What We Talk About When We Talk About the Grifter

Everyone around here is predictably obsessed with Doree Shafrir's HIPSTER GRIFTER investigation in the Observer.  It's the usual story-- comelyish tatttooed jezebel flees Utah/the long arm of the law to hide out in Brooklyn where she seduces everyone at Union Pool, claims to have lung cancer, and writes a bunch of bad checks before getting busted by her new friends and moving on to do the same thing all over with the crowd at Barcade, Pete's Candy Store, repeat repeat repeat.

The story itself is actually a little too low-stakes and ordinary to be exactly novel and it's about as repetitive as a bad joke.  Still, at least as of yesterday, all of my friends and I were captivated.  Everyone I've talked to seems to have their own personal reasons for being into the whole thing.  Some of my ladyfriends seem primarily interested in the Grifter's amazing/unlikely powers of sexy persuasion, while others just seem baffled by how this girl could seem to be everywhere at once.  Most people have known a compulsive liar who manages to snow everyone by being so magnetic and likable, so there's that angle too.  I guess I personally am mostly interested because this completely crazy girl reminds me, sort of, of myself.  I have never written a bad check-- partially because I can never find my checkbook-- and I'm too indiscreet to be a convincing liar, but still there is something familiar and unsettling about the way she managed to make the same mistakes over and over. 
 
I often fantasize about moving to Sydney or someplace like that and being a perfect person. No one there would know about any of the embarrassing shit I've done over the years.  I could reinvent myself amidst a tan crowd of jolly surfers with hot accents toasting me with sloshing pitchers of beer.  (Right Justine?  That's what Australia is like, right?)  In a sunnier place, I like to imagine, I could be a better person and none of my new surfer friends would be the wiser as to my former annoying self.  It seems like a great plan.

Which is why Kari Ferrell's story is just sad to me.  She actually had a shot!  Although she was totally WANTED in Utah, she managed to escape to Brooklyn where she promptly got a semi-coveted job, made more friends in a few weeks than I've made in New York in six years, and left the beehive fuzz in the dust.  Then, having succeeded at giving herself a second chance, she  went about fucking up her life in the exact same ways that she'd done it before.  When she sort-of-but-not-really got away with THAT, she did it all over again.  Girl, I've been there.

I like to think that I learn from mistakes, but I've made that error in judgment one too many times.  Would things be different in Australia?  It's really really far away, that weather is nice, and there are lots of exotic/colorful birds.  But if I'm as much like Kari Ferrell as I suspect, I have a feeling I'd figure out a way to make it exactly the same.