I’ve been intrigued by the recent spat of creativity on the bloggernacle (see here and here), so I thought I’d try out the fad at M* too. Ten points to the person who can correctly identify what work of contemporary short fiction I’ve ripped off. And ten more points to anyone who wants to say anything about it.
THROW away those embarrassing old clothes; wake up at 7 a.m., you don’t want to get used to being lazy, do you?; don’t eat your roommate’s food; don’t spend money on stupid things and while you’re at it, don’t do stupid things that end up costing you money; work harder; be nicer;
go to all of your church activities—you never know when you’ll meet your husband; put in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wage; try to look as respectable as other girls your age; wash your clothes every two weeks or you’ll have to start wearing your old garments with holes in them; work harder; why do you always do the same boring thing with your hair, you’ll never get married looking like that; don’t walk around the house without a shirt on; don’t let the door slam behind you, it’ll annoy the neighbors; don’t talk too loudly, it’ll annoy your roommates; don’t waste time; look at those beautiful clouds, aren’t you lucky to be living out here?; be more responsible; read your scriptures every day, not just Monday Tuesday Sunday; set your visiting teaching appointments before the last week in the month, you’re the Visiting Teaching Coordinator for crying out loud; don’t be judgmental of your roommates; be nicer; why do you always fall asleep in the afternoons? Do you really think you have time to waste?; don’t ride your bike through the pedestrian tunnel, that’s breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law; don’t let your mind wander while saying your prayers; don’t fall asleep while saying your prayers, think about how that makes Heavenly Father feel; but I don’t think Heavenly Father notices that much; be happy and cheerful; stop dwelling on the past, it never would have worked out anyway; soak stains in cold water right away, especially if it’s a blueberry stain on your roommate’s new blouse from Brazil and even then it might be too late; don’t be so impatient; don’t say stupid things; buy some new soap that works better, you shouldn’t still be breaking out when you’re almost 27; work harder; stop eating so much sugar, it turns your teeth yellow and ruins your metabolism; be nice to your roommates, they’ve had hard days also; work harder; flirt a little more, how are the boys going to know you like them if you never talk to them?; don’t fall asleep in the afternoon, you won’t even know what tired is till you have babies; but what if I never have babies?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman that never gets married?
Very nice, Naomi! Great schizophrenia.
Sounds very Bridget Jones to me. Neurotic! LOL
Well, 10 points to both Steve and Adeline for saying something–but sorry, Adeline, Bridget Jones was not my inspiration. Just my non-Mormon alter-ego. Glad my neurosis are making you laugh :).
Naomi,
This neurotic airing of your dirty laundry was highly amusing, but as one of your roommates I would like to point out that you are leaving out all the good stuff. You are delightful to live with and I really don’t see what’s so great about wearing shirts anyway.
Forget contemporary short fiction. That’s the opening sequence to the movie “Trainspotting Further proof that you and I live in culturally different universes, but I love you anyway. 🙂
Great post.
My dirty laundry? Who said anything about my dirty laundry? I was trying to get inside your brain, Jenn? Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
Carren…Trainspotting…it’s just not blowing any whistles for me (get it? whistles? trains?). But I’m glad you liked it and I’m glad you love me.
And Jenn’s right, you are a wonderful, wonderful roommate and I’m glad to have you around. Food sharing-loud talking-nakedness and all. TO ANY POTENTIAL SUITORS OUT THERE: Naomi does like run around in her underwear.
Way to close to home … way too close.
I’m dying to read whatever it is you based this on.
“Naomi does like run around in her underwear”
TMI!! If my roommate said stuff like that I’d kill her.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime?
I Don’t Know How She Does it?
(What does it say that a book about a mother has the same tone as one about an autistic boy?)
No one has gotten it yet. Haven’t read either of those, Julie in Austin–do you recommend them?
Carren, I don’t think you realize how many people you’ve now ruined my reputation with. This is the last time I ever send you a link to anything I write.
Offhand, I would guess Shopgirl (but that’s just from the title, I haven’t actually read it).
My guess is “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid. It’s been 10 years since I’ve read it…but that was the first thing I suspected, given your post’s title. Masterful and funny, Naomi.
That’s easy (but then again, I keep a literature anthology containing this story in my bathroom): “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid.
I thought this parody was hilarious. One interesting difference I saw between the original and the parody is that while the voice in the original is clearly the mother (with responses from the daughter), the voice in the parody is more ambiguous. Is it also a mother speaking to a daughter, or is it that voice inside our heads that we members of the Church tend to have, a amalgam of our parents, Sunday School teachers, the scriptures, Mormon myths, college professors, folklore, cartoons, the bloggernacle, and the Holy Ghost?
And I guess something should be said about the similarities between Antiguan and Mormon fiction, but not by me.
“Trainspotting,” and also a scene from “Goodfellas” — neither particularly wholesome fare (and, interestingly, drug induced scenes), but very much in the style of Naomi’s exposition.
Roommates and public forums… a dangerous mix!
This style reminded me of the graduation speech/ turned into a song that popped up a few years ago called, “Sunscreen”… I think? Did that have any influence?
It reminded me a little of “Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten.”
Naomi, # 13 and #14 seem to have identified the real source, but your prose is also vaguely redolent of Woolf and Joyce or even Eliot’s second-guessing Prufrock. The conflicted inner dialogue sounds like Gollum from LOTR (at least the way he’s portrayed in the films). Your ending it with a question was haunting. Or perhaps it’s the particular question you chose to end it with that is haunting.
larry david.
that’s my guess.
And the winners are (look here to find out and to read the MUCH better and richer original). But I think Gollum is my favorite guess. That explains so many things about my inner life.
Christian, you’ve identified precisely what I was trying to do in my parody. I didn’t want to make my mother the primary speaker because (1) my mother doesn’t lecture me like that, and (2) she sometimes reads around the bloggernacle, and I wouldn’t want her to feel bad or misrepresented. So yes, the instruction-giving voice is my own running monologue. Really, I can’t blame my guilt complexes on anyone but myself.
Now back to working harder, not eating sugar, and wearing embarrassing old clothes.
Naomi, I am going to do a complete overhaul of your current stream of consciousness. Start saying, I’m too sexy for these old clothes. I’m too sexy for all these single guys. I’m too sexy for all this sugary food. I’m too sexy for higher learning. I’m too sexy for the bloggernacle.
What blueberry stain?
These little voices are so annoying! No wonder people are driven to distraction (or to drink or to Prozac). Honestly, I think that a focused morning prayer or meditation helps to quell the inner critics and demons that perpetuate the endless negative feedback loop of feeling like you’re never doing anything perfectly right.
Speaking of Larry David and stains – I just saw the Club Soda and salt episode last night – hilarious! Does it really work?
I think I am a paradox. I am completely paralyzed by ocd as I have made very public. I think I am at constant risk of harming others and that is a greater fear than I can bare sometimes. Yet, in between all of those frequencies and my self-esteem images about being very dependent on others for my care, my self-dialogue is so very kind. In fact, I amuse myself much of the time. Maybe it comes from being in my thirties. I am in many ways my best friend. Recently, I think I have even shed much of my emotional neediness for other people. I used to be too repressed to be emotionally needy. There, it balances itself out in the end. That is unless a mid-life crises is around the corner. Really thirties are so much better than twenties, which by leaps and bounds are better than teen years. Be good to yourself! 🙂
One more comment to Christian–you keep a literature anthology in your bathroom? Does that reflect on your insatiable love of reading or your disdain for literature? Quite intriguing, really.
Barb: Great overhaul. I’m too sexy for these singles activities, too sexy for these neighbors, too sexy for this shirt. Hmm… that probably fits a little better than it ought. However, there are some things that I’m not too sexy for–like visiting teaching and respecting the law and being nice to my roommates. Maybe my inner voice will become a little kinder over time, though. I hope it will. I’m glad your 30s have been better to you than your 20s.
Elisabeth–You forgot being driven to chocolate. I find that my weeks go in cycles–my self-criticism peaks around Tuesday night-Wednesday. By Friday I’ve found my groove, and Sunday is this protected day that somehow never devolves into stress and anxiety. I guess some days are better than others, like U2 says.
Dianna: Uh, yeah, about that blueberry stain–I got it all out, I think!
I keep the anthology in my bathroom both to satisfy my “insatiable love of reading” and to remind me of my life before med school as a graduate student in English. It’s also handy as a paperweight for copies of the Journal of the American Medical Association, and it is a solution to an important practical problem: what do you do, exactly, with an anthology for a class you took six years ago?
Naomi, if your inner-dialogue actually resembled my overhaul that I stole from a popular song of the 90’s, you probably would find yourself friendless and with no desire to visit teach. I am not sure where breaking the law would fit into the scheme of things, but maybe that is the next step on the slippery slide of puffery and vanity. I think the twenties can be great too especially if you learn all the things that took my to my thirties to figure out. I am sure you are more advanced than I. 🙂
18% of women in the church never marry.