Whimsical Musings of a Wayward Yeti

Prologue to a book I'll never write

2012-01-26T11:44:00.000-08:00

I woke up to a cold bright light and rolled over underneath my covers. The seasalt air whispered through the crack in my window, beckoning me. I put a pillow over my head and tried to drown out the images of my mother and father smiling at me, waiving goodbye before they climbed on the boat. Tears stung my eyes and I climbed out of bed.

My feet hit the hardwood floor and I threw a grey sweatshirt over my pajamas. I tip toed through the white room, careful not to wake up Jenna who slept a foot away, nightmareless and clutching a parliment issued doll. I resisted the urge to climb in bed and stroke her hair, sob into her shoulder. Instead I walked through my sleeping uncle's house out the front door.

Since the Parliment's rise to power, most people just woke up, went to work, and returned to their quarters before curfew. I don't think it is against the law to go out in the morning as there was no morning curfew, but it was discouraged. I started running barefoot the half mile toward the beach, feeling the wind and essence of ocean permeate my hair and thin pajamas. I sprinted until I could feel the dirt road change to sand under my feet, malleable and soft in the dew. The roar of the waves was just over the hill.

My shins broke through the dry grass and I gasped as I hit the beige open beach. I stopped short on the seaside and brought my hand up to my gaping mouth in horror. My eyes widened and I willed my body to move forward, down the hill, toward the bodies.

Lying on the beach like an oceanic border were dozens of large whale corpses. The hungry hard working plebeian in me smelled the air and knew that the whale meat did not mean an ample dinner tonight. Once on the flat stretch of the beach I knelt, afraid to approach the accident.

The glistening carcasses were five times as big as me each. I had never really seen a live whale up close, and I guess I still hadn't. Their eyes were open, glassy still marbles reflecting the sky. The smell of the beach was replaced by a darker reek of rotting animal flesh, meat, and dried blood. The sand felt cool beneath me as I rocked back and forth, unable to tear my eyes from the thirty two water mammals.

"Issie," a voice says my name over the wind. I turn to see my uncle Alex parting the tall beach grass. He is wearing the sanctioned uniform fishing pants that everyone on the island has and a white shirt. I like my uncle but it's difficult to look at him; he has my mother's grey eyes.

I remain seated and Alex approaches me, a drip of sweat gleaming on his hard worried face.

"What happened to them?" I say. "They're unpunctured, no sign of a fight... There wasn't a storm last night."

"We should get back to the house," Alex says.

I nod, rising to my feet but still staring at the great lumps of smelly meat that were living creatures only hours ago. My uncle gently touches my shoulder and turns me away from the sea, the smell of death clinging to us as we walk away.

Gardening

2012-01-04T16:23:00.000-08:00

I sat on my porch, listening to the rain pound against the roof. Heavy drops splattered melodically from the rooftop out over our lush garden. Streams of shimmering rain rushed down the path. The wooden deck smelled of cedar and summer forgotten loves. My long skirt was pulled up my calves, letting the warm, wet air rush against me. The perspiration dampened my white mismatched socks that I wore with sandals. I rubbed my feet together and leaned against a column of my house.

"Honey!" screamed a voice from inside, shrill and angry.
"Mom!" I yelled back.
"What are you doing?"
"Sitting, watching the garden!"
"What?"
"I said sitting and watching the garden!"
"What? Go get a job!"
"I have one, Mom. It's the weekend."
"Oh, no I'm sorry. I was talking to this lizard here, not you."
"Okay."
"I was just yelling because I wanted you to hear too. This lizard is a jerk. Don't trust him."

I heard a bunch of pots and pans fall inside. I rolled my eyes and reached behind by back. Sitting on the porch was my harp. I situated myself around it and stretched out my hairy legs. The black sharp hairs poked out from my skin, reaching up toward the gold instrument I cradled. I began strumming the beautiful silken strings, out of tune and completely without rhythm. I brushed my long hair off my face and it stuck up in place on my forehead from the grease. It had been a few weeks since I'd showered. My stench rose from my grimy body, a rich aroma of sweat, grease, and broccoli, comforting me in it's familiar reminder of my physical sense of self.

As my awkward notes rose through the wet air, I sighed, wondering if I had fertilized the lawn this month. The uncomfortable song hung over the garden, dripping with disgust. As the harp song floated through the breeze, the heavy rains permeated the soil, soaking deep into the dark ground. The earth lapped up the water and my music, greedy for life. Plants stirred, lifting their wet heads to watch me play.

I began to sing. My voice was shrill, high, loud, and off key. I let it ring over the evening. The ground rumbled under my song. Leaves and shrubs and flowers waved anxiously at me, begging me to stop. The earth cracked as I hit a high note. I set down my harp carefully. Even after I stopped playing and singing the final note rang out. I stood up and walked off my porch.

Rain soaked my hair, dress, and socks instantly, as I tread the path. My dress clung to my body and my soggy socks squelched against the sandals.

Looking over my shoulder, I yelled, "Mom! I think the garden is ripe for weeding! Mom!"

There was no answer from inside. The pots and pans must have gotten her. I bravely ventured onward into the garden. The moist soil below me trembled with trepidation. I knelt, my skirt sinking into the mud. My knees pushed the soil down and the soil pushed back up toward me.

"Hi," I whispered down into the garden.
"Hello," it said back up to me.

I dug my hands deep into the earth, submerging my arms up to my elbow. Sticking my tongue between my teeth I struggled, searching around underground. My bangs plastered themselves unhelpfully over my eyes. I rooted around in the soil for a while and then grasped something and yanked it out.

I dragged a long, pale, thin human arm out of the mud. It stuck out awkwardly over the plants and waved uncomfortably in the rain. I tried to dig my weight into the ground to gain leverage and I yanked hard on the hand. Sweat seeped through my already soaked dress. The temperature on the back of my neck rose. I grunted in pain and heaved with all my might. The arm came up from the ground, and with it a naked human girl.

The girl crouched, cowering into herself. She hugged her knees to her chest, shivering. Her nose and ears were pointy and sharp. Her breasts were small and saggy. She looked up at me through a muddy face and gasped, clutching her grimy fingers to her neck with bulging eyes.

"Hi," I said politely.

The girl didn't respond. I reached behind her huddled back. Her bony spine protruded from her skin. Her butt was covered with a leafy bulb that was attached to a green thick stem, rolling behind her like a hose. The stem trailed down into the earth. I gave it a hefty tug and pulled up the roots. I held the root of the plant in my hands and the girl screeched in terror.

"Easy," I said. I held on to the slimy stem, uncomfortably looking around in the rain.

My mom and the lizard ran out from the house with pruning shears.

"We're coming!" My mom yelled.
The lizard didn't say anything.

My mom knelt down and cut the stem. Once free from the root, the green bulb easily fell from her muddy butt. The girl hopped up. My mom put her arm around the girl and gently led her in to the house. She had long legs and dainty small feet, making her walk clumsy and confused. I knew she would look really pretty in the vase next to the other girls. I tried to wipe some of the mud off my hands onto my wet dress, but just made it worse. Rain and mud caked my body and my muscles trembled with the stress of strenuous labor. Following my mom back into the warmth of the kitchen, I looked down at the asshole lizard and smiled.

Things I have apologized for

2011-12-29T09:10:00.001-08:00

In the gym: "I'm sorry I was naked in the locker room."

At work: "Yes, I'm here early, sorry."

To a guy in the bank complaining about the line: "Sorry I came to the bank at the same time as you."

To my dad: "Sorry I said I don't care about the actress from the dragon tattoo movies."

To my roommate after he said I've been working late a lot: "Sorry."

To my roommate after he commented that I've been home a lot: "Sorry."

To my boyfriend: "Sorry I don't like MMORPGS."

To a lady at the coffee shop who almost bumped into me but didn't: "Sorry."

In my room completely alone, to a dresser: "Sorry."

The ideal receptionist as imagined by the older white man on the other end of the phone

2011-12-28T11:58:00.000-08:00

The ideal receptionist as imagined by the older white man on the other end of the phone:

"Yeah, I do have weekend plans. And furthermore I feel totally comfortable sharing them with a stranger."

"Oh my gosh, you got an attorney's voicemail? I cannot believe it! The only possible explanation is that sinister wrongdoings have transpired. Let me scour the building, nay, the world for him! No, of course I won't put you on hold; I have a bluetooth, sorry, sorry I mean a magical wizard hat. I apologize for confusing you with my loud, brassy slang. Just one second while I train this flamingo to cover the front desk while I find your attorney, because I have nothing else to do."

"You're right, I do have a slight lisp. Yes, it is hilarious that you pointed out an obvious physical handicap of mine. Hahaha!"

"Yes, it is cold outside. It's good that weather happens."

"No, I didn't just accidentally call you dad, sir... I said 'rad'."

"I AM in fact eating something! You caught me! Now you win a prize elephant named Albert. Yeah, I know you really wanted that prize, otherwise why else would a stranger identify my snack consumption?"

"So, you don't know who you're calling for, you're not sure if they have ever worked at this office, and you haven't talked with them in 40 years, but you know that he/she played golf once with an Asian man? Yes, I know exactly of whom you speak."

"Oh, fascinating."

“Wait a minute, are you telling me that you tried to call someone and they didn’t call you back? WHAT MADNESS IS THIS PLACE?!”

"My voice sounds too childlike? Thank you so much for telling me! Because I have complete control over it, so obviously I appreciate any and all constructive feedback."

"Sorry, they aren't in the office at the moment. Oh, they're expecting you? This. Changes. Everything."

"Good afternoon, thank you for calling- oh, er, um, Barbara... Oh really, that's your mom's name? How interesting. Yes, I do know her. From the great war."

"Of course I remember you from when you called two months ago."

"Wow, thank you so much for asking how my day is going! Someone in this miserable world does care! I am going to telegram my mother to tell her that I do matter. Sure, we wasted a few seconds of our lives with small talk, but I'll make that time back tonight tenfold because I won't have to lock myself in the bathroom and cut a tiny notch in my arm!"

"No, TGIF to you, sir. TGIF to you."

The goodbye

2011-12-19T17:29:00.001-08:00

The goodbye
By Barbara Holm

I watched Michael drag his suitcase across the linoleum floor. The wheels rolled against the grey and white speckled faux tiles. His calico fabric on the suitcase blended in with hundreds of others rushing around it. It was uniform to every other bland inanimate luggage carrier save for the tiny monster tassel I had knit for him and attached to the black handle. It was brink pink and utterly adorable so he wouldn’t get his bag mixed up with anyone else’s. One time we had taken a plane to see his mom and he had gotten his luggage switched at baggage claim. We went on a roller coaster that trip and Michael threw up but I didn't laugh at him when he was covered in vomit so he gave me a present, like it's done.

“So,” Michael said, scratching the back of his head. “You can stay with me while I check in but you can’t come past security with me.”

I nodded silently and trailed behind him. I watched his shoulders bend and rotate in the fluorescent lighting. I didn't even say hi to the lights, which you might think is rude, but I don't care. I nodded politely to the radio transmitters and I don't think you can ask for much more than that. I examined his spine, full of nerves and hope. I watched it transmit messages through his neurons to his brain, perhaps for the last time.

“Do you know your way back?” he said.
“Of course,” I muttered.

An old lady stopped in her tracks as she was passing us. She stared at us with raised eyebrows. When I met her gaze calmly without blinking, she reddened and turned away. A little boy yanked on his mom’s pant leg and pointed at me, and his mom dragged him by the arm away. Michael didn’t acknowledge it.

Michael checked in and we walked down the grey hallway. I couldn’t believe that the tiny suitcase was enough for him to take with him, but I guess that was part of the move, starting over, leaving everything behind. He was getting a new job and saying goodbye to everything from the old job that didn’t matter. I flexed my fingers with a crack.

“Hey,” Michael said, tilting his head and reaching for my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

The correct answer was: Yes, of course I am, how could I not be, I’m always okay, etcetera. That is the normal response and if you stray from that the man might tip his hat and say, "calm down, sweetheart, you're being hysterical" and they don't mean it in the funny way.

I looked up into his deep eyes and felt something growing inside of me, something dark and unnatural. I brought my hands to my stomach and felt around. There was a painful ache in my core, emanating through my entire body. My sensors began vibrating on a higher frequency and I clutched at my abdomen and gasped, startled.

I watched every inch of Michael’s skin, noticing the contours of his muscle formation and tension. I memorized the tone of his voice and the lilt of his laugh. My large eyes started to tingle with a burning sensation and I felt a tightening in my throat.

“No,” I said matter of factly. “I am not okay.”
“What?” Michael said. He dropped his suit case and grabbed me by both my cold hard shoulders. He put his face close to mine and looked in my eyes. “What’s going on? Are you charged adequately? Did you download your updates?”
I nodded, my perfectly formed smile twitching on my lips. “I feel like I’m going to really miss you.”
“How?” His mouth hung open and his eyes widened. “You feel?”
“I think I’m in love with you,” I said.

Something was happening behind my face and I brought my hands up to my head and gently felt around. Salt water was leaking from my eye sockets with furious force. I tried to catch it in my hands. I felt a tiny static shock and I shook. My pristine, formatted, perfect insides filled with a violent pinching sensation that overtook my internal devices.

“I can’t believe it,” Michael said. He put his arms around me and felt around my back, against my door to see if everything was okay. “You think you feel love?”
“Yes,” I said.
“That’s not even possible.”
“Oh, I fucking know. What’s this liquid excreting from my eye sockets?”
“Shit, I think you’re crying,” he said. He rubbed a finger along my cheek. “That can’t be good. How could this happen?”
“Well, I’m programmed to be able to learn and adapt and I think you taught me…” I said.
“Do you have your user manual?”
“Who carries their manual around? I’m not a dork.”

As the realization swept over me, I realized I could identify the sensation of a realization sweeping over me. My skills sharpened. Emotions entered and coded themselves into my catalog and filed away in the back of my ginormous brain. I looked at Michael lovingly and he looked at me in utter, abject horror. I reached for him with one of my cold hands and he cringed when I caressed his cheek.

"What else can you feel?" he whispered.
"I feel loss, abandon, happiness..." I said, my catalog rifling through emotions and labeling them with what I assumed where the correct names.

A man in a black suit swiftly bled through the crowd, moving through space as though existence was simply swimming around him while he remained stationary. He approached us smoothly in his black suit with a black shirt. His jaw was annoyingly square and his haircut appeared plastic. I turned away from him but he reached out and grabbed my arm with a strong hand. A crowd of onlookers formed.

“Hi, sir,” he said quietly to Michael. “Is this your gynoid?”
I moved behind Michael, trying to bury my animatronic face and leaking eyes into his shoulder.
“Yes,” Michael said looking at me. “But, listen, we’re both really late for a plane.”
“I’m going to have to confiscate this android,” he said, maintaining a firm grasp on my arm. “We appreciate your consideration.”
“Why?”

“It’s probably nothing,” he tried to smile like a calm normal human. His face was reddening with the apelike emotion of anxiety that I luckily wasn’t burdened with. I listened to his heartbeat and calculated his nervousness. My concern subsided as I realized that I was still in control of the situation. “We just want to run some routine tests on it. Our system just revealed some interesting information on Unit 247 here, but it could easily be a typo.”

Michael hesitated, looking at me.
“No,” he said.

“Fortunately, due to cyborg human relations law, I don’t need your consent.” The man in the suit withdrew a small black rectangular instrument from his pocket. “It’s for your own protection.” He pressed a red button on the remote. “Follow me, Unit 247.”

I felt my loyalty sensors shift inside of me and I internally deactivated it with my mind. My neck cricked a few times as each joint popped and I rotated up to look at him. I met his gaze and he cringed at my soulless cold eyes.

“Come on, Unit 247,” the human said.

I folded my arms. Michael gasped when he realized what had happened. The man in the suit continued pushing his button and staring at the remote in concentration. I raised my hand up to my chest level and pointed a finger at him. A tiny red light flicked on in my outstretched pointer finger, shining toward him in finger gun position. My human like skin glowed on my hand.

“What is it doing?” the man asked. He pressed the button again. “Unit 247, deactivate lasers immediately!”
“Only if you promise to let me and my friend go,” I said softly.
The man stared at me in horror. “I’ll find you, wherever you go.”
I mentally logged on to the airport’s computer system. I said hi, flirted a little bit, and then scrambled all of its data.
“Good luck with that,” I said softly.

I grabbed Michael’s hand and we turned away from him. I could feel the crowd watching my back retreat from the situation, noticing my rhythmic walk. I could sense the agent terrified and confused that I could even possibly exist, unsure what that meant for him, for his job, for robotic sciences, for civilization and humanity. I squeezed Michael’s hand gently so as to not crush his finger bones. I moisturized my lip area and could feel Michael’s physical temperature rise through his hand. I turned to him with mechanic precision and looked into his wide eyes.

“Everything is going to be okay,” I said. “I love you.”
“Oh no,” Michael said.

Sitting at the skate park and waiting

2011-12-19T11:41:00.000-08:00

Stephanie and Steven sat on the bench watching the kids roller skate in the park. Steven crossed and uncrossed his arms anxiously while Stephanie leaned back and gazed into the distance. Over the horizon the silvery clouds wrapped themselves around the stars. She chewed on her hair and hummed to herself.

“I just don’t know if I’m ready for it,” Steven said abruptly. He looked sideways at her and blushed.
“That’s fine,” Stephanie replied softly. She started humming again.
“It’s just kinda a big step. What happens if it doesn’t work out?”
“We can wait until whenever you are ready.”
“Okay, I’m ready.”
“Yay!”

Stephanie sat up on the bench and leaned over to Steven. He reached down and unbuttoned his shirt. Then he pulled up the t-shirt underneath it, revealing his hairy chest. Stephanie bounced up onto her feet, crouching on the bench a few glorious inches from him. Goosebumps criss crossed over each other as the cold wind rushed through his clothes. His fingers shook as he pulled his shirts away.

“Go ahead,” Steven whispered.

Stephanie reached her arms forward like a super hero, flexed her squatting hips, and dove into the skin of Steven’s chest. She leaned in and pushed the skin back behind her, swimming deeper into his chest cavity past pink hairy globs of human being. The globs wiggled between her fingers, legs, and toes. She kicked and swam forward until she was on a hard surface, a rocky flat plateau. She got to her feet and dusted herself off.

She walked along a yellow gravel path, curling across the plain chest cliff. Fuzzy green monsters the size of pugs rushed along her feet and danced on the deserted plains. Passing by tufts of sad shrubbery, Stephanie finally reached the end of the path. The trail led to a tall, thick tree, sitting alone on the plains. The tree curled against itself, spiraling, knotted with thick dark brown bark, creeping upwards like wooden smoke from a witch’s cauldron. Its branches stabbed the grey sky with thick punctures.

In lieu of leaves adorning the branches, there were dozens of goldfish, wiggling and glubbing as they dangled in the air. They shook back and forth, gills flapping in the wind. Their eyes bugged out. Stephanie reached up to the tree, grasping onto an outward jutting knot, and heaving her body upwards.

She climbed the tree easily, balancing secure footholds on the gnarled bark. Once up on a branch, she sat down and held onto the fish laden twigs with a tight grip. Leaning back against the thick trunk behind her, she looked out into the distance, over the cracked dry earth, into the endless nothing that protruded before her. She watched nothing fly in the distance, seeping into itself and leaking down into the valleys below.

“Hey,” said a voice.
Stephanie looked beside her and saw one of the fish looking up at her.
“Hi,” she answered.
“How’s it going?” glubbed the fish.
“Good, I guess,” Stephanie answered.
“Well.”
“Pardon?”
“Well; it’s going well,” the fish said.

Its creepy fish lips pursed in a smug smile. Stephanie looked back into the distance, squeezing her butt and legs to keep her balance. She hooked her arm around a branch.

Steven sat alone on the bench, watching children fall down on the pavement. The kids writhed in self conscious anxiety. They picked themselves up after each fall, looked over their shoulders to check that everyone was still too focused on being self conscious themselves to judge each other, and then they went back to skating.

Steven whistled to himself under the stars and patted his chest with a smile.

A Christmas Special

2011-12-15T16:49:00.000-08:00

A Christmas Special

Man or woman sitting in an office typing. Christmas music is playing.
There’s a knock on the door. Camera swings to door and sees a file
clerk (sex doesn’t matter) File clerk is wearing scarf and mittens and
hat and is shivering.

File clerk: “Please sir, it’s 5:00, can we go home now?”
Boss: “I don’t know, CAN you?” laughs smugly at themselves and goes
back to typing. Camera pans to computer screen and boss is typing the
word “words” over and over.
File clerk: “It’s Christmas eve, sir. And my cubicle is so much colder
than your office.”
Boss: “Don’t act like it’s my fault you work in that igloo. I’m not
the wizard who cursed you.”
File Clerk: “Sounds like someone needs to learn the true meaning of Christmas.”
Boss: “Fine, let’s look it up on Wikipedia.”

The file clerk comes over to the computer and starts typing, knocks
over boss’s coffee cup, spilling on computer. Sizzling noise.

Boss: “What the fuck did you do?”
File clerk: “I spilled coffee on your computer.”
Boss: “Goddammit, Barbara, we need to send out the progress reports
today or the investors in China will close us down!”
File clerk: “Okay, let’s call the tech guy, Raavi”
Boss: “We can’t, I sent him home for the day.”
File clerk: “You sent him home and not me? He doesn’t even celebrate Christmas!”
Boss: “That’s an incredibly racist assumption.
File clerk: “Oh, no, I wasn’t saying that he doesn’t celebrate
Christmas because of his ethnicity, I was saying he doesn’t celebrate
it because no one loves him.”

Lights flicker and something moves on desk. A dude (gender doesn’t
matter) in a white sheet comes into the room going “woooo” Boss
screams like a little girl.

File clerk: “Look, it’s the ghost of Christmas past to show you what a
dickhead you are”
Ghost: “No I’m the ghost of the innocent computer you just murdered to death.”
File clerk: “Computers have ghosts? Do computers have souls?”
Ghost: “Um yeah duh, we have hard drives and monitors too, just like
everyone else.”
File clerk: “Our hubris has blinded us to the subtle rise of the machines.”
Ghost: “You’ll pay for not purchasing the Norton anti virus when I
told you too!”

Sheet falls to the floor, ghost has disappeared. File clerk starts
shaking and eyes go back in head, starts rocking back and forth with a
weird calm smile.

Boss: (scared) “…Are you okay?”
File clerk: “Everything’s going to be okay, now.”
Boss: “Barbara?”
File clerk: “There is no Barbara here.”
Boss: “What? I told her she couldn’t leave work early.”

Ghost File Clerk starts smiling big and creepy.
Boss: “No way is she getting to go home before she fixes my computer.”

Boss reaches into desk and pulls out a cross and a black/white priest
collar and cookie. Eats cookie.

Boss (reading from a random book, not the bible, could be Harry
Potter) “We are gathered here today to do some exorcising.”
Holds cross up towards File Clerk who is eating office supplies.
“By the power vested in me I expel this evil spirit from my office
assistant, but not her own evil spirit, just the foreign ghost one.”

File Clerk starts shaking.
“Go away, ghost, like now, okay?”
File Clerk’s eyes roll back in her head and she starts humming a Christmas song.
Boss: “What the hell is happening?”
File Clerk starts kinda singing it, doesn’t know the words
Boss: “Are you unpossessed now?”
File Clerk continues singing it.
Boss tentatively joins in and starts smiling. File Clerk smiles back at him.
Boss: “I’m so glad you’re back to normal.”
File clerk: “Yes, back to normal. Human normal.” Smiles brightly.

End.

Powerpoint meeting

2011-11-16T11:32:00.001-08:00

Two people (gender doesn't matter) are visible in a conference room. Both are wearing business attire. One is
standing up next to a projection slide, lecturing about the contents of the slides. The other is sitting down, watching.
The first slide has a graph with the Y axis labeled "money" with a down arrow in red.

STANDING UP GUY:
So as you can see we have no money. It is a thing that we lack.

SITTING DOWN GUY:
Mmmhmm, hmm.

Next slide is a picture of a frowny face.

STANDING UP GUY:
And as illustrated here, working in a company with no money makes some people here unhappy.

SITTING DOWN GUY:
Oh, interesting.

Next slide is just the phrase "You're a bad human being and a horrible boss."

STANDING UP GUY:
And this slide... wow... how did that...

SITTING DOWN GUY:
What's this funny business about?

STANDING UP GUY:
I'm sorry. That slide is a typo. It shouldn't be in the presentation.

SITTING DOWN GUY:
I should hope so. That's so rude.

STANDING UP GUY:
I know. I'm sorry. It's so offensive. It should read "You're a bad fish and a horrible boss."

SITTING DOWN GUY:
Oh, okay. That's fine then.

Next side is a picture of a puppy in some flowers.

STANDING UP GUY:
This next slide should help cushion that previous data.

SITTING DOWN GUY:
That does make me feel better. Thank you.

Next slide is a picture of a normal red fire hydrant.

STANDING UP GUY:
And here we have a fire hydrant. It's ugly.

SITTING DOWN GUY:
Yeah, it's so stupid.

The next slide is an orange.

STANDING UP GUY:
Let’s talk peeling oranges.

SITTING DOWN GUY:
Peeling oranges is difficult NOT fun. So much effort to get to the fun part. Rubbing them in your arm pits.

Camera pans to the back of the room where an actor (gender doesn't matter again) is wearing a cardboard cut out of
a fire hydrant over their body.

FIRE HYDRANT 1.
Excuse me. That fire hydrant was my cousin, Jill.

STANDING UP GUY:
Oh, sorry... We didn't see you there.

FIRE HYDRANT 1.
What did Jill ever do to you?

SITTING DOWN GUY:
In our defense... we don't like her.

FIRE HYDRANT 1.
Why are you so mean? You're hurtful, cruel, empty, vapid, shallow people.

SITTING DOWN GUY:
Whoa, whoa.

STANDING UP GUY:
We're fish.

FIRE HYDRANT 1.
Fish?

SITTING DOWN GUY:
Yes.

FIRE HYDRANT 1.
If you're fish then why are you talking?

STANDING UP GUY:
Because we have opinions.

FIRE HYDRANT 1.
Talking fish? You speak? That's incredible. I'm so used to fish using sign language.

Standing up guy signs to sitting down guy, subtitles come on screen and translate for them.

STANDING UP GUY:
(sign languge: subtitles)
Can I please murder this fire hydrant?

SITTING DOWN GUY:
(signing back: subtitles)
I don't know. CAN you?

FIRE HYDRANT 1.
(as if to himself)
How can I make money off of talking fish? I better call the government so they can do science on you. Or the entertainment industry so they can mail me gold.

STANDING UP GUY:
Hey, we didn't say that we were okay with being exploited for cash.

SITTING DOWN GUY:
We just implied it.

Slide changes. This slide reads "we are okay with being exploited for cash."

Fire hydrant takes out his cellphone and puts it to his ear.

FIRE HYDRANT 1.
Hello, government? I've got some talking fish here. Oh, yeah, send them over.

The door opens and two more fire hydrants in secret service style sunglasses enter.

FIRE HYDRANT 2.
Where are the fish?

FIRE HYDRANT 3.
We're here to take the talking fish away.

FIRE HYDRANT 2.
(to Fire Hydrant 1)
Are you a fish?

FIRE HYDRANT 1.
No, I'm a normal fire hydrant, just like you and everybody else.

FIRE HYDRANT 3.
But are you really? Are you really normal just like everyone else?

FIRE HYDRANT 1.
Well, it was hard growing up on 7th street. I always felt a little bit different. Mom drank a lot during the day and Dad wasn't around a lot. I wasn't allowed to play with the other fire hydrants on my street. I didn’t fit in. But
I had something they didn't. A song in my heart.

Music swells up. Fire Hydrant 1. opens mouth and spreads arms.

FIRE HYDRANT 2.
What's that smell? I'm hungry.

FIRE HYDRANT 3.
Yeah, I could go for some sashimi. Fish, y'all hungry?

STANDING UP AND SITTING DOWN GUYs:
Yeah...

FIRE HYDRANT 1.
I'm hungry too.

FIRE HYDRANT 2.
Oh, thanks for sharing.

Awkward pause well they look at each other.

FIRE HYDRANT 2.
Ready to go guys?

Fire Hydrants 2 and 3 and the fish all leave. Fire Hydrant 1 stays behind and shuffles feet awkwardly. Fire Hydrant
2. pokes head back in room.

FIRE HYDRANT 2.
I'm sorry about that.

FIRE HYDRANT 1.
Oh, um, 'scool, yeah, um

FIRE HYDRANT 2.
Gotta save electricity...

Fire Hydrant 2. flips off light switch. The room is dark.

FIRE HYDRANT 1.
…So cold….

End.

Unbearable Roommates

2011-11-15T11:14:00.001-08:00

My friends, coworkers, and the coffee barista who I think thinks I'm stupid warned me. They said adult siblings make the worst roommates, but I figured my roommate is going to end up hating me no matter who it is.

The first week my brother David and I were okay; we kept the common areas clean and our music volume low and our sobbing at night to a maximum. The second week we started fighting because I invited his Japanese girlfriend pillow to watch TV and eat cheese with me. Pillows get lonely too. I don’t know why he freaked out about it. It’s not like the friendship bracelet I made for it clashed with the anime art. The third week he turned into a bear.

I sat at the table slurping coffee, watching medical soap operas on my lap top, living life to the fullest. Around 2:00, the grizzly bear lumbered out of David’s bedroom on all fours and sauntered into the kitchen with a judgy sniff at Gray's Anatomy. Balancing on its haunches, it placed both paws on the table and slurped up some of my coffee.

“Excuse me,” I muttered sleepily. “Get your own coffee.”

Whining, he nuzzled me, which is bear language for either ‘I love you’ or ‘I don’t have opposable thumbs. Get the coffee for me before I eat you.’ I poured him a cup of coffee and Bear David, suckled it, spilling more than he consumed, much like human David.

When I got home from work, my leftover salmon curry had been devoured, with complete bearlike disregard for my name which I had labelled all over everything. The pile of bills I was supposed to pay were masticated up and saturated with slobber. That type of passive aggressive behavior is why it’s easier to live with strangers than siblings.

That night I woke up at 2:00am by a snarling sound. I poked my head out of my door and saw David lying on the floor gnawing on the bloody stump of our neighbor's leg.

"Do you have to eat so loudly?" I yawned, arms folded over my pajama shirt.

The bear looked at me for a moment, human blood dripping from its sharp white teeth, scraped its claws against the floor, and lunged at me. It stood up straight and bore down on me, breathing hot stinky torrents of carbon dioxide into my face. It shook a claw at my face and glared at me with a hungry, violent stare.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, whatever. Just keep it down. I don't want to wake the neighb-" I looked at the bloody leg soaked in bear spit. "Nevermind." I slammed the door and went back to bed.

After a few days of David not doing the dishes and shitting on my chair, I was almost mad enough to write him a note. When the bear was lying on the floor and I made a super hilarious joke about a bear skinned rug, he didn’t even chuckle. ‘That’s it!’ I thought. ‘It is note writing time!’ As I rummaged around for my least pretty stationary, the door opened and David walked in, in human form.

“What the hell is that?” Human David said.

“But if you’re here… who is that?” I asked, indicating the bear.

“Barbara, you idiot! Why is there a bear in our apartment?”

“Oh no! How will I ever know which is the real David? I must murder to death the imposter!” I reached for a spatula.

“That is a wild grizzly bear!”

“Quick, human David, tell me something that only the two of us know!” I raised the spatula.

“Um… You didn’t stop peeing your pants until you were in your teens… wait why am I playing along? That is a bear! And what are you doing with the spatula anyway?”

“Okay, that’s close to true. Bear David, same question…” I said.

Bear David growled.

Beating the imposter to death with a spatula was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do, mainly because I didn’t do it; he ran away and I didn’t even get to draw any blood. Ten years later, at my wedding, I mentioned to David how weird that week had been, and he put his claw on my dress as if to silently say, ‘I’m proud of you, little sister. So proud.’

Out loud I lovingly replied, “I’m not your little sister. I’m older.”

And he didn’t say anything back, ornery and dejected because the special custom suit was too tight for his big hairy bear shoulders.

Have a disgusting first kiss

2011-10-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

In middle school we played a game called "zap" and the point of the game was someone would write a name on your hand and then you had to ask that person to "go out" with you. Yep, we invented a game with that much strategy, skill level, and entertainment value! The way it usually went down, someone would write the name of someone on your hand and you'd ask them out, and then your friends would burst into laughter like it was the funniest thing ever, while you blushed, screamed, and ran away regardless of what your zappee's response had been.

I was sitting in class when another girl wrote Evan's name on my hand. At twelve I still had yet to have any sort of real romantic feeling for a boy, so I didn't give a shit.

I said, "Hey Evan, wanna go out?"
Blushing and looking down he mumbled, "Are you asking for reals or is this a zap?"
Slightly surprised by this answer I responded, "Why? Would the answer differ if it was a serious request?"
My friends watching behind me were stalled by my answer. No one had ever considered this. I was changing up the game. Evan's friends behind him stared at me.
"What?" he asked.
"It was a zap," I said.
"Then no," Evan said.
"If it wasn't a zap... would you say yes?" I asked.
"I don't know."
"Hey, Evan, wanna go out? Not a zap."
"Um, can I think about it? I'll call you tonight."
I laughed and shrugged. It was fine with me either way, I was just curious, observing the situation almost more as a social scientific experiment than something that would affect my life in any way.

Evan and I dated for about eight months, which is considered married in 7th grade. We didn't really talk to each other or ever hang out or make eye contact. One day he emailed me, "Hey, is this your email? I love you! Evan." I was like, oh maybe I should like say hi to him at school now. It was the first time anyone had told they loved me and I for the first but not the last time, decided to never say a word back, but internally obsess until it turned my insides into an acidic river of bile.

Evan was an oboist in band and I remember thinking that "I don't think I could EVER be with someone who didn't understand how important band is." As I grew up I would think the same thing about dating boys in track, journalism, political science, writers, and comedy writers.

One day we both happened to sit next to each other in the cafeteria. We were surrounded by our friends and under bright white fluorescent lights sitting at long white lunch tables. I ate my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and diet cherry coke without looking up at my "boyfriend."

"So what was your first kiss like?" our friend Rebecca asked.
"Hasn't happened yet," Evan grunted. I grinned silently and manically because I didn't know what else to do.
"You guys have been going out for months! You better kiss or something!" Meggy exclaimed.
"Yeah right, gross," I said, laughing at the absurdity of the idea of me touching a boy.

Evan, however, had a different idea. He mechanically turned to face me, grabbed the back of my head and stuck out his tongue. Terrified I sat there awaiting my impending doom like Han waiting to be devoured by the Sarlacc. With both hands he secured my face in place like he was holding it steady to aim. He leaned in, tongue first, and crammed it into my mouth. Once we were locked in to the tractor beam, he opened his mouth as wide as possible, shoving his fat tongue all the way into my mouth and just letting it floppily sit in there. His mouth was opened much wider than mine, which meant that his lips were on the outside and spit and drool quickly seeped around my mouth. He had just been eating pepperoni pizza and I could taste it in his mouth. As a young sensitive vegetarian, I almost threw up at the taste of meat. Despite the utter disgusting pig taste, I started bouncing up and down with excitement. I am doing it! I am kissing! I thought. This is kissing, right? It's slobberier than I imagined but that's cool.

Evan was the first boy that I wrote erotica/porn about. This was still before the time that I had any idea what a vagina was, so I didn't know what sex was either. (What about me doesn't say late bloomer?) In the stories I wrote, the two of us would go into the practice closet in the band room and get naked and rub our 12 year old bodies on one another. Then we would come out and accidentally have switched socks with one another and everyone would know that we had sex!

When Evan broke up with me, I didn't really care, and I certainly didn't cry. I found out later that he had been playing videogames at a friend's house and then he said, "Hmm, I guess I'll break up with Barbara." and put down the controller and called me. He had done it matter of factly with the same matter of fact tone as if to say, guess it's time to feed the cat. The next day I didn't worry about wearing a cute shirt or putting on chapstick or wearing my hair down. I wore my hair in pigtails and my most comfortable baggy overalls, almost defiantly. I hadn't realized how trapped and uncomfortably chained down I had felt. I ecstatically rejoiced in being free to be myself. I sighed with relief as though I had been unshackled from a ball and chain and reveled in my new-found freedom.

My first period

2011-10-12T09:35:00.000-07:00

The first time I ever got my period my mom made me buy tampons because she said pads were for nerds. I was like where was the fairy godmother of social grace last year when you let me wear elf ears to school? So she made me buy tampons and I didn't know how to put them in the hole because when you're 12 years old there is no hole. Putting a tampon inside of a 12 year old is kind of like threading a needle... if that needle's hole had been sealed up by a hymen. So I begged her, Mom can you jut put it in for me the first time, just to show me where the hole is, and she said "No, I will NOT molest you!" So I just crammed it in there, next to my pee hole but not secure or seatbelted in. And I wore a skirt that day, so you're welcome, universe. I might as well have written "Murphy's Law Bait" on my ass and headed in to school.

I was in a special gifted English class, which is weird, because I was clearly retarded. I could quote Albert Camus but I had no idea what a vagina was nor where it lived. I was walking around class, picking things up from the bookshelf and my tampon fell the heck right out on the floor in front of everyone. But I realized I hadn't told anyone I was on my period, no one knew, so I just kind of kicked it and walked away. And then a little boy came up to me. Not like a little boy, he was my age. And he whispered, "Barbara what's that bloody used.... oooh." And I said, "I don't know, maybe it was from the first period."

Pun was not intended.

I had no idea what a vagina was. None of the pictures were three dimensional and I had no idea that anything could or would go inside of there. I switched to pads and didn't try to do tampons again until swim season started. At that point I knew I was doing it wrong and had a vague idea that maybe I was missing a key part.

"So, um, how do you put the tampon in there?" I asked my friend Meggy.
"What? You just shove it in."
"Shove it in what?"
"Vagina."
"But like hamburger or hotdog style?" I asked.
"What?"
"Like if this is the hole..." I held up my hands and tried to show her horizontal versus vertical.
"If you're putting it in hamburger style you're either doing it incorrectly or you have the widest vagina ever."
"Can you show me where my vagina is?" I asked.
"Get some boundaries, girl!"

I would not realize what or where a vagina was for several years, even though I had one. When I thought about sex I just imagined someone fumbling around near my pee hole. The concept of anything convex down there remained foreign to me for about three years until a guy put a finger in there, and that would be the first time I realized what a vagina was.

Felicia/Andrew

2011-10-11T12:01:00.001-07:00

I stood in front of my new fifth grade class while the teacher introduced me to the students. Their tiny faces stared at me, a new student to their class that had been together since kindergarten, and they analyzed me like an animal at a zoo. I was wearing a bright yellow baggy polo tank top and a jean mini-skirt, pink socks, and my hair was in pigtails. My teacher told everyone I was from public school and they shuddered as if she had told them I had just gotten out of juvi. I grinned wildly and didn't say anything when she led me to my new desk.

The girl who was sitting next to me was coloring her arm hairs individually with a yellow highlighter.
"Why are you doing that?" I asked.
"If you shave your arm hair it usually gets stubbly and gross, but if you bleach it, it just practically looks invisible." She looked over at my arms. "Here, you should try it. Maybe do your armpits too."

I had never thought about my arm hair before but as soon as she mentioned that a burning horror crossed my face and I quietly took the highlighter from her. I had just started growing body hair and was turning into a furry little monster so gradually that I hadn't noticed that it was disgusting. No one had told me that people weren't supposed to have body hair, but while I began coloring my arms, I reflected that my mom was hairless, had she highlighted herself? Or was she born that way? I knew for certain my dad wasn't highlighting any of his hair, why didn't he have to do that? It was the first time I had been confronted with gender roles and I was embarrassed and scared and awkward as I threw myself into them.

My desk mate was named Felicia and when I was assigned the desk next to her it was like she had said "Okay, I guess we'll have to be best friends now." She invited me over to her house that night and we watched My Best Friend's Wedding (my first romantic comedy) and she put makeup on me, my first time even seeing makeup, let alone allowing my face to be toddlers-in-tiarras made up. In one day I was forced to confront the impending difficulties of puberty and I developed an intense fear and embarrassment for my natural physicality.

The second day of class when I sat down there was already a note on my desk. It read:

"Hi Barbara! I love you! You're beautiful! Also, how old are you? When's your birthday? love, Andrew."

I guess that everyone in that class had prematurely sexualized themselves. Only recently aware of my body, and not entirely sure of what Julia Roberts would have done, I just wrote down my birthday on the back of the note and handed it back to Andrew.

"Um, you're older than me?" he said with audible disappointment.
"I don't know," I answered. "Is your birthday after the date I wrote down in chronological order?"
"Yeah."
"Then probably, yes."
He sighed.

Andrew was a few weeks younger than me. Since then I have hooked up with gentleman ranging from two years younger than me to nine years older, and have come to the decision that it does not matter at all. At that age I felt embarrassed and guilty, like I had done something wrong by being born so prematurely. I decided it was wise to ignore Andrew for the rest of the day, which turned out to be pretty easy. Towards the end of the day we were getting up to go and Andrew randomly leaned over to touch my arm.

"Eeek you're hot!" he yelped.
"I'm warm?" I said.
"Yeah, warmer than me," Andrew replied. "Your skin is so warm."
"...I'm sorry," I mumbled, genuinely ridden with real guilt, I left the classroom. Andrew and I didn't talk for the rest of the year, but whenever it got really warm I was self conscious of my body temperature, and my newly acquired ability to sweat. I used to stretch out my t-shirt over the metal back of my chair, so that the cold metal was against my skin to cool me down. I'm sure I looked like a complete idiot but somehow I thought that was less weird than getting overheated.

After Fifth grade I never saw Andrew again. Eventually more men tried to hold my hand or touch my arm and I became accustomed to the phrase, "holy crap, you're so cold! Your hands are like an ice fish, girl!" And I would think, yay, finally.

Eugene

2011-10-03T17:23:00.001-07:00

In second grade there was a little boy named Eugene, who would come to represent the debacle of my romantic life. Eugene was an overweight, pink faced, sweaty little boy with glasses who I hadn’t given much thought to. One day in class I was reading a book while the other kids worked on their math worksheet that I had finished a week ago. (Teachers, if you’re going to photocopy all your assignments from the back of the book, don’t be surprised when kids do them all at once and turn them in laminated, indexed and corrected for you.) Eugene randomly and deliberately stood up in class, walked over to me, and dropped a pink and blue beaded necklace on my desk. Without saying anything or making eye contact he turned to walk away.

“Um, what,” I mumbled, picking up the necklace. “Is this, did you, is what is….”
“Huh?” Eugene turned around and looked at me. Eugene was super gross and moist.
“Why did you leave this here?” I held up the necklace at arm’s length like a snake.
“Oh, I made that.”
“Really?” I whispered. Other kids looked up.
“Yeah, I wanted to give it to the prettiest girl in class…” He said.
“Really?” I caught my breath. Maybe Eugene was the love of my life. Maybe he was the only one to see that my tangly messy hair was like a mermaid's.
“Yeah, but Sarah didn’t want it, so…”
“Excuse me?”
“The prettiest girl in class, Sarah, didn’t want it.”
I looked over at Sarah who was staring at me, daring me to take the necklace. She looked smug and calm while my cheeks flushed uncomfortably.
“She said I was disgusting and gay,” poor little Eugene said, hanging his head. “So I guess you can have it or whatever.” He turned to walk away.
“Because I’m second prettiest?” I asked. There was a still pause.
“What? No. I just thought you could have it. I don’t want it.”
“I’m not second prettiest?” I said. Everyone had grown quiet and was looking at me anxiously.
“I didn’t rank everyone.” Eugene said.
“Maybe you should have,” I said (wow, from the girl who would later call herself a feminist.)
“Please, just… I don’t want it. I don’t care. Throw it away if you want.” Eugene walked away.

In retrospect the poor kid was probably way more uncomfortable than I could imagine. He had just tried to give a home made gift to the love of his second grade life and been turned down, humiliated, and then I had called attention to it. It was as if Menelaus had launched a thousand ships and Helen had been like “oh, but, you know, I didn’t want that.” And he was like, “oh, really? Um, you sure? A thousand is a lot. I already launched them for you, because of your face, but okay.” And just when Menelaus thought he couldn't feel any more embarrassed, a bird came and crapped on all the ships and that bird was me.

I left the necklace on my desk and didn’t touch it. I went home and told my mom the story and she said “You need to give that back to him. That is an insult to think of you as an afterthought.”

That complex would stay with me, the more I was around men. Oh you asked Rebecca to the prom and she said no so you thought you’d ask me? No thank you! You got drunk at this party thinking you could french with Jen but she turned you down so you ended up in my dorm room? Fuck you, no way. I've defined myself as a consolation prize since seventh grade. I’m pretty sure if anyone ever proposes to me I’ll be like, which of my friends rejected you?

When I got back to class the next day, the necklace was still sitting on my desk, leering at me like a troll peeking out of a cave to remind you that you're ugly and not special. I could feel Sarah watching out of the corner of her eye as I slid it inside the tiny cubby of my desk. Later that day I made a show of throwing it away in front of a bunch of girls who giggled and cheered as the homemade present went into the garbage, after triple checking that there was no way Eugene could see.

The rest of elementary school every time I saw Eugene I felt like I was going to throw up. Before the necklace instance he had been a creepy pig boy that I never noticed. But now he was someone who did not think I was second prettiest but had noticed me enough to give me the necklace. I made excuses to run into him and blushed whenever he looked at me. He had unintentionally made me aware of my romantic value or lack thereof. Unconsciously I started laughing louder around him, just to show him how much fun I was having not being the second prettiest.

Ghosts

2011-10-03T15:31:00.001-07:00

Over the course of a few weeks in third grade I convinced myself that the school was haunted. On a breeze-less day, I saw some branches move outside and I was like, “How did they move? There must be a ghost up there.” I soaked up Are You Afraid of the Dark and the Twilight Zone like a mini-goth sponge so it was relatively easy to convince me that anything was haunted. My imagination would take off like a racehorse. I saw a twig move and I quickly fabricated an entire plot: that a young boy had been murdered by a group of math teachers and he would haunt the school until someone dug up his corpse and unmasked the math teachers as the murderers that they were. These thoughts jumped in my head so randomly and fully formed that I often attributed the formation of such notions to be a psychic message that the ghost himself had sent me.

I spent my recess time and after school time going to the library to research murders and deaths around our school. There were a lot of murders and disappearances in my home town. It’s weird how small towns are always thought to be idyllic and a safe place to raise kids, and then you hear about some old man climbing into a girl’s bedroom, chopping her up, making it into stew, feeding it to her parents, and then collecting and spelling “I love you” with their excretement. I think my parents had been like, “Let’s move to North Bend!” And someone was like, “Oh shit where the green river killer dumps his bodies?” And they were like, “safer than in Seattle, where some black people live!”

Around that time, a girl named Katrina asked me over for a sleep over. Katrina was the first in a long line of girlfriends known as my unhealthy friend crushes that caused me to yell, “If you don’t want to hang out with me, that’s fine, I’m not going to beg you!” And then proceed to beg profusely. Her house was terrifyingly large. Her parents terrifyingly large and I did not want to be there. No one had taught me that it wasn’t polite to say to someone’s mother, “Sorry, my parents and my body don’t let me eat high fatty foods.” No one had taught me that I should say, “What do you mean say grace? Like… un-clumsy?” And no one had taught me that when a religious round woman asks you what your faith is, you’re not supposed to start rambling about ghosts and murder.

The next day at school Katrina came up to me to ask about the ghost. I was so excited. I had a friend and she liked spirits too! I took Katrina out to the far end of the playground during recess, where we sat behind a big tree and couldn’t see anyone else.

“We’re going to do a séance and figure out where he's buried so we can find his body,” I stated matter of factly.
“I do not want to find his body. I don't want to do that at all,” Katrina said.
“Don’t you want the math teachers to face justice?” I said.
“I don’t know….”
I started chanting in a weird language that I made up on the spot (improv, hey!) and dancing around.
“How do you know how to do that?” the Christian girl asked.
“I think Freddy the ghost’s spirit is guiding me,” I answered.
“That was his name? Freddy the ghost?”
“It used to be Freddy the human, actually.”
I tripped and fell on an old dusty yellowed baseball. I picked it up in my hands and screamed.
“This was Freddy’s baseball,” I gasped.
Katrina, who had stopped believing in my shit a while ago stood up and dusted off her knees. “I’m going to go play kickball.”
To me organized team sports were much scarier than a revenge thirsty ghost. I still have nightmares about dropping a ball I should have been able to catch or striking out in front of everyone. Embarrassment haunted me like a ghost I could never exorcise.
“Fine, I don’t need you!” I snapped to her retreating back.

After Katrina left, I spent the rest of recess chanting in my made up language and dancing around underneath the tree. Routinely I would take a break to run to the outskirts of the playground and dig in the bark hysterically, thinking that I might unearth some bones. I was so wrapped up in my energetic séance that I failed to notice when all the other children heard the bell and headed back into the school building for class. No one came up to me to warn me that recess had ended, can you believe it? And about fifteen minutes (which is hours in kid time) later I realized that I was the only one out there. Shame faced, sweating, and dirty, I ran back to my class room. When my teacher Mr. King, who was a very nice man, asked why I was late, it was probably with a worried confusion, but I heard it with incredulous rage. I turned bright red, shook so much I couldn’t talk, and about four tiny droplets of pee came out. That was the first time I peed my pants since potty training. Peeing my pants turned out to be my body’s fight or flight response defense mechanism. Like my body was like “oh predators, you know what will make them leave her alone? Urine stains on the back of the skirt.” But what the body doesn’t know is that third graders are the worst predators and what might be disgusting enough to scare away a lion, would only make a third grader write about it on a bathroom wall.

That was the first time I got detention. I remember being terrified about something called a permanent record, that didn’t really exist. During detention, Mr. King was very kind to me and just had me help him write out math problems for the following day’s class assignments. So actually I had spent a lot of mystical time and effort trying to make sure math never happened at our school again, and as punishment I ended up doing more math. I clearly needed to think these séances through better.

And so it begins

2011-10-03T13:49:00.000-07:00

For teacher’s pet I got in trouble a little bit growing up. Being teacher’s pet and getting into trouble in no way prepares you for the real world. They’re like, “Oh you skipped gym to reread Darwin’s Origin of the Species? That’s adorable! You passed notes in class to let someone know the Heisenberg certainty principle? I can’t stay mad at you!” Teachers do not know how to punish dorky children, and they don’t want to. I think this gave me a misguided sense of invinvibility. Now I’ll be five minutes late to work and like, “What are you gonna do? Huh?” Or I’ll be smoking weed outside a comedy club and someone will whisper, “Barbara, be more subtle.” And I’ll be like, “What are they going to do? I look like Mary from little house on the prairie with nerd glasses.”

When I was in second grade I got in trouble for the first time. I was writing a short story in class about aliens coming to earth and studying human interaction. (Which I think symbolized me trying to talk to other kids. ‘Oh yes, kickball. A normal kid game. I am also a normal kid.’) My teacher caught me writing the story and sent me to the principal’s office for the first time.

Seven year old Barbara was like, “What’s a principal?”
My teacher said, “The person in charge of the whole school, all the class rooms.”
‘Weird,’ I thought. ‘I thought this was a senate not a parliament.’

The idea that there was a guy in charge had not even occurred to me. I was really stupid for such a smart kid. I just kind of assumed everyone was responsible enough and thusly capabale of governing themselves (gross, was I a tiny republican?). I had no idea where the principal’s office was.

“You know,” my teacher impatiently said, “where you go when you’re tardy or have a sick day.”
“Why would I be tardy?” I said.

I needed another kid to take me to the principal’s office. As soon as we exited the classroom I started sobbing. With snot dripping down my face while I shook uncontrollably, I’m sure that the girl escorting me was not thinking ‘Wow, I better invite her to my pool party.’ I was a combination of book smart and completely unaware of anything. I probably had some sort of aspergers. My teachers would be like, “She’s so smart, she writes poetry and reads philosophy.” And my parents would be like, “Her, the kid that’s hiding under her desk eating her hands?”

Once inside the principal’s office, I met the principal for the first time. She took my sweat and tear soaked story and read it while I sat and watched. She didn’t sit behind her desk, as if to say, ‘See, there’s no barriers between us even though there I have a career, a husband, and you have a monster costume out of paper plates!’ She helped herself to a bowl of peanut m&ms sitting on a desk and offered me some. (Remember when you used to be able to offer a kid a peanut product without asking for all their medical records and a rectal exam?) I sat there eating candy while the principal read my story, cracking up out loud over and over again. I wasn’t sure what she was laughing at. Was the story really that funny? Was she laughing at me for being stupid enough to write this? Maybe that’s what getting in trouble was: instead of kids laughing at you, just someone bigger with a therefore bigger laugh?

Eventually she put down the story and said, “You wrote this whole thing? You didn’t copy it from anywhere?”
“Um, yeah, no, I mean I wrote it. Yeah,” I said.
“This is great. Keep writing these funny stories. You’ve got a knack for it.”

And I didn’t get any punishment other than that. I was sent back to my classroom, where I promptly cried again, this time for no reason, and stayed quiet for almost the rest of the school year. But in the back of my head the seed had been planted. I was a funny writer. I could write stories.

CHIVALROUS CONSTRUCTION WORKERS:

2011-09-15T16:43:00.000-07:00

CHIVALROUS CONSTRUCTION WORKERS:

Scene: Two Construction workers in yellow hats.

NARRATOR AT GOD MIC: Medieval Europe is renowned for the prestige of it’s beautiful castles and some of the most talented architects of all time. It was also the age of the culture of chivalry.

SIR STEVE: Sir Brad, it’s been a fortnight, or some other outdated term, since we began the construction of this fourth wall.
SIR BRAD: Sir Steve, did you see Lady Gwenevere, yonder?
SIR STEVE: Ah, yes...

Steve starts whistling.

SIR BRAD: Heeeeey guuuuuuuurl, Hey, Hey, Heeeeeey guuuuuurl, Hey!
SIR STEVE: Dayuuuum, you got a nice ass...sertainably confident personality!
SIR BRAD: I respect you as a woman!
SIR STEVE: There she goes. Anyway, do you have any brick glue?
SIR BRAD: Don’t be silly, you can’t glue bricks together, that’s what staples are for.
SIR STEVE: Oh, look, it’s the maiden Katarina.

This time Sir Brad starts whistling.

SIR STEVE: Ooooow Ooooow whatup guuuuuuuuurl!
SIR BRAD: Hey hey where you goin’
SIR STEVE: I am digging that self esteem you’re dragging!
SIR BRAD: You know who you are as a person!
SIR STEVE: There she goes.
SIR BRAD: Let’s make that tower tall enough that people think we’re
compensating for something.
SIR STEVE: Yeah, right, like poor sexual self esteem or a lack of a mother
figure.
SIR BRAD: Ha! What if we were like that?
SIR STEVE: Here comes Lady Genivive!
SIR BRAD: Oh, hey, gurl! Hey, hey, hey gurl! Where you goin with that nice sense
of morals and the ability to believe in yourself?
SIR STEVE: Yeah, yeah, you are complete with or without a man!

A beautiful princess approaches them.

PRINCESS GENIVIVE: Why are you construction workers yelling chivalrous things at me?
SIR STEVE: We just wanted to let you know we like you for you.
SIR BRAD: We respect who you are as a person. You're special for who you are.
PRINCESS GENIVIVE: But why cat call? Regardless of whether you intended it as a compliment I still feel the pressure of being "othered" under the constrains of the male gaze.
SIR STEVE: No, we just wanted to let you know you’re super fiiiiiine. Like classy.
PRINCESS GENIVIVE: You think any woman wants to feel measured soley as an aspect of
their personality? You're reducing me to one aspect of myself.
SIR STEVE: She’s right... What have we been doing?
SIR BRAD: We need to reevaluate ourselves. I think the reason I am this way is I had too healthy of a relationship with my mother.
SIR STEVE: We’re sorry for making you feel uncomfortable and anxious due to society's patriarchial constructs. We won’t cat call women anymore.
PRINCESS GENIVIVE: Thank you.

She walks away.

SIR BRAD: Oh check that out!
SIR STEVE: Hey, Hey, Sir Kevin! How you doin’?
SIR BRAD: Man, you are WEARING that sense of confidence!

Socks

2011-09-15T16:37:00.000-07:00

Scene: One person is on stage dancing (Barbara) she dances for a few minutes and then another person, Steve, approaches the stage.

STEVE: Hey Barbara, how’s it going?
BARBARA:
(still dancing)
Not great.
STEVE: Oh... that’s too bad. But, hey, somebody got some new socks, didn’t they? eh, eh?
BARBARA:
(still dancing)
Oh, these old things?
STEVE: May I borrow them?
BARBARA:
(Still dancing while attempting to take off her socks, hopping on one foot)
Sure... just don’t get all your gross germs on them. You gotta save that crap for my smoothie.

Barbara stops dancing, she hands him the socks and he puts them on while talking to her.

STEVE:
(as he puts the socks on he starts dancing)
So, what’s bothering you?
BARBARA: Oh, I was just thinking about the insignificance of the mundane vapid reservoir of human emotions and the meaninglessness of existence.
STEVE: (dancing)
What about it?
BARBARA: Well, it’s awesome. But while I was thinking about it my dad called and said he needed a new kidney.

STEVE:
(dancing)
Oh, really? I’m not using mine. Do you want one?
BARBARA: Well, I just ate.
STEVE:
(dancing)
Don’t be silly, Barbara... girls don’t eat.
BARBARA: Oh, sorry, I use the word "eat" to mean have sex with strangers.
STEVE:
(dancing)
No worries. But no, I didn’t mean as a snack, I meant do you want to use my kidney to give to your dad?
BARBARA: Oh yes, please! How generous
STEVE:
(dancing)
Seven generous.

Steve lies down on the floor, writhing around doing sort of an upside down worm while Barbara ties a surgical mask on and begins to perform kidney surgery. But it's difficult for her to cut Steve because he won't stop dancing.

BARBARA: Steve, this is really difficult to do surgery like this.... I mean, I hate to be a bitch, but my parents raised me-
STEVE:
(dancing on the floor)
What?
BARBARA: Maybe you shouldn’t wear my socks while we're doing this... since they look much better on me.
STEVE:
(removing the socks)
That’s fair.

Steve hands the socks to Barbara who puts them on and starts dancing.

BARBARA:
(dancing)
Now hold still.

A man or woman in a white robe comes in.

GOD: Hey kids
BARBARA AND STEVE:
(barbara is still dancing)
Hey, god
GOD: Listen kids, you’re being very loud with all this surgery
BARBARA:
(dancing)
Yeah, I know, right?
GOD: Yeah, it’s awesome. I was thinking we should make a stomp band.
STEVE: What’s stomp?
GOD: Don’t be that guy, Steve! Nobody likes the guy who doesn’t like stomp!
STEVE: Oh, I mean, like, yeah I’ve heard of it.
GOD: Oh you have, then what is it?
BARBARA:
(dancing)
It’s-
GOD: NO! Let Steve answer! Let him answer on his own!
STEVE: It’s um... music that is like... indie, alternative, with um...Daft... Punk.
GOD: Barbara, give me your socks.
BARBARA:
(takes socks off)
Um... Okay

Barbara hands socks to god. God puts them on and starts dancing.

GOD:
(dancing)
Thank you.

The Living Room

2011-09-15T16:18:00.000-07:00

Scene: two men are sitting on the couch. A girl walks in.

BARBARA: Hey guys. What’s up?
ANDERS: Nothing, we’re just watching a movie.
BARBARA: Coolio.
ANDERS: I made pasta if you want some. You can take it in your room and eat it.

Barbara helps herself to pasta and sits on the couch.

ANDERS: Or eat it here.
BARBARA: Oh, I’m sorry, you have a date here, how rude of me, Brian do you want some?
BRIAN:
(taking some)
Thanks!
ANDERS:
(snidely)
Anything else?
BARBARA: Can you heat it up for me?
ANDERS: I... um... I’m on a... but there’s candles... and wine.
BARBARA: Oh sure I’d like some wine too.
ANDERS: .... Okay.

Anders goes to the kitchen with Barbara’s plate.

BRIAN: I thought he’d never leave.
BARBARA: I know, right?
BRIAN: Some people can not respect privacy.

Brian gets up from the couch.

BARBARA: So where were we?
BRIAN: You were talking about your fears.

Brian sits down in the chair by the couch and Barbara lies down.

BARBARA: Oh right. Um, dying, dying alone, dying alone after being sexually assaulted, and people with slightly smaller hands than normal handling fruit.
BRIAN:
(deadpan)
Ugh, white people problems.
BARBARA: We’re really moving forward.
BRIAN: Oh, don’t worry... that’s just because you’re emotionally constipated.
BARBARA: No I meant the ship.

Anders returns.

ANDERS: What ship?
BARBARA: Oh, Anders, I hate to tell you this way, with pasta still in my mouth, but the apartment is a spaceship.
BRIAN: How does he not know?
BARBARA: He’s agoraphobic. Afraid of argyle. Can’t leave the house, so sad.
BRIAN: If we're all in the living room, then who’s driving the ship?
BARBARA: I tied it to an asteroid. Autopilot.
ANDERS: Look, I’m really upset about this all right now.
BARBARA: What’s this?
ANDERS: A proximal demonstrative of the English Language.
BRIAN: I mean why are you upset?
ANDERS: Barbara is ruining our date!
BARBARA: What do you want me to do?
ANDERS: Untie the spaceship from the asteroid and take us back to earth.
BARBARA: Fine.

Barbara goes to the door but it’s locked.

BARBARA: Anders... did you flip the light switch when you left the kitchen?
ANDERS: Yes. I'm an environmentalist. I saw a movie with Al Gore, ...Farenheint 9/11.
BARBARA: That light switch in the kitchen locks this door.
BRIAN:
(looking out the window with binnoculars)
You guys... the asteroid might have been a bad idea to tie the ship to.
BARBARA: Why?
ANDERS:
(realizing)
There’s a black president and a female secretary of state which is weird, that I know that.
BRIAN: The only time that ever happens in movies some asteroid is about to destroy the planet.
BARBARA: We’re headed toward Earth... If I can’t get to the cockpit, the only thing that can save us is if somehow we could be pulled in the opposite direction enough to slip the lasso off the asteroid.
BRIAN: nothing has enough mass to revert our gravitational pull.
BARBARA: Quick, yell demeaning things at the moon.
ANDERS: Why?
BARBARA: When you demean something, it gains weight. My mom taught me that.
ANDERS: Fine. Moon, hey Moon! What’s it like to live in the shadow half the time?
BRIAN: I hope you got some proactive for all those crater face holes!
ANDERS: Werewolves don’t like you.
BARBARA: It’s working! The moon is shame eating!

There is a rumbling sound and all three lose their footing for an instant.

ANDERS: Oh thank god.
BRIAN: Um, Okay... Thank you, diety.
BARBARA: My pasta’s cold.

Barbara goes to the door to the kitchen but it’s locked. She flips the lightswitch in the living room and then lets herself out.

babysitting

2011-09-11T13:00:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Petersburb ran around the kitchen and grabbed one diamond earing from a dish by the sink and another from the top of the refrigerator. Leaning against the fridge, she flipped her blonde hair back and fastened the sparkling jewelery onto the sagging lobe of cartilage that she heard things out of. Stephanie stared at the floor, trying not to look impressed that the grown up woman could accomplish that task without staring into a mirror and missing the ear hole four times.

"So, we're going to just be very close, just down the street, okay, sweetie?"
"Um, kay," Stephanie mumbled, eyes glued to her untied converse sneakers, barely peaking out of baggy unwashed black jeans.
"Here's the phone number of the house where we'll be, and here's the phone number of the doctor, and the fireman, and the policeman, and the therapist, and the physical therapist, and the physical therapist's boyfriend, just in case."
"Yeah."
Mrs. Petersburg placed one hand on the counter top and balanced so she could hook on her obnoxiously tall high heals, elevating her to a foot above the quiet sixteen year old.
"You can help yourself to anything," Mrs. Petersburg trilled as she hooked her purse over her arm. From beneath heavy black bangs Stephanie furrowed her eye brows. They always said that, that you could help yourself to all of their food. But she had a pretty good idea that if she drank all the beer and ate all the laxatives they wouldn't be okay with it. Stephanie had never drank beer nor ate laxatives but Amy in math class talked about doing those things every day, and she had been homecoming princess three years in a row, so they probably tasted like contentment and belonging. Amy must have a cool mom. All Stephanie's mom let her eat was broccoli and milk, which tasted like loneliness and despondency and Sylvia Plath poems.

"One more thing," Mrs. Petersburg said over her shoulder. "Around 9:00, Stevie turns into a monster."
"Got it," Stephanie said.

Mrs. Petersburg let herself out her front door, pears dangling from her elegant neck as she flashed a lipsticked smile and shut the little girl into the house behind her, stepping off her own front porch, away from the confines of suburban housewifery, away from her life, and out into a different but similarly plastic, contrived facade of existence.

Stephanie locked the door behind the mom and walked around the huge house. She peered into the blonde baby's play cage, where it stood and looked up at her quietly with huge blue eyes. Were one year olds supposed to be able to stand up and watch someone so quietly? Stephanie didn't give a shit.

Stephanie went to the refrigerator, where there was a chicken sandwich wrapped up with a yellow sticky note with her name on it. She helped herself to ice cream, four cookies, and two pieces of cold pizza and shoved them all into the bowl. She then poured a giant glass of coke and curled up on the huge couch to watch nickelodian with the baby. Under her itchy black sweatshirt and the glaring lights of the television, Stephanie quickly drifted to sleep on the cold ornate sofa.

A few hours later she woke up to a sharp sound of something falling in the distance. Stephanie sat up slowly, wiping her eyes as the blurry living room morphed into focus. She pushed her messy hair out of the way and found her glasses. A dark maroon stain trailed across the carpet. Stephanie followed the trail through the living room and the kitchen, leading past the bathroom, into the play room.

A tall, dark creature hunched in the corner. It was covered in black and green scales with puss dripping from it's heaving skin flaps. It was shaking in rage or hunger, giant flipper like feet tapping excitingly. A pile of crap sat neatly on the carpet beneath the monster. It's back was to Stephanie as it knelt over a young man's body, scouring at it's flesh with claws and gobbling it up into it's bloody mouth. Sharp white teeth protruded over curled purple lips. It turned and glared menacingly at the small babysitter.

"Oh, brother," Stephanie muttered, rolling her eyes.
The monster snarled and hissed.
"Stevie, did you like murder this dude?"
The monster let out a belligerent roar, a string of human intestines dangling from it's salivating mouth.
"I can't believe you. Your mom totally said no dessert."
The monster lowered it's head and scratched it's snout with a claw.
"Whatever. I'm getting paid to watch you, not like clean up your mess."

Stephanie went back into the living room and watched some more television. After a while Stevie came back in and began to play with her hair with his bloody claws. He cried when she wouldn't let him sit on her lap because his tail was way too spiky. He peed and pooped and threw his excretion around the pristine room while screeching, totally disrupting Boy Meets World. Eventually Stevie resorted to attempting to devour his shadow until his mother came back from the party.

When Mrs. Petersburg returned she paid the bored teenager and Stephanie let herself out the door, leaving Mrs. Petersburg to grieve her dying sense of hope. Brian was waiting for Stephanie outside in his older brother's jeep. Loud metal music blared from the speakers and he was bobbing his head, pretending to enjoy it, because that was the kind of music 16 year old boys enjoyed, not the Carol King cassettes that had gone missing from his mom's collection and somehow ended up in a shoebox under his bed. Headbanging slightly off beat to the music, he didn't even say hi when Stephanie let herself into the passenger door and scaled the tall step up into the seat.

"Blah blah blah, football, blah blah, farts, blah blah," Brian said, or something similar.
"Hmmm," Stephanie murmured, slumping deep into the seat and chewing on her black fingernails.
"Blah blah, videogames blah blah the same thing over and over for ten minutes," Brian yammered.
Stephanie sucked on the tips of her hair.
"So, uh, my parents aren't home right now," Brian said.
"Oh."
They sat quietly for a few minutes.
"So, like, basically no one is home..."
"Mm-hmm."
"And there's like sodas and shit and no one to drink them..."
"You lonely or something?"
"Nah, bro. I was thinking you should come over. Maybe spend the night. Maybe we could, you know, DO IT."
"Um," Stephanie said.
"Don't be a nerd."
"Okay."
"Really?"
"Um, do you have anything... any condoms...?"
"For my wiener?"
"Yeah."
"No... but there's a plastic baggy."
Stephanie shrugged, picking a scale off her sweater. "No thanks."

another poem I wrote

2011-09-02T00:44:00.000-07:00

Floating, a gray translucent orb,
gooey, and oozing, squishing through space
bubbling with tears and transcending through existence
a glowing puss bubble of feelings
levitated through time
and kissed the thoughts and worries
of children in cat shaped masks
running through foggy playgrounds
disappearing in the ghostly dew of the night
a smoky remembrance of juvenescence
dripping with clouds of nostalgia
in broken heart shaped dreams
the orb bounced through
squelching with each turn
throbbing with screams, imminent explosion
like a puppy in heat on a summer city block
chased by children and other dogs
unsure of what they're doing
and yelping in desire and rage
the bubble hovered of piles of dog shit
and swelled into the moonlight
leaving drips of loneliness across the dawn filled park
and floating into nonexistence.

My favorite jokes

2011-08-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

1.My mother says she wishes I’d never been born and I don’t think that’s true. Because then she’d have a 26 year old man living inside of her. –Dan Mintz

2. (Sara's pizza dance)

3. When I finished high school I wanted to take all my graduation money and buy myself a motorcycle. Buy my mom said no. See, she had a brother who died in a horrible motorcycle accident when he was 18. And I could just have his motorcycle. –Anthony Jeselnik

4.We got a call that my grandma is going to die. And I know this might sound insensitive. But I am not going to pay that ransom.
–Anthony Jeselnik

5.Outside of a dog a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read. –Groucho Marx.

6.“I like to play music during sex. But it’s mostly because my parents spent so much money on trumpet lessons.”—Ken Barnard

7. "What do you guys think about these thought crimes? Nothing I hope!" -Mike Drucker

8. "I don't know if Tyra Banks is a deep person. I bet as a child she never wondered what would happen if she ate that piece of poop." -Rylee newton

9. I do wanna get married. It just sounds great. You get to go grocery
shopping together, rent videos, and the kissing and the hugging and
the kissing and the hugging under the cozy covers. Mmmm! But sometimes
I worry that I don't wanna get married as much as I want to get dipped
in a vat of warm, rising bread dough. That might feel pretty good,
too. –Maria Bamford

10. I'm not looking for much [in a guy], I just want, like, a really
nice guy who has, you know, like a job... and the missing half of this
golden amulet. –Maria Bamford

11. My old lip color could barely keep up with my busy schedule. In the time it takes to notice the wide discrepancy between my salary and that of my male peers, I'd have to reapply! In the seconds to count the number of women in high political office, seated on corporate executive boards and featured in film and television over the age of 40, my lip color would be as invisible as this glass ceiling only inches above my head! L'Oreal. Because I am worth. And because holding myself to an impossible standard of beauty keeps me from starting a riot! – Maria Bamford

12. As a vegetarian I do support gay marriage, because it’s like “you guys eat animals… what’s next, you’re going to eat gay people?” –Myq Kaplan

13. "Growing up I used to think that my dad was a vampire because he never showed up in any of my pictures." -Rylee Newton

14. "It's hard going through life with a chastity belt. Like I try to hit on women but it's awkward... Can I use you as a volunteer, I'm not going to touch you. Okay so we're in a club and I say 'what's your name? Donna? That's a nice name. So, uh ARE YOU THE GATE KEEPER?" -Brent Weinbach

15 “If you’re in church singing a mass and you forget the lyrics just take a bag of dorritos and read from the ingredients. (starts singing
the entire ingredients.)” –Brent Weinbach

16. “Don’t you wish someone would open a restaurant and name it I don’t care? So you can go to that place your wife is always talking about.” –Nick Thune

17. “Lifesavers only work if you’re a diabetic.” –Nick Thune

18. “I read an article that said, 'Car accidents happen closest to home.' Does that mean that orphans are better drivers? No, if you think about it, it makes sense. 'Cause they'd have more time to practice when they're not being loved by anyone.” –Jon Dore

19. “I’m a pretty shy person. My number one pet peeve is when my loud extroverted friends are like ‘No Aparna, don’t feel weird, I’m actually shy too, we all are a little bit.’ Don’t do that. Don’t take the one thing I have to cling to this world to in the fetal position preferably. If you say you’re shy you need the street cred to back it up. You need to earn it. Have you ever been kicked out of the library for being too quiet? ‘Sorry, miss, but you’ve been here for days.’ ‘But my friends live in the pages!’” –Aparna Nancherla

20. (doing her muppet character) “Black muppets dance like this… white muppets dance like this… green muppets dance like this… pink muppets dance like this…” (does the same dance every time) –Aparna Nancherla

21. “I do look a lot like the IT guy from the Nazis. I am German and almost stereotypically I like things fast and efficient. Except when I’m making love, ladies. Cuz then I like to slow things down! Making love with me is like watching a chess match between a three toed sloth and a turtle. Just nice and slow. And kind of confusing. How did these animals learn the complex rules to this game? And how did this man, who looks like he should give me a loan on a gay mortgage, learn to
make love so well… In bed I’m like an Eskimo with severe obsessive compulsive disorder. Before I can come inside my igloo I must repeatedly enter and exit touching the inside wall over and over again. That was gross. I know. But ladies, I know where it is. And I have my phone number memorized!” –Kurt Braunohler

22. “My grandpa said in my day that dollar would have bought me a full meal. I said Grandpa in your day that dollar would have gotten you arrested for spending money from the future.” –Erik Bergstrom

23. "I used to collect action figures and I'd keep them in their original packaging because I heard they were more valuable if you're a virgin." -Erik Bergstrom

24. "If I ever meet a homophob who's like 'It's Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' I'd be like 'Don't you mean it's Adam and Eve not Madam and Eve?' because I feel like women have made it far enough in history to earn equal billing in catchy hate slogans. Can't we at least get in on some of that sweet sweet lesbian bigotry? Haven't we suffraged enough? Uh oh history pun, she's a witch burn her!" -Aparna Nancherla

25. My boyfriend's trying to get me to eat healthier. Like for breakfast I like to have a cup choc-chip ice cream with some choc chips up top, sweet power surge get the little lady started. And my boyfriend, my boyfriend he's like why don't you have some whole wheat toast with a bu-nu-nu spread upon it. Because that's good. You can't change people. You can't change me. I'm a gypsy. I'm a SEA COW. Yeah, I know the motorboats are going to hit me, but this is where I fucking swim! -Bamford

walking home

2011-08-16T12:15:00.000-07:00

Alex rolled over beneath puddles of starch sheets and put her head under the pillow. The blankets were scratchy against her skin like a crumpled up boring love letter. The room was dark but her sharp eyes could make out outlines and shadows creeping beneath the closet door. Her heart beat accelerated it's rhythm. The throbbing rumbled deep inside of her like underneath piles of her flesh someone from the blue man group was play drums. She anxiously itched at her skin.

"You okay, baby?" yelped the sleeping smelly heap of human being lifeform next to her. Jeremy's eyes were closed and drool oozed onto the pillow. Droplets of hot moisture absorbed into the cotton. Tired growling snoring blustered in his nostrils like a foghorn on a ghost ship of dreams.

Without saying anything Alex crept out from the bed, careful not to disturb Jeremy. She slipped out of bed and padded barefoot downstairs. In the cool kitchen, she breathed slowly, grasping a chair for balance. She filled a glass with tap water and drank it in one gulp.

Alex caught her reflection watching her from the dark window, a picturesque blend of the trees and darkness outside blended with the reflection of the dull suburban kitchen in a blender of loneliness and disconnection.

"It's getting harder to hide myself from him," she whispered to her reflection.

Her reflection remained silent, duh, watching from eyes slightly ajar behind the clumpy mass of face. She knew she didn't belong here, with him, with anyone, anywhere.

Itching to get out of the confining skin, she reached behind her ponytail, deep into her thick hair and fingered the tiny silver zipper with her first finger and thumb. Delicately, pulling through tangles of hair, she tugged the zipper down her skull, sliding the tiny mechanism down her neck. A draft of fresh air kissed her real head as she swept her hair to the side and the human skin unzipped and peeled away. Pulling away the human skin suit, Alex released herself into the kitchen, feeling like a smelly mermaid reaching for the surface and erupting into the sunlight and then remembering mermaids can't breathe oxygen anyway because they have gills. Then the mermaid would suffocate and die above the water and Alex would laugh at it because mermaids are silly skanks.

Alex stepped out of the crumpled pile of human flesh, hair, and pajamas, nudging the prison of conformity with her scaly clawed toe. Naked and free, she itched her puke green lizard body with one of her long six fingered paws. Her tail scraped the floor while she yanked at undesirable tufts of fur poking out of the hard shelled alligator skin.

Looking back at her reflection, Alex saw what she really was and smiled. Her giant glaring green nostrils flared with joy and desire. An evil glint glowed in her stony eyes and her fish like lips curled, revealing long sharp white teeth in a hungry grin. No one could ever know what she was, but safe beneath blankets of never-gonna-be-the-prom-queen-anywhere, her true form was kinda pretty.

She had been dating Jeremy for a few weeks and she was getting ready to run again. He was getting to close to discovering who she really was. When they were humping he almost felt her tail bulge under the skin suit, but he kept on going, like a human man does, you know, the grown up adult sexual intercourse way... like with the candles and the Barry White. Like fornication. Right? Yes? Soon he would know she was a freak and he would leave her, or he would turn her in to the FBI or he would have a nervous breakdown and kill himself. All of those things had happened before, but she hoped it was the latter so she could at least get dinner out of it.

Alex picked up her limp human skin suit and swung it around her neck like a pretentious hipster scarf. Hobbling in the darkness, she walked out of Jeremy's house and into the night. Past streetlights and garbage cans, she paced the dirty sidewalk in her natural form. She knew if someone saw her, even one of her loved ones, they would scream or shoot her, but she actually felt more safe without the suit. Dogs barked at her as she slinked through the night. It was times like this she almost thought about going back up to the mountains, finding a nice cave and holing herself up away from people, away from everyone, away from lines at the cafeteria, away from strangers touching her accidentally on the bus, away from coworkers talking, away from feelings.

The escape wasn't enough, though. Alex knew seclusion would never be enough. The skin suit dangled from her shoulders in a wave like a cape for the most pointless depressing super hero ever. She pressed it to her lips and anxiously gnawed on it as she walked home: soaking in the taste of Jeremy's sweat and semen and her own strange sweet scent. Rain drizzled on her lizard head as she sang an old folk song to herself in the night.

give them a hug for me...

2011-08-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

Stephanie: Oh, hey, Steve, what are you doing later?
Steve: Getting drinks with Adam.
Stephanie: Oh, Adam? Give him this for me.
(Stephanie hugs Steve tightly)
Steve: Give him that hug?
Stephanie: Yeah.
Steve: Okay. What are you doing later?
Stephanie: Yup. Seeing a movie with Delilah.
Steve: Cool, can you give her this for me?
(Steve kisses Stephanie on the mouth)
Stephanie: Um, yeah. Okay.
Steve: Thanks, buddy.
Stephanie: Are you going to see Bernadette tomorrow?
Steve: Sure. Probably.
Stephanie: Great, can you give her this from me?
(Stephanie bends Steve over and humps his butt. Then she lifts her arm up and wipes the armpit sweat off into her hand and smears it onto his face and cries into a cup and gives it to him to drink, after drinking it she slaps him.)
Steve: Right, okay, got it. Um, are you going to see Brad later?
Stephanie: Yes.
Steve: Can you give him this for me?
(Steve hands Stephanie a cd.)
Steve: He left it at my house last week.
Stephanie: I don't know if I'm comfortable handling that. Why don't you give it to him yourself?

changes

2011-07-27T13:39:00.000-07:00

Mom said it happens to all the girls, but I think she was just trying to make me feel better. In the same breath she warned me not to talk about it to school because the girls it hadn't happened to yet would be embarrassed and jealous that I got it first. I went to school the next few days obsessively staring at all the other little girls, staring at their bottoms, their tiny breasts, their arm hairs, wondering if they were going through what I was.

Mom had to buy me all new underwear, because I ruined mine. She bought me a lot of new dresses and skirts so no one would notice. She said I was going to experience a lot of changes in my body and my emotions and to be read for that. I got special deodorant for my new hormonal armpits. Mom made it sound like a privilege, but I just felt like a disgusting freak. I asked if it would happen to my little brother and she said no, it only happened to girls, and I thought that was unfair.

After a few weeks the tail stopped growing. It was about four inches long and soft and fuzzy. I had to cut holes in my panties so it wouldn't chafe against my skin. It was a bright turquoise blue, but Mom said that color could change. It wagged when I was really excited, bounced to the beat of any music, and flattened when I was sad. It was hard to see without a mirror. Now I know why dogs are always running in circles. Luckily, unlike dogs, I'm not an idiot.

Soon the hair on my body had thickened and darkened to a electric teal. This was when I worried I was a little bit different. I wore long baggy clothes to cover all of my arms and legs, grateful the fur hadn't spread to my face yet. I looked at adult women, wondering if they shaved their fur off. Mom said I couldn't shave it off, that it would grow back thicker. I thought it was an old wive's tale so I locked myself in the bathroom and spent an hour meticulously shaving a small patch on my stomach. When it was smooth I put the razor on the sink and victoriously looked at myself in the mirror. Within seconds the hair had grown back, twice as long as it had been. I cried into my furry blue paws and didn't emerge from the bathroom for hours.

My ears enlarged enough to poke out of my hair and my horns grew in gnarled and pointy. I stopped going to school. I could have worn a hat but the fashions of Blossom were going out of style. When I decided to homeschool myself, I didn't even discuss it with my parents. They just woke up one morning and I was sitting on the couch watching television instead of getting on the bus. It was Clarissa Explains it All, not that this part matters, but it's a really good show and you guys should check it out; maybe it's on netflix.

"I'm a monster," I cried to mom. My brother was hiding around the corner, terrified of me. My mother held me in her arms.
"We all are. You're just better at it than others. You're an overachiever."

My habits evolved. I didn't like sleeping in my bed anymore; I preferred to lurk in closets and under the bed. I no longer had an appetite for pizza and soda. I now hungered for blood and human flesh, wouldn't you? Mom taught me to feast only on emotions like despair and loneliness and defeat. These things weren't as delicious but they were filling. Sucking out the passions of civilians got dull occasionally. Sometimes I would slip up and accidentally devour a bratty child or a postal worker. When I came home with human blood smeared over my furry face, staining my sharp pointed teeth and leathery lips, my parents looked at me in disappointment. "Did you devour an innocent life form? That's so Barbara!" They would tease.

When I ate my brother it was the only time they scolded me. I felt bad but he was so tantalizingly scrumptious. They forced me to defecate him out using laxatives and meatmucil. They duct taped him back up together. I felt bad, but we monsters are somewhat attracted to fear. As that emotion diminished, he became less tempting. He became accustomed to my terrifying monstrosity. As he grew bigger than me he became more comfortable and to this day he will pet me and take me for walks at night so I can howl at the moon and crap in the yard and he would have to pick it up and put in a doggy bag for me because that's what love looks like.

Night Garden

2011-07-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

Alison lay in bed listening to the clock tick loudly. Next to her, Greg wasn't snoring, just laying silently. Sometimes she wondered if he was really awake and listening when this was happening. She quietly leaned over, careful not to disrupt the covers or shift her weight too much. Her long wavy blonde hair fell across her shoulders like a curtain. She placed her ear next to his head and held her breath, listening to his sleeping dreams. At first she didn't hear anything, but she quieted her own anxious thoughts, closed her eyes and listened harder. She heard Greg dreaming of going to the gym, where only trees were allowed to work out, and he was trying to jog on the treadmill but one of the trees kept making small talk while asking him to name state capitols.

Alison smiled at her sleeping friend with benefits/ boyfriend/ hook up partner/ human being she intercoursed with. No one really knew, or ever knows, what's going on. People her age didn't really date anymore in the city. They didn't ask each other out or tell anyone they had romantic feelings for one another, or express vulnerability or intimacy. They just imbibed beer off their tits and intercoursed their friends of the opposite gender. If they did it like a few times in a row maybe they could consider that a relationship. And if they did it and one of them spent the night a few nights in row maybe the darkness in their brains would stop screaming long enough for the sea cows to climb out through their ears and butter their necks like burnt hairy toast. Alison didn't care.

Alison silently climbed out of bed and wandered down stairs. The clean quiet kitchen reminded her of being a child and sneaking downstairs to hear her parents yell at each other. It was a peaceful, relaxing hole in the universe she could dive into and swim through the nostalgia. The light of the night slipped in from an undisclosed inexplicable source. Blue silver beams whispered around like soft silky lingerie over the white and beige tile and cabinets. Anytime she was awake somewhere that wasn't lit by sunlight or fluorescent yellow bulbs, she felt like she was up early at summer camp, wading alone through the grayness to the dock by the lake. She poured herself a glass of water and drank it and then had a second glass.

Taking her glass of water with her, Alison walked outside into the front lawn. She looked up and down the silent streets and was disturbed by the stillness. She crouched in the front area, set the cup down, and dug a small hole in the earth with her hands. She sighed as the cool moist dirt drifted through her fingers, emptying away at a particular part of the world, gouging into something, extricating the dark filth of it's porous soul, and piling the remnants somewhere else, equally in the way.

When she had a small hole neatly created in the front lawn, Alison squat above it and lowered her pajama pants to her ankles. Balancing herself over the hole, she flexed her thighs, keigels, and bum hole muscles. Shutting her eyes tightly, she grunted and groaned, sucking in air as she strained and pushed. She rocked back and forth, almost losing her place in the world, the existence, the universe. A bat flew into the tree above her making a high pitched screeching noise and knocking a bouquet of leaves belligerently to the ground.

After a few minutes of pressure, Alison let a small bloody mess out of her. Looking up at her without any eyes, it made a screaming noise like a cat being beaten as it fell from her body into the hole. Oozing with blood and shit and goo, it wriggled and bulged against the earth. Kneeling beside the hole, Alison smiled sadly and began to use her hands to bury the mass of sticky globs into the hole. One entombed she patted the dirt clumped on top neatly and reached for her water glass. She took a sip of tepid water and dumped the remnants on the fresh grave, letting the delicious mixture of hydrogen and oxygen satiate the soil.

She lay down and whisper-sang to the ground a song about death and going down in a boat under a waterfall into oblivion and never waking up again. Kissing the dirty gently she leaned back on her heels, sitting in the dew soaked grass. As the sunlight crept it's cold bright fingers over her small city, a green leafy sprout sprung from the ground and a pink flower budded and bloomed into being. Alison plucked the flower, held it in her fingers, and turned her back on the ascending morning.

When Greg came downstairs, Alison had already made a pot of coffee. Still in her pajamas, with her hair messed up and flowing down her shoulders, she was sitting at the table reading her newspaper. On the counter sat a crystal vase with one single newly plucked pink flower.

The ring

2011-07-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

Denise sat in the darkened room rubbing her hands against each other repeatedly. Her bedroom was cool and a breeze was reaching in through the window ruffling her hair. She rocked back and forth, sitting on her butt, with her arms crossed tightly over her knees. She rotated back on her heels to the same rhythm as her heart beat, a short punchy staccato. There were sounds of soft conversation, plates being moved around, and occasional abrasive laughter coming from downstairs. Denise rolled her tired deep set eyes and interlocked her scrawny fingers. She rubbed her thumb against the cold hard silver band on her middle ring finger. She slid the ring up and down the stem of her finger a few times, nervously twirling it. She then pulled it off her middle finger and shoved it onto her left ring finger.

"That's not yours," said a low whispery woman's voice. Denise turned and saw a face half lit, half in shadow. One eye peered through the room at Denise, half of a smile curled across thin pale lips.
"Yes it is," Denise whispered to herself. "It's my ring."
The face raised an eyebrow in the white fragmented light. "No, it's not. You stole it."
Denise shuddered and brought the ring up to her cheek. She watched how the light played against it and brought it to her lips.

The room was messy and filled with forgettable things. Denise stood up abruptly and began to pace with short, rapid steps around the room. Denise could hear her husband downstairs with their friends chatting. They were probably giggling about the season of the grapes and the smell it brought out in the cheese. They were probably talking about their children's 1st grade art project like it mattered, like anything mattered, like they liked each other and were not alone and crying and fake and desperate to be noticed, gasping to be real. Her husband was probably flirting with Mrs. Stevens with a confident smile and a hand on her arm, as if to say "I don't think we're all empty, vapid, and utterly alone; I'm not being loud solely to overpower the screaming pit of nothingness inside of me, ha ha ha!" She wondered if they had noticed she was gone. She wondered if they had noticed that she was there at all in the first place. A tingling sensation crept up her arms and legs like millions of invisible and one inch tall Beethovens were playing piano against her skin.

"I know what you did," said the voice.
"I haven't done anything yet," Denise answered.
"Not in this universe, not yet."
"Never, I won't. There is no yet."
"Doesn't matter, you're not that girl anymore. You're not the girl who he gave the ring to. It doesn't belong to you anymore," it said. The voice laughed a cold high laugh, echoing brilliantly throughout the room like a sharp, dazzling diamond. Denise felt her own lips curl up in the thrill and terror of that laugh.

She shivered as she felt microscopic hairs pick up against her spine. She placed her wedding ring inside her warm wet mouth and swallowed it.

"Maybe I never was that girl," Denise said. "Maybe from the start, I was always you."

The mirror image smiled from the shadows at her and Denise waved softly. She felt the millions of spiders inside her stomach come crawling up inside her esophagous and out of her mouth. They covered her face in a dark mask of writhing wriggling black bodies. Their hairy legs criss crossed as they climbed over top of each other, over her cheeks, around her eyes and down her neck. Their spit soaked hairy arachnid limbs brushed the fiber of her t-shirt and they slipped down beneath her shirt into her cleavage, around her warm breasts, past her roles of fat and down her sides. The little black legs swarmed her room and continued to overflow from her frothing mouth. Denise tipped her head back and laughed angrily and bitterly while the spiders blanketed her body.

nothing to wear

2011-07-11T09:16:00.000-07:00

Stephanie sat on her bed in her messy room, the red blankets pooling around her thighs. Her computer sat, humming on the bed. Her damp hair hung down her back as she sat in a bra and jeans.

"hey," a chat icon blinked on her gmail. Stephanie leaned over and looked down at the computer.
"Hi Carrie" Stephanie typed back.
"are you ready for your date?" Carrie asked.
Stephanie looked at her half dressed reflection in the mirror.
"Emotionally?"
"what are you going to wear?"
"I don't know..." Stephanie replied. "Clothing?"
"you want to wear something nice that looks cute but doesn't look like you're trying." Carrie typed.
"Okay, so not clothing," Stephanie replied.
"why don't you ask your magic 8 ball?"
"8 balls are so unreliable. I don't believe in that folksy hokey bullshit."
"fine. so ask your head in the drawer." Carrie typed.

Stephanie shook her head in astonishment. She couldn't believe she hadn't thought of that. She got up and went to the dresser, her long wavy hair hanging in a damp curtain over her shoulders. She opened the second drawer and peered in tentatively. Inside sat a severed head, blood dried on it's neck stump. It was a woman's head with short hair that Stephanie had to cut every month so it wouldn't get greasy in the drawer.

"Hey, wake up," Stephanie said, knocking her fist against the dresser.

The severed head twitched its facial muscles and opened its bloodshot eyes. It peered up at Stephanie in amazement. The woman's face was pale from being shoved in a drawer all day long, with greasy blackheads on it's nose and blemishes on its chin. It opened its chapped lips and gaped for air.

"Mistress Stephanie!" the head called in a high pitched strained voice, its wide eyes reverberating in the wooden drawer.
"Yeah, um, hey, head," Stephanie said.
"Please help me!" it screamed.
"Me help you?" Stephanie asked. "Listen, head, what do you think your job is here anyway?"
"Job?" gasped the head, tears streaming down wavering cheeks.
"Yeah, you're here, to help me! You're my advice head. So listen, I need to look cute tonight on a date, got any suggestions?"
"You're going on a date?" the head cried. "What? No... I... I am severed from my body! I'm trying to move my hands right now, nothing!"
"Okay so um, I'm thinking like a dress but a casual one, something cute and fun that says 'I'm-so-laid-back-that-I'm-not-that-into-you-but-subsequently-I'm-the-type-of-girl-you're-totally-into' but you know, not in a slutty way," Stephanie said. "Like Natalie Portman I think."
"What? You look nothing like her," the head said.
"Wow, why are you such a bitch?"
"Why am I such a bitch?" screamed the head. "Maybe it's because I don't know where my body is! How am I alive? How am I doing any of this? Please, Stephanie, I beg you, just kill me. Put me out of my misery!"
Stephanie slammed the drawer shut.
"What a waste of time," she said.

Stephanie looked at her watch for a second and went to grab her phone, wallet and keys. She opened the apartment front door and found her neighbor's 6 year old daughter standing in the hallway with her backpack. The little kid let out a short sharp angry scream and Stephanie remembered she wasn't wearing a shirt. She quickly fell backwards inside and grabbed a sweater to throw over her shoulders.

She only had about an hour before her date so Stephanie rushed to the mall, pushing past young happy people slurping giant sodas to fill the empty void inside of them. She saw a young woman in fashionable attire and began to follow her around the mall. When the girl turned around and looked at her, Stephanie grinned a big toothy grin.

"Hey!" Stephanie said.
"Are you talking to me?" the girl replied in a high voice, looking over her shoulder.
"Well I'm not singing to you!" Stephanie yelped with a smug giggle.
"Do I know you?"
"Listen, girly, my date is in about 42 minutes! We don't have a lot of time."
"I don't understand."
"Make me a dress!" Stephanie squealed.
"What? Why don't you buy a dress? I can't make them."
"I can't go like this," Stephanie said. She pulled a tiny ball of spaghetti and a needle from her pocket and handed it to the girl. "You better get sewing."
The girl looked at the tools and shook her head. "I'm not doing that."
"Make me one, Rumplestitskin, or I'll chop off your head and put it in a drawer!"

"Excuse me, miss?" said a deep voice. Stephanie whirled around and saw a police officer watching her.
"You're excused," she replied.
"You're going to have to come with me," he said. "Now put your hands out."
"John, Jacob, Jingleheimer Smith!" Stephanie screamed at the top of her lungs. She burst into dance. "That's my name too!"
"Maam, I..."
"You don't like that song?" she said.
"No, I like it," he said.
"Oh you do, don't you? Jingleheimer sounds nazi-esque! I knew it!"
"Knew what? Wait, you have the right to..."
"Whenever we go out!"

An hour later the police officer shoved the singing and dancing girl into a jail cell. Stephanie stumbled and caught her balance as he locked the gate. She brushed imaginary dust off the sides of her arms and her shoulders. Sauntering over to the corner of the cell, she looked into the next door criminal's room and made eye contact.

"Hey," she said.
"Hi, Stephanie," he said.
"You look nice."
"Thank you, so do you."
Stephanie beamed and blushed, looking down.
"I'm so glad we could do this," she said.
"Yeah, thank you so much for meeting me," he replied.
"Of course! I wouldn't miss our first date for anything."

why I dislike Disney Princesses

2011-07-07T09:53:00.000-07:00

When I was about six I had my first fight. I was playing princesses with my best friend, Abby. We both wanted to be Jasmine from Aladdin (who we both felt was the most beautiful and vivacious of the princesses) and I had a Jasmine costume and Abby had a beautiful Snow White costume. I remember Abby said "I'll be Jasmine since my hair is longer, but I get to wear the Snow White dress. Pretend-pretend that you're Snow White and we are borrowing each others' dresses." I said, "Well if I have to be stupid Snow White I want to wear the dress." She said, "No, it's my dress!" And I said "You sure? I thought you were Jasmine and borrowing it?"

We ended the day crying and didn't talk for two days, which is forever in six year old best friend time.

My point is that, as a little girl, I didn't just watch disney movies for entertainment, I acted them out, I sang the songs, I begged birds to dress me, I wanted to be them. As I grew up, this "pretend-pretend" games evolved into something more sinister. In 5th grade I was playing Spice Girls at recess. In middle school I couldn't play pretend anymore but I did dress like Audrey Hepburn for every single band and choir concert. I guess I shouldn't be surprised when I see some woman do something special and my first thought isn't "wow that was special" but rather "I wish I could do that." Studies show girls are socialized to model themselves after women they see in the media and society, to create idols and heroes all around them. I know this is a sweeping generalization and I feel bad for doing it, but I hate that disney princesses create such misogynist dark role models for impressionable young girls.

Snow White is the most chauvinistic story. The major conflict arises from two women fighting over who is the most beautiful of them all. (Oh it would be that hard to write about two girls with any other sort of personality attributes?) So, a young and naive Snow White runs away from home, goes to a stranger's home, climbs into the beds of 7 unknown men, and when they discover her, she becomes their dutiful housewife, because that's the only thing women are good for. After being poisoned for being attractive, a prince saves her by making out with her comatose body. Knowing nothing about Snow White except for the fact that she's hot and good at cleaning, the prince knows he is in love with her and they live happily ever after.

Sleeping Beauty is a very similar story to Snow White. In the fairy tale she sleeps for a hundred years. It is the height of female objectification, she has no personality, charm, or even consciousness and the guy still wants to fool around. Disney reduced a woman to her physicality so much so that they could have saved some money and just cast a flesh light. What is that teaching young women?

The little mermaid was one of my favorites when I was a kid. I sang the songs in my stuttering lisping little kid voice and I had a little mermaid costume as well as several other souvinier decorative paraphernalia. But this may have been one of the worst ones for me to like. Ariel was the first poster child for my eating disorders when she drastically and violently changes her body to get a man to notice her. She also exemplified codependency in the most sickening sense, giving up her greatest talent to be with a man. And it works in the disney version. A man falls in love with her even though she can't talk the entire movie, as if to say, a woman doesn't need to say anything or have a personality to be loveable. Why did my parents let me watch it? They might as well have shoved playboy in my face and said "see, because you're a woman this is the only thing you'll ever be good for."

Jasmine is a sex object her father can trade around for political power. Her only talents include being hot and to attempt to save herself and Aladdin she uses the only skill she has, which is seducing Jafar. Does it work? Not fully, and Aladdin saves the damsel in distress in the end.

Beauty in the Beast is probably the least misogynist, but it's still chauvinist. Belle is intelligent, kind, and has integrity, but what really saves her and the beast in the end is her hot looks. Also, the beast is cruel and gruff and abusive to her at first and she falls in love with him anyway. What really saves everyone is Stockholm syndrome. It's a symbol for how women are held captive in society by ourselves, the media, and men, that in our imprisonment we just have to endure the abuse and learn to love it.

Cinderella: I don't even want to touch it. Women are only good for cleaning, being hot, and the only way to get out of that is to marry a rich man who can provide for us.

What about the bechdel test? This test rates films based on the criteria of containing at least two female characters who talk to each other about something besides a man. None of these films do that, reiterating to young children, the entire goal in life for women, is to get a man to love you.

I hate that these were the role models being shoved down our throats as children. I hate that we dressed up like and idolized these women. All of them were dehumanized, depersonalized, and objectified. We were taught from a very young age how to fit into gender roles. I hate that unrealistic standards for feminine beauty were portrayed not only as a neccessisity, but as the only requirement for being loveable. More than anything I hate the idea that even for adults, it's hard to find a film with a female lead where the entire goal isn't to trap a man. Is that our only role in society? To fall in love? I would like to think I'm more ambitious than that. I can hope that women in my generation are seeing these force fed sexualized plastic beauty images and thinking "I can be more than that."

The Ride

2011-07-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

Mom: I'm really glad we got to spend this time together, after all those years.
Jennifer: Me, too, Mom. (would it be funnier if I had her call him dad?)
Mom: So, what do you say, kiddo? Too old to sit on your mom's lap while she drives?
Jennifer: Yeah, kinda.
Mom: Oh. Is this because I was working and wasn't there for your first period?
Jennifer: No... I don't, um...
Mom: I'm so sorry I was out on a trip when you got your tonsils out.
Jennifer: It's fine, I don't care.
Mom: I'm a horrible absent mother.
Jennifer: No, don't say that. You're great at being an absent mother.
Mom: Is this because I missed your open heart surgery last month?
Jennifer: Mom, it's not that, I swear..... Fuck.
Mom: I don't blame you.
Jennifer: Fine, I'll sit on your lap and drive.
Mom: Really? You're kind of old for that, but okay.

(Jennifer sits on her mom's lap)

Mom: Okay, don't get nervous. Check your mirrors.
Jennifer: Okay.
Mom: Make sure the emergency break is off.
Jennifer: Right...
Mom: Turn on all four engines. Raise the throttle. Extend the wing jets.
Jennifer: Wait a second... Can I turn on the radio?
Mom: Sure.

(Steve enters)

Steve: Captain! We're losing velocity quickly and heading directly for that mountain! What's wr- oh... hi Jennifer.
Jennifer: Hi, Steve.
Steve: You're letting her....?
Mom: (confrontational) What are you trying to imply, Steve?
Steve: Not trying to imply anything. I'm trying to insinuate that the passengers are getting uncomfortable with the turbulence.
Mom: You think I care about those pussies?
Steve: This isn't the plane of domestic cat cargo!
Mom: It's not? Oh, no... Jennifer, it's time for mommy to save some lives. Get off.
(Jennifer gets up.)
Mom: Time to really buckle down.
(She buckles 7 imaginary seat belts all the way down to her ankles.)
Mom: Time to see what your mom is really made of... guts, bones, organs and mostly water.
Jennifer: No, Mom, I'll never see what you're made of, remember, I'm going blind.
Mom: Maybe it wasn't a great idea to let you fly.

(Steve takes Jennifer aside.)
Steve: Let's take this outside.
Jennifer: okay.
Steve: Jennifer, how are you?
Jennifer: Doing well.
Steve: You look well.
Jennifer: Thanks.
Steve: Listen, I'm really sorry about last month. I should have called.
Jennifer: It's fine.
Steve: I've just been ridiculously busy.
Jennifer: I got the message. I read "He's Just Not that Into You."
Steve: Oh you did?
Jennifer: Yeah, thanks for mailing me that book.
Steve: Glad you liked it.
Jennifer: But I don't know if you needed to follow it up with the second book. "Your Mother's copilot on the airplane is just not that into you"
Steven: Sometimes I overdo it.
Jennifer: Um, do you want your wrapping paper back from that book?
Steven: (deadpan) how generous.
Jennifer: How generous? About 7.
Steven: Sorry?
Mom: Hey did you kids want to stop at the drive through and get some sodas or tacos?
Jennifer: It's.... Listen, It's not like under my floorboards I have a shrine of your face I made with bits of your hair, chewed gum, and I talk to it every night in our own secret language.
Steve: ....
Jennifer: (really forced) Ha, ha, ha
Steve: (relieved) Ha, ha, ha
Jennifer: Blee-goo-glack.
Steve: The thing is, is I did want to call you, but your mother told me to stay away.
Jennifer: She told you that? I can't believe it. She usually has problems with "s"s.
Steve: She did, and I'm sorry I was stupid to listen.
Jennifer: Why would she say that?
Steve: She didn't want you to get hurt. You see the thing is, is I'm a robot.
Jennifer: You're kidding.
Mom: Hey, um... do you kids need to use the rest stop?
Steve: I know, I'm so sorry I was dishonest with you. I'm just ashamed of what I am. I knew you would be better off with someone human.
(Jennifer checks watch)
Steve: I had to tell you now, because no matter how disgusted you are by the truth, I'm in love with you.
Jennifer: This is ridiculous... You thought I didn't know?
Steve: How did you know?
Jennifer: Come on, Steve, the aliens taught me to identify artificial intelligent cyborgs.
Steve: Right, but when you were abducted they wiped your memory?
Jennifer: No they gave me a haircut.
Steve: It looks nice.
Jennifer: It grew back.
(Michelle starts singing)
Steve: Can you accept me for what I am?
Jennifer: Steve, this is our song... will you, do the human with me?
Steve: I'd be delighted.

Both Steve and Jennifer sit down on chairs and begin eating from a bag of chips, passing it back and forth while staring out into the audience like they're watching tv and littering on the floor.

2011-07-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

Me playing 20 questions with a computer.

More thoughts about the media's objectification of women

2011-06-29T15:35:00.000-07:00

"Sex is one of the most interesting things we as humans have to play with, and we've reduced it to polyester underpants and implants. We are selling ourselves unbelievably short." — Ariel Levy

Advertisements depicting women as objects.

"Violence against women comes in numerous forms and many feminists in modern America (including me) are of the belief that the media and advertising are detrimental to gender equality because sexism is used to sell everything." -Feminist Activism

"When women are portrayed as objects without subjectivity, it may be easier for some to justify violence against them. If a woman is just a thing to be looked at, her feelings and concerns might seem less important." -Naomi Rockler Gladen

"A steady diet of exploitative, sexually provocative depictions of women feeds a poisonous trend in women’s and girl’s perceptions of their bodies, one that has recently been recognized by social scientists as self-objectification." -Ms Magazine 1998

"We skipped over the part where we just accept and respect that some women like to seem exhibitionistic and lickerish, and decided instead that everyone who is sexually liberated ought to be imitating strippers and porn stars."
— Ariel Levy

Sexual Objectification of Women

2011-06-28T12:26:00.000-07:00

At work a few days ago a lawyer from another firm approached my desk. He was in his late 50s and he said “Hey, Beautiful.” I sorta sat there uncomfortably, feeling really awkward, that I didn’t have my Vladimir Nabakov books for him to sign. After a moment of awkward silence he said “Can you give me a smile?” And, crossing my arms, I said, “Yes I am fully capable of smiling.” Because it’s one thing to sexually objectify someone, but it’s just rude to insult their control over their facial muscles. So he stood there and said “You have a beautiful chest.” And that’s when I lost my temper. Because complimenting a woman’s breasts is the same as saying “Evolutionarily you look like you could competently nourish one of my offsprings.” So I replied, “you would make a horrible father!” I told my friend this story and I was so upset and fraught and he tried to empathize. He said, "Oh, Barbara, I am so so so sorry! I can't believe that you have to work somewhere people lie to you!"

It really sucks to feel like a "thing" instead of a person. According to feminist scholar Linda LeMoncheck, to objectify women is to portray women as something that can be looked at and acted upon, which happens on a social level and in the media.

When I started researching this, several of my male friends were like “how can you let a few douchebag’s perception of you as an object dictate your identity?” And then they went back to watching porn and ignoring their girlfriends. But it’s not really a few douchebag’s perception; it’s everywhere: movies, tv, music, magazines, advertising, pornography, in the workplace, and stand up comedy. The television can’t be turned on without a woman being turned on. I hate seeing charicterizations of women in the media that have less purpose and emotional depth than a fleshlight. On an internal level, sexual objectification, and similarly sexual harassment can cause depression, body image anxiety, depleted sense of self worth, lack of sense of self, increased self consciousness, eating disorders, and sexual dysfunction. Since getting my boobies I have experienced all of these. On an external level, reducing women to objects has very negative consequences because when men begin to view women as a “thing” instead of a person studies show they are more likely to commit violent sexual crimes and gender bias and discrimination overall.

The media is culpable for sexualizing women. Magazines, tv and movies are permeated with images of woman being compared to inanimate objects or portrayed overtly sexualized. It is a trick advertisers use all the time. This effects the way both men and women view women in our society. When you think of a woman the same way you think of a car, you feel less guilty for slamming it into a tree or hanging fuzzy dice in it.

New Yorker writer Ariel Levy argues that Western women wear revealing clothing and endorse exploitation in the media which perpetuate female self-objectification. To research her book “Female Chauvinist Pigs” Levy followed around the Girls Gone Wild camera crew. Levy says that women reduce their self worth to their sexuality, and guising it all under the label of feminist sexual empowerment. She writes, “The proposition that having the most simplistic, plastic stereotypes of female sexuality constantly reiterated throughout our culture somehow proves that we are sexually liberated and empowered has been offered to us and we have accepted it.”

It feels horrible to see men objectify women but it feels way worse to see women willingly do it to themselves. In college I had a friend who used to make out with people at parties to get attention. One time she was having problems with a guy she worked with because she didn’t know how to be friendly to him without having sex with him. I was like, there has to be some middle ground between a hand shake and a bed shake. I thought she was a cool person, but she always seemed to completely lose her identity when she didn't have anyone to "perform" to. When we first started hanging out she told me she had problems relating to me because she was used to sleeping with people to get them to like her. I hate that a woman would do that to herself. She always wore miniskirts and low cut shirts to her job at Microsoft, but I guess you dress for the job you want, not the job you have. I remember watching her user her flirtiness to get attention at parties feeling dirty on the inside. I thought that can’t be healthy, it’s much better to be ashamed of your sexuality. At one party I watched a group of young boys feeding her alcohol and I got really protective of her and I tried to bring her water. Then while she was practically comatose, my boyfriend at the time commented on how hot she was and I felt insanely insecure and depressed. I had a nightmare that night that my boyfriend wanted to have a threesome with the two of us but it just turned into him cheating on me while I sorta sat in the bed feeling ignored.

I was raised by narcissists so I learned to internalize other people's feelings and feel them as my own. So when I see a woman objectify herself, I feel dirty, empty inside, violated, and void of an identity and existence. They think they're being sexually free spirited and adventurous, but if sluttiness is an adventure then I never want to get on that Indiana Jones ride. Sexuality is a varied and dynamic thing, not something that can be wrapped up in spandex and miniskirts. People think there's a power in stripping, doing porn, and flashing on girl's gone wild. And I guess there is a power in that, but it's the power that is pushing down on us, holding and polishing the glass ceiling above our heads.

I hate that girls are growing up in a society where movies and television are portraying women as these empty, vapid beings. I hate that the pinnacle for female sexuality is being constantly shoved down our throats and then bulimically regurgitated over and over again to impressionable minds. I hate that women competitively endorse and engage in self objectification. I can only optimisitically hope that in a culture with such brilliant and genuinely beautiful and thoughtful women as Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Julie Klausner we can grow into a society where women are considered and consider themselves subjects instead of objects.

Dave the plumber

2011-06-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

Dave the plumber stood in the stranger's bathroom, staring into the depths of the toilet, trying to imagine them, the food they ate, their favorite movies. He smiled shyly to himself as he dusted off the counter, wiping two long stray hairs into his palm. The hair was wiry and black and long, moist with tap water. He reached into his tool box and got out a ziplock baggie and sealed the hairs up and nestled the ziplock back in his tool box with several other identical baggies.

On his walk home from work Dave stopped by Sandy's Deli. He kept his eyes on the green and white tialed floor, letting familiarity guide him to the counter. Shyly, he looked up at the girl. She had brownish blonde hair that was in a greasy ponytail. Her pores were large and had bits of dirt collected in them.

"Hey, Dave, how is it going?"
"Ugghhh," he mumbled.
"The usual sandwich?"
"Yuh"
"How's work?"
"Um."

She handed him a paperbag with a smile that he ignored. He handed her the money and turned to go.

"M-M-My name is Deena," she said.

Dave turned back and looked at her. They made eye contact and then she hurriedly dropped his gaze and began picking up and then putting down various sandwich ingredients and utensils. Dave pocketed the brown paper bag and left the deli that he had come to every day for several years.

Outside on his walk home, Dave felt anonymous and simultaneously one with everything. He took his sandwich out of his pocket and began to eat it. It reminded him of the sandwich his mom made him when he was a sick child. It was the taste of absolute peace and comfort in being yourself, and yourself alone. Dave walked past streetlamps flickering on as night took over the quiet town.

The next day at work Dave was plunging away at a stranger's toilet when he felt some resistence. He shifted his weight against the plunger and began pushing and pulling harder and harder. He had something large and heavy on the end of it. He yanked hard upwards, plunging up a tuft of human hair, followed by a human head, followed by a surprised human being body.

"Hey," said the gentleman, shaking toilet water off his clothes.
"Hello?" said Dave in a quavering voice.
"My name is Steve and I am a sandwich maker."
"From the toilet?"
"Clearly."
"What are you doing in the toilet?"
"Making sandwiches. Do you want one?"
"Yeah... actually... can I have a reuben?"
"May you?"
"What?"
"Yes."

Steve the sandwich maker made Dave a sandwich that was more delicious than any sandwich he had ever tasted. Dave took Steve home with him and made him a tiny bed in his apartment where Steve was happy to reside, away from the stench of toilet land, and subsequently made Dave several sandwiches a day. Dave was very happy and well fed and his days got brighter and brighter and he began to love his job and his life and for once actually feel good about himself.

One day Dave was sitting on top of a park picnic table after a shitty day of work, enjoying a particularly nice sandwich while reading a book when a girl in a pink coat with long greasy brownish blonde hair walked toward him through the park. She kept her eyes on the ground a few feet in front of her and approached him, standing a few feet from him. She didn't say anything and then after a moment sighed.

"Hello," said Dave.
"Hey," said Deena.
Dave went back to eating his sandwich.
"Dave, you... where have you.... um," she said.
"Sorry?"
"It's me, Deena! From the sandwich shop!"
"I know."
"Well, you look... well..." She shifted her weight from foot to foot and messed up the back of her hair with her hand.
"Thanks," Dave said. "I feel well."
"You, just, stopped coming into Sandy's, without any word, no goodbye."
"I have to say goodbye to the sandwhich shop?"
"You came in for three years every day! How could you leave without saying goodbye?" Deena looked down, tears welling on her cheeks.
"Well, I don't... need you anymore," Dave said, befuddled.
"You don't need me?"
"Not you specifically. But, I met this guy in a toilet, right, who makes the best sandwiches in the world!"
"The best sand...?" Deena muttered trailing off. "Better than the ones I made you?"
"Yep, here have a bite," Dave handed her his sandwich.
Deena took the sandwich in her hands and looked at it and looked back at him in disgust.
"I can't believe you would say that. Sandwich making has been... my life. I built my identity around it. You know, I was happy. I liked my job and I liked... you. Then you had to come around and plunge away at my feelings! And, let me tell you this, there is no way that feeling of betrayal could taste half as good as the sandwiches I make!" Deena took a bite of the sandwich. "Holy shit..." she said softly to herself. She slowly ate the whole thing in silence, relishing every bite, and then turned her gaze back up to Dave.

The park grew darker and rain began to pour down on them. Deena stood, getting sopping wet in her pink coat, staring at Dave. Crumbs dribbled down her chin and mustard stained her hair. She rocked back and forth on her heals and tilted her head up, allowing the rain to wash onto her face, careening in rivers and pools around her sunken eyes and bony cheekbones. Leaving her in the growing damp darkness, Dave quietly packed up his tool box, pocketed the book he was reading and walked home.

Insomnia

2011-06-17T09:41:00.000-07:00

John woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Theresa lay beside him, sleeping. Her breath was deep and rhythmically even, her breasts rising and falling beneath the white sheet. John put his face in his hands and tried to drown out the screaming. It was the third night this week that he had been woken up by anguished tortured cries. He grew cold and quiet as he listened in the darkness. John looked over at the girl next to him. He bounced up and down violently on the bed, knocking a pillow off.

"What?" mumbled Theresa groggily.
"Oh, hey, sweetie, are you up?" John said.
"What do you want, John?"
"Do you hear that horrible noise?"
"Your voice?"
"No the screaming... it sounds like it's coming from down the hall."
"You're an idiot. There's no noise except you keeping me awake."
"You're not incredibly supportive of me," John said.
"Incredibly supportive? Don't be silly, John. I'm not at all supportive of you."

John sighed and scooted to the edge of the bed and climbed out. Wearing pajama pants and a loose fitting t-shirt His bare feet felt cool against the hardwood floor. He looked over his shoulder back at Theresa but her soft breathing had resumed. The high pitched angry screeching resumed, unlike any noise he had heard a human make before. John tip toed out of the bedroom and down the hall.

John and Theresa had moved into this house a few weeks ago and the night screaming had begun almost immediately. It seemed to be getting louder every night and Theresa never admitted to even hearing it.

The hallway was dark and empty, void of pictures and any of their little souvenirs of life. John heard the screaming growing louder as he walked down the hall, past the bathroom. He caught his reflection in the mirror peering at him in a sliver of light. His skin grew hot and beads of sweat began to gather at his neck. He walked past the living room and into the kitchen.

The kitchen felt simultaneously empty and crowded. The table was littered with Theresa's paperwork, scraps and emblems from a world he would never be a part of. Food piled across the counters that had been delivered by his mother. The many long windows looked black in the night. The smell of old rancid coffee perpetrated the white room.

In the middle of the kitchen stood a woman. She was screaming loudly and incessantly. She didn't stop to breathe when John moved toward her. She was completely naked, her pale body lumpy and soft like rolls of pretty vanilla pudding. Her breasts were large and free, hanging like dangling purses over her torso. Her thighs were round and hairless. She had long black hair dangling down her back in a tangled greasy tail.

Her screams came from deep in her abdomen, high and angry. They were the screams of someone lonely and desperate and lost and scared. They didn't sound like the cries of someone who had lost love, but rather of someone who believed they'd never find it, that they were destined to be alone forever. It was the shrill whining of self indulgent loneliness and hopelessness.

As John took a step toward the screaming anonymous woman she lifted her chin and he gasped and stopped his advancement. On the body of the beautiful, naked, screaming woman was his face. Not like, his face as it would be had he been born a woman, but his face exactly, feature for feature. He looked at his own stubble, his own crooked nose, his frowning lips gasping for air as they uttered scream after scream. His eyebrows shut up on both faces and the woman seemed even more terrified as she realized with surprise that she was looking at herself in him.

John walked to her and looked into his own eyes. Huge dark circles formed under them, purple and green with lack of sleep. Cavernous wrinkles embossed the outer edges of his eyelids. His lashes curled up. His eyes were shaking, frightened and red with crinkly bloodshot lines forming. On the woman his eyes blinked and then a puddle of tears cascaded from the stretched rims and down his bony cheeks. In his eyes he saw his past and his future staring back in the wildly confident endorsement that he was the only one who could see and hear this creature violently wailing in misery.

Standing a few feet from each other the woman shuddered and trembled. John took her face (or rather their face) in his hands and began kissing her on the full manly tear soaked lips. She let herself be kissed for a second and then stopped screaming and brought her hands to his face. The kiss was soft and sad at first and then it became angry and hungering. John ran his hands through the tangle of hair and began kissing her long thin neck. He let his hands fall to her naked, sweating legs and she wrapped her thighs around his waist. He picked her up and carried her to the kitchen table. Knocking over piles of Theresa's paperwork and an old half full coffee cup, he sat the woman on the table and dropped his pajama pants to his ankles and hooking her ankles around his neck.

Rain fell against the window and the wind roared in the chimney. Seconds and minutes and other units of time sped past quickly. John's house sat silently and calmly amongst the row of sleeping houses filled with quiet, simple people.

A few minutes later John returned to his bedroom. He paused at the foot of the bed, staring at Theresa. She lay still, with her eyes closed, but he could tell by her breathing that she was awake, listening, and waiting. John dropped the bloody knife to the floor by his side of the bed. It still had a few sheets of her paperwork sticking to it. A couple droplets of dark red ooze dripped onto the floor. He kicked it under the skirt of the bed. John sighed and wiped his warm moist hands on his flannel pajama pants. He climbed into the soft comfort of the bed, nestling into the sheets that were just as messed up as they had been when he had left.

Sammy the Anxiety Troll

2011-06-15T15:01:00.000-07:00

Sammy flipped through magazines, clearly bored. He sat on the floor of the squishy pink room, his green claw feet propped up on a cushion of soft nerve endings. He raked his nails through his green and purple fur, shedding dead skin, little bugs, and wayward hairs as he did so.

Apathetically, he leaned his scruffy head towards the eye windows and peered out. Bethany was standing in front of her closet gathering piles of tops over on arm. Sammy cocked his head to the side and watched as she smelled the armpits of various items. He shrugged and decided that it didn't mean anything. Humans sometimes need to smell something to remind themselves that they still exist. Sammy leaned back, snuggling in the comfort of her brain, feeling calm until he saw her reach for her makeup drawer. Sammy jumped up and ran to the eye window and peered out. Bethany never wore makeup! He watched as she applied the foundation, singing happily to herself as she trimmed her four haired mustache. Sammy swore to himself and stamped his foot in agitation in the soft squelchy ooze of her young brain.

Bethany was getting ready for her first date with Brian. She had picked out a very pretty top and was wearing her hair in the style she liked that made her feel like an astronaut. She slung her bag over her shoulder and walked to the bus stop to meet him.

Sitting with his arms crossed, Sammy growled as Bethany and Brian hugged hello. He had really been looking forward to spending the evening curled up in Bethany's brain watching Ally McBeal out her eyes while she wrote sad ukulele songs about lonely monsters and gave herself facials. What was the use being a social anxiety troll if the host chose to go out and live life? Sammy decided he wasn't going to sit on his haunches and take this offense in stride. He clapped his claws together and spring into action.

When Bethany laughed at one of Brian's jokes, Sammy put pressure on the nasal passage so the laugh erupted in an embarrassing snort. When Brian asked Bethany a polite question, Sammy tickled the conversational lobe so she was forced to grapple for an answer that came out in a stammering succession of nervous stutters. When Brian put his hand on the small of her back to guide her through the door, Sammy spit a cascade of monster saliva into Bethany's sweat glands, allowing sticky moisture to drip out in a salty ooze, saturating her armpits, neck, and back.

Bethany looked at Brian over the pasta dinner. She watched as he chatted with her going on and on about something she had to pretend was cool. She leaned over to carefully take a bite of pasta and her hand inexplicably involuntarily twitched, dumping the red saucy bite all over her lap. She laughed nervously, higher pitched and more nasally than her normal laugh and cleaned it up. Bethany hadn't realized how much she liked him, but her neurotic energy indicated a more serious impending attraction than previously assumed. When he touched her hand her heart raced so quickly that her chest hurt.

"I'm having a lot of fun," Bethany told Brian.
"What the hell?" asked Sammy. "How could you be having fun; you're uncomfortable!"
"Me too," said Brian.
"Seriously?" asked Sammy. "But she's being such a fucking dork!"
"I'm having a nice amiable time," Bethany said.
"You're having an agitated, anxiety ridden time!" screamed Sammy.
"You look adorable," Brian said.
"She looks sweaty and emotionally exacerbated!" said Sammy.

Sammy realized he was going to have to up his game. If he didn't do anything this could turn into a happy and fulfilling evening and he would be starved for anxiety. He would go hungry trying to scare Bethany back into agoraphobia and constant trepidation.

On the walk home Brian put his arm around Bethany and Sammy tried to make her stumble but unfortunately she didn't fall on her face. When Brian and Bethany got to her front door Sammy started to throw a violent tantrum.

"This was a fantastic date," Bethany said. She blushed and stammered, "I mean, it was a date, right? Is it a date? Forget I-I-I said date. I'm sorry. What?"
"It was a date," Brian agreed, smiling down.
"I... um... we should... do it..."
Brian's eyes widened as he waited for her to finish.
"...again some time?"
Her heart pounded uncomfortably and torrents of sweat drenched through her clothes. She looked up at him and he looked down at her. He moved closer, tilting his head. Bethany closed her eyes and began to violently shake.

Sammy angrily dived down towards Bethany's esophagus and tried to force her to throw up on Brian's face.

Bethany fought back a sudden burst of nausea and began hiccupping and shaking in a frenzy. She kissed Brian curtly and thanked him for dinner and they made vague idle plans to see each other again. Bethany let herself into her apartment. Still shaking in trepidation, she leaned against the door and tried to steady her heart beat and oxygen intake.

Brian walked home quietly looking down and frowning slightly to himself. Down inside him something rumbled as he tread farther away from Bethany's apartment. The tiny troll living inside Brian's penis was named Steve. Steve shook his fist in exasperation at the situation.

"How could you have possibly not closed the deal?" Steve muttered up the shaft to no response. "We did everything right to get into the pants and we didn't even get an invite upstairs. What a sucky first date!"

Steve folded his arms and tried to think of a way to punish Brian for fucking up so badly. He decided on the classic blue balls. It was never fun living inside of a penis, because obviously, penises are weird body parts.

Shaking his head, Brian let himself into his apartment. He poured himself a glass of water and locked himself in the bathroom to extricate his sexual tension, during which he missed a text from Bethany thanking him for the lovely evening.

Safety Dance

2011-06-14T14:54:00.000-07:00

Every friday I give skype teleconferences telling young girls about the dangers of not using a condom, and the importance of being on birth control. I don't consider myself a hero, really, but I guess, in the sense that I make people think about the issues and help improve their quality of life, then yes, I guess I am a hero.

"Pregnant women are so beautiful!" That's what they say the second trimester. The third trimester they say "when is it coming the hell out?" The first trimester they say "you're glowing" which is correct because many of us are radioactive. That's how we get the adrenaline fueled power to lift cars off babies. The fourth trimester they say nothing at all.

Getting pregnant sucks. You get fat, gassy, stinky, tired and mean. There's nothing beautiful about it. Still it must be easier than being an actual mother.

I'll be giving this teleconference from my bed. I'm bed ridden right now, which is normal at my condition. My boyfriend left me a long time ago so my nurse has brought me a plate piled high with pancakes, pizza, and salad. She gives me a cup of milk as tall as a puppy. I used to be a size four! This is what you have to ingest into your body when you become like me. And that's why I'm here to talk to everyone.

Pregnancy is a condition that occurs when you intercourse another human being with his penis inside of you and he ejaculates without a condom and you're not on birth control and Al Green is on the tape deck and the curtains are carpet orange and the candles are almost burnt out and rose petals and twigs and moss rest on the foot of the bed and in your hair and down your throat and you cough but you're choking and he's too busy ejaculating so you heimlich yourself. Now that doesn't sound like it feels good at all, does it?

I have been pregnant for four years now and I don't appreciate it. Several of my friends have gotten pregnant after me and already had their babies, which really sucks, because none of them are friends of mine anymore. My stomach is the size of an anorexic baby shetlund pony, or I might as well say, it's the size of a four year old child.

A lot of mothers don't name their child until it's born. They look into his eyes and somehow they just know what his name is. But I felt like I needed to name him before he was born, because he already feels like he is alive inside of my uterus, or at least it did after he started talking. When I first heard his voice I knew in my heart that he was a Simon.

"Mom," Simon said.
"Yes, honey?"
"Are you doing your teleconference about how you hate being pregnant with me?"
"Oh sweetheart," I said, appalled. "I don't hate being pregnant with you. I just hate being pregnant period."
"No such thing as a pregnant period," he said.
"That's right, sweetie! Good job. Do you want a cookie? Mommy will eat a cookie and digest it for you!"

It's especially awkward in preschool. Some of the other mothers go to preschool with their children, but I'm clearly the most involved. No one can see when he raises his hand so I have to yell out 'Simon is raising his hand, he's got something to say! Everybody listen! Shut up! Listen! He's got lots of placenta muffling his voice so listen!' And it could potentially be uncomfortable. I can't even imagine what it will be like when he goes to college, at his first job, at his wedding, his wedding night...

So that's why I'm telling everyone: wear condoms, take birth control, wear diaphrams, get an IUD, do it all, all at once, do it.

High Heels

2011-06-14T12:56:00.000-07:00

What goes through my mind when I wear high heels:

These shoes are so cute. And they make me tall, like really tall. They fix my posture and make me close to 5'7 probably. I feel like a giant. Maybe the extra height makes me look elongated and thin? Nope, just huge and ginormously awkward. They make me walk like a confident person! I feel confident! But I'm not comfortable feeling confident so I feel self conscious again. I'm taking up so much more space than normal! I'm not socialized to be okay with taking up space. Give the space back give it back! I hate being noticed! Am I antifeminist for worrying about not allowing myself to take up space? I probably am antifeminst for buying these ridiculous shoes in the first place. Oh that guy is kinda cute, why is he looking at me? He just opened the door for me. Did he open the door because my high heels make me so feminine that it induced latent chivalrous tenancies? Or because they make my tush-tush so cute he wanted me to walk first? Fuck not the tush-tush, quick cover it up before anyone objectifies me! You dork, no one's looking at your tush-tush; he probably just opened the door because you seem so clumsy and bumbling like a giant oaf and he was trying to be polite. I'm going to go change into sneakers.

What went through the guy's mind:
Na, na, na, na, nanana la la na, girl! na na la na la la na nanana la

clean up time

2011-06-12T13:37:00.000-07:00

The apartment was mostly empty, void of furniture, art, food, and everything that could potentially elicit an emotional sensation. The two boys sat on the grey couch. Al flipped channels rapidly on the tv. Steven fidgeted, rubbing his hands over each other drying out his skin, and shuffling his feet against the floor. Dust lay over the arm of the couch smiling in the dull light as dirt accumulated around the corners of the door.

"So what are we doing in Jennifer's apartment?" Steven asked.
"Watching tv," Al said.
"But... why not watch tv next door at our place?"
"We're making new friends," Al said.
"So where's Jennifer?"
"Who cares?"
"When's she coming home?" Steven asked.
"You're so inquisitive. She said to wait for her here."
"How badly do you want to sleep with her?" Steven asked.
"This is boring."
"I kinda want to... clean her apartment," Steven said.
"Why?" Al asked.
"Is that okay? I just... need to do it."
"Fine."

Steven got up and began opening closets. Al surfed programs while staring at his knees. Steven let himself into the kitchen and started cleaning with mismatched rags. A wave of relaxation washed over him. Humming, he did the dishes and allowed himself to slip into a trance like state. Steven unconsciously let himself into the bedroom and gasped.

The bedroom reeked of old socks. Piles of clothes and garbage heaved over each other so much that Steven couldn't see the floor. A rat scrambled across Steven's sneaker. The bed was filled with bits of cheese and sauce and other food remnants. Jars of pee lined the wall, glowing unhealthily.

"Oh, god," Steven mumbled, trembling in terror, sweat percolating on his forehead and cultivating in his arm pits.

A huge burrito about five feet long and three feet wide lay in the bed. It was dripping with cheese and red sauce oozing onto the bed. Steven clutched his heart as the burrito twitched in the darkness.

"What?" said the burrito.
"Oh my god the disgusting mess is making me hallucinate," Steven said.
"I object to being called a mess. Why are you in here, Steven?" the burrito said.
"How do you know my name? I don't even like processed dairy. Artificial growth hormones frighten me."
"You're an idiot." Jennifer pushed back the tortilla of the burrito and sat up in bed, bits of salsa in her hair, guacamole down her chin.
"Jennifer? Is that really you?"
"Little early in the morning for existential ponderings."
"Morning? It's 4:00. Were-were-were you sleeping in a burrito?" Steven asked.

Steven scratched his arm uncomfortably. Drapes covering the window kept the room in darkness. Arm pit juice and body odor seeped into his pores and he coughed uncomfortably. His breath caught with a caustic burn inside his lungs.

"Yes, I guess." Jennifer said. "I was eating it for dinner last night in bed and I just crawled and inside and snuggled the fuck outta the rice and beans."
"Me and Al are watching t.v," Steven said.
"Oh god, why... why... are you... people here people people humans."
"Jennifer?" he asked, shaking.
"I want to go back to sleep in my burrito," she said.
"You're... sick?"
"Want a corner of tortilla?" she said.
"Al really likes you."
"Oh," she muttered deadpan and sarcastically. "Great. A human being who likes me. Just what everyone always wants. Social interaction with others. It's a dream come true."

Jennifer climbed out, dripping with burrito juice off of her sweat stained pee covered pajamas. She approached Steven and stood confidently in front of him, arms crossed. He tried not to recoil.

"Does Al know... you are ill?" Steven asked.
"We had a date scheduled last month. I told him to wait for me in the living room and I'd take a quick shower," she said. "But, in my room, watching and listening to him from behind the door, I just couldn't leave the safety."
"The safety of being a disgusting sloppy mess?"
"Right. After I stood him up that date, I guess he just assumed that I got the date wrong, because he's been back here every night since then, waiting."
"Come out and talk to him," he said.
"I don't want to. I don't want to talk to anyone. Ever."

Jennifer looked towards the door and took a step towards the threshold. Steven's heart beat a little quicker. She looked at the sliver of light peeking through the door from the living room. She listened to the cackling sounds of television. She breathed out of her mouth, closed her eyes and walked back towards her bed.

Steven watched, frozen silently as Jennifer slowly took off each item of her pajamas until she was naked, hairy, overweight, pimply, and utterly vulnerable and alone. Her eyes looked past him and everything and nothing, empty and void of any feeling, desire, hope and optimism. Her lips slightly parted, not out of sexiness, but out of apathy and too much laziness to muster up the effort to close them. Naked, she breathed deeply, looked at Steven, and nodded with her head slightly cock to the side.

Steven quietly removed his shirt, his sneakers, his jeans, as if in a trance, as if out of obligation and boredom, until he was completely undressed. Jennifer looked at his eyes sadly, then dropped her gaze down and gave his body a once over. She seemed thoughtful for a moment and gave a short, curt nod and then climbed back into her burrito sleeping bag. She covered her face, hair, and head and Steven could hear the sound of nibbling and swallowing from inside.

He redressed promptly and neatly and left the bedroom and walked slowly into the living room. Steven stood behind the back of the couch, watching Al's head. Shadows of a Friends rerun flickered across Al's face. Steven silently headed towards the front door to leave. Without acknowledging his friend and roommate leaving, Al allowed the tears to freely flow from his stoic unmoving eyes as Steven let himself out the front door.

Pick the puppy

2011-06-10T16:30:00.000-07:00

Dr. Riderpoop bent over the child, dangling his gold pocket watch from his steady fingers. The little boy peered up at him from beneath bright red hair and a dusty speckle of freckles. His hospital gown gathered clumpily along his knees and he swayed slightly, eyes glazed over, with a blank face.

"Do you want him to be more shy or more outgoing?" Dr. Riderpoop asked.
Mr. and Mrs. Stephenson huddled together. His arm was around his shoulder. She was shaking slightly.
"Are you sure this is safe?" Mrs. Stephenson asked.
"Very. We've been psychologically engineering children for years now," the scientist said.
"And it's just like... hypnosis?" Mr. Stephenson said.
"Yeah but I don't make them pull down their pants and act weird."
"Oh."
"Unless you want that."
"What?"
"Can you do anything about his red hair?" asked Mrs. Stephenson. "I heard it's a weaker gene."
"No," said Dr. Riderpoop. "Hair color is not a mental trait."
"Can we come back for tune ups to his personality?" Mr. Stephenson said.
"Certainly, it's like a hairstyle, you gotta cut it off before it gets atrociously ugly."

Dr. Riderpoop ran his calloused hand through the kid's red hair. The hypnotist looked around his office and felt the same hesitation he felt at every adoption engineering. The room was clean and organized, smelling of science, despite the fact that most of the science conducted was in their minds. He couldn't let the parents see his hesitation. The parents were scared and nervous and mildly hysterical. Maybe they had lost a child or were unable to conceive. They were unsure of what they wanted but they knew it had to be perfect. The doctor couldn't let them know that he wasn't sure what the kids would turn out like. He wasn't sure what would happen to their souls, or even what the soul was. He just had to take a deep breath and lie to the parents while he dove in and fucked around with fingerpaint in their future children's heads.

And when Dr. Riderpoop went home to take care of his own elderly father, Dr. Riderpoop senior, he put his head in his hands while his father gave him a cup of hot cocoa and a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

"You're a good son," the father would say. And the young scientist would shrug, not knowing that the biological implication was flimsier than supposed, as his father fingered his own gold pocket watch beneath the table.

Date Night

2011-05-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

Stewart stared straight ahead at the television in the dimly lit living room. Shadows of Saturday Night Live glimmered across the room. He did the trademark yawn even though he wasn't sleepy at all. He reached out in feigned stretching motion (when has anyone ever naturally stretched their arm like this? what kind of yoga pose is it? downward facing social skills?) and let his arm fall on the couch behind him. Delores stared ahead without blinking. Stewart thought he felt her relax back a few milimeters towards his arm. If he moved it so slow that only a slug would see the movement maybe he could put his arm around her without her noticing. Stewart lowered his arm as slowly and gradually as possible until with a slight tingle he let it drop and hit her shoulder. Delores jumped at the contact and looked at him abrubtly.

"Hi," Stewart mumbles softly, noise barely coming out in the breathy torrent of warm mouth exhale. Instantly self conscious that he still had pizza breath from a few hours ago he looked down, dropping eye contact with Delores. It would have been a shy gesture had he not instantly found his new found gaze directly pointed toward her stiff perky bosom. Delores snapped her head away and continued to stare straight ahead. They watched the tv in silence for several minutes, his hand around her shoulder.

He obsessively wondered if she was bored, if she hated his shirt, if he hated his shirt. Maybe the shirt was okay, just the smell on the shirt was the problem? Maybe she wanted to be with Adam. He was so much cooler. Maybe she was fantasizing about him right now. Maybe his sweat was leaking through his fat hands, arms and side and gushing onto her somehow. He watcher her gaze stay locked on the tv and he tried to calm himself.

Stewart fumbled with whether or not he should stroke the side of her arm, tap it, keep his hand still, remove the hand entirely from her shoulder, or inch it slightly closer towards her breasts. He began to shake uncontrollably and spilled some of his soda in his lap. He hurriedly dabbed at his damp sweet crotch with his sleeve. Delores pretended not to notice.

About ten meters above Stewart and Delores, Xenon and Zag sat in the rafters of the room. Xenon was holding the marrionette strings attached to Delores and Zag was eating some browder nuts.

"You haven't made her move in a while, should you do something? Itch something or make her touch her hair?" Zag said.
"Nah, this kid doesn't even notice," said Xenon.
"How long has it been since she went pee? I think she should have to pee. Humans have to pee a lot."
"Females go in groups," Xenon said.
"Do you want me to take over the strings? I can control her," Zag said.
"Stop being so anxious and just watch the show," Xenon replied.
"Right, okay, sorry."
"Why are you sorry? Just fucking calm down," Xenon said.
"I wish I was here on this assignment with anyone but you," Zag said. "I hate everything about your entire existence and consciousness."
Xenon laughed.
"Me too, baby, me too."

My answers to Sexy Quiz

2011-04-21T16:15:00.001-07:00

Cosmopolitan.com "Sex Appeal Quiz" Are you a shameless siren or do you give off subtle seduction signals? Take this quiz to find out!

Read more: Sex Appeal Quiz - Cosmopolitan

The Late Night Text you send a boy you like:
a.) Sweet dreams. If UR lucky maybe I'll be in 1 of them.
b.) Goodnight.
c.) Heading 2 bed. 2 bad UR not in it.
d.) Barbara's write in answer: no text at all

When trying to impress a man you're most likely to:
a.) Work into the conversation you get asked out a lot
b.) Talk about your good job
c.) Tell him you recently ran a 5K and got a hot oil massage after
d.) Barbara's write in answer: ramble about how you hate yourself and your anxieties and your dark depressing childhood until he gets uncomfortable and says he has to go to the bathroom but he actually goes to talk to someone else so you follow him and finish the story

A hottie moves into your buildings and has yet to introduce himself, you:
a.) Stake out the lobby wait for him to come and then ask him out
b.) Invite him over for a party
c.) Make eye contact and smile
d.) Barbara's write in answer: Stealthily memorize his schedule and happen to be entering and exiting the building the same time as him and follow him around without saying anything, run face first into a mailbox, and then blurt out "I'm single!"

Your go to first date outfit:
a.) Jeans and shoulderless top
b.) pretty dress with lots of cleavage
c.) Nice black slacks and a cute jacket
d.) Barbara's write in answer: First date? Who has time for that? Do you mean, first time we get drunk enough to hook up? In which case, whatever I was running around in all day, most likely, flannel, sweatshirt, jeans with tights underneath

You're dying to sleep with a guy you're on a date with, you:
a.) graze his thigh under the table
b.) Cut the date short so you don't sleep with him before the 5th date
c.) Say "Interested in finding out what's underneath this dress?"
d.) Barbara's write in answer: Once again, "date"? Are people still getting asked on dates? Anyway, my move would probably be to keep still and say nothing and wait for him to stick the thingy in and then when he doesn't get the blatant message, ram it home with something adorable like "you know, I'm not saying this to be a weirdo or anything and I'm sorry to bother you but you have nice pores on your forehead and every time I've had sex in the last two years, all four times, the guy never was able to finish. I'm that good. Gauntlet thrown."

friend crushes

2011-03-13T21:55:00.000-07:00

I am not going to have crushes on boys anymore because it's really painful, awkward and embarrassing, for my boyfriend, who I fabricated to make my crushes jealous. Crushes on boys just take up an unwarranted amount of my energy that should be focused on comedy and writing. So I'm over it. I have, however, recently developed this ability to have weird platonic friend crushes on girls I want to be friends with. Is that normal? Like I'll meet a really cool girl and be like "holy crap she's so fricking awesome, how many days do I have to wait before I call her? I don't want to seem needy. How many days do I have to wait before I give her this best friends forever heart necklace that is split in two so we can each have half?"

Sidenote, those necklaces were super popular in 5th grade so I got one and tried to give it to a girl and she did not want to be one half of a best friendship with me. My mom was like, just wear both necklaces, and that is how sadness starts.

Recently I was in New York and there's this girl who I had previously thought was cool. I got to spend an extra half hour talking to her and she was so amazingly kind and genuine and friendly and down to earth and awesome that I was overwhelmed with a platonic friend crush. How do you ask someone to be your friend? In grade school it's so easy. "Hey you're a kid, let's be friends!" When you're in high school it's like "I hate everything, do you hate everything? Hooray let's hate everything together!" When you're in college it's like "I'm drunk... Hi." How do you make friends as an adult? How do you ask someone to hang out as a friend? Maybe it's still the possible to form close personal bonds and I'm just too much of a scaredy cat pussey to do that. I don't know how to make friends anymore. I come across as desperate, needy, eager, retarded, emotionally unstable, and/or bitchy. Like yeah, I'm introverted, and that's okay. But do I need to be the kid who laughs loudly about holocaust jokes when everyone else is quiet? Why can't I just be shy and quiet, instead of the kid who mutters rapidly about suicide in a squeaky annoying voice? Who the heck wants to be friends with that?

Friend crushes are even harder than romantic crushes because you can't just start making out with someone to make them like you platonically. I've done that on dates before. "Well I guess we ran out of shit to talk about, let's do some liplocking." I guess there's a tip for daters out there, if you want to make out, fake poor conversational chemistry.

In Boston I had a slightly similar situation watching a comic. I was like "holy shit she's so hilarious and cool! I want to be her best friend!" After the show of course I overcomplimented her, shuffled awkwardly, put my foot in my mouth, acted retarded, and then stumbled away. At a comedy conference a writer said the best way to network is to just be friendly and nice and the person everyone likes at the party. That would totally get in the way of my saying stupid things and then running away to be alone and eat ice cream and hate myself in private. I'm introverted. I like people, but they exhaust the hell out of me. And I know there are people who would probably be willing to watch a movie or hang out and talk with me, but I do stand up every night and when I get a chance to be alone I revel in my alone time. And when I do get to get coffee with a girl, I feel like I'm interviewing her. I'm really awkward at smalltalk and the paperwork is ridiculous. Friend dates can be as uncomfortable as romantic dates. Just because you memorize someone's facebook profile doesn't mean you have any sort of preexisting report.

Making a new friend is a lot like going to a super amazing fun party. I hide in the bathroom throwing up to stave off crippling panic attacks.

You know you're lonely when you write friend pick up lines. Here's some I wrote! How do you like your eggs in the morning? I was just hoping we had something in common because I'm desperate to relate to someone. Did it hurt when you fell from the nondenominational afterlife nirvana-esque scenario? Please hang out with me.

trying to study

2011-03-01T09:42:00.000-08:00

"Hey, Brian how's it going?" Dean cheerfully said, flopping down on the common room couch. Brian sighed quietly as Dean and his three loud friends invaded what had a few minutes ago been a quiet relaxing area. The four boys popped open small cans of Raineer and turned on the television.
"Hi Dean," Brian said. "Hi.... guys." Sitting at the table behind piles of books and papers he tried to crawl back into the mindstate of concentration but it was like he had lost the key. His notes seemed scattered and he lost his place in the book.
“Dude so then Jennifer was like ‘what’s a keg stand’ and you know she was like totally wearing a skirt or some shit,” Dean said.
Brian put his head in his hands in exasperation.
“No way, a skirt?” Carl, one of his meathead friends echoed.
“Bro, I don’t know; I’m not a homo,” Dean said.
“Hey can you guys please try to keep it down?” Brian said.
“What’s up, Brian? Why you gotta be pissy? You on your period or something?” Dean asked.
“No. What? No, I’m sorry. I just have a test tomorrow so I’m trying to study.”
“Why you got these crazy mood swings? Did the shoe store sell out of shoes?” Dean said.
“Nice one!” Two of the frat brothers high fived each other.
“Did you take forever to get ready and then by the time you were ready the mall wasn’t open anymore?” Dean asked.
“Sorry I brought it up. Never mind. I didn't think it would have been that much to ask to just whisper in the common room or go somewhere else."
Dean laughed and said, "Yeah I'll whisper, into your pussey!"
"Just ignore me,” Brian said.
“Maybe he was on his way to the mall but his sense of direction was so bad he couldn’t find it,” Dean said.
“Ohhh shit, can’t do any shopping without a mall,” Carl said.
“Fine. I’ll go to the library,” Brian said. He stood up and began to gather his papers and notes and put them in his bag. He put his sweatshirt on.
“Sorry, Brian,” Dean said. “I didn’t know it was your time of the month.”
“Shut up, idiot,” Brian said.

Just then Brian felt something warm between his legs. He stood there glaring at his classmates with his books and bag in hand. Hot dampness began pooling on his inner thighs and Brian thought he was sweating from frustration. But the warmth and plethora of the swampy liquid surprised him. Less than a millisecond later a river of blood rushed down his thigh out the hole of his basketball shorts. Little droplets of blood splashed and splattered onto the floor between his feet, angrily spraying at first in a Jackson Pollack design and then pooling together in a smooth small pool of blood. His friends gaped at him in silent horror.

Embarrassed, Brian tugged on his now wet basketball shorts. The screams of his parents echoed silently in his head and he stared frozen at the mess on the floor. Demons snuck into his thought, clutching around any sort of positivity and squeezing and squelching any smile in his heart. Sharp pains cut through his chest. A dark shadow came over his vision, creeping into his thoughts and pushing him farther from the room, from his schoolwork, from his life. Tiny globs of blood clung to his sticky leg hair and shellacked his goosebumpy skin. The sludgy pond of blood continued to grow and ripple, edging out to almost touch his sneakers. Brian tried to move out of the way. It bulged and oozed more like a gel than a liquid. Its consistency held together like a solid but a stream of fresh liquid blood poured into it like red sludgy pudding or ghostbusters slime.

“What… the… fuck…” Dean gasped.

Brian’s face burned bright red, and as he blushed, the flood of period blood came more freely. He ducked his head and turned away from his acquaintances. He held his books to his chest, scrunched his shoulders into himself. As the blood rushed down his leg, equally warm and embarrassing tears began to pour from his eyes. He slowly walked out of the common room wordlessly, a trail of blood droplets falling to the ground beneath him in a bloody Hansel and Gretal breadcrumb river oozing after him as he left.

Funeral

2011-02-24T16:29:00.000-08:00

Grey clouds loomed over the proceedings as Steve's casket was wheeled out onto the mound. Rain drizzled down onto the green grass and the family sobbed and dripped goobers into their black sleeves.

"Oh shit," Tim said, looking down into the fishbowl at the tiny funeral.
"What's up?" Bobby asked, without looking up from his computer monitor whilst playing ski-free.
"One of them died."
"They do that."
"It was Steve," Tim said, one hand resting on the fish bowl.
"That means nothing to me."
"The one with the grey stringy hair? Angie loved him. He farted in his chair and then contentedly stayed sitting there. He said things like 'Those butt-poop yankees just gotta respect our freedom. Merica.' He was awesome."
Bobby laughed and sucked on some of the beer.
"Dude, we're the worst pet sitters," Tim said, distraught. "Angie is going to be heartbroken."
"It's just a human. Chill. We'll go to the pet store later and pick up a new one."
"Angie will know the difference."
"Nah they all look the same.
"And you just want to dump it in the fish bowl with all the other humans? Don't you think they'll know the difference?"
"Buddy, you're super boring when you're uptight. Do you want to bang Angie or something?"
"Why would you say that?" Tim said. "Angie is a super classy celestial life form. And, yes, duh. Why else would we be watching her humans when she's out of town?"
"Niiiiice," Bobby said. "When are you going to do it?"
"It?"
"Commence the intercourse. When she gets back?"
"She doesn't know I like her yet," Tim said. "I'm super nervous to talk to her about it."
"Dude, you're the most pussey of all of the dieties," Bobby said.
"Let's go to the pet store."

Two hours later they returned to their apartment. Tim had a plastic ziplock bag in his hand with tiny holes so the human, no bigger than the size of his palm, could breathe. Tim unzipped the baggee and dumped the human unceremoniously into the fish bowl. Tim and Bobby lowered themselves so they were eye level with the fishbowl. The tiny man plopped to the ground of the tank. Oblivious to the two giant powerful beings peering in at him, the human picked himself up, dusted off his suit, and began walking throughout the town. In what was only an hour of Tim and Bobby's time, the human had found a job at a tools and supplies factory (a factory that manufactures things needed to make more things) and entered into a warm, pleasant, and passionless relationship. Aimlessly, he went about his life and embarked on tasks as empty and meaningless as possible. He bought the CDs he was supposed to buy and watched the tv that was supposed to be hip. He met people and developed relationships but never got to know anyone including himself. He learned to surf and bought the right hoodies and cried himself to sleep at night.

Bobby flicked the side of the fish bowl with his thumb. "How loud do you think that is to them?"

A group of tiny humans looked up and scratched their heads, searching the skies for lightning that would never come.

"Don't be a jerk," Tim said.
"Seems like he's a good one," Bobby said. "He's fitting in nicely."
"Yeah," Tim said.
"Should we call him Steve number 2?"
"That is a nice touch."
"They certainly do mess up the bowl a lot with all their waste. How often do you need to clean it out?"
"Every 5,000 years their time, About every couple months our time," Tim said.
"Weird, it seems like they're crapping up the fish bowl a lot. I would have guessed you do it more often."
"They seem to like their own waste."
"So are you going to call Angie?"
"I guess. I don't know. It doesn't matter anyway."
"Right," Bobby said.

Bobby ordered a pizza while Tim sat by the fish bowl, watching tv, but not paying attention. They spent the evening quiet and distant from each other and only commenting on random things on tv every hour or so. Inside the fishbowl Steve's widow hadn't stopped crying yet.

Pet Sitting

2011-02-03T14:41:00.000-08:00

Bonnie's parents dropped her off at the Stephenson's home and waited outside in the truck. She waved them away anxiously, terrified and embarrassed that Mr. Stephenson would see her perky suburban blonde parents sitting in their Ford, eating McDonalds. Bonnie jumped up and down, waving desperately for them to leave, yelling "You're embarrassing me!" at the top of her lungs while strangers peered out their curtains to see what the commotion was. "Stop being so overprotective!" Mr. Stephenson nodded from his window with a raspy chuckle. Bonnie's parents drove off and left her there without waving goodbye.

Relieved, she walked up the grey, peeling steps to Mr. Stephenson's house and rang the doorbell. There was a broken down truck in the driveway. After what felt like an hour he came to the door in a wife beater tank top, his pale hairy belly hanging out the bottom. He had prematurely grey long hair and smelled like cigarette smoke. Bonnie smiled politely and held out her hand to shake his.

Mr. Stephenson shrugged, grunted and ushered her inside. In the house was a disgusting smell, bits of old food and dirty laundry lay all over. Dog poop piled up in the corner. Bonnie stood there for a moment, afraid to look anywhere and settling on her own feet. She waited for Mr. Stephenson to say something and he waited for her to say something. Eventually he cleared his throat.

"So this is where I keep the food and water tins," he grunted. He proceeded to show Bonnie the basic proceedings to care for his dog while he was out of town. Bonnie shifted her weight anxiously from foot to foot.

A woman in a long off white nightdress made out of sweatshirt fabric came down the stairs. Her grey hair hung down her back in a greasy tangle. She stopped when she saw Bonnie.

"Who the hell is that?" the woman inquired to Mr. Stephenson.
"I don't know," he answered with a shrug.
"What?" Bonnie chirped. "Hi, I'm Bonnie." She stuck out her hand at the woman. "I'm pet sitting next week when Mr. Stephenson is out of town and he just wanted to show me the house.
The woman neglected to shake her hand and barked at Stephenson, "You're going out of town!?"
"WE are going out of town," he answered.
"Are you Mr. Stephenson's mom?" Bonnie asked.
"Yes," she answered.
"No," he said simultaneously. "This is my girlfriend Charlotte,"
"I'm his... okay, whatever," she said.

Mr. Stephenson continued to show Bonnie around the house, now seemingly pointing out things that had nothing to do with the dog. "This is the ironing board; this is the beer bottle Charlotte pees in when I'm tying up the bathroom..." Bonnie wondered if he had forgotten why she was there.

"May I meet the dog?" she asked.
"What?" Mr. Stephenson said.
"The dog... I'd like to meet him before...."
"What dog?"
"What the hell is going on?" Charlotte yelled.
"I'm supposed to dog sit, right?" Bonnie asked.
"I thought you were going to bring your own dog."
"No...."
"Is this some kind of sick joke?" Charlotte asked. "My dog died several years ago. Is this the kind of bullshit manners your parents teach you? Get the fuck out of here."

Bonnie left in a nervous flutter, cheeks burning and tears behind her eyes. She walked home and as she did so she saw a truck race past her towards her house. She thought she saw Mr. Stephenson driving it. When she got home someone had dumped piles of dog food out on her front lawn. Her parents stood on the front porch with their arms crossed, scowling and waiting.

New outfit

2011-02-02T23:15:00.000-08:00

I sat at the lunch table trying to eat my tuna fish sandwich. I clumsily gripped the soft wheat bread between my fingers, pinching too hard and leaving mushy prints. I lifted the sandwich and jammed it messily into my mouth. I chewed for a few moments and swallowed uncomfortably. My friends sat around me chatting and laughing. My eyes swelled in my sockets as I observed, watering as I moistened and clogged the bread into my epiglotas.

Their conversation was like a ping pong match because their words bounced across the table and there wasn't any reason for anyone to be sweating. I felt guilty perspiring all over my new outfit. I subtly shifted my arms a little, hoping that creating an airflow would lessen the potential for B.O.

I laughed too loudly at things that weren't meant to be funny. My friends looked at me and rolled their eyes. One of them muttered, "Is that your real laugh?" Do you really think that it's fake? Why would I choose this laugh voluntarily? I grappled at their conversation, trying to hang afloat, like a kitten being shoved off a boat in the middle of a sea of toilet water. They talked about movies I hadn't seen and comic books I hadn't read. I yelped and muttered things semi-on topic but still strikingly obtuse, thought bubbles in a different color creeping out from my cloudy alien brain.

I felt like a puppy begging for attention and getting routinely pushed face first under the table, out of the way. I said several stupid remarks about the table, lunch, my friend's hair. It felt like they were all speaking French and I only knew four French words. I kept listening to their conversation, trying to keep up and blurting out whenever I heard something familiar. Burning with embarrassment I shoved food into my face just to stop myself from talking.

We thought things would have been different after Abby was gone. That they would start noticing me and treating me like her. She had been the bell of the ball, if by ball I mean every group of people in social situations you could possibly imagine that would make you anxious and feel like a bloated freaky cow. She was the bell of the balls of society and society had giant disgusting throbbing blue balls for pretty outgoing girls like her. After she left, I assumed I would get her treatment. I don't think they even noticed. They were treating me the same way, as a weird annoyance.

Now Jennifer was the leader. She was the new Abby. Jennifer was beautiful, smart, adorable, friendly, loud, outgoing, charming, charismatic, and wonderful. Why hadn't I seen it before? She was more the lovable leader than Abby ever was. I watched her as she spoke, pretty perfect lips formed clear clever sentences. When she said something people quieted down, turned to her, and listened. Watching them listening to her was like sex, because it happens to me so rarely when it does I usually mess up.

Walking home I thought obsessively about Jennifer, re-imagining what it would be like to be her. I thoughtfully lusted after the way she talked and the way people listened in a friendly manner. I enviously mused over how she rarely said something stupid, accidentally mean, or uncomfortable.

Each step felt clumsy, like it wasn't mine anymore. My feet wobbled like jello on the harsh sidewalk, my bones slipping inside my mushy feet. A sick swelling rose in my entire body. I wanted to scream at the ugly flowers on my neighbors lawn, "why not me? why never me!" I fought the urge to throw up and my face slid slightly out of place on my anxious head.

I let myself inside and walked up into my room. In front of the full length mirror I looked into Abby's disheveled uncomfortable face. Her silent lips hung sad and useless on my jaw. I reached for the zipper and unzipped Abby's skin suit. It fell in a lumpy pile to the ground. I stepped out of it, naked. I avoided eye contact with my own body in the mirror. The cold breeze sweetly nestled against my flubby, sweaty stomach. My hair, drenched in the inner moistness of Abby's skin, was pulled into a clammy ponytail.

I kicked Abby's skin suit to the side of my room. I didn't want to be that girl anymore. It was futile. I opened the window wider to wash out the scent of her decaying epidermis. Her blood dribbled on the hardwood floor in tiny freckles. I was slightly embarrassed at how disgusting I was. Anyone who would come in would think I was a sick freak, for leaving her skin like that on the floor instead of taking it down to the basement with the rest of her. But I was too tired and lazy to care.

I climbed into my soft comfortable flannel pajamas. I sighed when I got into bed, reveling in the familiar. I watched cars dance by my home outside my window, twinkling lights whispering me to sleep like so many ghosts of murdered fireflies. My head swam with dreams of tomorrow and I lazily eyed my knife on the counter. I would be loved soon enough. As I shut my eyes and peacefully sang a little lullaby to myself about cats with peacock feathers as hair. I wondered if it would be a problem that Jennifer was much thinner than I. Then I remembered a tool I head for stretching fabric out. I smiled and sank away from everything into sleep.

The Cave

2011-02-01T14:57:00.000-08:00

Alice wiped the sweat off her forehead, forgetting that her hand was covered in mud. She cringed and the follicles of earth and water and animal defecation seeped into her open glistening pores. Her auburn ponytail beat against her back while she hiked across the cliff side. The strong ocean breeze pulled at her shorts and shaggy leg hair. She stepped carefully amongst the rocks to keep her balance in the wind. Salt stung her watery eyes and she panted heavily as she struggled beneath her her backpack.

The ocean heaved and thrashed amongst itself. It roared a loud one loud scream layered over another. Thoughts and fears cascading and being pushed under by the throbbing pressure of the water. Sprays hissed and leaped up from the rocks, sending jets a few feet into the air.

Alice pulled her small map book out of her backpocket. She stretched an aching calf muscle while she flipped through the pages of hiking trails. She couldn't identify the path that she was on in her book and her phone had died hours ago. But she wasn't anxious that she was lost, because wherever she was happened to be an okay place to be.

She sat down on the edge of the cliff and looked out into the ocean. A lot of hikers hiked with headphones in but Alice never did. The rattle inside her head was noisy enough and it was nice to finally be away from other people long enough for the internal commotion to quiet itself down. The fresh air smelled like freedom and it smoothed her tensed emotions. For the first time in months she was able to relax. She undressed her aura, peeling off layers of anxiety and discomfort like too many scarves and sweaters in June. She tossed the unwanted anxieties down onto the cliff side. Rolling her tight shoulders, she sighed in relief at how comfortable and unburdened she felt.

Below her jutting out from the cliffside she could see the mouth of a cave sinking into the rocks, deep and hidden from the noisey violent waves. Alice climbed down and crawled into the cave. Once inside the mouth of the cave she could stand up to her full height. Protected by the wind and the sun, she explored the sweet coolness of the shadows. Out the mouth of the cave she could see miles and miles of ocean and sky, melding together in an indistinct blob of everything and nothingness. Clouds of time and feelings kissed each other against the horizon and Alice turned her back on it, seeing it was, only empty beauty.

Alice sat down in the quiet cave and pulled a snack from her backpack. A chirping echoed deep in the cave and tiny claws scampered out from the darkness. A small frog like monster creature nimbly ran towards her. It's scaly tail smacked against the rock floor. It's horns bounced as it ran. Large glowing yellow eyes illuminated the shadows only proving there was nothing to see.

Without flinching, Alice set some of her trail mix on the ground for the monster to eat. Watching her cautiously, it crouched and with tiny claw like hands began to feed itself. It chewed thoughtfully for a moment and then spoke.

"What are you doing here?" The monster said. He had an elegant, polite, but raspy voice.
"Enjoying it."
"It? There's nothing here."
"I'm here," Alice said.
"Oh, right." He paused eating more trail mix. "Are you lonely?"
"That doesn't really mean anything. But maybe, I guess."

The monster didn't say anything. He seemed satisfied with that response and scampered away, kipping a pile of loose stones as he did so. Alice stood up and went to the mouth of the cave, looking out at the view. She thought of everyone and everything, jumbled in too many noises and colors swirling around in her brain, reaching for her with an intense multitude of spider arms. She squinted out against the horizon.

"I wonder if I can see my house from here," she whispered, barely audible against the roar of the ocean.

Alice carefully picked up the loose stones and artfully placed them one on top of the other, constructing an uneven wall. The darkness grew darker and cooler and quieter, and Alice felt safer and calmer as she sealed up the mouth of the cave.

2011-01-31T23:06:00.001-08:00

Shyness, meeting new people, making friends

2011-01-24T12:25:00.000-08:00

The first day of kindergarten I met more children then I had ever seen in my life. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that the school taught more than two students. Coming from a house where I was routinely chastised for “acting like a clown” or laughing too loudly, I was overwhelmed by the incessant jubilant chatter of rambunctious kids.

The only person I had connected with up until then had been my little brother and I was excited and terrified to meet new people. During recess I hovered anxiously, watching children play. It was at five years old that I developed the impression that interaction with other humans was a spectator sport. They could have sold me popcorn, a soda, and a program for life so that I could have been more comfortable watching from the sidelines of relationships.

Inexplicably, I never allowed myself to just be content on the outskirts. It is a painful juxtaposition: desiring to connect with others and absolve my loneliness mixed simultaneously with an overwhelming fear and discomfort of being around other people. I am so jealous of people with friendships and close relationships and I desperately wish I could create that kind of closeness with someone. But at the same time, I revel in being alone and I feel exhausted being around people too long. I want to make friends but I hate meeting people. It’s probably a good thing I can’t make friends come to think of it, because what would I do with them if I could? Hey, wanna come over and sit quietly on our computers? Because that’s the only thing I like doing. Yay I have a relationship! Now can we enjoy some alone time? Because I'm glad we're friends but I can't stand being around people.

This girl Kasia was one of the prettiest most outgoing children. I admired the way she talked to the other kids and laughed (not annoyingly and squawking like me) and I picked her as my potential future friend. I followed her around on the recess playground, hiding behind various gym equipment. I stalked her like a cat stalking it's prey, if the cat was socially retarded and its prey thought it was an idiot. When she turned around I stood completely still and shut my eyes so she wouldn’t see me, because that's how I thought invisibility worked.

I triumphantly cornered her in a playhouse and followed her inside muttering manically and gleefully: “good she went into the playhouse alone! now I've got her!” Which is something a child molester would say, and also incorrect. Because a playground is not like a pregnancy, you can't trap someone into being in a relationship.

“What are you doing?” Kasia said.

I hadn't planned this far in advance. I stood there, frozen in the playhouse, grinning at her hysterically.

“What do you want?” the little girl sounded scared now.

I began giggling softly and squeakily and shaking in anxiety. I trembled violently and realized that socially anxiety is the narcissistic hipster boy of emotions because whenever it's inside me I want to throw up. I heaved a little and Kasia ran out of the playhouse.

Due to that moment and enduring a plethora of criticism on my personality traits, throughout my life I struggled with trying to make friends. I was (am) especially intimidated by outgoing, assertive, aggressive girls who represent everything I wanted to be that remained unobtainable and beautiful. There have been a few girls in my life who I idolized and I wanted to be them and simultaneously I wanted them to love me and acknowledge my existence. I drowned in the shadows, painfully wishing I could have the spotlight yet hating it whenever I got it.

I have spent countless dollars on books with titles like "Learn how to talk to people!" And the first sentence is never "stop hiding in the library and go out and talk to real people." One time I was on a bus and this guy came and set next to me and was like "Hey, how are you," and I said "I'm sorry I'm reading, it's really important. I need to study this; I'm sorry I can't be distracted." And he said "What are you reading?" And I answered, "How to overcome shyness and talk to strangers."

I resent and admire girls who can easily slip into the center of attention and be like "look at me, look at me!" and direct the conversation. When I see girls flirt with boys to get attention anger screams inside my ears. Often times they're flirting with them, but they'll never even put out. It's much healthier to stay silent around men and secretly fuck them and then feel guilty after. I watched in vehement anger from the shadows while girls confidently leaped into conversations, making groups of people laugh. People with assertive/aggressive energy intimidate me and make me very anxious and uncomfortable.

According to the Shy and free website, "Shyness is the emphasis of one part of us resulting in the limitation of our personal freedom and expression." I guess that describes it pretty well. I feel very limited/trapped/inhibited by my shyness.

It was really hard for me to deal with rejection and failed attempts at friend making. But while researching this bit I looked up Kasia on facebook and I think it's okay that we never became friends because now Kasia is now married, orange-tan, and lives in Pullayup and puts posts on facebook about the Twilight movies. So I don't think I missed out on much.

As crippling and painful as shyness is, I need to learn to deal with it and accept myself for who I am. I'll never be the outgoing girl who is the center of attention, but do I want to be that? Probably not. Sometimes I'm jealous of how quickly assertive people make friends... Do I want to be a loud outgoing brassy broad? I have no idea. But I do know this: my favorite comedians: Maria Bamford, Mary Mack and Aparna Nancherla have quiet, introspective, observer styles of comedy. People who display aggressiveness on stage I am turned off by. My favorite style of comedy is thoughtful, sweet, quirky... I like performers that sound kind and gentle on stage. I am a quiet, peculiar, wallflower, weird, observer person/writer/comedian and I think that is okay that I am that way!

Testing...

2011-01-19T17:32:00.000-08:00

Albert leaned over his notebook so Jennifer couldn’t see that it was blank. He pushed his glasses up his nose and wiped the sweat off his eyes. Behind the one way mirror the couple argued vehemently. Jennifer, Albert’s junior lab partner, jotted down a note in her notebook, her graceful young hands nimbly dancing over the page, getting covered in dark splotchy ink. Black spots squirting over her smooth hands and caking them in a luscious batter. Albert bit his bottom lip thoughtfully and turned back to the couple in the glass box.

“Well I’m sorry if just for one single second I don’t want to hear about some fucking artistic foreign film!” screamed the boyfriend.

“Did you even notice that I lightened my hair?” cried the woman.

"Fucking hell, I can't do anything, anything anything without you jumping down my fucking throat!"

“I did it because you said that blonde woman was so pretty.”

“She was hot because she was thin, not because of her stupid hair, idiot!”

“You never notice me anymore,” she sobbed, snot dripping over her lips and down the crevice of her blouse.

“Of course I don’t notice you anymore! I’m with you about 10 fricking hours a day when I’m awake. There’s nothing to notice about you anymore.”

“Have they been in there long enough?” Jennifer asked.

Albert looked at his watch and mumbled, “Yeah. We should start the next test.”

“Send in test subject C,” Jennifer said clearly into the microphone. They watched as a gentleman in a classy sport coat ushered the fighting couple out of the room.

“So what made you want to study the way love works?” Jennifer asked.

“It just seemed like a fascinating social science. No one’s really dealt with it. Sure it can be explained from an evolutionary level, a societial pressures level, but when you look at this…” he gestured at the retreating backs of the couple. “There’s really no explanation for that kind of raw desperate pain and cruelty in people.”

“What’s the next test?” Jennifer asked.

“Familial love,” Albert said.

A young family with two children, a boy and a girl, were escorted into the room. They nervously sat down in four chairs and waited. Albert watched while the children played quietly together and the parents nervously clenched and unclenched their fists. The parents’ eyes were trained intently on the two little kids, but they weren’t seeing them. The children clambered over each other as the doctor entered. The parents stood and shook his hand.

Albert and Jennifer watched in thick silence. Albert wanted to say something but he felt the uncomfortable clenching in his throat preventing him from reaching out to anyone with communication. Jennifer studiously took down notes.

The doctor told the parents that both the children were terminally ill and that with their resources they could only save one of them and that the parents would have to choose which one.

Albert felt himself sinking farther into his chair, swimming in the melting room. Noises around him blared loud but foreign, berating at him like reality was a smelly toddler shaking it's fat fists. The chairs and desk and wall and everything looked plastic like it had been torn from a child’s cheap dollhouse. Albert sadly let his head fall into his hands. His data about love welled up in his stomach and he heaved quietly without moving. The room around him, even the parts of it that he was physically touching, began to shrink farther away. Albert scanned his memory for friendly faces but they seemed small, distant, and unaware and exclusive of him.

On the walk home he swung into a hardware store. The man behind the counter scowled at him like he was a child out past curfew. He angrily rang up Albert’s products and slipped them mechanically into a plastic sack. Albert watched through wide eyes, terrified and screaming out from the prisoning cage of his skull. The cashier seemed too far away to hand Albert his bag, but somehow he managed to reach it.

Jennifer watched from across the street as Albert left the hadware store and went home. She adjusted her neat ponytail and entered a nearby building.

“How is test subject 1487 doing?” asked a man in a long lab coat holding a clipboard. All of the brilliant scientist eyes in the room turned to Jennifer.

“The same as all the other test subjects.” Jennifer answered quietly. “He didn’t react well to the tests. I don’t think he even said goodbye to me when he left.”

“Peculiar.” said a scientist with frizzy red hair.

“And,” Jennifer added with a sad head shake. “I just saw Albert, I mean 1487, walking into a hardware store…”

“Excellent,” said frizzy hair.

The other scientists nodded and pulled out a chair for Jennifer, indicating that the young scientist join them.

“Don't you guys think this is a really immoral test? Why are we studying how people react when forced to question love? 1486 tests have yielded the same findings,” she said. "It doesn't seem ethical."

“It’s not for us to question who designs these experiments.” Someone handed her a paper plate with a slice of greasy pizza on it.

“Right,” Jennifer said softly, biting into her pizza.

A few miles away Albert let himself into his apartment. He sat the plastic grocery bag on the table. Without turning any of the lights on he made a tomato sandwhich and ate it by himself in the darkness. He rested his spectacles on the counter. He took the rope from the plastic bag, neatly put the bag into a cupboard. The bored cat slinked out from under the table and rubbed against his calves. Albert fed him and let the cat outside into the street. The streetlights smiled up at him, waving superficially past the emptiness through Albert to a person who he wasn't. Albert patiently went back inside, letting the nothingness of the night inside with him. No one in the apartment complex even winced at the heavy sound of the chair clattering to the ground.

Dear Spanaway, we're fighting

2011-01-13T11:49:00.000-08:00

Last night when Yogi picked me up I clambered into his mom's car with my microphone and amp. "Why are you bringing that?" he asked. "The booker called and said there was no PA." Sadly this was not the first clue that the show we were about to go to would be a horrible mess of sadness and souls crying and comedy dying. That shouldn't have rhymed. We picked Emmett up and had a nice hour long or so conversation about puppets, beards (Yogi's and Emmett's, not mine), movies I haven't seen, getting high and bottom intercourse in the bottom hole.

As soon as we get to the restaurant I read the "Family Fun Restauraunt!" marquee and groan. In bright clip-art style font: "Kids eat free on weekdays!" Seriously. The waitress goes "You're the comedian? Honey, you look like you're 15." Which isn't too surprising, except I hadn't spoken yet. I don't look like I'm 15 I SOUND that way. And without any sounds coming out of my squeaky childlike lispy mouth, there is no way to guess that. I took it as a compliment because I could tell by her sparkly studded belt that she thought 15 was a pretty cool age to be.

Almost immedietly the owner of the restaurant attacks us and tells us that the comedy shows have been going really poorly and that no one has been funny. He said it like an angry accusation that already he had decided we weren't funny, as I watched out of the corner of my eyes the waitresses moving the kids tables and high chairs out of the way to create space for the comics to stand. He proceeded to tell us that a local guy was going to open for us and he was bringing 40-50 people and that he'd never gone up before. I said that was fantastic of course he can do a guest spot if he's bringing that type of crowd. "Yeah," the owner of the family fun restaurant says, "so he'll be getting his half hour." "Half hour?" I said. "He's never gone up before? Realistically he'll probably want to do 3-5 minutes for his first time." The owner exploded, "I have had calls coming in asking about this guy all week! I have had more interest in him than I have in any of these other comedians who I've never heard of before. He's getting his half hour of time."

The average age of the audience in the more redneck version of denny's is 60. They all look like they're about to fart or die. This new guy James had brought maybe 6 people instead of 40 and they were all just like really out of it, like they were high but I don't think they were. Just staring into space not facing me. I opened as the mc with attempting to fire it up (they cheered and clapped as much as I would expect them to in a well lit Denny's.) I did my condom joke and the greedy stripper. The condom joke got laughs in weird places but worked. The greedy stripper bombed. I brought this new guy James up and he played some cheesy intro music and danced a bit. Then he sat on the stool. (Used up all the energy with his intro?) and for half an hour he talked (no jokes) and ate shit. He didn't seem to care that he was bombing. I ate my veggie burger and drank my two beers quickly trying to quench the despair rising inside me.

After James I went back up and proceeded to start to do jokes. I did maybe two jokes. They wanted a relateable comedian who they could watch and laugh at and be like "oh yes women do go shopping! I can identify with that! Commonality makes me feel less insignificant and boring!" I don't have a lot of relatebility on stage unless the audience also has spent a few days not leaving their apartment because they're afraid that by interacting with their friends and family they're making everyone's reality worse. When I started going into my Hulk joke I stopped and said "Do you guys know who the hulk is?" Nothing. I stumbled verbally. "What kind of jokes do you guys like? I have hundreds I'm sure I have something." Silence. I addressed a guy in the front row. "Sir, what kind of jokes do you like?" "Nah, you doin fine, you doin good." "If I'm doing 'good' then why aren't you laughing?" Nothing. I started bringing random audience members on stage to try to warm them up. When I brought two women on stage and tried to talk to them who looked bored one of them told me, "Well fuck this joke, just do the next one!" and ran back off the 'stage.' I moved on to singing songs to people in the crowd and started doing better. I got a sing a long going and decided that was as warm as they were going to get.

I brought Yogi up and he did well. He just did his material and didn't address the crowd or talk about how much it sucked. I could tell that he was miserable up there. He got off stage looking really down and I brought Emmett up. Emmett had the best set. He didn't do a lot of his alternativer stuff but mainly did stories and tried to engage the crowd. That whole night Emmett was kind to everybody, even the bar owner who was a short angry man on the verge of yelling, the new guy who did half an hour, and the booker who had no idea what the fuck a comedy show was supposed to be. Fact: it should not be in a family fun restaurant. I wished after seeing Emmett's set that I had more story jokes. My favorite line of the night was when he was telling a story about his wife and he was talking to the audience: "How long have you folks been married? 23 years? That's older than Barbara....'s self esteem! Anyone else been married longer than 2 weeks?"

Yogi is one of the most hilarious and hard working comedians I know. He's got a special talent, especially for riffing/thinking on the fly/being in the moment that most comics don't. He is one of the most creative and unique voices I've ever met. He's an amazingly funny person and comic, consistently getting better and he's one of my best friends. And that show made him doubt himself as a performer. So you might wonder, was it worth it to get $30 and a free burger and two beers to do a shitty room? Sure. But was it worth it to make a hilarious friend of mine feel bad about himself? Nothing is fucking worth that ever. That room is where comedy goes to die.

The only good thing about doing completely awful family fun style hick restaurants with senior citizens as the audience is that comparitively I won't be scared of those snobby hipsters.

idea of what I do at work

2010-12-28T23:44:00.000-08:00

Phone call at work:
Me: Good afternoon karr tuttle campbell?
caller: Hello??
Me: ...Hello.
Caller: Hello?? (sounds of snot and gross stuff)
Me: Hello. Karr tuttle Campbell?
Caller: Is this Karr Tuttle Campbell.
Me: Yep.
Caller: Oh do you um know this one attorney I worked with about 20 years ago?
Me: What was the name of the attorney?
Caller: I don't remember his name, but I think I might remember his wife's name. But I don't remember it.
Me: Do you know the name of the case?
Caller: What case? I don't know
Me: Oh but he worked with our firm 20 years ago?
Caller: No well he well um (gruff grumble) he didn't work at what
Me: Maybe I can look it up. What was the name of the firm he worked for?
Caller: I don't remember.
Me: Wait, so... you don't remember his name, where he worked, what the case was, and he worked with you 20 years ago?
Caller: No little girl! You're not listening!
Me: WHAT THE FUCK (inside my head loudly)
Caller: His wife's name started with a "G"

Yelling "you're not listening" is the same as saying "I hope this receptionist never helps me."

Christmas sucks 2

2010-12-22T14:39:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I got this text from my mother: "What are you going to get your grandmother and aunt for xmas?"
me: "the joy of getting to spend time with me"
Mom: "Come on Barbara you have to get them something."
(sorry Linus, this is what I think Christmas is about)

Last week I got this text:
Mom: "your aunt put a christmas wish list up online of things she wants, want me to send it to you?"
me: "Like she's registered for a wedding?"
Mom: "Yes."
Me: "No, she's rich she can buy that shit for herself. I'm making homemade heartfelt gifts that she can't buy for herself."
Mom: "k"

A few days ago:
Mom: "I'm going to pick up gifts for your aunt and grandma from their list and put your brother's name on the card. Want me to get some for you to give to them?"
Me: "No, I told you, I'm arts and craftsing some bullcrap that no one wants."
Mom: "ok"

Steve the dream painting penguin

2010-12-15T11:22:00.000-08:00

There once was a penguin
Who had a nice face
He kept it attached to his head
Because it was cleaner than the vase

He didn’t go out much
So he had no use for mace.

The penguin was named Steve
He lived in a little house inside a tree
In a cozy room with windows made of wishes
It was the happiest place a penguin could be

Except of course the Antarctic
Where penguins were thick
But he didn’t live there because work pulled him away
With such a busy job there’s no time for play.

Steve was a professional dream painter
He worked nights most of the time
He painted the backdrop of children’s dreams
Making things wondrous or covered in slime

Out of his bed every night he would climb
And into the dream world he’d slide
While he wished for a partner in crime
Across the night his paintbrush would glide

He painted robots and hilltops and waterfalls and peas
Teachers and uncles and other nightmarish things
The night was Steve’s sailboat
Disbelief was the wind that kept him afloat
The dreams were his seas

He created worlds of wonder
And places of fantasy
Where thoughts could blunder
And wishes could be

He slid in and out of imaginations
But felt disconnected from his own
Feeling the joy of everyone’s love
But his distance from everything had grown

Steve couldn’t fit in with the other animals he met
Not a kitten or a puppy or another pet
Trying to talk to a seagull put him in a sweat
Even though he listened to “How to make friends and influence people” on cassette.

And the dream creatures made him feel lost
So unreal in their reality
When he tried to interact they needed to defrost
Steve was a creature not of the real nor dream world
So alone in his tree he curled
Not knowing where to belong in actuality.

Then one day as he climbed into dream world
A wizard met him there
With eyes that looked like everything
And nothingness that looked like hair.

He said “Steve I’ve been watching you,
You’re a great artist but you seem so sad
What can I do to help you
To make your workdays less bad?”

Steve said, “Mr. Wizard, I need a friend,
Someone to share my emptiness
And laughter
And help me survive this mess.”

Then the wizard gave him some magic pencils
with which he could draw a brand new friend
A companion for fun times to be had
So that the loneliness could end.

And so the penguin drew a giant bunny
to be his friend and laugh at things that were funny
And wipe his nose when it got runny
From crying with joy because life was too sunny.

With a squirt of a rainbow
And the laugh of an imp
The bunny was alive
More real than Steve could know

The bunny loved scaring kids
Taking over their nightmares and dreams
His terror and anger were off the grids
He scared them so much he could eat their screams.

And Steve realized he had created something evil
And he found the wizard sitting on a hill
He asked “How do I make this go away?
So dream land can be free another day?”

And the wizard told Steve of a cave by the ocean side
Where monsters and creatures of darkness reside
Where dwelled a monster with whom he should be allied
Who owned an eraser
Created anxiously by a pacer
which the fate of the world would decide

So across the dreams Steve sailed
Rain pouring down like the sky had cried
His destination the nighttime had veiled
But he found the cave with imagination as his guide.

He passed by monsters and hideous creatures galore
He shivered and shuddered and trembled some more
Until he found the monster sitting alone
Who had the eraser and sat on a thrown.

“Will you help me?” Asked Steve
“I’ve created a monst- a problem
I need to erase
Or else the terrified children of dream land
I could never face.”

“Yes I’ll help you,” said the monster.
“My name is Ben.
I have a magic eraser for a reason
So let’s get to saving the world then.”

Together they sailed into the night
Steve eyed the eraser with fear and delight
Wondering what would happen if he erased himself
Disappearing into nothingness behind existence’s shelf

Everything that had happened had been his fault
And this chaos he really needed to halt
If he erased himself would the darkness go away?
Would dream land no longer be plagued by the fey?

“I really enjoy your art,” said Ben to Steve,
“It’s unique and it keeps the world of unreality aglow,
I think you have a rare talent if you can believe
I used to be a dream painter myself, you know.”

Steve’s heart beat quickly as they got to the land
Where the bunny raged against children’s minds
And Steve erased him with one single flipper hand
Releasing the dreamers from these terror binds.

Back to the way things were they started to go
Lack of reality was reestablished high and low
Steve had saved the day so that dreamers could play
Everything went back to normal and everyone went on their way.

Almost everything went back to normal.

If my facebook status offended you...

2010-12-10T17:39:00.001-08:00

A few days ago I posted this wonderful joke as my facebook status update:
this was my first favorite joke when I was a kid "My mom is praying for a husband for me, without ceasing candlelight vigil at my request. Gotta give her something to do with her hands. I want to get married. All the kissing and the hugging underneath the cozy covers. But sometimes I worry I don't want to get married ...as much as I want to be dipped in a vat of warm rising bread dough." -Maria Bamford

Yesterday I posted this one:
‎"My mom told me she wished I'd never been born. And I don't think that's true. Because then she'd have a 26 year old man living inside her." -Dan Mintz

Today I got this email from my mother:

"Barbara,
This is disgusting, I'm crying......how can you post this?
This is not funny, it is disturbing.
Please remove this from your facebook and never refer to me again on facebook. You have deeply hurt me.
You are to smart for this.
Jane"

Questions and thoughts that I would like to direct to my Mom but am too shy to:
Okay, first of all, how could you possibly think these jokes are about you? Do you see the quote marks around the words and the names that I attribute them to (which are different than my name)? Could that possibly be any indication that I did not write them? Or have you never seen a quote before? I could not have possibly written either of them because in the Bammer joke it's about marriage, and that would get in the way of my plans to hide in my hide in my room without talking to people except for my pet bunny for days without seeing another human. And I couldn't have written the Mintz joke because it's about a 26 year old man not a 23 year old girl-like creature. Obviously neither of the mothers in these jokes are you. Thirdly, even if I had written them, why do they offend you? Both are brilliantly clever and creative in different ways. I would be so proud if I shoved something out of one of my holes that was capable of creating something so great. Fourthly: "too."
But I think this email is just par for the course in my parents hatred of my love of comedy or anything that is different than what they do.

Christmas wish list

2010-12-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

Conversation with my mother.
Mom: "What do you want for Christmas? Your grandma, aunt, and uncle have all been nagging me."
Me: "I don't really need anything."
Mom: "Don't be a martyr"
Me: "What? I'm not I just don't need anything right now."
Mom: "But it's CHRISTMAS. Pick something you want."
Me: "For Christmas what I want is, it would be nice if for once we could be in the same room for a few hours without screaming at each other and crying. Wait, no, I mean money."
Mom: "Don't be ridiculous you need to get something. Otherwise it's not christmas. You'll break your grandma's heart if you don't let her get you anything."

Halloween

2010-10-30T01:56:00.000-07:00

I love halloween. Any holiday that gives me an opportunity to dress up in a retarded costume and gorge myself on unhealthy foods should be cherished. It's a day to lower your inhibitions, embrace the supernatural and blur the line between your normal self and a big nerd. I love monsters, especially sasquatches and yetis but I could take or leave grizzly bears, which are like the real life version of those. However put it in a circus and give it a ball, and I try to keep it as a pet. Can I buy your circus bear? Will it run on dreams and wishes? Because I don't plan on feeding it. Around halloween I always wonder if witches and ghosts would ever go to a human party, dressed as slutty as possible. The costumes aren't that diverse. There's slutty ninja, sexy pirate, or you could just go all the way and dress like your parents never warned you about date rape. I can kinda see where the desire to dress like a stripper for a day comes from. Their dads probably didn't show their love hard enough. But if you add self loathing, narcissism and extreme anger management problems to those fathers, these girls could easily be hosting a comedy show. I saw a man wearing a slutty halloween costume! What's the point in that? Are any ladies looking at that and being like "wow what impressive cleavage on your storm trooper suit! Try these fruity cocktails I mixed myself and have no idea how much alcohol is in, hahaha, let's get drunk and pretend it's an accident in the morning just so that I feel less empty and dead inside!" Maybe, maybe they are.

long story joke with no real ending

2010-10-28T14:03:00.000-07:00

I went home to see my family because if you don’t experience pain, I think you can’t appreciate what love feels like. My mom asked if I was dating anyone and I was like “well if by dating you mean trying to guess their ages, then no. Age doesn’t matter; it’s size that counts.” I haven’t had a boyfriend in two years because I like being happy. My brother David said “She doesn’t date men, she just has f-u-c-k buddies.” And that’s when we found out that my eighty year old grandma can spell. She started crying and wailing, “I’ll never have grandchildren.” And I was like “technically, it’s me that will never have your grandchildren if you were having your own grandchildren that means you were impregnated by your son.” And my mom was like, “what about david?” and she was like “I don’t want my grandchildren to be redheads!” because my brother has read hair. I’m like “what’s the likelihood of that happening when his girlfriend is asian?” and she said, “Barbara that’s offensive, I’m colorblind,” Then why do you care about redheads?

This drama is still going on....

2010-10-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

"To put it another way, if I am on stage and I make a joke about suicide, and someone in the audience just lost a family member to suicide, I'd certainly feel awful for causing someone a moment of pain. But that person came to a comedy club, where any topic is fair game. And if they really don't like what happened, they can leave. They can ask for their money back. They can even wait in the parking lot to yell at me, if they wish. But however angry they might be with me, the fact remains that they willingly entered that club with the understanding that they might not like what they hear. " -Paul F Tompkins (http://paulftompkins.com/blog_detail.php?id=46)

"Tycho: Hello, this is Tycho Brahe, of Penny Arcade. We recently made a comic strip where an imaginary person was raped imaginarily by a mythological creature whose every limb was an erect phallus. Some found that idea disturbing.
Gabe: We want to state in clear language, without ambiguity or room for interpretation: We hate rapers, and all the rapes they do. Seriously, though. Rapists are really the worst.
Tycho: It's possible you read our cartoon, and became a rapist as a direct result. If you're raping someone right now, stop. Apologize. And leave. Go, and rape no more."
-Penny Arcade

This thing with rape jokes is confusing. Can we not say the word rape without offending someone? Or is it more like we can't describe rape (because that might give someone a flashback) or make light of it? I used to feel this way about suicide/ eating disorder jokes. If a comic just said the word "eating disorder" it didn't really offend me, but if a comic described in detail how it feels (full of self loathing, wanting to disappear etc) that would make me uncomfortable. But I got over it and now I make those jokes more than anyone. Also even when I was more sensitive to that shit it wasn't like I couldn't laugh at it if it was funny. Only nonfunny things could ever offend me.

"Substitute the word "tape"" - The amazing Tim Hammer.
Me: "Isn't she tapeable? Not with that voice."

why I didn't make it to work today

2010-10-23T01:21:00.001-07:00

Why I didn't make it to work today... a poem

Jumping on my bed
Bouncing on the dead
Dancing to the beats
There’ s a ghost in my sheets
He’ s haunting my pillow heap
So I can’ t go to sleep
The ghost is a scary poltergeist
Even scarier than Jesus Christ
The guy crucified on the cross
Returning as a zombie to show who’ s boss
But this ghost wasn’ t Jesus
Stop making a fuss
He’ s not magic so calm the heck down
He’ s just the ghost of an old clown
Who murdered his family
And chopped them to bits tidily
And was given the electric chair
Which fried off all his hair
And killed him so hard to death
Zapping out all his breath
He’ s in bed trying to haunt me
As plain as you can see
He’ s certainly not fake
And he’ s keeping me awake
So If I don’ t make it in to work tomorrow
Even though I’ d regrettably be filled with sorrow
It’ s because I had a terrible fright
I was haunted all fricking night
It’ s not because of all the beers you see
That may or may not have been drank by me
I’ m not hung over I can safely boast
I’ m skipping work because of the ghost.

Empty Drawer

2010-07-28T15:48:00.000-07:00

Stephanie sauntered blithely through the cemetery, wrapped in a robe of sunshine. The grass radiated almost too green, possibly dyed brightly by the decaying dead bodies it blanketed. Chewing on a strand of blonde hair, she hesitated in front of the funeral home. shifting her weight from foot to foot. She skipped around the building to enter the mortuary from the back door. She quietly let herself in and tip toed into the morgue where her friend Evan was leaning over a corpse and he and the old gentleman's remains were both being very still.

Stephanie hopped up and sat on a counter watching Evan dress the old man in a black suit for burial with a piano necktie.

Stephanie had visited Evan every day at work for the last six months. At first he had thought that she like-liked him but with every increasingly cheery surprise visit, he realized that she only liked dead people, just platonicaly. Evan finished up his work, put the dead old man in the morgue drawer, and the two of them went out for lunch. Evan watched her hands dance with vivacity, fingers curling like ten worms levitating and fornicating in the air. As she verbally breath-stroked from topic to topic, her hair swirled across her face like a curtain of yellow healthy urine. He looked down into his nothing-colored pasta, willing time to speed up.

The next day Stephanie came to visit again, sitting backwards on a chair and propping her elbows on the plastic back and resting her chin in her hands. Evan was hunched in front of the morgue drawer.
“He’s gone,” Evan said.
“Who?”
“Piano Necktie man. I put him in the drawer and now he’s gone.”
“Was he not dead yet? Almost dead? No pulse and not breathing yet still able to crawl?”
“Watch this,” Evan said. He rolled a marble into the morgue drawer and shut it. Then he opened it again.
“It’s gone?” Stephanie stood up and walked over. She squinted into the long thin drawer and felt around the cool metal.
“That’s the twentieth marble I’ve tossed down there,” Evan said. He grabbed a half drank can of coke and set it inside the drawer. When he opened it; it was gone.
“That’s amazing!” Stephanie yelped.

She danced around the morgue grabbing random things and tossing them in. She sent a piece of old pizza and a few books and even a camera out into nothingness. She cart-wheeled around the morgue and kissed Evan on the cheek. Evan blushed hotly and ushered Stephanie out so he could finish his work. He ignored the morgue drawer of disappearances and hurriedly struggled his way through his boring-as-death tasks with his mind locked in a jar elsewhere. On the way home from work Evan bought a bouquet of lilies. She’d like that because they were a funeral flower. He went to sleep with a smile on his face knowing that the next day he would go to work reeking of tenacity.

That night Stephanie put on a little black dress and bright pink high heels. She brushed her hair for the first time in several months and even clipped her fingernails. She rode her bicycle to the morgue, singing happily to herself as she did so. When she got there she parked her bike at the cemetery gate without bothering to lock it up. She let herself into the funeral home using the key she had stolen from Evan’s pocket when she had kissed him. Since no one would be there after midnight she walked straight in through the front door and confidently into the mortuary. She tied a string to the long table with wheels on the legs. She slipped off her high heels, leaving them purposefully against the wall.

Looking over her shoulder, Stephanie climbed into the morgue drawer. The cool metal exhilaratingly embraced her arms and legs. She lay there, surprised at the tightness of the space, staring into a ceiling a few inches from her head. She saw her reflection peering down at her and she smiled for a moment and closed her eyes. She yanked the string in her hand with all of her strength and the work table rolled plummeting through the empty room and slammed the morgue drawer shut with a snap.

Death of a Duet by Barbara Holm

2010-07-26T16:04:00.000-07:00

The sound of fleshy human fingers dropping on ivory keys echoed through my apartment. I put my book down and half sat up on my couch, glancing down at my watch. The piano player was early today. I hoisted myself out of my nest of slothfulness and into my wheelchair, rolled over to my guitar and set it in my lap. I listened through the walls to the sounds of heartbreak echoing from my neighbor’s apartment. With closed eyes, I let the song wash over me, my fingers sensuously stroking my guitar. It was the same song as the piano player had played last week. I picked out what key it was in my head, nodding my head to the rhythm, and began to play along. The piano player next door didn’t falter, continuing even stronger with the song, leading me through the melody like we were dancing, doing the robot with our souls, if our souls were programmed for ineptitude.

The next day I was watching tv when out of the corner of my eye I saw the piano player man outside the apartment building. His eyes were down on the ground and his steps were measured. I wondered if he knew he was being watched as I shied away from the window. I was surprised as a poop to see him since he usually came once a week. He entered the apartment and I listened as he climbed the stairs to my neighbor’s apartment. I looked at my guitar thoughtfully. The music started again and I rolled to the wall, pressing my palm against the peeling painted wall that felt like decaying, bumpy, dead, chewed up half digested and spit out skin for a house. Something inside me radiated through my hand and through the wall. The piano music seemed tentative and questioning to start out.

“He’s waiting for me to join in,” I whispered to my guitar. “That’s why he came back so quickly… the duet.” You know you’re a lonely cripple physically and emotionally when you can have deep, epiphany-driven conversations with inanimate objects. I began to play along, closing my eyes again and I could feel myself floating out of my chair and him holding me as we swayed along to the music floating in the stars at night.

Every day that week the piano player arrived increasingly earlier. I knew that he was there to serenade my sick old neighbor, but it felt like his notes were addressed directly to me. We continued our duets and I felt like every day his music seemed a little bit louder and closer to me. We had a constricted courtship, as though our interpersonal interactions were masked with a heavy straightjacket of a condom. After five days of vigorously strumming my guitar (that’s not a euphemism) I decided I was going to be brave enough to talk to the man. I put on one of my nicest dresses that I felt highlighted my bosoms and drew attention away from the fact that I’m in a wheelchair. I figured he would notice eventually though, either that or assume that I was less than four feet tall and had a very awkward lower body. I curled my hair, labored over my makeup and then I waited on the landing outside my apartment in my wheelchair for him to come.

Mr. Stephenson from apartment 42B saw me sitting there and came up to me with his annoying little dog. “Hello there little Jessie,” he said.
“Jenny,” I corrected listlessly.
“I see you still got yourself in that wheelchair, eh?” He leaned down on his cane to get closer to my face. He smelled of a rat completely saturated in cologne and bathroom oils and then left to dry out.
“Yes.” I saw the piano man enter the building and my heart jumped. I balanced on my wheels and tried to peer over Mr. Stephenson’s hunching shoulders to talk to the piano man.
“Seems like it’s been, what, a few weeks?”
“As long as I’ve lived here, sir.” He was creeping up the steps, a gloomy look on his face as he stared dejectedly at the ground. He walked up to the steps til he was at my landing. With all the burning force in my body I willed Mr. Stephenson to go away.
“When you gonna get them stems healed? Gotta get yerself to the doctor, that’s what I say.”
“Hi,” I whispered almost inaudibly to the piano man as he hit my landing and then walked over to my neighbor’s front door. He looked at me, not sure if he’d heard me or imagined it. He smiled with a cottony sadness and I knew he was wondering if I was his mystery guitarist. He shook his head to himself and knocked on the door. I didn’t see my neighbor come to the door, but it swung open silently and the piano man entered in. I sighed, my shoulders heavily falling forward down into my chest and I looked back at Mr. Stephenson who was still rattling about.
“You know if you’re still in that chair in a few days, I say just take some good old chicken soup with a little pepper in it and I’ll give you my recipe, all you need is Campbells chicken noodle soup and water and pepper. You got water?”
“Soup isn’t going to fix paralysis, Mr. Stephenson.” I sadly slid back inside my apartment, angry at myself for missing my chance. No music played that evening.

The next day the only music that played was that of the ambulance coming to the apartment complex. The only drum beats were the clambering of the paramedics’ footsteps rushing up the stairs to my neighbor’s door. The only song was the muttering as they carried my neighbor’s lifeless corpse down the stairs in a stretcher. The only thing close to a standing ovation was me sitting in my wheelchair silently wiping a tear away from my jaw as I realized no one would come to play piano for him anymore.

I didn’t know when the funeral was; I didn’t know any of his family or even his name. I watched from my window the parade of dark clothed family members stream through the apartment complex taking boxes and furniture from his apartment like an army of goth movers. I never saw anyone carry a piano out. I wondered if the piano man would come for it. I stayed near the window most afternoons hoping to see him, always in one of my dresses, always ready to tell him how I felt. I imagined him being touched by my guitar music (figuratively) and carrying me away to play music with him in his home. I was dosing off near the window when I finally saw him. My heart leapt into my mouth and sweat began to pour out of my armpits seeping onto my bra like someone had dumped two coffee-pots of perspiration out of my skin. I fanned my face as I made my way to the door.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror, whispering to myself, “I enjoyed our duets. You play beautifully…” practicing my opening lines. I opened the front door to my apartment and wheeled myself out to the landing. I waited patiently for a few minutes and then gasped as he opened the door. My jaw dropped and tears began to percolate in my eyes. I covered my mouth with trembling hands and watched him walk down the stairs quietly holding a small boom box in one hand and a piano music cassette tape in the other.

Monster hugs and other things that are smelly

2010-06-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

Six months into stand up comedy, on Friday I had my first 30 minute set. Everything worked; nothing bombed. There were a few times that I felt like the crowd was talking amongst themselves. I knew I needed to work very hard to keep their attention, and I did work my ass off. I assumed the lack of captivation was because I was going up after 11:30, and the crowd was drunk and ready to go home. Later, however, my wonderful, delightful and incredibly talented, quirky friend Yogi Paliwal told me that they were chatting through everyone’s set except the one person who had brought most of the crowd. He said they even talked a little during my hero Rylee Newton who has been on Comedy Central. So I guess it wasn’t me personally… I’m not sure how exactly that could have been rectified. Overall I’m glad that I was able to do 30 minutes successfully and I think I learned a lot and I know what I need to work on.

One obstacle to my first “headline” set was sitting in the back nursing a diet coke and shaking his head disapprovingly during everyone’s set, my father. This was the first time one of my parents had seen me do a full set and he was sooo angry with me the entire time. When Yogi attempted to make friendly conversation my dad told him that he was a professor in a snobby “my career choice is a lot more respectable and therefore smarter than yours” kind of way; then he told Yogi not to swear on stage, and then proceeded to ignore him. He sat in the corner scowling at me during every weed/sex joke. Despite the many talented comics on the bill, Rylee, Ross Parsons, Yogi, the only one who he smiled during was the fantastically intelligent and hilarious Sean McCarthy’s set. My dad’s stoic cadence filled me with guilt for subjecting him to that show.

After the show I looked for my dad, hoping for a “wow I didn’t realize you could do that, I’m so proud of you” but more realistically expecting a “why are you doing this? This is disgraceful. Go to law school so you can be financially successful but miserable like me.” But I got neither of these. When I was getting off the stage my dad left the bar without saying one word to me. I knew he was pissed but I expected him to at least talk to me or say goodbye. I called him repeatedly until he picked up and said he couldn’t talk now and we’d talk about it “tomorrow” but when I called him the next day I didn’t get a hold of him.

I feel guilty for upsetting my dad but I didn’t even do my “my dad stabbed my hand with a fork” joke because I knew he’d get mad if I talked about how shitty of a father he was. I stayed mostly clean, as I often do. I just want to prove to him that I’m good at something but no matter what I’ll always be a disappointment. My parents don’t want human children with personalities; they want shiny, obedient accessories to their own lives that they can talk about at dinner parties, mirroring their success back at them. I was fortunate that Sean suggested a few of us hang out after the show so I didn’t have to go home to an empty apartment and stew upon my awkward set and my father’s withhold of affection. I’m so overjoyed that I have such wonderful friends. Ross, Andy, Yogi, Sean, you guys are amazing. For the first time in my life I feel like people are really there for me and care about me. Thanks, guys.

I tried not to let anything get me down this weekend, if anything taking those feelings and using them to push me to work harder and perfect my art more and more. On Saturday afternoon I performed at the artopia festival, and I got to see the amazing band Sadberries. Saturday night I was lucky enough to host at the Comedy Underground for Comedy Central/Last Comic Standing/The Tonight Show’s Ty Barnett. Both shows were packed and I did really well and I learned a lot and had a lot of fun. On Sunday I went to the Can Can to watch another of my heroes, Emmett Montgomery, perform as well as two talented performers I really love and look up to: Derek Sheen and Jessica Strauss and a few other performers. Everyone did fantastic and it was an amazingly hilarious show to watch. I am in so much awe of those guys for their creativity, talent and stage presence. They let me host, and I was doing a good job firing the crowd up and getting them energized but then I messed up the lineup and mistakenly intro’d the wrong person out of order. I felt awful and I hope I get asked to host again despite that glaring mistake. I was so mad at myself because I never do stupid things like that. But I guess the silver lining is that I learned an important lesson and I’m only going to work that much harder and be that much more on top of my game when hosting.

Sorry this isn't a funny post... Thanks for listening to me rant.

I know I’m at a point where I need to “level up” if I’m going to stick with this and I’m working incredibly hard and putting all my energy into comedy: writing, promoting, etc. I'm pushing myself very hard and dedicating everything I have into my art. I feel like I need to be perfect every set right now. So I'm trying to write a lot and get as much stage time as possible. All the stress I feel is only going to make me work more. Every mistake I make and obstacle I have to deal with just teaches me more about myself and how I can be better. I'm learning a lot and I know now that no matter what I won't be able to quit.

counting sheep2

2010-06-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

I'm an animal rights activist, which I guess makes me left for animal rights. Growing up in a farming community I always wanted to do something to give back to all the animals. So I would sneak onto farms at night, sprint across the sheep field, jump and leap-hurdle over the fence screaming "count me, count me." But sometimes that isn't even enough for me. So I go and I find people who do count sheep in their sleep and I climb into their subconscious and I rescue the sheep. They're tired! they need sleep too, darn it! But then I'm like what am I gonna do with all these extra sheep? Then I'm like, Barbara, what the heck kind of left wing liberal rights activist are you? You have an overabundance of abundance of sheep.... and there are starving people in the world. And the sheep look at me with their wide metaphorical sleep deprived eyes and say, "But you're a vegetarian" and I'm like "not everyone else is! Come on sheep, let's go find us some starving people." So we went to a sorority. But the sorority girls were being annoying and all "oh no, I couldn't possibly, I'm on a diet and I had half a carrot four hours ago..." So the sheep were just like "fuck it, we're hungry." And in the morning all that was left was 40 empty high heels and 20 vacant push up bras.

27 dresses

2010-06-11T16:32:00.000-07:00

My grandma called me today and she was like, "Barbara, well hello dear, I did saw this movie and, oh holy cow, I think you'd really like it." I was like, "Grandma, I doubt it. Last time you said that I watched Gone with the Wind and got post traumatic stress because it's the saddest movie ever." "Oh, yes, dear, well, oh, I'm um sorry." "Sorry? A little girl dies in that movie; why would you make your grandaughter watch it?" She said, "Yeah, well, oh my, I think you'd like this movie, golly, called 27 dresses."

The reason she recommended 27 dresses is because Katherine Heigel is super dorky and can't get a man, (or something super feminist like that) so she's been a bridesmaid 27 times and never been married. (Which is obviously what all intelligent career minded women in our society aspire to.) My grandma thought I would identify with this socially awkward "outcast" character with a dysfunctional love life. I was like, wait, how dorky and socially awkward is she? She's been to TWENTY SEVEN weddings. I've never been invited to one wedding! Let alone been asked to be a bridesmaid. What I got from the movie was even if you have 27 best friends, you'll still not feel like a complete and happy person until you trap some man into a relationship.

I hate these "dorky" girls in movies. They have normal social skills and are basically well adjusted to society. And the only thing dorky about them is they wear their hair up and have glasses. Then they enact the cliche where they take off their glasses and shake down their hair... and suddenly that was all they had to do to live happily ever after. And once they realize the power of that why don't they just continue shaking their hair and removing their spectacles for the rest of the film? The first time you throw off your glasses and shake your hair you get a boyfriend, but maybe by the fourteenth time you get super powers and your own pet unicorn.

I'm going to make a movie with a girl with some real dorkiness. She'll be like "27 dresses? I-I-I I have 27 puffy cat shirts..."

Bus adventure

2010-06-09T16:16:00.000-07:00

There were these guys on the bus dressed like larpers (live action role players) in wizard and knight outfits and they were on a scavenger hunt. I asked them what they were scavengering for and they said it was hazing to get initiated into their frat. And one guy was indian with an effeminate lisp, one had a receding hairline at age 18, and the last one was fat, Jewish, with a WOW (World of Warcraft) tshirt. I was like "you guys will probably win the scavenger hunt, but there's no way in Alderaan you're getting into a fraternity. This isn't a cliche 80's movie so don't dress like Darth Vader and try to sneak attack intercourse someone, okay? People will press charges." and they were like "When you get to be our age you'll finally understand." I was like these guys are 18; maybe they think I'm Benjamin Button. So I said, "Yeah when I get to be your age I'll let you see my time machine." And they were befuddled because they still didn't realize I was out of school. So one of the larper WOW playing frat boys said, "Time machine? Fucking nerd."

Andy Palmer's ghostwrite of my diary

2010-06-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

"Dear Diary,
Today I was feeling depressed so I started a bonfire in my room to burn all the love letters any boy has ever written to me.
It burned out five seconds after I lit it.
The smoke detector didn't go off but my roommate thought I left some popcorn in the microwave for too long.
So much for my poetic smoke inhalation suicide.
Anyway, I wonder if my words will have more weight if I write them in my own blood... nope.
See you on the other side of fear,
Love, Barbara"
-By Andy Palmer, easily one of my favorite and one of the smartest and one of the most absurdist comedians, look him up!

Do I know you?

2010-06-07T00:13:00.001-07:00

Oh hey, hello there, how are you, good to see you. Right now you're like, shit do I know her? I must know her... I saw this guy the other day and I ran up to him, excited as peaches and I was like "oh hey how's it going." And we talked for like ten minutes before I realized, wait a sec, this isn't Carl... But he was still talking to me so I just kept talking to him to see how long he'd play along before calling me out. I was like, do you think cats dream? How many waffles can you eat, if you're only using chopsticks?

And that's of course when I realize that I actually think this guy is really cute. And I was like, frick, how do I introduce myself since he thinks we already know each other? So I just didn't. I brought him to a party and I just kept pretending that he knew everyone there. And we've been going out for two months now and I think the only way he knows my name is from rifiling through my wallet, shaking with trepidation and anxiety. I still don't know his name, because like that fricking matters, am I right? Whenever he tries to get smart and get it out of me, he's like "Hey honey... remember that time when we met? hahah, when was that again?" In these situations I just distract him by stretching or something.

And I know someday it'll get to the point where he'll just ask me, hey, Barbara, do we even know each other. And I'll stare at him for a long deep moment, my eyes boring into the insecurities and loneliness deep in his soul. And I'll quietly and gradually allow my lips to creep up into a smile, staring at him with hungry eyes. I'll just shrug, tilt my head to the side, and slowly murmer, "Maaaaybe."

Quantum Dating

2010-06-04T12:05:00.000-07:00

Dating a guy is like a quantum mechanics puzzle. If a guy tells you he likes you but won’t tell any of his friends, is it wrong to hope a tree falls on him? I hate when you meet a guy and he’s super sweet to you, until you sleep with him, and then he acts like you don’t exist. It’s like our existence is dependent on whether not the big bang has happened. How can a guy go from being loving and sensitive to never calling ever? It's like Schrodinger’s cat, they’re simultaneously interested and indifferent towards you until you open the box and find a dead cat, and you're like damn, that was the worst anniversary present ever.

New Character I'm working on: Bigfoot who's skeptical about the existence of aliens

2010-05-27T16:25:00.001-07:00

Dude, so I was talking to my friend the yeti and he was trying to tell me about this redneck he ate last week, which is disgusting, obviously. The guy was camping out in the forest searching for mythological creatures and the Yeti just scooped him up and carried him home for dinner. As you surely know, bigfoots are vegetarian and that's why we have healthier fur. Anyway, he said that while he was cooking the hillbilly the guy was telling him this boring story about being abducted by aliens. I was like "Yeti, you believe that bullshit? Bro, there's no such thing as aliens." And the yeti was like "Bigfoot I don't know; he seemed very convinced it had happen." But seriously, all the pictures of UFO's and aliens are so fucking blurring. No wonder they're unidentified... And they really have no physical tangible evidence. I mean, sure, they have crop circles. But do they have anything as legitimate as larger than average sized footprints? Heck no.

happy mother's day...

2010-05-11T15:33:00.001-07:00

So my lovely and supportive mother just called and told me that she was googling something for my dad and my name popped up so she watched one of my youtube videos (Awkward Love Song) and she was disgusted. (She didn't even listen to the song long enough to get to the punchline.) She told me she wouldn't talk to me anymore until I took the song down because it was too dirty to be broadcasted on the internet. Really, the internet? Yeah I'm so sure that the internet was a clean and innocent place until me and my little ukulele came along and turned it raunchy, unleashing all the pornography and donkey shows or whatever. I'm pretty sure she is physically incapable of supporting my art. So she's giving me the cold shoulder right now until I take my video down. She's embarrassed to be related to me. Additionally, she said I wasn't funny, which broke my heart beyond belief, literally the most painful thing to hear; it hurts worse than hearing Good Charlotte. Emo emo, bla bla, I wanna climb into bed and play The Smiths with all the curtains drawn emo bla.

Lost Youth rant

2010-05-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

On the bus yesterday coming home from the comedy underground I found myself a nice spot far away from any humans so I could read my Groucho Marx book in peace. Unfortunately two stops later three people a year younger than me got on the bus and inexplicably sat right next to me and right across from me. All three were graduating seniors and giddy about talking loudly about their future plans. One of the boys was talking about after he gets his nursing degree working with terminally ill children. (What a blissful aspiration.) The girl said when she graduates she's moving in with her boyfriend. The other boy one-upped her and declared that after he graduates he's fucking proposing to his girlfriend! They bubbled and frothed with excitement about stabbing their juvenescence with a poisonous blood soaked spear and speeding towards adulthood at breakneck speed.

My insides began to writhe and convulse as I was forced to listen to their disgustingly chipper desires to mature and accept responsibility. It was like listening to Vogon poetry. These kids were UW seniors, twenty two years old, younger than me, and talking about getting married like it was normal. I don't know about you but where I come from (North Bend aka Twin Peaks) getting married is admitting defeat. I really think of myself as the town prodigy for not being pregnant and barefoot in a trailer as I write this. I could see their imagination and creative joy leaking from their temples as they wistfully lusted after commitment and responsibility. I was almost shaking with terror.

I wanted to scream at them, "Stop killing your inner child." But I didn't, (despite the fact that *my* inner child completely runs the whole show.) My little baby brother just moved in with his girlfriend and I still survive on peanut butter and jelly and coffee three meals a day. I feel like I'm desperately clinging to my youth while a hurricane/tornado equivalent to that in Wizard of Oz tries to uproot me from my childhood. When I closed my eyes I could see their forgotten dreams of childhood steam up and dissipate right in front of me, floating away into the night.