2008 Woodie Awards
A Pocket Full of Mumbles
Black is the new smart, or how I quit smoking
Elizabeth Pusack
Issue date: 9/21/06 Section: Features
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Watching both Manhattan and Ciao Manhattan, we think it might be true that boys only like perfection or a beautiful mess. I'm neither. Based on what you've gleaned from girls with quirky haircuts in American Apparel ads, you might think that awkward has outgrown its awkward stage. But acknowledging one's own awkwardness has become a convenient way of asserting one's own beautiful messiness. Statistically, only very skinny girls with loads of mascara who have self-identified as "quirky" say things like "I'm terrible at parties because I'm insufferably socially awkward." No. You are overly thin and know that (statistically) 50 percent of the male race (the ones who aren't chasing the perfection on the dance floor) will find what you said endearing - but only if it isn't true (and only if you have a cigarette in your mouth).
As for me, I may be a mess, but it isn't glamorous. It would be lovely to have the power to transform surliness into a fashion statement, but I just end up ashing on myself or having the wrong runs in my black tights. And those of us who aren't perfect are at our absolute worst when we contemplate perfection, so that isn't an option, either. Perfection is roughly defined here as a pulled-together, ducks-in-a-row, nouveau-renaissance woman with shiny hair.
I once wrote a really terrible little passage about the rationalization of a teen smoker for an equally terrible gothic short story that I got a bad grade on. It went something like this:
"I smoke cigarettes when my hands are idle, when I feel jaded, when I want to feel jaded so that I can pretend to think that whatever the world has done to me is old hat; when sullen so that the sullen is by design and not me suffering, when f---ing consequences is appropriate, to feel picturesque, when wearing black tights and black eyeliner, when it's icy on the catwalk and the fag is the prize for the courageous trek, when feeling ordinary.
"I have a certain pride, a wholly-misplaced pride in being a teen smoker. Here is an exchange. Him: You think I could bum one of those? Me: I suppose. They're Marlboro Red Hundreds. I hope you don't mind. I stick two in my mouth, light them both and hand one over. Him: Wow, real cigarettes. He takes a long drag. What's a girl like you doing smoking cowboy-killers? Me: I don't believe in lights, or menthols for that matter - it's like smoking toothpaste. And besides, every teenage girl is supposed to smoke Marlboro Red Hundreds. They're classic. Anything else is like sucking through a straw. Him: Yeah, I guess if you're gonna smoke. Me: Exactly."
As for me, I may be a mess, but it isn't glamorous. It would be lovely to have the power to transform surliness into a fashion statement, but I just end up ashing on myself or having the wrong runs in my black tights. And those of us who aren't perfect are at our absolute worst when we contemplate perfection, so that isn't an option, either. Perfection is roughly defined here as a pulled-together, ducks-in-a-row, nouveau-renaissance woman with shiny hair.
I once wrote a really terrible little passage about the rationalization of a teen smoker for an equally terrible gothic short story that I got a bad grade on. It went something like this:
"I smoke cigarettes when my hands are idle, when I feel jaded, when I want to feel jaded so that I can pretend to think that whatever the world has done to me is old hat; when sullen so that the sullen is by design and not me suffering, when f---ing consequences is appropriate, to feel picturesque, when wearing black tights and black eyeliner, when it's icy on the catwalk and the fag is the prize for the courageous trek, when feeling ordinary.
"I have a certain pride, a wholly-misplaced pride in being a teen smoker. Here is an exchange. Him: You think I could bum one of those? Me: I suppose. They're Marlboro Red Hundreds. I hope you don't mind. I stick two in my mouth, light them both and hand one over. Him: Wow, real cigarettes. He takes a long drag. What's a girl like you doing smoking cowboy-killers? Me: I don't believe in lights, or menthols for that matter - it's like smoking toothpaste. And besides, every teenage girl is supposed to smoke Marlboro Red Hundreds. They're classic. Anything else is like sucking through a straw. Him: Yeah, I guess if you're gonna smoke. Me: Exactly."
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
J. Burt Shaver
posted 9/22/06 @ 4:49 PM EST
Hey, Franco-Russo-Italo-Deutsch-chick! Might be there's always someone this-er or that-er than oneself, but there's no siller boo and no camp-ten-fE-er than you! J. (Continued…)
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