I can't give you anything but love, baby

Love in the 90's


Bullshit in the 2000's... (or what I did on Thursday night)

Boy (via text message)- What r u up to?
Robyn- Watching Bringing up Baby.
Boy- Huh?
Robyn- It's a Katherine Hepburn picture
Boy- Come to ___.
Robyn- It's 1am. I can't.
Boy- That's stupid. Come out.
Robyn- Sorry, I'm tired. (and frankly, after watching Cary Grant all night, you're going to look like pretty lame anyway.)

Gah. I don't know which is more terrible- the term "hunk" being at all acceptable, or the fact that this particular text message conversation has taken place more times and with more dudes than I can possibly name. Occasionally more than once a night. Also, have had four or five conversations with the ladies this week in which I have advised, "If he's only calling you at one am, he is not all that interested in your sparkling personality or witty conversational abilities. Promise." Which is always easier to say than it is to remember.

This is the thing- in order for me to put forth the effort tear myself out of my warm bed and away from Cary Grant and then get myself gussied up quickly, the dude has got to be pretty damned awesome. If he is texting me at one am, and cannot get it together to plan a day ahead of time, he is, clearly, not all that awesome. Or at least not all that well mannered. So I stay in bed. Call me lazy or whatever, that's just how I feel.

Song For One of The Girls

Here in my heart I am Helen;
I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least.
I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael;
I'm Salome, moon of the East.
Here in my soul I am Sappho;
Lady Hamilton am I, as well.
In me Recamier vies with Kitty O'Shea,
With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell.
I'm of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook.
But you are a man, and see only my pan,
So I stay at home with a book.
-Mrs. Parker.

What's time to her, or she to Time?

For some reason yesterday I thought The Sunday Night Sex Show was next weekend instead of two weekends from now. Phew!

In other news, I decided to wear heels to work today and thus, by 4:00 was wishing I was dead. I was going to go out, but considering the pain I am in, and the fact that I already went to Rodan earlier, I suspect I shall not. Sigh. I think I ought to stay home and read Dorothy Parker and watch some old movie on TCM or something.


Dilemma

If I were mild, and I were sweet,
And laid my heart before your feet,
And took my dearest thoughts to you,
And hailed your easy lies as true;
Were I to murmur "Yes," and then
"How true, my dear," and "Yes," again,
And wear my eyes discreetly down,
And tremble whitely at your frown,
And keep my words unquestioning
My love, you'd run like anything!

Should I be frail, and I be mad,
And share my heart with every lad,
But beat my head against the floor
What times you wandered past my door;
Were I to doubt, and I to sneer,
And shriek "Farewell!" and still be here,
And break your joy, and quench your trust-
I should not see you for the dust!

Happy Thoughts?

I think terrible things all day long. I really do. Like this morning, I saw this woman wearing a t-shirt that said "I'M THE HOT FRIEND!" on it. I have seen her before, wearing a shirt which said "I'M BRINGING SEXY BACK!"

Neither of these things could have possibly been true. I promise. Unless like, her friends exclusively hang out with the John Merrick Look-Alike Chapter of Chicago. Or like, there is a new strain of sexy going around that is not at all like any sexy we have known before. And I wish I maybe thought something like, cheery and supportive, like "Good for her! I bet to someone, she totally is hot and sexy!" But like, even if the chick wearing the shirt was really hot, I would find the shirts unforgivable, and wrong in every way a shirt can manage to be. But like, when there is just such irony! How can you not notice? I can't handle braggy shirts. I'm generally unfond of clothing with anything on it to begin with, but when you start using your shirt as a forum to declare your hotness to the world (instead of like, wearing a cute shirt), you set yourself up for judgement.

That being said, I would totally like this lady's mirror. Five of them in fact. I'd like someone to follow me around with that mirror all day long.

One time I saw a woman wearing a shirt that said "Your boyfriend bought this shirt for me!" Which also, um, had to be a lie- for 99.9999999999999999999% of the population, at least. I bet it was awkward to buy that shirt- you know, if you were in fact buying it yourself. I mean, even if someone else's boyfriend was buying it for you, I bet you'd get some weird looks at the cash register. Awkward all around.

But yeah- see, I'm totally not a good person. Maybe that's why I have the worst time ever accepting compliments- or really, knowing what to say other than "thanks!" I'm really anti-flattery- I so much prefer constructive criticism. I know how to work with that, and maybe I feel like it's more honest. I'm really wary of people blowing smoke up my ass. It's even worse to be flattered when you have nothing to say back- like, you know, like if a really boring guy tell you you're interesting. I avoid that anyway, because I don't want to be anyone's foray into whimsicality as I so often have been (what was that movie with that guy from Scrubs? Yeah, I totally don't want that.). Seriously- the totally reg dudes dig me and tend to find me "fascinating." Which is awkward and makes me feel more like a sideshow exhibit than a person. Anyway... what do you say to that? "Gee, you're interesting too!" Even though it's a lie? My mom believes that everyone is interesting- and she has this amazing talent for drawing that out of people. I don't. I totally think most people are painfully boring.

I want to be like, one of those people that sees the good in everything, and doesn't judge others... but then I think I'd bore myself and what would be the good of that? Sigh. Well, if you don't have anything nice to say, my dears.... come sit by me.

Lady, lady never start...

When I went to bed last night, I was so angry that my skin physically hurt and bristled, and maybe that's why I had all these ridiculous dreams and nightmares that I thought were real upon waking. Or maybe it's becase I was drunk. I don't normally remember dreams, and I don't talk about them either- because I am of the opinion that dreams are only interesting to the person who had them. It's not like I can tell you that I went to this weird zoo where they had like, terrifying sheep/kangaroo hybrids whose arms fell off if you shook hands with them and you can relate. Or that I for some reason sucker punched a pregnant woman in and her stomach crumbled like cardboard and you can say "Oh yes, I have seen that happen."

I digress. I'm sick to my stomach right now- and I don't know if it's from booze, or anger, or the fact that I have to work today and can't see Stevie Wonder play for free at the Taste of Chicago thingy. Maybe they'll let me leave early if it's slow. I like Stevie Wonder much better than I like most other people.

I am partial to band-aids being pulled off quickly- I don't like to look at the bloody underside, and when they're off I want them in the trash, never to be seen by me again. I wrote a rather vitriolic letter last night, which this morning I discovered did not actually get sent, and that's probably for the best. But now, maybe, I suppose I know why I have always been so instinctively vigilant about keeping the things that actually matter to me so well quarantined.

Southpaws and bohemia.

Did you know that both Obama and McCain are left handed? And that five of the six last presidents were in fact left handed? Are you surprised that this is news?

Fun fact about Robyn!- I once went through a phase where I dated left handed men exclusively. I also ate nothing but jell-o for an entire month when I was 13, and ate only with chopsticks for a whole summer when I was 17. I didn't have much to do in those days besides formulate new and interesting quirks. But, back to the left handed thing- I don't do that anymore. With the passing of a few years, I matured some and discovered much better methods. For instance, if I ever date another drummer, Jen has permission to take a drumstick and shove it in my eye. I am also no longer allowed to date anyone simply because they like zombie movies, or to ever again utter the phrase "Well, sure, he's not exactly dreamy... but he seems really nice! (It's never true. Call me shallow, but this plan has just never worked out for me). I also refrain from men carrying around a copy of "Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," men who wear sandals, men with unfortunate facial hair statements, republicans, emotional masochists, poor spellers, etc. Oh, and I always plan to keep this in mind:

Bohemia

Authors and actors and artists and such
Never know nothing, and never know much.
Sculptors and singers and those of their kidney
Tell their affairs from Seattle to Sydney.
Playwrights and poets and such horses' necks
Start off from anywhere, end up at sex.
Diarists, critics, and similar roe
Never say nothing, and never say no.
People Who Do Things exceed my endurance;
God, for a man that solicits insurance!

Dorothy Parker

Old and rickety

It is now June 5th. I am old and rickety! Did you know that there was once a curse on my birthday? It's true. I broke my foot one year, and another year a tree fell on my car that I'd only had for a week, and a lot of other things happened... until Reagan died on my birthday, and then everything has pretty much been ok since. However, in the words of Miss Ruth Gordon, discussing how old one is, is the very temple of boredom.

Did you know that Ruth Gordon is basically my personal idol? Seriously, she is. I watched Rosemary's Baby again the other night, and I love her guts more than you can possibly know. It's true. And not just because she was Maude in Harold and Maude, although that's a major part of it. In case you didn't know, she and her husband Garsin Kanin wrote Adam's Rib, and Pat and Mike, and were supposedly the inspiration for Tracey and Hepburn's onscreen personas (gush! I know, I'm lame.). Also, she played a character based on Dorothy Parker in some play by George Oppenheimer. So, like, basically, she rocks my face. If she were alive, and a man, I would want to marry her and have all of her babies- even if they were actually Satan's. It's true. And I don't like short chicks!

Neither bloody nor bowed

"There is something about that woman -- that woman! -- that refuses to bend, and something about a large portion of this country that despises her for it."

You know, I actually think Clinton might cut your face if you called her "Poor Hillary" to hers.

That's what I would do. And at the end of the day, that's why I'm still gunning for her. I am that woman. At first, my support of HRC was primarily based on the fact that it would annoy the largest numbers of people I can't stand. I'm a big fan of schadenfreude and ball busting. And it's still partly that. I'm not exactly the worlds biggest fan of the Democratic party- I don't think they're all that different from the Republicans. At all.

But this is the thing- the main thing. People feel the same way about Hillary Clinton as they do about me a good deal of the time. There is just something about being that sort of woman that gets under people's skin, and I see it all the time. It drives me crazy, especially because it's usually coming from other women. And I get why she's staying in the race. I totally get it. Because, whenever I'm in a political argument, the more "Oh my god, will you just shut up and go make some cookies!" vibes I get, the more I am determined to continue.

The two criticisms I hear about myself most often are the following:
- I talk too much
- I am too opinionated.

Think back now, and try- just try to think of time when a man has been described in those terms. I can't think of one. Men have opinions, women are opinionated. Men are talkative, women just won't shut up.

And when they say I'm strong, it always has that tinge of resentment to it, a bitter aftertaste I can smell on their breath.

And with Hillary Clinton, this whole "Oh! It's cute that you tried, now go home to your family and let the boys play their game" thing gets right under my skin, and if she did bow out without fighting it to the end, I'd be fucking pissed.

This whole "Poor Hillary" thing is nothing but a perverse desparation to always see women as victims. It's a place where people are comfortable, and that disturbs me on a very deep level. If people can put you in the category of victim, it makes you much easier to deal with. Because the opposite of victim is victor. And no one likes losing to a woman.

I don't know how to act like a victim. It's just not in my bones. My mother is not a victim so I never learned how. We have too much pride, the women in my family. I would fall down dead before I manipulated anyone with tears. Even to get out of a ticket. Which is why I know she wasn't faking that day.

What does it say about our society that we are more at home with women cutting themselves, and starving themselves than fighting? Or being president. Why do we need women to be pathetic? Why do we need to insinuate that need onto a woman that does not need, ask for, or want our sympathy?

...and though to good I never come,
Inseparable my nose and thumb.

Dorothy Parker is my homegirl.

Song Of One Of The Girls

Here in my heart I am Helen;
I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least.
I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael;
I'm Salome, moon of the East.

Here in my soul I am Sappho;
Lady Hamilton am I, as well.
In me Recamier vies with Kitty O'Shea,
With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell.

I'm one of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook.
But you are a man, and see only my pan,
So I stay at home with a book.