Allyson - don't know if the bones really are the same . But even so - bones are not all there are to either a person or an essay. Let's put it this way - every play Shakespeare wrote just polished up some hackneyed old plot widely know in the England of his day. Now not comparing you to Shakespeare, (sorry) - but compare Shakespeare's Macbeth to the one in Holinshed’s Chronicles. A lot superficial similiarities, but no freakin comparision.
Something you have to live with; any type of writing you do, there will be somebody doing something superficially similar. If the somebody is a bad or unethical writer, you cannot let that fact make you crazy.
When you see an unfamiliat number on ID (and no message was left) OR someone calls and immediately hangs up, what do you do?
I ignore. But, I do have a friend who will call numbers back that she doesn't recognize because she is completely self-absorbed and wants to know who else is absorbed with her.
Confessional writing tends not to be very ironical, despite its putative self-awareness. Anthropological essays, written from a personal standpoint, probably a very different kettle of fish.
Personally, I tend to avoid Sedaris, because all of his personal essays seem to be about his own humiliation, and that is about as not-funny as humiliation-comedy on television. But some examples of cool (but not especially confessional) personal essays I've read:
- a thing in the New Yorker last year, about a toddler who had an imaginary friend he talked to only via cellphone (parents very worried, till they realized how much time they spend on cellphones);
- an essay (being reprinted this week in a college textbook) about giving up job, home, and security in order to live intentionally homeless in Prescott, Arizona
- the audio-essay series "On the Road," where Rob Gifford travelled from China's cosmopolitan coast all the way in to the dusty bordertowns with Uzbekistan, chronicling the people he met along the way
- Natalie Angier's essay, "My God Problem," about why she can't be polite when people drag religion into science.
There's a lot of material out there that benefits from the personal/odyssey perspective. "My journey into ____, and what cool things I have come to report about it" has a long and honorable tradition.
My take of your writing was that you were being actually candid, Allyson, and that was the point. If you're dressing it up in self-consciousness and oh-lordie-me, then you're achieving the "candid" of which I was complaining.
If that is indeed your goal or your effect, you're a lot better at it (or worse, I guess) than Olen or Waldman, because I couldn't tell.
When you see an unfamiliat number on ID (and no message was left) OR someone calls and immediately hangs up, what do you do?
I barely answer when I
do
recognize the number, so the unfamiliar ones aren't likely to get my attention. If it's that important, they'll call back.
Um. I don't mean to get all fucked up and emotional over something so stupid, but I just received three pics of Sunnydale...
Demolished by a bulldozer.
When you see an unfamiliat number on ID (and no message was left) OR someone calls and immediately hangs up, what do you do?
I usually don't even call back familiar numbers. My rule is, if it's important enough to reach me, leave a message. I can't stand when people ask me why I never called them back just because their number was on the caller id.
Oh and since this all relates to the Nanny thing, let me deal with this:
> In fact during my 5 month employ at Ms. Olen's, I spent two and a half months celibate. Yep. Celibate.
Dear god, someone call the nuns, she should've been one! Yeesh.
But this was offered either as a complaint about not getting any or a claim of nun-hood, but a reply to a charge of engaging in "promiscuous behaviors" . (Note the plural.) She was described a transition from a monogomous relation with a previous boyfriend to a period of celibacy to seeing a new boyfriend (and having a one night stand with the old) to ending up in a monogamous relation with the new boy friend. Now that history seems a reasonable rebuttal to the image being presented of her. The NY Times editor claimed the one night stand justified the term promiscous. And the Nanny wanted to know, what about that history justified the use of the plural? And yeah of course fighting the battle on those grounds was dumb; if she had slept with a different man or men every night, writing and publishing the article in the NY times would have been a shitty thing do.
Incidentally, while it was foolish to give the URL of her blog to her employer - in all fairness, the employer had tried to persuade to see her as friend, to feel like one of the family rather than just an employee. Lot's of employers try this; some even sincerely believe they mean it; and naive young employees sometimes fall for it. No employee should ever be in a hurry to believe your boss is really a friend; it is not impossible, but it is also damned easy for both parties to delude themselves about it. (Note: I'm making a distinction here between mutual liking, and even enjoying one anothers company and friendship.)
It is at least possible that Nanny diarist is naive, from a priviledged and protected background rather than stupid.
Tea stick -- that's so cool. I want one.
