On Top of It #20 by Lisa Martens

Dancing/Balls

I spent the weekend at the PURE dance conference, and one panel discussed intimacy and dance . . . and quickly became a discussion about why some people seem to hate when women embrace their femininity and own the stage, especially if said woman is not conventionally beautiful.

Project Harpoon was, to me, a spectacular example of this misogyny online. For those who are lucky enough not to know, this was . . . and still is . . . a “project” that takes plus-size female models and photoshops them slim, so these women can see how hot they “could” be. So basically this involves these steps:

1. Take a photo of a plus-size woman, who has overcome insecurities and pursued a career in modeling, and who is successfully working as a model
2. Spend possibly hours photoshopping it
3. Post the photoshopped photo online where other people are also spending time to voice their opinions on the before and after
4. Attempt to shame this woman into being thin

This is so confusing on so many levels.

A woman who is confident with herself, and with her body, taking this stage and putting herself in front of a camera, is not somehow hurting the people who are photoshopping and posting these edited photos. There are also lots of thin women online. Thanks to smart phones, you can scroll past a woman who does not meet your preferences with a flick of your thumb.

The Internet gives some people the ability to be unnecessarily cruel (and seriously, even if you forget the lack of human decency part—the whole task is futile and time-consuming).

So I began to think—what on earth could be said that would begin to unravel the hatred these people behind their computers must feel? What about a confident, sexy woman who is not conventionally attractive offends some people in such a visceral way? Why do they feel the need to spend so much time fighting something the Internet allows them to ignore?

And, most importantly, how could that ball of anger be unraveled, and that energy be used for something productive?

I’m not being as catty or sarcastic in this post as I usually am . . . as I am towards people who catcall me or tell me to smile. Sometimes incredulity is the only response I can give.

On my way back from the airport a week ago, bags in tow, as I did my best to curl up and take as little space as possible, a man actually told me I was taking too much room, and he needed to spread his legs. “Don’t you know I have balls?”

Verbatim quote.

I was too exhausted to fight, or even to say anything. I just stared at him. I didn’t move. I just couldn’t help but look at the person before me, and wonder: What the hell causes someone to think his balls need more room than my suitcases?

_______

Lisa Martens (Episode 22) currently lives in Harlem. In her past 10 years in New York, she has lived in a garage on Long Island, a living room in Hell’s Kitchen, the architecture building of CCNY, and on the couch of a startup. She grew up in New York, Costa Rica and Texas, and she’s still not sure which of these is home. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing from CCNY. Her thesis, What Grows in Heavy Rain, is available on Amazon. Check out her website here. Follow her on Instagram here.

On Top of It #19 by Lisa Martens

Diving for iPhones, and Other Things

You may know that I offer a weekly blog for The Drunken Odyssey every Monday, but what you probably don’t know is that I usually write my post the night before it is scheduled for release, which, for any of you who have been the editor of anything, know is an extremely–what is the literary word for this?–dickish thing to do.

Today was slightly different in that I am visiting Orlando, which is where said editor (who apparently actually reads these blogs) lives, so I got to see him and discuss my blog in person as we slathered honey mustard on French fries in a hotel at Disney World.

When he asked me about my blog posts, I wanted to jump into Bay Lake, the man-made body of water apparently infested with brain-eating amoebas and try to swim for the castle. But instead I tried to shove as many fries into my mouth as I possibly could and looked down. Interestingly enough, I employed this same tactic when I was four and a boy in the McDonald’s play pen told me I was pretty. So not much has changed regarding my communication skills.

I fumbled my way through a conversation that went through my childhood, why I felt the need to kill my Sims characters in a horrible fire, the time my grandma tried to sell me, and my general lack of professional literary ambition. If it weren’t for the brain-eating amoebas, I would have gladly jumped into the freezing water, kicked off my sneakers and started swimming…or floating. But, in the words of Kent Brockman: “Little girl likes her brain.”

After we were done refilling our sodas for the third time (the maximum allowable refills), the editor-who-shall-not-be-named and I took a series of boats, ferries, and monorails around the free areas of the park.

It was then we met a sailor whose job included diving for dropped smart phones in the brain-rotting lake, since insurance companies need to have the damaged phone back before funding a new one.

Disney’s River Country was closed in 2001, more than 20 years after an 11-year-old boy died after contracting amoebic meningoencephalitis, an amoeba that attacks the nervous system. According to the boy’s parents, River Country was the only place he had been swimming. So now, only the smart phone diver can swim in Bay Lake.

There were a whole bunch of questions I wanted to ask, like:

• How does it feel to risk your life swimming after carelessly ruined phones?
• Can you feel the amoeba entering through your nose and attacking your brain?
• Do you have to wear ear and nose plugs? What about…other openings?
• Do you think it’s kind of funny that you’re risking your fully-formed adult brain to retrieve a device that seems to eat the brains of developing ones?

I didn’t say any of those things, but the epileptic inside me really wanted to know. Hearing about a foreign object invading your head space and turning it inside-out brought me right back to the night I ran into my garage screaming because I thought my own dad was trying to kill me (even though he was only trying to turn my radio), because I missed the places I’d see that I’d never been to, or because I felt the conviction that I was right, and it really was everyone else who was wrong.

People don’t like to think of the brain as the hyper-physical thing that it is, that something microscopic from the outside can affect it. But the fact is, if I had listened to the pretty visions that told me to stop taking my medication, I wouldn’t be writing this. People talk about intuition as though it’s a spiritual thing, something in your soul, something that is true in the face of the physical world. But it’s not. It’s a fragile, sensitive thing, a malfunctioning phone dropped in water.

As writers, sometimes we must become divers.

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Lisa Martens (Episode 22) currently lives in Harlem. In her past 10 years in New York, she has lived in a garage on Long Island, a living room in Hell’s Kitchen, the architecture building of CCNY, and on the couch of a startup. She grew up in New York, Costa Rica and Texas, and she’s still not sure which of these is home. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing from CCNY. Her thesis, What Grows in Heavy Rain, is available on Amazon. Check out her website here. Follow her on Instagram here.

On Top of It #18 by Lisa Martens

Loans and Indoor Rock Climbing

What do repaying loans and indoor rock climbing have in common?

I’m terrified of both. I have the upper body strength of a T-Rex and two liberal arts degrees from New York institutions. Your girl is in trouble on both fronts.

I want to travel, and enjoy my life, and I think I’m starting to notice a crease on my neck and forehead, so the fear of death is settling in. An episode of Family Guy where Peter needs a kidney had me in tears the other day. I was wondering if I would have the courage to give my kidney to a loved one and a bunch of other bullshit. If I want to do the things I want to do, I have to take some control.

So I called my student loan provider and went on an income-based repayment plan, which will cost under $100/month. I had been terrified of calling them for months, and after a five-minute conversation realized that they weren’t as scary as I had remembered. A couple of years ago, I had gotten a particularly nasty call from a collector who told me I wouldn’t be able to get a job if my credit was bad. He started asking me if I ever wanted to own a house or a car. It happened to be the same day a family member of mine committed suicide. While I know it’s random, that experience runs through my mind every time I see Navient’s number on my phone.

But it’s something I have to deal with. And I (FINALLY) called back and set it up.  I also went bouldering at the new Brooklyn Boulders in Queens (the native New Yorker in me screams at this title for eternity). On the way, I saw the above quote spray painted into the sidewalk:

And it sort of gave me renewed hope in humanity or something.

I also bought a ticket to visit a friend in Florida who works at Universal Studios, so hayyyy, I can get in for free! Traveling on the cheap. My job can be done from anywhere with Internet access, so I want to start taking advantage of that. Desperately.

Of course, I want to end up in a place more exotic than Florida, but this will do for now.

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Lisa Martens (Episode 22) currently lives in Harlem. In her past 10 years in New York, she has lived in a garage on Long Island, a living room in Hell’s Kitchen, the architecture building of CCNY, and on the couch of a startup. She grew up in New York, Costa Rica and Texas, and she’s still not sure which of these is home. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing from CCNY. Her thesis, What Grows in Heavy Rain, is available on Amazon. Check out her website here. Follow her on Instagram here.

On Top of It #17 by Lisa Martens

A Lesson in Humility and Tone: Talia Jane

This weekend, the Internet caught fire with Talia Jane, a Yelp customer support representative who wrote a public, scathing letter to the CEO of her company and, of course, was fired soon after.

I agree with a higher minimum wage. I also agree that student debt cripples the dreams of many young Americans . . . such as myself. And so, I opened the link ready to read a letter written by an educated young woman, a fellow customer support rep, my peer, addressing these points.

What I read was a condescending rant that looked like a long drunk text I might send to the person labeled “Fuckboy” in my phone. Asking the CEO to pay her phone bill? Complaining that she couldn’t take the free food home? Bitching about the $20 copay to visit a doctor?

I cannot help but feel that the whole point of this letter was to be fired. It was cheeky at best, and outright abusive at its worst. The Internet always makes everything feel more sarcastic, and the anonymity it provides brings out this kind of behavior. As a customer support rep for a tech company, she must have experienced this phenomenon in her day to day. Which brings me to this question:

Would Talia have spoken to her CEO like this in person? Would she have compared her modern work environment . . . which is laden with free food . . . as a starving pack of wolves? Would she have said the coconut water tasted “like the bitter remorse of accepting a job that can’t pay a living wage”? Or said something as snarky as “Look, I’ll make you a deal. You don’t have to pay my phone bill”?

Most likely not. She would have had to craft her grievances like a human talking to another human, a twenty-something out of college talking to a CEO.

So I will use this opportunity to tell a bit about my own story, minus the snark, to express the kind of sentiments I had believed and hoped Talia’s letter was going to bring to light.

When I came to New York for college, I knew NYU was going to be expensive, and my parents were not financially prepared to support that journey. I knew if I wanted it, I would have to do it myself. I petitioned for aid my first semester at NYU, but it was decided that I would receive aid if I could prove myself with a good GPA. So for the first year at NYU, I had to take out private loans. I applied to every scholarship I could find. I lived with a family in Queens for $600/month, and then in ⅓ of a living room in Hell’s Kitchen for the same price. I worked as a tour guide, I handed out fliers, I tutored, and I participated in psychology experiments. A lot like Talia, I had to look for change and find metrocards so I could use the subway. I went to school club meetings just for the free food. I knew which supermarkets gave out free samples and when. I walked and rode my bike when I couldn’t afford public transportation, and I lived at work and at school several times when I was in-between places to live.

I once slept under a school desk with nothing but an electric blanket. It was winter, and the heat in the building was off. I could hear rats running past my head as I struggled to sleep.

I had fainting spells because I wasn’t eating frequently enough, and at one point I lost so much weight that I started to lose my hair.

All the while, my wealthier friends were having a great NYC college experience, laden with unprotected sex and popping prescription drugs in the library to stay up all night. I was jealous. I was human.

Sculpture of Don Quixote, somewhere at NYU.

However, I still managed to get a good enough GPA for NYU to give me more aid, and this cut down on my dependence on loans. Once I graduated, I worked one full time job and one part time job so I could repay my loans. I shared a one-bedroom in Queens for $700, still keeping my rent low, because my student loan payments were double that.

I currently live in a living room again, having just graduated from graduate school. I have a full and part time job, and my rent is still low so I can afford my loans, which I am behind on. I don’t have privacy or even a real door to my room, but again, this is the sacrifice I’m making so I can have low rent. It’s been rough, but I’ve always been grateful to the places who have employed me, who have given me a chance to prove myself, and I’ve always understood that my personal and financial problems are not the fault of my employer, of NYU, or even of my parents, who help me every time they can.

What do I feel now? A little disappointed. Letters like Talia’s get millennials dismissed as spoiled and entitled, and any good points get thrown away in the sea of sarcasm. But this could potentially be an opportunity for growth for Talia, I hope, once the Internet fanfare dies down—a lesson in humility, tone, and appreciation.

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Lisa Martens (Episode 22) currently lives in Harlem. In her past 10 years in New York, she has lived in a garage on Long Island, a living room in Hell’s Kitchen, the architecture building of CCNY, and on the couch of a startup. She grew up in New York, Costa Rica and Texas, and she’s still not sure which of these is home. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing from CCNY. Her thesis, What Grows in Heavy Rain, is available on Amazon. Check out her website here. Follow her on Instagram here.

  On Top of It #14 by Lisa Martens

I’ve been working two jobs, trying to heal myself with Reiki, eating low carb, and pumping myself full of positive thoughts. It’s that kind of 2016. I’m filled with that hopeful optimism that comes with the idea of a fresh start–quite like writers starting a new book.

But, just like a writer starting a new book, I’ve been taking myself too seriously . . . until the snow forced me to cancel my plans and engage in Netflix and chill with two friends and an Afghani man I met at a Dunkin’ Donuts.

So thank you, Jonas, for reintroducing spontaneity in my life, as well as pizza delivery.

And, of course, Jonas gave me time to write . . . once I got back home and showered. My main character, Sandra, sells her artwork online and finds her art changing due to the demands of the Internet:

Deborah sold handmade soaps on CustomCraft. She had shown me photos of her garage where she sliced sheets of soap into bars, then slid each one into a small box. It was in her “Process Section.” I had about three paragraphs of text in my Process Section, and no photos:

DebDoesSoap

People like seeing pictures. I just make them really bright

I have some apps on my phone

just brighten and highlight everything and up the saturation

make colors pop

SandraMMorales

People actually like that?

They want to see pictures

???

DebDoesSoap

Yeah

I mean it seems silly

But my sales have gone way up

since i improved my process section

SandraMMorales

oh okay

wow

i guess i just thought the art would sell itself? haha

DebDoesSoap

I know I was hoping the same about my soaps. I put so much work into them, making sure all the products are organic and locally sourced. And people like that, sure, but throwing on some lipstick and surrounding myself with soap and taking a selfie is so much more effective

sad to say

that’s what people respond to.

I kind of hate it. Hate how much what I do has turned into marketing.

I was a little worried about what the Internet was doing to my art. I could afford to pay less attention to detail because, instead of being displayed on a wall in a museum, my paintings were shrunken down and slapped on the back of a phone cover. Recently, my creations had started to adopt the qualities of a meme. A blue sky with puffy clouds, “Be My Bitch” written in cursive in the center of it all.

Sandra is also renting rooms of her house out, and runs into legal issues with one of her tenants. But I’m not going to give it all away just yet.

Continue not taking yourselves too seriously. Love you.

_______

Lisa Martens (Episode 22) currently lives in Harlem. In her past 10 years in New York, she has lived in a garage on Long Island, a living room in Hell’s Kitchen, the architecture building of CCNY, and on the couch of a startup. She grew up in New York, Costa Rica and Texas, and she’s still not sure which of these is home. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing from CCNY. Her thesis, What Grows in Heavy Rain, is available on Amazon. Check out her website here. Follow her on Instagram here.

On Top of It #12 by Lisa Martens

No One Cares What You Write

As an MFA student, a writer, and an occasional blogger, I’ve met a lot of other aspiring writers. Most are beaming with hope, stewing with bitterness, and take pride in not having their shit together. And a good deal of them live in fear of the Internet, of having their precious words stolen from their hard drives, or of someone they fucked reading their stories and piecing it all together.

I have an encouraging message to all of you: No One Cares What You Write.

Let me explain. If you’re reluctant to write something because your ex who was a fantastic lover might see it, don’t worry. He probably won’t. Go ahead and describe his dick at length (well, you should probably change his name or some minor details).

Fact is: the only people who have ever griped to me about stuff I’ve written were people I didn’t even write about. They only thought I was writing about them. . . the funniest part has been that everyone who has ever assumed I was writing about them has been wrong, and the fantastic lovers, well, they’re probably too busy having sex to care. Sadly.

So write what you want . . . within reason. Don’t send a bunch of threatening letters and pretend it’s freedom of speech, and then blame me when you get arrested. This post isn’t for people hiding behind the mask of the Internet. This post is for people who have great ideas, ideas inspired by their real-life interactions . . . but who are too afraid to write about them for fear that someone they know will see it and make some connections.

Maybe a few people will. But if someone is spending that much time picking apart your writing and figuring out your psyche, they’re probably lacking in their own lives, and you don’t have to care about their opinion. It won’t be someone you’re actually afraid of. It’ll be the kind of person who will text you at length but never make IRL plans with you.

It won’t be that gorgeous slab of man meat you messaged three years ago whose Facebook profile you occasionally stalk. You know, the one whose security settings you circumvented so you could see all his photos. You’ll want him to message you and ask if that quasi-erotic fanfiction you wrote was about him, but he won’t. Because he’s probably climbing some mountain in Alaska.

Another thing—If someone is going to steal your book idea, they will only do it when the book is finished. No one is going to try to steal your actual ideas and try to create a 150,000-word novel and figure out all the characters and plot holes you haven’t ironed out. If anything, if they’ve hacked into your computer and gone that far, they’re probably going to just steal your identity and buy stuff.

So if you want to protect your credit card info, hide it in a folder labeled “novel ideas.” No one will ever, ever steal it.

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Lisa Martens (Episode 22) currently lives in Harlem. In her past 10 years in New York, she has lived in a garage on Long Island, a living room in Hell’s Kitchen, the architecture building of CCNY, and on the couch of a startup. She grew up in New York, Costa Rica and Texas, and she’s still not sure which of these is home. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing from CCNY. Her thesis, What Grows in Heavy Rain, is available on Amazon. Check out her website here. Follow her on Instagram here.

On Top of It #11 by Lisa Martens

Resolutions and Hope or Something

After reading “the life-changing magic of tidying up,” (intentional ee cummings-esque lower case letters), I decided to apply Marie Kondo’s strategies to my own cube.

One of the exercises is, of course, to get rid of your crap. Kondo has a gentler way of putting it—basically, you pick up each item and ask yourself “Does this give me joy?”

It seems so simple, but I had been used to keeping things out of fear–a fear I would need the item “someday.” Someday, when I go skiing, these gloves that are now covered in white paint will save my life. Someday, when I’m twenty pounds lighter, I will look awesome in this dress. Someday, when I’ve actually painted my toenails, I will wear these six-inch sandals and everyone who already knew I was hot will think I’m even hotter.

But I never thought to only keep items that made me happy. Viewing my possessions this way helped–a lot. Gone were the textbooks from my architecture days, books I had spent over $200 on and couldn’t sell back because now they were old editions. I had kept them for fear that one day I would need them for research–research I could just do by going online and searching for “how far can a human body fall before it dies upon impact?”

So I picked up all my items, even my books, and discarded whatever didn’t give me immediate joy. T-shirts exes made me? Gone. Old phone chargers from my Sidekick days? Gone. A dress I had bought, liked on the rack, but didn’t like in person? Well, there were like fifteen of those. I threw them all out as well. When all was said and done, I got rid of twelve bags of things that only weighed me down, instilled fear in me, and got in my way.

Then I realized I had unintentionally stumbled upon a resolution for 2016. Keep things that only give me joy . . . I could also apply this theory to the space between my ears. And so I’ve been throwing out all the junk that has built up in there. Negative thoughts. Frantic self-loathing. Ear wax.

This must be how new phones feel.

Happy New Year.

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Lisa Martens (Episode 22) currently lives in Harlem. In her past 10 years in New York, she has lived in a garage on Long Island, a living room in Hell’s Kitchen, the architecture building of CCNY, and on the couch of a startup. She grew up in New York, Costa Rica and Texas, and she’s still not sure which of these is home. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing from CCNY. Her thesis, What Grows in Heavy Rain, is available on Amazon. Check out her website here. Follow her on Instagram here.