I like listening to Lana del Rey in my car while I’m driving around feeling existential and naughty and sad. I like the philosophies explored in The Big Lebowski and how they coalesce together beautifully, all while set in my beloved City of Angels. I’m very proud to be from Los Angeles.
I like The X-Files. I like aliens, actually. Area 51. Roswell, NM. Anything extraterrestrial or conspiracy related. And Batman. I like Batman.
I like Janus Films, but my two favorite movies are Ben Hur and Jackie Brown as I am both a bad girl and an accidental hero.
I like ripe avocados, the teachings of Socrates, and Miss Piggy’s aesthetic. I like getting up early on Saturday mornings and talking about getting breakfast ad nauseam, though it matters little whether I eat it or not. I do like breakfast, though, and Doritos, and panang curry. I like strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, and bananas. I like to smell like coconuts. I like scented candles.
I like to watch basketball. I like to play Keno — and cards. I love card games. I love games.
I might drink too much. I definitely smoked too much, so I stopped. I like the idea of coffee more than I actually need it in my life. I don’t like the idea of exercise and hate that I actually need it in my life.
I’ve always been a pretty girl, never the prettiest, but that’s a whole lot of pressure anyway. I’ve never wanted to be the prettiest, but I’ve always wanted to be almost the prettiest. I’m vain.
I’ve always had long hair. I like my hair, I always have, but I wish I could dye it pink. It’s hard to admit that I could dye it pink at any time, but I’m scared.
I like classical music but I don’t like to discuss it. I play the cello, but don’t play for anyone. I know a lot about music, but everyone around me seems to compete for this kind of knowledge so I never say anything, never sing anything, never harmonize, except when alone. Music is private. My life’s soundtrack is mine. I like Levon Helm. I like Harry Nilsson. I like Baroque Concertos.
I don’t discuss the things I like except when talking to other people about what they like. I don’t discuss my tastes except when applicable. I don’t like to be controversial in conversation and feel overwhelmed when I have to defend personal interests. It seems barbaric, as though liking or not liking something gives you some kind of claim over it.
This is especially true for me when dating. Sure, I like sports, I’ll say. I have season tickets, I’ll say. I know it’s cool, I’ll say, but I don’t tell men that I cry when Frank Sinatra sings or that Charlton Heston was my first celebrity crush because what I like, who I am, hasn’t mattered beyond how what I like appeals to someone else, someone I find attractive, someone who I desperately want to like me.
Maybe I’m a liar. Maybe I’m quite private. Maybe my interests seem futile and not worth defending. Maybe I’m reluctant to be what I like, to be shaped by what I love, to stand for what is mine. Maybe I need to learn myself better, to love myself wholly, to talk more about what book I’m eating up or what I’m obsessed with on television right now because I have a right to like what I like, just like them, just like you, and to like and really like and even love things, too.
