Author Archives: Danny McCarthy

Life, Rambles

MEMORY CANNIBAL, also known as THE TONYA HARDING STORY

As a writer, you’re constantly handling the balance of how much of your personal life to divulge to your audience. As a comedy person, you’re constantly balancing how much of the painful details to twist into a funny anecdote. So when you’re a comedy writer, you’re basically playing the game of “Which horrific moment of my life can be a funny essay without me completely selling my soul to the Devil, Faustus-style?”

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Source: thatslutinthearmchair.tumblr.com via Giphy. Caveat: I’ve been watching a lot of Happy Endings recently and all of the gifs will come from there. You’re welcome.

I’m not a comedy writer, or a comedy person, or a writer. I’m not even legally a human. But as a professional Ina Garten drag impersonator and someone who operates a blog, I find that more and more, I’m running into that issue. When nothing was happening in my personal life, it was easy to write about it. But as I grow and evolve, and the issues in my life grow and evolve, I am beginning to notice a line in the sand that is harder and harder to cross.

And it’s only until things actually started happening in my life that I realized that the “life” that I was writing about was literally nothing. But now my life is actually starting to roll, and not just in the same sense as the Gloucester Cheese Roll Competition. Because that’s funny.

There is an intense impulse to publish for writers. My journalism professor talks about that impulse all the time, or at least I’m assuming he does, because I spend most of my time in that class reading RuPaul’s Drag Race recaps. But when something happens to me, like that time I fell down the stairs or the time I sat on a plate of quesadillas or any time I make a fool of myself in front of a boy, my first instinct is to share it, Tweet it, or blog it. And that instinct is more than just the desire to share something that happens. It’s the desire to take back control of the situation.

Blogging incapsulates your life, packaging it into palatable, hilarious little morsels. The tale of me getting hurt by the first boy I cared about becomes a funny essay. A bad date becomes fodder for griping. The various aches and pains of existing as a real-life scarecrow—my brand—translates into rubbery antics. Writing takes the sting out of embarrassment and hurt and pain, and turns it into comedy. And on one hand, it’s extremely cathartic. It provides me the distance to process and dissect something, to take myself out of the equation.

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Source: jparx.tumblr.com via Giphy

Recently things have been happening to me. Some are amazing. Some are terrible. And my first instinct has always been to blog about them. But for the wrong reasons. I want to take myself out of these moments, but I’m also afraid to. I’m afraid to talk about the crazy, shitty things that are monumental in my life because then I relinquish control of them. They cease being intimate to me. They become content, public domain. They are no longer mine. And that’s been hard to come to terms with. That some things could easily be sting-less and funny and palatable, but that would mean losing my place in them. It would be accepting them as past and renaming them as something meant to be consumed.

My wanting to blog them is my wanting to stop them from hurting. Things have been rough lately, and that kneejerk reaction to make the bad thing stop is very much in play. But sometimes things have to hurt. I can’t—I shouldn’t—blog my way out of this. I’m trying not to make it into a joke or a punchline or a laugh. I’m trying to give it gravity. It’s really fucking hard, and lousy and frustrating. Because my instinct, as a writer and a former dork and a wannabe cool kid, is to cannibalize, produce and de-sting all the awkard’s and ew’s and damn’s of my life.

I’m a memory cannibal, and that’s not always a bad thing. A lot of amazing things come out of shitty situations, but I’m in this weird position of realizing that if I mean to take this writing thing seriously, there are lines in the sand that I have to respect. One of my favorite writers, Ryan O’Connell, wrote about the same kind of experience. And as he got older, he realized that he couldn’t just write about every drug trip, bad sexual experience, and “Ouch-funny” moment that happened. That knowing the difference is the divide between “writing” and “being a writer.”

So in true self-absorbed writer fashion, I’m writing about writing about something. Maybe one day in the future, when I have enough money to hire a defense lawyer, I’ll tell some of the stories that I’m keeping in the vault. They’ll be good then, and I’ll have distance. And in my tell-all book, Telling It All—The Tonya Harding Story (Just Kidding, It’s Me, Danny), I’ll reference this blog post, and people will go to their antique Macs and pull up the article while sitting in their hover-houses with their pleasure-robots (I hope).

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Humor, Life, Rambles

I’M CHRYSALIS-ING

Do you ever do that thing where you let yourself get as unkempt and scraggly as possible, and then when you finally take care of yourself, you get to treat yourself to a The Princess Diaries movie montage makeup transformation? That’s what I’m doing now.

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Source: hercampus.com. A) How weird is this gif? B) I am more befores and none of the after.

I haven’t shaved since last Wednesday (it’s Sunday). Normally I shave every other day, but I’ve been putting it off because I want to Princess Diaries myself. Also, apparently, despite shaving for five (nearly six) years, I still have no f*cking clue what I’m doing because I’m constantly dealing with razor burn. And lately it’s been particularly bad, so maybe I’m shaving even more wrong?

In addition, I’ve been having a Prison Break-out of acne and I have not been feeling cute.

Side bar: I just Googled Prison Break and saw that Wentworth Miller was in it, and I always, for some reason, thought that he was in that other prison show, Oz, which I always thought was ironic because he’s gay. And Oz…Never mind, I might’ve just hate-crimed myself.

Side bar side bar: Once my mom and I were talking about Wentworth Miller—I’m not sure why/how—and she was all like, “Oh he’s so handsome,” and I told her he was gay, and she just sighed, like she hadn’t been married to my dad for almost thirty years. Also, it was one of the first moments where we actually talked about the gay thing, without skirting around it.

Side bar side bar side bar: Now my parents are convinced I have gaydar. They think that David Muir from ABC is gay and that he’s dating Gio Benitez because someone told my dad and my dad told my mom and then my mom asked me for confirmation. Apparently Gio Benitez just got married to his boyfriend, so I texted my mother to let her know and all she responded with was, “I think he was too young for David Muir,” as if we know anything.

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Source: Danny McCarthy

Side bar side bar side bar fun fact: Gio Benitez and his boyfriend (husband, whatever) met via Instagram, which is the gayest/most millennial thing ever, and this was reported in The New York Times.

Side bar conclusion: I think David Muir is hot.

However, I recently got in a fresh batch of acne medication—you know, sometimes I think my life is boring, and then I write blog posts where I say things like “my mom asked me if David Muir is gay” and “fresh batch of medication” and I know that actually my life is the most interesting ever—and I’ve been giving my skin a break from constant chafing…from shaving, not something weird.

In nature (I almost put that in quotes, like it was contested), the caterpillar goes through the strenuous process of becoming a butterfly by wrapping itself in a cocoon of silk. That cocoon is called the chrysalis, and that’s what I feel like. I feel like I’ve wrapped myself in a cocoon of reddish stubble and acne cream, and I’m patiently baking—I’m mixing metaphors, but who cares—and soon—probably tomorrow—I’ll shave and slap on a fresh coat of aftershave and I’ll emerge from my chrysalis as a sexy, sexy butterfly.

Or I’ll turn out like Heimlich the butterfly from A Bug’s Life and emerge from my chrysalis just as fat and busted as before, but with a pair of ineffectual wings.

Side bar: I chose to call it “chrysalis-ing” as opposed to “caterpillar-ing” or “cocoon-ing” because “chrysalis” is a prettier word.

I was so worried this would be a sparse blog—the subject matter can only go so far—but I should’ve known that my rampant tangents would fill space. My inability to really focus on anything truly serves me well when I’m writing a blog, but shoots me in the kneecaps when I’m trying to write a paper. Technically, you could consider this entire blog post a rampant tangent from the paper that I should be writing. But where is the fun is writing without an impending deadline and a cartload of stress?

Side bar: Do you think anyone in this library suspects that I’ve written an entire blog post about chrysalis-ing, or that I’ve made two Twitter polls in the last two minutes?

BYE.

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pop culture, Review, television

REVIEW—RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE: WIZARD of YES GAWD

Grade: A-/B+

There are certain moments in television history that completely alter the axis of the narrative. At the end of season one of Game of Thrones, Ned Stark—the main character, the moral compass of the show—was beheaded, leaving everyone, both in the audience and on the screen, to rape, pillage, and burn across Westeros and Essos for five seasons. A third of the way through Psycho, the main character Marion Crane was stabbed fatally in the shower by “Mrs. Bates,” leaving in the swirling of her pupil two more hours of me wondering that if me thinking serial killer Norman Bates is hot is weird.

And last night on RuPaul’s Drag Race, we received a similarly jolting shift in both the narrative and the proverbial fabric of the universe.

SPOILER ALERT

My queen, my g0ddess, the light and sharp wit of Season 8 was abruptly and rudely eliminated from the competition that was hers to…well, not win but maybe do a respectable fifth place, a la Katya. Robbie Turner, the ripest peach in Seattle, has been eliminated. RIP.

After Acid Betty’s elimination, which was the equivalent to a shoulder shrug and a faint “Thin the herd” mentality, the queens discussed themselves. Naomi thinks she should wear a turtleneck—I agree. Robbie’s voice has miraculously returned. Thorgy’s “Madonna” reminds me of someone but I can’t think of who. Also Thorgy’s eye-roll to Bob winning the challenge is the single most “Woody Allen Jewish New Yorker” response ever and I live.

Bob is literally screaming about how she’s won two challenges. “Has anyone ever won three, before??” she SCREAMS. Yes, Bobby. Violet Chacki and Ginger Minj from the season right before yours. But I can’t stay mad at Bob because it’s like being mad at an adorable, fat child genius. They’re smarter than you’ll ever be, but they can’t pronounce their “s’s”. Robbie makes a vague threat comparing Bob to Jenga—ready to topple—which only proves that the queen that makes a prophetic comment is destined to be the one to go home.

Side note: You could build a HOUSE in the space between Robbie’s shady reads.

The mini-challenge is READING, with special guest RPDR EW Recapper Marc Snetiker—who can get it. The queens are…funny…but other than Bob—whose “Flipper” read has me giggling—I wasn’t particularly blown away. I actually liked Season 7’s a little more, because you could feel the venom because some of those bitches hated each other. Everyone’s too nice on this season. Bob wins the mini-challenge. Big surprise.

The Maxi Challenge is to create haute couture outfits inspired by characters from The Wizard of Oz for them and their Little Women of Los Angeles partners. When you type it out, it sounds like a fever-dream.

The little women pick their drag queen partners. Some of the women seem like they know who their queen is, others—Tonya—have that “Middle Schooler Trying To Remember The State Capitals When Put On The Spot” moment.

WERK ROOM OBSERVATIONS:

  • Naomi and Jasmine are both hair stylists—and they’re both flawless as hell.
  • Naomi is a bargain bitch: “I could look at fashion magazines from the time Barnes & Noble opens to the time Barnes & Noble closes.”
  • It’s interesting to see people who are also accustomed to reality television on RPDR. Aka the drAMA between Terra and Elena.
  • Bob is wearing leather overalls and I can’t even wear regular overalls without looking like a sausage in a denim condom.
  • “They always give you mustard and honey,” Elena on MasterChef, but I think it can apply to my general life.
  • I like Tonya.
  • Is Ru done with those Pharrell hats? Can I uncross my fingers?
  • I’m interested to see how the queens make over women. Have they done women before? That’s what she said. But no, seriously.
  • It’s smart that Derrick Barry (a professional Britney Spears impersonator) is paired with Terra (a mini-Britney Spears impersonator) because it’s not like the judges have been asking for versatility. He’s getting really good at singing that one-note.
  • KIM CHI TALKING ABOUT INTERPRETATIVE DANCE IS ME WHENEVER I HAVE TO TALK IN CLASS ON MATERIAL I’VE NEVER READ.
  • Somehow Bob was so focused on remaking his outfit and making his partner over that he DOESN’T START ON HIS MAKEUP UNTIL 15 MINUTES BEFORE THE RUNWAY.

Finally it’s time for the runway. Firstly Marc Jacobs is very hot in a “Ken doll in the microwave” kind of way, and I don’t even mean that as a read. Todrick Hall is possibly the only person who can wear a “Transformers Robots In Diguise” meets “St. Patrick’s Day” outfit and have it come off as Wizard of Oz realness.

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Source: LogoTV

Do you think Derrick realizes that she can’t come for Bob when she looks like “Young Judi Dench in a Swimsuit”??

Chi Chi and Ti Ti DeVayne as Dorothy—It’s not bad but it’s not great.

Bob the Drag Queen and Rob the Faux Queen as Glinda the Good Witch—10 points for the name, but -12 points for the fact that your partner looks great and you just have gray SPF on your cheeks and one of Robbie’s thirsty wigs.

Naomi Smalls and Jazzy Jems as the Scarecrow—THIS IS WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR. Haute couture, whimsy, fashion, amazing.

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Source: LogoTV

Derrick Barry and Terra Barry the Tin Man—NOT EVEN THE ‘80s HAD SUCH BAD SHOULDER PADS.

Robbie Turner and Hedda Turner as the Cowardly Lion—Ouch. That’s less “purr”-fect and more “purr”m gone wrong.

Thorgy Thor and Thorgeous as the Citizen of Oz—psychedelic, green, glitter. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Kim Chi and Miso Chi as the Wicked Witch—“Isabella Blow going to a funeral realness” is so indicative of Kim Chi’s actual, real fashion knowledge, and I loved it.

Interpretive dances were weird. Let’s not.

Michelle to Chi Chi: “Do you not contour breasts?”

Me as RuPaul: “You were not breast in show.”

Critique of Derrick—the first time when an accidental Britney reference was good.

Critique of Robbie—tru about the hairline.

Naomi wins because—obviously. She really took last week’s critique well, and that’s the mark of someone who has the potential to win the entire competition.

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Source: LogoTV

Derrick and Robbie are in the bottom two. Robbie took off her wig because WHY. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT. WHEN HAS A QUEEN EVER TAKEN OFF HER WIG IN A LIP-SYNC AND RUPAUL BE LIKE “Lovely buzzcut. Shantay you stay.” Derrick did well in the lip sync, but I think even the producers are like, “Should we get her off the premises?” and RuPaul’s like “Eh, it’s not worth it. She’ll get it eventually.”

We love you, Robbie. You were Robbed(ie).

Stray Observations:

  • Ru interrupting Michelle is the gif that I need always.
  • NEVER COMPARE CHI CHI TO BENDELADREME. One is hot glued and one is hot DAMN QUEEN.
  • Someone on Tumblr said that this season is 75 percent personality and 25 percent fashion, as compared to the reverse in Season 7. And it’s true. Give me more glamour. I should be gagging at the runway.
  • We see that “Nebraska” promo moment, Derrick, and we’re purposefully ignoring it.
  • Robbie seems like one of the only queens that Ru was genuinely upset to eliminate. I love it.
  • I LOVE YOU ROBBIE.
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pop culture

“KOCKTAILS WITH KHLOE” IS CANCELLED

Do you know how hard it was for me to not write the title as “KOCKTAILS WITH KHLOE IS KANCELLED”? It took greater resolve than that time when God told Moses to kill his son. Did I just use a Biblical reference to illuminate a point on the Kardashians? I’m ready for hellfire and plagues to rain down upon me.

Here’s the quick and dirty: Kocktails With Khloe premiered in January 2016, with an original greenlit episode count of eight. FYI was in talks to give Kocktails an additional 15 episodes, pushing the total count of episodes for the season to 23. However, they won’t continue on that promise, and the series with end with a total count of 14 episodes.

The talk show utilized a different camera style, preferring the “fly-on-the-wall” technique, and the entire show was retooled from the traditional form to a more “dinner party” atmosphere. The combination of the two, and the relatively unstructured nature of the show, gave it a listless, unfocused feel—in the opinion of this unbiased and very handsome reporter—that made each hour-long episode—already a daunting task for a late night talk show—feel even longer.

The show was a different direction for Khloe, despite her previous experience filling in as host for Chelsea Lately, and it’s a noble endeavor. She pulled in her celebrity family—and maybe that might have been part of the problem. The laconic, ennui-infected Kardashian-Jenners are suited for reality television, where their antics are enhanced by the glamour of their surroundings. In the confined and static location of Khloe’s “house,” their quiet and reserved demeanors dissolved into being just plain boring. If you think I’m dragging the Kardashians, then I’m coming off too strong. I love them, but I think we need to call a spade a spade. They’re kinda boring sometimes.

Kocktails saw guests such as Kym Whitley, Brandi “Shark Eyes” Glanville, Snoop Dogg, Tyga, Scott Disick, endless combinations of Kardashian-Jenners, my ultra-queen Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, and Gay Mount Rushmore Head RuPaul. It also had Hot Sharone, Khloe’s bartender. I’ll be sad to say goodbye to Hot Sharone, although to be honest, he was a little distracting.

However, proving both that you can’t keep a good Kardashian down and that Ryan Seacrest has somehow tied his life-force to that of Kris Jenner, Khloe is already slated to have a new show. Revenge Body With Khloe Kardashian has been picked up by E! for six episodes and will follow Khloe as she helps people get after-breakup revenge bodies to…I guess…make their exes jealous. But who’s still the one going on public television to prove that they’re over you?? Seems a little thirsty.

The whole concept of a “revenge body” is a little anathema to me, but it’s kind of Khloe’s brand right now, and if you got it, then you should literally flaunt it. It’s her moneymaker—metaphorically and, now, realistically.

Revenge Body will not be produced by Bunim/Murray, which produces Keeping Up With The Kardashians, and will rather be associated with Khlomoney Productions—pause for eyeroll—Lionsgate Television, and Ryan Seacrest Productions.

The news of Khloe’s show cancellation proves that this is a tough week for Khlomoney. Yesterday, the news arose that Khloe’s brother, Rob Kardashian, and his girlfriend of three months, Blac Chyna, were engaged. Chyna is also the mother of Khloe’s half-sister Kylie Jenner’s boyfriend, rapper Tyga. So now, if Kylie and Tyga got married—Lorde help us—and Rob and Chyna get married, Tyga will be the uncle of his own son, and Kylie will be the stepmother of her own nephew. Can’t wait to be at that Christmas party.

Also, apparently Blac Chyna will revert back to her actual name—Angela—if she marries Rob, becoming Angela Kardashian, making sure that the blood vessels in Kim Kardashian’s eyes will burst.

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Review, television

RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE: SNATCH GAME

Grade: B

On last night’s episode of RuPaul’s Best Friend Race, I decided that my cuticles are really looking good. And that’s a shaaady way of saying that it was a bit of a let-down. There were the big moments—Derrick attempting to come for Bob, and Bob just looking at her like a bear looks at a fly—and there were the small ones—Kim Chi serving Pearl realness with “Is there something on my face?” which is one of the only lines in the history of television that makes me curl up inside myself. But largely, it was just consumed by the Snatch Game.

Question: Do you think Derrick is legally obligated to make at least one Britney Spears pun per episode? Or are they just holding the other members of her throuple hostage?

Derrick tried to drag Bob—“Can you teach me how to do rachet drag?”—playing off the fact that Michelle Visage gave an unfounded critique of Bob, saying that “ratchet drag” is her thing even though she brings it to us every ball.

Then RuPaul stalked around the Werk Room, trying to throw the queens off balance. I really wish that there was a Snatch Game where every queen did her first, terrible Option A, instead of “scrambling”—using air quotes—for their Option B’s.

In a ShOCKing turn of events, Naomi and Bob were going to both do Whoopi Goldberg—what did Whoopi, or us, ever do to deserve that—and Naomi switches to Tiffany “New York” Pollard, and Bob somehow switches to Uzo Aduba, rendering Naomi’s switch completely moot.

A last-minute switch isn’t always shooting the horse in the knee; last season saw Miss Fame and Violet Chachki both poised to do Donatella Versace. Violet decided to do Alyssa Edwards—queen of the no-chin tongue-pop—and managed to slay. Fame’s Donatella fell completely flat, and she went home soon afterward.

Bob’s characterizations—Crazy Eyes and Carol Channing—are really spot-on, but two things have to be said. First is the professional critique: Bob’s switching between two characters is excellent for throwing off the other contestants, but makes her seem too hungry. The judges warned her against “showboating.” The other is a personal critique: Bob didn’t do “Uzo Aduba;” he did “Uzo Aduba” as Crazy Eyes. It’s a small distinction, but the point of Snatch Game is to mimic and parody someone who is intriguing and interesting and maybe unexpected—playing an outlandish character isn’t really that hard to do, even though Bob does it well.

Derrick Barry—a professional Britney Spears impersonator in Las Vegas—decided to go outside the box and do Laura Bell Bundy. Derrick, Laura Bell Bun-don’t, please. RuPaul and the producers kept you for Snatch Game, to let everyone release those Britney blue balls they’ve had since you were announced on the cast.

On Snatch Game, here’s the rundown.

  • Thorgy gives us the realest “reanimated cadaver/Michael Jackson” you’ve ever seen.
  • Acid Betty somehow thinks that a Magnolia Crawford contour and an Effie Trinket wig gives us Nancy Grace. Where is the nasal? Where is the subtly popped nipple slip from her Dancing With The Stars days?
  • The gay who’s watched Devil Wears Prada seven times in me loved the Diana Vreeland moment.
  • Literally shocking: Derrick’s Britney is obviously enough to save him, even though that was a Dr. Faustus-level deal with the Devil, and we all know it.
  • Heterosexual teen supermodels Chanel Iman and Gigi Hadid looked a little like they didn’t know how they got onto set.
  • I’m loving the new season of OITNB.

For the runway, it’s Night of 100 Madonnas, which ended up being Night of Five Madonnas, because four out of eight queens wore the same kimono, forcing me to make the awful pun, “KimOHNO.”

Acid talks about how no one likes her. Thorgy talks about how she wants to conduct an orchestra in drag—The Thorchestra—but frankly, I don’t know why she didn’t call it the New York Philharmondick. Also, this has to be said: Thorgy’s dreads in his hairnet look like a big ole bag of Cuties clementines.

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Source: LogoTV

RUNWAY.

  • Thorgy: kimono.
  • Kim Chi: kimono.
  • Derrick: kimononono…are those faces?
  • Naomi: kimono?
  • Acid Betty: somehow reminds me of that Lindsay Lohan movie where she pretends to be pregnant. Labor Pains?
  • Robbie: Serves the Troop Beverly Hills–A League of Their Own Madonna realness.
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Source: LogoTV

Michelle Visage—a former Madonna impersonator—loves tearing into the queens, and the pure look of terror on Derrick’s face when Michelle’s shark eyes land on her almost makes up for every boring moment in this season.

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Source: LogoTV  THE LOOK OF SOMEONE WHO’S JUST SHIT ON THE RUNWAY

Kim Chi and Chi Chi DeVayne are the first ones safe, but no one got a chance to comment on Kimmy Jong-Un, and that makes me sad.

SPOILER ALERT:

Bob wins the Snatch Game, even though—yet again—Thorgy gets praise heaped on her. Poor Susan Lucci. Bob walks away with another victory and Thorgy goes back to slowly dying a little bit on the inside with every passing day.

Robbie, Acid and Naomi are in the bottom three, and Robbie is declared safe. Then it’s the Lip Sync of Bitter Betty and Naomi Shambles. Betty gets a little shady when she kicks Naomi’s kimono off the stage, but maybe she was just trying to minimize the amount of kimono desecration that had already occurred onstage that night. In the end, Acid was sent home and my g0ddess Naomi Smalls stayed.

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Source: LogoTV SPOT THE SHRIMP COCKTAIL

I think that the choice to have a veteran and visually aesthetic queen be eliminated was an interesting one. Naomi is younger, less experienced, and has shown less breadth, but I think the biggest thing is that she wants to be there. Acid kept shitting on everything, and even though I’ll miss seeing her reenact The Gremlins on the runway, I’m glad that Naomi got to stay.

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Source: LogoTV

Stray Observations:

  • Critter Couture might be the most inspired thing on this season.
  • Did you think that RuPaul was going to grill Gigi on her mom’s Lyme Disease controversy for a little cross-promotional television daisy chain?
  • I can practically hear Raven dragging Derrick already for that unfortunate booty situation.
  • “The White Chaka Khan” could be an excellent new Instagram bio for Acid Betty.
  • Future Snatch Game idea: Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove.
  • Prediction: Derrick is going to turn into one of those beauty queens who complain that she “didn’t know this was going to be a comedy”
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Celebrity Sunday, Life, pop culture, Rambles

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING: KYLIE JENNER HAS HER GRIP ON THE THROAT OF POP CULTURE AND NO ONE CAN DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT

Did you miss these? You didn’t care? That’s fine. I didn’t care either. I didn’t even THINK ABOUT IT, DEREK. Just kidding, I thought of you all the time. I wrote you every day for a year. That’s from The Notebook, right? That seems like a lot of work. Also, did you not get the hint when a year went by without a response? Take a hint: either she’s dead, illiterate, or over you.

I ate like complete garbage this weekend, and my body is sorely paying me back for the abuse I’ve put it through. I’ll try to be better, body. Although the other day, I woke up, looked in the mirror, and just thought that my body looked snatched. In a good way; not in a “snatched as in Taken” kind of way.

Anyway, anyway—let’s dive into some good, old-fashioned, Wunderkindof-prime, grade A beef.

WHAT’S HAPPENING RN:

1). Kylie Jenner released her new line of glosses: If you didn’t get that tidbit from her gloss-release video, that’s fine. That video was more confusing than watching an old Italian movie sans subtitles. It basically involves Kylie lounging in a Rolls Royce while three girls—the embodiment of her glosses “Like,” “Literally,” and “So Cute”—serve us some Breaking Bad–Nikita realness.

It’s smart of Kylie to branch out into something other than the Lip Kit, and the release of the glosses prove me right when I predicted that the change of her Instagram name from “lipkitbykylie” to “kyliecosmetics” means that she’s going to be a make-up mogul. If she releases a line of jungle-themed cosmetics, then she might be a make-up Mowgli. Ah? Ah? No? That’s fine.

The addition of “Like,” “Literally,” and “So Cute” up her lipcare products to eleven, and cement her dainty, Cartier Love bracelet grip on the throat of pop culture.

2). Beyoncé released a clothing line called Ivy Park: Everyone is jumping on this athleisure train and Beyoncé is leading as conductor, which would actually be a fitting sequel to “Telephone.” It’s a lot of black and gray and white, with “IVY PARK” branded everywhere—which is…chic, let’s be honest. But is it weird that I’m a tiny bit over it already? Maybe it’s the fact that everywhere we look we have celebrity products—let us all take a moment for Yeezy Season Threezy—but I want to be wowed. I’ll be wowed by the Formation album, but let me know when Beyoncé drops a line of affordable menswear capes.

3). Trump stuck in his foot in his mouth and somehow this time managed to screw up: Donald Trump said, when pushed by MSBNC town hall host Chris Matthews, that women who receive abortions should be punished. This then set off a whirling dervish of statements, reversals, and redactions, which proves that Trump neither has no idea what he’s saying and really doesn’t actually care. I’m glad that people are starting to hold him accountable, and force him to take a stance, rather than allow him to hide behind bluffing, waffling, and running out the clock. I wrote an entire article about it for The Odyssey Online, which I’ll link here when it comes out, because I don’t feel like repeating myself.

4). I started watching The Real O’Neals and Difficult People and both made me only mildly uncomfortable: Because I spent most of this weekend trying to lure people to my apartment—friends, not lovers or strangers—I ended up watching a lot of Hulu. I used to hate Hulu because it’s kind of the fucking worst, but it has some good shows on it. I found The Real O’Neals which is both unrealistic on a Catholic level and on a homosexual level, but it makes me feel slightly better about being a gay from a private Catholic school background, and also slightly worse because why can my skin have been that flawless while I was in high school? Then Difficult People makes me feel both slightly better about being mean to people and infinitely worse about wanting to make people laugh at/like me a profession.

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Source: Giphy

5). Will I ever not read into cute boys following me on Instagram?: Survey says…probably not.

6). I dressed in blacks and grays today, and did a Mary-Kate Olsen mouth: Which is neither a cry for help nor a victory, but somehow both and neither. This weekend I actively tried to be lazy. I succeeded, and somehow that didn’t make me feel better. It didn’t make me feel worse though, so I guess that’s a success.

7). Can I rant for a second: So I was sitting at Pavement, a coffeehouse on campus because sometimes I can’t help but be insufferably stereotypical—I also stare out of windows when it’s raining, so get those stones ready—and my laptop was dying because it’s old and the free Internet was about to run out. I stand up, start putting my stuff into my bag and before I could say “Beetlejuice” three times, someone was already standing right next to me.

“Are you leaving?” she asked. “Oh, yeah, I am,” I said, brightly. Then she starts dumping her stuff onto the table, nearly crushing my new J.Crew sunglasses. Now, I can hover with the best of them when it comes to securing coffeehouse tables, but there are rules, as typical to any civilized society. One: don’t move in before I’m ready. Two: don’t mess with my stuff. Three: back off, bitch, you’ll get your table.

I wanted to pinch her so hard, but I needed coffee more, and even though I was in a coffee shop, I walked four minutes away to the nearest Starbucks because my mom gave me a gift card and I’m skint.

8). What is the acceptable amount of time to absent-mindedly stare at someone before it gets weird: I was on the street the other day, and I read a text from a friend who had seen me walking on the street, commented on my outfit, leading me to absently stare around, looking for him. I then realize, when a person started walking toward me, that I had been staring accidentally at an acquaintance and she thought I was non-absently looking at her.

It wasn’t a horrible interaction, but I keep getting caught doing things like this—staring at people accidentally, or smiling at them when I don’t mean to but that small desire to be liked wins out. I thought I had an unlikable face—in fact, I was kind of banking on it—but the world refuses to acknowledge that, and everyone thinks that I want to be their best friend. Truth update: I have one best friend, and her name is Ina Garten and she doesn’t know I exist. There’s no other room in my world for extraneous people. Cue the mantra: “Don’t be extra-nice to extraneous.” In my head, that kind of worked.

*****

I only got mildly misanthropic in this blog post, so it’s a win. But then again, I managed to turn a “what’s happening in the world” post into a “what’s currently wrong in the seventh-grade science fair experiment that is my life” so let’s call today an Even-Stevens.

On a side note, I can’t wait to be 37 and bitter. Being 20 and bitter is exhausting, and—frankly—not great for my skin.

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Celebrity Sunday, pop culture, Rambles

SPRING FLING ME OFF A BUILDING

Today I wore very “Free-wheeling Metrosexual in the Hamptons/Yacht-faring Heterosexual in Miami” pants to Easter mass. They’re from J.Crew and they’re different than what I would usually wear, so I was a little wary of wearing them. Luckily, my family only made two passive-aggressive comments, so that’s a relative win.

I’ve really been lax about my blog lately, and I think that it’s a mixture of not sure how much of my personal life to divulge and also just a general exhaustion. But not writing makes me all angsty and antsy, so I’m going to make a commitment to you, the reader, and you, the blog, to really write. Like really, truly give it my all.

So let’s do some “Things That Are Happening Right Now”!

Things That Are Happening Right Now

1). My friend retweeted an article from Total Frat Move, so I clicked on it, read it, threw up, and then started looking through the website. They have this ongoing series called “Babe of the Week” where it’s just blonde girls who submit their Instagrams of them doing their best, “Trust Fund Baby-I’m A Mouse Duh” impressions. And the guy who writes the articles is this total douchey bro and I’m obsessed with him. I have a fascination with Greek life in the same way as I have a fascination with rom-coms as a sub-genre of science fiction—they exist in a parallel universe to mine.

2). My family is redoing our kitchen and I’ve been watching a lot of “flipping house” shows. The two combined have made me feel like I’m a relative expert on terms such as “subway tile” and “cabinets going all the way up to the ceiling” (to draw the eye upwards and make the ceilings appear taller). Also, I don’t fully understand Love It Or List It. Who fronts the money for the renovations on the “Love It” side? Does the show take care of selling the house if the couple decides to “List It”?

3). I love how much Trump threatens and blusters if he doesn’t get the Republican nomination. He’s literally a villain at the end of a Scooby Doo episode after those pesky teens have pulled off his mask. He’s doing the media-equivalent to shaking his fist as the police drag him away, as he says, “I would’ve gotten away with it too!” He says that if he doesn’t receive the nomination and the Republicans go to a contested convention—where if Trump doesn’t get enough delegates to automatically receive the nomination, the Republicans will engage in super-delegate vote trading and re-votes until a nominee wins—riots will break out. I kinda hope that happens. Not in a “Some men just want to see the world burn” way, but in a “Bored on a Tuesday night” way.

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Source: Giphy

4). Former House Speaker John Boehner would support current Speaker Paul Ryan as the Republican nominee. My only comment is that Paul Ryan is hot, and it would be a very “Fitz from Scandal IRL” moment if he became President.

5). One of the most meta moments in my recent life was when Kylie Jenner used one of the new Snapchat filters, one that gives you a crazy-clown plastic surgery smile, and just went, “Did they base this off me?” And my entire world just reverberated.

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Source: Giphy

6). Is a spring fling an actual thing? Because I was walking back from the gym on the first warm day of the season, and literally everywhere I saw people holding hands. And maybe my college is particularly bad at dating, but I ~never~ see people in relationships in the winter. All of sudden, though, I see either uncomfortably close friends or mediumly close relationships, and I’m like, “Who are these people?” I don’t get it.

Omg, so I’m done. I just ate Easter dinner, and now I’m watching Long Island Medium so I’m obviously done writing this blog post. It’s so bad that I can’t look away, so I need to focus on that rather than this. But side bar, I see Easter as the gateway to spring, so now—for me—spring has officially sprung. Yass yas.

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Rambles

PATHETIC FALLACY, INTENSELY NARCISSISTIC, & ROMANTICISM

The pathetic fallacy is the attribution of your emotions to outside forces. Trees, the sky, other people. It’s basically a literary term for the incredibly narcissistic. And ya boy’s got it bad.

I’m in a funk—whenever I type the word “funk” I think of Tobias Funke from Arrested Development and how they pronounced it “Fwoon-kay” and I thought that was so weird until I realized it’s the legitimate German way to pronounce that surname—and because I’m a massive narcissist, I’m seeing it reflected back onto the external world.

Gilmore Girls is getting particularly dark. A YouTube favorite of mine just got dumped. There was another bombing in Belgium today. Former mayor Rob Ford died. These things are not on the same level, and they’re not caused or related back to me. they’re bad things that are happening in the world.

And it’s hard to find the energy to try to be positive right now, to spin a web—anyone get that RHOBH reference—because sometimes the world is an incredibly ugly, harsh, dark place. But I think if I didn’t write it out, if I didn’t put it onto paper, it would roil inside me like a miasma, and it would sicken me. We need to talk about things. About the bombing. About death.

In my English class, we’re talking about Romanticism. And it deals a lot with balance and equality. Not in a Neoclassicist, orderly way, but in a more wild, vicious way. Beauty is vicious. Pain is artful. Pain is ugly. Beauty is harsh. And somehow the world keeps spinning, even though that’s a fucking rude thing to do, world.

I think I’ve been in a slump for a while now and I’m just realizing. It’s funny how that happens. The slip is so gradual and soft that you don’t realize, until suddenly you look up and the sky is a pinprick in velvet darkness and you’re sloshing around in quicksand. Do you slosh in quicksand? I saw How To Be Single last night and they mention “dicksand” which I think was supposed to be more metaphorical and less horrific, but it still sticks in the brain like…well, like dicksand.

Ugh. Literally ugh.

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Rambles

MY FACE SAYS, “I’M GOOD,” BUT MY SWEATPANTS SAY, “HELP ME.”

Do you ever have one of those days where you wake up feeling dead, go back to sleep, and then finally feel like you can cope with humanity? Yeah, me neither. Today I feel awful, and my sweatpants prove it.

Don’t get me wrong—I love wearing sweatpants. As soon as I get home after class, the jeans come off and the sweatpants come on. But whenever I wear sweatpants outside, know that it’s a cry for help. I wore sweatpants today. And even the cool ~edgy~ snapback and chic new sunglasses couldn’t make up for it. Also I wore fuzzy socks. I’m unclear as to if that’s a cry for help or a victory. Maybe only time can tell.

I rarely have days where I completely surrender, but I think that they’re healthy sometimes. Like, some days, all you can do is heat up last night’s spaghetti, curl up under your blankets, and watch TV Land. No, I’m not making that up. Yes, that is what I did today. I watched this show, Teachers, where they said that “mimosas where a way for you to justify drinking in the morning.” They said this to schoolchildren. It is very much a show that I connect with.

Ugh, do you ever have times where you don’t have any original stories? That’s me. I mean, I have stuff that I could write about, but that would be putting my personal life on blast, which, until I write my tell-all memoir, If The Police Ask You Anything, Claim Plausible Deniability: A Tell-All Memoir, isn’t something I’m comfortable doing. I’m not at the point yet where I have enough friends to torch certain relationships for clicks and shares. Close, but not yet.

Lol I’m just trying to fill space. I reblogged a Tumblr post that I’m gonna try to include that was SO true about LOL. Hold on. Also, while we wait, consider how odd it is that “lol” is fun and flirty, but “LOL” is mom-ish and serial killer-y.

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Source: Tumblr

 

Okay, I’m done. Not done with you, but done with this post. I’ll be better on Tuesday. Maybe something ~crazy~ will have happened to me by then, that I can cannibalize and put into a succinct, hilarious post. Yet again, my main goal in life is utilizing my life for clickbait.

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