That's What She Said

I'm usually pretty perceptive. At least I am when I'm tuned in and paying attention. I can walk into a room and sense the vibe going on pretty accurately most of the time. And I can open a blog and pick up pretty much from the get go what sort of experience I'm in for.

Are there lots of crappy little doo-dads scattered around the perimeter? Hundreds of blog awards? Pukey pink background? Massive header screaming out for attention? Maybe a few links here and there to crappy writing that's been "published" in an ezine or via some vanity press? Yeah, guess what - that fucker's gonna be a chore.

So imagine what I thought when I first arrived at the home of one Laura Jane Williams, with her pink background, her name in 106 point type across the top, a shameless declaration that her high self-esteem was my problem, and links down the side to her magazine. Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Attention whore. The type of person who prefers volume to subtlety.

And I was sorely afraid.

So I rolled up my sleeves, prepared to brush the foul taste from my mouth soon enough. And I read the first entry. A fairly amusing description of some guttersnipe trying to pick her up in the street and clearly failing miserably. So I read on. And I happened on one after another reasonably amusing anecdote of life as a young woman in Britain after another.

It was a moment of severe cognitive dissonance. A blog that starts out like this is supposed to suck from the git go. And, aside from the header, this kind of doesn't suck.

Although it comes across as pretty Bridget Jonesy on the whole (and I have more in common with Bridget's father than Bridget herself), it is all well enough written, well enough thought out, etc, that I found myself cognitively humming along before too long.

Would I come back on a regular basis? Sure. Would I read it every day? No. I find this sort of thing to be a pleasant enough distraction, but when I read post after post that has the same sort of sour-sweet sassiness that this has, I find myself needing to cleanse the pallete with something a bit more weighty.

Now for the funny part. As I read, I was having the hardest time with some of the entries as she kept referring to her being in school for her undergrad degree. And although I know that there are all sorts of students out there, the photo of herself had me thinking that she was a mid-thirties aged crazy-cat-lady-in-the-making. And I was having the biggest trouble imagining why she was describing the life of a woman in her early twenties. It wasn't till I wandered to her video page that I discovered that Laura Jane Williams is not really who she appears to be at first. She appears to be putting her worst foot forward on purpose. Like a little sort of performance art.

Bravo.

By now you'll have noticed that I am including very few links to anything specific. I think that the biggest reason for that is that, although there really aren't any clunkers in the mix (she does occasionally repeat a thing once or twice too often -- like the "Quote, End Quote" thing, but the ones I read were all reasonably amusing), there exists also a dearth of "holy shit, you must read this now" posts. It's all pretty evenly keeled.

So, to give you all a taste, here are a few random posts you may want to check out...

On being offered money for sex. She thinks.
On being an unintentional racist. And having OCD.
On being ridiculed by her boyfriend and her flatmates. At the same time.
On lacking cake for tea.
On being very self deprecating.
On the love of a dog.
On parental acceptance.

Etc.

I don't have any specific advice on how to improve. This seems to be working for you. Keep it up if you're still fed by it.

Two Stars. Because one is too few and three is too many. And because I said so, that's why.