The Gina Spot

I’m flip-flopping this week.  Most of the Chicks are writing about their experiences on Iyanla, but for some reason I decided to write about being a cool girl.  If you’ve stumbled across my blog today, this is what I owe you . . .

If you follow us, you’ve probably seen the “Fix My Backstabbing” friends episode of “Iyanla Fix My Life” that debuted on the OWN Network on October 6th.  If not, and if interested, you can watch enough clips on the website to get a good idea of what you missed.

I have to admit that before the airing I was a tangle of nerves.  For several reasons.

First, because I’ve seen people falter in the spotlight.  Funny thing, that spotlight.  Everyone wants to be the face on which the light shines, but few understand that with the glory comes much scrutiny — which is the piece that gives me anxiety.  I am the antithesis of Zondra, who was seemingly born to be there, and shrugs off her criticism with a smile and a shrug.   On Fix My Life, all of us had at least a little bit of bad behavior — with the exception of Yanni, probably.  While I didn’t love the concept of being made the poster children of mean girls, I remained hopeful that the audience would watch our dysfunctional interactions and like us anyway.

Some did; some didn’t.

Our supporters have been nothing short of amazing, and we are very appreciative of the kind sentiments and well wishes. But I have to admit that I got the biggest kick out of our critics.

I did the thing that you’re not supposed to do when you’ve appeared on TV. I delved into the message boards to see what people were writing.  What I learned was that, as mean as we could be?  The message board members are far more caustic.   There’s a lot of freedom of speech when you’re sitting idly at home, in your PJs, computer in lap, with the ability to espouse your raw opinion.

I loved how our natures could be encapsulated in one (typically poorly constructed and grammatically atrocious) sentence.

For example, I became “The one in orange who thinks she’s better than everyone else and won’t cry.”   (That sentence is 2/3 correct.  I was indeed wearing orange, and I rarely cry, if ever.  It’s just not my tendency.  I’m usually too busy analyzing to cry.  For the record, I don’t think I’m “better than everyone else,” but there are certain things that I simply refuse to argue about.)  I received direct messages from people who felt the need to tell me that I’m emotionless and have “ice in my veins.” (Again, only partially accurate.  The BF says that I do have emotion — although it’s usually anger.  Also?  At least half of my blood is a proprietary blend pinot noir and zinfandel [Red, not white!  How dare you?], which has a warming factor and counters the iciness.) 

But I digress . . .

All in all, I have to say that the Iyanla experience was a good one.  Some of my fellow chicks came away from our show with mantras to live by. While I appreciate the affirmations, my value was in getting to know what makes everyone tick, and learning how to accept my five co-horts for who they are and embrace our individual and collective idiosyncracies.

My second bit of nervousness had to do with timing.

I’ve been working on launching a digital publishing company, Enemy Books, for the better part of a year. Along the way, I decided that Brown Sugar, written by the Six Brown Chicks had to be re-edited and would be the perfect first release on the EB imprint, and could coincide with the air date of Fix My Backstabbing Friends.

Ummm . . . what was I thinking?  I don’t think I’ve ever been more of a Murphy’s Law victim.  Ever.  The fact that I didn’t become addicted to mood-altering drugs is nothing short of amazing.  But . . . the book is out as a sneak peek for IPAD USERS ONLY. More formats to be released when the technology decides to cooperate.

In case you missed the last bit of the episode, I will stress that we are still together as a group and moving forward.  We’re blogging for the moment, but we’re crossing our fingers that there’s more to come.

Judging by the time, I mean that quite literally.

There are moments when I feel like a writer, and many more moments that I don’t.  But irrespective of how I identify, I know what’s entailed.  For example, I know that love stories are written either by writers who are in great relationships that they are driven to share with the world, or people who have no relationship or any relationship in sight, but they’re interested in playing out their fantasies on the page.  Either way, whenever a writer is moved to write, it’s because he/she is working some shit out.  Kind of like I’m doing right now.

It’s the nature of writing.  We write the best when it’s what we know or what we have living vividly in our heads.   The problem is the reader.  The reader is the person who interprets, and the person who believes that whatever is written could actually happen.  Because it’s written, after all!  It must be so.

Ummm, no.

For example I believe that, if wielded improperly, chick lit can be one of the most dangerous forms of literature (if we can call it that).  I’m convinced that some people use chick lit to set expectations for their own lives, while I refer to chick lit as a writer’s whack-off.  (People who are less crass might refer to them as adult fairy tales.)  Why?  Well . . . let’s look at the formula.

The protagonist is an office worker — sometimes even a frustrated journalist or a PR agent.  She wants love, but can’t seem to find it.  She has friends — maybe one with the perfect relationship, and another who’s even more of a mess than she.  (The friendship mix will depend on who’s in the writer’s life at the time.) She’s given up on love, and has taken to harvesting stray animals or allowing herself to be seduced by a man who is horribly wrong for her — maybe he’s married, or he’s her boss, or he’s her married boss.   But there’s another man in picture.  He’s a nice man.  A nice unsuspecting man.  Maybe he’s her neighbor, or the guy she talks to in the morning before work as she gets her Venti-skim-latte-with-a-triple-shot-double-whip.  The problem?  He’s too nice and normal for her neurotic ass.  He’s around, but he’s nobody that she would consider because she’s too busy dealing with Mr. Selfish Asshole.  Finally, when Mr. SA shows his true colors (usually in the form of something drastic, like sleeping with her messy best friend),  she turns to the unsuspecting nice guy.   Funny . . . he’s been there all along, but she’s never noticed him.  But when he takes on the role as her consistent, unwavering shoulder to cry on, she notices his cuteness.  And little does she know that he’s been harboring a secret — he’s really a Prince.  A Prince of a tiny European country (that doesn’t exist).  Or maybe he’s the heir to a $30B company, and he’s been rejecting his family because he’s so misunderstood.  Or maybe he’s quietly the owner of his own profitable business.  Either way, he’s loaded, dammit, and he would like to share his booty with her.  (Provided that she share her booty with him.)  They get married and all is right in a world that was oh, so frustrating a mere 315 pages ago.

Sound familiar?  And if you think that the story described above is anything but masturbation involving a plotline and computer, then, seriously?  You’re a little cray-cray.

But believe me . . . some of my best friends write chick lit, and they’re brilliant at what they do.  They serve a serious purpose, and I don’t begrudge them their successes.  I just wish that average readers would understand that what they’re consuming is little more than escapism and behave accordingly.

I watch a lot of movies (and what is a movie, if not a book played out on celluloid?), and I find it interesting to juxtapose the plots of films and the realities of the life that I observe.  Don’t get me wrong . . . I devour good, well-written, cerebral, dark movies.  Or anything with action . . . or death and dismemberment.  I don’t mind chick flicks, but I try not to overconsume them . . . .unless I need a special lift.  I have my moments.

Chick lit has a usefulness when I’m overtaken by life.  Like most of us, at any given time I know many people who are in financial situations that range from less-than-ideal to crisis mode.  Some of those same people are in the midst of nasty divorces, heinous breakups, and horrifically expensive custody battles.  A certain faction admits to being in bad marriages, but would rather stay than embark on an ugly divorce.  Others are dealing with health issues.  This is all normal life stuff, and unfortunately I tend to be used to it — without awareness of how sour I can become.

I know that I’m in need of a lift is when I hear a friend’s good news, and I can’t even be truly happy for him/her.

For example, an old friend called last week, exuberant.  She’s getting married and she needed my address to invite me to her wedding.   I’m primarily happy for her because she’s been wanting a family for so long.  She was engaged in the past, but called it off (luckily, because had she gone through with it, she would have been trying to extricate herself from a relationship with a sociopath).

Because I love her and would never dare shit on her happiness, I outwardly rose to the occasion and gave her the reaction that she was looking for.  But, if I were being honest, a bigger part of me internally shrieked: “Oh sweet mother of God!  Are you KIDDING me??  MARRIED??  WHY??!!  Most people I know are trying to get OUT of their marriages, and you want IN?  Why don’t you start smoking while you’re at it.”    And then I flipped through my mental rolodex of everyone in my life who’d had a bad marriage experience, and I recalled the divorce rate in the US, and wondered why anyone bothered, and why she’s bothering.

I realize that it’s not the best attitude, but this is where chick lit or more likely chick flicks, come in to give me a little reset.

Life can be so ugly. It’s nice to watch (or read) a slice of someone’s life where things work out . .  . even if it’s only for a little while.  It doesn’t matter that the story is born in the head of a writer, or that it might be lacking in realism.  I don’t walk away from the viewing experience thinking that my life will change as a result of having watched it, but I’m happy to have had the escapism.  Even better that I didn’t have to write it myself.  Because, really?  I would suck at it.