11:54 a.m. - 2007-01-21
Introducing Shane
I have a voice in my head that, this morning, I decided to name Shane, after the character on The L Word, a very bad show that I am watching again thanks to my roommates, who are addicted. Now I am addicted, too.
I watched the show in its first season, excited that there would be a show that would be focuses entirely around lesbians. I am about a big a fan of lesbians as you can find among gay men. Then I watched it, and I asked myself, "Where are the lesbians?" And my friends said, "Silly Notorious RRZ, these are actresses PLAYING lesbians!" And I said, "Okay, then where are the actresses?" Yes, I am aware that the girl from The Murmurs who plays Alice (she has a name, and that name is the girl from The Murmurs) is queer in real life, which made it interesting to me that she was playing the avowed bisexual, but other than that I wasn't really seeing the women I have come to know and love being represented. This may seem like a trivial point, but I can tell you that in no group of queer women friends that I have ever encountered in my life has there been so much long hair. Shane's hair is the shortest, and it still falls around her face. If the show had any pretensions toward verisimilitude, it would have at least one regular character with hair short enough that it doesn't really fall anywhere.
Because of this, and because I didn't really find any of the characters appealing in the slightest (except, ironically enough, the straight woman played by Pam Grier, and then only because she was played by Pam Grier), I stopped watching. I watched a couple of episodes with some buddies in Berkeley, but then I had to deal with a so-not-a-lesbian who was also so-not-a-Latina. Shane, funnily enough, started dating a Latina woman, something I appreciated considering the show took place in LA and all. She was quite beautiful. Then I heard her speaking Spanish. Well, she said it was Spanish. Now, I am first to admit that I am not totally fluent in my familial language, but I at least know how it's supposed to sound. My accent is impeccable, as should the accent of anyone who grew up around Spanish speakers. Turns out she was Middle Eastern, which I wouldn't mind so much if The L Word was filmed in London, but as it is filmed in Los Angeles I refuse to believe that they couldn't find an attractive Latina actress by, I don't know, going outside and pointing. It wasn't like she even had to be a good actress. Have you seen this show?
Yet I watched the season premiere, and was hooked, even though Jenny, who is so self-absorbed and obnoxious that she makes Nate from Six Feet Under look altruistic, is now a published writer (she's gotten some bad reviews, though, all of which made me twitter with glee). The characters are pretty much the same, although now there's a very cute tranny-boy and Helena, who is played by Rachel Shelley, whom I grant a name because she was in Lagaan, and every time I see her I say, "Rachel Shelley! She was in Lagaan. She's been in a Bollywood musical. I want her to sing in Hindi right now, even though, in Lagaan, she sang in English." The only significant change is that the woman who was with Jennifer Beals, who I want to say is named Kim, has left Jennifer Beals (whose name on the show is Bette, that I know), has left him for a man and taken their daughter with her, which is awesome because it gives me a chance to use one of my favorite slang terms: hasbian. I only learned this term last year, which is shameful for a dyke tyke like myself, from an acquaintance at Duke University. I asked after "the little pixie dyke" whom I had met and she said, "Oh, Brit? She's dating a man now. She's a hasbian." And I said, "WHAT?! Oh, that's awful! But that word is AWESOME!"
It also featured a balls-out KICK-ASS monologue from Jane Lynch, she of the Christopher Guest ensemble and The 40 Year Old Virgin, who plays Bette's lawyer WITH A FABULOUS DYKEY HAIRCUT, THANK YOU! They should really make her part of the main cast, although I am sure she feels the work is beneath her as is, and she's right. If they could guarantee Jane Lynch in every episode, I'd never leave the couch. I have also found out that another favorite of mine, Marlee Matlin, will be on later this season, so as I said, hooked.
As a result, though, I have now created Shane in my head. I would have Shane introduce herself, but she doesn't really do introductions. She doesn't do much of anything, actually, except mope. But she looks fabulous doing it.
Shane, if you don't watch the show, is Damaged, enough to deserve the capital. She's been a druggie, and been a kept woman, or maybe just a rent girl for wealthy LA ladies (I don't know if she's ever done the same thing with men). Her Dad's a misogynistic douchebag, which, shocker. Shane works as a hairstylist, although I couldn't tell you if it's her dream or not. She's got a reputation as a turbo-slut, and one of the upcoming storylines is a showdown on her part with a new turbo-slut named Papi, which the girl from The Murmurs kept pronouncing to rhyme with "happy," forcing me to put out a hit on everyone involved with the show, because there is no way that someone living in LA wouldn't know the correct pronunciation. She also left the so-not-a-Latina-so-not-a-lesbian at the altar. Her redemption is expected to come this season in the form of her much younger half-brother, who was basically left on her doorstep. Because only a child can truly show a woman the error of her ways. Thanks, L-Word. That's nice.
My Shane is nowhere near that interesting. My Shane isn't that interested in sex or drugs, because my Shane doesn't like things being out of her control. My Shane may be at a laptop in a coffee shop, as I am now, but she wouldn't be writing in a diary and she certainly wouldn't have smiled at the waitress. She doesn't smile, ever. My Shane is not into human contact. My Shane wants to be alone, to not talk to any of my friends ever again, to never flirt with or accept a date from anyone, to choose getting work done over going out or going dancing; she basically wants to avoid all forms of human contact. She does, however, want to exercise, because what is the point of being solitary and morose if you don't look hot, in a melancholy, gothy sort of way, while doing so.
Shane is basically the personification of a voice that I've been hearing in my head a lot over the past few days, a voice that has a sustained mantra: "Wouldn't it be so much easier to just give up?"
Tone is important here (when isn't it?). This phrase is not said in a blase sort of way, nor is there any sort of ironic humor in it. This rhetorical question has an investment. When Shane says this, her shoulders sag and her knees buckle. She doesn't look cool when she says this. It may be the one time where she really isn't concerned with looking cool. There is a pleading when she says this. She looks vulnerable, but more than that she looks tired. Tired of waiting for people to come through. Tired of compromising. Tired of adapting, tired of fighting, and just plain tired of wanting things. Shane calls herself a Buddhist, but suspects that she's really just a Puritan in new-age clothing, not that Shane would EVER wear anything so lame as new-age clothing when she could, you know, just where black and grey. When Shane says "Wouldn't it be so much easier to just give up?" she means that she could live with never having any of the things that she's wanted all her life if she could just figure out a way to stop hoping.
Shane is bitter, and a crybaby, and I'm not terribly fond of her.
She's here, though. One of my favorite things that super-genius Terry Pratchett ever said, a quote I will no doubt return to many times in this diary, came from the character Nanny Ogg, a hard-drinking, much-married, still-got-it-in-her witch in the Discworld series. She is who I want to be when I grow up. Nanny's talking to Death's granddaughter (long story) and says that she probably just sees a crazy old woman in front of her who doesn't know what she's talking about. Death's granddaughter, being intelligent, says "Part of me was." Nanny Ogg laughs and says, "Well done! PART of us thinks a lot of things." I love that line so much, because it is so very true, and the best part about it is that it reminds me, as I hope it will remind everyone reading this, that every voice in my head is just a part of me, and if I can give that part of me a name, then I don't feel it so much inside me anymore. If I feel like I want to give up, to stop caring, to quit waiting for friends to call when I asked them to, to quit expecting friends to come visit me when they keep cancelling, to quit trying to get a theatre piece going because I was away from Austin for too long and now no one has the time for me anymore, then, well, it's hard for me to get going, to do much of anything. But as soon as I pictured Shane, and gave these feeling the name of Shane, suddenly all those thoughts weren't weighing me down in the same way. There wasn't a heaviness in my chest. It was like it moved just outside me, in front and to the side, somewhere between one and two-o'clock, so to speak. And when those feelings are outside me, then I can think about them, and if I can think about them, maybe I can figure out how to get around them, maybe even to work with them.
Because Shane isn't going anywhere, and it is entirely possible that Shane might have some good stuff to do and say. First of all, when I picture my version of Shane, she's a successful university professor, a scholar and critic who well-respected and frequently asked to deliver papers. I think it is VERY interesting that I assign those ambitions to that figure, something worth thinking about. At the same time, if Shane wants to be alone, to do her work and not be bothered, then maybe Shane is EXACTLY who I need to get me through my oral exams. Maybe I do need to tell people not to bother me, that I have to work. Maybe I need to stop needing people as much as I tend to, to not let people disappoint me so much, to get more comfortable with being alone.
The thing is, though, that while I have no problem having Shane do my reading for me--if Shane really wants to read Jurgen Habermas for me, I should let her take the reigns, because lord knows I'm having trouble--I don't intend to let her take the reigns for too long. For one thing, Shane may be many things, but she is not The Notorious RRZ. The Notorious RRZ cannot be found anywhere on The L Word, although perhaps he is off-stage, taking Jane Lynch's character for a drink and listening to her hilarious stories about the self-centered lunatics she calls clients. The Notorious RRZ does not, in fact, think it would be so much easier to give up. Correction: he knows it would be easier, but The Notorious RRZ doesn't really do easy, although The Notorious RRZ is easy to do. He knows that if Shane took over, and went back to graduate school, and became an internationally famous scholar, writing cynical, paranoid books about how communication is impossible and we're all doomed, there would still be on big problem: Shane would be a shitty teacher. Shane would inspire no one. Shane would never have done any of the things that I've done in my life--theatre, teaching, writing--of which I am proud. Shane would be well-known, well-respected, and would likely pull a Virginia Woolf if it weren't for the fact that Shane, by definition, is a dead-woman walking.
So, for today, Shane is going to go kick it with Jurgen Habermas. She's only got until 8pm, though, because that's when Rome comes on (I need to figure out a part of myself that's Atia of the Julii, because THAT would likely lead to some good times, right there). Afterwards, of course, I watch The L Word. After that, though, I am devoting myself until sleep takes me to writing, and getting my shit together to start my theatre projects. I'll leave Shane on the TV where she belongs.
