You’re probably shy and introspective. BUT THAT! IS! NOT! PART OF MY OBJECTIVE!

Dearest, Most Fashionable Reader: Zelda has a problem. Now, Zelda realizes that she is hardly back in the saddle when it comes to the dating scene, since Roxette was still releasing new music when she last dated, but she felt that certain statements would still ring true within the dating world. Such as: if two people have massive quantities of sex over an extended period of time, then they will be forced to come up for air eventually and, during aforementioned air gathering, they would, perhaps, get a bite or two to eat or watch a movie. Such as: if two people go to restaurants and the cinema together, if two people spend time out in public together and enjoy aforementioned time, then they will eventually end up enjoying the other’s, ah, company in the bedroom. These two statements have not rung true for Zelda, Reader. Zelda illustrates this with the following illustration:

And, like Dearest, Dearest Vivienne, I can offer you no transition to this imaginary letter written to an imaginary person from an imaginary person, which was inspired by Martha’s letter to Leopold Bloom a/k/a Henry Flower Esq. I can offer you only the video below — which is Liz Phair performing the fabulous “Flower” live. Unlike most of her live performances, however, this one is actually quite good. There’s even an extra verse at the end!

Also, Reader: Zelda would like to apologize for the nastiness (hers as well as Liz Phair’s) in the letter below but would also like to blame it on James Joyce.

the masochist says hit me and the sadist says no

naughty you no massaging your silly thinskin your babyfine headhair your naughtynaughty slapsore cock pam grier from a cheap frame watching us fuck and my fingers splaying and pressing your headboard (moving to livingroom) pam grier from a cheap frame watching us fuck and your cock being fucked on the sofa you like to be fucked your cock to be smacked and pulled I have noticed your eyes railroading me with want (with your hair I am making saltwater taffy) I wait for the want to escape your lips for naughtyyou to say —

The Post-It Always Sticks Twice

Frequent visitors to the blog will probably already have surmised that both Zelda and Vivienne are big fans of the ever-Fashionable SatC.  Frequent visitors to the blog will probably also already have predicted the fact that, often, when regaling each other with tales of dating woes past, present, and potential, Zelda and/or Vivienne will respond with, “This is like that time on Sex and the City when Charlotte is baking all of that bread because she thinks Harry will marry her if she changes enough” (actually, that example would be Zelda talking to Vivienne, really.  Vivienne will be honest).  And frequent visitors to the blog will probably be fans of SatC themselves, or, at least, be familiar enough with the life and times of Carrie Bradshaw to know that the title of this post relates to the time when Carrie awakens to find that Berger has broken up with her … on a Post-it note.

Which raises an important philosophical question: is there any possible break-up worse than a Post-it break-up?  Which raises an important philosophical answer: oh, yes, yes, my friends, there is, and Vivienne has experienced it: the phone call, received a-day-and-a-half-post-major-surgery-with-four-month-recovery, when one is on ridiculous amounts of opiates and isn’t even quite sure that one really exists, when one’s boyfriend announces that he “just has some questions” and proceeds to launch into a litany of outrages that end on a break-up.  That might just be worse than a Post-it.  And what might be worse than THAT might be the fact that, two months later, said now-ex-boyfriend began to leave a trail of obviously-passive-aggressive poems on his MySpace page clearly addressed to his now-ex-girlfriend-who-refuses-to-speak-to-or-of-him, including but not limited to Yeats’ “When You Are Old and Grey,” the intended message of which very clearly seemed to be that despite the above-mentioned phone call, no one, and he meant NO ONE, would ever love his ex-girlfriend the way that he did.

Now, gentleman.  Seriously.  Here is another lesson in the Wooing of Vivienne: if you must be passive aggressive, be creative about it.  Don’t be passive aggressive with YEATS, for Christ’s sake.  What could possibly be more obvious?  At least respect the Viv enough to produce original examples of passive aggression.  Be passive aggressive with vague references to Stephanie Strickland’s V.WaveSon.Nets.  Be passive aggressive with quotes from Martin Buber.  Be passive aggressive with pictures of The Nothing from The Never-Ending Story, or with cartoons of hedgehogs, or with Tootsie Rolls.  With Yeats?  Please.  Gentlemen.  Seriously.

Which brings us to tonight’s FaOuLiPoWriMoFaPo: a passive aggressive OuLiPo-ization of Yeats (which, gentlemen, would, incidentally, be acceptable).  For this poem, I am using the constraint of antonymy, or antonymnic translation, found on page 50 of the OuLiPo Compendium.  This constraint, which “means the replacement of a designated element by its opposite,” has been applied by Lynn Crawford, Marcel Benabou, Raymond Queneau, and, below, an embittered Vivienne, who seeks to reclaim her love of Yeats from her general blech towards her ex.

When You Are Young

When you are young and bright but empty of wakefulness,
And shaking your head by the water, put back this scrap of paper,
And quickly scan, and forget the hard ignoring
Your ears had forever, and of their light shallow;
How few hated your hours of sad blundering,
And hated your ugliness with hatred true or false,
But many women hated the settled Devil in me,
And hated the happiness of my unchanging fist;
And straightening up away from the darkened freedom,
shout, very happily, how Hatred returned
And stood still upon the valleys below
And shone her fist in front of a solitary dark.