The James Joyce of Fashion Bloggers: "Whisky & Cinnamon Gum," by Laura Jane Faulds ---> NOGOODFORME.COM

Monday , November 16, 2009

The James Joyce of Fashion Bloggers: "Whisky & Cinnamon Gum," by Laura Jane Faulds

Hi! Welcome to "The James Joyce of Fashion Bloggers," starring Laura Jane Faulds as The James Joyce of Fashion Bloggers. Let's be clear about something here- I'm such a way worse writer than James Joyce, it's not even worth getting into. I just, you know, like to write. So that's the story behind why I'm The James Joyce of Fashion Bloggers. Because both James Joyce and myself enjoy writing. "The James Joyce of Fashion Bloggers" is my new nogoodforme column dedicated to writing about things that I feel like writing about that have nothing to do with anything except that I feel like writing about them. Whisky & Cinnamon Gum, the inaugural installment of TJJoFB, is a story-essay about "Norwegian Wood" by the Beatles, Greenpoint in the fall of 2006, the smell of motor oil, and my issues with dudes, I mean, "men."

I. OR SHOULD I SAY, I ONCE HAD THEM?

Two miraculous things that have happened to me this summer:

1) The Universe and its populace seem to have reached the collective conclusion that I am an "insanely hot babe." To quote a five-year-old boy who stood behind me in line at Starbucks four days ago: "She looks like a movie star!" To quote myself, in my head, while strutting down the street, "I'm the girl of the summer!"

2) After twenty-four years spent covering my ears and hollering "GROSS!" at even the most insignificantly suggestive sex jokes, I now have the sense of humor of a pre-pubescent boy. What do I bring to the table? "Jerking off hand gestures" and the phrase "Bonersville, USA."

Two things, about these two things:

1) It all comes from confidence.

2) Except the sex jokes. I mean well yeah- you have to be at least kind of confident to feel alright about saying "boner" to strangers, but probably this new impulse is more of a subconscious (and awesome) reaction to how frequently I am sexualized against my will, by creeps. It's summertime. I wear short dresses. My hair is this weird blondy thing; I have a killer tan. I'm not emaciated. I can't even buy a Caramilk bar at 7-11 without a drunk, grizzly ex-jock placing his red meaty hand upon my pristine shoulder and letting me know that "[I'm] fuckin' great-looking. Every man on the street is lookin' at [me]. [I'm] a head-turner." When you're faced with a neverending parade of desperately horny dudes rubberneckin' your business, their salty eyes brimmin' just brimmin' with unimaginably indecent you-related thoughts- why not beat those motherfuckers to the punch? Apparently there is a palpable and furious sexual energy that hangs about my person, or perhaps these men just conjure it up; either way, I am pretty sexy, and I dig that about myself. That being said, it's nasty to have my own sexuality stolen away from me by jerks who you couldn't pay me to even make direct eye contact with.

And so- I may as well get a laugh out of the deal, since- as we all know- there is nothing in this world more hilarious than a hot babe making a jerking off hand gesture.

Your looks are the least thing about you. All it means is that your dad looked like one thing, and your mom looked like another, and then they had a kid. Why does everybody think I want them to tell me it? I don't. I know it about myself; it would be weird if I didn't. I look in mirrors, too.

Even when they're not telling me it, they're telling me it. Sitting on a patio somewhere can be treacherous, the way pervy passersby will use their mobility as a justification for no-holds-barred lewd- &/or rudeness. And then there is the male contingent of this given patio's population, lurid, leering, fucking with my "creative process"-

"Are you a writer?" he asked.

I closed my notebook, and said "Yes."

"What are you writing?" he smiled.

I froze, and fibbed: "I write for a fashion blog. I'm just writing about, like, clothes?"

I pounded back the watery end of my whisky sour, shrugged apologetically, and ran. I hate to lie, but I knew I had to. The honest answer to his question would have been, "I'm writing about how my #4 goal in life is to open up a Kinks-themed anorexia recovery clinic."

And that's where things get messy.

Three things about dudes/me/me & dudes:

1) They call me "magic," or "magical," which makes me feel like I am not a person. Magic isn't real- but I am! "Thanks for ruining it for the rest of us, Zooey Deschanel!", I often think- to be that girl, your whimsical fox, the movies have put the thought into their thick heads and, by proxy: Laura Jane Faulds can save your life! They think, wrongly. I am not Dream Girl. I am not Magical Mystery Babe; I'm not the "Brown Figure" of Araby. Neither muse nor mistress; may I please drink my drink in peace?

2) If my attitude toward men's attitudes towards me could be encapsulated by a single Neil Young lyric, which it could, it would be (and is): Doesn't mean that much to me, to mean that much to you.

3) My General Relationship Pattern: "Norwegian Wood," by the Beatles. I alternate between being John Lennon and Maureen Cleave, but mostly, I'm both. Dudes give me free wine, I wow them with clever tales ripped off from blog posts I wrote six months ago, and then I stay up all night having an emotional breakdown, curled up on his bathroom floor. Then I burn their houses down, and go to work in the morning.

As follows is A Brooklyn Love Story, about a time in my life, when none of this was true.

II. AM I, LIKE, A SUBARU TO YOU?

I met David two weekends before Hallowe'en, at the cozy bar in Greenpoint, Brooklyn called Enid's.

"It's the bar where the Fiery Furnaces got discovered!" Katie told me.

"That's nice," I thought.

I was really drunk. That October, I drank vodka tonics and Greyhounds, because neither of them tasted like vodka. It is always a nice game, trying to piece together what actually happened during the "drunk phases" of one's life. So much blurry fun, and which is which?

Though this night I got down. It was that Autumn's Autumn of my- and Brooklyn's- life, clear-aired, and every day began to the smells of apple cider and brown paper burning, and when walking down the street swelled with the sound of a brown, papery crunch.

When I was twenty-one years old, I lived in Brooklyn.

Two weekends before Hallowe'en- I was the sort of drunk where you are asking the bartender to give you maraschino cherries- it's a treat for the world, the picture of you, eating them cute- and every man and girl is madly in love with you, you're sure of it- when you feel so hot just for having bangs, for letting them fall into your eyes.

I was "newly single," which during that Autumn's Autumn meant that I'd recently abandoned the dude I was boredly going out with last week. "He's a boy," I remember telling my friends, drunkly. "I don't date boys. I date men." In October of 2006, that was the sentiment of the hour. In October of 2006, there weren't "dudes" yet. In October of 2006, I had it all wrong, and I knew it, and I loved it, and- I went with it.

David was eight years older than me, which meant he was twenty-nine, which meant that he was turning thirty soon, which meant that a lot of our later conversations centered around David's "turning thirty" anxieties. He wasn't too tall, just the fine amount of taller than me I always will shallowishly prefer for a dude to be. He was broad as cooking knives and a bit fit; he lifted free weights in his bedroom. He was the first dude I ever dated who wasn't ten trillion feet tall, clocking in at a flimsy ninety-eight pounds. Over time, as the stories have faded and I have built up a writerly and embellished legend of him in my mind, everything about the way he looked has become perfect. I'm so catty girl jealous of myself then, for scoring into such a looker.

He was the man, I mean dude, of my twenty-one year-old self's dreams. I would ogle his strongish jaw lovesickly; it meant so much to me, that I was finally allowed to be dating a dude who could grow facial hair. He had big Count Five sideburns, and a scratchy black moptop. He was distrustful of his own long hair. He'd moved here from Saginaw, Michigan nine months ago. New friends had told him to grow his hair out, he'd had no idea that's what people "did" (in Brooklyn). His cluelessness was darling; I loved teaching him "how to exist in Greenpoint, October 2006." I was maternal with him, he seemed a bit "off" and I liked to care for it. He had this heartbreaking hint of autism hanging round: due to a childhood hunting mishap he didn't care to talk about, his left eye crossed in a smidge, and he was 100% deaf in one ear. So when you talked, he would nudge his strapping chin down southwesterly and lean lopsided toward you, and so, in New York City, where nobody ever listens to anybody- I had a deaf boyfriend who always went out of his way to hear what I had to say, even if he had no idea what I was talking about.

In October of 2006, I would walk up to dudes and ask, with the phony confidence that comes from being foolishly wasted and four months legal, "What are you doing Tuesday night?" It was the hottest, most convenient and least creepy pick-up line in all life's history. Katie Rose and I DJed together every Tuesday, so if I was rebuked, I'd just pass it off as, "Yeah, it's cool, I play 60s bubblegum and psych, check it out I guess," and then go get another drink.

I slid in next to David at his long table. I noticed him because he was hot, and because he looked lost, zoned, glum at the bar, like he would have been happier off plowing some land, with oxen.

He had no Tuesday night plans.

"Perfect!" I said.

We found out some things about each other. He liked bikes, built scooters, and his profession was "perfume bottle engineer." He had architected the Sarah Jessica Parker perfume bottle.

"Can I get some for free?" I asked.

"No," he said, shaking his head, seriously. He pulled a pack of Big Red out of his front jeans pocket. He offered me a piece of it, as a Sorry maybe. He leaned his non-deaf ear in close.

"Um, no," I said. "But could I eat the end of your ice?"

He smiled his somber smile, and pushed his glass over close. His drink had been whisky. The ice was disgusting.

It was the first night I'd ever gone home with a boy. I felt illicit and unsubtle. I watched myself pull the bobby pins out of my long hair in his bathroom mirror. He had many bottles of cologne, but his bedroom smelled overwhelmingly of straight motor oil, scooter fuel, metal and monkey grease. Wheels, spokes, abounded. He built scooters in his bedroom. He had never smoked pot in his life. The window stayed open, all year round.

His mechanic's hands were chapped and sore, grisly grey under his nailbeds forever I bet. He said Sorry, for not having nicer hands to touch me with. My grandfather was a mechanic, so that bent hit the right nerve. He took my arms, and examined my tattoos.

"Is McCartney your last name?" he asked.

I kissed him.
__

The next morning, I tried to make up a lie about having to leave, but he insisted on taking me out to breakfast. I said Okay, because I did want to go out for breakfast with this hot man. I saw, that my lie had only been a characteristic attempt at self-sabotage.

We walked in silence to some diner somewhere (in Greenpoint). He said, "Sorry, I'm quiet in the morning."

"I'm not!" I chirped, and I told him about my dogs, my DJ night, my schoolwork.

At the place, I tried to order just coffee, but he made me get eggs Florentine, and I loved him, I love it when men make me eat. "Tell me something about yourself," I prompted.

His bad eye crossed in. "I like Subarus," he said.

I laughed, and asked him why.

He said, "Because I like cars, and they're quirky."

Our food came, and we ate it. There wasn't much to say.

I sat, stared, and focused on memorizing his eyebrows. When I like a dude, I always make a point of memorizing his eyebrows. Because of that second, when you're sitting there, looking at him, and you think, you always are- so happy for yourself, to finally be existing in this moment where you are with a boy, looking into his (crossed) eyes, and he likes you and you like him. But you know still- soon, you'll eat up your last bite, and then you'll walk home. In five hours, his face will haze over in your mind's eye. By the next morning, you'll forget it entirely.

So I always learn their eyebrows, and then, I can think of that, and know that I'm right, about one thing, at least.

III. THE HIGHER YOU FLY, THE DEEPER YOU GO

Because of my history with eating disorders, I have looked like a hundred different people in my life. It's a unique experience, and it has taught me some dirty sick things of men. The ways in which a girl's appearance- namely, their bodies- make them treat you like a hundred different things. I have been a waste, a waste of time, a baby, a doll, an infant, a victim, a savior, a babe. A girl to fall in love by, a song to blow your mind.

Growing up, I was always the chubby girl. Admitting that, and owning it- in this context, right now- is painful, which means it is important, which means it is the right thing to say.

I grew up in a household where eating was performed emotionally. I grew up with a mother who made sure to teach me how most effectively to suck in what she called my "little tummy," a gift to all the men I would encounter once adulthood hit. I grew up ashamed of my body; I grew up disgusted by, and defensive of, my looks. Teenage boys are terrible people. In high school, I was "not up for consideration," although in retrospect, I imagine this had as much to do with the unattractiveness of insecurity as it did with my being ten pounds or whatever overweight.

When I went away to school in New York City at eighteen, dudes began to take serious notice of me, because I was gorgeous, and brilliant. But mostly I just thought they were losers for liking me, which I doubted they even did. A year later, I met and fell in love with the notorious Fuckscrap Junior, and we first-kissed beneath a red felt blanket on his balcony. He was the most beautiful boy; I'd shown my Mother his Polaroid, and she said "I can see why you like him- he looks like George Harrison.

I held that close to my heart. We made out on his couch.

"You're beautiful," he said.

"What the fuck is wrong with this dude?!?" I remember thinking.

It was when we broke up that I got sick, and thus began my "Norwegian Wood, Only Drunker" phase. Every time my weight dropped significantly, I broke a heart, struck through one of the hises carved-out initials, on my tree.

And I know why I can't let go of David, why every time I visit New York I contemplate calling him, why every dude forever needs to have his exact face: because he was the last one. Before my tree lost its leaves, and that's what I looked like, too: one flimsy, beaten branch. Those little knoblets down my spine, where life once lived, and now wasn't. Leafless, when winter hits, and it did, when I died, along with the trees. Along with the apple-cidered, brown-papered, red leaves.

On Hallowe'en, I skipped DJ Night to nestle my head into the crook of his brawny chest and sip vodka-pineapples at Pete's Candy Store. I gazed at the chalk menu on the wall and was hungry for it. He drank whisky, and chewed cinnamon gum. I kissed him, and he tasted like it. He rode me home on the handlebars of his racing bike. "You're kinda small," he said, and I thought of "You're So Good To Me" by the Beach Boys.

He stayed over that night, and every time he kissed me, I said "I love you" in my head. Three years later, I remember a lot more of that night than just his eyebrows, which were vampiric, arched, architected, Gothickally.

He went to work in the morning. I never knew his last name, and I forget his Zodiac sign. I stopped calling him, because I was "kinda small" now- I could do better, or so I thought. Of course, I could not, and never did, haven't since. I've never gotten over this dude because I've never stopped wondering: what if I had stayed? What if I'd let him be my winter boyfriend? We may have sat in his fuel bedroom and watched dumb comedies. He would have made me eat more meals, and maybe I wouldn't have gotten so sick. I want to go back and make it so that I stayed with him, and got well before it got bad. You can't sit around and think of these things; I regret so little in my life, but I fucking regret it so bad it makes my wrists sting, this thing. It makes me stop writing. My shoulders hunch. I need to go smoke a bleary cigarette on the patio. It's true, is the thing. I could have made a better choice. And I could have those three years back.

I could have spared myself, and them, the bloody spit and venom of it. Counting my bones alone, crying as these brackish men slept- how I would loathe them, for being able to sleep sound while poor poor I got stuck with the shit of insomnia. I didn't love them, they looked ugly asleep, that is how you know you don't love somebody. Sleeping beauties are the dudes you love. I lied like wild- "I'm not anorexic! No way! I just have a fast metabolism!"- and they believed me because they felt like it, for how they needed it. I watched miserably as they allowed themselves to be "saved" by someone so fractured. They sat dully, winning it all as I shot myself in the face on rote, whispery, it's not fair- why can't they save me?

And of course it never happened, and of course they never did. In the end, you can only save yourself, which I'm sure, in the end, they didn't.

But I did!

This summer I am beautiful because I am alive, and because I am the most confident person in the world. I am gaining weight, and occasionally it is terrifying, but mostly, I am in love with it. Something I do a lot of is go through my closet, and pull out all my anorexi-clothes: the ones meant for babies, the size 24 jeans. I look at them now, and it makes me want to puke, to think of a grown woman, of me- fitting into that. There is something unholy about it.

I snip them up with scissors, and then I throw them in the garbage, and then I take the garbage out.

It's the end of August, the fall is on its way. Autumn: the season that sounds the most like "Norwegian Wood" by the Beatles. I'll be a cat for Hallowe'en. Those three years, between him and June, were the least of me. I think of myself a year ago, and there is nobody I hate more, that adorable little fucking liar. But, smiling, she delivers: this bird has flown. These months, these three, when "she" became "me." Of Summer 2009, when I was the girl of it: I will always love her the best. I will think, "It was she, who made me me."

This me, these months: when I drank whisky and chewed cinnamon gum, to taste the niceness of something past. When I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, pulled the bobby pins out of my hair, and thought:

"Isn't it good?"

Tags: anorexia, autumn, Brooklyn, cinnamon gum, dudes, eating disorder recovery, eyebrows, Greenpoint, Hallowe'en, jerking off hand gestures, Laura Jane Faulds, men, Norwegian Wood, nostalgia, summer, The James Joyce of Fashion Bloggers, the perils of being a hot babe, whisky

Posted by Laura in The James Joyce of Fashion Bloggers | Permalink | Leave a comment | Comments (18)

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18 Comments!!

Sorry to be a creeper and comment so often, but this post was rather amazing. Being fifteen, it is hard to come by quality dude advice (because there is no way you're going to ask your mother, and your friends don't know much more than you) but this was kind of awesome.

By clara the annoying fifteen-year-old on August 23, 2009 4:29 PM

Hi Clara,

15 was my second-favourite age I've ever been, besides 24. I am always here for dude advice if you need it, and thank you as always for your active readership!

By Laura on August 23, 2009 4:39 PM

dude,
that pic rulez.
also, you look tan. & healthy.
go on w/ yr bad self.

By lizth on August 23, 2009 9:20 PM

i miss you so much, laura. i'm sad that we couldn't drink sangria when u were here. i look forward to your next visit. this post was so honest and beautiful and admirable. basically, it's the greatest.

xoxoxoxoxo
wow, i really am sentimental!

By katie rose on August 23, 2009 10:35 PM

LJF,
This post, and you - rock.
Thanks - loved every word.

-esb

By EvilShannonB on August 24, 2009 7:37 AM

hey laura J!

i enjoy reading your stuff, you're so honest! :)

about that guy you adored, i met this guy on a vacation in ireland and somehow fell in love with him. we met a few times during the week, but then i left the country and i think i'll never see him again. and it's weird, because i never fell in love in my home country before. but i hope it happens to me, and i really hope you'll meet a guy even cooler thath david ;) take care, l

By laura on August 24, 2009 8:37 AM

This was completely, totally, unequivocally, wonderfully, brilliantly, truly amazing.

PS I'm going to duck as soon as I say: I actually hate James Joyce. I think you're better.

By Samantha on August 24, 2009 10:23 AM

hey Laura so glad I checked in with you to hear what was going on. Keep writing. Love,Chloe C.

By Chloe C. on August 24, 2009 10:48 AM

Just realized that every time I fiddle with the ring I wear on my index finger, it looks like I'm making the Jerking Off Hand Gesture. Currently undecided as to whether this will attract or repel the dudes. What think'st you, O Laura, whose wisdom is limitless as our culture's canon of sex jokes?

By Jill on August 24, 2009 12:19 PM

i know i comment wayy too much, but this literally gave me chills as i was reading it, you are an incredible writer!

By Rosie on August 24, 2009 12:30 PM

laura, this is really beautiful.

clara: did you make a zine? how might one obtain a copy?

By Liz on August 24, 2009 12:35 PM

Dear everybody: Thank you! Obvsville this was a difficult one to write, and share, so it means more than the most to hear that it worked, or did, or meant something.

It was only after writing this that it finally occurred to me to be grateful for being able to write things down- I was telling people about how I was working on an essay about my dude issues, and would make the joke about how I'd probably solve them by the time it was through! And then I actually did!

Yeah, Clara! I want a Clara zine too!

Sam- THX THX maybe in 20 yrs I'll 1-up Jimmy

Katie Rose- xoxoxoxoxoxoxo forevs, I was thinking of you reading this while I wrote it! Wildness! Nobody in my life remembers that dude! But I bet you do!

Oh & Jill, honestly, really, the more ANYTHING you're doing resembles a JOHG, the hotter you are. That's a FACT.

By Laura on August 24, 2009 1:09 PM

totes wonderful! i love norwegian wood and this piece. thank you!

By kerrry on August 24, 2009 1:46 PM

I loved that. It reminded me of a similar time in my life - when I was around 21 actually. such beautiful beautiful writing. thanks for sharing.

PS: how the hell did you get so tan? ;)

By meg o on August 24, 2009 8:16 PM

I have no idea why but knowing you are happy makes me happier. And of course your writing is superb.

By Hadley on August 25, 2009 4:14 AM

I can't believe that I was unaware of nogoodforme.com for this long! I recently began making daily visits, and I love it! Laura, I love the way you write. You always manage to be hopeful; whether you're sarcastically writing of how you're hungover and feel like death, or how much it sucks that you didn't get to experience the 60's. Even when you write about something as serious as anorexia your words convey a lightheartedness, sort of like you're saying "isn't life funny?". I don't know what it is, but very time I read something of yours I feel more optimistic. I really like your attitude toward life. I love that you sometimes leave earlier to allow yourself time to walk down the street while listening to your iPod, and I've stared doing it too! Genius! Anyway, for me, you writing provides a dose of reality with a dose of laughter. I wish there were more of that these days!

By Alexandra on August 25, 2009 5:59 PM

Dear Meg- I got so tan by having good strong Southern European blood, and, you know, I ain't a-woofin' when I talk about headphones walkin' 5 hours a day!

Alexandra- Life is the most wonderfully hilarious joke of one's entire life, and all I want is to write about it. I appreciate your comment so much, so kind, and so smile-inducing to know "it worked." Honesty invites honesty, I've learned, and thanks a hundred for yours.

And all the other THXes of course, too, where THXes are due.

By Laura on August 25, 2009 8:49 PM

Sorry Liz and LJ, I didn't see your zine requests until now! But e-mail me your addresses and I will totes send you a copy!

By Clara the annoying-fifteen-year-old on August 30, 2009 3:05 PM

Say something so insightful and witty, it will blow us away. (No pressure.)

Got something to say? We'd love to hear it! Name, email and "type in the weirdo drunken text" thingie are all required to comment; don't worry, we won't email you or anything, we just want to make sure you're not an evil spambot. Keeping in mind the good-times mentality we like to keep going here, we've worked hard to keep NOGOODFORME.COM as fun as possible. We welcome all kinds of comments, but insults/abuse/general bitchery are not tolerated. In other words, we put the smackdown on evil troll posts. If you want to be a hater, please go elsewhere. Now, as Salt 'N Pepa say, "Only the sexy people..."