Well, Hell Froze Over

I was a transvestite in junior high school. If the high tops weren't high enough, the track suit bottoms weren't butch enough and the crew necks weren't unflattering enough, I wasn't going to wear them.

And now I have to live with those photos for the rest of my life.

I guess it was part of my personal feminist movement. Hating bras wasn't something I grew into just as my dirty pillows (reclaim) never grew into them because shunning traditional gender roles came to me pretty naturally, and my parents (bless you) also gave very few shits about them.

In second grade (OJ Simpson trial), I spent an entire recess on an actual stump in the playground in my vest and silk shirt proselytizing to the masses (Matthew Barger) about how society forces women into a kind of prostitution selling even their lives for a lifestyle only attainable through a man. Five years later, Mr. Pieper had to carry me to the principal's office for jumping on a kid's back and punching him in the head repeatedly for being a "sexist pig." I miss that obnoxious nightmare of a child; she really had her shit together.

But I've grown out of my cute, warped sense of what a feminist actually is and have turned it into something I don't respect: female chauvinism. The other night, I watching the best series ever created in the history of television, and one of the characters was wearing a sign around her neck that said, "FEMALES ONLY." Fist pump. I immediately started designing a line of them in my head in various colors to go with my outfits because sometimes I dress like a girl now...

what an asshole.

I then thought about all the great (and straight) men in my life who've been model buddies recently in no order whatsoever.

1. The Viking who is the only man not blood related to me that I will allow to feel like he needs to protect me...cause he's a damn Viking.

2. The Belgian giant who prepared a Christmas duck, listened intently to my lady juice (wine and weird period hormones) induced blubbering then validated all my feelings from a place of human decency. Keep that pituitary gland in check big guy.

3. The bodacious Spaniard babe who could have gotten away with nothing more than a vaya con dios after a first class one night stand but instead decided to cultivate a friendship with me based on mutual respect. Am I on Candid Camera? Also, maybe go with the guy above to look at your gland, too.

4. The lovable Guido who told me (a bajillion times), "Emma, I fuck wit you heavy. I fuck wit you heavy." And I was like, "I feel you. I feel you G Frizz Ease." But I really didn't feel him at all, so he explained that it means he enjoys hanging out with me, respects my ideas and opinions and values me as a person...I don't get it either.

5. The Israeli who fucks wit me heavy but would never put it that way. Shalom tío.

6. & 7. The Brit and Venezuelan that reminded me that I could be a real dick sometimes, too, like when I use men for sex or flake out when it's really important to them that I show up. Ohhhhhhhhhh. So, you're telling me that people without penises can do that, too? Yep, that one's on me guys.

8. Danon (that's his actual name). Words. Can't.

Despite what it seems, this was not to brag about how many hoes I have in different area codes because none of them is my hoe. They're my actual friends.

I really like it when the boys are on my team, and I'm on theirs. But that means that I have to stop bashing my teammates only because of their junk because it's just as unfair as when they do it to me. And our team is called Human Team because some people aren't men or women in the traditional sense which fascinates me but not enough to really care what's up because they're just people and I see people almost every day, but my friend Shane (he's a man) told me not to digress into tangents because it's distracting.

This is what happens when you have a tumor on your pituitary gland. I'm pretty sure he died a virgin :(. 

A Very Merry Christmas Break Up Story

The day you realize that you can relate to Miley Cyrus* desperately riding a swinging ball without a layer of underwear to protect your privates is the same day that you need to stop it right now.

Instead, I'm going to give Adele a call and ask if I can live with her. OMGeejus how fun would that be!? Her baby and guy could go be someplace else, and Dels and I would eat chocolate peanut butter balls next to the wine fountain in black muumuus, knee socks and Crocs.

When we're tired of that (if ever), we'll lock ourselves in a stable in the English countryside. She'll smoke fags, and I'll pretend to smoke fags until my album is complete. It's called 27. 

These are the songs:

1. Rolling in Dog Poop
2. I'm 35 Ana Haf (The World's Oldest Child)
3. Your Selfies Are Extremely Stupid
4. Captain A-hole Moby Dick
5. Set Fire to Everything I Can't Sell
6. No, You Can't Have Your Stuffs (I'm Selling Your Stuffs)
7. Don't Add 'S' to Stuff Because It's Already Plural I Told You That
8. Where Are My Shits to Give!? I Can't Find My Shits to Give!
9. You're Not Really a Model (Snap)
10. Namaste
11. Someone Like You Is Bad

After I get rich and build my house next to Adele's with a telescope room, Roman bath and spiral slide, I'm going to donate a huge amount of money to organizations that empower girls and women (and therefore insecure men) by activating the part of us that doesn't put up with bullshit.

But do people still wear these? 

*I've acknowledged her in this blog three times now, and that really bothers me...but I'm not going to stop.

An Ode to Fabian, My Greatest Failure

"Fuck me, I'm famous."

That's how 11 year-old Fabian usually greets me, and I usually answer, "No, thank you," because I want my students to learn polite English. His real name isn't Fabian, but he's fabulous, so that's what I call him. He also goes by Fabio, Cody Taylor (his preferred moniker) and Gravy Brown. Sometimes he calls me Lola Pink which is a nice reprieve from *Stefani Germanotta.

We've been meeting every Wednesday for a year, yet I've taught him nothing. He's really proud of this, and I don't care anymore. Therefore, we spend most of our time role playing celebrity interviews, acting as fashion police (I'm usually the offending perp) and arguing about pop stars. Before you judge me too harshly, I've got to tell you that this is the kid who made me **change all the aliens in his workbook to Adeles so that he could more accurately describe and relate to them.

One time I spelled the word limousine for him because it comes up a lot in our conversations. He spelled it limousini, and I said, "No, the English 'e'. What you wrote is Italian." For the next 40 minutes, we tried our damnedest to out-Pacino each other. To this day, if I start to get frustrated with him, he whispers, "Limousini," and we both get the giggle fits until we stop functioning.

Like all fabulous people, he isn't without his flaws. He measures people's worth by their material possessions, so my ancient phone cube is a real struggle for him. Sometimes he makes me hide it from his view, sometimes he demands to play the one game on it because if I don't who will? and sometimes he calls the man I'd just told the night before that I don't want to see him anymore. After I karate chopped the phone from his hand and explained his faux pax through my spittle, his pre-pubescent voice shrieked, "Helllloooooo!? I am the boyfriend of Emma! We are never, ever, ever getting back together!" Good save, Fabian.

We've only really had one fight. My dogs were killing me because I'd just gotten them tattooed, as you do, and had been walking all day. I'd slipped off my sandals to let them breath, and he just couldn't abide my hippie (his word) ways. He demanded that I put them back on, but I refused.

"Put your shoes or I going to tell my mother that you try poison me!"
"Are you blackmailing me!?" I retorted.
Fabian, "Yes!"
"You don't even know what that means!" I said.
"...now, I do," he responded with the international sign for bitch slap.

I guess I have taught him something.

These are the three most beautiful women in the world (in order) according to Fabian. 

I'm not as offended as I should be. P.S. I love him. 

* I once made the mistake of telling him that Lady Gaga is two days older than me.
**I actually drew bouffants and black dresses on all of them. We were both very satisfied.

Catching Fire

I can't possibly be alone when I secretly wish that something pretty cool and *definitely dangerous will happen to me just so I'll have a good story to tell. Can I get a witness?

Cha-ching. Here's what happened:

Halloween may as well be called Go Big or Go Home. I chose to go big as Joaquin Phoenix when we all thought he'd lost his damn mind, and though I'll be the first to admit that's a bit dated, I'll also be the first to admit that I just wanted to wear that rad beard I'd bought for a wig party again because it made me feel good.

Looking crazy always requires a lot of hairspray and backcombing (foreshadowing). Tease, spray, tease, spray, tease, spray...If you know exactly what I'm talking about, congratulations you're a crazy person.

I killed it, and did nothing but kill it some more at the candlelit party. In fact, all of us were killing it because my friends are awesome, but eventually, we decided to go be awesome someplace else. I was trying to help herd people out the door when I got my bright, shining moment.

I had no idea what had happened until it was done. In fact, the only thing I remember from what couldn't have taken more than 3 seconds was Poppy (aptly dressed as a super hero called Swift Cunt and now sole heir to my estate) throwing herself at me and frantically beating me about the head. Apparently, my hair had caught fire and lit up like a giant torch.

Next thing I knew I was on the street combing out pieces of ash and bits of hair with my fingers laughing (hopefully not manically) in disbelief but also with it enough to realize I'd struck blog gold. People fussed a bit and hairdressers were praised, but I was clearly okay and the party wasn't going to slay itself, so we continued on and had a **great night despite the fact that I smelled like death on a rotisserie.

Everyone has since given me their personal account of what went down. The common threads are: it happened very quickly, and it was horrifying.

I've also learned that others jumped in to help as well (thank you, thank you a million times) and that ultimately, I was the luckiest person in the room because not only do I not have to have skin grafts, I don't even have to get a haircut (we decided over pizza the next night that you can barely even tell), and I'm not among those who now have an image of their friend's head on fire burned into their brains forever.

I've never felt so close to Michael, and I hope I never will again.

This is Swift Cunt AKA Poppy and me not long before the incident. Fun fact: She's wearing my underwear. 

You know how in books or movies when one saves another's life, the saved is forever indebted until he/she can return the favor? That's a real thing because it's exactly how I feel. Poppy, I can't thank you enough for not hesitating for one second to put your bare hands into flames to save my neck. I hope something really bad happens to you soon so that I can save you, and you can see how grateful I really am. You're a damn good pal.



*But always in these scenarios I'll somehow know that I'll emerge completely unscathed. That bit's important.
**Except for the lion I met on the street who said, "Whoa, man! I can smell your beard from here."

Happy Halloween, Witches!

Once upon a time, I lived with a witch. You're *all like, "Girl, who hasn't?" But I don't mean witch like bitch. I mean witch like bruja.

Ty saw it almost immediately. He'd come with me to view the apartment "for protection" which is hilarious if you know him. I don't know if it was the big-breasted, axe-wielding centaur tattoo on her arm, the painting of her dressed in lingerie dangling a wolf's head, the skeleton soap dish in the bathroom or the fact that she looked exactly like a witch that tipped him off, but I thought she was fabulous.

Shortly after I moved in, she invited me to picnic with her in the park. She had been mistaken when she'd told me that she was a great cook, but that might just have been the taste of the poison. As I was choking down whatever she'd made because it was free and I didn't want to be rude (in that order), I bit into something sharp. I yanked her ragged, purple fingernail from my molar and studied it for a while because I was trying to make it be something else. I, however, am not a witch, so it didn't work.

My second clue was that she always kept her bedroom door locked from the outside and would compulsively check it before leaving the apartment. Normally, I couldn't care less what goes on in my housemates' rooms so long as they're not doing it in mine, but her secretiveness once drove me to the point of contemplating the three foot jump between our balconies. It wasn't the fear of falling to my death that stopped me but the thought that I might somehow get stuck over there, and she'd find me and do experiments on my body. I'm no fool.

Then there was the first time I put my sheets on the bed. I noticed a strange stain on the old set that belonged to I don't even want to know. But I put that straight out of my head because I don't like to judge, and I'm the twenty-seven year old who's still sleeping on used mattresses. A few weeks later, we had a rain that lasted through the night. When I woke, I was...damp. I thought the ceiling had a leak, but the rank, dirty water was coming from inside the mattress. Oh. My. God. My friend Kiki and I hauled it out to the street that evening, and as we were examining our yellow-stained arms, she said something like, "Maybe someone died and was rotting on there." Oh. My. God.

Eventually I discovered that she wasn't really a witch but a massive hoarder. Someone had stolen her purse, and my dainty German flat mate had to help her break in her door. He described the sight to me later over several glasses of wine, as we both had had it. Apparently, the room was nearly the size of the rest of our apartment and stuffed floor to ceiling with mildewed boxes, heaping piles of clothing and broken furniture. A narrow path led to a double mattress on the floor that was completely covered except for one human-sized corner.

I now live in a comfortable apartment with an amazing view over the city. It's not filled with crap, and my roommates really are fabulous. One of our friends described them as a sexier Winnie and Sarah from Hocus Pocus.

Hoarding is the only thing scarier than witches.
"A muck! A muck! A muck! A muck!" 

*I know this doesn't include my family, ex-boyfriend and all former/current roommates.

Uh, True Colors are Not Always Beautiful Like a Rainbow, Cyndi.

We are a judgmental bunch of hypocrites, and I hope we never change. Of course most of my favorite people aren't that judgy, and I really have to focus my energy away from growing as a person to catch them in an act of hypocrisy just so I can finally rub their faces in it. Unfortunately, I am not one of my favorite people. To use that tired, old expression from I believe the New Testament (don't quote me on that), "If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit next to me."

We're really good (horrible) at judging others but really, truly horrible (inept) at judging ourselves. We're constantly over or underestimating ourselves, and I believe it's impossible for us to be so self aware that we can predict exactly what we will say, how we will feel and what we will do when confronted with something unexpected.

Please don't worry. I'm not Aesop, and I'm not about to drop a fable. This is just a story about how I misjudged and completely *overestimated myself by judging someone else even though I was kind of right.

Ever since I suspected that my baby sister was braver than me, it's been very important to me to be seen as a courageous person**. I can't stand it when people accuse me of being intelligent or "not as bitchy as you look" or remarkably beautiful. I only really respond to, "I think you're brave."

I'd just splurged on an iPod shuffle because I was tired of being present while walking through the city and wanted to increase my chances of getting hit by a bus or robbed (because I'm brave). I was bee bopping along when I felt her running at me from 7 o'clock. I turned just as she started to kick my knees and shins while yelling something about something. I fended off the point of attack then raised my eyes to hers ready to get it on like a video game.

I'd seen her several colon twisting times before but never from that close, so instead of fightin' words, the only thing that came out of my mouth was a loud and terribly embarrassing scream-grunt that lasted for half a block of my block and a half sprint (probably at a record-breaking pace).

The woman has no nose. It's really unsettling because you can actually see into her head through the gaping hole in the middle of her face, and you're never prepared for it. This is how I felt in rapid fire order: shock/awe, terror, heightened terror, panic attack, super human speed, paranoia, asthma attack, relief, shame, extreme guilt, relief again.

Let's break down the last 4:
relief- She hadn't followed me.
shame- I'd always pictured myself as a fighter, but I was disappointed to learn that I'm a flighter. Judge it.
extreme guilt- I actually screamed in a human being's face because of what her face looks like, and I would judge you for not judging me for that.
relief again- Now I can be afraid of her because she once assaulted me and not because she can only leave the house one day a year without people going into hysterics. Judge me again.

Had you warned me that this was going to happen, I would've laughed and said you're not serious before I said, "Oh, you're serious. Okay. I would take her by the shoulders and say, 'Hey lady, you obviously don't have a nose and not having a nose must suck (something that maybe you can't do?) so hard, but you don't want to do this. I need my legs like you need a nose. I'll buy you a coffee, and we can talk about how you feel about not having a nose. I'm sorry I judged you before. Noses. Nose.'" But that's just the kind of person I wish I was and not who I actually am.

Maybe I'll do that next time?

Who needs parents when you could just read (I preferred to watch) this?

*I'm exceptional at overestimating myself.
**Pixar made a film inspired by me in 2012.

The Biotribe Hostel

You know that feeling when you wake up in an unfamiliar place and Nancy Kerrigan is screaming, "Whyeeee!?" in your head repeatedly? Personally, I have no idea what that's like, but I can imagine what you must go through. No, the closest I've come is knowing exactly where I'm about to wake up, but Nancy's still there.

One of those times was in Lisbon...with hippies.

I still don't know where we went wrong. The plan was perfect. Kirsten (expired license), Azza (license not valid in Spain) and I (more with a theoretical knowledge of how a manual car goes and less of an actual making the car go knowledge) decided to drive across two countries twice in five days and four nights. This wasn't amateur hour*, so we decided to drive straight through the first night.

From the outside, the hostel looked inviting to three weary travelers. We couldn't wait to trudge in and throw our bodies onto whatever ten euros a night buys you in Portugal. The tribe, however, had other plans for us. The first tribeswoman we encountered smiled widely, checked us in, told us our beds wouldn't be ready for another six hours then went through the checklist of things we weren't allowed to do. She was one of the saltiest, earthiest people I've ever met except for the intense amount of dental work going on in her mouth that hypnotized me every time she smiled (often) and said something mean (more often). The one thing we were allowed to do was sleep in the garden.

The garden was beautiful, but we had no shits to give about that. Azza passed out in the hammock, Kirsten draped herself over an old armchair and I started in the tire swing but ended up on some wood pallets infested with ants. We explored the city after our quick nap then returned when our beds were supposed to be ready. They weren't.

João was the chief of what he called the Biotribe**. He was also the chief of not getting our beds ready, just okay looking dreadlocks and assholes. Braceface had explained earlier that we would be locked out of the hostel if we didn't return before midnight which was clearly a stupid Cinderella rule that had João written all over it. However, she gave us a wink and said she'd leave the back door unlocked if we gave her a heads up. Unfortunately, we couldn't find Braceface before we went out for the evening, so we left our fate in the hands of the chief who was clearly lying when he said he'd keep the door open.

We crept back through the garden at 12:30 nervous that we would startle the dog that we were told would definitely bite us. We were rabies free when we got to the locked back door. Thankfully, a tribesman was still up watching TV.

In Biotribe, the words private room translate to one room with several twin mattresses on the floor separated by bed sheets. Each "room" has a homemade (very dangerous) lamp*** and fruit crate that is color coordinated with a bigger fruit crate nailed to the wall and called your "closet." A bottle of shampoo is too heavy to go in your "closet", but you can definitely put some socks in there.

The next morning, Nancy woke me up from what I have to admit was a deep and comfortable sleep. Azza and I found some tarot cards in the Bioethics Holistic Meditation Quinoa Namaste Room and brazenly started playing with them while we waited for Kirsten. Braceface heard the commotion we definitely weren't making and came upstairs. She flashed a metallic smile and said something like, "This is not a playroom for children. You are not allowed to touch those. If you would like to learn about them, you can ask Tribeswoman Other Lady." We'd spent a day and a half trying to avoid learning anything from these people, so we declined and checked out.

 

I'm just kidding! Tonya Harding is the chief of assholes.

 

*Yes, it was. Kirsten was talking nonsense and holding her blinks for a scary long time. I could only do highway driving because I'm a dainty, kept princess who possesses no useful skills and contributes nothing to society and Azza was pukey.
**The Biotribe practices bioethics and other uninteresting things. I have no idea what that means despite several attempts by the tribes people to educate me. Kirsten thinks it's just a rehab. I agree.
***Kirsten was like, "Emma! Come check out my awesome blender lamp!" Her lamp was definitely the coolest.