I went to school with this kid

Not Andy Samberg, but Ras Trent. Pitzer College is full of these idiots!

The lost art of personal responsibility

Two questions:

1. Why do men who are serial cheaters/sex addicts/generally unethical scoundrels expect me to forgive them/be friends with them after their sleazy ways have been revealed? I have NO problem with being a 'ho as long as it done safely and honestly. Mistakes happen, but I'm not talking about mistakes...I'm talking about chronically, unapologetically shitty behavior. If you can't keep it in your pants, then don't fool some poor girl into thinking you have a monogamous relationship with her. All I can figure is that they're used to using charm and manipulation (sorry, a drink will not buy my silence or loyalty) to smooth things over so they can continue acting like a predator and pretend everything is okay. I do not forgive and enable predators, even if others in my social circle do. It only helps to perpetuate the cycle.

2. Why is it that people who have done something really shitty to me (ie text message breakup, leaving me stranded at a bar in the middle of the night, etc.) then later forbid me to bitch about them/vent to my friends? It seems impressively controlling. You want to keep a sterling reputation in the eyes of the people who DO care about me after fucking me over? Fuck off.

My horoscope today says:

"You're more in touch with your ideals than you have been in a while and it's a great time for you to emphasize what's right over what's expedient. It might not make as many friends, but it earns admirers."

Damn skippy. I'd rather respect myself and be respected than be popular at the end of the day.

When all is said and done though...I am so tired of drama, and Chicago seems to have it in spades. I blame the crazy weather for making people unstable. Hermitude is seeming increasingly appealing right now.

Getting Away With It

They played this at Neo last night- one of my favorite songs from the 80's. Not so good if you've just had a breakup, as a friend had...

Electronic is so New Wave super group w. members from New Order, Pet Shop Boys and The Smiths...I think I like it because it's not so terrifyingly overplayed at the entire New Order catalogue...I don't think I can dance to fucking Bizarre Love Triangle anymore.

Comsat Angels

The Comsat Angels is a band I discovered through Pandora, a program that is flawed but occasionally throws something really cool my way. I am surprised I never listened to them as a teenager because they're a similar ilk as The Chameleons, Joy Division, The Church and so forth... And they're named after a JG Ballard short story as was de riguer in those days (eg Joy Division's "atrocity exhibition," Gary Numan's entire oeuvre).

I think they just never got much exposure stateside. One of these days when I have more $$ I will probably order an LP of "Sleep No More" from one of the many sellers in the UK who have it listed on ebay, since it seems to be hard to acquire stateside. Semi-relatedly I had an interesting conversation recently with my friend Gene about how the record stores in my hometown of Berkeley have the most amazing selection of vinyl and how that informed my tastes growing up, whereas vinyl is markedly more scarce and expensive despite the city's reputation as a music town- record companies just issues fewer LPs in the midwest because they didn't view it as viable as a market as California, I guess? I only recently learned that Wax Trax was based in Chicago, but that Industrial Music didn't get a warm reception here initially (going by what Gene said, correct me if I'm wrong).

I'll have to see if the Comsat Angels are lurking in the dusty bins at Amoeba at my next visit home....

The Halo Effect

Is it worse to assume that someone is a good person because they are physically attractive (the "halo effect") or to assume that someone is a good person because they are are plain in appearance (the assumption that they will compensate for plainness with positive personality traits)?

I have done both, to some degree (although I've also perceived a reverse halo in both sets), but the latter is far more insidious.

I thought of this because several men I know have expressed regret at the prospect of breaking up with/being dumped by girls they found extremely physically attractive in spite of character flaws.

It's worse, I told them, to be brokenhearted over someone who you were attracted to on the basis of personality over physical appearance (do men ever do that, though?) Only to realize their personality was not what you thought it was at all- that you assumed that they were a good person on the basis of their plainness?

Oddly, the men who've hurt me the worst are the ones I didn't find that physically attractive at all, perhaps because they seemed "safe" to fall for in their plainness. (I also have observed that some plain dudes will abuse false intimacy to get women to fuck them- but perhaps that's all dudes). By contrast, I am less likely to trust a devastatingly handsome man and thus, less likely to get hurt. The whole "an ugly girl won't cheat on you" logic doesn't work with men, (or with women, for that matter). If anything they're more likely to cheat out of desire for validation.

It's just another version of the halo effect, I suppose.

I <3 being single

I've been chewing on an essay about why I'm really enjoying being single right now- something about having to lose my sense of self to regain my sense of self.

I remember being about fifteen years old, and having this idea that I would shave my head, wear dark eyeliner and a trench coat (my mom accused me of looking like Uncle Fester when I executed this fashion statement), become sexually self-sufficient (not that I'd ever had sex at that point), read JG Ballard, Hunter S. Thompson, and Phillip K Dick, and listen to nothing but classical music, Gary Numan (especially the Tubeway Army stuff that was all about robots), Ultravox and other sinister, electronic music from the eighties. My theme song: "I want to be a machine" by Ultravox. I drew comics based on song lyrics from Gary Numan's "Replicas" album and spent a lot of time at the library. All n' all this phase was mostly conceptual and last a month at most- and was perhaps a response to the persistent heartbreak between my two first loves (a long story, full of teenaged angst).



My best friend once told me she admired me during this phase. I admire me too, in hindsight. I guess I kind of feel that way again although it's more about brutally cold winters now, drinking too much and keeping a nocturnal schedule, but that asexuality is there too. It's like- I am so comfortable with myself right now that to invite a significant other into my life would only serve to corrupt that blazingly pure sense of self. I was more myself at fifteen than at any other point in my life, I was a young artemis in a strange window of freedom, still pure and utterly fascinated by the world and my relationship to it.

I like having the bed to myself, and waking up and making coffee and breakfast the way I like it.

I like listening to what I want to listen to, and watching what I want to watch and not worrying what somebody else might think of my tastes.

I like not having to clean up after anyone's mess but my own.

I like going out with my friends all the time and not worrying about anyone else.

I like not waiting for the other shoe to drop. I always know where I stand with myself.

I like flirting as much as I want to, and being in complete control of my sexuality.

I like not having to make compromises in my personal life.

What Mona Ramsey said about five good friends being as good as a lover was right. I wish Mona Ramsey was my neighbor!

This song is actually kind of awesome

Kanye, you're a nutjob but I love you anyway.

Also, that Robocop song, wtf.

Surreal

This video takes me back to living in Tokyo in 2000 like whoah. I admit I'm a complete sucker for the imagery in Japanese music videos- sleeping Ayumi Hamasaki singing in her nighty on the Bollywood-esque hillside of her subconscious while being stalked by her bedazzled leopard alter-ego still grabs me by the throat with its semiotic glory. It's total aesthetic candy.

Why yes, I will use the works of Roland Barthes to justify my love of Japanese pop culture. Time to re-read Empire of Signs.

Catching up

Hey, that's Amanda (L) and Me (R) getting crunk at a Repeal Day Party.

Oh snap, I realize I haven't blogged here in a long ass time. Part of it is just being busy and tired a lot, part of it is an increased paranoia about writing about things of a personal nature, which probably means I need a more cryptic pseudonym to write under. I am not exactly sure what the purpose of this blog is anymore, and I post a lot more at my Food Blog, just because it feels less vulnerable somehow.

So here, are the things I've been thinking about writing about, but haven't:

-The bizarre fact that in my limited bisexuality, I am almost exclusively attracted to femme brunettes, and whether my childhood attraction to Danica McKeller from the Wonder Years

-My present fascination with early Nineties underground media in the form of the Re/Search books, Dykes To Watch Out For, and Answer ME!!! (none of which I read in the early nineties though I was firmly entrenched in the underground media)

-How being single is awesome because it means not putting up with other people's shit, why having awesome friends is important, and why Diamanda Galas is a role model

-Separators- a white russian made with cognac instead of vodka, and how they're the best drink ever, especially when consumed with Jamal at Club Foot, and why it is sad that Jamal is moving back to California

-BD/SM: more effective than therapy at helping me process my emotional junk

-Favorite things: Dogfish head 60 minute IPA, holiday bubblebath from Lush, and how Michael Hall on Dexter looks like this dude I fucked in college

-My favorite neighborhoods to do bar crawls in Chicago (Ukie Village and the Northern stretch of Lincoln Square), and the undiscovered jewel that is Cafe Muppet

-The demonization of chick lit and girly beers, and why this is a latent form of sexism

-Prohibition nostalgia, and whether crack dealing will been seen in a glamorous light in the future.

-Kanye West's "Robocop" song, David Murray's awesome teeshirt line, and Cuban sandwiches

I'm sure I'll come up with more things to not write about soon.