STRAIGHT WHITE MALE

Written hours after seeing a girl running on the treadmill who was an exact replica of Taylor Swift in the commercial where she’s sprinting on a treadmill like a Suburban Girl on Black Friday and listening to Drake. Blunt bangs and all. Still shaken.

A few days ago, I started seeing someone. It’s amazing and it’s new, so I haven’t talked about it much. I’m always skeptical of love, and it’s not even been a month, but I think I can safely say that I’m in love. God! That’s so crazy to write out!!!

Source: Twitter

Part of why I haven’t said anything is because this person isn’t really my type. And that’s because it’s a “she.” GUESS WHO’S STRAIGHT.

crickets

YOU OBVIOUSLY DIDN’T BELIEVE THAT BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS BLOG/KNOW ME IN REAL LIFE.

So why is it that when a friend of mine jokingly asked me to be in a relationship with her on Facebook (because I’m hot), which I did (because I’m nice), people instantly started liking the proclamation. First, it was just a few friends. This is acceptable because I know them and she knew them and they were obviously like “Oh funny haha cute” OBVIOUSLY UNDERSTANDING THE IRONY.

Then, the likes start rolling in. On her end, I understand if people start liking the status without knowing I’m gay. I am, after all, surprisingly good-looking for someone who is this funny. But on my end, people I went to high school with (WHERE I WAS OUT OF THE CLOSET) start liking the status. They don’t know my friend, we don’t talk anymore, so they have no reason of understanding the joke. They just think that I’m straight now.

Side bar: I was the president of my PRIVATE ALL-BOYS CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL’s first Gay-Straight Alliance (which was mostly just a Gay Bulwark or a Homosexual Council). AND I took off all the buttons on my pants and re-sewed them on with pink thread. I mean, you wouldn’t know that unless you were undressing me and I looked like a naked mole rat in high school so that never happened. AND I wore cardigans.

I WAS OUT.

But lately, as my friend Nina has pointed out numerous times, I’ve been dressing extremely “straight” lately (sideways baseball caps, penny board and giveaway sunglasses). That, combined with my height and (again surprising amount of) hotness, turns me into a CockBlock© because people see me with ladies and assume that it’s either A) a relationship or B) a Make A Wish thing and I’m a celebrity.

Side bar: I told someone else that Nina kept calling me a cockblock because everyone thought I looked straight, and she just looks at me, takes a beat, and says, “So this is before they hear you speak, right?” BURN.

But as a new Straight White Male™, I’m still getting used to this newfound level of privilege. I jay-walk whenever I want. I can never recall a time where I didn’t have all the rights. AND I was at Starbucks yesterday during a study-break coffee time, and the girl accidentally charged me one dollar more than I was supposed to, so she comped me a whole extra slice of the lemon pound cake, which is DEFINITELY MORE THAN A DOLLAR. God, I’m swimming in privilege.

Source: Twitter// I started going crazy while writing an essay on Walt Whitman.

In other nudes, besides me being on top of the world, I’m in the midst of finals right now. I spent so much time yesterday staring at a screen that I thought I was gonna vomit. I didn’t, and after getting home from the library I proceeded to watch an hour of Netflix. So clearly, I was fucking fine.

I’m one essay and one article done, one essay and two finals to go. It’s so hard trying to maintain being smart for this long. I almost never do work (when you look like I do and talk like I do, people basically let you get away with whatever you want), so now I’m having to make up for all the work I coasted on because of my charisma. How do regular (-looking) people do this??

Source: Twitter

I hope that you’re having a good Monday, and that someday, you’ll get to live a life as rich and easy as mine. You probably won’t, but that won’t stop me from dreaming (GOD, I’M NICE TOO? GOD DOES GIFT WITH A HEAVY HAND!).

Rambles

FATHEADS

^This is a great example of why real writers don’t think of funny clickable titles before actually writing their articles. But I’m not a real writer, so FUCK ‘EM.

I just erased about 200 words of a blog post about millennials, and I really don’t know what I was thinking. I was writing about the housing market, you guys. The housing market; not a doughnut market or a flea market—now that’s a flea-sized market, not a flea-market, with like couches or anything—which are normally my areas of expertise, but the real housing market. And I scared myself.

Side bar, did anyone else know that “millennials” have that extra, sneaky, secret “n” in it? I’ve been spelling it “millenials” forever.

But in the wake of having no previous essays about my life and not having anything excruciatingly embarrassing happen to me since my last post, I’m going to go a la The Bloggess and do a life-y, non-essay post. “The second mention of the Bloggess in two posts?” you ask, “Are you trying to get her attention?”

“YES” is the correct answer.

Oh wait, something embarrassing did happen to me. Well, mildly embarrassing. Someone commented on my nipples. I have weird nipples. Not weird in appearance or spirit, but weird in that I feel like they’ve generated more conversation about themselves than the average nipple accrues in its lifetime.

I was shirtless and about to go into the pool at work when someone commented on the hairs around my nipples. Yes, I have hairs around my nipples. Apparently, my body—which is about as hairless and unmasculine as a Sphynx cat—grows sparse hairs on my chest, around those nips and below my belly button. I don’t have sexy chest hair. and the guy was like, “Why don’t you trim them?” and I was like “Um, I do trim them, I just left a little on because I have very pale nipples and I don’t want to appear nipple-less.”

The other time is when boys on the track team would point out that my nipples were visible through the liquid-like texture of those running, sports-material shirts. Like I said, these bad boys have started a lot of conversation.

Anyway, I feel like it should be a general rule that A) No one talks about my nipples ever again and B) We all stop talking about each other’s bodies. Because, honey, I know my nipples better than anyone in this world. I don’t need you to tell me about my nipples.

I’m going to stop typing out the word “nipples” because even I’m getting creeped out now.

THERE’S NO SEGUE FROM THAT STORY

This keeps popping up? Fafuq?

I just watched the awkward interview of Cara Delevingne with Good Day, Sacramento and I want to punch those anchors in the head. They were so rude and very “adults being condescending to a teenager whom they think is beneath them” and I would’ve been the same way. They called her “Carla.” Like journalism 101 is knowing the name of the person you’re interviewing.

And then The View ladies bashed her too. The young people—Raven Symone, my queen—was defending her and the old people—WHOOPI—were being so rude. Whoopi Goldberg said Cara wasn’t a famous actress. But who at this point hasn’t heard of fucking world supermodel Cara Delevingne? Also, Raven you look amazing! That hair! Those eyebrows! That berry lip!

I feel like the older generations are constantly looking down our generation. Like, they caused the housing crisis and have fought numerous wars, but suddenly we’re the fuckups for Tweeting while walking?

You go, Cara, and you go, Raven.

What else is annoying me?

Oh, why can’t I look hot—temperature—and hot—appearance—at the same time? Today it was a high of 97 degrees, and I was a greasy pizza mess. Note, I did not have pizza, that was just the state of my appearance. But I was near one of my coworkers—keeping this vague because some of them read this (Hi, guys!)—and the sweat was making his hair flawless and natural and he looked gorgeous. Why am I a Totino’s pizza roll and he is a Parisian croissant?

Side bar, when did Raven go on The View? Is Barbara Walters still alive? Where is Elisabeth Hasslebeck? Who is the lady in the middle complaining about being “hangry?”

OMG FUCKING SIDEST OF SIDE BARS: I hate it when people say “hangry.” It is, without a doubt, one of my top ten least favorite words. The only thing I can think of that tops the list is the name “Madison.” Just not a fan; no hate, though, Madisons of the world.

I figured out how to tie in the unrelated title. Everyone I’ve complained about—Whoopi, the nipple-obsessed co-worker, the Good Day Sacramento anchors—are being total fatheads. Yes, I’ve validated it.

Lorde knows

Lorde knows I could kvetch for hours—typed that as “hors” and immediately thought that “kvetch for hors d’oeurves” would be a great catchphrase. Also has anyone else ever seen the words “hors d’oeurves” written out and said in their heads, “Whores devour?” Or is that just me? It’s fine if it’s just me.

Whores devour!

OMFG did I just find a new signoff?

Inspirational, Life

#BLESSED

The other day, I changed my Facebook profile picture and header. And since I was on my phone, there is an option to swipe right on your header picture and it takes you to your other photos. And since I was just hanging out on the toilet, I decided to swipe through my photos, getting pretty deep into the last year.

My current Facebook header.

Side bar, we all go on our phones on the toilet. Let’s not play coy.

And so I went through the photos of my sophomore year of college. And it made my heart hurt of happiness. Because I got to see all the fun moments again. Some were small, like eating fried ice cream with one of my best friends—Shelby—or bigger, like having a picnic with some of my friends who were graduating and being silly. It showed me the friends I made and lost over the year, and the person I was over this last year.

And as I was going through the photos, I thought about the person in the photos. What would other people think of the Danny that was in those photos? He was pictured with friends, eating ice cream, dancing, going to parties, snuggled up in pajamas, cozied up with friends, outside in the snow. He has a life, a smile on his face. Would they think he’s charming? Handsome? Outgoing?

On the outside, I’m sure that’s what they would see. But sophomore year was one of the hardest of my life, probably only on par with my sophomore year of high school, when I made the decision to come out of the closet.

But sophomore year of college was a little different. I don’t consider this to be a “secret”—because I don’t think it’s something shameful or meant to be kept a secret—but it’s just not something I often talk about. I think I’ve alluded to it in previous blog posts, but I struggle with depression and anxiety. The depression is something I’ve been dealing with—mostly unaware—for years, and the anxiety is something that developed in the last few years. This past year I decided to confront them both head-on.

Now, I don’t want this post to be about depression, because I think that’s deserving of its own time and love, but it did inspire this article, in a way. Depression warps your mind, your thinking. It tricks you into believing you are drowning, that you are alone. And for much of this past year, I’ve felt like that. I felt like I was trapped behind glass, preserved in static like a pressed flower.

But looking through those photos made me realize that that was not true. Over the past year, I lost friends and gained friends. I made connections and broke them. I tried for love—in all areas both platonic and romantic—and I stretched myself. And my depression makes me think that I am alone. But I know that I am not. Those photos—and my life—are populated with people. New friends. New connections. People that I went ice-skating with, people that I stayed up with late into the night. People I texted in tears. People whose names I screamed in joy in the dining hall. Not sorry for that, by the way.

A selfie I took this morning for no reason but vanity.

And this morning I got a Facebook message from a friend I haven’t talked to in almost five years. It was just brief and small, but I got to apologize for something that had weighed on me in a small corner of my mind. And even that was beautiful. It was a reminder that my life brushes against someone else’s constantly, and that it’s not just my story. Our world is a multiverse and there’s that word—sonder—that might be fictitious but means “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.”

Objectively and distantly, my life looks good. But up close and personal, it is so much better. At times, it doesn’t feel like that, but those photos made me realize something. That while I can look at them and be thrown back into the visceral pain I might’ve been experiencing at that moment, or the bad week I’d had before, but it also shows that life went on outside of my hurricane. Life with people who cared about me enough to text me and ask if someone was wrong, people whom I hugged tightly as we said goodbye for the summer, people who accepted my loud, brash voice and my prickly insecurities and my weird head.

We are lucky and grateful and blessed a thousand-thousand times for the people in our lives. I am lucky and grateful and blessed a thousand-thousand times for the people in mine.

I heard this really beautiful quote from Ingrid Nilsen, who is a YouTuber, that she said in her coming out video. It was in the context of her coming out, but I want to write it down now, so it’s immortalized on my blog.

She said, “We all deserve our best chance.”

And that’s what I feel like looking back at these photos has reminded. That I deserve my best chance for happiness. I have a thousand reasons to be depressed. We all do. But I deserve my best chance. I deserve my best chance to grasp at happiness. And I have people who remind me of that wordlessly, effortlessly. Life is so short and if you’re not grabbing at it full-handedly, then what is the fucking point of any of this?

Some will be small, like curling up with your best friends on your carpet, like eating fried ice cream, like waiting for them at the airport and jumping into their arms. Some will be big, like holding them when they cry, like helping them hold together their broken heart. We deserve our best chance. Take it. Grab it. Seize it.

Life is unfair and hurricanic and wild and lost and soulful and all we can do is tear into it and live and feast and drink it up.

Take your best chance. Live it up. Revel. Scream.

P.S. This post is dedicated to every person who ever made me experience sonder. Thanks.

Things I’m Thinking About:

The oatmeal I had this morning. It was delicious and fancy but also exploded in the microwave while I was trying to be Pinterest-chic and cut up strawberries. I spent 10 minutes wiping down the inside of the microwave that’s probably been in our house since the ’80s.

The aforementioned oatmeal

Betty Halbreich. She is a personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman’s, and I want to be her when I am old(er). She was in the documentary, Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s and I really find a soul sister in her.

This blogger/author who is my actual literary mother and inspiration. Her name is Jenny Lawson, and she runs The Bloggess, and she inspires me to be weird and authentic and creative and writerly and successful every time I read her posts. She also showed me that it was okay to write in your voice, even if your voice is rambling and sharp and different. I adore her.

Essay, Humor, Life

SEPPUKU

On Friday, I accidentally tried to break the ice at a party by telling everyone about the time I shit my pants.

So if you ever think that you are awkward or embarrassing, remember that you are not alone. Also remember that I am still cringing.

Why I chose this moment, surrounded by work colleagues I only know vaguely, to drop—pardon the pun—this bomb as an icebreaker will forever make me wonder. Now, it’s not that I’m embarrassed of the story. It’s actually one of my favorites to tell. Maybe one day I’ll be confident enough to write it for my blog, where it will live on the Internet forever until our world is sucked into a black hole.

Side bar, I’ve been reading a lot about black holes lately and despite no real evidence of its reverse, the white hole, I firmly believe that these two together create a wormhole that will transport us across the galaxy and are the key to spacefaring. So in other words, I have a lot of time on my hands.

Now, I’m sure that there are a lot of questions, like, “You went to a party?” and “What was your fragrance story?” and “Were there snacks?”

And the answers to those questions are, “Yes, can you believe it?” and “My Body Shop white tea musk cologne mixed with sandalwood bathroom spray (semi-accidentally)” and “No. Not even an onion dip.”

I rarely go to parties during the school year, mostly preferring to stay in with my friends, watch bad comedies and going to 7-Eleven for midnight Slurpees and corndogs. So my party muscles were stiff and atrophied, but my real muscles were looking amazing, and I was wearing this slim-fitting, black tee shirt, so everything was going well aesthetics-wise.

Anyway, I was standing in a rough circle of people when I decided to engage in verbal diarrhea.

Side bar, the poop puns will not end. They’ll give me the runs for my money. OOOOH.

“So, why don’t we all talk about the last time we shit ourselves?” I ask loudly, clapping my hands together.

The silence lays thick and slow as molasses over our small group as what I just said registered. When I say something that I instantly regret, the seconds drop like an IV drip: slow and uncomfortable. Awkwardly, I try to cover my tracks.

“Um, um, um.”

It doesn’t really go over like it should.

“I feel like this was just a way for you to talk about the time you shit yourself,” someone in the circle says.

I laugh—that high-pitched cackle of terror—and say, “Come on, it’s not like we all haven’t done it.”

I can feel my intestines coil around my esophagus and disconnectedly think that seppuku—the Japanese ritualistic honor suicide of samurais—seems like a solid option right now, as I look out at the halo of alarmed faces around me.

One guy offers, “I mean, the last time was like when I was six.”

“When was yours?” someone asks me.

Fuck. The last time I did it, I was sixteen.

“HA HA HA,” I shriek. I briefly tell them the SparkNotes version of the story—again, maybe one day I will divulge the entire SAGA—and then change the subject with all the grace of a MMA wrestler.

The incident of my fuck-uppery lingers in our conversation like a malodorous fume, and not even sandalwood bathroom spray can disperse the nefarious tendrils.

I don’t think it was even the story that made me embarrassed. Like I mentioned earlier, that story is one of my best anecdotes. I broke it out in the first dinner with my now-good friend Nina. I read somewhere that Lena Dunham hates “bathroom humor,” and that’s when I realized that I had a distinctly different style of comedy than Lena. I mean, there were obviously other markers, but I chose that one.

I think what embarrassed me more was the complete misreading of my audience. I’m generally pretty intuitive when it comes to telling certain people certain anecdotes. I can discern which comfort level I am willing to broach with certain people. With Nina, I knew I could tell the story. And I’ve been used to the presence of her and my other friends, along with my sisters, all of whom I’ve told the story to. So like a deer skittering across an iced-over pond, I went from coasting to slamming face-first into a wall.

Later that night, I texted Nina and told her about the misadventure.

She was—obviously—shocked that I had fucked up so badly, but joined me in commiseration about being socially inept.

It was brought up only once the next day at work, so I guess that’s a blessing. But I’m waiting for it to rear its ugly head at the most inopportune time, which will probably be at my wedding or—more likely—a court hearing.

There’s no real way to end an incident like this, so in other news:

Pro of the Week: Eating waffles with peanut butter and raspberry jam

Con of the Week: severe farmer’s tan

Neither here nor there: Someone telling me that they read my blog but “not to tell anybody.” Because there’s nothing quite like receiving a backhanded compliment.

If there’s any takeaway from this occasion, it’s that I better believe in karma, because obviously I’m doing something to piss Someone Upstairs off.

Essay

HE HATES ME FOR MY PERSONALITY

I was thinking about high school today, and not like an overarching “best years of my life” golden nostalgia, or a “fuck that cess-pit” vitriol, but just about popularity.

Usually, when people ask me if I was popular in high school, I generally say yes. Okay, that’s a little bit of an under-statement. I usually say, “Yaaaaaaaaaas.” But I wanted to seem not weird. I mean, I wasn’t like the party-starter or the fire-starter or the non-starter, but people knew who I was and I wasn’t generally egged in the halls.

Looking back, I’m realizing that people knew who I was because I was essentially a human firecracker shitting out rainbows—I was The Gay Kid. There are other LGBTQIA+ people I graduated with, and that were in the grades below me—but the ones who were in my grade weren’t as socially tone-deaf as I was, and so I was kind of Queen of the Gays. No big deal.

Funnily enough, I never officially, publicly came out in high school. I’ve been out since I was 15, but that was to my friends and family and sometimes random strangers, but I never had the ominous “Yes, it’s true,” Facebook post. Somehow everyone just knew, but I feel like I contributed to it by being like, “Ugh, yes Zayn’s biceps are godly.” That probably was been a little too “homo” for a “no homo” to save.

But I was thinking about popularity and high school and all the boys I stalked on social media—

Side bar: So unrelated, but I had a major crush on a boy in high school and I used to go to his Facebook page so often that I could click on the search bar and his fucking profile would pop up. That’s the digital equivalent of the Kermit the Frog sipping tea meme.

—when I remembered a little occasion where I really felt I had eclipsed the bigotry associated with being stone-cold gay in a Catholic, all-boys prep school. Yeah, that’s where I got my high school diploma.

There was this guy in a math class of mine, who I knew just like tangentially—as in we had had friendly conversations about the Pythagorean Theorem—who I found out didn’t like me. Actually, he really didn’t like me.

I found this out through Paul—the scrumptious bby of a friend I mentioned in my last post—who was talking to this boy—I guess we can call him…ugh, what’s like a really regular name, Herbert (?)—basically about how much I suck as a person.

Essentially, this is how the conversation went when Paul told me about his discussion with Herbert:

ME: (probably looking at myself in the mirror)

PAUL: So I had an interesting conversation with Herbert.

ME: Which Herbert?

PAUL: Herbert C.

ME: Oh, we had a class together!

PAUL: Yeah. We were talking about how he didn’t like you.

ME: I’m sorry, what.

PAUL: Yeah, and we had this long conversation and finally came to the conclusion that he doesn’t like you for your personality.

ME: Why the fuck are you telling me this?

PAUL: No but don’t you see how great this is? I showed him that the reason he doesn’t like you isn’t because you’re gay, but because he hates your personality.

ME: Yeah but he still doesn’t like me.

PAUL: Yeah, but not because you’re gay. This is progress!

ME: (shatters mirror)

Aside from the glaring issue of Paul have the social tact of an elephant, I was—shockingly—not pleased to have my bubble burst. I thought that everyone loved/tolerated me. Or if they hated me, I could brush it off. But no, apparently my personality was anathema to my classmates.

Now, a few years after the fact, I think I can appreciate that not everyone will love me. Just kidding, it still bugs me. But I think I can accept the fact that it bugs me. And maybe one day I can appreciate that not everyone will love me. But by then, I plan on being so famous that I can sweep away in my Givenchy—okay, reading back, I can understand why Herbert might not have been a fan. It makes a little bit of sense.

High school is such a weird time, because I don’t think you can replicate it with any other type of experience. It is the absolute fucking worst, but there’s something amazing in that worst-ness. Like, college is amazing for learning to lean on yourself, but high school is the first time you can really chisel away and see yourself. You can rage against the flat botanical wallpaper of your surroundings; you can seethe and fall in love and wallow. I mean, you can do that in college and in life, but there is something uniquely beautiful about the passion of high school emotions. I don’t think I loved or grieved as fully as in high school, because it was such an incomplete, full-thrust power.

That got really serious, so let’s bring it back to the silly. Once, in summer camp, when I was doing the deep-water test, I dove into the water and my bathing suit slipped down to my knees and everyone saw my butt.

Humor

PAINT-BY-NUMBERS REALNESS

I step out of the shower and grab my towel, slicking the water off my arms and chest, doing each leg. As it swipes over my stomach, I notice a diagonal stripe of normal skin, bracketed by hot, cotton candy-pink sunburn.

*****

Back up a few hours, and I’m lying on a chaise lounge by the pool. I’m reading Mamrie Hart’s book You Deserve A Drink. I’m shirtless, and feeling awkward. I’ve always struggled with body image, which has been simultaneously alleviated and aggravated by going to the gym. But at this moment, it’s not my muscles that are the source of my discomfort. No, it’s my fresh Irish skin.

Through the amber lenses of my steampunk tortoiseshell sunglasses, my skin is tinted tan. I used a sunless tanning moisturizer that gives me a healthy glow, but in direct sunlight, it seems to be bleached of color, returning me to my wintry pallor.

This photo has no relevance to the post. I think I look really hot in it and was feeling my look. Can I live?

And the pool is probably not the best place to be when you’re feeling hyper-aware of your paleness. It doesn’t helped that I’m sitting in a long line of glistening-skinned women, and my sister, Margot, who has beaten her Irish skin into submission and is a deep honeycomb brown. I’m feeling very judged at this pool.

So I decide to stall my sunscreen application. Sometimes, a little burn causes my skin to take on a rosy flush. I set a 15-minute timer on my phone and settle back into the horizontal plastic straps of the lounge.

After fifteen minutes, I unstick myself from the tacky plastic and peer underneath my sunglasses at my stomach. I don’t feel burned, so I put off putting on sunscreen until a few minutes later. After that, I don’t think about it until I went to the bathroom. I moved past the mirror towards the urinals—

Wait, TOTAL side bar, but when I was at the pool a few days after, I went into the bathroom and saw this totally hot guy at the urinal a few away from. And whenever I tell this story, it sounds like the beginning of a big gay cruising adventure, but I swear that didn’t happen. Because when I was peeing, he finished up and walked out of the bathroom without washing his hands.

The beginning of every love story.

And if you don’t know me—actually some people who do know me probably don’t know this—is that I hate dirtiness. I used to hate fruit because I had this irrational fear that it was secretly dirty and filled with maggots inside. I knew rationally that that couldn’t the case but I avoided them like the clap. So washing hands is a major turn-on for me. And this pool Adonis just DIDN’T DO IT. Our autumn wedding crashed and burned.

Also I like how I said it didn’t happen because he didn’t wash his hands, as if anything would’ve happened anyway.

—I noticed that my chest was pale pink from the sun.

Sitting in the car, my short bathing suit, which normally goes halfway down towards my knees, bunches up on my thighs and crotch. A clean line divides the skin that was exposed to the sun and the skin that wasn’t, making it look like I’m wearing a particularly anatomically correct pair of boxers.

*****

Additionally, my skin was two weeks away from really adjusting back to normal after a particularly bad tank top tan line situation.

So with the tank top tan line, the sunless tanner, the book-reading tan lines and the bathing suit tan lines, I was Fifty Shades of Fucked Up. I was dealing with more darks and lights than a noir film. I was doing my best Tony the Tiger impression.

In the light of gay.

I was serving straight up paint-by-numbers realness.

Luckily, because I actually put on sunscreen, the burn was actually more like cotton candy and less like that fluffy pink insulation wool: a.k.a. it would soon melt away. Weird simile but it works (?). Like, simi-let me do this. Can I live?

Side bar: “Can I live?” will remain one of the most iconic lines ever to be uttered. Thanks, Kim Kardashian.

I always feel like there should be some overarching theme to end my posts, like “Don’t sun-tan” or “Drink lots of water,” but I like keeping the bar extremely low. It keeps you pleasantly surprised when I do mediocrely, and that’s really all I’m aiming for.

Side bar: my scrumptious friend—let’s call him Paul—wanted to be included in the post and give a quote.

Poe-try again, bby.

ICONIC

Inspirational

OF CLOTHES & MUSCULATURE

I miss being able to wear clothes. And no, I haven’t joined a nudist colony. But I work at a summer camp, where I spend 10 hours a day in a heavy cotton t-shirt and gym shorts. Compression shorts that perk up my butt—an unintended perk (was that a pun?)—but that clamp up my front-junk-in-the-trunk in a spandex cocoon and encase my thighs in a stretch-dream. At the end of the day, I’ve sweated through that shirt ten times over, and it’s covered in Fudgesicles and sunscreen.

When I get home, I either go to the gym and then get into pajamas, or I get into my “in between work and sleep” oversized white tank top that I bought for five dollars at JoAnn Fabrics.

I miss the excitement of putting on an outfit, reworking clothes I already have into a new outfit, creating the kaleidoscopic push-and-pull of switching out this cardigan for that, kicking off shoes and slipping on a pair of TOMs, of feeling like I was this fresh person with each button pushed through the puncture in the fabric.

I miss having occasions. Even when I was getting dressed for class, it was an occasion. It was a chance to run into someone or show someone a part of me. Plus I like to think I have good fashion sense and I fucking live for compliments.

And connected to this is the idea of attractiveness. I don’t feel as cute or sexy lately, and so I pick apart my body more, agonizing over each square inch of musculature footage. It’s like my body is this house and when I can cultivate outfits, I’m reminded of each part in its individual-wholeness and it reminds me that my body is this sinewy, strong piece of work, blood-blushed marble breathing along every artery. And I treat it like it’s strong, like the stretch of muscle underneath is as hand-crafted as the brown-stitched blue denim that’s smoothing over my shoulders and buttoning over my heart.

But when I spend my day going from sweat-streaked staff shirt to sweat-stained workout gear to pajamas, I forget the ritual. I forget why I like getting dressed. And so the things I do to combat the rising anxiety and spiraling about Why does my body look like this and I need to do something now about it and What can I do what can I do like working out and eating salads stop being helpful mortar and pestle and start being hurtful sandpaper and grit.

This post started about in its nascence about bodies, but I find clothes much more fascinating. And not just “trends” and “how-to’s”. I fucking love clothes because I fucking love who we can become with them. I miss the luxury of dressing in all black, because when I dress in black I am simultaneously in mourning and vengeful, strong and languid. Clothes are a way of adapting myself to myself, of trying to verbalize how I’m feeling by being physical. I’ve discovered that I can’t often express myself in “healthy” ways. They eke out of me and mutate, so physically expressing them, through clothes or typing or working out, they make me heard, understood, felt.

Whenever I do…how to say this and remain correct…these emotionally rambling, or emotionally driven, essays, I always feel like ending with paragraphs that say shit like, “Omg guys, sorry for being so crazy. Like I don’t even know where I was going with this, just thought I would write! Lol quirks alerts :ppp.” Like, dude, fuck that.

I always tread this line of wondering how much of my life to share online. Obviously I’ve done the essays about first dates and first porn meanderings, but those are far removed and I change the names of the participants, so it’s relatively distant from the hurling hurricane that is my daily life. I was just really feeling inspired by Amy Winehouse, and I wanted to write and let it flow and it evolved like a Pokémon into this obvious aforementioned essay.

I’m really not as put together as I think I appear to be. And if you’re reading this thinking to yourself, “Dude, you don’t seem put together,” then take the number out of 10 that you think I am put together and subtract about a two. If you came up with a negative number, frankly I’m a little offended that you think so little of me, but if you ended up with anything higher than like an eight, then you’re fucking lying to yourself.

Also, Marco, as I’m writing this I’m texting you. So nice little shout-out to future you from present me. Well, I mean is it present-you and past-me? from whose perspective does the time matter? Time really is fucking relative, you guys.

In conclusion, I want to have the freedom to be a nightmare dressed like a daydream.

Humor

I KILLED KRIS JENNER. I KILLED THE TEEN DREAM.

I rarely remember my dreams, and usually they dissolve from my memory within minutes of waking up. But recently I’ve been having crazy-vivid dreams, so I thought I would share a few of them. The dreams I remember the most fall into two categories: either they’re about me kissing someone, or they’re about me regretting something.

Dream #1: I purchased a grey suede Marc Jacobs briefcase for $1600. I don’t know why I purchased this, or how, but I apparently did. The color was bomb; and I think a rich, charcoal-silver grey suede is one of the most chic things ever.

Dream #2: I accidentally killed Kris Jenner and Scott Disick with a plague and then had to cover up the deaths.

Now, weirdly enough, I can kind of explain these dreams. Firstly, the grey suede Marc Jacobs briefcase: the previous day I was watching Rich Kids of Beverly Hills—an all-time favorite of mine—and one of the characters—is it called a character if it’s a reality show?—who is an interior decorator, was looking at sofas and saw this bomb grey suede sofa and it was luxurious.

Rich Kids of Beverly Hills holds a special place in my heart. Primarily, it’s an amazing show that has really given me the gift of unparalleled gifs. Secondarily, on one of the only “friend-dates” I’ve ever gone on, I went over to my—now very close—friend Shelby’s room and we watched Rich Kids and bonded over our mutual love of screaming suburban mothers’ names out loud. The main star of RKOBH, Morgan Stewart, calls her mother by her first name: “Susan.” Shelby and I found that—for whatever reason—so unbelievably funny and it’s been our calling card, our inside joke, ever since. So whenever I watch RKOBH I’m reminded of Shelby and Susan and friend-dating and awkwardly asking someone I only tangentially knew to watch one of my favorite shows with me.

Morgan laying down some stone cold truth.

SUSAN

Side bar: another one of my friend dates was inviting over a—again, now very close—friend to watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s and eat snacks. For all intents and purposes, I’ll call him Marco. Side, side bar: wasn’t blown away by Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Side, side, side bar: will I be stabbed for saying that?

ANYWAY, ANYWAY, ANYWAY

I don’t know where the briefcase comes into the story because A) briefcases are so irrelevant know that we all have iPads and B) I’m like twelve why would I be thinking of briefcases? Regardless, in my dream I was sticking by my decision, but when I woke up—still in the haze of fresh-dream-slumber—I snatched up my phone and checked the balance of my bank account. Side bar: I just had to pay my phone bill, and now I’m like real life low-key depressed about how little is left in my account.

The briefcase dream reminded me of another dream I had, months ago when I was still in spring semester. If you’ve ever talked to me for more than ten minutes, you know that eventually I want to get tattoos. I’m waiting until I’m out of college, but it’s definitely something I’m going to do. But I’m not going to list out the tattoos I want because you’ll have to chat to me to find out—Hint, it’s going to be a pair of angel wings right over my crotch. Oops, that’s not really a hint. But anyway, in the dream, I had gotten a tattoo of the outline of the United States—continental, of course—and dotting the inside of the tattoo were stars in every place where I’ve said “I love you.”

Weirdly enough—or not weirdly enough—I only had like two stars, and both were in random places. One was in upstate New York, and one was in Colorado-area. Like, dude, I can barely point out Colorado on a map.

But in both of these dreams, I’ve woken up and still had the clinging threads of the dreams in my head. When I woke up from the tattoo, I jolted upright, looked at my wrist, saw bare skin, and then flopped back against the pillows.

The second dream—the original second dream—is a lot harder to explain. Okay, it’s impossible to explain. I love Kris Jenner and I NEVER want her to die. I would throw myself in front of a train before I ever harmed her or her Celine sunglasses. I also don’t want to analyze these homicidal dream tendencies because let’s not open up that can of worms. All I can say is that it was a nightmare and even though it was a dream, I would like to formally apologize to Kris Jenner and Scott Disick. Kris, I love you. Always. Call me. Let’s get lunch.

While writing this post, I spent a good twenty minutes perusing the Internet. Five minutes was spent reading through the Twitter handle @DrunkInaGarten and fifteen minutes was spent reading about media in Salt Lake City, Utah. I have this weird obsession—firstly with Ina—with Salt Lake City, and I’ve always fantasized about moving there, so I was looking up what media they have in the city that I can work at. And just looking at the magazines and radio stations and TV stations made me wonder how on Earth I’m going to be able to find a job where I can write whatever I want and make enough money to become friends with Ina Garten. I’m not saying Ina pays for friends; I’m just saying that there’s a definite minimum level of wealth before she’ll even turn her head towards your general direction.

How do people have their dream jobs? Maybe I shouldn’t have my dream job, because my dreams consist of buying things I can’t afford, getting horrible tattoos, and accidentally killing pop culture matriarchs. But those might classify as nightmares, so right now is this a moot point? God knows.

Life, Rambles

SANDRA BULLOCK, THE EPISCOPALIAN CHURCH, & MY MESSED-UP KNEE

I’m typing this on my blue shag rug, and I think I’ve fucked up my knee from leaning against the wooden floor. I’ve tried to crack it back to normal, but it’s not working. Can anyone else crack their knees? Or is that something I should get checked out?

Today at work, one of my campers came up to me, pushed a used Band-Aid into my hands and asked me to “hold it” for him.

I spent an hour in a black hole of watching YouTube videos of “The Voice” competitors. Also side bar I almost wrote “spent an hour in a K hole” because I just assumed it meant the same thing as “black hole” and then I Screen Shot 2015-07-01 at 9.35.20 PM Googled it and found out that it’s a drug reference which led me to realize that I’m not cool enough to even know the names of drugs.

I feel like I eat relatively healthy at work—salads, yogurts, water—and I’m essentially sprinting after seven-year-olds today—also wait side bar, I played soccer with my campers today and I thought I was so good until I realized that I was playing against second-graders and then I realized that I might just be okay—but then I get home and ingest a pint of gelato and it seems cosmically cruel and unfair that the bad things I eat count more than the good things I eat. Who thought of this system?

I just saw the interview of Sandra Bullock after she was named the “Most Beautiful Woman in the World” by People Magazine and I A) thought it was weird that we can categorically decide that fact, B) loved her dress, and C) thought it was weird that People Magazine was the authority of this highly contentious and amorphous idea of beauty. But I really loved what she had to say. She said that she only accepted the “title” (?) if she could use the platform to talk about the women who inspire her, who protect and value each other, who support other women against the onslaught of media criticism.

And that’s so important—well, duh—because it makes me nauseous when I think of the pressures of beauty ideals that we put on women and girls. Even with campaigns and role models, I don’t know how much progress we as a society have made to make girls and women feel like they are enough, and are in no need of airbrushing away freckles or photoshopping thigh gaps. And I know saying that veers towards the “you’re beautiful and you don’t know it” territory that has been clearly claimed by One Direction and John Legend, which I don’t want to encroach upon. I’m not trying to be like, “Oh you think you’re ugly but you’re so beautiful,” I’m trying to say that women, girls, men, boys, everyone, all of us, are strong and lovely and fragile and we are twisting ourselves and mangling ourselves for external approval. And that sucks.

And I feel that so much. Do you think I like eating salads? Salads are awesome but I don’t eat them because they’re awesome I eat them because I want to be Kate Moss. And I hate that I want to be Kate Moss because bringing back “heroin chic” is not something I want to be on my Wikipedia page when I’m eighty and doing enough chemical peels to melt titanium. I want “finally made “fetch” happen” and “repopularized pagan rituals in mainstream America” to be so associated with my name that it’s even in the short little summary at the top of my Wikipedia page.

I just spent 20 minutes reading about Holly Madison and her tell-all book about her time in the Playboy Mansion, so I really lost my train of thought. But I suppose she’s related to the notion of women being forced into fulfilling certain ideal in society.

The Episcopalian Church just voted and will now allow religious same-sex marriages! While I don’t anticipate the Catholic Church following suit anytime soon, at least without a bunch of nuns rioting in the streets, it’s incredible for a religious organization to be standing behind same-sex marriage. Religion remains one of the last bastions of same-sex marriage opponents, so without that, they have one less leg to stand on. They’re basically hobbling around on peg-legs at this point.

It’s funny how the world can move so slowly for absolute ages and then within the span of a few weeks, things come to a head. In the span of a few weeks, we’ve seen an Olympian come out as transgender, a woman spark dialogue about racial identity, same-sex marriage become legalized across the country, and so, so much more. It makes me glad that I’m alive to see this. We came from generations of fighters and feminists and equalists and it’s heartbreaking that they didn’t see the fruits of their fights, but they fought for us, so that we could see it, and the fact that we had people who thought so far into the future and saw us and cherished us is enough to make me remember that however fucked up I feel or depressed I am, I was fought for.

Update on my knee, it’s still fucked-up, and I put ice on it, which just served to make it numb and fucked-up. Why does ice make anything better? Because it reduces swelling? Or it is a placebo? What would heat do? Maybe it’ll swell up and then I’ll have a peg-leg just like the bigots! Then I’ll be so #relatable to them and they won’t hate me anymore!

This post was an absolute cluster-fuck of thoughts. But I almost like them as much as my “essays about my life in which I exploit painful memories for metaphorical profit” posts, because this is much more reflective of my thought train. Like, when I’m writing those life essay posts, I’m poised and I edit and I’m so goddamn classy, and when I write posts like this one, it’s essentially like when you give a monkey a keyboard and it just drags its hands (paws?) against the keys.

BAI-BAI, BAES 😉

REAL JOURNALISM

Essay, Humor

VENTI CARAMEL ICED COFFEE

“Can I get a venti caramel iced coffee?” I tell the Starbucks cashier. She nods and scribbles my name across a plastic cup the size of a baby crib.

“I’ll pay for it,” he says, pushing his card across the counter. I smile at him.

“Thanks!” Fucker.

We sit down at a small circular table, him fiddling with his car keys and me leaning forward, perched on my elbows.

*****

I’m sitting in the library, books strewn across the table obnoxiously, forcing my tablemates to cramp into the corner of the space. They shoot glares at me, which to me are like Nerf pellets but to them are probably daggers. My phone gives a small, discrete bzzz.

I slide it open and click on the yellow Grindr app, the black mask of the icon like a gay Phantom of the Opera except even less faces and more torsos. A message has popped up from a cute Latino guy with curly hair and a mild-mannered smirk.

“Hey. At first I thought you were looking for a centurion, but then I read it again and I’m mistaken,” he texts. Screen Shot 2015-06-28 at 9.44.16 PM I laugh out loud. My profile, a 10/10 picture of me, has the caption, “Looking for centenarians. Anyone born after 1914 need not apply.” The fact that someone A) knew what a centenarian was and B) knew what a centurion was, is enough to make me text back an answer.

His name is Corey, and he goes to a college near mine. He wants to hang out—no sex, just mac n’ cheese—but I’m swamped in finals and migrating back to New York directly after. After a few more minutes, I find out that he’s actually from the adjacent town to mine in New York, so I give him my number.

Eventually, I delete Grindr because having it on my phone always make me feel like I need to shower incessantly. But we begin texting back and forth, at first gingerly, and then more frequently.

Corey is dorky but funny, and works for an engineering company back in our college town but travels back to New York occasionally. He’s two years older than me, a junior to my then freshman. I find out his last name, immediately stalk him on Facebook and find that we have three mutual friends and he’s not Hispanic, but Mayflower white.

Corey keeps asking me out, so after the fourth or so attempt, I accept his offer and we make a plan to meet up when he’s back in New York.

Weeks pass, and I kind of create a boyfriendish allure around him. He’s at the top of my messages, and has sent me enough pictures for me to be relatively sure that he’s not a forty-five year old serial killer looking to make me into a sports coat.

“Do you want to see Maleficent with me?” I ask. Looking back, I don’t know why I keep insisting on bringing dates to children’s movies. I’ve brought a date to see Frozen—pre hype—and that ended about as well as the Hindenburg. Additionally, Maleficent was so subpar and I really would’ve liked to see Angelina Jolie portray a more fleshed-out “villain.”

“Yeah!” he answers, and we make a plan to meet up that night at a public mall.

Hours later, after I’ve planned my outfit but before I’ve prayed to the gods and made my ritual sacrifice, Corey Screen Shot 2015-06-28 at 9.46.27 PM suggests that we buy tickets ahead of time, online. When I point out that it’s unlikely that the movie will be sold out, since it’s been out for two weeks, he insists that we “don’t want to miss out.” Also, he can’t order the tickets because his laptop is broken so can I please order them and he’ll “pay me back with coffee or…other things ;).”

“Coffee is fine,” I text back and order the—per his request—IMAX tickets, knocking me back about forty dollars. I don’t think I would pay this much for a prostitute, much less a date, but the metaphysical check has been cashed and I’ve selected two seats—so basically we’re married—so I can’t back out now.

*****

“You’re tall,” is the first thing out of his mouth when I walk up to him. He’s been leaning against the metal railing.

I have no idea how to respond to this fact. For some reason, because I’m over six feet, people feel the need to point out that I am tall, as if that’s a secret my parents have been hiding from me for 18 years and they’re springing it on me in an Italian restaurant. Being tall is one of those things that people assume is socially acceptable to have an opinion on. No one walks up to someone else and says, “Hmm, I didn’t think you be as ugly as you are,” or “Oh, you’re Jewish? You don’t look Jewish in your pictures.”

I answer with a “Ha, yeah,” mingled with a fake laugh. He is still looking jarred, but manages to pull it together enough to walk with me towards the escalator. We still have a little bit of time before the movie, so we’re going into a Toys “R” Us because apparently going on dates regresses us into middle school.

“I actually turned down a threesome to be here,” Corey says, in what I can only assume is an attempt to break the ice and not an attempt to get me to break his neck.

“Oh,” I say, laughing. Note to reader, I will be uncomfortably laughing throughout this entire date. Brace yourself.

On the list of things that have been said to me that hover in between Flattery and Fuckery, this is right up there next to someone saying that it “wasn’t your looks” that made me single.

I’ve texted out three SOS’s, so this date isn’t going categorically great, so I breathe a sigh of relief when he suggests we go get coffee, which means A) I get coffee B) the movie is nigh and C) I get coffee.

I decide to forgo my usual grande and get a venti, because I’m going to eke everything I can out of this $40 dollar date. The barista gives me the venti iced coffee, which is large but barely even a movie theater small.

*****

We sit down at a small circular table, him fiddling with his car keys and me leaning forward, perched on my elbows.

I’m rambling on. He’s quiet. When people get quiet, I tend to talk more. So I’m all chattering mouth in the silence, chattering teeth from the iced coffee, and gesticulating arms. At this point, the date is basically a dead horse. Not even one you want to beat, just one that was formerly stumbling on weak legs and now has completely given up.

We chat, and he’s perfectly nice, but it’s obvious that I’m carrying the date. And my arms are not that strong.*

*This statement has now become false, as I have been working out and my arms are pretty toned.

“Should we go over to the movie?” I asked brightly, rattling the melting ice around.

*****

The movie is good but not great. Much like myself, Angelina Jolie is visually stunning but seems too skilled for the meager sliver the writers carved out for her. I wanted her to be violently cruel, tantalizing evil, all scorned and scorching.

Times I get up to go to the bathroom: 3

Times our knees knock together: 5

Times I awkwardly crane my head to talk to him: 2

Times he seems about to put his arm around my shoulders: 1

By the end of the movie, I am exhausted from getting up to relieve my bursting bladder, which has been going full steam ahead from the massive amount of coffee I just drank.

We parked in different levels of the same lot, so we walk over together. His car is closer, so I mosey over with him. “I can drive you to your car,” he offers, standing next to his car.

“No that’s fine,” I laugh. He offers again, and I survey him and realize—for the first time—that I would be nervous to be in the car with him, with anyone that I didn’t know, and that makes me squirm.

He leans in and I lean in for a hug. Out of the corner of my eye I see his head swivel and feel a kiss placed awkwardly close to my ear. I pull back from the hug and see him looking expectantly at me.

Oh, fuck.

Our heads careen towards each other as we kiss. It’s all scrape and stubble and the lingering acrid embers of the coffee. What do I do with my hands? I think. I unclench them and swing them halfway towards Corey before swinging them back and keeping them firmly at my sides.

The kiss ends and I smile and say goodbye. I can feel his eyes rolling over my neck as I walk away and I don’t look back until I can hear his engine breathe to life. I wave then, and I can see him waving back through the slant of the windshield.

*****

It’s only later—when I’m recounting the date to my friend—that I realize that I’ve just had my first kiss, my first boy-to-boy kiss.

*****

Corey and I exchange a few texts after our date, but the connection we had via digital communication has fizzled with the reality of our selves. I don’t think about him until eight months later when I accidentally swipe right for him on Tinder while trying to find subjects for a photo essay.

I blindly send him a message detailing my photo essay without looking at who the profile belongs to. A few days later, I’m at dinner with my friends and am alerted to a new Tinder message. My phone gives a small, discrete bzzz.

I slide it open and click on the app’s red flame. It’s one of my potential subjects. I look at the message:

“Um, hi to you too?”

My eyes flash to the name at the top of the page: Corey. I let out a half-shriek-half-laugh. Okay, it was more like three quarters shriek and one quarter laugh.

My friends ask me why I’m gasping. This time, it’s a full laugh, and I tell them all about Corey and the threesome and the hands-clenched kiss and the coffee peeing.

P.S. Thanks to my dear friend Nina who helped me brainstorm what I should write about for this essay and who accepted the fact that I had texted her solely to shoot down her ideas until I could think of one better with grace and aplomb. Thanks, N. ❤

The Wunderkindof

Too good-looking to be this funny. Politics. Pop Culture. Millennial Ramblings.

Tag Archives: Danny McCarthy

STRAIGHT WHITE MALE

Written hours after seeing a girl running on the treadmill who was an exact replica of Taylor Swift in the commercial where she’s sprinting on a treadmill like a Suburban Girl on Black Friday and listening to Drake. Blunt bangs and all. Still shaken.

crickets

FATHEADS

#BLESSED

SEPPUKU

HE HATES ME FOR MY PERSONALITY

PAINT-BY-NUMBERS REALNESS

OF CLOTHES & MUSCULATURE

I KILLED KRIS JENNER. I KILLED THE TEEN DREAM.

SANDRA BULLOCK, THE EPISCOPALIAN CHURCH, & MY MESSED-UP KNEE

VENTI CARAMEL ICED COFFEE

Written hours after seeing a girl running on the treadmill who was an exact replica of Taylor Swift in the commercial where she’s sprinting on a treadmill like a Suburban Girl on Black Friday and listening to Drake. Blunt bangs and all. Still shaken.

*crickets*

crickets