Lindsayism.com

Just So You Know, I'm "Boycotting" WNYC's New Morning Show, "The Takeaway"

So last summer, a good friend of mine who I'll call "Michelle" saw a job listing for writers for a new NPR PRI morning show (nullus on the title of the job listing.) She was applying, and because she knew I was keeping an eye out at the time, she sent it to me and encouraged me to apply too (a typical example of the kind of generosity that should be typical but isn't in media. Michelle, though made ungoogleable here for obvious current-job reasons, is awesome.)

So I Accidentally Dyed My Hair Pink...

Or kind of peach-ish, either way, not at all a color found in nature (and I think I'm at the "colors found in nature" age, if not yet the "natural color" age.) Yesterday my coworker/pal Andrew and I had this exchange:

Andrew, nodding at my hair: "Is that for Halloween?"
Me: "No!! It's my HAIR! It was an accident!"

I was a little testy. Last night I got it back to at least a semi-normal strawberry blond. This is so boring. I just thought Andrew's line was hilarious. What a dick, right!? He has an arty serious pretentious blog about his arty art. Actually, LADIES, he's single and pretty perfect and you should date him. Contact info at his site!

I've Been Brushing Up on My Web Design Skills Lately...

...and I can't exaggerate the simultaneous glee and cringe-iness I feel when I look at the first version of this site using the wayback machine:

Lindsayism.com Colorful and Daily (circa 2003)

I mean, just look at that monstrosity. So busy! So disorganized! From the headache-inducing colors to the over-filtered photos to the font, if there was a design rule, I broke it. I just want to muss my 2003 (awful) hair when I look at that site. I worked really hard on it, too!

Pretty Much All You Need to Know

Until today, I thought "Chamillionaire" was a parody hip-hop artist name invented by the writing staff of "30 Rock."

You know, that episode where they're dancing in the writer's room and Jack catches them? Yeah. I'm like a dream-juror in a high profile case against anyone involved in pop music.

This is Not It.

This is one of those "I don't care if they're laughing at me as long as they're laughing" things (see: this entire blog), but pretty much everything about this picture I found last night is unintentionally funny. What can I say? Late 2001: Heady times.

I'm Not Immature. I'm "Larry David-esque"

Okay, confession time: I get my hair cut at Supercuts. 1. Because I'm cheap  2. Because I can't sit still for longer than 12 minutes and 3. Because, frankly, I don't really give a shit. (At least I'm not in any danger of ever being called "hair-pretty")

Yes, my friends make fun of me and suggest alternate places (I'm not paying $60 to be forced to sit still for 40 minutes and make awkward conversation with a stranger.) You know the saying "Men don't pay prostitutes for sex, they pay them to leave."? I don't pay stylists to cut my hair perfectly, I pay them to let me leave. Preferably after 12 minutes or less.

Anyway, so this morning I went to Supercuts on 6th Avenue and 8th Street because it's been over 3 months and it's definitely "time." When I walked in, there was one stylist working on one customer, and she seemed almost done, so she said "haircut?" and I said "yes" and she said "just a few minutes."

So I sit down and start flipping through an US Weekly on the banquette and try to block out the description of an epic eye infection with which the stylist is regaling her client (an infection which, no lie, turned out to be an STD!). After about 20 minutes, another woman comes in and sits down and says "I'm back!" and the stylist says "I'll be with you in a minute for your coloring." So I ask the stylist "Oh, uh, how long is it going to be?" and she goes "I don't know, an hour, hour and a half." And I was like "WHAT? Why didn't you tell me that when I walked in?" So she gave me attitude and I got up and put my layers back on angrily as fast as I could (it's hard to leave in a huff when it's 15 degrees outside) and said "You've wasted half an hour of my time, I'm never coming back here!"

And then I slipped the US Weekly in my bag and stormed out, slamming the door behind me.

The moral of the story is: 1. Don't get your haircut at SuperCuts and 2. I am an almost 30 year old woman who just stole an Us Weekly from SuperCuts out of spite.

And it wasn't even this week's issue.

THE END.

I've been to too many 'blogger parties'

Scene: Comix, right before Fresh Meat last night. I'm talking with a photographer friend, who is there with his camera.

Me: (After chatting for a bit, motioning to the camera on his table) "Don't take any of me, please?"

Photog: "Well, actually, I..."

Me: "--Oh my god, because you're here to take photos of the performers."

Photog: "Yeah, yeah...not the...(pause) audience."

Me: "Oh my god, I am such an ass."

(And Scene!)

I am such an ass.

I also broke "David's Law" by attempting to speak intelligently to David Rakoff, who is one of my all time heroes, when he was clearly and obviously trying to leave the comedy club as fast as he could (he was amazing, by the way.) All I can remember is saying "I hate "Rent" too!"

Wince.

(BUT: Elizabeth's stand-up debut was even better than I expected, and I expected it to be great. She. Can. Do. Anything.)

all my friends are bloggers like omg!

Well, this came out. Bloggers drink! On the LES! Sometimes together! Lindsay says silly things! AJ likes boobies!

While I'm bemused by the article (and I like Chris Shott, still), I would like to say a few words in my defense:

* Apparently, making it clear that you don't want your name used at all in an article is the easiest way to sound like a ditzy asshole in the lede. Publicists of chick lit authors: take note!

* I would never, ever, EVER say "blogger party" without simultaneously rolling my eyes and doing a funny voice to indicate beyond any doubt that I was being ironic. I have no proof that I didn't do that that night, but it wouldn't have come across in print anyway.

* I believe the real quote, to Choire Sicha, overheard by the writer whom I'd not yet met, was "Have I seen you recently? I think I had a dream about you because it seems like I've seen you recently." or something equally banal.

* The line "all my friends are bloggers" comes from my about page:

"I moved to New York, and started blogging, in 2000. (That's why all my friends are bloggers. It's like, totally okay.)"

I was, like, apologizing and being self aware and shit! See?

I'm totally willing to take one for the team, though, because seeing AJ Daulerio called a skirt-chaser in (pretty pink) print is worth it. I think I'll invite him to the next blogger party... in my pants!

Barneyism.com

Scott Stereogum, who knows of my love for the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, tipped me off to this contest. I guess if I wanna win I should think back to my early Williamsburg days in New York, when I would actually say things like "you have to come to The Abbey tonight, it's going to be legendary" (but without Barney's inflection, of course.)

I'm drawing a blank, but I hope someone reading this blog post enters and wins. Thanks, Scott!

Cringe/WYSIWYG Reading Next Wednesday 10/18

The websites aren't updated yet, but here's the lineup for next week's Cringe/WYSIWYG reading in which I'm beyond excited to be participating:

•    Sarah Brown (Cringe creator)
•    ME
•    Marc Balgavy
•    Joshua Newman
•    Jason Boog
•    Chris Hampton (WYSIWYG creator)

I think I'm more excited about this reading than any one I've ever done (even my own reading series) because:

1. I have saved everything. Everything.
2. I regularly go through my old diaries and poetry notebooks and wish I could share my hilarious adolescent pretentiousness with the world. (I actually have dabbled in that, and have read some stuff at Ritalin Readings over the years, but I'm taking this one reallly seriously.)
3. Seriously? Nobody on this earth was a more pretentious, "tortured", and unfortunately prolific teenage diarist and bad-poetry writer than yours truly. Please note that this is the only aspect of myself in which I have this kind of confidence. I'm not bragging here, because it's nothing to brag about, but I. Win. For an entire year, I wrote my diary as a series of daily letters to the writer Annie Dillard, mmmkay? On the outside of the diary I wrote "THE ANNIE LETTERS: 1993 - 1994, By Lindsay Celeste Robertson"

And Celeste isn't even my middle name.

Please come out to this reading, most especially if you're my friend. I'll need some moral support. Clearly. (Also, I never ask!)

Info: The WYSIWYG Talent Show's "CringeyWYG" performs Wednesday, October 18 at Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery between Bleecker and Houston). Doors open at 7:30 p.m., show at 8 p.m. Tickets are $7 at the door. For more information visit wysiwygtalentshow.org, queserasera.org/cringe.html, or www.bowerypoetry.com

Hint: I'll Take Lebanese Capitals For 2000

Today's guest-posts on the Jane Blog:

• All Aboard the NIGHT TRAIN, or Why I'm Not Drinking This Week* (a must-read for haters!)
• And Links of the Day: Open Your Heart to Love

*except in extreme moderation. (antioxidants!)

Weltschmerz*

Yesterday, I was going through some boxes when I found a large sealed envelope labelled "CLIPS -2000". I remember copying and putting together my clips at a temp job when I first moved here. They consisted of the "best" of my writing prior to moving to New York, when I was a film critic at the then-indie FSU paper, The Florida Flambeau. I never did anything with them or sent them anywhere. Here, out of context, I present some of my favorites:

"It seems odd to go to a movie in order to watch other people have witty conversations, but for Stillman, it works."

"Gattaca's future world serves as an apt reminder that technology can be a blessing or a curse, and we should be careful how far out we allow ourselves to swim in the pursuit of perfection."

"G.I. Jane reminds us that Top Gun can never be forgotten."

"Trainspotting and Shallow Grave were much edgier, more daring, and, ironically enough, less ordinary than this movie."

(From a roundup of 'lesser-known magazines to check out' that was basically just an excuse for me to celebrate and mourn the last issue of Might Magazine, with which I was obsessed):

"Spy Magazine is sort of like Might but not as original."

And my favorite, the last line of a review of The Matchmaker:

"Because Janeane doesn't need to change, the world does."

*Weltschmerz: German word meaning "the depression that results from comparing the actual world to the world as it ought to be." Losing word in this year's spelling bee, which I watched with my friend John Green, who believes, as I do, that this word should be incorporated into the American lexicon. Also, I want to call in sick and say "my weltschmerz is acting up again."

bunnicula

Me and Stephanie had an art day on Saturday. Stephanie and her boyfriend David have art day every weekend and are both really great artists, so at first I was intimidated, but after a few false starts I finally got the idea to celebrate the short life of my former bunny, JonBenet, with a commemorative painting. David took a picture:

(It's retarded, but I'm so proud of it.)

(JonBenet is not for-sure dead, actually.)

This Is Nothing Compared To the One I Wrote For River Phoenix

(This. Is. So. Hard.)

Ten years ago next week, a seventeen year old girl who loved musicians and melodrama lay on her bed under her green-and-pink The Queen Is Dead poster and put pen to paper to pour out her broken heart*. This (gulp) is what she wrote. If it proves anything, it's that there is no statute of limitations on the embarrassment of bad teenage poetry. 'Cause I'm dying right now. Dying.

*I'm high on the pleasant distancing effect of the third person.

Unchanged, unedited (obvs):

"Cobain"

By Lindsay Robertson

Oh denial and wisps of blond
with a sneer you bewitched the moving horde
proving sweat and blood to so many
tumbling lemmings with screams and sighs
You forced yourself upon the world
that delicate cruel thing that never loved you
Until it succumbed to your denied beguiling
and pressing, pressing
But having found yourself with an adoring fool
you tossed her aside
And you whispered:
"Nevermind."

April 16, 1994

I just hope that this brought you the joy that can only come from laughing at teenage drama queens who project their own high school soap operas onto public figures through nonsensical verse. It's a...very specific kind of joy, but I think I've cornered the market. But we all knew that girl, right?

Oh, and maybe someday if I get even braver and more masochistic, I'll post the poem I wrote when I lost my virginity. (So much blood-on-wedding-dress-imagery hottness!)

(I feel so vulnerable right now. Hold me and tell me I'm smart.)