Cynicism

I recently found myself watching a video talking about how when you are younger you imagine yourself as a different adult than what you actually become, because your perception of what constitutes adulthood changes as you move into the age where larger society considers you an adult. While I understood the point made (my mom always says things about still not feeling like an adult) I found that this was not at all my experience. Thinking about how I've always envisioned myself, I realize that what I'd thought I'd be like is really not that far off from the truth. It's sort of ridiculous, but I always thought of myself as some sort of single independent woman, bohemian and all, living in an apartment with brick walls and an exposed beam ceiling, and green glass bottles against a window. This is a big part of the reason that I tried to be a vegetarian in 7th grade. Not because I had some huge guilt or political agenda about eating animals, but because it fit into the type of person I wanted to be. I'm not sure just how shallow this is. Probably a little bit shallow.

Over the past four years or so, I've become fairly comfortable in my single living stance. Not that I want to be single forever, but in the "God if I'm going to be single forever, that's completely OK, you know, just as long as I know" way. I also have become pretty comfortable living in Troy, and I can't imagine being willing to move somewhere for someone. That someone would have to mean quite a bit to me. I would have to love him more than Troy. It could happen, I suppose. I mean..... it isn't an impossibility.

For a hot second I allowed myself to get swept up and lose my callousness. No more.

Someone posted a twitpic of Daria on DVD. I've been searching for this show on DVD since TV on DVD was first a popular thing. I love Daria. I decided to look up some old episodes on the internet. They weren't too hard to track down.

Ever since I was young I looked up to snarky, cynical, sarcastic women. My favorite Christmas song was always Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses. Ladies like Daria, Margarate Cho and Janeane Garafalo inspired me in the nineties. More recently we've got the sass of Jenny Lewis, and the dry deadpan wit of Zooey Deschanel. I've always been one of those ladies who get along with guys better than with other ladies, but this kind of lady really appeals to me.

I think this has to do with a lot of factors. I'm sure my family dynamic had something to do with it. Though my dad might have been the breadwinner, my mom certainly wore the pants. When I picture myself in my ideal job, I think of my favorite art class in high school and replace my favorite art teacher with myself. My favorite art teacher, of course, being a guy. I knew plenty of female art teachers, but I never envision myself doing things like they do them. I don't know that I picture myself as a guy, but rather, that I see myself as genderless in those situations.

When I pictured myself, I never really imagined what sort of career I'd pursue or what sort of education I'd have, but allow me to be conceited for a moment and say that with finishing up my Master's degree, I feel that the type of articulate discussion I am able to have, the cutting way in which I am able to defend my point, the depth with which I am familiar with my interests, this fits in very well with who I had hoped to be. Sarcastic women are smart women are strong women.

My mom always encouraged me to be the type of person I want to be, but at some point she started worrying out loud that my outward appearance might scare off boys. My stance has always been that if they wouldn't want to date me because I have short hair, I probably wouldn't want to date them either. It's like a douchebag filter.

I start to worry that having such a jaded personality will be more of a wall than a filter, but if other people have gotten past it to break it down in the past, I suppose I shouldn't be worried that such things won't happen in the future.

Attn: Video Editors

How can I get this effect? (Using Final Cut Express)

O!maha

I met up with Brett Vaida and his friends some time after 11pm on Tuesday. I left my things in my car and went with him and his roommates back to the bar right down the block. This bar is called the 49r, and according to them, Connor Oberst used to hang out there before he got famous. As they finished their pitcher and I nursed my vodka-cran-mostly-vodka, they told me all about their relationship with the bar (also a venue, the Super Colliders – their band- play there), and about the area of Omaha we were in. The neighborhood is called Dundee, and apparently, it stretches in its nice hipsterness until Saddle Creek Blvd (?), at which time it becomes the ghetto.

At about 1, the bar closed, so we went back to their apartment and drank a bit more. We alternated between the couches inside and the porch outside, depending on if they felt like smoking or not. I gushed over their boxer, Jackson. I rubbed his ears and kissed his face and pulled on his jowls. I did this until we all went upstairs so Will could show us something on the computer.


I then heard that tell-tale noise that says “stay away from this dog’s mouth.”

Toilet drinker. Gross.


The next day, responding to Brett’s roommate (Dirty Dan)’s joke about having to work for my stay, I raided the fridge and made bacon and eggs. I was given permission to do this.

Brett had to work (in a sushi bar of the Whole Foods?) so I went with Will and Dirty Dan to a “recording studio” several blocks away. Before driving to the studio, we drove to a vintage store several blocks in the other direction – Scout Dry Goods. I bought a dress.

Apparently, no one ever walks anywhere in Omaha.

Dirty Dan informed me that the kid we were going to meet was blind, because he was diabetic. Also, Dirty Dan informed me that he likes to pick on said kid because of this.

So we drive over to a different kid’s house. This kid is small and looks like a Connor Oberst fan. He is attractive, from Detroit, and clearly dating the plain, attractive, red haired girl who would occasionally stroke his arm.

The blind kid, whose name escapes me, might as well be from Blink 182. He has a lip ring, and a ridiculous California – Surfer- Duuude accent that seems supremely out of place in Omaha. He is a really nice guy.

We get nothing done. We listen to three or four of his songs, most likely inspired by Blink-182. It is decided that what is needed is not Will’s guitar, but a few random notes by some other instrument. We sit on the front porch and everybody smokes. I do the smoke detector. Just kidding.

A light haired lanky kid bounces from off the street. “Do you still know how to fix MacBooks?” he inquires of Detroit Boy.

This lanky kid has an amazing Nebraska bicep tattoo.

Disgusting songs are played on laptops and Dirty Dan discusses how he would really like to hit a bird with his car. I tell him a story about being small, and my mom hitting a bird.

She screamed into both hands, and my father had to grab the wheel.

Apparently, this desire is spawned by a story Dan heard a comic tell. Apparently this comic saw a hobo punch a bird out of the air. Perhaps you’ve heard this skit? It is apparently true.

This is foreshadowing.

Dirty Dan wants to go home, Will has to pick up his friend Bre, and I want to check out the shopping area, so we part ways. Later, I get a call from Will and meet up with him and Bre. We go to the Saddle Creek complex. (This is a new building created for the record label. Their apartments and offices are above, with their favorite shops, a venue, and a movie theater below). We go into the American Apparel. Bre is now modeling for them, and they are going to use one of her pictures on their website. They are giving her gift certificates for this.


Bre is a tall, attractive girl, whose looks would generally be dubbed “exotic,” meaning: Not strictly of European, Black, or Asian descendence.

Bre asks the kid working the counter how much she has spent there. Her total is over $600 since December.

We go to the coffee shop in the Saddle Creek Complex. On the door is a smattering of gig posters. I comment on the design of a Connor Oberst one. “I went out with him” Bre says quietly, to herself...sort of blushing. This is so bizarre to me, but I am in Omaha, and this girl is a model, so I believe her. She says this was when she was 19, and she is 25 now. She says he used to live with her friends. I think she said she asked him to make out.

“That only works for me half the time,” I tell her.