my name is robin. i am a 30 year old unemployed, married chick living in a penthouse apartment in hollywood. yesterday afternoon my husband & my dad & stepmom were listening to me whine about how, basically, i peaked, creatively and punkly, etc., when i was a teenager. when i was a teenager, i even got some of my teachers to buy off on calling me by my nickname of "princess robin." i did a pretty well known zine and had a pretty well liked riot grrrl punk band. girls who find me online now who knew me then sometimes tell me that, like, i changed their life, exposed them to cool stuff they are still into, etc. i had chutzpah (sp?), you know? if something was unfair, i would yell at the grown man who was making the shit unfair until he backed off and apologized to me and the other teen girls involved in these showdowns. it felt glorious. but, i don't do anything now, worthwhile, you know?
I'm a fiction writer and poet, and have been forever, that's been my only real thing i've ever cared about as a career path (besides wanting to be a hero, like a vigilante or something), but i can hardly get anything published. i have five or so stories published in online or print literary journals, and this is after submitted to probably 30 journals a year since i was 19 -- you do the math (no really, will you do the math? i'm awful at math. but those figures sound bad).
my husband & me went to philly so i could get a master's degree from an ivy league school and guess what? -- a Master's Degree is a liability on a resume, turns out! at least when you are trying to apply for secretarial positions, like i always end up doing, because that's all the professional experience i have.
i'm reduced to whining, feeling sorry for myself, and trying to sell scarves i make online.
but i wanna be princess robin again, ya know? i wanna kick ass and take names & make a difference and for people to read my work again the way they used to when my zine had a following all those years ago when i was an itsy bitsy 13 through 18 year old wearing old gym socks over hairy legs with vintage dresses and my crazy teeth. well, i still sorta look like that, only now i have a chest full of crazy scars too.
but anyway, i wanna shine, like a moon. life should mean something.
i just saw my friend biz's blog about being homeless and having adventures and i thought, i will give blogging a try.
hooray! Princess Robin is back! I hope you kick much ass and take many many names!
ReplyDeleteOk, sorry, but I beg to differ on the part about you not doing "anything now, worthwhile". And yes, I do know a bit about this sort of thing. You see, I feel like that on an hourly basis myself. I'm 32 and when people ask me what I do, I say I still haven't found what I'm going to be when I grow up because it's preferable to saying "I'm a bum who can't pick an ambition". But you, you are STILL inspiring me to keep trying. Why the heck do you think I went looking for you after all these years? I knew you were still doing amazing things and I needed that inspiration again to keep me from throwing in the towel on all the fleeting dreams that still dash through my brain like marathon runners. Just because you haven't gotten your big break yet, doesn't mean you are allowed to discount all the creative stuff you are actively trying and doing...quite successfully from my point of view. You are doing the stuff I only DREAM of doing, but am too afraid or too scatterbrained to follow through. Here's what Princess Robin taught me: just because you are faced with setbacks, such as being a teenager aka second-class citizen, doesn't mean you have to stay limited to the mundane things on society's approved to-do list. You earned your "Princess" title by believing in your own entitlement to anything you could achieve just by doing it. You didn't wait for anyone to acknowledge you. And that is a quality I am still hoping to achieve in my lifetime. But you don't need to go back to being Princess Robin again --'cause we can never really go back, can we? You just need to wake up out of this dreamworld you've fallen into and realize that you are HerMajesty Robin now (or some other more creative name that you will come up with.) You ARE doing things now but the difference is, you have started waiting for acknowledgement, waiting for someone to give you a title because that's what adult society tells us we "should". Bravo for starting this blog. I can't wait to see what's next on your agenda! Keep up the good work. I'm counting on you.
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