What I've Been Reading Part 1

I've been having a difficult time deciding what to write about, and once I finally hit upon the right topic I found myself staring at a screen filled with a shamefully bad Reviewer Prose. If you haven't heard of that, I'll just say it's what tends to happen when a writer tries too hard to sound detached and professional in their critique of something, and in my experience it generally happens to people who don't know how to write a balance review while still retaining their unique voice or who are incredibly pretentious.

It was easy to fall into that trap while trying to write about Madeleine George's The Difference Between You and Me, primarily because this book was absolutely fucking awful from the first line to the last. Laurie Halse Anderson called it "achingly honest and empowering", and since she wrote Speak, a book which had a rather profound effect on me a few years ago, which not even Kristen Stewart and the Lifetime channel can take away, I decided that between the Anderson seal of approval and a review praising its wit and sexiness (possibly the Holy Grail of lesbian YA fiction) I would put in an InterLibrary Loan request for it. What could it hurt?

Actually, making it all the way through this book was excruciatingly painful, though I managed to do so in under two hours. I suppose that means it wasn't so bad, but then again there was once a time when I could read 600 pages in one evening, so getting through a poorly written YA novel with short pages and medium-sized text in a few hours isn't impressive. I think it would have been better if my expectations for this book had been lower, and really after reading as much lesbian YA fiction (not to mention lesbian fiction in general) as I have, I should have known better than to trust the Anderson endorsement.

There are a few things that just about every lesbian novel, YA or otherwise, has, and I could do an entire post just about that, so I'm only going to briefly discuss them. One thing that generally happens is it's made clear quite quickly whether or not the book is a Lesbian Novel or just a Novel. When it's a Lesbian Novel it usually focuses on coming out and Lesbian Issues and how to accept your Lesbian Identity. If it's just a Novel, then it's usually not a coming out story and the Lesbian Issues are either kept to a minimum or are presented as just Issues We Can All Relate To--because, you know, the author wants to sell books to the heterosexual crowd as well.  

The Difference Between You and Me wants to be both, and it ends up being neither. Jesse, the Randy Dean of this story, though she's not nearly as believable or likable as Randy, is completely okay with her Lesbian Identity, and she has been ever since she came out to her hippie parents at 14. Now, I've reached a point in my life where I don't care if I ever read or see another coming out story again. It's a process I can still relate to, and in some ways you never stop coming out, but I really just want to read and see stories about characters who just happen to be lesbians. You know, the way the heterosexual crowd gets to do. The fact that this wasn't a coming out story worked in its favor at first, but it quickly became clear George wasn't going to bother exploring any of the obvious issues raised by Jesse's secret affair with Emily, who is not a stand-in for Evie, but rather for Reese Witherspoon's slightly psychotic character in Election, and instead she spends the entire novel unsubtly sending a message about Wal-Mart and other mega-corproations. Emily is so goddamn perky she may as well be in an acne cream commercial. Her perkiness even extends to a complete embrace of Corporate America, which Jessee and Esther, (yeah, there's a third main character, and she even gets to narrate a few chapters), the hollowest teen hippies ever, are not happy about when it means corporate sponsored school activities. The thing is, though, Emily could have been a fascinating character. Beneath her obvious obsessive-compulsive tendencies and perfectionism there may have been a stifled girl trying desperately to retain some grip on herself and her world. She all but admits she isn't attracted to her boyfriend, and it's Jesse she's really attracted to, even saying they have a cosmic connection. That's a little hyperbolic for a couple who spend the majority of their time making out in an empty bathroom and avoiding conversation, but that just shows how underdeveloped Emily is. She's nothing but a symbol of all the bright, well-meaning people who get duped by Corporate America, while Jesse and Esther symbolize the fight against corporate oppression.

I would be fine with a YA novel about corporate issues and the perils of letting corporations take over schools. Daria explored that issue rather well in the episode "Fizz Ed" when Ms. Li accepts a contract from a soda company to solve Lawndale High's financial problems. It worked because the show didn't take itself too seriously, and we know Daria as a character well enough to expect her dire predictions to come true and be amused by just how batshit things go by the end. We're in on the joke with Daria, whereas with Jesse and Esther, we're just being preached to. It doesn't matter whether or not I agree with them because the characters are such hollow, underdeveloped stereotypes. Furthermore, George doesn't just reduce the issues raised in the book to their simplest forms, you know, making them easy for a teenager of average intelligence to grasp, she reduces them to an annoying Us vs. Them scenario in which anyone who sees the value of a corporation existing is shallow, homophobic, and hypocritical while anyone who wants to take down corporations is true to themselves, has the greater good in mind, and are unsung heroes. I'm not saying I think Wal-Mart should take over the Earth (more than they already have) or don't prefer small businesses to corporations. I'm just saying the way George handles these issues does not make for an interesting or compelling book. She does not know how to blend issues into her fiction, and it shows.

I could have said more, but this is already too long

A simplified look at the Spice Girls’ insane amount of success would most likely lead one to day say it was the result of hitting the public eye at the right time with the right image. Grunge was over. Riot Grrrl was over. Sure, Bikini Kill’s Singles would come in 1998, but that didn’t reignite the spark. Things had changed dramatically in just the two years since Reject All American, and it’s not surprising that the change involved hyper-sexualized, somewhat cartoonish women selling a thought-free brand of feminism. Now, to 9-year-old me, the phrase “Girl Power” meant something, and I’m glad it did. I hadn’t completely been ossified by cynicism, and I didn’t know a damn thing about PR, image building, target marketing, or the overall way everything, including a complex set of ideas and theories like feminism, eventually gets destroyed in the process of becoming a product. So, I was able to blissfully dance all day on the two feet of empty floor in the room I shared with my stepbrother without ever thinking about what I was really buying when I saved up grade card money and bought a Spice Girls album.

I didn’t think to myself, “Wow, Ginger Spice is only wearing black underwear and a shirt with only two buttons in that photo. That’s an odd thing to market to a girl my age.” I thought, “Ginger Spice is fucking pretty. They’re all so pretty. I want to be like that.” The Spice Girls were a very sexual group, both lyrically and in their wardrobe choices, but a lot of that was lost on me then. I didn’t think in terms of sexiness. My precocity didn’t extend that far.  I just knew I had never been attractive or particularly well-liked, and the Spice Girls were both. I was sure the same thing would happen for me if I followed their example closely enough.

There were only a few things standing in my way.

My mother hates all things feminine, and she spent her childhood happily wearing nothing but jeans and softball shirts. I was somewhat different. From the first moment I was allowed to choose my own clothes, I chose the frilliest dresses within reach. For a few years she went along with it, letting me wear my dresses, tights, and Mary Janes constantly. Back then my hair was thin and fell in gentle curls, and I wasn’t wearing the thick, thick glasses that would dominate every school photo from first through sixth grade.

Seriously, I was fucking blind.

Something happened though, and I can’t pinpoint when exactly it happened, but one morning I wasn’t pretty anymore. This isn’t a long-winded compliment grab. My little child prettiness was gone, and that fact was immediately made clear to me by children and adults alike. Of course, physical beauty doesn’t last, it doesn’t make any more or less valuable, lovable, intelligent, the emphasis on women’s appearance is a way the patriarchy oppresses us, etc, but I didn’t know any of that. I had Anne Shirley crying about having red hair, because, you know, it’s the worst fucking hair color a girl can be cursed with apparently, and my classmates driving that point home at least once a week. So, when I first saw Geri Halliwell with her bottle-red Ginger Spice hair, I was overjoyed.

No sooner had I hit my ugly stage then my mother decided it was time to get in touch with my less feminine side. Oh, I hated my clothes. It felt like I was walking around in someone else’s body. That couldn’t be me in those plain jeans and T-shirt. I was made for lace and velvet and  shoes that clicked with every step, not the clunky sneakers my mother insisted I wear. Later on, I embraced a slightly more masculine version of the same look for a while, because I didn’t have the money to even come close to dressing the way I really wanted to and also by that point I was so disassociated from my body I didn’t care. I wanted clothes that projected strength and didn’t invite anyone to look at me, and we all know femininity equal weakness.

Anyway, it wasn’t just that they were all gorgeous. More importantly, it was that they were a tight-knit group of friends. Despite whatever happened after Geri Halliwell’s departure, at the height of my Spice Girls love they represented the possibilities of friendship with other girls. I’ve never been one to have patience with women who claim to be “different” from other women and who “just can’t stand girls; guys are so much better to hang out with.” Sure, some women may prefer male friends, but the majority of the time phrases like that are uttered, it’s the result of internalized misogyny. I could do a whole rant about this issue, but that’s for another post. The point is, the fact that they were a group of women who heavily played up the idea that they were all good friends is still pretty fucking revolutionary for a successful mainstream pop act. They acted as a unit. There was no lead vocalist. There were no photos with one pushed closer to the front; they always appeared on equal footing.

As introverted as I am, I still really want a small group of people to be close to, and that’s never really happened. I’m not saying I don’t have wonderful friends. I do. I just can count them on one hand, and they don’t really overlap. The appeal of the Spice Girls for me, especially after seeing Spiceworld, was that they were like a puzzle, with each member providing a vital piece. They had all the camaraderie of a group that’s known each other for years and spent a lot of time together. I responded to that a lot; it was exactly what I had always wanted. Sure, they were all picked by a record company, but by the time they became international superstars they had already spent a few years living and working together. Things may have fallen apart later on, beginning, I would argue with the departure of Geri Halliwell, but there was a time when they actually enjoyed being in the same room together. I haven't read any criticism specifically targeting the implosion of the group on a personal level, but I'm sure it's out there. "That's what happens when you get a group of girls together, you know." The thing is, no-one ever snits about whether the Beatles liked each other or not at the end--because boys get along always, you know, and when they don't it's respected. Also, no-one ever seems to feel the need to comment on what dicks the Beatles could be either. Those are separate rants, though.

When the Spice Girls were at the height of their success, there really weren’t any girl pop groups to compete with them, and I think that’s very important. It had a lot to do with how unique they ended up being. When the Britney-Christina-Mandy-Jessica-Other Girls I Can’t Remember the Names Of Wars began each girl was defined in opposition to the other girls. You could pick which brand you liked best, but I really never saw that much difference between them. I had the first two Britney Spears albums, but they were played most often by my stepbrother. Singing along to syrupy songs about love didn’t appeal to me, in part because the kind of love I dreamed about was too fucking epic for a 3 minute pop song written by a songwriting team, and also because I was just getting over pop music in general. 

 The Spice Girls' first two albums sound incredibly dated when compared to the pop music of 2012, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're bad. I'm not saying they're good. They're just not bad. They're catchy as hell, which is Requirement #1 for a pop album. I still remember every word to every song, and I can sing them with ease. One of the things that makes the first two Spice Girls albums so interesting is just how much creative input the Girls themselves had. Officially they're listed as "co-writers", but even that's kind of impressive. According to Geri Halliwell's memoir If Only the ideas and most of the lyrics for their first album were thought up while the Girls were sharing a house and waiting for the record company to do something with the group it had assembled. Now, they and their team of professionals were not gifted songwriters. You won't find lyrics worthy of Bob Dylan or Tori Amos, but the songs were never meant to be works of art. Maybe the Girls themselves would disagree, and after reading If Only I wouldn't be surprised if Geri Halliwell disagreed. If taken for what they were intended to be, their songs are actually pretty dark and interesting in comparison to other pop songs, especially most of what I hear on the radio these days. I wouldn't say they were a feminist group, but there are definitely feminist elements at work, even if that wasn't the original intention. 

They never begged for male attention. They always set the terms, and they always came from a place of confidence. Repeatedly they refer to a strong support system of female friends, and again, I can't stress how fucking revolutionary that is. There are no songs about how far they'll go to get the guy, no songs about that bitch who took him away, no Madonna/Whore complex bullshit. They sang sexual songs that weren't dirty. The Girls were all at least 23 when their rise to fame began. It makes sense for them to approach sex and relationships from a perspective a 16 year-old wouldn't, and they did. They didn't apologize about having sexual desires nor did they use them to make some bogus statement about how "empowering" it is to fuck someone. Listening to "2 Become 1" now, I hear a lot of corniness in the lyrics, but I'm still a little impressed that a mainstream pop group managed to make a song about safe sex sound so classy and romantic (by pop music standards.) I can't help but think if one of them had made a foray into the glorious land of the lesbians and felt the urge to write a song about it what they ended up with wouldn't have been nearly as offensive and just plain awful as Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl."


Which brings me to my last point. When women get together in groups without men bad things happen. Homophobia is a tool of sexism, after all, and I understood that before I read Suzanne Pharr, even if I couldn’t put it so articulately. For me, loving the Spice Girls was an act of rebellion, and they'll always have a special place in my fangirl heart for that very reason. Every time I walk into one of those "antique malls" and see a booth full of pop culture memorabilia that includes Spice Girls merchandise I get a little giddy, and for a moment I'm 9 years old again, only this time I can have all the campy Girl Power-infused goodness I want. My mother didn't spend much time objecting to the content of the Spice Girls' songs--she never actually listened to one, as far as I know--or the skimpiness of their clothes. My mother is too unique for that. Instead she focused her criticism on a few lesbian rumors she'd heard. Yes, dear readers, my mother lectured me endlessly about liking a pop group rumored to have lesbians in it, and when that had no effect--well, that's a kind of twisted story. Suffice it to say if my mother could have sent me to True Directions, she would have. I find it incredibly ironic how gay I turned out considering her efforts began well before I reached the age of sexual awakening.

I may do a post reviewing If Only, which was a surprisingly good book, if anyone's interested. 

Movie Vs Book Vol 1: Whip It

I really didn’t like Juno. I avoided watching it the first year it was out because of all the hype, but one afternoon in 2010, during the Georgia equivalent of a blizzard, I found myself watching it, and I must say the experience was pleasantly surprising. Ellen Paige won me over immediately, and although I’ve read a lot of reviews criticizing the movie for making the characters, hers especially, too clever and too interested in things that predate them, that’s one criticism I still vehemently disagree with. When I was 16, I knew people who talked like Juno. My best friend talked like Juno. I talked like Juno. At one point we decided to combine 1920s and 1960s slang terms to create a whole new style, but that project never really went anywhere. The point is, Juno’s character is the one who seems the most real, and that’s got a lot to do with Ellen Paige, who manages to make her seem really smart and mature but not cynical. I have to admit, I find a heroine whose top three bands are Iggy and the Stooges, The Runaways, and Patti Smith and yet who is still shocked and upset when she discovers Jason Bateman’s character is actually a douchebag to be incredibly refreshing. As much as I hate The Privilege, I like that an obviously privileged heroine is actually acting like one in this movie.

That being said, I still really don’t like it. After watching it a second time it hit me just how in love with itself this movie is, and as much as I enjoy the scene where Juno and Mark play an acoustic cover of “Doll Parts” it just isn’t enough to overcome the smugness that permeates just about every other scene.

All that was to say, when I heard about Whip It I had high hopes based solely on the fact that it starred Ellen Paige. I didn’t even need to know it was about an all-women roller derby league, an “alternative” female coming of age story, or even that it actually had a solid female friendship at its core (What? Those can’t exist in movies with straight women!). I actually wasn’t disappointed by it, which made the $7 I paid for the DVD a bargain. 

This is one of this movies that gets so many things right it's easy to forgive what it gets wrong. I'm only mildly annoyed by the bucket of Hipster Lite that was thrown onto Paige's character Bliss, and as with Juno, that has everything to do with Paige's acting. She takes what could easily have been an irritating, spineless character and makes her into a shy, misunderstood, and (mildly) conflicted character. When the Popular Kids decide it would be clever to (again, mildly) taunt her by asking if she's "alternative now" her response is, "Alternative to what?" That's not a brilliant line. That's not a particularly memorable line. That's not even a great comeback for a regular person who doesn't have a professional writing her dialogue, though it's not the worst I've heard, but the way Paige says it makes it sound brilliant. Her obvious confusion about just the hell they're trying to accomplish--Is it a real question? Is she supposed to be insulted?-- completely sells the moment. That's how a lot of moments in this movie go. The script isn't bad, but if it were in the hands of different actors its flaws would shine through a lot sooner. 

So, when I found the Shauna Cross YA novel this movie is based on I wasted $1 on it. Why not? It can't be that bad, I thought. I liked the movie. 

I was right. It isn't that bad. It's fucking awful. I was skeptical about Drew Barrymore as a director, but it turns out she's actually the reason this movie turned out as well as it did. Cross wrote the screenplay, but based on the novel it's clear who made this story as likeable as it is.

The most logical place to begin with this book is with Bliss. At the beginning of the movie she's soft-spoken and shy, but it's clear there's more to her than what most people see, which makes her transformation into badass Derby Girl something the audience cheers on. We want to see her find her voice almost as much as she wants to find it. My mother never put me in beauty pageants, but she did push me really hard for as long as I can remember to succeed academically. Like Bliss, I didn't really complain about it, mostly because I knew she was trying to shove me out of the abyss. The movie makes clear that's exactly what Bliss's mother is trying to do for her, and while I have issues with pageants, the fact is she's always presented as stable, loving parent who thinks that's the best way to help her daughter succeed. We don't see Bliss have a truly confrontational moment with her mother about her aversion to life as a pageant star until her roller derby career is threatened, and everything about the scene works. She sounds like a teenage girl struggling to assert an identity that hasn't even finished forming, which is exactly how she should sound. She's slowly and painfully beginning to become herself and trying not to hurt the people she loves in the process.


 The Bliss of the novel, on the other hand, is decidedly different. 

I fucking hate her. 

On a more objective note, her character in the novel was a disappointment when compared to her character in the film. I expected there to be differences, but I wasn't prepared for the movie to be an improvement. That has only happened twice that I can think of. First it happened with Girl Interrupted, but I wasn't too upset about it because Susanna Kaysen's book isn't a linear narrative; it's more of a series of vignettes. A lot had to be changed to make it into a Hollywood movie starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie. The second time it happened was with Revolutionary Road, and I'm tempted to say that's just because it stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, and those two have enough chemistry to convince me to buy a ticket to watch them watch paint dry. My love for them individually is pretty great, but my love for them as a couple reaches frightening, not to mention embarrassing, heights.


Back to the point. While there is a certain amount of authenticity to Cross's writing of Bliss in the book, there's nothing likeable about her. The story is narrated by her, and while her voice is interesting at times, it's almost impossible to distinguish it from countless other "typical" teenage girl narrators in YA fiction. I could use a lot of great adjective to describe her, but the best way to sum up her character is to say she's bratty and naive. Now, I don't mind the naivete; I like when 16 year olds act like 16 year olds. As many completely batshit experiences as I had had by 16, and as mature as I was at that age, I was still pretty fucking naive at times, and I've got a few stories to illustrate that. That being said, there's a difference between writing a teenager who doesn't act and sound like 25 year old and writing a teenager who epitomizes every stereotype in existence. I find it especially frustrating because there are so few substantive heroines in mainstream YA fiction. Furthermore, there are no "alternative" heroines in mainstream YA fiction that I can think of aside from Mia in the Princess Diaries series and Samantha from the All-American Girl series. They're all pretty standard representations of what adults who market to teenagers think teenage girls act like--which is to say, they're misogynistic caricatures more often than not. In some cases, like Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicolson series, this actually works. The thing that makes that series work though is the fact that it's almost a parody of the whole genre. Georgia Nicolson is an updated, female version of Adrian Mole, who is the only YA male main character who is as painfully naive and self-centered as most YA female main characters that I've come across. 


I'll just come right out and say I read a lot of YA fiction aimed at teenage girls at one point. Each book was the literary equivalent of eating a whole box of eclairs in one sitting: very satisfying but horrible for me. It's a topic for another post, though. 

Unlike in the movie, the Bliss of the novel is mean-spirited. She spends half the book complaining about her parents not understanding her and how "totally uncool" they are, which, okay, she's 16, fine, but the problem is we're never shown anything that justifies her supposed unhappiness. I get I'm not the target audience for this book, and when I was 16 I doubt I would have liked it. The thing is, a lot of people in their late teens and early twenties still read YA fiction and almost nothing else. It's sad,. but true. I went to college with more people like that than I could count, which probably had a lot to do with why college was so goddamn disappointing. So, that makes the representation of women and girls in YA fiction even more important because the way these people view women and girls will be affected by these books. It will perpetuate misogynistic stereotypes about how women behave. That doesn't mean every heroine has to be a paragon of maturity or goodness or intelligence. It just means they need to be well-rounded, interesting, and relatable--and not just to the women who fantasize about finding a boyfriend who will magically make all their problems go away. 


The brings me to my last few points. In both versions the love interest is a douche bag, and it's rather obvious to everyone but Bliss. The thing I really like about both versions though is they end with her getting over him, in spite of, to quote the movie, "giving him everything." Now, this phrasing carries some heavy implications, most obviously that the most important thing a woman can ever do is let a man be the one to sleep with her for the first time. I'm not saying there isn't usually some kind of emotional connection between a person and the person they sleep with for the first time because there almost always is, if not before than after for at least one of them. Nothing exists in a vacuum. The problem comes when it's only female characters who do all the talking about "giving everything." It's only female virginity that's important. No-one gives a flying fuck about a guy's virginity. That's not to say individual guys don't have emotional connections to the women they sleep with; it's just to say the culture at large pretends they don't and would have us believe they don't--unless it's The Girl They Love. You know, the Future Wife character. Sex with her means something; those others, if there were any, were just whores. He's already forgotten their names. The thing both the book and movie get right, though, is Bliss is devastated by her boyfriend's betrayal but she grows up a little and moves on in the end. In the book she's even allowed to talk about how much she enjoyed sex, which in this strange world of Sexual Experimentation and Kink = Empowerment for Women (where are you Shulamith Firestone?) that seems like something I shouldn't have to praise, but the sad truth is most stories about young women still place sex in the Only If You're In Love box, which is problematic since there aren't really any stories aimed at men like that. 


Okay, two more things, and I'll stop pontificating. These are two of my favorite moments from each. In the book there's a scene where Bliss is going through a stack of records at a party. She finds The Velvet Underground and Nico. "What's coming out of the stereo is like a genre unto itself, a charming, fucked-up fairy tale that immediately breaks my heart in all the best ways" is her description of the event. I don't think I need to explain why I love this scene, or why I love how obsessed with music the book version of Bliss is. I want more heroines with actual interests. Seriously. We fucking need them. 

The last thing is a scene from the movie. It happens in the book as well, but it's a lot more satisfying in the movie.  It comes in around the halfway point, and it's what happens when Bliss's bullies meet Babe Ruthless. I've always had a problem with female characters not meeting their bullies head-on (Yay repressed female anger!), and this scene just makes me happy.

I Didn't Finish My Planned Post On Time

I started writing a post last comparing Whip It the movie to the book, but I neglected to finish it this morning. Amanda, at Fig and Thistle posted this questionnaire, and I stole it. What can I say? I like filling these things out, and I can do it with a headache. 

1. Sum yourself up in twenty-five words or less:  I’m an introvert who can’t think in straight lines. I have the hair of a Tolkein Elf and mermaid lovechild but none of the grace.
2. Do you read? If so, why, what, and how often?  I usually read every day. The times I read vary, but I almost always read before bed. It quiets my brain. I read biographies, poetry, trashtastic historical fiction, Victorian novels, Modern novels, primarily I read women writers, dry, darkly comic novels and stories….
3. Do you blog? If so, your blog’s name & focus (classic books? YA? art? college? writing? movies? miscellaneous? etc?): My blog is called Cornflake Girl, for now. It doesn’t have enough posts to have an immediately discernible theme or subject, but I want it to be about books, feminism, music, class, and my life.
4. Your favorite adult book(s) &/or children’s book(s)?  The Bell Jar, Sense and Sensibility, Wuthering Heights, Mrs. Dalloway, A Confederacy of Dunces, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
5. Your favorite movie(s)? Titanic, Ghost World, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Pulp Fiction
6. Your favorite quote(s) from literature? “I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.” And

“Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you—oh, God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?' —Emily Brontë Wuthering Heights

“He was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold-hearted and rather selfish is to be ill-disposed”—Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility

“If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
 "You mean,’ Captain Penderton said, ‘that any fulfillment obtained at the expense of normalcy is wrong, and should not be allowed to bring happiness. In short, it is better, because it is morally honourable, for the square peg to keep scraping about the round hole rather than to discover and use the unorthodox square that would fit it?"--Carson McCullers Reflections in a Golden Eye

7.      Most challenging book you’ve read in your life?  Les Miserables

8.      Book(s) you’re currently reading, if any?  I’m rereading Save Me the Waltz and diving into a stack of Zelda Fitzgerald biographies and going to finally read Middlemarch.

9. Book(s) you’re most looking forward to reading?  Sylvia Plath’s Letters Home. I’m also going to reread her Journals.
10. Author whose works you’re curious to explore soon?  George Eliot—I need to read more of her, Anne Sexton—I need to reread her more carefully
11. Book you’re most scared to read but might read eventually, anyway? None really.
12. Book you have re-read the most times in your life (or if you hate re-reading, just write that!)  Wuthering Heights followed closely by The Bell Jar
13. If you could spend a day in any era, where would you go (including “I would not go anywhere! I LOVE the 21st century!”)?  I have two favorites. Either England in October 1962 or England just before WWI. The clothes are a little less constricting than Victorian dresses but still gorgeous and I could have tea with Virginia Woolf.

          

14. If you could be any character in literature, who would you be (and why)? It’s impossible to pick just one. In a lot of ways I’m like Elinor Dashwood, but at the same time I’d really like to be someone like Cathy or Marianne. Despite the consequences, I envy their ability to let themselves feel things so completely and openly.

15. Do you love Jane Austen or want to “dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone”? (Phrase borrowed from Mark Twain).
1. Why? (for either answer)?  I adore Jane Austen. She was a brilliant, witty, far ahead of her time writer.
2. Favorite and/or least favorite Austen novel?  Sense and Sensibility is my favorite. Pride and Prejudice is my least favorite.
16. Your favorite season?  Autumn. If I could choose a second I’d go with winter.
17. Do you prefer dawn or twilight?  Dawn.
18. Your favorite memory from childhood?  Reading in the woods during winter
19. Some of your interests beyond books?  Writing, creating the clothes I want cheaply, music, feminism, pop culture, history, word games, walks, hilariously bad movies
20. What question do you wish I had asked? (Ask and answer it!):  I’m doing two. What writers do you enjoy as people but are less than thrilled by their work? Edna St Vincent Millay, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Radclyffe Hall. I like parts of each other work, but overall I’m more interested in their biographies than their writing.

What was the first poem you ever read or the first poem you ever loved? The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes was both. I read it when I was 11.

In Which I Do Some Pretentious Rambling

When I was eight I began writing what I referred to as a novel. I had a red folder filled with notebook paper I carried around with me everywhere I went, just in case a chance to write a few paragraphs arose. I even, deluded and ambitious child that I was, tried create illustrations and cover art for what I was sure would eventually be a work of brilliance. I never finished it, though. I never even reached the halfway mark. At some point I realized it probably wasn’t very good, and with my best friend Fear of Failure’s encouragement, I just stopped working on it one day. The folder got thrown away during a move about two years later, and I haven’t really thought about it since except to cringe at the absurdity of my half-baked creation.

I remember perfectly what it was about, but all I’m willing to say is that it had a first-person narrator. I really enjoyed first-person narration as a child, and reading things like The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar made me love it even more. I have a lot more issues with Holden Caulfield now than I did when I was 12, but one of the few things I still like about that book is Holden’s voice. Yeah, he’s whiny, homophobic, lazy, and etc, but he is wholly himself, instantly recognizable. It sounds cliché even to me, but creating a character like that isn’t easy. Believe me when I say I’ve read a lot of fucking books, and there aren’t that many characters I can immediately recognize just based on one or two random sentences.

Of course, now that I’ve said that my head is full of characters I could name based on just a few random sentences.

Anyway, it didn’t take very long for me to realize I can’t write first-person fiction. (Whether or not I can write third-person fiction is debatable. I’m generally inclined to say I can’t do that either, but I keep trying anyway.) I’ve tried creating first person narrators, and the results were atrocious. Michelle Tea heroines look like interesting, complex characters next to mine, and since aside from Trish in Rose of No Man’s Land, she basically just writes the same thinly disguised version of herself getting into the same shenanigans ad nauseum, that’s saying something.  All my heroines end up sounding exactly like me rather than like themselves, which had a lot of do with why I abandoned most of my projects before finishing them. I always knew the handful of pages I’d written weren’t good enough, and the thought of forcing a short story born of self-indulgence onto other people was more than I could handle. In hindsight, however, I realize I didn’t have that many people to force those hypothetical stories on, and like Daria, I would probably have ended up trying to avoid ever doing anything with them.

I gave up trying to write fiction in first person and settled for trying to write in third person. I daren’t venture a guess as to whether or not those attempts have been successful, though I can say with some certainty my early work was awful. Rereading it doesn’t induce violent cringing fits, but rather, I see now where I could improve things and what parts are simply beyond salvaging. I think that’s probably a sign of growth.

Aside from these few posts and papers for class, only perhaps three of which I took any interest in at all, I haven’t written anything in months. I either haven’t wanted to or only managed to write a few lines before deciding it would be a waste of time to go any further. With my trusty Fear of Failure entwining itself ever more into my hair, my creativity didn't need a pocketful of stones to sink. It just went, and nothing I did could bring it back. 

But maybe that's changing. I hope it is because walking around feeling as though your brain was mush all along and you were just fooling yourself with those ideas about being intelligent or even marginally articulate is, to put it mildly, a rather horrible feeling. 

This List Uses British Spellings, and I Like That.

I stole this list from Fig and Thistle. I like filling out questionnaires, and I was in the mood to do another post.

Do you snack while you read? If so, favourite reading snack:
No. I’ve tried, but I either forget I was supposed to be snacking or drop the book.

What is your favourite drink while reading?
I don’t really have one. It depends on what time of day I’m reading. Sometimes I venture into the land of caffeinated beverages if I want to stay up especially late to finish reading something.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
I hate writing in books. All through college I was told to write in my books, but I couldn’t do it. During my last semester, while taking British Literature II, I convinced myself there was nothing sacred about a cheap English Romantic poetry anthology and finally underlined a few things and made a few margin notes, but it didn’t become a habit. When I die my books will probably still be in pristine shape, and if I end up famous there’ll be nothing especially interesting for collectors to search for.

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?
I use bookmarks. I have a nice Virginia Woolf bookmark I’ve been using for about five years.

Fiction, non-fiction, or both?
I think I tend to read more fiction, but I love non-fiction. It really depends on my overall mood. I get seized by urges to read everything I can find on a particular subject or by a particular author sometimes.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of a chapter, or can you stop anywhere?
I like reading to the end of a chapter, but I prefer to read to an even break. For instance, if the chapter begins on page 37 I’ll probably read to page 40 before I stop.

Are you the type of person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you?
I threw Heavier Than Heaven across the room the first time I tried to read it, but rather than throw the book I usually just start arguing with it out loud.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away?
I prefer using context clues to try and figure out what the word means. Sometimes I’ll go and look it up if it’s especially strange or interesting. I have a giant thesaurus, and it’s fun to have an excuse to get it out. You know, besides my forays into literary pretension.

What are you currently reading?
The Wise Virgins by Leonard Woolf. I should have finished it yesterday, but instead I put in a quality hour of staring at the wall.

What is the last book you bought?
A brand new copy of The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers for $0.25 at a thrift store.

Are you the type of person that reads one book at a time, or can you read more than one?
I can read more than one at a time, but I don’t usually. I read more than one at a time when I was reading books for class, but I tended to focus more on one book until I finished it and then finish the others.

Do you have a favourite time/place to read?
I like reading at night best. I like reading outdoors during the winter.

Do you prefer series books or stand alones?
Stand-alones. I haven’t read very many series that held up overall. Lemony Snickett’s A Series of Unfortunate Events was wonderful right up until the end. The Harry Potter series started disappointing me during book five, and it got worse during books six and seven. I don’t want to talk about what a let-down Deathly Hallows was.

Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over?
This one took a lot of thought because as much as I tell people to read Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, I was sure I tell them to read other authors as well. I recommend the Brontës a lot, especially when it’s someone who reads bad romance novels or I just want to give a good, general recommendation.

How do you organize your books? (by genre, title, author's last name, etc.)
I organize them by size. That seems to be the best way to fit the selection of books I have with me into the limited bookshelf space I currently have. Once upon a time I had a books organized by author and type (genre/era for fiction, subject for non-fiction), but the majority of my books have been boxed up and stored in various places for about seven years now. I have my old books arranged together, my Woolf and Plath books all together.

I Read TATU Fanfiction, and It Didn’t Say Anything About Them Not Really Being Lesbians

I’ve read at least a dozen times about the mystical thing that tends to happens to girls’ confidence once they reach puberty—you know, that it completely disappears, and all those little girls who proudly proclaimed they could indeed become president and didn’t give a flying fuck how many Twinkies they ate suddenly become very concerned with vital issues—you know, being acceptable to their male peers. Now, before everyone starts jumping out of their seats yelling a variation of, “I didn’t do that! I know girls who did, though”, let me just add this: You probably did. You may not have realized it. You may not have even wanted to. It may not have even been that noticeable. The fact is, we all most likely compromised or inconvenienced (to keep things simple) ourselves to fit into the heterosexist paradigm for at least a few seconds at some point during adolescence, and I’m sure a lot of people haven’t stopped yet, if they even notice. My foray into this strange and awful world didn’t last very long. I wasn’t very good at it, and I didn’t really want to be. As arrogant as it may sound, I have no doubt I could have forced myself into the role expected of me and done exceptionally well there. 

I knew how to do it. I still know how to do it.  I just didn’t know why I should bother then, and I still don’t really know. There’s a difference between fitting in just enough to get by and partaking in any of the mind games which, based on my observations, are part of socializing. Anyway, I’m rather introverted, and so being socially isolated was, for the most part, not a problem, and when you combine that with thoughts about whether or not the fabric of daily life is just a series of agreed upon fictions, you get a middle school girl who doesn’t socialize and doesn’t really care to. 

Of course, that was simply unacceptable. 

To say our culture has a troubled relationship with adolescent girls is more than an understatement. I’m not going to go into a detailed discussion about it, but it’s clear we don’t know what to do with them. They’re not children, and they’re not grown women. They have the minds of children in a lot of ways, but they’re incredibly sexualized at every turn. Sure, there’s a lot of confusion about how to handle teenage boys as well, but I don’t know of a male equivalent for that disturbingly misused word “Lolita.”

You see, when I started making that wondrous transition from child to young adult everything in my life changed instantly. Suddenly it mattered that I didn’t obsessively tape glossy photos of pouting guys to my walls. It mattered that I didn’t get invited to the “cool” gatherings hosted by my classmates. It mattered that I Google’d the word “lesbian” and forgot to erase the browser history. 

Okay, that one I could have understood the adults in my life freaking out over a little had I actually been stupid enough to do it. Fortunately, I only did my research at school, on the computer in the back, and always erased the browser history. 

None of these things mattered to me, but rather, they mattered to the adults in my life. My mother is baffled by me now, so I’m not that surprised she was baffled by me then. Charismatic and extroverted, she was always the most popular person in the room. Everyone knew her, and everyone loved her, even the people she chased with a hammer just the day before. I’m sure that made me seem even stranger than I really am, but for all the “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” and “What do you mean you weren’t invited?” she at least never found fault with my intelligence level. On the other hand, there was her husband, who, for reasons I’m still puzzling over, hated me from age 11, which, surprise, surprise, was the age puberty began. It was a lot of fun too. I was developing the body of a fertility goddess at a time when my female classmates wore padded bras over flat chests and hoped no-one called them on it, and you bet your shapely, Sheela-Na-Gig ass it was noticed. 

A current of tension had always run through our relationship, but it was nothing to the animosity that suddenly began simmering beneath the surface of our interactions. At the time I didn’t understand where any of it came from. I ignored the tension between us because it didn’t demand attention, and a part of me just didn’t want to think about it. It was easier to think about the nature of reality instead. 

You’re probably wondering where in the fuck I’m going with this, but don’t worry. We’re staying out of Dorothy Allison-Land today, though this post has quickly become far heavier than I originally intended. Someday I will destroy everything within me but the icy core of cynicism. 

 I digress. 

As this post evolved in my head I realized a certain amount of backstory was needed to round it out. Earlier this week I played Pretty on the Inside a few times in preparation for the second post in my Courtney Love series (obviously not this post), and it quickly became clear something wasn’t right. Something was missing. I heard the songs. I enjoyed them, but no connection was made. Is that a cause for panic? No, but it’s disconcerting given the role the first two Hole albums played in helping me learn to articulate my anger. 

The problem, I later realized, was actually rather absurd. Simply put, I can only connect to music if I’m completely alone. There can be no chance anyone else can hear it. I enjoy it just fine in the company of others, and I enjoy it when it plays in the background while I do daily tasks. I just don’t feel the same things I do when I’m alone in a room listening through headphones.

See? Absurd. 

There’s a story, though, which I think explains things somewhat. I always thought my preference for listening to music privately was the result of growing up in tiny, crowded spaces where everyone could just about always hear what you were saying and see what you were doing. Even during the few brief times I had a room to myself someone had a problem with the door being closed. The concept of introversion or even the basic need for private time was, apparently, just not something anyone around me was acquainted with, and I either ignored the horrible sense of intrusion or closed the door anyway, consequences be damned.

During the height of the pubescent turmoil I had two favorite bands: Evanescence and TATU. Yes, I realize that’s funny. At least I never got caught up in the boy band crazy of the late 90s, but then again, I’m not sure what appeal they would have had for a girl who tried to imagine what Prince Cornelius from Thumbelina would have looked like as a woman. So, it shouldn’t be too difficult to understand the appeal of the studio fabricated duo from Russia. It also didn’t hurt that one of them had red hair. Evanescence, on the other hand, allowed me to indulge my unhappiness without thinking about it. They were just melodramatic enough. My comfort book at this point was Wuthering Heights, after all. 

When I bought the first Evanescence album my mother stared at it for so long I wondered if she wasn’t trying to change the cover to a less offending photo using only the power of her mind. 

 Finally, she said, “Why don’t you ever listen to people who are pretty?” I found this somewhat ironic given how much she discouraged my love for the Spice Girls a few years earlier. Sure, they had a tendency to dress rather, shall we say, provocatively, especially for a band so obviously marketed to very young girls, but you can’t say they weren’t pretty. In fact, that was part of their appeal for me. Even at eight I wanted to be as attractive as they were. “Looks aren’t everything,” I replied. “It’s the music I want.” Secretly, though, I thought Any Lee was fucking gorgeous, and there’s no other way to describe it. I didn’t want to be her; I just wanted to be near her. 

 That little exchange mostly ended the discussion. When I got the TATU album my mother wasn’t around, so it took a few weeks for her to question the content of my new acquisition. That exchange carried a level of awkwardness I don’t know how to describe properly. If you haven’t seen the liner notes for the American 

 release of 200 Km/H in the Wrong Lane, well, you’re missing some great softcore porn for men.

 This is the best version I could find. 

  I could do a whole post just about the way these two were marketed during that brief period when people actually had a vague idea who they were. To be honest, it’s a little disturbing if you think about it, but at the time I didn’t see it that way. Burgeoning feminist sensibility be damned.  I wanted to see girls kissing other girls, and if they wanted to sing angsty songs about it, well, that was even better. I was unaware of the controversy surrounding them, the suspicions that their “relationship” was a publicity stunt, so it was easy to sit in the back of computer class, hide my headphones with my hair, and watch the “All the Things She Said” video over and over without a second thought. 

The only problem was, I inherited my father’s need to talk about things. It’s horrible. I’m like Anne Sexton without the talent. I also think I was just angry and tired of waiting for things to boil over on their own. I wanted something, anything, to happen. So, I started talking. Had I been honest with myself I would have realized the people I was telling things to couldn’t be trusted.

 I really wasn’t prepared for just how fast everything changed. I didn’t have control over the situation or even an idea of what to expect next. All I could do was my best imitation of an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force. Perhaps it would have made things easier if I’d toned down my eccentricities, made more of an effort to be the bubbly, conventionally pretty girl everyone wanted me to be, but I really don’t think it would have helped. For a while, I was sure I not only created the entire situation but could have diffused it if I’d just been less of a stubborn little bitch. Now, I’m not so sure. Something happened when I stopped being a child, and I don’t know if anything I did could have changed it. There’s nothing a woman can do to make her boyfriend stop hitting her, but odds are she’ll tell herself there is, at least until she can admit the truth. It was the same sort of situation. 

What does all of this have to do with my compulsion to use headphones? Well, my mother’s husband had a habit of taking my things. I don’t mean as a punishment. That would have required actually telling me. He preferred to take things while I was gone and pretend to know nothing about anything being missing while I frantically tore my room apart. It started small and eventually I found myself listening as my diary from sixth grade was read aloud by a divorce lawyer. There was a point when I didn’t know what to expect each time I walked into my room. The only incident I ever told my mother about was when I found my CDs missing. It was like a switch was flipped. I didn’t care if I got another talk from my mother about how better things would be if I would just start liking boys or stop wearing so much black. Taking the photos off the wall and leaving the tape used to hold them up behind was one things, but fucking taking my CDs was another. I didn’t care how trite the lyrics are, how painfully overwrought, how disgustingly marketed the acts were, those two albums and Emily Brontë made me happy damn it. 

That’s when I started only listening to things with headphones, even if it was just me in the house. Before when I spent time alone at home I played whatever I wanted as loud as I wanted, but after that I only played music when someone else wanted to. I made a copy of the TATU album, left it unlabeled, and gave the original to one of my few friends to hold onto for a while. Eventually, she got the honor of hiding my VHS copy of But I’m a Cheerleader, helpfully stolen from Blockbuster and given to me in the eighth grade by the first guy I pretended to date.

Story Time Vol. One: How I Almost Got Kidnapped

When I was a child every time I found myself subjected to yet another strange group of children the question always asked, once the perpetually popular “Where do you go to church?” had made the rounds, was “Who’s your father?” Now, I could probably spend five pages going on about the fact that almost no-one ever cared to ask who my mother was and why that’s significant, but since last weekend was Father’s Day, I’ll refrain. I always had a lot of trouble with this question because my answer was, “I don’t have one.” Obviously, I didn’t mean in the literal sense—though being an Athena-eqsue creature would have been rather cool—but the strange group of children tended to react as though I did. I’m not sure if they were all just that stupid or if they were intrigued thought incredulity would drag the Great Secret out of me.

Now that I think about it, I should have responded with something like: “Well, my father is actually Elvis. My mom found him wandering around in the desert mumbling about aliens, and he’s been living in our spare room ever since.”

Now, I understand I should have responded with at least my father’s name; it didn’t matter if I hadn’t seen him in years. If not, I was supposed to respond with my stepfather’s name, but really, I didn’t see any reason to do that. In my strange as all hell little child mind, that would have been lying, and if there’s one thing I really, really fucking hated as a child, it was lying. Strange, considering what an art the adults in my life made of it. Anyway, he wasn’t my father, and we all knew it. Depending on how old I was, he didn’t even like me that much, if at all, so why go around handing out fake titles? But I didn’t know how to articulate that at eight, so it became another entry on the list of reasons why I was socially isolated.

Anyway, I realized by saying, “I don’t have one”, I was also implying, “And I don’t need one.” To be honest, it never occurred to me that I might, or that some people end up spending their entire lives freaking out because their dads didn’t pay enough attention to them. I’m sure the same is true for mothers, but let’s be honest, no-one goes around talking about Mommy Issues with the same ease as they do Daddy Issues. I’m sure living in a patriarchal culture has absolutely nothing to do with that.

I realize I’m not going to help fight my reputation as cold and unfeeling by saying I didn’t feel a loss when my father stopped making the effort to occasionally show up and see me, but I really didn’t. The man was fucking crazy, and if I didn’t want to end up writing Dorothy Allison’s next book for her, I’d tell you about it. There were a few times when I got older, after he resurfaced and them disappeared again twice, when I wondered, “Is it me?”

That didn’t last long though. Why?

Because fuck him, that’s why.

Anyhow, I decided to commemorate the most recent round of, “What do you mean you don’t talk to your dad? Doesn’t that make you sad?” with a story. Dear readers, it’s time for My Trip to Michigan, or, as I prefer to call it, The Time I Almost Got Kidnapped.

It was the summer of 1994. My first sister had been born in January. I had just finished enduring my first round of hellish torture—known to some people as my first year of kindergarten. Yes, I spent two years in kindergarten. Why? Because the educational system fucks over introverts Who. Just. Want. To. Read.

I was really looking forward to summer, which is funny because after age 12 I never looked forward to summer again and hoped the school year would be extended at the last minute. At that point though, all I cared about was getting away from the other children, watching Daytime T.V., going on midnight junk food runs, and trips to the library with my mom, who, unlike my teacher, let me get whatever the hell I wanted and believed me when I said I could read it. When my father showed up talking about a trip to Michigan to spend some time with his family I don’t remember caring that much. He said there would be swimming though, and well, that excited me.

Given my father’s overall irresponsibility and, shall we say, unpredictability, my going hinged on one of his other children going. Mandy, my older sister who no longer speaks to me, was deemed competent enough to make sure I didn’t die or get left anywhere. So, we set off.

Along the way I drove my father crazy with my refusal to eat at Burger King. See, I had recently watched a show about Mad Cow disease and immediately responded by freaking the fuck out and trying to throw up the meatloaf I ate the day before. My mom and one of her friends calmed me down by telling me only beef from Australia could kill me, and the only place in America with such lethal meat was Burger King. Our town didn’t have one, and that was enough to temporarily reassure me. My father, of course, knew nothing about this incident, but he responded to my fear with complete maturity and intelligence by explaining to me that I had the option of eating chicken or even of just eating fries. Or, you know, by not insisting we eat at fucking Burger King.

Except he did none of those things, and in a rare moment of caring from Mandy, she added to my mom’s lie by telling me all the contaminated cows had been shot.

Seriously.

Once in Michigan things actually went well at first. My paternal grandfather responded to me with the same level of disinterest and suspicion as I responded to him. The other relatives didn’t seem to notice I was there. The promised swimming wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be, thanks to the fact that we were out on a lake, in a boat, and the smallest life jacket was still three sizes too big for me so I always felt like I was either about to drown or be strangled by the thing. Mandy introduced me to 90s MTV, which wasn’t that exciting. I spent a few days watching Beavis and Butthead with her, but I never really understood the appeal. If only Daria had existed or a Nirvana video had come on so my life could have changed. Considering it was the summer of 1994, I’m actually a little surprised I never saw a Nirvana video.

I’m digressing.

My father had a lot of friends in Michigan, and by friends I mean drug acquaintances. I doubt he’s ever had anything else. One set of acquaintances had two hellbeasts for children. I spent the duration of our visits to their house trying to avoid them and being bullied when I failed to do so. That’s not to say this should be read with an, “Aww, poor thing” attitude because until I was about seven and all my confidence started to get sucked out, I wasn’t daunted by bullies, no matter what size they came in. With a strong, “Oh yeah? Well, fuck you!” I’d rush at them, fist raised, ready to kick ass. Once the fray was over, I’d settle back into a corner and read, which is all I really wanted to do in the first place. And no, I didn’t know what the word “fuck” meant at that age. I got a lot of my vocabulary from context clues as a child, and that seemed like the strongest angry retort.

One night near the end of the trip, my father found out he had to go “pick up some stuff” right after we arrived at another acquaintance’s house. There were three adults and about a dozen unwashed children running around shrieking like hellbeasts, so I got the privilege of staying with some strange adults in one of the dirtiest places I’ve ever been had the misfortune of entering. I still don’t know what the hell happened. It could have been as simple as he got high and forgot or maybe there was some epic Gangland-style action that kept him busy, but whatever it was, my father didn’t show back up until the next morning.

I won’t say I didn’t freak out a little when the third hour struck and I was still in that hellhole, but by hour five I’d found a less-filthy corner and my fear settled into resignation. I was hungry, but I’d be damned if I asked those people for food. It was around ten at night, so I was getting tired, but again, I’d be damned if I fell asleep in that place. I’d finished my book, so I tentatively went in search of another one.

I didn’t find one. I did find a very sweet cat, though.

The day before we were supposed to go home, something happened to my father’s car. I still don’t know what, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that story was a lie. Leaving on schedule became impossible. It would be three or four days before we could head back. My sister took this pretty well; she went inside and turned on MTV.

I, however, did not.

When my mom called that night I told her what had happened. Her voice got really calm, in a way that usually signified she was about to jump into a moving car through the window or attack someone with a metal ruler. She asked to speak to me father. Knowing I had made some sort of mistake, I found him and handed over the phone.

The news that my father would be willing to run off into the woods with me to keep my mom from getting me back was not exactly something I wanted to hear. As her assurances that she would indeed be there by tomorrow grew more vehement, so did his that neither of us would be there.

I went into the other room, put my books in a bag, and changed into day clothes. There was $1 in quarters in my bag and a payphone two blocks away. As much as I trusted my mom, there was someone I trusted a little more, especially when it came to being dependable.

If necessary, I was prepared to call my grandfather.

It didn’t come to that. I’m a bit curious about what would have happened if it had. I found out years later there was a small army of quasi-hippies counting out gas money and searching for a map even before my mom hung up the phone. So, I guess that means I was pretty important to these people.

Or maybe they all just wanted to go on a road trip.

A Hole Lot of Fascination: Part 1—Why?

 I can’t stop talking about Courtney Love. Even when I fervently claimed to hate everything about her, I couldn’t stop talking about her. She was the worst thing to happen to music. She couldn’t sing. Hole was a sell-out band. All she cared about was money and making friends with celebrities. It was disgusting how she brought up Kurt’s name as if she had a right to talk about him. Remembering my hollow self-righteousness makes me cringe. The fact that in August I loved Hole and by October I was declaring I had never liked them, not even one song, not at all, just proves how strong—and sad—my desire to be liked had become by that point. I’d like to go back and shake 15-year-old me into understanding pretentious misogynists who think refusing to bathe earns them a badge of honor are not worth her time.

I didn’t yet understand part of my isolation was chosen. I avoided social situations because I naturally preferred to be alone, and generally speaking, my attempts to bond with my peers ended up sounding like Daria’s trip to the school counselor. At that point I just believed it was time to finally make a few friends. I was feeling an unprecedented level of confidence, taking my self-esteem from a dangerous -10 to a simply unhealthy 0.

Had my life been a poorly written teen movie things would have worked out. The guy with Robert Smith hair would actually have turned out to be a sensitive poet, with whom I would fall madly in love. His asshole friends would either have revealed themselves to be decent people shielding themselves from a cruel world or simply been dropped from the story by the end. The vapid girlfriends who hated other girls more than I thought possible would reform or, like the asshole friends, be written out by the end. Actually, if I could snag a writing credit for this thing I’d like the girls to be saved by feminism and a few buckets of cold water to get thrown on the guys—and eventually some feminist enlightenment for them too. Why not?

That didn’t happen, though. The guy with Robert Smith hair ended up being a pretentious asshole who needed to spend some time being honest with himself about his sexuality, and I don’t know what happened to the others. I lost track of them after I came to my sense and realized how much time I was wasting with them. They loved the idea of Nirvana. I loved Nirvana. They thought the world was a stupid, empty place out to make them miserable by sending them to Baptist church services on Wednesdays and keeping acid out of their unwashed hands. I thought reality was probably made up of a lot of social constructs than most people realized or admitted, and I wasn’t sure what to do with that thought. I thought the world was probably an awful place most of the time, but I still wanted to go on living in it, even if it was just to play “All Apologies” one more time. They thought the world sucked because thinking the world sucked was the most rebellious act they could think of that didn’t require moving. In hindsight, I see how my strangely sincere cynicism didn’t endear me to this crowd.

All that’s to say, when they mocked my collection of Hole albums, I should have told them to stop bitching about a band they admitted never listening to. I should have told them to go fuck themselves for relying on slut-shaming Courtney to discredit a band with three other people in it. Instead, I hid the albums and joined the ranks of Courtney haters. That lasted for a few years, and there were times when it was almost real. She’s such an unabashed spiteful trainwreck of a person most of the time it seems impossible not to hate her, if only because her near-constant histrionics have exasperated you into hating her. I want to grab her by the hair almost more than I want to grab Past Me and refuse to let go until she takes responsibility for herself at least some of the time.

The thing is, though, what can drive you to hate her is what keeps most fans coming back for more. Nirvana are always going to be That Band for me. I can’t put into words how I felt the first time I heard them or the (cliché alert) sense of being spoken to by the headless photo of Kurt Cobain on the back of their greatest hits album.

Not that I ended up tattooing that photo onto my arm or anything. Who would do something like that?

This post isn’t about Nirvana, though now that I think about it, I’ll have to do one (or eight) about them at some point. This exciting first post is also the first in a series on Courtney Love and Hole because, goddamnit, I can’t stop talking about them. Yes, Courtney is pretty much a terrible person. Yes, their last good album was in 1998, and Hole fans are divided over whether or not that one was good despite being their most successful. Yes, Courtney Love has humiliated herself enough for fifteen people with similar abandonment issues and addictive personalities over the past twenty years. And yet there’s something about her and about the band that’s impossible for me not to love.

Without further missing the point, when I heard Nirvana it was like finally meeting someone who understood me. Every ragged note that came out of Kurt Cobain’s mouth was a validation of what I thought and felt. I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t too angry. I was just fucking frustrated. I was too smart and too sensitive for the people around me, and they got that. There were things they couldn’t express, though, and places they couldn’t go. Hole could. Until Courtney decided it would be fun to front a band of leather-clad guys, one of whom looks as though he’s wearing a bad Sid Vicious Halloween costume, Hole were a decidedly feminine band. As much as Courtney wanted to bitch about the lack of testosterone in music making it weak when she started out—a weird complaint for a self-proclaimed feminist—she fronted a band that expressed, more than anything else, a decidedly feminine rage. It was a kind of rage Nirvana could never tap into, and I’m okay with that. I’m not sure I want them being able to reach the same inner parts of me Hole can. I’m not sure if, as guys, they could even if they wanted to. Kurt Cobain may have become one of the most feminized men in music—if not the history of the world—but he could never have sang “Pretty on the Inside” and sounded convincing. He couldn’t have written “Good Sister/Bad Sister.” Sure, those are both songs from the same Hole-era, but I think early Hole wasn’t just the angriest; it was also the most feminine.

By now I’m sure you’ve realized my use of the world feminine has nothing to do with frills and dolls, unless those dolls have had their heads pulled off and their dresses cut up. What I’m talking about is something I’m still struggling to define. Hole was a sexy band, and not just because of that Rolling Stone photo shoot where Courtney looked like she could fuck you with her eyes. 

Their songs have a kind of unchecked emotional energy I can only imagine letting myself have. That’s part of the continuing fascination with them and with Courtney. She propped her leg on an amp, didn’t care if you could see up her skirt, and screamed out everything girls are supposed to repress. She’s every stereotype and misogynist belief about women—overwrought, illogical, vindictive, needy, promiscuous, et cetera. She’s an Emily Brontë character come to life, minus the British accent and eloquent speeches.

Yet she radiates a strange kind of power, or perhaps it’s charisma. I want to be like her, even if all I ever manage to do is stop holding back every time the words “Insipid fuck” beg to be snarled at someone.