

First off, I feel like I need to clarify that I'm not some McSnobbersons who sniffs disdainfully at anything that's not Lit-rah-chah. I heart good writing, but I'm not ashamed to get down with a little popular entertainment. I thought the Harry Potter series was delightful, and in my early 20's I devoured Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and loved every minute of it. But, for reals, Stephanie Meyer make J.K Rowling and Anne Rice look like Nobokov and Dostoyevsky. See, a lot of times I evaluate entertainments on the "could I have done that?" scale. And, honestly, The Harry Potter series and the Vampire Chronicles were pretty detailed with lots of characters and multi-layered plots, and I'm not sure I could pull something like that off. "Twilight," however, I'm pretty sure I could have written piss drunk, typing with my nose.

If someone had told me that this book was written by a 15 year old who'd never kissed a boy, I would have said "well, that makes perfect sense. The tone and writing level is pretty much what I would have done when I was a 15 year old who'd never kissed a boy." It's the fact that it was written by a grown-up mother of 3 with an English degree that amplifies the WTF factor. What? How? It made me want to travel back in time, find my 15 year old self and force her to drop out of school, get her GED and start cranking out overwrought fantasy romance novels.

If you have not read the book, here is the plot:

A girl (Bella) leaves her flaky Mom and moves to a small, rainy town to live with her dad. There's a really hot boy (Edward) who keeps giving her mixed signals that make her obsessed with him. He saves her from a car crash. She finds out he's a vampire. She decides she's in love with him. He starts being nice to her and he's in love with her too! But, uh oh! her blood smells delicious and he wants to kill her! But he controls himself and they kiss! Yay!

Not a lot going on, right? THAT'S 350 FUCKING PAGES OF THE BOOK! The last 150 pages consists of a bad vampire who decides he wants to kill Bella for sport and she has to run away with the help of Edward's hot vampire family, but bad vampire tricks her into meeting him at a dance studio and beats her up and OMG Edward saves her just before he kills her. Then they go to Prom. The end.

OH OH OH... and the bestest part of all: The reason vampires can't go out in the sun? Because they're sparkly. Yes, sparkly. REALLY. I'm going to extrapolate from this that they also ride unicorns and crap gumdrops. I had to put down the book at that point and crack up.

Seriously. 500 pages. Of course, if they cut out Bella's tedious run-throughs of her daily class schedule and the ten million ridiculously adjectivey descriptions of how hot Edward is, the book would probably be a pamphlet. And don't presume that those extra pages were used on extraneous things like, say, character development.. ha ha ho... you wish! There isn't a character in this book who has more depth than a kiddie pool, and the protagonist, Bella, is probably the most spot-on example of a Mary Sue Character since Mary Sue.

But here's the thing... I was kind of looking forward to this book being page-turning popcorn, but at about the halfway mark I started feeling this strange, undefined feeling of frustration that went beyond the fact that there seemed to be no plot. I couldn't put my finger on it... and then, it hit me: The book was written in the style of erotica and I was waiting for the sex. So that part of my brain that likes to spank it to bad literotica.com stores... or, you know, that WOULD if I were into that sort of thing *cough*... was impatient to get the show on the road. Subconsciously, my mind was saying "GET TO THE FUCKING ALREADY!" and once my conscious mind figured that out, I was like "This book was written by a Mormon. There will be no fucking." And then, admittedly, I was a little annoyed. I almost wanted to write the sex scenes myself. They would probably go a little something like this:

I gasped as Edward unzipped his gorgeous, godlike pants, revealing his smooth, white, marble cock. He glared at me with his burning topaz eyes as my fingertips brushed his cold, sparkling, granite dick. My heartbeat quickened. My breath caught. I didn't deserve this. How could I, clumsy, ordinary, plain, clumsy Bella Swan who was only asked to the dance by 3 different lovestruck boys, be so close to a cock so gorgeous, scintillating and godlike? It was like the pale marble cock of Adonis.

In a quick, graceful motion, Edward turned and glared at me. "Don't you see Bella?" he said as he held me in his strong grasp and dry-humped my thigh with annoyance, "I'm a danger to you! You should have nothing to do with me! Every moment you're risking your life!"

"Edward" I gasped "I love you. I will love you forever!" I was in agony thinking of losing him and never again touching his pale, white, cold, gorgeous, sparkling, marble, granite, dazzling, godlike, scintillating Adonis cock. How would I live? He was my life.

He glared at me again with his dazzling, golden eyes and told me with his gorgeous, pale lips "There's something I haven't told you. Something else about my kind."

"What Edward?" I asked breathlessly, "I will love you no matter what. Forever."

He brushed his cold, gorgeous, marble lips close to my clumsy, ordinary ears and whispered "We..."

"What, Edward? I love you. Forever. You can tell me anything."

He gave me his crooked grin and said, "We ejaculate rainbows."


...and so forth. You get the idea.

But, considering how little substance was contained in the 500 pages of Twilight, I figured I could just read the wikipedia synopses of the subsequent books in the series and I could get the rest of the saga without missing anything. Of course, now I feel like I have to go see the movie which I have heard is bad, but I refuse to believe it could possibly be as bad as the book. Also, Robert Pattinson kinda looks like my boyfriend's brother (which was pointed out back when he played Cedric Diggory) which may be funny or awkward, I'm not sure which.

One of the things that I love about New York subway advertising is that the posters are right there on the walls, unobstructed, making it ridiculously easy for people to write on them. I remember feeling disappointed when I was in San Francisco to see that the subway posters are posted inaccessably across the tracks from the commuters, robbing them of the enjoyment of the "subway advertisement dialogue."

I like to think of New York subway advertisements and their inevitable grafitti as a delightful collaboration between media and the public it wishes to woo and influence. The observer is allowed to call "bullshit" or use the media as a springboard to a statement of their own. Results range from the lowbrow (drawing penises going into every open mouth) to the highbrow (scathing indictments of consumerism or sexism). Results are sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes hilarious.

I can't say that in my reckless youth I was never alone in a subway station drunk with a sharpie pen and let one thing lead to another. My personal style was generally more silly. Putting word bubbles with nonsensical catch-phrases, or adding satiric labels with arrows, pop-up-video style. I even once had the rare joy of having someone quote one of my own subway graffiti's back to me, not knowing that it was mine. All that was a long time ago, but I still like to stop and read what people write on posters.

Yesterday, however, I saw some graffiti that surprised me because it was a "genre" I don't think I've really seen before. There was a poster advertising new waterfront high-rise condos with extensive writing on it, which I stopped to read, assuming it would be a cynical tirade about gentrification and class. Much to my surprise, this is what it said:



"Having a 2-bedroom apt in Brooklyn right by the water with an amazing view is the best! The question is how to you get a 2-bedroom apt in Brooklyn right by the water with an amazing view?? Answer: Just make it happen!!!"

Then there was an arrow pointing to the building saying "You R here!"



The thing that made it surprising was that one rarely sees subway graffiti that is so, well, positive. A statement that is, in fact, almost giddily upbeat. I looked at the adjacent ad for Dunkin Donuts flatbread sandwiches and the same person had written on it:

"Life is 2 short. If you want to eat a egg flatbread sandwich EAT IT!!! Just eat 1 every so often-N-your life will be smooth!!"

I thought: "Who are you, deliriously happy subway vandal?" And walked away amused and cheered.

So, awhile back I read the book Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman, which attempts to present different ways in which women operate and are perceived in a business environment. One of the interesting points the author presents is that, while men are more comfortable jumping into a situation half-cocked and sorting things out as they go along, women generally want to be completely prepared before entering a situation.

I imagine this is the combined result of women in male-dominated situations getting more flak if they screw up or appear incompetent, and the fact that women are generally more sensitive about getting said flak and take it worse, emotionally, than a man would. The downside is that this would seem to lead to women seeming more timid or not seizing opportunities as quickly as a man would. The possible upside, however, is that this implies that when such a woman does seize an opportunity, she is probably much better prepared to tackle it. I thought of this recently when I was reading some interesting stats about eating gigantic steaks.

I'm sure most of you have heard of the Big Texan 72 oz. steak challenge, wherein patrons of the Big Texan steakhouse can take the challenge of eating a 72 oz. steak, salad, potato, roll and shrimp cocktail in one hour (without puking). If they succeed, they get the meal for free and bragging rights for life. So according to the Big Texan stats, approximately 50,000 people have made the attempt since 1960, and only 8,500 have succeeded, making the success rate around 17%.

BUT, among women, the success rate is 50%. There are also considerably fewer women who make the attempt. Only about 4-5 per year. What this implies is that, while men will more likely do it on a lark, women probably don't even try unless they actually think they can do it.

I'm sure not all women are like this, but I would say that I probably am. If I were planning to go to the Big Texan and take the 72oz. challenge, I'd be, like, training for six months. I wouldn't just go in there and "give it a try." I don't even know if my crippling fear is of failing or being criticized for failing, but either way, it's not entirely healthy and has undoubtedly held me back in life.

Still, though, if I tell you I'm going to the Big Texan, you can probably safely bet that I'm going to eat that whole steak.

guy1: My hands are bisexual, because I'll hit men OR women.
guy2: Your hands are what?
guy1: Bisexual, because I'll hit men or women.
guy2: What are MY hands, then?
guy1: Well, do you hit girls?
guy2: No, I only hit guys.
guy1: Then your hands are straight.
guy2: But if I only hit guys, aren't my hands gay?

So my downstairs neighbor just told me to check out the Stuff White People Like blog, and, as a white person, I can vouch for the fact that it is totally accurate.