Elyse is shameless

So, for the past week I’ve had this reoccurring thought rolling through my mind: “I’m bored, I’m bored, I’m so fucking bored.”

And I know, it sounds really immature. Bratty even. But I am. I’m trying to be good, going to work, coming home from work, eating a healthy dinner, not drinking, going to the gym, writing, being cautious with my spending (i.e. I do nothing on the weekends) — all the things I need to do in order to move on with my life and become more successful personally, financially, and professionally, but fuck, I just want to go to a bar, get drunk, flirt with a random buy, and break some glass.

So, as I’ve said in my last post, I’m making a list of things to do every week to shake up the monotony of every day life. Something new every week, be it little or huge. This week I’m going to drink milk, dammit. It’s going to happen (with Oreos, to soften the blow) and it’s going to be epic. But before I do that, I feel like I need a warm up and last night, in an attempt to not write, I listened to the latest episode of This American Life about good guys and this thing called a “Good Guy Discount.” Basically a guy at NPR goes around asking people for a “good guy discount” when he buys things. Which, basically, is nothing more than just saying to vendors “Hey, I’m a good guy, you’re a good guy, is there any kind of discount you can give me?” And 25% of the time, the guy gets some kind of a discount.

Ben Calhoun decided to test this theory but felt kind of dirty about doing it. In fact, it took him almost an entire year to actually do the fieldwork for the story. And, I have to admit, although I’ve done some morally questionable things for a story, I totally relate with his frame of thought. Asking for a discount simply because you’re good is the opposite of good. It’s manipulative, and essentially not a nice thing to do.

An old friend of mine used to date a guy who used to do things like this all the time. And because he did these kinds of things, he was pretty wealthy. His theory was “What’s the worst someone can do? Say no? Big deal.” And sure, this kind of attitude shows an extreme amount of moxie, but this is also a guy who sold expired, Chinese machine guns to the U.S. military during the Bush administration and is now in jail. So, being sincerely good has its merits, I suppose.

But, a week from today is my birthday. And maybe it’s because when I chose the number “32” for a Super Bowl pool today at work and said “I chose 32 because I’m going to be 32 next week,” paused and then said “Ugh, that’s so gross” I feel a need to jump out of my skin a little bit. Do something not me. Or maybe it’s because I just learned how to play shuffle board last week, but when I found out that I lost out on getting free tickets to test out a new shuffle board place down the street from my house on my birthday, I tested out the “Nice Guy Discount,” in my own weird way with this email:

Subject: Yeah, I’m going to go there

 Hi,

I know this is far-fetched, but I got some moxie, so I’m going to try: I know you gave out free shuffle board tickets for January 22nd to Brooklyn Based subscribers (which I am) and you’re sold out but January 22nd is my birthday and I wanted to know if there was ANY way you could give out just two more free tickets and make my birthday extra special with a taco (tacos are better than cherries) on top.

Reasons why you should do this:

1) I live right down the street (438 Union St.) and I would probably come to your fine establishment all the time.
2) I’m from South Florida, shuffle board is in my bones the way Metamucil runs through my veins.
3) I was the 2863rd person to like you on Facebook, and everyone knows 2863 is a lucky number.
 4) *I smell like cinnamon.
5) It’s my birthday, dammit.
6) Please?

Love and kisses and Jennifer Lawrence (because everyone loves her too), 
Elyse Wanshel

Will it work? I figure I’ve got a 25% chance. But I know that I so have a 100% chance at eating at a badass place on my birthday c/o my best friend, which in my book is pretty sweet. Oh, and a 100% chance that I will turn 32, which, I guess is okay.

Better than being in jail.

* I know I’ve been saying I smell like cinnamon a lot lately, but it’s a lie. I really smell like bleach and raspberry body lotion, but cinnamon makes me giggle.


p.s. I just realized that I should’ve also mentioned that I share a birthday with DJ Jazzy Jeff. Lower my percentage to 20%.

Elyse doesn’t understand why Rosa Parks needs to have pushed-up cleavage

I recently saw David Trumble’s “Woman You Should Know,” an art project that depicts female role models like Hillary Clinton, Rosa Parks, and Anne Frank as Disney princesses. The renditions were inspired by Disney taking its most un-princessy of its princess stock, Merida in “Brave,” and re purposing her into a sexy Halloween costume version of herself. Thus, taking away the only alternative princess company has ever offered little girls (which isn’t necessarily true, Pocahontas, anyone?).

Personally, my gut reaction was nausea. I like that he’s calling Disney out for its BS, but he’s doing it at the cost of using women who are way more significant than his message to make a fairly obvious point. And essentially, while doing it, he’s stripping these women of their power.

An image of Gloria Steinem and reading a phrase like “This space is intentionally left blank” on a piece of paper simply makes me chuckle. It doesn’t provoke deep thought of shift my world views.

 I remember my dad driving me to preschool every day as a kid, and every day I would ask him to tell me a story.

“About a princess,” I would demand. “Who has blonde hair, blue eyes, and talks to horses.”

Thing was, I wasn’t a princess kind of girl. I enjoyed making weird dolphin noises, pulling the heads off of all my Barbies, and hunting garden snakes with my next-door neighbor, Adam.

Yet, I couldn’t escape the spell cast on me by watching “Sleeping Beauty” about three dozen times.

And I’m not sure if it was a result of dating boys that viewed me as an accomplishment, being denied promotions as an adult, or just waiting in way too many hour-long lines at Disney World that severed my devotion to Aurora (who, by the way, is the most anti-feminist princess of the lot – she makes none of her own decisions, passively sleeps for most of the movie, and needs to be saved by a man) but it eventually happened. My penchant for princesses faded and I became my own person; a woman, who frankly, thinks princesses suck.

And I’m pretty sure I’m not the first woman who has come to this conclusion without the help of silly visual aids.

I do appreciate that this artist is trying to make a statement about the ridiculousness of taking a powerful woman and having to gloss her over to make her more appealing to society, but is an image of Anne Frank in a glittery gown really doing that? Is it fair to call something like that “art?”

One thing I do know for certain is that last thing Anne Frank would have wanted to be when hiding from Nazis was sparkly.