Friday, July 18, 2008

Eleanor Rigby

We have this idea, in our society, that to be single is to be living a half-life. To sit, silently, observing the lives of others, never fully participating. That people who are alone are that way because hold themselves apart from the rest of us, either by choice or necessity.

Single for Reason makes the case that she is single because she's choosy. Having seen what's out there in singledom for the past few years, I can sympathize with her perspective. But, I am left wondering, after spending an hour on her blog, if some people choose to be alone because love is such a risky, dangerous territory. Pat has definitely staked her claim to some of the most boring (albeit safe) territory on teh interwebs in order to elebrate her choosy singleness.

I enjoyed this blog...to some degree. Clearly, Pat has put a lot of time and work into the design of her blog. However, I don't know that I would label it "the blog for choosy people." Frankly, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't choose it, and here are my reasons:

First, while she can write really good posts, and sometimes does, all too often, she falls back on twaddle. Let me give you a tip: Unless you are describing cum stains in your underwear, I don't care what's in your drawers. Seeing the messiness in your fridge just reminds me only that I need to clean my own. While some of your photography is compelling, and deserves to take up half of my screen, most (let's say 90% of your photography) doesn't.

Secondly, a lot of these gimmicks and gimcracks that you've fallen back on in lieu of substantive content, like the spuds, are just dumb. They add nothing of value.

But, thirdly, and most importantly, you need to revisit why you started blogging. I think you've lost your spark. Your blog is a study in missed opportunity as you rush straight past interesting outlets for creativity and self-examination, in lieu of the mundane. For instance, in your drawer post, you write:

In this drawer are little notes written to me over the years I’ve wanted to keep. Mementos of a life. My passports from an era when I had long auburn hair and was adventuresome. Something happened to that girl, I’m not sure what. I don’t really enjoy traveling anymore.

Honey, here is my gift to you: a kick in the ass. Maybe you should figure it out. And, your blog can be an outlet for that voyage of self-discovery. However, instead of going deeper, you stop. Instead of finding the courage to pursue where you lost that girl who went places and did things, you instead list out in mind-numbing detail the further contents of your drawers, like there is anyone on earth who gives a flying goddamn. Jesus, woman, you don't even have a VIBRATOR in that drawer to liven up the list.

Blogs like this frustrate the shit out of me. Here is an obviously talented and insightful writer, who just for one reason or another, just doesn't WRITE about anything real or true. I don't know why you are only willing to give us access only the most superficial level, but it's the main reason I won't be choosing you.

I give you a .

That's what your blog is, these days. It may not have started out that way, but that's where you've ended up. Your blog is a way of keeping people out, while superficially giving the impression of allowing them in. If that's how you live, I can tell you why you are single...because you keep people away from your essence.

And that's no way to blog...or live.

21 comments:

  1. Sometimes I analyze myself on my blog with the intent on focusing on the things that will touch others, but it still seems too self-obsessed for me. Even arrogant. I know other people may feel like me, and I know there's a one in a million chance that what I write may make someone else feel something they were afraid or eager to feel, but sometimes I just feel like I'm pushing it. Between self-exploration I just have to have something that'll take my mind off myself for a while.

    Which may explain why she moves from a confrontation with her inner child to doing inventory.

    But the TM on top is a bit silly, isn't it? Just because of that, I'm going to start a new blog and call it Single for a Reason. Bring on the lawsuits.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your review is lonely because it's poorly written. You don't do social commentary very well, LB.

    If you have one niche, it's being the ceaselessly squawking gutterball of Ask and Ye Shall Receive: the heavy, noisy, ball-without-a-chain that barrels right past the mark, time and again, without a second glance or second thought.

    ~ Driz

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is a really thoughtful review and spot on. Great job LB.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Cry me a river, Driz. I'll consider your words more substantivewhen you actually have some life experience under your belt, you little wet-behind-the-ears emo kid. Now, don't you have some gashes to carve in your thighs to express the pain of your tormented existence?

    ReplyDelete
  5. In the dinosaur post she admits she took photos of the show when she was asked not too, then includes the all caps directive: PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

    Also, her fridge looks fine.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Like People in the Sun, I also want to occasionally delve into the more substantive stuff but fear people will snore through my navel gazing.

    Plus, I made the rookie blogger mistake of telling too many family about the site so now I filter certain things I'd really like to talk about.

    ReplyDelete
  7. No offense, driz, but it doesn't get any more tired or hack than misogyny.

    You don't think that shit has been beaten to death over the last 2,000 years? "I want a girl I can put on a pedestal."

    Well, grow the fuck up. We're all just humans, doing the best we can, and you're an unhappy person incapable of seeing any redeeming value in any soul, even your own.

    You are a 20-year-old guy who lives inside his own head, and knows nothing about life, love or anything else of substance. You've accomplished nothing of note. You know nothing about fighting the good fight, or being broken. You're someone who sits on the sidelines of life and throws stones.

    And, if a girl did give you her heart, I'd have no doubt you'd mishandle and break it. And then, you'd rage that she was nothing but a skank who deserved it.

    So, spare me. You think I haven't encountered ten million bitchy pissants just like you in my tenure on this earth?

    ReplyDelete
  8. You don't believe for one second that you're doing the best you can.

    You feel entitled to the moral high ground because you've endured life long enough to thoroughly fail at it. But more than that, you play the age card because it's all you have.

    The whirlwind of ignorance and entitlement you call life is mandatory for daily function, because without such artifice and glamour, you can't justify 'the story of you' much at all.

    Not to the mirror; not to your daughter.

    You celebrate your vice and neurosis before someone else can criticize it. Truly, my post that you so inappropriately referenced fits you best of all.

    You have no information to use against me, so you make up your own fiction. But that's just the best part, no? It's not about making sense, or balancing Justice's scales - it's about punishing someone who hurt you.

    If you weren't such a waste, I'd have little to say. But the blame for who you are lies with you.

    ~ Driz

    ReplyDelete
  9. Her photography takes up my WHOLE screen, so I have to scroll down to read what ever the photo is meant to represent. If I see a photo of a fridge am I really compelled to scroll down and read further. uh NO.

    And Driz-SHUT UP! Apart from LBs Ask persona, do you know anything else about her to be taking up page space with your drivel? I mean seriously! I now have to use effort to scroll past your comments to get to the more insightful ones.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'm not really sure what, precisely, to do with criticism that flies quite so madly past the mark.

    Your lack of age isn't the main strike against you, it's your extreme lack of experience. You haven't really loved, other than yourself. You haven't really LIVED. You've barely set your feet on life.

    You think you have scars, but you have no idea what life has in store for you, or what suffering even means. You have no mercy, because you haven't failed, picked yourself up, wiped the dust and blood from your face, and kept on going. You place no value on kindness, because you've never lost anything and had to rely on the kindness of other people to carry you through. You're arrogant, because you have no idea how life can break someone's spirit.

    Talk to me when you've nursed a sick child all night, or been shot at by a gang member, or actually accomplished something other than talking just to hear your gums flap.

    You know nothing, you've done nothing, and nothing you write means shit.

    ReplyDelete
  11. There is absolutely NOTHING real about you driz, apart from your tremendous ego.

    ReplyDelete
  12. And, Sinead: Thanks. I appreciate it. I've had years of experience dealing with narcissistic assholes, there is really nothing Driz can throw at me.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Driz, why sign your posts? I never understand when someone does that; we read your name at the beginning of the comment. There's no way we could have forgotten it was you that said what you said.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I think Driz must have been stood up again this week, so go easy on him.

    Spending half your week's wages from the car-wash on the 'emo special' of 2 cokes and a giant unsalted (stings the self inflicted wounds, you see) popcorn, and then have her show up with someone who has a pair, can really put a downer on a skinny man's week.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Not to be hatin' on Driz, but I think if he's basing his views of women because of the women he's come into contact with, well, it's says a lot more about Driz than it does of women on the whole.

    I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'

    ReplyDelete
  16. "...must have been..."

    "...if he is..."

    "...you would have thought..."

    "...appear to be..."

    At least LB has the proper audacity when she fights back. She'll skip the guesswork and start firing assumptions with authority and conviction. Even if you are only holding an empty gun, it's still a good sign that you're willing to pull the trigger.

    Most of you have lost your reflexes. Your humanity.

    If someone keeps hitting you in the face, you don't pity them, you don't toss clever remarks out the side of your mouth. You pick up a bat and start swinging back.

    Everybody is the surrogate shrink nowadays. No facts, pure speculation - and yet nobody hesitates to toss in their two cents on the situation. Nobody minds that they play the part of the upside down bicycle, spinning it's wheels endlessly, imagining the roads it may travel... while in reality stuck rightfully fucking still, solidified in place, dead to the world, and purposeless.

    It's just rubbernecking, backseat driving, cheering from the bleachers, selfish curiousity and vicarious conflict. Either get involved and throw a punch, or stand aside and keep it quiet.

    Bandwagon fans don't help LB through her daily grind and sorrow. You do her more insult to injury to so half-heartedly condemn her attack.

    But you liars and curious folk - do you not wonder? What provocation there was? What do I know about her that 'set me off'? There has to be a reason, no?

    Of course you do. But you can't see the crime in the 47-and-change minute TV show anymore. You can't see the murder in the mystery.

    ~ Driz

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hey, just basing my thoughts on your own words, on your own blog, Driz.

    And, no, I don't wonder. It's the internet, dude, not real life. Something of which we all have. So get to gettin' duder.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Isn't there another blog where you two can go at it? Why not just exchange numbers finally. Get it over with. This is old . . .

    As for Pat's blog, I've been reading her stuff since the beginning. She's new at this, and she has hit a few bumps. But she's got a sweet heart. She takes the time to leave insightful comments and welcomes new readers with enthusiasm. She is eccentric in ways I'll never be (or am able to be, being a married man with children after all) and never backs down from being herself.

    I think your review made some good points, even if a bit harshly. But she expects that. She asked and she received indeed. Where she takes it remains to be seen . . .

    Now back to your regular scheduled commenter war . . .

    ReplyDelete
  19. [url=http://sapresodas.net/][img]http://vioperdosas.net/img-add/euro2.jpg[/img][/url]
    [b]office compatable software, [url=http://vioperdosas.net/]buy side software[/url]
    [url=http://vioperdosas.net/]freeware educational software[/url] Adobe Creative Suite nero 9 - trial version 9.0.9.4c patch
    nero 9 review [url=http://vioperdosas.net/]All Software original[/url] price list of softwares
    [url=http://vioperdosas.net/]coreldraw graphics suite x4 with painter x[/url] educator discount microsoft office
    [url=http://vioperdosas.net/]buy photoshop for windows[/url] buy it now software
    it software reseller [url=http://sapresodas.net/]old microsoft software[/url][/b]

    ReplyDelete

Grow a pair.