almost good enough for friendship
something i keep thinking about is that when i asked el "have you ever wanted to read around the world? like one book from every country?", her reply was "mm i think it would only be interesting if i selected one theme. like maybe poetry or a topic"
i don't know why but i find this pretentious and "besides the point"
because the whole point of discovering books around the world is to see what is out there, rather than to go out there with a preconceived notion of what you must find
the whole point of reading a book from every country is to sample the world and to broaden your scope and to read something you'd never have thought of to read...something you didn't know existed.
for some reason she disappoints me
she sells herself as an artist and specifically a writer but she doesn't have a reading taste i feel
she disappoints me because she's the closest thing to a friend i'd want to have but she isn't it
she can barely even talk about literature.
and she keeps reading things in a sort of "i'm educating myself, elevating myself" kind of way but playing it off like "i genuinely like this"
but then you ask her: why are you reading camus? did you like what you've read so far?
she's just like "i actually don't remember at all"
yeah camus is one of those bloated "classics" authors who you don't fucking remember. so why read him. read dante.
she pretends to really like samuel beckett -- she goes through a whole performance of exclaiming how much she likes samuel beckett, waiting to see if you believe her
(she does the same thing about jazz music. she will dramatically stop in front of a cafe/restaurant that is playing jazz music -- not even live, so it's really nothing out of the ordinary -- and proclaim "wow listen to this beautiful music"
when i asked her "how does jazz music make you feel?"
she goes "EXCITED!! IT MAKES ME FEEL EXCITED!!" and she's feigning enthusiasm and not even truly convinced of having convinced you.)
nobody likes samuel beckett that much, and especially not waiting for godot
and she doesn't have that basic thing that anyone-who-really-reads-literary-fiction has: social awareness
she made a post on the fb marina group, advertising her abilities as a babysitter and i thought: this is not how you get people to trust you to take care of their kids. first of all, the kids are friends with each other, so the parents take turns ("parents A" send "kids A" to play with "kids B" under the supervision of "parents B", and next time "parents B" send their "kids B" to play with "kids A" at "parents A") [how do i know that and i'm not even interested in being a babysitter?]
second, you should talk to the families and spread the word that way. nobody who doesn't already know you is going to reply to your post and say "oh yes i don't know you but hey i am convinced! please take care of those i most cherish in my life and in exchange, may i please give you some money for it?"
i don't know what kind of imaginary world she lives in where everything works by fb posts
then she also made a post about how she wants to put on a production of "waiting for godot" but without WORDS (so it's just going to be two people sitting there for two hours -- you didn't think the play could get any worse but it does!) -- she makes "art work" which is really just a lack of creativity and effort and she sells it as "avant garde" (at least sheila heti comes up with the most genius lazy ideas...el lacks genius but has a lot of laziness)
she just doesn't "get it" and people who read literary fiction (as much as she pretends to) tend to be scary psychic empaths, like obama. they know how everyone is thinking, feeling and they know how to work a room and manipulate everyone simultaneously because they're emotionally goddamn sophisticated.
i'm not there yet. i've basically just started reading this may. but i'm already feeling like my brain has a new dimension of perception and control
i've started experiencing a new genre of dream in which the dreams are simultaneously extroverted -- where i am interacting with people -- and introverted -- where i am not only aware of my own thoughts/feelings but also paying mind to the thoughts/feelings of those around me, and those thoughts/feelings are as evident as the physical dimension
in the past, i could only dream about people in close physical proximity to me if i felt emotionally close to them somehow, but now, i can dream about completely made up strangers in close proximity
i also think she's lying about other things
she says things like "boat talks are fascinating" -- really...? you really think so? or do you just say that because everyone around you is acting like it's the only thing that matters?
she has this pattern of acting like she's into something that she's not into
it seems exhausting putting up that act