Jessica Dorfman Jones

This weekend I read a memoir. It’s called Klonopin lunch. Every self respecting Jew has a Klonopin chapter and I met Jessica Dorfman Jones at an event for the Glass Elevator Media Group and instantly fell in love with her Stella McCartney two toned heels… and her writing (I’m not totally shallow).

Her memoir is interesting in that it covers only the smallest chapter of her life yet fills a book out nicely. It’s uncomfortable because Jessica behaves badly in a coke snorting, club going, adulterer sort of way. Jessica has everything and nothing all at once and if you’ve been a rich kid or known a rich kid it’s totally relatable. In fact I sort of wish I met her in the middle of this mess. If you’ve scraped and climbed your way up the middle or upper middle class I suspect you’d read it and say, “Is this bitch for real?” Oh, she’s for real and I’m here to tell you that shit’s fabulous.

The problem with memoirs is the same problem that personal bloggers have. It’s too much me and I. The world starts to dislike people who do nothing but talk about themselves. Jessica Jones reels them in and makes herself likable before the book ends. I wonder how many bloggers will achieve that.

I struggle (see how I brought it all back to me) because this blog and the things that sort of radiate off of it are all about me and me and a little more me. They’re mostly about me because my story is the one I own and I might not lose too many friends talking about myself.

There’s a struggle to be likable. Not here, not on the blog but a very real struggle to not take this all too seriously. “This all” being the blog, the twitter, the jobs that are really just extensions of relentless self promotion and an audience that I remain grateful for having. Every time someone clicks on this site I should be thinking I’m the luckiest woman in the world, someone knows my name. I shouldn’t be thinking how can I get them to click again. I absolutely should never for a moment think that they’re the lucky ones. I need to know I’m the lucky one.

I wonder if narcissism is a pitfall of being a memoirist (in either long or short form) or perhaps it’s a prerequisite.

I’d like to work on being less of an asshole. Maybe.

For now I think I’ll finish this bottle of wine and deal with the headache I’ve had for the past twelve hours.