Biodata

So, I just got the postcard of the show my sister Ariel is doing in seattle in the TWO WEEKS before she moves to new york to go to Grad School at parsons in graphic design. Its got a lot of elephants in it, the painting show, not Parsons (Fletch reference no. 457: Fletch:"Arnold Babar." Dr. Jellyfinger:"Babar? Isnt that a childrens book about elephants?" "I dont know, dont have any." "Children?" "No, elephant books.") and so shes donating ten percent of the proceeds to elephant rescure or some such elephantine charity effort. Good lord. I looked at it while I was helping write Ben's bio. I have to drop the Rick moniker because Court called in a favor from LA, she said every time she read the word Rick she thought of this somewhat smarmy, self aggrandizing guitarist that we knew in seattle. He had a huge gap between his teeth, studied latin guitar and was rather accomplished, and counted among his accomplishments having a wife and child in some latin american country that he had to come here to support. In essence he was like a mariachi playing migrant worker, electively. Idiot. Anyway, thats who court kept imagining me going out with, which is unacceptable I concur, so Ben it is.
So i was working on bens weighty bio wherein he did everything but tell Kool Herc to try using two turntables instead of one, I get up and see Ariel's fantastic painting, and Im thinking, what the hell would be in my freaking Bio? I dont even need a bio cause no one gives a flying fuck what ive done. Ive done a lot of crap that has nothing to do with anything else, save that its stuff thats cool and I wanted to do it and could. Lets see... what would my bio look like (insert waynes world music and cheesey video dream effect here..)

Genevieve Lapidus graduated from the University of WA in 1998 with a degree in Comparitive religion. She has since managed to keep in touch with all the people that she met in her classes, and lose touch with every subject she studied save the unique ability to call up random info tidbits which allow her to sound intelligent in passing conversation. Throughout her studies she maintained a totally unrelated job at Toys in Babeland, which was fun and hilarious. She followed her graduation by landing a job at Washington Alliance for Immigrant and Refugee Justice, where she participated in a lot of trust excercises, sustainability planning, and developed a healthy distaste for non profit jargon. Lapidus remained at WAIRJ for a year before the fact that she was massively underqualified to manage anyones office and accounting software caught up with her by way of a 10,000.00 accounting error at which point she resigned and the organization folded (due to unrelated factors.) She was sufficiently sure that the small non profit format wouldnt work for her so she got a job at a well loved jewelery kiosk in the broadway market, and hostessing at the Alibi Room (insert lots of drinking and smoking here) then left for Pakistan for two months, which was fun, and somehow mildly related to her studies in islam at UW, and much related to her aforementioned skills at keeping in touch with people.
Apon return to the states, she sold the silver jewelry she had smuggled back from india and got a job at Planned Parenthood running afterschool programs for At Risk kids (a moniker she disliked) attending stupid meetings (more trust excercises and jargon) and working with teen parents. Feeling she had found her niche, she poured herself into her job and acheived real success with the kids, the panel, and the planned parenthood staff. She also begain studying west african dance and threw herself wholeheartedly into performing and studying the rhythm. At the end of three years, she asked to be brought on staff instead of per diem at which time all her programs were cut and she was offered the irresistable proposal to do everything she had been doing but in 12 paid hours a week!!! She summoned the wherewithal to turn down that tasty proposal and decided to begin the journey/descent into beauty school. Genevieve somehow found the time to maintain several totally unfulfilling and inappropriate romantic relationships during this time, showcasing her amazing abilities to multitask. During beauty school she worked as the weekend office manager for The University Village management offices where she mismanaged company time by taking five hours a week out of twenty to write a blog detailing all the facts and foibles of beauty school life. She finished beauty school and moved to new york where she ceased doing everything that had made her feel happy and fulfulled in her past twenty years (dance, working for the betterment of society, writing, spending time with family) and got a job as an assistant in a hair salon where she convinced herself that being able to do a killer blow dry was a lifetime acheivement.

So, that about takes us up to today! Ive glossed over a few things but its fairly comprehensive. Lets see, no Grad school (the ultimate marker of smarty pants acheivement) no elephant salvation, no European tours, no foundations, no massive stock market gains, just as I thought! I havent done anything! I dont even have an IRA, or health insurance! Do i even exist?? (runs to mirror, pinches arm.) I have helped more people sell themselves, apply for things, get money, get grants, awards and acceptances, and I havent done ANY one of those things for myself in all these years!! I am exaggerating about not doing ANYTHING, i admit, but its true that I have an uncanny ability, the cycle of which seems to be showing up unflatteringly with the passing of years, to flit from thing to thing, abandoning passion for passion and becoming (oh hated curse from fran) A jack of all trades master of none!!! Sure, people like me, Im not an idiot, and i have a lot of "potential," a lot of "talent," but what for? Just living and keeping in touch with people?? That cant be enough! I have to ACHEIVE!! what is modern human life without a BIO? without a CV? without a RESUME? a WEBSITE? a GOOGLE SEARCH RESULT? You may not even exist. You might want to look!! Maybe you dont exist either! Mahdis does, Ben does, Im sure Ariel does. I think my first and last names occur simultaneously on a couple websites about swiss medical conferences where jews named Dr Lapidus present papers at the same time as Researchers named Genevieve. And I dont think the WAIRJ websites have been disassembled.

What am I hoping that exposing this tender underbelly of underacheivement will do for me? NOT SURE!!! Not at all sure. Maybe hoping that at least telling you that I know that you know
that i know will be freeing. Or maybe i intend to do something about it (which i do, thats why I havent left the salon, you remember) or maybe i just say all that to say, IM ABOUT TO DO IT AGAIN!!! Im going to Senegal in February! Will this wild merry go round existance never end? Ill be there for a month. Frannie will be there, Ben will be there, and Im not sure exactly what ill be doing but Ill be there too! Dancing, travelling, hopefully gathering some context and some inspiration. And of course hair is actually going well, I have more clients than ever, I am excited about what life post lovella will bring. And it is a new year after all. Ben and I were in Boston for New Years. We hung out with his parents which is always fun. I met his bro for the first time. In fact, we actually left the house on NY's eve because i was feeling bad that at seventeen his brother would have to tell his friends that he was watching an old pre recorded grateful dead telethon with his parents, his older brother and his girlfriend on new years. His brothers party plans had been cancelled when the hosts mom found drugs in the kids room! Party foul!! so we took him out to a party that an old band mate of Bens was having. It was pretty lame, i mean i didnt really know anyone there so it looked like a bunch of late twenties white people drinking heavily and listening to duran duran, which it was. At midnight we went into the other room where the TV was to watch the ball drop, what the hell, we were up and it was on, might as well see it. So we kissed at 12, then were talking when this big tall woman (who fran might refer to in her infinite wisdom as a "bigbird bitch") bowls into me, spilling half my glass of red wine down my sleeve. Far be it for me to begin the new year being the shlemeil (or whichever one has the soup spilled apon him) I said to the BBB "Excuse me, you have to watch yourself! You just spilled wine all over me!" To which she replied "Yeah, um I dont care? Its new years!" and turned away. I really wanted to sock her. I did. But she was big, she probably knew a lot more people there than I did, and i dont know how to fight worth a gracious goddamn. So, i just politely stepped over to her and poured the remains of my glass down her side. What could she say? Like she said, its new years! I felt a lot better about it after that. Id probably still be pissed off if i hadnt. Nothing like immediate revenge to dissipate future resentment.
Then it turned out that a friend of his brother was having a different party so we spent the next half hour laughing as we tried to follow his homie's teenage, drunken directions around boston. We dropped his brother off on a corner near the kids house, where his friend met him as he seemed to not remember how to tell us how to get ALL the way to his house, but close enough to walk there. Then we went home. It was a nice, non frenetic way to spend new years, the most overrated night out of the year.

Happy 2007 everyone, may all your dreams come true and may your biodata be long, impressive and consistant to your initial career goals. All my love.