Special Fucking People

I was on the phone with my cousin, who has had her incredibly unfair share of bad luck, talking about her latest bout with some undeserved bullshit.

Somehow always pragmatic, she implied that I could relate because bad things happen to everyone from time to time.

It was a great opportunity to lie, "MmmHmm. Yes, I understand."

But instead I said, "I have no idea what you're talking about. Bad things don't happen to me."

She did me a solid by laughing, but we both know it's true. I used to try to fabricate the struggle like Republicans do, but I've learned to embrace the rainbow filled bubble in which I float through life.

...Glenda the Good Witch style except without helping people.

It's why I gravitate towards salacious gossip, true crime podcasts and stories about freaks--a term I use with the utmost love and respect.

Many years ago, when I used to read, I found the first thing my father ever bought himself. I couldn't have known then as I opened the strange cover of Very Special People: The Struggles, Loves, and Triumphs of Human Oddities that I would go on to read it in its entirety at least a dozen times and reference it many more, but I did know I had found something magical.

I became so obsessed that my dad eventually just gave me the book, and it's one of the few that have survived every move.

It is because I can walk down nearly every street nearly anywhere and be ignored that I am sympathetically curious about people who cannot...even though they've never asked me to...even if I'm around that friend of Jaime's who told him, "Red heads aren't attractive because they don't look like fully formed humans." Fuck you, Louis.

In an effort to write more this summer instead of doing what I really want to do -*-unnecessary DIY projects that piss off Jaime and watch the Netflix-*- and to honor those who've given me hours of inspiration, I'm going to post an undetermined amount (possibly one) of small essays about people who are fucking special.

I'll start with Julia Pastrana.