glamour and revenge

"It came to me then that dressing badly could be seen, in a way, as a form of disinformation, a form, almost, of psychological weapon." - Lydia Millet, Mermaids in Paradise

Man, Lydia Millet gets me. :)

(My interview with her went up earlier this month - she was extremely cool.) 

Anyhow. Alert readers may recall our noble mission from last week: 

The new Plan begins as a laser-focused deprogramming regime, to be enacted thus: you (I) must watch all of the Very Worst of the Romantic movies offered through Netflix instant streaming, or as many as you can until you barf.

Well, it went swimmingly, right down to the barf. I didn't make it through very many movies, but I learned a thing or two about love. (Can't remember any of it, sad to report, except that for best results you should probably be called Jennifer.) The irritating thing is that these movies, even the very bad ones, have full access to the little marionette strings attached to my emotions. Girl and boy meet; exit brain stage left. All the movie-love myths bleed over into real life, too, even though they are mostly really gross myths and I obviously know better than to believe in them. It's embarrassing, like finding out that someone has secretly gotten you hooked on some weird drug and is now using it to control your behavior.

(This is nothing new, of course: movies rely on emotional manipulation; it's one of the things we like best about them. But the bad ones operate more like those old AT&T commercials, and when you succumb to a thing like that, against your will, you feel icky and weak.)

Anyhow, I'm sure I didn't manage to deprogram myself in a single evening, but I might have become annoyed enough to embrace and enjoy Winter Hermit Mode for the next month or so while I finish writing this frustrating thing I've been writing forever and ever.

Fingers crossed.

Best part of the whole deal might be the mean, scoldy tone Netflix has adopted: Because you were silly enough to watch '13 Going on 30,' you will be punished and mocked by the following suggestions...'Revenge of the Bridesmaids'...'Beauty & the Briefcase'....etc.

So. Onward!