I like my coffee au lait, just like my metal

[intertribal]

Who thinks I should become goth? Because I'd really like to have these combat boots. Secret: I've always wanted combat boots.  According to a quiz I took, I am only mildly disturbing, but I show great potential (little grasshopper). 

They're from Hot Topic. I know, I know.  Not goth.  But I think they're precious, and I'm planning on going back to that store after a 9-year hiatus.  I suppose by now they've gotten rid of all the novelty tees that I would be amused by.  Besides, I am not silly enough to think I could actually pass as gothic.  I hate that Crow movie too much to possibly be taken seriously as a goth (along with all that pseudo-goth shit: Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands).  I also think Anne Rice is a bad writer.  (Memnoch had some interesting points, but it was overwhelmed by the self-flagellating righteousness of Rice's newfound Christianity)  I hardly look like Kim from Book of Shadows.  So I think: maybe my new look is industrial.  I scored as a Rivet-Head on the Goth subcategory quiz.  After all, I also want this shirt (from Glarkware), even though I don't do Russian studies:

Still, it's not as if I go skulking around in warehouses, for raves or photographs.  Nor do I want machines to take over from humanity - nor do I find machines more beautiful than organic matter.  My interest in rivets is strictly of the Ghost in the Shell philosophy.  My third highest result on that subcategory quiz was, after all, Confused Outsider.

If real industrial goths were to speak to me they would probably find me a mainstream little prep.  But it's in the context of the girls I go to school with.  There are a few goths at Barnard - they stick out like gangrene thumbs - but they aren't political science majors as far as I know, and I love going to the Political Science Department looking "goth" or even "punk", blasting Rammstein so loud my boss can hear me coming.  I like making my colleagues in political science - club-happy rich girls with exotic, worldly experience of the Hilton and Hyatt variety, who love Barnard and love their friends, who serve on SGA and are "valued members of the Barnard community".  I love being, by all appearances, someone who shouldn't be valued by the Barnard community.  I don't layer on the makeup, I don't smile very much (and when I do it tends to be sinister and caused by internal thoughts rather than external circumstances), I don't listen to James Blunt and I don't watch Grey's Anatomy.  I don't dream of Sex and the City and I don't go to bars.  I don't like musicals, Gabriel Garcia Bernal, or Johnny Depp.  I think the Barnard Bear is scary (I'm a much bigger fan of Athena, but people forget about her - she's overgrown with vines).  I don't want to go to London, not even for graduate school.  To them, I am oh so very different.  Oh so goth.  Oh so grim, dark, intimidating - "ever somber".  And I'm starting to want to reinforce that image they have, like Bruce Wayne does in creating Batman: "I am vengeance.  I am the night."

Comments

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

if those boots were real leather, they'd be pretty cool. i love glarkware (and the baby shirts! if i ever have a child...)

god knows what people here think of me. except the really preppy people who think i'm too staining to their sensibilities or reputation or something to be seen with. but everybody else? we're west coast, so we're laid back, see, and it's hip to dress like poor people and be "radical", but if you try you can not only spot the real working class but (more easily) the real discontents... i think this is what steve looks for (haha...no seriously. he is working class and was a punk in the 80's..lol).

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

there's some of that sentiment at Barnard too, but they're a minority, and "dressing like poor people" never looks like what poor people actually wear... I mean, there's no, say Old Navy or Wal-Mart or Target.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

it's a little ambiguous here...i mean, there are some that definitely dress fashionable, esp. people from the east coast, but it's also very fashionable to shop at thrift stores, etc (hipsters and hippies, mostly). or even make your own clothes. it's true that you probably won't see target clothes on them, though. but then, if you are poor, it's easy to look fashionable if you just shop at the thrift stores too...but in general, the people with more working class backgrounds actually try to look nicer.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

also, every time i wore anything resembling combat boots growing up, my dad would tell me how it used to be an insult with the guys to say "and your mom wears combat boots" or something like this...i forget. but it always astounded me how stereotypical my dad is.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

well, oh well.

[(Anonymous)]

i just think it's funny

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

also, hot topic = good place to pick up alternative high school bisexual chicks.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

hmm...

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

lol. no, i just got hit on there by a salesclerk when i was looking particularly gay

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

well, I'll make sure to protect myself.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

danger!

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

high voltage!