my wasp obsession, and others
i read an article the other day in the New York Times about the trend among young college graduates to live off their parents' money and spend nearly all the money they make themselves on luxury items. i've been spending a lot of time analyzing the New York Times recently; the way it presents itself as the voice of upper-middle-class moderation; the way it snarkily laces its articles with value judgements. nearly everything i know about New York i've learnt through the Times, and the New Yorker, and it all calcifies neatly into one big concept. it's alternately exciting (the city portrayed by these magazines, whatever it is, is obviously a place where things happen) and disgusting -- the prime example of disgusting being, of course, Metropolitan Diary.
so, this article. i read it with a great dollop of contempt for these people, which the New York Times shared with me. half of this has to do with a traditional of hatred for people who live well, to look at things like traveling, nice clothes, and good food as the worst kind of decadence. a Puritan, Calvinist kind of hatred, and accordingly, it isn't directed at the deserving rich, who presumably have earned all their money or at least been born into it, which is honest in its own way; it's only directed at those who are somehow attaining luxury illegitimately. the freeloading yuppies being a prime example of that. their prime sin is spending the money they are earning on frivolity and not saving it so they might legitimately acquire luxury later on. that is to say, oh no, the pretentious, vulgar bourgeois! their lesser sins: pretending at aristocracy and enjoying it, some sort of fabled generational epidemic of entitlement, and ultimately diluting the value of luxury.
i had the vague suspicion that i was in danger of becoming one of those people, which is a revolting thought. but what really revolted me was not the moral problem of being dependent on my parents, but that this would paint me as impossibly middle-class.
***
the night before i left Prague i was talking with Daniel about the American caste system, and about the Anglosphere. he told me he thought of me as more hybrid than American. i wasn't sure if this was his attempt to recognize me as a fellow rootless, classless sort; or give me a get-out-of-jail-free pass for being a good, cosmopolitan sort of American, not like those other americans. various people from various countries had tried to grant me this (mostly out of their desire not to offend me while still imagining whatever they choose to about the country), but it would be disingenuous to accept. i'm responsible for everything my country does.
and the point of recounting this story is that it seems particularly ridiculous to grant me temporary statelessness when it's clear that my dilemmas are so fundamentally American.
***
wasp control
more cryptic information on the Elite, which i obviously never would have known if it weren't for the Times
Q: what does a little wasp girl want to be when she grows up?
A: the very best person i possibly can!
***
ultimately, it's quite healthy for me to think about silly things like this. it's certainly better than what i've been doing the last few days; i sleep all day and hole up at night, because it stops me from thinking, and means i don't have to interact with my parents, which is becoming harder and harder. although my father is as funny as he ever was; he has the same confidence in his perceptions as i do, and as most of my friends do. i mostly mean my mother (i have to explain to my friends that when i say "my parents" i really mean "my mother"), who is alternately mad at me and pandering to me. the pandering is probably a result of my father's influence and pleas for mercy, but it isn't any less disturbing.
and perpetually brooding. about Bourek, naturally. i'm angry, but not angry enough to refuse him if he, hypothetically, were to send me an email saying he's sorry and he's stupid and he loves me and won't i forgive him. i want to punish him and reel him in, simultaneously (and have him punish me, as well).
all the same, i'm trying to put everything back together, to construct a life without the possibility of him. its foundation will be forgetting. blah blah blah.
***
it turns out that i should never have read Milan Kundera. what really pains me about this whole debacle (and it wasn't really a debacle, obviously, but right now i can say that without meaning it) is that i've somehow become one of those horrible women from his stories. the horrible, victimized, corpulent women who exist purely to be used by his tortured Übermenschen; mostly Helena from The Joke. her weakness is her main characteristic, which is by turns appealing and revolting. she's the sort of victim you can't feel sorry for, because there's something innately victimizable about her, it's all she's good for. a born plot device.
and i've become her. a walking plot device even off the page.
fuck you. really.
***
i'm sitting in a coffeeshop now, and there's a man on the other side of the table at the only other PC in the room. i asked him if he was a poet because he had a face like a guy i was introduced to a long time ago through a girl who was a self-proclaimed Poet. he said, "well, i'm a...writer." i told him he wasn't the guy i thought he was and said, he might as well have just answered yes, because aren't we all.
so, this article. i read it with a great dollop of contempt for these people, which the New York Times shared with me. half of this has to do with a traditional of hatred for people who live well, to look at things like traveling, nice clothes, and good food as the worst kind of decadence. a Puritan, Calvinist kind of hatred, and accordingly, it isn't directed at the deserving rich, who presumably have earned all their money or at least been born into it, which is honest in its own way; it's only directed at those who are somehow attaining luxury illegitimately. the freeloading yuppies being a prime example of that. their prime sin is spending the money they are earning on frivolity and not saving it so they might legitimately acquire luxury later on. that is to say, oh no, the pretentious, vulgar bourgeois! their lesser sins: pretending at aristocracy and enjoying it, some sort of fabled generational epidemic of entitlement, and ultimately diluting the value of luxury.
i had the vague suspicion that i was in danger of becoming one of those people, which is a revolting thought. but what really revolted me was not the moral problem of being dependent on my parents, but that this would paint me as impossibly middle-class.
***
the night before i left Prague i was talking with Daniel about the American caste system, and about the Anglosphere. he told me he thought of me as more hybrid than American. i wasn't sure if this was his attempt to recognize me as a fellow rootless, classless sort; or give me a get-out-of-jail-free pass for being a good, cosmopolitan sort of American, not like those other americans. various people from various countries had tried to grant me this (mostly out of their desire not to offend me while still imagining whatever they choose to about the country), but it would be disingenuous to accept. i'm responsible for everything my country does.
and the point of recounting this story is that it seems particularly ridiculous to grant me temporary statelessness when it's clear that my dilemmas are so fundamentally American.
***
wasp control
more cryptic information on the Elite, which i obviously never would have known if it weren't for the Times
Q: what does a little wasp girl want to be when she grows up?
A: the very best person i possibly can!
***
ultimately, it's quite healthy for me to think about silly things like this. it's certainly better than what i've been doing the last few days; i sleep all day and hole up at night, because it stops me from thinking, and means i don't have to interact with my parents, which is becoming harder and harder. although my father is as funny as he ever was; he has the same confidence in his perceptions as i do, and as most of my friends do. i mostly mean my mother (i have to explain to my friends that when i say "my parents" i really mean "my mother"), who is alternately mad at me and pandering to me. the pandering is probably a result of my father's influence and pleas for mercy, but it isn't any less disturbing.
and perpetually brooding. about Bourek, naturally. i'm angry, but not angry enough to refuse him if he, hypothetically, were to send me an email saying he's sorry and he's stupid and he loves me and won't i forgive him. i want to punish him and reel him in, simultaneously (and have him punish me, as well).
all the same, i'm trying to put everything back together, to construct a life without the possibility of him. its foundation will be forgetting. blah blah blah.
***
it turns out that i should never have read Milan Kundera. what really pains me about this whole debacle (and it wasn't really a debacle, obviously, but right now i can say that without meaning it) is that i've somehow become one of those horrible women from his stories. the horrible, victimized, corpulent women who exist purely to be used by his tortured Übermenschen; mostly Helena from The Joke. her weakness is her main characteristic, which is by turns appealing and revolting. she's the sort of victim you can't feel sorry for, because there's something innately victimizable about her, it's all she's good for. a born plot device.
and i've become her. a walking plot device even off the page.
fuck you. really.
***
i'm sitting in a coffeeshop now, and there's a man on the other side of the table at the only other PC in the room. i asked him if he was a poet because he had a face like a guy i was introduced to a long time ago through a girl who was a self-proclaimed Poet. he said, "well, i'm a...writer." i told him he wasn't the guy i thought he was and said, he might as well have just answered yes, because aren't we all.