NO PICTURES

As I was on a (what would turn out to be over four hours in the rain and two iterations of Taylor Swift’s 1989) drive back from my Boston Halloweekend, I realized – mid-eating a Chicken McNugget – that I hadn’t gotten a picture for Instagram the entire weekend. “Fuck!” I said, mouth muffled by “meat.”

And over the next few hours, as I caught up on all the social media I had missed – all the Halloween Instagrams of people in their various costumes, all the posed Snap stories and (let’s be realistic) Instagram stories – I felt more and more annoyed. I had let a prime social media weekend slip through my fingers like sand, or silk, or (most realistically) me dribbling a basketball.

It was the second time I was in Boston in October, and I had – on both occasions – made a plan to take a cute Instagram with my friends and completely forgotten. It’s a sober truth, I’ve realized, that when you’re a freelance writer-journalist (slash full-time inspiration and model), your chances for taking cutely candid Instagrams are severely limited. Either I’m working, writing, sleeping, eating, watching Netflix or doing some combination of the aforementioned. And unless my followers want endless versions of my dog with the exact same photo filtering (I do an opaque shadow, get used to it), there’s a limit to the content I’m naturally coming into contact with.

Getting an Instagram is more than an exercise in vanity. This might be dumb – do you know me? – but social media is as much a cultivation of personal branding as it is to remember moments. I want to work in media, and understanding various social media platforms, and being active on those platforms, is important to me. And in a post-grad world where I’m a very small fish in…the ocean? A galaxy? It helps me feel connected to the larger world. And yes, I use those photos for Tinder. Sue me.

Before I came up to Boston in the beginning of October, I texted my best friend. “We have to take a photo together.” She agreed (she loves photos of me). But with the time constraints of balancing family and friends, we forgot. I spent my hours with her, and my other friends, drinking at our favorite bar, hanging out at home, getting brunch. I drank up their presence like a sunflower; it had been so long since I had seen them in person. And I just missed them. And I didn’t want to miss any of them by separating myself through a screen.

Continue reading →

Halloween

HALLOWEEKEND 2016, A MODERN POEM

All through the streets of Allston

Liquid-legged collegiates stumble to and fro,

Sexy kittens in frothy black lace

Pursued closely by Greek gods in togas

Modern Daphnes in laurel orchards.

And lying in pools of sticky jungle juice

Frozen Eggo waffles quietly thaw

While above their Elevenses make out with Luke Cages

But stranger things have happened than a Netflix Noah’s Ark.

If you listen closely, you can hear

The plaintive howling of Basics:

“Tessa, put on your devil horns!

NO ONE WILL GET THAT I’M AN ANGEL

Without those devil horns!”

Tessa Tessa Tessa echoes through the cracked asphalt.

And you wonder how Becca will deal

With being a lone angel amidst monsters;

A pre-Fall Lucifer in thigh-highs.

Costumes are reconfigured to accommodate the dredging mists

Skimpy fairies become swathed slutty trolls

California surfer boys become J.Crew-flanneled Dartmouth legacies

Leaving behind only Spartans who won’t sacrifice sex for comfort.

Candies scatter across coffee tables like teeth

Holdovers from childhood

Sugary hangovers before Tequila called our names

They’re snatched up, eaten ravenously to bring company

To the alcohol already taking up residence in stomachs

Mouths hover like moths over mouths

Brushing ears to be heard above the Monster Mash

Tap-dancing along shoulder blades

Stained white from ghostly makeup and red from fake blood

The morning light will reveal the cracks on

An unexfoliated face fully mimed-out

But in the warm orange glow, gilding the faces

Of sexy gym teachers and slutty RBGs

Everything is airbrushed and whole

As the night stretches thinner than H&M denim

The sidewalks become cluttered with lolling legs

Attached to a coterie of Suicide Squad villains

Harley Quinns and Jokers

The anonymity is appealing

The ability to be slutty, or scanty, or arrogant

I’m in a fuckboi tank top but blanketed in the clustered confidence

Of play-acting at something else

Something other

But protruding like the starkly contoured collarbones

Is the internal core

Tessa still won’t wear the devil horns

Becca will always ask

The arrogance, bolstered by alcohol and Party City, will submerge back

And pretend to be humble confidence

Ready to reemerge in the next Halloweekend

Halloween, Humor, Life

LIKE YOU HALLOMEAN IT: COSTUMES, NOSTALGIA & I HATE A LEAF

Written while getting increasingly erratic and jealous of a photo I posted on Instagram of a leaf. It’s somehow gotten more likes than my other most recent photo—me, looking thin—and I actually couldn’t make up how crazy it’s making me. IT’S A FUCKING LEAF, PPL. IS SHE HOTTER THAN ME? IS THAT WHAT IT IS?! WHAT DOES THIS LEAF HAVE THAT I DON’T? IT’LL BE DEAD AND CRISPY IN TWO DAYS. If I were smarter, I would stop giving this leaf promo, but my rage-envy is giving me tunnel vision.

The beginning // Source: Twitter.com/dnnymccrthy

Trying to cope // Source: Twitter.com/dnnymccrthy

Full descent into madness // Source: Twitter.com/dnnymccrthy

Halloween always stresses me out. As a kid, it was the blinding anxiety of the whole night being without rules. As a gaydult, it’s shifted to the crippling anxiety of trying to find the perfect Halloween costume. Halloween is Gay Christmas (Christmas is Gay Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving is just Gay, and the Super Bowl is Gay Arbor Day—no one cares about it and only Beyoncé makes it better). Also, Labor Day is the same in both Gay and Straight.

I can’t remember if I did anything for Halloween in high school. Granted, as evidenced by the photos I’ve been looking at lately, in high school I was cosplaying as a cadaver 24/7 (I was thin, you guys, and not “chic” thin or even “are you okay” thin (my favorite kind of thin) but like “gangly as fuck” thin, which is never a good look). I’m pretty lean now, and it’s only now that I realize there’s a solid difference between “thin” and “lean.”

I thought I was such hot shit in high school—omg the fucking ego I had—and now looking bad, I was literally all bad skin and mile-long limbs and HORRIFIC taste in clothing (I wore decorative scarves all the time). I’m on such a tangent but thinking about how no one gave me an intervention makes me so mad.

Anywayanyway, what should I be for Halloween for my senior year—the capstone four years in the making?

Source: Twitter.com/dnnymccrthy

Freshman year of college

I was a “dead pirate” but everyone just thought I was “beat up Where’s Waldo.” Nothing against Where’s Waldo but definitely not what I was going for.

Sophomore year of college

I decided to go as a pun. BIG MISTAKE BECAUSE NO ONE GETS PUNS ON HALLOWEEN. I was “Dick In A Box.” The idea for the costume centered around the fact that I had this outfit that I looked so cute in, and I also had a cardboard box. I hung the box around me from spooky skull suspenders and then put a name-tag that said “Hi! I’m Richard” on the box. I’m not even exaggerating when I say that NO ONE GOT IT. Was I too nuanced? Should I have said “Hi I’m Dick”? What did I do wrong?!

Junior year of college #LondonEdition

The elusive, sexy Halloweekend. On Friday night, I went on a bar crawl through Shoreditch and dressed as Sexy Dead Lumberjack (L.L.Bean boots, short-shorts, red flannel unbuttoned to my navel, gray beanie, and a “slash” across my throat in red lipstick). Saturday I was supposed to be Bob Belcher from Bob’s Burgers, but after my RA thought I was simply in my pajamas, I changed. I did my face in skull makeup (free hand) and drew a tombstone on a white t-shirt, scrawling above it “My Dreams.” I was “My Dreams Are Dead.” Pretty funny and people moderately got it. The highlight of this night was eating duck confit and waffles forty floors above misty London at four a.m.

But so far, I haven’t thought of anything that’s really grabbing me. Here are some potential (actual potential, not like “joke for the blog”) options that I’ve been mulling over:

Source: Twitter.com/dnnymccrthy // Love my fans!

Fuckboi/No Homo

There’s a subtle difference between a “fuckboy” and a “fuckboi” because a “fuckboi” is secretly gay. Me and my “friend” Nina* have this long-running joke where we morph into what I like to think of as the gay fratty version of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and just riff off each other. Just two dudes who think it’s not gay to fall into the loving embrace of another man. The kind of guys who say “A hole is a hole” and “I’m not gay, but I would totally bottom for Tom Brady.” Just str8boi things.

*I fucking hate that nine-fingered bitch.

Sexy Dentist

I think there has been no greater gift to humanity than the “Let’s Turn Regular Things Sexy” trend. I mean, fire is a pretty close second, but seriously this tops that. As a “joke” (where I float an actual idea but clothe it in humor to avoid being embarrassed) the possibility of being a “Sexy Baby” but the reaction from my focus groups was (probably rightfully) almost unanimous disgust. So that goes in the “Maybe” pile.

But I think being a Sexy Dentist could be hilarious because I love doing the whole “Unsexy Things Becoming Sexy but Doing Unsexy Things.” Like I do this dance at the club called “Sad Stripper” where it’s just me pussy-popping while crying. So as Sexy Dentist, I could wear a too-tight scrubs shirt, short shorts, maybe a mouth thingy, and then just stick my fingers in people’s unsuspecting mouths and ask them questions about school.

Like, a long time goes by.

Okay, so apparently I didn’t have a third potential option, and instead of brainstorming funny ideas just for the sake of having a trio (threesomes are so hard to coordinate, I’ve learned) I went back through my blog and read funny posts. You guys, I was actually funny. What’s happened? Anyway, I can’t even think of a third choice, so let’s just say that those are my two major options. It’s hard thinking of things to make funny. I mean, I’m not funny, so I wouldn’t actually know. I imagine it’s hard though.

Btw, here’s my playlist for Fall 2k16!!!! Last year I put up my Christmas playlist, but I made one for the season of the Dying of the Leaves!! Check it out if you want.

#spookyspooky

#ISTHATLEAFHOTTERTHANME

Humor, Life, Rambles

FRATTY FIFTEEN

I’m not going to lie to you guys—I didn’t dress up as Bob Belcher from Bob’s Burgers for Halloween. I was totally going to, but I put on the t-shirt and sweatpants and looked down at myself and felt so acutely un-cute that I was like, “Errrr.” And then I was in my kitchen and my flatmate comes in and he asked me what I was doing for Halloween and I told him and then he asked me when I was getting into my costume.

“I am in my costume,” I stare at him.

He stares back at me. Eyes flick down to the sweatpants. “Oh. I thought you were in pajamas.”

I wordlessly scream at him.

So I decided to put on a pair of black skinny jeans, draw a tombstone on my shirt and write “My Dream” above it. I was going to write out “My Dreams” but I’m not good at planning and—frankly—I ran out of space. And then on top of that, I painted my face like a skull.

Really, I’ve never looked better.

So for Halloween this year, I went as “My Dreams Are Dead!”

“Oh!” My mom shrieked a little bit when I showed her my make-up.

I felt bad for ditching my original costume, but I didn’t feel that bad because it’s not an actual person and even if it was, I have difficulty processing emotions. So. On Actual Halloween I went to a club with a DJ who insisted on playing The Worst Of The ‘80s and then we waited in line for almost two hours to go to this really fancy 24-hour restaurant on the 40^th floor of a downtown London skyscraper to have duck confit and waffle and by the time I got home it was 5:30 am and even now everything is fuzzy. On Fake Halloween—aka Friday—aka the Beginning of Halloweekend—

Side bar: I fucking hate when people say Halloweekend even though I used it this weekend but I’m allowed to (ironically, obviously)

12063868_10208357739608218_7203299728738764570_n

Danny + Jenny 4NEVER

—I went on a pub crawl in a ~hip~ and ~cool~ part of London called Shoreditch and I was a sexy lumberjack—short khaki shorts that I cuffed even higher on my pale thighs; red flannel shirt unbuttoned almost to my bellybutton; gray beanie—but to make it ~spooky~ I painted on a slit throat because I wanted to add depth to my performance. It was very well received. People were very attracted to me. Rightly. Interestingly enough, people were less attracted to me when I was a skeleton, even though my entire mug was completely covered in paint. Weird.

*****

Speaking of ugly mugs, I was looking through pictures of people I went to high school with. AYOOOO WHAT A SEGUE. No there is really something very satisfying and emotionally vindicating about going through the photos of people from high school and being able to decide whether or not they’ve gotten worse-looking or not.

I was talking to a guy I went to high school with; we were friends but more friendly but friends but also I think we were both a little bit of a bitch in high school and that really bonds two people. My friend—let’s call him Lucas—also likes dudes so we were dishing and there is something very satisfying about talking to someone from my high school—all boys—about boys. I was grilling him about his hot friends. He wasn’t grilling me about mine because I was the hottest friend. And then we just started looking at the guys we went to high school with.

Some of them have gained what I call the “Fratty Fifteen” where you join a fraternity, drink enough beer to feed/drown an Amish village, and gain fifteen pounds in your neck/face area, and also I’m hotter than you. Side effects of the Fratty Fifteen also include a beer gut and a superiority complex inherited by me. So yeah, a bunch of them look like forty-year-old dads and I am living for it.

Still stings. Just kidding I’m fine. I have no pride or dignity.

Of course there’s the guys who have gotten way hotter since high school but those I just make into voodoo dolls for later. Halloween may be over but being a witchy bitch is year-round. It was nice to connect to him. Lucas, if you’re reading this, you go girl! And if you can’t figure out if I’m talking about you, dafuq dude? Seriously?

*****

white ppl, amiright?

With the advent of a new month, I have done away with all of my Halloween social media fixings. For my laptop wallpaper, I went with a simple Pinterest-y background. I try to find something funny for my wallpaper, like “Hocus Pocus and Chill” but nothing really funny happens in November and Thanksgiving isn’t really funny because of the Trail of Tears and smallpox and just generally white people and also feeling fat, so I decided to go for the “pretty” route.

@thedanosaurus #shamelesspromo

For my Facebook and Twitter headers, I went for a “Queens of Cooking” theme and did Ina Garten for my Twitter, and my Kween Kris Jenner on the kover of her kookbook. Also, why has Kris Jenner not released a holiday-themed cookbook and called it “Merry Krismas?” Like I don’t want to do the job of her marketing team, but come on people the opportunity is shaking its tits in your face. Metaphorically, of course.

@KrisJenner, let’s talk about “Merry Krismas”? Call me?

My phone background is currently Kris Jenner and Ina Garten as well, but that’s more of a placeholder until I find something else. I change my phone background more than Kylie Jenner changes wigs—

*Holds for canned audience applause and knocks on my microphone—“Is this thing on?”*

—and it really depends on my mood.

Side bar: it took me a solid five minutes of minute adjustment to get these photos centered. So be happy. S/o to Shelby. Ily and our joint love of artisanal glass-blown dildos. And that’s not the only thing being blown. AYOO I’ll leave.

*****

I went grocery shopping today and bought more donuts. I regret nothing. I regret some things. But not this. Never this.

*****

P.S. I look so chiseled as a skeleton.

Okay bye!

Xoxo Gossip Squirrel

I want to get this to 1000 words, so imagine that Gossip Girl was actually a squirrel.

Humor, Rambles

“WALKING ON EGGSHELLS” IS A DUMB SAYING—ME BEING MATURE

Over the last week, I have made several questionable decisions. Here are a few of those decisions:

I finally had to Google “spoopy” today, like a forty-year-old. After two weeks of seeing it on Tumblr and reading it on my friend’s—Shelby—Twitter, I was like, “Okay, I need to know.”
I cut my bangs with scissors in the bathroom sink.
I bought a large jar of chocolate icing and proceeded to eat it. Just the icing.
I dropped some butternut squash on the kitchen floor while I was cutting it, and for multiple milliseconds, I was like, “Oh that’s fine,” but then someone walked in while it was on the floor, so I had to pick it up and throw it out.

I also waited until two days before it was due to start reading a 500-page novel for my English class, but that’s not so much a questionable decision as it is a manifestation of my crippling laziness.

*****

Okay, I’ll level with you guys. My last post—“You’re Bad At Picking People”—was—wait, lemme just do all the shameless self-promotion while I’m at it (Twitter: @thedanosaurus, Instagram: @thedanosaurus, Tumblr: thelastdanosaurus.tumblr.com) Follow me—kinda emotional and it got a lot more traffic than the regular, non-emotionally psychotic posts do, and it was weird because I wrote that post in twenty minutes and published without really thinking about. I used “You” as the primary subject, but—spoiler alert—it was about me.

And whenever I post emotionally charged articles—i.e. every other week—I always feel like I need to do a cheerful post to even it out and make me not seem like a sobbing, quivering mess. I’m not a quivering mess.

Like I feel like I have to walk on eggshells a little, but I’m a goddamn bull in a china shop, so that doesn’t really work. Also, no one can walk on eggshells without breaking them. Is that what the saying is supposed to mean? That everyone attempts to tread lightly but they end up fucking everything up? And also, why are there eggshells all over this floor? Whose chickens are cracking their eggs all over the floor? Or is this a “peeling the hard-boiled egg” situation? This idiom is idiotic. And what’s it all meta-for anyway? AYOO.

I apologize. But didn’t I neatly distract you from the emotional hurricane I was in last week? How slick! How sly!

Side bar: I had to google “walking on eggshells” to figure out what that thing is called when it’s like a saying, but also a meaning? I thought it was colloquialism but it’s not. It’s an idiom.

What if I literally spent this entire blog just putzing around and not writing about my life or anything? Haha wouldn’t that be so spoopy. That’s not how you use that word. But that’s how I use that word. I tried to capitalize “I” to give it inflection but it doesn’t really have the same effect. I suppose I could’ve italicized it. I think that’s a good idea. Meh. Not that effective.

*****

I’m trying to do that thing where when I disagree with people on things, I don’t immediately try to sock them in the face. I’m trying to be able to “agree to disagree,” which is not as much fun as hitting people in the nose, but earns me less strikes on my personal record. Like, the other day, someone—let’s call them Wrong—said that Taylor Swift did not have a good singing voice.

I gripped my knuckles, and dug my fingernails into my palms. “She. Is. Talented,” I hissed through clenched teeth, enamel flaking off with the force of my jaws clamped together.

Like, I don’t understand how people can’t think Taylor Swift has a good singing voice. I’m not asking you to love her. I’m not asking you to hold her hand while she gives birth. I’m not even asking you to pick her up from the airport. I’m just asking you to admit that—objectively, you fuck—the woman who is a megamillionaire due to her singing has a good singing voice. Is that so hard—you abominable nosepicker—? Isn’t it plausible—even for your tiny, idiot brain to comprehend, you poopyface—that the woman who has built an empire might not have “tricked people” with voodoo but might ACTUALLY POSSESS TALENT? IS THAT SO IMPOSSIBLE TO BELIEVE?

Side bar: *takes deep breaths*

But yeah, anyway, I’m really trying to be more mature. I only threatened to punch someone in the face once today. Well, I guess twice, since I just wrote about wanting to punch someone in the face a few lines above this. Your Honor, I’m not a threat.

*****

I’m thinking of doing something ~fun~ and ~crazy~ and ~ambitious~ for the Christmas season on my blog this year, to celebrate the end of The Wunderkindof’s—follow me on Twitter—first year online. But I’m not going to write it out because if it doesn’t pan out—i.e. if I get lazy and/or eat more icing—I don’t want evidence of my shame living on the Internet forever. Speaking of shame living on the Internet forever, I was thinking about AIM today and wishing I could read archives of old AIM conversations I had in the “good ole days” before I came out of the closet and discovered a decent acne cream.

Spoiler alert: it’s not this.

*****

I’m being Bob Belcher for Halloween. I figured since I’m not going to a gay club for Halloween—a.k.a. Gay Christmas—I wouldn’t need to dress sexy. So for my costume, I’m wearing gray sweatpants and ugly man clogs. I love it. But since I’m going “out” on a “pub crawl” on “Friday,” I need to come up with another costume, and I want to be something both sexy and grotesque. Maybe a sexy standardized test? Slutty office supplies?

*****

Okay, so bye? Maybe I’ll do a bonus post detailing my Hallowieners experience and if I score some boy-on-boy hand-holding? Unlikely, but not impossible.

(What’s that?)

Sorry hold on.

(Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah. Okay.)

I’m getting confirmation from our source on the ground that it is, indeed, impossible that I will get boy-on-boy hand-holding this Halloween season. Back to you, Rick.

I’m nothing if not a law scholar.

*****

Bye! HAPPY HALLOWEEN! SPOOKY SPOOKY!

Life, Rambles

SPOOKY SPOOKY

So technically it’s past midnight here in the UK, which means I’ll be posting this on a Tuesday technically but the majority of my audience is American so really I didn’t miss anything and you’re welcome.

Today was a bit of an odd day. I woke up at eleven, wrote an exam paper, ate chicken nuggets and then watched Halloweentown. I also changed the background on my laptop. And along the way, I discovered myself.

Just kidding, but I did realize these things.

1). Halloweentown has a number of alarming plot holes that I didn’t realize as a twelve-year-old.

2). I wish I were a kid again and not overanalyze old Halloween movies.

3). I am incapable of being cute in front of cute boys.

4). I can’t wall-twerk. But I guess I could figured that out on my own.

Okay, end of blog.

…

Just kidding, I’m going to explain. First, why did Agatha not put the sorcery orb thing into the pumpkin first? Also why if Marnie didn’t become a witch, does that mean that she would live only to like 80 years old, unlike her grandmother who is like 1000? How old is Marnie’s mom? Is Sophie possessed by the devil? Why is it a goddamn bus that takes the people from Earth to Halloweentown? Are there other Halloweentowns? Is it a full world? WHY DID THEY REPLACE MARNIE WITH SARA PAXTON? NEVER FORGET.

As a twenty-year-old watching Halloweentown on a Monday night while eating Ben & Jerry’s out of the carton with a large tablespoon, I guess I wasn’t as mesmerized as its target audience: twelve-year-olds. But I wish I was as easily entertained as I once was. I want to relive Halloweentown and not immediately think, “Hallowieners.”

I was writing my exam paper in the school library, so after writing 1000 words, I decided to reward myself with some tea. While I was leaving, my new friend—hmm—Jess told me that there was free pizza in the lounge. I shoved her out of my way and stormed up the stairs.

One hand holding my tea, I unhinged my jaw and stuffed two slices of pizza into my mouth. I decided to go back to the library, so I walked slowly down the stairs and ate my pizza. However, I wasn’t done when I got back to the library, so I hovered outside for a second gnawing on my food before eating enough of the pizza to kind of hide it behind my phone. I have the iPhone 6.

Once past the librarians, I stuff the pizza back into my mouth, one hand holding tea and the other hand holding my phone. Just as I cram the pizza into my fat slob mouth, I walk past a really cute boy. Let’s call him Patagonia. He is very white.

“Hi,” Patagonia does that almost silent hi.

I grunt around the pizza in my mouth a word that was supposed to be “Hi” but really ended up sounding like “Gugghsh” like a seal gulping down a fish at the aquarium.

Like, there are days when I shower and shave and pick out an outfit and comb my hair—okay, that part is a lie, I don’t comb my hair—and wash my face. I never see cuties on days like that. No, it’s days when I haven’t showered for 36 hours or shaved in four days, and am wearing a Beyonce lyric sweatshirt and a beanie and have pizza sticking out of my mouth that I run into anyone remotely hot.

Lastly, I twerked against the wall to the Halloweentown ending credits. I’m not proud, but I’m also not not proud. It took me SO long to figure out how to get you guys the video, so hopefully the link below works! And werks! And twerks! And I’ll stop now.

[Twerking to Halloweentown]

Finally, like Norman Rockwell always used to say, “I really want a hot dog right now.”

Lol this post isn’t great. But who cares. It’s free content, fuckers.

BYE! HAPPY HALLOWIENERS!!