Amanda Failure Princess

okay, so here’s the thing about me: i am NOT a gossip. i never tell a story that isn’t true, and i don’t make a habit of repeating things that shouldn’t be repeated and/or are going to get me into trouble. if you tell me something is confidential, the likelihood is i will never discuss it again. until you say i can, and then i SO WILL! i love a good story. and i am super-observant and people tell me stuff all the time.

i will never know what information gets past me and don’t really care because as they say, what you don’t know won’t hurt you. but nine times out of then, when someone is being insincere, i can tell for one of two reasons. the first is i can see right through most people unless i am blitzed, and the second is, i probably already know what’s going on because someone already told me. i pay attention and remember almost everything someone says to me… unless, of course, i am blitzed.

the other thing is, i don’t really care if people are talking about me if it’s the truth. if it’s something hurtful, i only hope i never find out. i understand that sometimes people talk shit, even people who like you, and that’s how it’s going to be. the problem is, people don’t always know what is and isn’t true, i guess. i don’t lead a particularly controversial life (at least by the standards of those i choose to surround myself with) so really there is not much anyone can say about me… except some people think i’m a gossip, and that bothers me.

recently i had someone in my life who was very fond of making me feel badly about talking so much about people, going out, etc. i am really sensitive to that and try to be aware because i know when i am doing it too much. apparently someone wise once said to this person that when you talk a bunch about other people’s lives that means there is nothing going on in yours. that is the kind of statement that would make me stop and think, so i considered this person’s opinion and started thinking about my behavior. the problem was that is this person, the same person who was constantly giving me shit and making blanket statements about “hating gossip” was constantly ASKING me to tell them stories and what was going on. the whole situation has been very hurtful and has forced me to realize that as i get older, i need to be more cautious about who i allow into my inner sanctum. generally i can read a person fairly well, but in the last year or two i have been letting a few bad apples slip by. i have two theories on this: 1) maybe as people get older, they have more of their own agenda, or perhaps a more sophisticated one and therefore are more likely to use someone else or fuck them over to get what they want. this confuses someone like me because the majority of my friends i have had at least since my late teens/early twenties and just generally expect that people are still going to appproach new friendships with that kind of sincerity, 2) i often get blitzed.

so basically, i have been mulling over this for several months now. my roomate jaime has taken to saying “you’re not a gossip, you’re a news hound.” and she and amy were joking the other night about getting me a newsboy cap and a badge that says “PRESS.” hardy har. i can take a joke, or even criticism when it’s from people who really know me and care about me. i just don’t appreciate people making assumptions and statements about me based on their lack of ability and/or interest in getting to know the other parts of me.

i started to feel really badly about myself and wonder, wait, maybe she’s right, maybe all i have are stories about other people’s lives and going out and mingling… then i realized that there are layers to that, as to anything. if you were an artist, you might talk about art a lot, hairstylists talk about hair, movie buffs talk about film, etc etc. i am a writer and a storyteller. people’s actions and motivations fascinate me. i love to observe them, and i love forming the words to describe them. so i am going to tell a lot of stories. it’s like, my job. it’s something i will always have to keep in check because i am not trying to justify it, i definitely DON’T think it’s healthy to talk about people all the time. no one would like to hang out with a musician that only talked about music. i get that.

i have a ton of other stuff to talk about. i have been reading newsweek. newsweek is awesome! there is so much news in there. is it weird that one of my favorite sections of any magazine is the letters? even if i haven’t read the issue the letters are regarding, i love reading the letters. they are always either so astute or written by an absolute idiot. with their feet. i think this is because only someone with something really important to say or someone with no life at all would write a letter to a magazine. even in the age of email this rings true.

once, when i was eleven, i wrote an angry letter responding to an angry letter responding to an angry letter to seventeen magazine. i had to write it out, put a stamp on it, and send it in the mail. it did not get published. a first in what would become a string of failed attempts at expressing my outrage. such is life.