Bad News Jane

Your shitty attitude is a healing crystal of brilliance and light

This window to the world that sits on my lap every morning is dangerous. If I wander into the wrong frame, I can lose my whole day to some new obsession. This morning, I slipped into the vortex of The Wing. I’m doing an event there in July so I wanted to investigate. I’ve only heard the most glancing chatter about it. I live under a big rock, in other words.

So naturally my creepy insect self hisses enviously when it spots photos of The Wing in LA, with its peachy cream, proudly vaginal delights.

For a while I was writing a TV script called No Man’s Land, about a place where everyone dresses in white Eileen Fisher linens and has furry peach beanbag chairs and enormous air filters in their sleek white residences (which are situated in a circle around a fountain that dances to “Thank You India” by Alanis Morissette all day, every day). But then they become an agrarian society so they get a bunch of pygmy goats and the pygmy goats trample the peach poufs and white linens with their muddy hooves and it’s not as nice, which was maybe a metaphor for how feminist utopian living was ultimately not entirely pragmatic or at least not consistently Instagrammable.

Anyway it’s amazing how close to my vision of No Man’s Land The Wing is. This is exactly the impractical, adorably pastel-colored vortex I imagined. And of course it exists in the physical world, and now I have to know about it. Of course, of course, of course. I’d like to say a million other hissing, envious things about it, but mostly what I think is GODDAMN that looks relaxingly matriarchal. Throw in a few life-sized posters of Megan Rapinoe and I’m gay at long last, after a fruitless lifetime of effort to land there. That patio with the fucking fringey umbrellas and pink chairs sealed the deal.

But. But. But. The built-in positivity and optimism and sisterhood of the place might not work for me day after day. I mean, sure, when I’m very caffeinated, I would snort that shit with gusto. But overall, I am not a joiner. My life under a rock is a testament to that fact. So when I’m around a whole gaggle of smiling, positive-thinking, ambitious humans, holding hands, I sometimes surrender to that, but I also -- sometimes -- get bad flashbacks of going to Dead shows with this or that droopy pointless boyfriend and feeling deeply alienated. I don’t trust consensus. When everyone is agreeing, I tend to disagree silently inside, despite my best intentions to join the fun and loosen up and chill out and dive into the orgiastic peachy vaginal positive goodness of group love.

I can dive in socially, sure. But creatively? I need a space for sourness. I need a corner of bitterness and envy. I need a dark rock to crawl under. I need to hiss and spit at other insects. I want to seethe and gossip and nurture grudges. My writing self loves a grudge, loves a nemesis, loves digressive rage and resentment. When you’re pressured to shut up about your dark side for most of your childhood, you start to associate your worst moods and most melancholy observations with honesty and freedom. Clearly I’m not alone there or literary fiction wouldn’t be so unrelentingly bleak.

Anyway, this all just my way of announcing my new coworking space: The Sting. A place for bad moods and bitterness. A place for sulking and professional envy. A place for pointless gossip and spitty outbursts and tearful recriminations. Instead of pink silk and lemon yellow linens and floral wallpaper, you’ll find gray and black and neon green, and wallpaper flocked with illustrations of predatory insects. Each workspace will have a giant rock hanging over it, so we can feel comfortably alienated from each other while we tip-tappity-type resentful words, and seethe quietly. The Sting’s Slack will be a safe place to complain about your relative lack of productivity, or your recent struggle with debilitating PMS, or your dog’s behavioral issues. You know, feminism.

Maybe The Sting could be right next door to The Wing, and you could choose which one to enter depending on your mood. Now that’s what I would call utopian: the freedom to embrace where you are, even when where you are is either a little too earnest and happy and loving and sweet, or it’s a tiny bit too sickly or petty or sulky or disheveled and not remotely Instagrammable. When you honor the full force of each of your 52 personalities, there’s no need for distraction or sedation or escape. You don’t have to do battle with yourself. Your previously warring nation-states can live in peace.

Utopia, motherfuckers. Utopia.