#I was in the middle of my Shakespeare and Jane Austen phase

[miss-kitty-fantastic]

Wow. I've been going through some old keepsakes and found this entry, in an old diary from high school.

People seem to think that I am smart. I don't know where they get this idea. It's all just an act, an act so badly executed that I'm surprised anyone is fooled by it. I have a bad memory, I have no initiative, and absolutely no people or social skills. I know very little about anything - and of the few facts that I do know, there are very few that I'm sure of.

I have wandered through my entire life feeling inadequate, stupid, and always just a few steps behind the rest. Yet, I have recently become aware that people see me as some kind of know-it-all. Which is surprising, considering that I spend all my time in a state of frustrated confusion. So it would appear that I am not only a bit slow, ill informed, and mnemonically challenged - but also highly obnoxious. That's nice to know.

Maybe this overestimation of my intelligence in the eyes of other people, stems from the fact that I tend to use large words in order to express myself. Plus I pronounce my words fully and don't have much of an Australian accent (grace a ma mere francaise). People must assume that a large vocabulary and enunciated speech indicate intelligence. I have a talent for expressing myself on paper, and to a much lesser extent verbally (due to paralysing self-consciousness and insecurity). This is not a sign of great intelligence, it's just an ability to bullshit using big words.

I wrote that when I was 16! Holy undiagnosed autism batman! 😂

[britneyshakespeare]

1, 2, 4, 15, and 16 for the 'identity asks'.

Thanks Helena! Hope you’re having a wonderful expedition

1. if someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

i’ve actually been thinking of a similar concept in my mind a lot lately, for whatever reason. pieces of art/media that i admire a lot, and am always thinking about at least subconsciously

lady windermere’s fan and the ballad of reading gaol by oscar wilde

sense and sensibility by jane austen

a midsummer night’s dream by william shakespeare (and also probably the tempest if we’re being fair)

buffy the vampire slayer (1997-2003) and its spin-off angel (1999-2004)

the spider-man trilogy by sam raimi (2002-2007)

any poem collected in w. b. yeats’ 1921 volume michael robartes and the dancer

the white album by the beatles (and also probably revolver)

absolutely anything ever written by emily dickinson

rebel without a cause dir. nicholas ray

anything ever recorded by marianne faithfull

brian jones. just his life itself was art.

a fever you can’t sweat out and pretty. odd. by panic! at the disco

i probably should’ve stopped before i got to #13 but i could go on. a bunch of various albums and books and plays and movies that have had an impact on me. things i could passionately go off about at any moment.

2. have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you? if so, who?

i think the reason i consider shakespeare, dickinson, and wilde as my favorite writers (in english at least) is because there’s sort of an affinity i’ve had for each of them at one point or another. shakespeare’s very layered and archaic, metaphoric writing style always resonated with me. when i read shakespeare i think “this is what i’d like to write if i could live up to my full potential as a writer.” with dickinson, i have too much in common, biographically, not to relate to her. and i love her simplicity and use of metaphor so much. she really was a wonderful amateur, in such an inspiring way. her plain, uncut, unedited poems are just “primitive” as some critics have noted, in such a pure, uncut poetical energy sort of sense. and with wilde, what can i say there? probably the first “serious” writer i can say i discovered on my own (technically i discovered dickinson by myself in fifth grade through the book feathers by jacqueline woodson, and the poem stuck with me, but i just didn’t connect to her so much at that age) when i was a sophomore in high school. and i just felt so much oneness with the contradictory, constantly ironic and paradoxical wit of his. i don’t really know what i could say i have in common with oscar wilde, personally, but whenever i read his works they just feel instantly relatable. 

4. do you like your name?  is there another name you think would fit you better?

i do, i do like my name. although i don’t necessarily know if i’d say it “fits” me. what name fits anyone, really?

“diana” always felt so pretty and elegant to me, which i am very much not. my dad wanted to name me jacqueline and call me jackie but my mom thought that sounded “hideous! and matt, we’re not the kennedys!”

i like my last name, though. short and sweet, semi-common but not, like, smith common, and close to the beginning of the alphabet. before i knew i was aroace, i always thought if i got married, i’d keep my last name (and this goes back to when i was like, 10, so, way before i had any comprehension of any feminist reason to do so). and if i ever had kids, they’d all get my name.

15. five most influential books over your lifetime?

hmmm. i already named some with #1 but i’ll try and be a little different because this is a slightly different question.

feathers by jacqueline woodson, even though i haven’t read it since middle school at latest. and maybe also yankee girl by mary ann rodman. for some reason when i was in late elementary school i had this phase where i’d read all these historical fiction books about civil rights and racism. i don’t really know why! i was a little white girl in a 97% white suburban town of only a couple thousand people. with yankee girl it was because my friend read it, it was set in the 60s, and they made a bunch of references to the beatles which made me all excited. and then i just happened upon feathers the next year. but i think a first-person perspective through books, gave me a sort of understanding of american history as it affects people who are not me. that was good for me to read at that age. i went off too much about that.

the picture of dorian gray, probably. what can i say about wilde that i haven’t already said? hmm… i don’t know, but it’s a great novel.

spider-man comics in general, but especially the more human-centric storylines, behind the mask and all that. if i were to put one specific book it’d probably be death of the stacys with an honorable mention for the early 2000s miniseries spider-man: blue. but blue can’t really be read without the understanding of the death of the stacys. and also that was the first graphic novel i ever bought (well, it was a birthday present actually). but yes. the tragedy of gwen stacy especially is still a touchy subject for me.

american psycho by bret easton ellis. if for nothing else than i quote it (the novel and the superb movie adaptation directed by mary herron) with my sister constantly. but it really is top-notch 80s satire. if you haven’t read it, helena, i so recommend it. in many ways it’s a century-later update of the picture of dorian gray, but without the portrait and instead with constant psychological tumult. it’s gripping as hell.

hmmmm. this is hard. i probably answered too many for #1. i guess i’ll say the complete poems of w. b. yeats edited by richard finneran. it was one of the first volumes of poetry i ever bought for myself, i used to just read online or in the library. but it’s my constant companion, i bring it with me everywhere. and i knew a decent amount about poetry before yeats, but i still learned a lot from yeats. it was (and still often is) a challenge to get the most out of a yeats poem, but it’s always a reward to read and reread them.

16. if you’d grown up in a different environment, do you think you’d have turned out the same?

god no! i don’t know what i WOULD be like in any other circumstance, but i’ve had way too extravagantly odd of a life to think this shit didn’t shape me into one extravagantly odd bitch. but in the personal tragedies department, i wouldn’t really change anything. i like who i am, scars and all.

but with basic background details, everybody in my dad’s family has the exact same sense of humor, myself included. i have way too many aunts and uncles and cousins on that side, most of whom i hardly know and only see a couple of times a year at most, but through circumstances recently i’ve been in contact with a few of them that i didn’t normally talk to growing up, and it’s just fucking uncanny. like, just imagine the kind of self-deprecating and absurd personal posts i make, but imagine them being regurgitated by dozens of people older than me around a thanksgiving table (or, a couple of large tables pushed together), and most of them are male. none of us take ourselves very seriously, and it’s quite the opposite on my mother’s side. i don’t think i resemble either of my parents much in temperament, but as far as the culture they both grew up in, my influences only get clearer and clearer every day.

identity ask………oh shit