My iPhone Lies
I am a late adapter. That means that I am never the first one to explore new technology. I got my first cell phone (a SmartPhone) in August of 2012 – less than two years ago. However I did jump right in and get an iPhone as my first phone. I was seduced by its image.
My iPhone lies. It says I am sophisticated. It tags me as a Sex in the City gal.
It tells people that I would be completely at home living in New York City, attending Broadway plays on a regular basis and spending the rest of my time hob-nobbing with other New York City writers.
When I was much, much younger the thing I wanted to be most was a writer living in New York City. A Carrie, if you will. Though back then Carrie was Helen Gurley Brown, the penultimate editor of Cosmopolitan, who evolved from Arkansas to Manhattan in the 1960s. She went from poverty to literary fame, from small rural town to what was then the literary capital of the United States.
All the greats, all the women writers I admire, spent time writing and living in New York. Sylvia Plath went to Smith, worked at Mademoiselle and eventually ended up in London. London, England – another city I wished to use to live in. I was too poor to aspire to Smith but if I could write well enough perhaps I too could end up somewhere amazing. I envied her path in life but not her end. Why are the writers we so often admire so tragic?
Then there was Dorothy Parker, witty, not so pretty Dorothy who wore glasses and only wanted to be sophisticated and feared not admired and loved.
So there we have it, a capsule of New York City’s sophisticated writers from the beginning of the 20th century to its end. I’m a big fan of smart and liberated women no matter what century they lived in.
In reality, am I a Carrie, a Charlotte, a Miranda or a Samantha? I am older then the oldest of them now. The older I get the less I want to move though New York City, London and San Francisco still haunt my books and occasional dreams. These are on my TBR lists. (TBR = books to be read eventually). I’ve downloaded this Cocktail app on my iPhone.
According to these quizzes: 1, 2, 3, and 4 – I am: 1 = Miranda; 2 = Miranda; 3 = Samantha; and 4 = Miranda.
So, mostly, I am a career centered Miranda with a bit of sex positive Samantha thrown in for fun. I can live with that!
Miranda, somewhat like me, is the pragmatic career woman. Though I wouldn’t say that I am highly ambitious, my own life and career does comes first. However, I will always put my iPhone down to enjoy a cocktail with the girls. I am strong-willed, determined and independent. I want what I want but finding the means to achieve what I want is where I run into trouble. I like to control my life and my space and each time I move it gets harder and harder to do. I want security. I want to be in a place where I’ll know that I’ll never have to move again and I would love to have a relationship with a stable, self-sufficient employed man.
There are too many to name. I seem to reinvent myself with every decade. My music tastes evolve. I read more widely in many more genres. I get pickier about what I watch on television. I seem less and less to fit in with the norm – not that I ever was miss popular small town wife and mother to be.
I was always slightly different from everyone else but I got very good at passing as normal (or whatever normal seemed to be at the moment).
There is a certain power in names. I renamed myself for this blog. Here, my name is gigi (no capitals please). gigi’s inspiration is e. e. cummings, and the 1958 musical, Gigi.
gigi would not feel uncomfortable living anywhere in the world. She would be friendly while still maintaining her independence. She would be a woman of means who would age gracefully. She would love to wear vintage clothes and wouldn’t care what people said about her unconventional life.
So, as Helen Gurley Brown said:
“After you’re older, two things are possibly more important than any others: health and money.”
And Dorothy Parker opined in her poem, Resume:
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
Myself, gigi, can only hope to one day be as witty and suplime.
Here’s to life – wherever and however you end up living it.
Reciting Poetry Aloud
Over the last couple of days, I have been seeing articles about how quirky one becomes when one lives alone. How we solitary singles are prone to talking to our pets & stuffed animals, how we never close the bathroom door and sing/dance with free abandon. We are weird, eccentric and darn right, proud of it.
My number one quirk is that I like to recite poetry aloud!
I have collected poetry since I was a teenager and could not afford to spend money on books. Above are just two of my poetry collections; they are my earliest binders. There was no public photocopier at my high school (or in my small town) so any poem I wanted to keep I had to copy out by hand. My handwriting then was very tiny, precise and neat. I was happy to get a typewriter for my 16th birthday because it meant I could now type out the poems!
I love the sounds of words. The rhythm of a poem soothes my soul. I can still recite many of the first poems I learned. When I went to school memorization was mandatory.
I often whisper Georgie Starbuck Galbraith’s “Full Moon Song” when I’m feeling lovelorn. However, I can never remember the first verse.
Was ever the moon that didn’t wane?
Yet tonight the moon is full,
And the heart is richer that chances pain
Than the heart in cotton wool.Then what, my love, if your love is brief?
Tonight you are mine to kiss,
And better a century of grief
Than never an hour of bliss.
I’ve always tended to remember only the best bits of a poem; for me, these bits usually tend to be maudlin.
… What you hope for
Is that at some point of the pointless journey,
Indoors or out, and when you least expect it,
Right in the middle of your stride, like that,
So neatly that you never feel a thing,
The kind assassin Sleep will draw a bead
And blow your brains out.
The full text of this poem, Walking to Sleep by Richard Wilbur, is much longer. Excuse me for a moment well I go read it aloud! Aha, I see now why I only copied part – this poem does not flow smoothly off my tongue.
I’ve been trying to memorize The Shooting of Dan McGrew for decades.
I want to write poems like this. Poems that trip merrily off the tongue. Poems that last for centuries.
Poems like those of Marge Piercy or Dorothy Parker.
I do write poems (occasionally inspired by others’ words).
I wrote a poem which uses these two lines…
She’s dipped her quill in ink
That runs from the heart – blood red.
I thought I borrowed the exact words from Dorothy’s “For A Lady Who Must Write Verse”. I Didn’t. I took her idea and spun it around for my own purpose.
I just spend over two hours trying to find the source of those two lines that I thought I had copied perfectly from a poem. It took me an hour to recall the poet (Dorothy Parker) and two hours to go through my stuff. I knew I should have started at the end. I knew when I wrote the poem and where and where my original poem was but I got sucked into thinking Google would make it easy to find (hah). I’m a librarian, I should know better.
I want to recite with such passion as to make women weep.
I want to inspire as these women do at Spoken Words.
Alone, in my apartment, I can. I do.
Solitary Spinster 