True Story: Pick-ups

Real life pick-up lines I have experienced:

Carolina Beach, Age 16

Random teen dude in parking lot by beach: “Hey, girl. I think you’re fat. Hot and Tempting!”

Me: “You mean Phat? Pretty, Hot, And Tempting?”

RTD: “Um. Yeah. Wanna go out?”

Wilmington Bar, Age 21

Random dude on barstool: “I bet you have a beautiful pussy.”

Me: “Yeah, and you’re not seeing it.”

I Couldn't Help But Wonder...

This here bloggity-blog is called Flâneur in the City. As it is called "Something" in the City, that must mean I am a high-heeled wearing, Carrie Bradshaw wanna-be, typing my little heart out on my laptop whilst running through life on impossibly expensive, teeter-totter shoes.

(Pictured: Not me. My laptop is too small for this shot.) 

 

Not so much.

The name comes from Sharon Mesmer, who read one of my stories, and wrote in the margin in sprawling blue ink, "You're the flâneur in the city." And if Sharon Mesmer gives you an awesome fucking moniker like that, you not only name your blog after it, but consider laminating it, framing it, and buying a mantel to hang it over. 

True, I was in New York City at the time of the naming, tromping about in the rain in brown leather boots that reminded me of a storm trooper, with my requisite skinny jeans and lugging around my much-loved, beaten-up, red faux-leather tote from Target that still serves as my book bag. I even stomped down to Magnolia Bakery on a lazy Sunday, but the queue was too long to stand in and I opted for a bakery on Bleecker Street instead. But all that? That's not Carrie Bradshaw. I don't think Carrie even owned a pair of boots.

It's not to say I don't like Sex and the City. I do. I was barely 17 when it first came on, and caught episodes on my parents HBO without them knowing. It had little hype or grandeur then. I told the "Christian" guy that I mistakenly on-again, off-again dated during high school about this new show I liked and he told me I shouldn't watch it, because it was porn. I'm sure he went home to pray for my soul, while I went home and watched Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and Miranda banter out the details of anal sex.

In Which I May Have Gained an Archnemesis

Consider this an update on last week's post on Bret Easton Ellis, noted for such accomplishments as wearing his ass for a hat, being a run-of-the-mill misogynist and he-so-dumb-he-stares-at-the-orange-juice-bottle-cause-it-says-concentrate*.

I've had one of those crazy busy weeks, but in the midst of the havoc I looked up the schedule for the London Literature Festival, hoping to budget my time and money to visit a few events.
(Books excite me. Authors excite me. My nerdiness has long been established.)

Guess who's speaking at the Festival in July?

None other than Bret Easton Ellis.

Bret. Easton. Ellis. I shake my fist at you!

Dude's becoming the Joker to my Batman! Or, well, maybe he's the Batman to my Joker. Because he's the rich white dude who's all about the status quo, and I'm the one screaming for change and upheaval in society for it to be inclusive for everyone**, not just the rich white dudes.

And case in point, I couldn't think of a single woman superhero to compare this to, since Hollywood doesn't make movies about female superheroes. ("But ... who would they save? They can't save men. That's what women are for. And they can't save other ladies. That's gay. Unless they're hot co-ed ladies. Then it's OK as long as men are watching.") The last superhero movie I can think of starring a woman (not in an ensemble, X-Men fans) is Catwoman. Catwoman sucked***. It didn't suck because it starred a woman, it sucked because it starred a CGI version of Halle Berry, and when it called for non-CGI (actors, I think they're called), the people in charge figured all it needed was Halle Berry looking hot with that-guy-Julia-Roberts-used-to-date, and there was no need for a plot. Like, not even a cameo by a plot.

When I told Mr. B that Bret Easton Ellis (I say his name like a curse word now) was coming to the Festival, he said I should print out my blog post and have Ellis autograph it.

A moment later, he changed his mind.

"You'd be pissed off for a week if you did that and couldn't say anything to him," Mr. B wisely noted.

True. And I do have a little dissertation to finish. I can't really afford a week of mind-numbing rage.

Though it would be interesting to ask him a few questions, particularly about his flawed understanding of the male gaze, there's no way I'm paying £10 (and the price of my sanity) to do it.



* That's a dusty one! Pulled it out of 1988, gave it a shine, wiped off the insulting "Yo Mama" off the beginning and voila! A joke that was popular when Bret Easton Ellis, noted this-joke-is-played, was relevant!

** Everyone. And I mean everyone. Every gender, race and sexuality.

Speaking of, the sad part about all this is that Bret Easton Ellis may very well be actively trying avoid being part of marginalized society himself by bashing women (in his speech and to pieces in his books). According to Wikipedia, Ellis has stated that he had a lover for six years, Michael Wade Kaplan, who passed away in 2004. Ellis does not claim to be bisexual, hetero, or homosexual, but instead says that he was not "interested in the [gay] lifestyle."

This is problematic, because there really isn't a gay "lifestyle" any more than there is a heterosexual one. Being gay isn't a choice. Calling it a lifestyle is much like calling gang life a lifestyle, or a drug user's life a lifestyle: It opens the door for those who believe being gay is a choice to come in and "correct" that lifestyle. You can get off drugs. You can be removed from a gang. But you can never stop being gay.

Whether or not Ellis comes out is not as issue for me either – heterosexual people never have to come out and say that they are straight. If he wants to keep that private, he has every right. But it is a missed opportunity to speak up for those who are not privileged, who are oppressed, and may never have the means nor opportunity to be who they are. Possibly to continue to be widely read by mainstream audiences, who enjoy misogyny, in an increasingly troubled book market. By sticking to the status quo, Ellis changes nothing, for men or women. He writes words about men who hack up women. There is nothing special or edgy or literary about that.

*** Catwoman sucked.
This is the second movie review ever run on Flâneur in the City. (The first was here.)
For real reviews, read Matt Brunson's Rotten Tomatoes page, linked on the side. For feminism and flâneuring and David Bowie, read me.

In Which I Save You Money

I’m about to save you, oh say, around $10.20, or £4.16.

I may even save you £0.01, the cost of a Bret Easton Ellis paperback on Amazon UK.

Because the subtitle of this post is: In Which Bret Easton Ellis is an asshole.

I'm a little late with this. Last week, MovieLine published an interview with noted prick Bret Easton Ellis, and dude decided to bring up the male gaze. Since I had recently written about the male gaze, I decided to give it a once-over. After all, a current writing on the male gaze is a perfect follow-up to my previous post.

Dear reader, you’re smart. Obviously. We’ll take that as a given. And your Natalie? Well, she can be a smart cookie herself. For example, I’m smart enough to know that as a writer, it would not be in my best interest to speak ill of a fellow scribe. After all, what if on some future day I sit down in front of said author’s agent, or editor, or his assistant editor's best friend, and show my book? They may be interested in buying it, sure, but would they really trust the girl who took to her little blog and wrote terrible things about one of their other clients? Probably not. That's business. That's the way it's done.

But, with this dude? With Bret Easton Ellis, his pompous name causing my fingers to curl away from the keyboard, his dreadful writing and blatant ignorance dancing across my computer monitor? I’ll take the risk. I need to be represented, but I doubt anyone who thinks this guy is a walking moral standard would be someone I’d want to work with anyway.

Or maybe it’s not even a risk. Because this dude has done me a favor. I won't have to ever read or buy his books. And as Shakesville pointed out, his misogyny isn’t original, unique or even note worthy. It’s fairly dull, even. Yawn worthy.

With all that in mind, today is a beautiful day. Because, really, I needn't say anything at all. Thanks to the bounty of the Internet, giving witty expressions of rage and pity, my commentary can focus on the male gaze, while the charming voices of the Internet point out exactly why Bret Easton Ellis, noted bonehead, missed the mark so completely.

But first, some background.

Blogging On Blogging

(Tricksy little thing, ain't it?) 

Hey, gang. How goes it?

So, have you followed me on your RSS feed yet? What's that, you ask? Oh, my darlings, hell if I can explain it. It's one of those magic Internet-y things that makes this online life I lead so much easier. But it works something like this: Hit the magic little button next to the website's URL in your search bar.
Subscribe to this blog.
And in the mornings, when you settle down with your coffee in cubicle land, or at night, when you stretch out after a hard day's work for some quality Facebook and mindless surf time, you will see my little box in your bookmark toolbar or feed or whatever other device you choose to apply it to, and you will move your little arrow over it. It will show you if there is a new blog post from your friend Natalie. You'll see the title of the post and decide whether or not you need to read another post about David Bowie or feminism (Face it: You do. You know you do!) and then? You read. Or not. Either way, it's there.
(My tech savvy friends *CoughSharstaCough* are laughing to death over this explanation. I know, I know. I'm hopeless. But if I'm hopeless, someone else may be too. I can't be the last hopeless one, can I? Anyway, for you technical types, I've added the Share/Save button. Do with that what you will.)

If you have your own Blogger account, you can follow me there as well. On your Dashboard, scroll down to your Reading List. Click Add. And put in your favorite flâneur. (And if I'm not your favorite flâneur, well, lie to me and add me anyway.) 

You may have noticed I've been a bad blogger this week. Not a word since Friday! Bad Natty! Sadly, I don't get paid to blog. It's not 2008 anymore; the days when I got paid to help make a newspaper pretty and blog about pop culture and nerdy things have passed.  I will sometimes have to skip blogging for a few days so I can be off in the world flâneuring and working and learning. But please come and check up on Flâneur in the City, because you never know when or what will be posted. And remember what I said before: I'm not going anywhere. This is the place to be.

Now, here's DAVID BOWIE looking hot and somewhat amused by my antics. You're welcome.

Flâneur in London: Nature Edition, Part Two

My darlings, you know how I usually wax poetic or make witty little comments when I post my flâneuring pictures on this here blog? And you know how I usually alter the pictures to make them shiny and artsy and manage to hide my face since I'm still not 100% down with the whole put-your-face-on-the-Internet-for-all-the-world-to-see thing? Well, today, my dears, we're posting as is. Flâneuring without make-up, if you will. Because a recent jaunt to Richmond Park was so lovely, no amount of camera lomo-ish altering could shine-up these wild city pics.

Walking Richmond Park in order to experience it – with no purpose, no agenda – the flâneur is off the streets and in the wild. Well, kinda wild.

Council Houses and deer share space on a beautiful Spring afternoon.
(Click on any pic to make it bigger.) 

Bowie Doesn't Do Mornings Either

 (Well, hello there, DAVID BOWIE.)

I am not a morning person. I'm more of mid-afternoon, early evening person.

This week, I'm proud to report that I've been getting up early to work and attend the International Literary Journalism Conference. That's right: Awake and charming before 11 AM. Because I am a nerdy, nerdy girl and get excited about things like literary journalism.

(Fittingly, one of the topics presented this week is on the American Flâneur. I couldn't help but point to it and whisper, "That's me!" every single time I saw it in the program.)

 But before I am charming and awake and an attentive attendee and volunteer, my poor addicted brain needs copious amounts of caffeine. In the early morning hours of Thursday, I was attempting to function without a coffee in hand, and that is never a good time for me to try to write a text message. I managed to type one to Ash, pre-caffeine. 
Previous attempts at texting before caffeine were just variations of: "amdbpej nakigrnw ojal." Thursday's message? "It is early and I hate early."
Not bad for 7 AM.

That is why, when I hold my first (soon to be annual) International David Bowie Is Awesome conference – complete with seminars and lectures in the following topics: "Naming your cat Ziggy Stardust: Sweet homage or cruel insult?"; "10 Reasons Why David Bowie Should Allow Me to Live in His House"; "It's Not Obsession, it's Devotion: A Fan Retrospective" and of course, the open mic night, "Bowetry: Poetry Inspired By Bowie" – it will be sponsored by Starbucks and/or Bacardi and begin somewhere around noon. Or 2. Possibly 2:30, nap included.

Flâneur in London: Nature Edition, Part One

London is not all concrete jungle and elephants, my fellow flâneurs.

Roehampton University, my home away from home, hosts a beautiful campus full of wilder animals than the students.

So, some flâneuring for your Wednesday! A different kind of flâneuring. This natural life is in city limits, so come take a nature walk with me.

The Canada geese are peaceful here, but they start their honking as soon as the sun rises. So, roughly around 4:30 in the morning, right around the time the drunken "Whooos!" have died down.

Some Blog Notes

Hello my dears!

I've gotten a lot of hits lately, and all I can say is: Thank you! This little flânuese loves you. If you like what you see, well, to put it in my native tongue, "Y'all come back now, ya hear?" (OK, maybe not so much my native tongue as '60s Hollywood's idea of my native tongue, but the offer still stands!)

If you wish to follow me on your blogger account, please do so. I don't have the little sidebar box up for followers, simply because I don't really have any. But if I get some, I will certainly add it to the sidebar.

Also, I've added Contact Info to the bottom of the sidebar, as well as the Share/Save button under each post. Because both of those things could be done while drinking tea and eating Kinder Chocolate Surprise Eggs and not doing my dissertation. Your free entertainment is my excuse for procrastination. We both win!

But really: Thank you for reading. You. Are. Awesome.

A Nun’s Story

 (St. Francis, from K. Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant)

When little Natalie was but a glasses-wearing, frizzy-haired 14-year-old, I had a thing for Franco Zeffirelli. Zeffirelli directed 1968’s Romeo and Juliet, which would play on Turner Classic Movies, and wee me would watch with wide-eyed excitement. Nerdy child that I was, it gave me a mix of intellectual envy, and a strange sense of excitement when the Romeo actor, Leonard Whiting, climbed from Juilet’s bed, bare naked, giving the camera a full shot of his ass in the sunlight. Sheltered me fell a little bit in love, and grabbed the next video on the shelf of Movie Mania that featured Franco Zeffirelli as director.

The only other film was 1972’s Brother Sun, Sister Moon.
 

Do you know it? Zeffirelli’s telling of the life of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and the first to receive the stigmata.
 

I was raised Baptist. I had never heard of St. Francis. The only saint I knew was jolly old Saint Nicholas. And he had a strange penchant for cookies and coal, which never made its way into the Bible.

But St. Francis? St. Francis was Dr. Doolittle, Native American Shaman, Luke Skywalker, John Lennon and Gandhi combined. No elves, no sled, no stockings. St. Francis was rebel and peacemaker and revolutionary. He turned his back on riches, talked to animals, and created the first nativity scene. He convinced wolves not to eat people, so possibly he was part Werewolf tamer. He was, quite frankly, awesome. I was smitten.
 

Francesco woke up one day in the 13^th century equivalent of the Trump tower penthouse of Assisi and realized that Jesus – you know, the Jesus, the Jesus that the population of 13^th Century Italy spent a lot of time talking about – wouldn’t be too cool with the whole Richie-Rich and booze lifestyle old Frank was living. Francis remembered that Jesus lived a peasant lifestyle, preached about giving to the poor, caring for the sick, loving his neighbors and healing those who suffered. (Take note – this part comes up again later.) So Francis? Opened up his closet and gave all his clothes away. Shaved his head. Started a new church in which the followers took in lepers and preached to peasants and birds.

Francis asked, “What would Jesus Do?” And actually did it.
 

Naturally, since I was an awkward and pissed-off teenager (is there any other kind?), who felt righteous anger over the myriad suffering in the world which none of the adults seemed to take seriously and to which I had only recently been made aware of myself thanks to my budding adolescence and teenage idealism (“Oh my God, you guys, did you know the rainforest is dying? How come no one ever told me this before?!”), I was absolutely certain that St. Francis was the greatest thing since Bring-A-Friend-For-Free night at the Roller Rink.
 

I grabbed any book on Saints I could get my hands on. Young whippersnappers reading this may not remember, but there was a time before the Internet. I had no where to look but books and friends who were Catholic, and therefore one step closer than I was to all the knowledge about my dear St. Francis. I read. I asked questions. I watched Brother Sun, Sister Moon on repeat.

I was a teenager. My parents expected rebellion. Dreams of overthrowing organized religion and eventual sainthood? Not so much.

St. Francis was my hero. And in many, many ways, he still is. Environmental, vegetarian and volunteering Natalie owes a great deal to the teachings of St. Francis. World-traveling Natalie was ecstatic over living in Italy, in part, because of Zeffirelli’s sweeping scenes involving St. Francis running through the Tuscan countryside. I outright wept, when I was able to travel Assisi and visit his tomb. But my weeping? Wasn’t for the fact I stood at his grave, after admiring St. Francis during my young formative years. No, it was where he was laid to rest that sparked my tears.

See, St. Francis never did quite break away from the Catholic Church. Brother Sun, Sister Moon has a moving end scene of Francis going to meet the Pope to explain to him that his band of brothers and followers were not heretics, but simple followers of Jesus. Francis is barefoot and dirty and the Pope is swathed in silk in a gold palace. And it breaks dear Francis’ heart to see him. Zeffirelli does it well; the close-up on Francis’ eyes, the gilded, rusty, ancient cage of the papacy, sympathetic to the men in it who perhaps entered into holy lives with pure hearts and genuine love, but were forever overshadowed and corrupted by the greed and hated and lust of power in men. Francis couldn’t save them. Nothing could save a beast that eats itself from within.

At the end of his life, Francis was peaceful. Dust to dust. Legend or fancy, it was said he wanted to be embraced by the earth. This was a man who declared the Sun his brother, the animals his fellow spirits. His life was one of poverty, his monastery was simple, his love of nature and peace would be his final prayer.

So what happens?

In Which, there is a Tube Story, the Male Gaze, and Dinosaurs

In Earl’s Court Tube Station, a piping hot grande Chai tea latte in hand, a creepy older man spent the 10 minutes I waited for the Edgware District line train leering at me.

It’s a frustrating wait anyway, Earl’s Court. The District line was running late, the Piccadilly line was closed since a train had derailed, and the place was packed. The usual wait is annoying enough, since it often involves leaving one District line train for another, watching for the light-up arrow to appear next to the name of the place you are headed on an ancient  board above the platform. (Taking bets on which train will come next passes the time. C’mon Wimbledon!) But a creepy dude unabashedly staring does not add any type of pleasantness to the experience.

I moved away from him, walked down and away to the other side of the platform, but like creepy dudes are wont to do, he followed.

Well, fuck. Really? Fine.

I shifted my weight to one leg. In his vision, I bent my right leg. Then I kneed the air. It’s a swift movement. Practice.

He turned away. Good. The arrow lit for Edgware. Better.

I loosened the lid of my Starbucks cup, just in case. I love my Starbucks, but I would not weep to throw it in anyone’s face. Dug in my purse for my Oyster (London’s rail and bus pass). Checked the map I keep in my Oyster holder to make sure of my route. All correct. I decided to leave my holder out, since I’d need it anyway, and put it my mouth to zip my bag.

It is at that moment, when my mouth was occupied, the creepy dude came over to get in my face and declare, “You’re lovely, beautiful!”

I jumped back and dude turned and ran off. My train pulled up. I hightailed it into the carriage, scanned the seats for a woman to sit next to, and plopped down.

No big deal, right? A small incident. Normal. He didn't even say anything bad. No need to react. No need to feel creeped out all day. No need to keep glancing over my shoulder every step.

Yeah. Maybe. Or maybe not.

It’s only normal because we let it be.

So, today, my fellow flâneurs and feminists, let’s talk about the male gaze.

Click the Read More link, following this lovely dino comic.

In Which I Am, Perhaps, a Little Lazy

Natalie, talking with Mr. B on GChat:
Yawn and stretch!
Whew! That took forever!

But! I flâneured! I blogged! I'm not lazy!

Mr. B: I'm reading about Gordon Brown stepping down. Wow.

Natalie: I...was making elephant jokes on Facebook and didn't know that.

Moral of this post: Pay attention, Natalie!

More on Brown stepping down here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8672859.stm

Flâneur in London: 32 Elephants Edition

The wind in the city will die down, the lost roads cover with dirt and mulch, the Spring pass way into Summer, and then?
Come, London. Let's dance.

Today we have more baby elephants than you can shake a stick at! But don't. Because shaking sticks at baby elephants is wrong. Didn't you see Dumbo as a child? Baby elephants need lots of love or else they'll drink champagne and wake up in a tree with crows of questionable and jaw-dropping stereotypical origins. (The head crow was named Jim Crow. Yeah.)
Also? Hallucinations of pink elephants. But! You needn't drink champagne, you lucky Flâneur reader, because I've your pink elephants right here! Racism-free elephants to boot! (Flâneur in the City: 100% less racist than Disney.)

The Elephant Parade of London is a charity art installation of 260 life-sized baby elephants hand-painted by famous artists, designers and Londoners.

The Telegraph had this to say:

The highly collectable artworks will pop up at a host of London landmarks including Buckingham Palace, Parliament Square and the South Bank over the next few months, before being auctioned off to raise £2 million for charity.
The money will help The Elephant Family charity and more than 15 UK conservation charities working in Asia.

Our dear London is crawling with beautiful baby elephants! And your favorite flâneur hoofed it all over our fair city with a pair of mates to capture some on film.

We walked from Waterloo Station to South Bank, South Bank to Parliament Square, down pass all the hung Parliament news crews and cameras and protesters (the UK is seeing its first hung Parliament since 1974 -- and here comes Natalie right in the thick of it, taking pictures of the news crews and bobbies), down to Trafalgar Square, looped around to Piccadilly Circus, swung down to Hamleys Toy Shop, backtracked to Regent Street, and ended up in Green Park by Buckingham Palace. All that walking and we only saw about 30 of the 260 elephants!

(The elephants were everywhere!)   

Ready for elephant overload? Continue on!

Speaking of ...

Seen on and around Putney High Street this week:


* This puppy. Named Sapphire. Who crawled into my lap without hesitation. My face is right in the middle of a mixed "Awww" and "Snuggle-wuggle-puppy-wuppy!" I was corrected by the pup's owner when I mistakenly called her a "he." I guess I'm just used to males trying to lick my face.

* Seen on the High Street: Dude that totally could double for a young Captain Jack Sparrow.

Since I lost my Johnny Depp lady-boner when I learned he was a Roman Polanski supporter, it's nice to know that there are still avenues for my physical attraction to his facial features by gawking at random street dudes. I don't find Johnny attractive anymore. But a non-child rapist supporter with his features? We can talk.

Speaking of Johnny Depp ...

* The unique and authentic London experience of shopping at the Kate Moss-influenced Topshop is negated when the salesgirls are all American.

(Kate Moss and Johnny Depp used to date. And there's your celebrity gossip for the early 1990s.)

* I saw a priest and a rabbi on High Street. Sadly, no punch line occurred. (They could have at least gone into a bar or something.)

* There comes a point where in a girl's life, say, the late 20s, perhaps, that one knee sock falling down ceases to be cute and crosses the border to annoying. There are 6-year-olds more put together than I am.

* Speaking of ... I am ready for hot weather, please. Thanks, London. As cute as my knee socks and sneakers are, I'm ready for sandals and sundresses.

* Life would be exponentially more awesome on a bicycle.

In Which I Am Found

About a week or so ago, I wrote a post titled, “Another Post Not About Flaneuring,” one of those short and sweet ramblings I put up when I get busy or distracted or there is a cute, half-naked man on my bed. (Some things never change.) As I do with my infrequent, sporadic postings, I left a link on my Facebook page letting my friends know that I actually wrote, along with the blurb, “One day, I'll write a blog post that actually relates to the title of my blog. Today is not that day. Today it's all Golden Girls and Cher.”

My wise friend Jamie C. commented on my Facebook wall:
“Perhaps it would be easier to change the name of the blog ...?”

To which I replied:
“Hmmm...true point...but then it would be called, ‘Feminism! Kitties! Procrastination! Whoo-hoo!’”

And it would. Seriously. Feminism! Kitties! Procrastination! Whoo-hoo!.blogspot.com has a ring to it. Maybe F!K!P!Whoo-hoo! would be better?

Wise Jamie C. reminded me of some lingering thoughts left on the back burner. What am I trying to do in this space? If the title were literal, I would be a photographer collecting images and sights of London. But many, many blogs already do that, and do it well. Better than I ever could. I like my flâneuring and I do want to keep it up. But it’s more than that, isn’t it?

There are times when I want to be found.

Here at FitC, I write my funny thoughts, share my view of our beautiful, fragile, scarred world, and post pictures of my dear kitty. My picture is brazenly displayed at your right hand; smiling, tangled-hair girl in front of one the world’s most iconic landmarks. My name is plastered on these pages: Natalie, simply Natalie, no hiding behind a nom de plume, just Natalie and sometimes a surname too, if you look hard enough. My life is laid bare on the Internet in careful words and photos, and open, completely open, for all the risks and privileges that entails.
I run the risk of plagiarism, of exposure, of every troll and asshole on the Internet finding me, taking my image, my words, my pictures and distorting them. I leave myself stripped bare of armor to mockery and hate, the default mode of Internet anonymity.

There are days when I don’t want to be found, at all, when I want to hide, delete, and censor my life to a limit of controls and passes which only I can dole out or deem appropriate.
But that’s no way to live, is it?

So I have my little page, and I can be found. For better or worse, I can be found. And there are people that I wish to find me, people I have lost and people I have never met.
Find me. Come on.
For instance, you ask?
David Bowie. Please. Find me. You’ve reached me already; my life ever altered and changed by your song. I’ll make you laugh in return. Employers – come find me. I’ve searched and searched for you. Publishers. Literary agents. Read this. These words? They barely scratch the surface. I’ll entertain you.
And readers. These promises I make? They are ten-fold for you.

A few things are certain.

1.) I will not abandon this without warning again. If I don’t post for a few days, or a week, it’s not because I’ve changed my mind. It’s because I’m in grad school and have work to do and a life to try and lead. Or I decided to use my free time that night to shave my legs. Either/or. But I’m here.
Sometimes all I can manage may be a Golden Girl quote, but I’m here.

2.) Flâneur in the City stays the title, but the URL may change. It’s a long-ass URL, I know. Flâneur-in-the-city takes some time to write. Hopefully you will bookmark this and decide to return and never need to know the site URL again. But Flâneur-in-the-city.blogspot is a mouthful when I try to tell people about the blog. This may change.

3.) When it comes to the blog: this is it. This is the place. I’m a writer. Remember that. First and foremost: I am a writer.
I’m also a former editor. It’s against years of training for me to post something that will not amuse, entertain, move or inform. The copy will be clean (or else I lay awake at night and worry over it – like, should I have used “whom” instead of “who” in a previous post? Damn.) And you will not growl in frustration with mistakes like “your” for “you’re” on a daily basis.

The city is wherever I am, be it Charlotte or New York or London or Amsterdam or Timbuktu. I wander and observe, I snap pictures and collect thoughts, I am the flâneur, and the city is ever under my feet.

That city can be a bit metaphorical, my dears.

There are many paths yet to walk. I write about politics, because it affects us daily. I write about feminism, because it affects the world daily. I write about pop culture and my cat and David Bowie because it is my life and only I can live it. And because we need humor and laughter too, lest the world become unbearable. We need the beauty, the scars, and we desperately need to laugh.

So all this becomes the path we walk, and you become flâneur with me. You may be my friend. You may be a stranger. You may know me only from Facebook, or an Internet forum, or a link from somewhere else. But you’re here.

Let’s see where this takes us, shall we?

In Which the Internet Kinda Made Me Cry

I live on the Internet.

I mean, I live in London (having mentioned that approximately a million times now), but the majority of my time is spent in front of the computer rather than in front of tea and crumpets.

It’s hard not to live on the Internet – even the weeks when I limit myself to an hour a day (those weeks are commonly called “nightmares”), I still have to check my email or write on Facebook or read my favorite blogs or leave a comment somewhere. Stepping away from the Internet only allows more content to build up, more words to read, more cute kitten videos to upload. We’re cyborgs, y’all. We have to plug in to live. But that’s OK too – it makes living a little bit richer, in a weird way. I am far from home. I can’t call my friends every day, I can’t drop by my mom’s work, I can’t run into an old office chum at Starbucks. But I can Facebook them all and say hi. Of course, I’m an adult, who grew up without the Internet. I’ve had to learn how to navigate social situations, how to have personal relationships, how to entertain myself without the instant gratification of YouTube. There are pluses and minuses to this.

But here’s a plus, friends.

On Jezebel, there is a thread chatting about prom, after a young girl wrote in lamenting her lack of a date. Prom has been on my mind lately, with the story of Constance McMillen and her civil rights struggle, and with the Roehampton Summer Ball right around the corner. Prom is one of those unavoidable things in American high school. Prom is also, in the grand scheme, one big non-fucking deal. Really. It’s nothing. It only seems like something because you’re stuck in a controlled environment, under the constant pressure of peers and stress of academics, and forced to function at god-forsaken hours of the day. (High school starting at 7:20 a.m.? Seriously? Not even 7:30 – but at 7. 20. A.M. In retrospect, I’m surprised I graduated.)

Says the unnamed girl:
“…right now, being a teenage girl, i feel very ugly and lame for not having a date. and i know a lot of jezzies are sympathetic to classic teenage drama.”

This sparked great discussions and stories of horrific prom escapades, all delightful and humorous and somewhat cringe-worthy. You’re starting to think of your own prom now, aren’t you?

Remembering the pinching shoes and the awkward dancing and the hairspray. I’ve got a couple of good prom stories myself, since I was smack dab in the middle of my “How the hell do I fit in?” phase. (One that ended as soon I stepped out of school and into the rest of my life. Controlled environment, lack of sleep, peer pressure, not knowing how to brush my hair = the ending of high school was the beginning of my adult life.)

High school wasn’t a barrel of puppies and posies, you know? And that’s not to say everything magically got better afterward – one has to learn how to become an adult.

Post-HS a lot of really horrific and a lot of really wonderful things happened, but all of it combined, centrifuged, made me the pretty awesome, faux-Snuggie-wearing, Starbucks-drinking, Bowie-loving, Feminist-proclaiming, world-traveling woman I am today. (Humble, too. I can be humble. I swear!)

But before I became my awesome Wonder Woman-esque self, I could very well have been this girl on Jezebel, feeling ugly and lame and out of place because there was some magic formula for fitting in that continued to elude me no matter how many times I tried to combine the right clothes/fashion magazine/people/crush/identity/hairstyle/speech into equating happy and popular. That formula still eludes me.

So, instead of writing about the time my date locked his keys in the car during junior prom, I took what the girl was saying – “I feel ugly and lame and god, how do I fix this?” – and gave her the only answer that I knew, in hopes that maybe, just maybe, through the over 400 comments about prom puke and pigs blood, it would help.

And here’s what happened.

Written by Me 02:19 PM:

My words for you, my dear, are these:

You. Are. NOT ugly or lame.

I promise you this.

Chances are, you are too smart/ too fabulous/ too amazing for the pea-brained and intimated guys in your school to notice. High school boys? Ugh. Ten years from now you'll be getting messages from said boys on Facebook or whatever new social media is in vogue in ten years, and all of them will tell you how fucking hot you were in high school, and how lame they were for not asking you out, and if you could maybe swing by the old hometown the next time your fabulous jet-setting fulfilling life takes you that way, could they buy you a beer?

Yeah. That's when you'll smile, shake your head, and continue on your way with the adult men of your choosing, with the career that you want and desire, with the knowledge that high school, my dear, is such a small and insignificant thing that barely matters in the big picture, and even though it seems to matter SO MUCH right now it's only a month or year until it's over and your life will move on to bigger and better things.

Take a picture of yourself today, smiling brightly, and know that in time you'll find that photo again, laugh and say, "Damn! I was such a hottie! What was I thinking?"

Reply by greenbean 02:29 PM:

@Me: speaking as a different high school girl who is going to prom without a male date, thank you for this.

Reply Written by Me 02:36 PM:

@greenbean: It's totally true. And the fact that you are here, on a feminist website, shows that you are intelligent and compassionate and most likely able to outwit any guy you meet. You'll have a blast at prom, but more importantly, you'll have a blast for the rest of your life after all the high school BS is said and done.

Reply Written by Hazee103:16 PM

@Me: I second the thank you :) Honestly, much needed pep talk. Scrrrew you high school boys, I'm not impressed with you anyway!

Reply by lexieloves 03:16 PM:

@Me: I'm in high school right now, going through the same situation as above, and this... is just the best advice I've ever received. Thank you.

No, actually, thank you.

I hope it helped.

In an odd manner, I feel that I am reaching backward to my high school self, and saying that somehow, someway, everything is going to be all right. And those girls, those three Internet girls, Greenbean, Hazel and Lexie, who I will never meet, never speak, never recognize?

You’ll be fine. You will. Because, I promise you, somehow, someway, everything is going to be all right.

True Story

(DAVID BOWIE. Beautiful, magical DAVID BOWIE ILOVEYOU!)

Summer, 2009

Mr. B, my boyfriend, with serious and loving concern: "Natalie, when you get to London, try not to mention David Bowie's penis* when you first meet people."

Me: "Why?"

Mr. B: "Because you sound obsessed and not everyone cares about David Bowie's penis."

Me: "What?! Of course they do!"**

Mr. B: "No, only you."

Me: "... I don't believe you."

Mr. B: (Combo sigh/ "Hmmm" of defeat and/or resignation to my continued Bowie obsession.)***


* The Man Who Fell To Earth = David Bowie full-frontal penis shots. People need to know this. It's a great icebreaker.
** They don't.
*** I'm sorry, Mom. Just know Mr. B tries.

(Great. Now when you Google "David Bowie penis" you'll find my blog. I'm sorry, Mr. Bowie. I really am. I love you.)