The awakened and knowing say: body I am entirely, and nothing else—and the soul is just a word for something about the body.
-Nietzsche
The first time I encountered Nietzsche was in this quote, printed as a chapter heading to an anorexia memoir I read when I was 13. I was instantly smitten.
Years later, I’ve still never read the quote in its original context, so forgive me if I’m missing something, but here’s how I read it: The body is limited, yet vast. It’s all that I am entirely, and in case that wasn’t clear: and nothing else. And the soul? Just a word. It makes me think of another beloved quote, this one from Frida Kahlo: “I hope the exit is joyful, and I hope I never come back.” What devotion! What bravery!
It’s possible that the memoirist meant the Nietzsche quote to be a bitter reminder of the warped anorexic reality where body is everything—but I don’t think so. I think she saw in it what I did: a beautiful idea, made even more beautiful for its terrifying consequences.
So for a while, I was very anti-soul: souls are for pussies, I thought. For people who need to believe in something that lives behind and beyond the body—something without the cumbersome limitations of weight and mortality, that goes on forever without memory or desire. I don’t want to live like that: with a body as mere baggage. I prefer a body that I inhabit fully, even if it means I have nothing left when it’s all over.
I remember that the New York Times criticized the memoir for being too bleak, for not offering enough hope. And it wasn’t really offering hope—it was offering reality, which in this case meant exquisitely rendered suffering. But I didn’t find her story bleak, and I don’t find the idea of a soulless body bleak either. Of course, when I think too hard about death, I end up with the same existential nausea as everyone else. But there’s something exciting about embracing that emptiness, so I take my stand with Frida and with Friedrich.
But something I heard on NPR the other day made me reconsider my reading of the word soul. They were interviewing an expert on aging. She said that when people get older, they don’t change—they become more of what they are. If you’re wise at 27, you’ll be wiser at 97. And if you’re a bitter young man, you’ll be a bitter old one, too.
That resonated. I thought of a body drying out as it aged, losing the lubrication of youth and becoming not just more wrinkled, but more saturated. Tasting more strongly of itself.
And I thought of my friend Lexi, an artist in New York who I’ve known since kindergarten. Everything about her shares some common thread of Lexiness. I recognize it in her work, her handwriting, her voice, her walk, in every room she’s lived in, and it hasn’t changed in the 20 years I’ve known her.
People do change. They grow up, get religion, get jaded, get married. But there’s also something that doesn’t change, and personality isn’t a strong enough word to describe it. It’s more physical than that.
What is the thing that doesn't change? Looking back to the Nietzsche quote, I see now that it’s not dismissing the soul so much as offering a different way to use the word. Instead of the soul being a life raft to something beyond the body, it’s a word for something of the body. What about the body? The way it coheres.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Monday, January 25, 2010
This Is What Sex Looks Like
I. TWO CLIFFHANGERS. CIRCA 1994
My family is on a skiing trip in Vail, Colorado. My mom rents the movie Cliffhanger and puts it on the hotel room TV for my two younger siblings and me. In the opening scene, a man and woman are suspended by ripcord over an expanse of snowy mountains thousands of feet below. The woman's equipment malfunctions and she slips; the man grabs her hand. She loses his grip, and is now held only by a rapidly failing plastic clip. She gazes up at him in panic, both of them full aware of her impending doom.
But there are technical problems; the screen goes to static. We call the front desk and they send up a technician. He switches the mode from VCR to cable as he works, and two adolescent figures appear on the screen, boy and girl. They sit on a bed in a darkened room. They kiss. The boy asks the girl if she's ready. She is. He turns a switch, and illuminates a string of Christmas lights over the headboard. They start to undress, pause awkwardly, and turn their backs to each other before they continue.
I am riveted. The actors don't appear much older than my nine years. I know from somewhere deep in my being what is about to happen, and I need to see it. But my mom snaps at the technician to get this pornography off the screen—there are children in the room. He complies, fixes the VCR, and we return to the dangling woman, who is dead in minutes.
II. FARGO. 1996
I am at my grandparents' house. My cousins and I go through the movies our parents have rented that week, and choose Fargo. I'll grow to love the Cohen Brothers, but as an eleven year-old, the humor is lost on me and I'm bored.
That is, until we get to the scene with the hookers in the hotel room: two men, two hookers, two twin beds, one pair in each. Up until now, my idea of sex has been of man and woman embracing one another and rolling around in bed—literally rolling, like a log rolling down a hill. It doesn't occur to me that any dynamism involved, but Fargo is about to show me otherwise. Instead of clamping onto the men and slipping beneath the sheets to commence with the rolling, these women sit upright astride the men, bouncing—bouncing!—up and down. I am slightly disgusted but also enthralled.
* * *
The first sex scene piqued my curiosity but left me unsatisfied. My mom's intervention denied me the opportunity to get a glimpse, and I have a feeling the film wouldn't have been very generous with the details, either; these were teenagers, after all. But I wanted to see what sex looked like—all kids do. My friends and I would look up sex in the dictionary, hoping for a clue, but like another three letter word—God—it points to something so vast that it's almost meaningless.
The sex scene in Fargo took a concept and gave it a body—four bodies, in fact, engaging in the act of sex simultaneously, graphically, unmistakably. This was what I had hoped for during that brief interruption to Cliffhanger. It wasn't about love, or even desire—it was about sex, and what sex looks like.
I don't recall any written sex scenes that made such an impression on me as a kid, which is surprising, since I was a precocious reader and had more access to graphic adult material in books than I did in films. But the sex I encountered in novels was probably couched in innuendo, in metaphor. I'll bet I passed over some of the more artfully constructed sex scenes without even realizing that they were supposed to have been sex scenes at all.
The one written sex scene I do remember—in a book my mom gave me about how to be a writer—didn't actually contain any sex. In the chapter about writing sex scenes, it instructed budding authors to get a little creative with the act. Don't be so expected, so banal, it urged. There was an example of a "good" sex scene (I almost feel like "sex" belongs in quotation marks too). A woman asks a man if he has ever held a raw egg. She breaks one in his hand, and he describes how it feels for the runny white to slide between his fingers. Something weighty and important was being communicated, something that could not be conveyed by a straightforward description of the sexual act. I felt like a joke was being told that I didn't quite get—it was slippery and off-putting, like the egg itself.
While the humor in Fargo might have been over my head, the sex scene was not—there was no mistaking what was going on in the two hotel beds. Those bouncy hookers took my curiosity and shoved it down my throat in a way that almost made me want to gag: there was something repulsive in the way they bounced so nonchalantly and openly, panting alongside one another like animals.
* * *
Now I have a full-fledged sex life of my own, but my childhood frustration with the bigness and vagueness of the word "sex" persists. I don't see how a single word can encompass such conflicting encounters, such cacophony of emotion, and still hold meaning. The word doesn't contain the experiences it references.
I keep a mental (and written) list of everyone I've slept with, and people sometimes tell me this is silly—that a blowjob is just as intimate as intercourse. I think that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Holding hands with my middle school boyfriend while I rode his skateboard down the street was more intimate than the sex I barely remember having on the last night of summer in Yosemite. Should I put that on my list?
I suppose I could make one list for all the intimate encounters, one for all the non-intimate ones, and one for everything in between. But at a certain point, this exercise would render me list-less, with separate accounts of the radical particularity of each encounter. And the list was supposed to show me how these elements hung together as one. In many ways, they don’t.
You could say that this shows the failure of the word “sex” to serve as an appropriate category for my experiences. But this would be denying the ability of language to do more than just categorize—it also performs. The point of the list was not to simply catalogue intimacy but to enact it—to make something out of language that did more than just reference and describe the past. I want to make a list that is as vivid and surprising as the sex it points to. I want to find language that surprises and delights and disturbs and disgusts, that is as viscous and raw as the egg it describes.
My family is on a skiing trip in Vail, Colorado. My mom rents the movie Cliffhanger and puts it on the hotel room TV for my two younger siblings and me. In the opening scene, a man and woman are suspended by ripcord over an expanse of snowy mountains thousands of feet below. The woman's equipment malfunctions and she slips; the man grabs her hand. She loses his grip, and is now held only by a rapidly failing plastic clip. She gazes up at him in panic, both of them full aware of her impending doom.
But there are technical problems; the screen goes to static. We call the front desk and they send up a technician. He switches the mode from VCR to cable as he works, and two adolescent figures appear on the screen, boy and girl. They sit on a bed in a darkened room. They kiss. The boy asks the girl if she's ready. She is. He turns a switch, and illuminates a string of Christmas lights over the headboard. They start to undress, pause awkwardly, and turn their backs to each other before they continue.
I am riveted. The actors don't appear much older than my nine years. I know from somewhere deep in my being what is about to happen, and I need to see it. But my mom snaps at the technician to get this pornography off the screen—there are children in the room. He complies, fixes the VCR, and we return to the dangling woman, who is dead in minutes.
II. FARGO. 1996
I am at my grandparents' house. My cousins and I go through the movies our parents have rented that week, and choose Fargo. I'll grow to love the Cohen Brothers, but as an eleven year-old, the humor is lost on me and I'm bored.
That is, until we get to the scene with the hookers in the hotel room: two men, two hookers, two twin beds, one pair in each. Up until now, my idea of sex has been of man and woman embracing one another and rolling around in bed—literally rolling, like a log rolling down a hill. It doesn't occur to me that any dynamism involved, but Fargo is about to show me otherwise. Instead of clamping onto the men and slipping beneath the sheets to commence with the rolling, these women sit upright astride the men, bouncing—bouncing!—up and down. I am slightly disgusted but also enthralled.
* * *
The first sex scene piqued my curiosity but left me unsatisfied. My mom's intervention denied me the opportunity to get a glimpse, and I have a feeling the film wouldn't have been very generous with the details, either; these were teenagers, after all. But I wanted to see what sex looked like—all kids do. My friends and I would look up sex in the dictionary, hoping for a clue, but like another three letter word—God—it points to something so vast that it's almost meaningless.
The sex scene in Fargo took a concept and gave it a body—four bodies, in fact, engaging in the act of sex simultaneously, graphically, unmistakably. This was what I had hoped for during that brief interruption to Cliffhanger. It wasn't about love, or even desire—it was about sex, and what sex looks like.
I don't recall any written sex scenes that made such an impression on me as a kid, which is surprising, since I was a precocious reader and had more access to graphic adult material in books than I did in films. But the sex I encountered in novels was probably couched in innuendo, in metaphor. I'll bet I passed over some of the more artfully constructed sex scenes without even realizing that they were supposed to have been sex scenes at all.
The one written sex scene I do remember—in a book my mom gave me about how to be a writer—didn't actually contain any sex. In the chapter about writing sex scenes, it instructed budding authors to get a little creative with the act. Don't be so expected, so banal, it urged. There was an example of a "good" sex scene (I almost feel like "sex" belongs in quotation marks too). A woman asks a man if he has ever held a raw egg. She breaks one in his hand, and he describes how it feels for the runny white to slide between his fingers. Something weighty and important was being communicated, something that could not be conveyed by a straightforward description of the sexual act. I felt like a joke was being told that I didn't quite get—it was slippery and off-putting, like the egg itself.
While the humor in Fargo might have been over my head, the sex scene was not—there was no mistaking what was going on in the two hotel beds. Those bouncy hookers took my curiosity and shoved it down my throat in a way that almost made me want to gag: there was something repulsive in the way they bounced so nonchalantly and openly, panting alongside one another like animals.
* * *
Now I have a full-fledged sex life of my own, but my childhood frustration with the bigness and vagueness of the word "sex" persists. I don't see how a single word can encompass such conflicting encounters, such cacophony of emotion, and still hold meaning. The word doesn't contain the experiences it references.
I keep a mental (and written) list of everyone I've slept with, and people sometimes tell me this is silly—that a blowjob is just as intimate as intercourse. I think that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Holding hands with my middle school boyfriend while I rode his skateboard down the street was more intimate than the sex I barely remember having on the last night of summer in Yosemite. Should I put that on my list?
I suppose I could make one list for all the intimate encounters, one for all the non-intimate ones, and one for everything in between. But at a certain point, this exercise would render me list-less, with separate accounts of the radical particularity of each encounter. And the list was supposed to show me how these elements hung together as one. In many ways, they don’t.
You could say that this shows the failure of the word “sex” to serve as an appropriate category for my experiences. But this would be denying the ability of language to do more than just categorize—it also performs. The point of the list was not to simply catalogue intimacy but to enact it—to make something out of language that did more than just reference and describe the past. I want to make a list that is as vivid and surprising as the sex it points to. I want to find language that surprises and delights and disturbs and disgusts, that is as viscous and raw as the egg it describes.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
On Running into One Another.
I went on a run in the rain yesterday. It was coming down hard, and windy too—the ground was slippery, the sky was dark, and very few people were out braving the streets of Berkeley. Descending Euclid Avenue at the end of the run, the wind picked up and I started to get worried. What if my hands go numb? What if I slip? What if it gets colder? Luckily, I cut this line of inquiry short with another question: am I in pain right now? And honestly, the answer was no.
I ask myself this a lot when I’m running, usually when the conditions are fine and I’m just bored. Is there anything wrong with how I’m feeling right this very moment? Occasionally the answer is yes—like the time I was running intervals around the track and I felt the soul-crushing sensation of localized tenderness in my foot that every runner dreads. But far more often, the answer is no. Most of the time, running feels just fine, and I just have to remind myself that I’m okay.
It’s a practice of genuine self-awareness—not some quasi-self-awareness based on external cues like the weather or what I ate for breakfast. Those things can have an effect, but feeling defies reason. Sometimes it’s sunny and I feel shitty. And on this particular run, it was pouring out and I felt better than ever.
* * *
Sometimes I get jealous of myself. I’ll be sitting at home alone, remembering that night a few weeks ago when I was happily romping around between the sheets with so-and-so. How lucky I was! To have all that unmitigated contact with skin! And kissing! And ear-nibbling! Why didn’t I appreciate it more? And oh, to be doing that right now…
Then I’ll stop myself because, hey, he didn’t call me today. Maybe that means he doesn’t like me. Maybe I was just a conquest, a rebound, a drunken mistake. I shouldn’t set myself up for disappointment. I should pick up a book, cook a meal, go on a run—anything to stop thinking about this.
The tension between the reverie and the worry is enough to make anyone woozy. I can never seem to remember the little trick that comes in handy when I’m running: how do I really feel about this person? When I stop to consider this question, I often find that my memories are more powerful than the experiences they seek to recreate. That it was more about uncertainty than ecstasy. That I looked at him sideways and thought his feet smelled funny and he was too blonde and he talked too much. Or not enough. The point is: I don’t know you very well. And may or may not want to get to know you better.
And why all this anxiety over someone who I might not even like? Why am I thinking so hard about what he wants, and wanting that to be me, when actually maybe I don’t even want him? When you merge too quickly, it’s easy to disappear.
Because when two realities merge, it can be quite jolting. One minute I was complimenting you on your shoes and the next minute you were asking me if I had come. Yes, thank you, but wait, what? Do I know you from somewhere?
That’s pretty much how I always do it, and I’m not very well-practiced in the alternative, whatever it is. Getting to know each other slowly, over time? Like dating, or courtship, or something? It all seems so antiquated. Maybe I should just accept that that’s not how things are done in this day and age.
But the way they are done feels like the time I crashed into a walker when I was running fast on the track. He didn't move out of the way, and he didn't acknowledge what had happened. It was weird. But then, why didn't I acknowledge it either? Because it is really weird, isn’t it? It can’t be just me.
I ask myself this a lot when I’m running, usually when the conditions are fine and I’m just bored. Is there anything wrong with how I’m feeling right this very moment? Occasionally the answer is yes—like the time I was running intervals around the track and I felt the soul-crushing sensation of localized tenderness in my foot that every runner dreads. But far more often, the answer is no. Most of the time, running feels just fine, and I just have to remind myself that I’m okay.
It’s a practice of genuine self-awareness—not some quasi-self-awareness based on external cues like the weather or what I ate for breakfast. Those things can have an effect, but feeling defies reason. Sometimes it’s sunny and I feel shitty. And on this particular run, it was pouring out and I felt better than ever.
* * *
Sometimes I get jealous of myself. I’ll be sitting at home alone, remembering that night a few weeks ago when I was happily romping around between the sheets with so-and-so. How lucky I was! To have all that unmitigated contact with skin! And kissing! And ear-nibbling! Why didn’t I appreciate it more? And oh, to be doing that right now…
Then I’ll stop myself because, hey, he didn’t call me today. Maybe that means he doesn’t like me. Maybe I was just a conquest, a rebound, a drunken mistake. I shouldn’t set myself up for disappointment. I should pick up a book, cook a meal, go on a run—anything to stop thinking about this.
The tension between the reverie and the worry is enough to make anyone woozy. I can never seem to remember the little trick that comes in handy when I’m running: how do I really feel about this person? When I stop to consider this question, I often find that my memories are more powerful than the experiences they seek to recreate. That it was more about uncertainty than ecstasy. That I looked at him sideways and thought his feet smelled funny and he was too blonde and he talked too much. Or not enough. The point is: I don’t know you very well. And may or may not want to get to know you better.
And why all this anxiety over someone who I might not even like? Why am I thinking so hard about what he wants, and wanting that to be me, when actually maybe I don’t even want him? When you merge too quickly, it’s easy to disappear.
Because when two realities merge, it can be quite jolting. One minute I was complimenting you on your shoes and the next minute you were asking me if I had come. Yes, thank you, but wait, what? Do I know you from somewhere?
That’s pretty much how I always do it, and I’m not very well-practiced in the alternative, whatever it is. Getting to know each other slowly, over time? Like dating, or courtship, or something? It all seems so antiquated. Maybe I should just accept that that’s not how things are done in this day and age.
But the way they are done feels like the time I crashed into a walker when I was running fast on the track. He didn't move out of the way, and he didn't acknowledge what had happened. It was weird. But then, why didn't I acknowledge it either? Because it is really weird, isn’t it? It can’t be just me.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Conquistadora
I heard a rumor that a former history professor of mine made out with a student during office hours. My first reaction: envy. My second reaction: what the hell, Linz? This man isn’t exactly young and he isn’t exactly handsome. Why do I find him so appealing?
I know why.
Because actually my second reaction was to put on my little conquistadora hat and start scheming. I like a good challenge.
What do I mean by conquest? Not what you might think. I’m not particularly pro-active in these attempts, because if someone is worth my wanting to conquest, they’re also unattainable enough to scare me away from anything so bold as actually making a move. I just sit around and wish intensely for it to happen—a strategy that has proved surprisingly effective.
The last time I conquested I persevered against all odds and I succeeded—only to find that the fantasy didn’t quite live up to the reality. That’s pretty much the whole point of fantasies, if I’m not mistaken: to make reality disappointing. Not to say that I didn’t have a lovely time, because I most certainly did. More than lovely. But it became crystal clear, in a way it never had before, that conquesting is a rather selfish endeavor, and two people being selfish together quickly becomes boring.
“Boring” doesn’t quite capture what I mean, which is actually closer to emptiness—my number five provides a prime example. The sex was silent and brief and anticlimactic—for me at least. I couldn’t figure out why he even bothered, but then, it takes two to tango and I was bothering too. I was always shocked when he asked me, after each exchange, if I had come. So shocked that I always answered yes. It was my first time faking it, and I didn’t even mean to.
I get the sense that it’s different for the guys I’m with. I’m not sure what’s going on in those impenetrable heads of theirs, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be the same nervous analysis that’s buzzing inside mine. It seems more like a kind of complacency, one that drives me crazy...and that I can’t help but mirror. But it’s a dumb kind of mirroring—more like a pantomime. I’m not privy to the logic that governs his oscillation between devouring me and ignoring me, between his wanting to do sweet things like read aloud from Harry Potter but then not be my boyfriend.
But then, is it possible that I started it, and the complacency that drives me crazy is just my own, mirrored back at me? I’m getting dizzy just thinking about it. But I think the answer is no. I think that the male animal is better able to separate the physical and emotional in a way that I am simply unable and uninterested in doing.
But getting back to this professor. I’m sure that if by some miracle I wound up in bed with him, it would first be wonderful, and then be weird, and then I might be sort of over it. Right now I can’t imagine being over it, I suppose because it hasn’t started yet, and almost certainly never will. I’d like to think that after having collected a fair amount of these conquest-cum-letdowns, I could preemptively dismiss new ones as not worth the effort. Apparently I haven’t quite reached that level of maturity yet.
I know why.
Because actually my second reaction was to put on my little conquistadora hat and start scheming. I like a good challenge.
What do I mean by conquest? Not what you might think. I’m not particularly pro-active in these attempts, because if someone is worth my wanting to conquest, they’re also unattainable enough to scare me away from anything so bold as actually making a move. I just sit around and wish intensely for it to happen—a strategy that has proved surprisingly effective.
The last time I conquested I persevered against all odds and I succeeded—only to find that the fantasy didn’t quite live up to the reality. That’s pretty much the whole point of fantasies, if I’m not mistaken: to make reality disappointing. Not to say that I didn’t have a lovely time, because I most certainly did. More than lovely. But it became crystal clear, in a way it never had before, that conquesting is a rather selfish endeavor, and two people being selfish together quickly becomes boring.
“Boring” doesn’t quite capture what I mean, which is actually closer to emptiness—my number five provides a prime example. The sex was silent and brief and anticlimactic—for me at least. I couldn’t figure out why he even bothered, but then, it takes two to tango and I was bothering too. I was always shocked when he asked me, after each exchange, if I had come. So shocked that I always answered yes. It was my first time faking it, and I didn’t even mean to.
I get the sense that it’s different for the guys I’m with. I’m not sure what’s going on in those impenetrable heads of theirs, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be the same nervous analysis that’s buzzing inside mine. It seems more like a kind of complacency, one that drives me crazy...and that I can’t help but mirror. But it’s a dumb kind of mirroring—more like a pantomime. I’m not privy to the logic that governs his oscillation between devouring me and ignoring me, between his wanting to do sweet things like read aloud from Harry Potter but then not be my boyfriend.
But then, is it possible that I started it, and the complacency that drives me crazy is just my own, mirrored back at me? I’m getting dizzy just thinking about it. But I think the answer is no. I think that the male animal is better able to separate the physical and emotional in a way that I am simply unable and uninterested in doing.
But getting back to this professor. I’m sure that if by some miracle I wound up in bed with him, it would first be wonderful, and then be weird, and then I might be sort of over it. Right now I can’t imagine being over it, I suppose because it hasn’t started yet, and almost certainly never will. I’d like to think that after having collected a fair amount of these conquest-cum-letdowns, I could preemptively dismiss new ones as not worth the effort. Apparently I haven’t quite reached that level of maturity yet.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Synecdoche Nickname
Oh, to be called "L." It's belittling—literally—and delightfully so.
It's similar to the feeling when someone happens upon my main nickname, Linz, for the first time—I'm caught off-gaurd at how confident the syllable sounds in their mouth, how cavalier of them to call me what they please. When new boyfriends first say "Linz" I want to turn into a cat and rub the side of my face on them.
But L is different than Linz. It fills my heart with a more complicated joy. The first time my name was reduced in this way was in my first real job after college. My boss took to addressing me by L in his emails, as in: "L, do this. Signed, M." It was clear that I was interacting with someone important, someone who didn't have time for details like "indsay" or "ichael." I had never encountered such a person before, and I didn't so much want to rub against him like a cat as I wanted to perform the tasks requested swiftly and satisfactorily. I felt like a robot, a servant, or perhaps a secret agent—in the loop but also subservient.
This was one of the strange and surprising things about entering the professional world—people call each other by letters. There's nothing personal or familiar about the practice, but I can't help but react as if I'm being branded with a fresh new nickname. I start to see the L of me, and it's a different me than the Linz or Lindsay of me.
I suppose branding is what's going on here—a kind of corporate branding. It probably says something about the perversity of the workplace, and symbolizes the reduction of our complex selves into anonymous automatons of the state. But I'm new to all this, and not yet jaded enough to make a statement like that and really mean it.
It's similar to the feeling when someone happens upon my main nickname, Linz, for the first time—I'm caught off-gaurd at how confident the syllable sounds in their mouth, how cavalier of them to call me what they please. When new boyfriends first say "Linz" I want to turn into a cat and rub the side of my face on them.
But L is different than Linz. It fills my heart with a more complicated joy. The first time my name was reduced in this way was in my first real job after college. My boss took to addressing me by L in his emails, as in: "L, do this. Signed, M." It was clear that I was interacting with someone important, someone who didn't have time for details like "indsay" or "ichael." I had never encountered such a person before, and I didn't so much want to rub against him like a cat as I wanted to perform the tasks requested swiftly and satisfactorily. I felt like a robot, a servant, or perhaps a secret agent—in the loop but also subservient.
This was one of the strange and surprising things about entering the professional world—people call each other by letters. There's nothing personal or familiar about the practice, but I can't help but react as if I'm being branded with a fresh new nickname. I start to see the L of me, and it's a different me than the Linz or Lindsay of me.
I suppose branding is what's going on here—a kind of corporate branding. It probably says something about the perversity of the workplace, and symbolizes the reduction of our complex selves into anonymous automatons of the state. But I'm new to all this, and not yet jaded enough to make a statement like that and really mean it.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Of Men & Music
Have you ever noticed the way some people seem to seethe sex through their skins? On the first day of running club one year in college, I made eyes with one such creature, and was immediately captivated. As we breezed down Broadway, I was high on endorphins from two potent sources—running and sex. Not long after, he became my number four.
Everything he did seemed an allusion to a sexual act—nay, everything he did was a sexual act; that was the whole point: for him there was no distinction between the arenas of sex-life and life-life. He moved through the world with a physical integrity that bespoke heightened sensual awareness; with a hyper-expressive face and mischievous smile, he seemed more fully in his body than others.
With guys like this, to interact with them is to think about being in bed with them. Everything is on display; nothing is hidden. They're like walking advertisements for themselves as sexual partners.
And as with advertising, the effect is instantaneous. With Four, all it took was a glance and a smile.
* * *
Sasha and I used to talk about how some songs you love right away, and other songs take longer. She’d make me mix tapes and sandwich the tougher-to-love songs between two instant gratification songs, knowing that I’d suffer through the weird, unfamiliar notes because it was a hassle to fast-forward. It worked—after listening to a new song enough times, it would transform into something entirely different than it had been when I’d first heard it. I wasn’t that I’d changed my mind about the song; the song itself had changed.
Often I ended up loving these ugly duckling songs even better than the instant-loves, which started sounding insipid if I listened to them too much. You could say that Four was like one of those songs, but the analogy is limited, because my attraction to him never dulled. With Four and others like him, when it came time to cut ties, it was never for lack of passion.
There’s a better parallel between men and songs that take longer to fall for. Sometimes a guy doesn't do much for me at first, but things change after I get to know him. It’s hard for me to reconcile this phenomenon with my belief in the integrity of physical bodies. I like to think that we are what we are, through and through: no soul behind the body, no life after death—as Nietzsche said, “Body I am entirely, and nothing else; and soul is only a word for something about the body.”
It follows that I would know automatically upon meeting someone whether I’m attracted to him or not, and this is often the case. But when the opposite happens—when I’m not attracted at first and become so later—it’s not that I become so enamored with his personality that I decide to look beyond looks. No, he actually starts to look different.
I don't really know what's going on here. Why does becoming more familiar with something cause it to become more enticing? It seems that the opposite should be true. How is it possible for a song to go from unappealing to play it on repeat, and a person from forgettable to fuckable?
Anyone?
Everything he did seemed an allusion to a sexual act—nay, everything he did was a sexual act; that was the whole point: for him there was no distinction between the arenas of sex-life and life-life. He moved through the world with a physical integrity that bespoke heightened sensual awareness; with a hyper-expressive face and mischievous smile, he seemed more fully in his body than others.
With guys like this, to interact with them is to think about being in bed with them. Everything is on display; nothing is hidden. They're like walking advertisements for themselves as sexual partners.
And as with advertising, the effect is instantaneous. With Four, all it took was a glance and a smile.
* * *
Sasha and I used to talk about how some songs you love right away, and other songs take longer. She’d make me mix tapes and sandwich the tougher-to-love songs between two instant gratification songs, knowing that I’d suffer through the weird, unfamiliar notes because it was a hassle to fast-forward. It worked—after listening to a new song enough times, it would transform into something entirely different than it had been when I’d first heard it. I wasn’t that I’d changed my mind about the song; the song itself had changed.
Often I ended up loving these ugly duckling songs even better than the instant-loves, which started sounding insipid if I listened to them too much. You could say that Four was like one of those songs, but the analogy is limited, because my attraction to him never dulled. With Four and others like him, when it came time to cut ties, it was never for lack of passion.
There’s a better parallel between men and songs that take longer to fall for. Sometimes a guy doesn't do much for me at first, but things change after I get to know him. It’s hard for me to reconcile this phenomenon with my belief in the integrity of physical bodies. I like to think that we are what we are, through and through: no soul behind the body, no life after death—as Nietzsche said, “Body I am entirely, and nothing else; and soul is only a word for something about the body.”
It follows that I would know automatically upon meeting someone whether I’m attracted to him or not, and this is often the case. But when the opposite happens—when I’m not attracted at first and become so later—it’s not that I become so enamored with his personality that I decide to look beyond looks. No, he actually starts to look different.
I don't really know what's going on here. Why does becoming more familiar with something cause it to become more enticing? It seems that the opposite should be true. How is it possible for a song to go from unappealing to play it on repeat, and a person from forgettable to fuckable?
Anyone?
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
On Suffering & Naiveté
I met my second boyfriend in a specialty running shoe store—he watched me walk and analyzed my stride, and then invited me to go on a hike. After we’d been together for some time, we’d tell each other our creation myth, as couples do.
“When I first walked into the store, did you think I was a 12 year-old?” I’d ask him, because this happens to me a lot.
“No baby,” he’d reply, “I could see suffering in your eyes. I could tell that you’d been through heartache; I could tell that you were old enough.”
A sweet beginning, no? He was right—the breakup with my previous boyfriend, in high school, pretty much sucked majorly and made a lasting psychological impact that apparently shone through my eyes. To be human is to suffer, right? We all do it.
I first learned about suffering the way kids learn about most things—by watching their parents. We were in the car one day, dad driving, mom in the front seat, me in the back. He was teasing her playfully about something, and she, being the sensitive one of the duo, burst into tears. It was the first time I had seen my mom cry, and I thought I could read her mind, and that she was wishing she could go home to my grandparents in LA, and wondering why she ever married my dad and let him take her away.
My mom used to tell me about how marrying my dad dashed her girlhood notions of being swept off her feet by someone tall, dark, and handsome. "Dark and handsome, maybe, but you have him to thank for being so small." I was always sort of surprised to hear her talk about her marriage like this—I mean, really? Love isn't grand and romantic and earth shattering? How disappointing.
As far as I can tell, my parents have a good marriage. Sometimes my mom exasperates my dad, and my dad makes my mom cry—but mostly they get along and seem to genuinely enjoy each other and maintain a satisfying sex life, about which they sometimes drop lewd hints at the dinner table. (I wonder where the desire to create this unladylike blog came from. Well, to be fair, it probably comes from my grandma, who once told my 9-year old brother, as he stroked a velvety soft ball of yarn she was using to knit a sweater, "One day you'll want a nice soft pussy to be stroking.")
So my parents have this stable marriage, and meanwhile, everywhere around me I've been reading all this shit about not settling for the status quo. A friend emails me a review of “A Vindication of Love,” a new book that is pretty much a paean to stormy relationships. If we want to find passion, the thesis goes, we must break free from our conventional notions of love:
And my college rhetoric professor, on his blog, rhetorically asks us to consider our parents, and their marriages:
Wait—yes! I think mine do, but I sense that this is the wrong answer. Am I naïve? I'm used to being told as much.
Once, a man said to me: “I get the feeling that things have come pretty easily to you in your life. That you haven’t had to suffer much.” He said it while he was doling me out a minor hardship, and the context made it feel a bit condescending—an older man implying that he knew me and knew what I needed. It’s true that I grew up with loving parents and lived in a nice town and went to private school and am a well-adjusted and productive member of society. But I sensed an underlying accusation, one that I’ve heard before: you are naïve. A naïve little girl. So much to learn.
I do have a lot to learn, and this man was good intentioned and probably didn’t have an inkling about all these dark undertones I read into his words. And yet: I felt robbed of my suffering, which is another way of saying I felt robbed of my legitimacy—my “reason for being,” as we say in advertising—and perhaps even my humanity.
The implication was that I had to break free from the status quo to suffer and experience true emotion if I ever wanted to realize my true creative potential—to find greatness. But I’ve found that life already offers plenty of opportunities for genuine suffering, without having to seek it out in some unconventional way—I saw it in my mom’s tears that day in the car, and I felt it as a naïve little high-school girl breaking up with her boyfriend. We all suffer—suffering is incredibly mundane, common, and vital, all at once.
So call me conventional, or call me naïve (you wouldn’t be the first), but I’m underwhelmed by enlightened attempts to find passion by breaking out of the mold—polyamory and what have you. I’m reminded of a summer day I spent sitting naked with a boy by a river in Yosemite. He was trying to convince me that there were no boundaries between lovers and friends—that conventional monogamy was a farce, and hence I should forget about my shoesalesman boyfriend back home and make out with him beneath the waterfall.
His logic was tempting, but ultimately unconvincing. I couldn't put my finger on why at the time, and my uncertainty led me into a gray area of cheating/not cheating. Nothing really happened, but when I returned to my boyfriend, the damage had been done and things soon fell apart. I may have been naïve back then, but at least I learned one thing: when a guy tries to convince me he knows me better than I know myself, he's usually just trying to get into my pants.
“When I first walked into the store, did you think I was a 12 year-old?” I’d ask him, because this happens to me a lot.
“No baby,” he’d reply, “I could see suffering in your eyes. I could tell that you’d been through heartache; I could tell that you were old enough.”
A sweet beginning, no? He was right—the breakup with my previous boyfriend, in high school, pretty much sucked majorly and made a lasting psychological impact that apparently shone through my eyes. To be human is to suffer, right? We all do it.
I first learned about suffering the way kids learn about most things—by watching their parents. We were in the car one day, dad driving, mom in the front seat, me in the back. He was teasing her playfully about something, and she, being the sensitive one of the duo, burst into tears. It was the first time I had seen my mom cry, and I thought I could read her mind, and that she was wishing she could go home to my grandparents in LA, and wondering why she ever married my dad and let him take her away.
My mom used to tell me about how marrying my dad dashed her girlhood notions of being swept off her feet by someone tall, dark, and handsome. "Dark and handsome, maybe, but you have him to thank for being so small." I was always sort of surprised to hear her talk about her marriage like this—I mean, really? Love isn't grand and romantic and earth shattering? How disappointing.
As far as I can tell, my parents have a good marriage. Sometimes my mom exasperates my dad, and my dad makes my mom cry—but mostly they get along and seem to genuinely enjoy each other and maintain a satisfying sex life, about which they sometimes drop lewd hints at the dinner table. (I wonder where the desire to create this unladylike blog came from. Well, to be fair, it probably comes from my grandma, who once told my 9-year old brother, as he stroked a velvety soft ball of yarn she was using to knit a sweater, "One day you'll want a nice soft pussy to be stroking.")
So my parents have this stable marriage, and meanwhile, everywhere around me I've been reading all this shit about not settling for the status quo. A friend emails me a review of “A Vindication of Love,” a new book that is pretty much a paean to stormy relationships. If we want to find passion, the thesis goes, we must break free from our conventional notions of love:
“We have been pragmatic and pedestrian about our erotic lives for too long,” she writes, and in an examination of real and invented figures from the Wife of Bath to Frida Kahlo, she revels in love affairs that do not rely on our more hackneyed narratives. The result of Nehring’s literary and historical inquiry is a celebration of the wilder, messier connections. Her heroes and heroines tend to die, like Young Werther, who shoots himself; or try to die, like Mary Wollstonecraft, who throws herself off a bridge; or suffer, like Abelard and Heloise, one of whom is castrated and one of whom ends up in a nunnery. And yet Nehring admires these flamboyant men and women for the creative force of their affairs, for their ability to live outside the lines, for the ferocity of their feelings. She sees our modern goals of marriage, security and comfort as limited and sad, and quotes approvingly Heloise’s statement to Abelard: “ ‘I looked for no marriage bond,’ she flashed. ‘I never sought anything in you but yourself.’ ”In her most provocative and interesting chapters, Nehring argues for the value of suffering, for the importance of failure. Our idea of a contented married ending is too cozy and tame for her.
And my college rhetoric professor, on his blog, rhetorically asks us to consider our parents, and their marriages:
I want you all to think for a moment: Are your parents happy? Do they consume life with unabashed joy, with voracious abandon? Now think of all your friends' parents: Are any of them happy? Are they lit up—by life? By ideas? By art? By their respective spouses? Are they happy? Do they really love each other? Do they enjoy life?
Wait—yes! I think mine do, but I sense that this is the wrong answer. Am I naïve? I'm used to being told as much.
Once, a man said to me: “I get the feeling that things have come pretty easily to you in your life. That you haven’t had to suffer much.” He said it while he was doling me out a minor hardship, and the context made it feel a bit condescending—an older man implying that he knew me and knew what I needed. It’s true that I grew up with loving parents and lived in a nice town and went to private school and am a well-adjusted and productive member of society. But I sensed an underlying accusation, one that I’ve heard before: you are naïve. A naïve little girl. So much to learn.
I do have a lot to learn, and this man was good intentioned and probably didn’t have an inkling about all these dark undertones I read into his words. And yet: I felt robbed of my suffering, which is another way of saying I felt robbed of my legitimacy—my “reason for being,” as we say in advertising—and perhaps even my humanity.
The implication was that I had to break free from the status quo to suffer and experience true emotion if I ever wanted to realize my true creative potential—to find greatness. But I’ve found that life already offers plenty of opportunities for genuine suffering, without having to seek it out in some unconventional way—I saw it in my mom’s tears that day in the car, and I felt it as a naïve little high-school girl breaking up with her boyfriend. We all suffer—suffering is incredibly mundane, common, and vital, all at once.
So call me conventional, or call me naïve (you wouldn’t be the first), but I’m underwhelmed by enlightened attempts to find passion by breaking out of the mold—polyamory and what have you. I’m reminded of a summer day I spent sitting naked with a boy by a river in Yosemite. He was trying to convince me that there were no boundaries between lovers and friends—that conventional monogamy was a farce, and hence I should forget about my shoesalesman boyfriend back home and make out with him beneath the waterfall.
His logic was tempting, but ultimately unconvincing. I couldn't put my finger on why at the time, and my uncertainty led me into a gray area of cheating/not cheating. Nothing really happened, but when I returned to my boyfriend, the damage had been done and things soon fell apart. I may have been naïve back then, but at least I learned one thing: when a guy tries to convince me he knows me better than I know myself, he's usually just trying to get into my pants.
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