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Hey hello, bonjour to all my people, my family (biological and metaphorical), my besties, my worsties (jk I used to have two haters but now I have none so if you have beef with me that’s so sad because I don’t know who you are!! I will pray for you. (“you” as a concept, I don’t think of you.)), anyone perusing tumblr in this big year, those of you who clicked the link in my bio most likely not expecting this, any person or persons who has/have been sent this link for any reason, hello. You too are welcomed. And any of you merely looking for a holiday wish list curation, or to know more about my capitalistic interests - or otherwise!

As always it’s time for me to dance for you, to tell a little tale, to share some words made into sentences, as an opening act to $1,000,000.00 worth of e-commerce links.

Without further nonsense:

~

“What piece of advice would you give your younger self?”

I find this question so funny because it’s exclusively posed to people perceived as successful or inspirational in some way. If that person is successful, why would you think they’d give their younger self advice that would inevitably alter the entire course of their life, and not simply follow everything they’d done to get right where they are - on stage, on tv, in front of a mic, in an interview - answering this question?!

Before I descend into mania, let me be clear that I understand exactly why the question is asked. I understand its primary purpose is to inspire others listening / watching / reading, but I find the question inherently flawed because if the person answering this question got to where they are without this advice, why would anyone be compelled to follow advice they haven’t taken?

Anyway, I’m going to do a 1500 word bit on this so just pretend that question isn’t rhetorical and I can’t fathom an answer.

(But sorry, just once again, I can fathom many answers. I swear. I’m using the question to highlight a contradiction and set up my critique!!)

Enter that universe with me…. Thank you. Enjoy the discourse.

~

A reflection.

First of all, the question is a bit rude. You’re blessed with the opportunity to speak to, for instance, Jeff Bezos, and you deign to inquire what advice he’d give to his younger self? Why? Did he not create Amazon fast enough? 

Did you need something overnighted in 1992, you ungrateful little bird?

What about this man’s success indicates that there’s advice he needed?? He built a trillion dollar company, revolutionized global commerce, put these cutie amazon vans that look like they were conceived by the mind behind the jetsons on our IRL american streets, and the question you’re asking is: how could you have done it better??

The question implies there was some flaw in the path taken. As if avoiding the mistakes is the goal. As if the blueprint he created should be revised.

As if the hurdles are not the very reason this man is 5’7 but 6’5 when he stands on his wallet!! As if the hurdles have not led us to this very moment in time where you can get taco seasoning, a hamper, and a pair of clogs delivered in 7 hours (likely within the same packaging which sometimes, unbelievably, is a bag?!)

You want to know what Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen would have done differently? Nothing. For a $500 tee shirt could only have been created through the unique symbiosis of excessive nicotine poisoning, unhealed family trauma, and having your first steps taken on the WB lot.

Like, what are you hoping to get from asking this question? That Drake’s answer would erase the Degrassi canon?!

And stay away from Mark Cuban, I’m so serious!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok that’s my first issue!

~

My second issue is how presumptuous it is to assume your younger self would take the advice. At 20 years old, you’re not listening to a God damn word anyone is saying, let alone a morsel of advice.

Imagine 2025 Elizabeth Holmes telling 2003-2015 Liz “Quick piece of advice from your incarcerated future self: Whatever you do, don’t. None of it. Mainly the blood stuff, that’s most important, but also kind of the turtleneck for other reasons. Also get a job at Pfizer and stay there until the second Trump presidency…. There will be two, yeah.” 

She would have been like, “Are you crazy?” in the deepest voice you’ve ever heard and pricked 2025 EH’s finger with a safety pin.

(wait, that’s actually someone we need to ask this question to.)

Thinking back to a time when I would have loved to give my younger self advice I wouldn’t have taken, I can see vignettes of myself engaging in behavior that would have me arrested in the Sims.

To give you an insight into the climate of my life when I was 22: I was drinking vodka like I held equity in Grey Goose, and running around clubs like they were obstacle courses in video games and the only way to gain points was by puncturing men’s feet with your heels, pouring drinks they bought you onto the floor, and telling incredibly elaborate lies. 

Here’s some advice I would have offered my younger self: Turn around and walk out of Westway (a club on the Westside Highway. RIP) before you meet a man who is going to try to ruin your life!! 

And here’s how I would have responded: “No! And on top of that, I’m going to date him for 2 years!!” 

Had I taken the advice, who knows where I’d be. I likely wouldn’t have moved to LA to free myself of that toxicity, which in turn led me to meet to two to three men who would try to ruin my life in different and ultimately more exhausting ways (jk we love them) meet a man with whom I would create a very prolific and robust digital athenaeum of little bits that would change my life.

~

Third issue.

The knowledge you have as a person being asked the question “what advice would you give your younger self” has come from the very mistakes said advice intends to mitigate.

The reason you have the knowledge of what to do differently is because you lived through getting fucked.

Because of that, the way people usually answer this question is like: Set boundaries. Know your worth. Don’t settle…

These are great pieces of advice. And yes, we need young people to hear this because we need to empower younger people to set a precedent for themselves. However, if I told myself in my twenties to hire a lawyer to negotiate a contract so that in 8 years I would be fairly compensated for the inconceivably comprehensive amount of IP that largely contributed to the success of a company, I wouldn’t have been part of that company.  (and btw someone did give me this advice, and it was my dad.) 

If I’d spoken up, someone would have told me to shut the fuck up… and sometimes there’s a time to shut the fuck up… and quite frankly, it might be when you’re 22.

You can’t come out the gate making demands, you’re not alec boss baby baldwin!!

No one’s handing you equity because Tik Tok told you to know your worth and you wanna stand on your business in a WeWork; They’re handing you more responsibility and less pay and waiting for you to be grateful for the opportunity.

The bliss and allure of youth is that you’re learning and exploring and people are giving you advice and you’re ignoring it, and so you make your mistakes and you navigate around them and the reward of that, is that eventually you get to be the person to whom this question is posed.

This is the time you’re working toward becoming someone who has the right to demand things, to stand firm in your boundaries, and to speak up for yourself. The silence of shutting the fuck up can be edifying if you’re pragmatic.

~

What advice would I give my younger self?

Bit aside, yes, I’m aware it’s a question intended to inspire those around you to heed advice (that you likely wouldn't have taken) so here’s mine: 

Recognize the blessing of being alive. Find something to be happy about every single day. Make joy a priority. Celebrate every win. Be kind. Be generous. Try to learn something new every day. At least pretend to read the contract. Get a lawyer. Be less shy. Get a good handshake going! Be quick to identify the lesson in the challenge. It’s okay to cry (not that much though omfg.). Be your own guardian. Love yourself first and best. Always do what feels right. Don’t stop.

Life is so beautiful and so full of perfectly timed miracles, and perceived catastrophes, little nothings, explosions of joy, minor moments of tumult, and huge blessings that all ultimately give way to some of the most expansive moments. Being able to realize this is a privilege.

The gift is the journey, so lock in.

~

ok, here is my wishlist!!!:

A gorgeous luggage rack. Of which I have found two, but please be aware I am open to others.

Rimowa luggage (putting this up top because if you act quickly I can have before I go to London and wouldn’t that be so nice for me!!) I have requested rimowa luggage before (and was blessed to receive!). However, I unfortunately, unknowingly asked for the genre that rly can only fly private. Revised asks: A trunk. Another luggage also a trunk. A carry-on. I think I think this is ugly (not sure) but maybe my ipad needs a straight jacket. Idk!

Some impractical boots I’ll pretend are for the snow. Maybe these could be for the snow tbh. Unlikely… Maybe these too and if not at least they kind of look like it’s a yes. Size 8!!!!!

A travel pouch. There are a few thank you. (LV calling them a packing cube is obscene.) (PSA: I will accept from therealreal.)

A reservation at Polo Bar that isn’t at 10pm on a Wednesday. I can’t believe I’m exposing the fact that I don’t know a single person who can pull this for me. How gauche.

Seven million dollars.

A Hastens. I can be more specific. Inquire within!

I bet you thought I was going to put that Max Mara coat on here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This watch. (heheheheh)

Urgently this dress.

Some things from my mytheresa wishlist! (This which is different.) Some of these are reasonably prices I stg. Not this in the grand scheme of things but…. In some cultures this is considered reasonable. Yeah these, too!

Tragically the Hermes bag (in black) that I wanted is no longer available. Oh actually all the bags are unavailable online. Ok. An attack on me.

This. They don’t make it anymore and that’s very annoying to me.

A gorgeana vase. Here are three options.

Yes, a luminous velvet throw. Yep.

Um, these… and also this. And this is insane. As is this. Sorry so many great affordable pieces!!

Sneaking this in here.

hello to the hierarchy of my besties: irl besties, internet besties, fantasy besties; the hierarchy of my haters: just the three of you, followed by someone who goes by the alias k.s on google reviews; an ever dwindling number of exes who can read, a handful of people i’m just getting to know who are about to know me too well too fast, and anyone else who has stumbled upon this highly specific page on the internet!!

if you’ve been here before, you know the deal. i’m going to weave a web of little jokes into a somewhat coherent story and then as a reward for knowing me you get the opportunity to see 20 things i hope to receive for my birthday, which, i hope you know… is tomorrow (26 september); i’m turning 94.

The joke web:

In february 2023 after the company I co-created sold to one of the corniest companies on the planet, I quit because they wanted me to set forth eight hours a day I would be available to do work. Seven years into a job I’d put 8 hours a year into, this was a startling task.

Also, they wanted me to become a member of slack, or get on slack, or write to them in slack. Or do something, whatever one does, on slack. You can do a lot of things to me, but what you’re not gonna do is make me go on slack. Many have tried in the past and not a one has ever succeeded.

Not to sound like Mark Cuban - or myself in [redacted] years -  but an 8 hour workday was not for me. And I explained this. I told a woman alleging to be my supervisor that every morning I woke up, I did cult for 20 minutes, wrote in my journal for 45 minutes, went for a 1 hour walk, came home, showered, drank a little poison, read for one hour in my garden, did some dilly dallying on the internet, and then I went to an appointment*, and by the time I was done with all of that it was already 4pm and that’s wind down time in my culture. 

Where did she want me to find 8 hours?!

(*i realize appointment time is not a thing (everyone can understand) but I’m gonna have to save it for another post. appointment time is sacred in a directionless little bug’s life and it deserves to be explained properly.)

If you think I’m joking that I laid out this schedule to a woman who was born inside a human resources complaint folder and whose dearly departed soul resides within a ludicrously capacious bag somewhere, I beg you to get to know me better.

Fundamentally, she did not understand and spiritually I was not the messenger to enlighten her, so I decided to quit.

I am impulsive by nature but this decision was incredibly thought out. I wrote down a list of pros and cons and I titled the cons list “things I’m not aligned with” and I listed 11 things.

“I dont want to be managed!!!!!!” (this is a literal copy and paste) topped the chart.

To follow? “Corporate weirdness”, and, simply: “Slack”.

On the pros list I wrote: “Freedom”, “I will finally be free”. (LOL!) Underneath it, it says “Take a fucking risk.”

I sat with these lists for approximately three minutes, and then I wrote an email announcing my resignation. And then I quite literally never spoke to anyone there ever again.

This all leads me to one short pivot before we’ll arrive at our final destination of my birthday list. 

When I mentioned earlier that I am impulsive by nature, I mean that I quit my job because someone said there was a question posed to me in Slack and I needed to answer it came to Ohio to visit my dad’s (RIP) childhood home and my (then) girlfriend convinced me to call the number on a commercial real estate building and within 45 days I’d signed a lease and 90 days later I had packed, driven, and moved my entire life across the country. 

When I moved here, I knew no one so I did a lot of things you may think only people who are on reality dating shows do, like: go to an espresso martini making class, cook marshmallows over an open fire in a state park at night with strangers, slide down a snowy hill on a plastic saucer as an activity, or attend a local rat’s birthday party.*

*disclaimer for anyone here who doesn’t GET me bc I’m scared to be misunderstood: i loved all of these things I’m not mocking them; I’m simply holding a light to the absurdity of my *on the spectrum, agoraphobic weirdo* ass doing these things in earnest because i needed to not kms. ◡̈  kms stands for k*ll myself.*

(Of course all of these things on a reality dating show would involve two people, whereas in my case I did all of those things alone.)

As a treat for my efforts to be a member of society, the universe provided me with the unique gift of meeting the anthropomorphic version of my intrusive thoughts!! 

We’ll call her Gloria (for no reason) and in our first phone conversation she had called everyone in the state of ohio “fat, lazy and bipolar” and told me my business would fail.

One minute after we hung up, she texted asking if I wanted to sauna with her right now. Now mind you, I’ve been doing shit “for the lore” since before it was called “lore” and men were just telling me I was insane (simpler times!!) so I grabbed a bikini and drove 9 minutes ready to go in a sauna with a random lady I’d never met.

And go in a sauna with a random lady I did... fully clothed for a reason that both confused and relieved me. In that sauna, Gloria repeated the aforementioned phone topics and added a pointed “nobody wants to work out; you will fail” while staring at me in a box heated to 130 degrees.

“It’s okay. Everything is always working out for me” I told her as she persisted in her negativity, because I lacked the ability to just tell her to shut the fuck up (and also because that is true). 

I considered the possibility of her behavior coming from a good intentioned place, like when cars driving the opposite direction flash their lights to let you know they just passed a cop (as if that ever hits). I considered it was an act of humanity, one unstable woman to another; trying to save me from the hell she thought was inevitable given her own - self proclaimed - “failure”. (she had opened and closed a studio of her own.)

So I let her keep flashing her dumb lights at me, showing up to my studio uninvited in the middle of my buildout telling me I should see if my landlord would let me out of my lease, texting me little foreboding horror stories about the perils of being in the fitness industry, sending me local businesses that were closing as if to say “i told you so; i’m warning you.”

“You’ll see” she said multiple times, as if to predict my ultimate demise in a way I’d be able to reflect on in the future, remembering she’d warned me. 

In those moments and in the months of desperation and grind leading up to the opening of my business I had no other choice but to move forward blindly, confidently. Long before I met this psychopath I had prepared for the possibility of failure. Unlike this woman, however, that preparation involved the potential of having to say “I failed… now what?” rather than “I failed. I’m the rule, not the exception. The journey is impossible.”

It’s been almost two years since I left the career I thought would define me, and while I certainly haven’t failed, I’m not writing this from the other side. I’m writing this from the beginning of a long journey I’m prepared and excited to be on that began the day I decided to take a fucking risk.

Two years ago I couldn’t find 8 hours a day to work and now somehow I’ve found 14-18…

and not a single one of them has been spent on slack. 

The Gift Portion!!!  the intangible: for the dismantling of nextdoor dot com, for all my bad memories to be erased, to win the war against seed oils, for the ai to stop(!!!), that the person who sullied my google reviews finds God and healing bc going against me is a form of psychosis, for great deals on this upcoming amazon prime day, that natalia grace is ok, that i never hear a telephone ring again, for watermelon to be in season all the time, that nobody is ever mad at me, that all eggs would turn to donuts in a way that would not have negative implications for chickens or negative repercussions for farmers, that everyone bounces back from whatever inevitable side effects ozempic will have, that my frequently used emoji are all safe and sound after getting rearranged, and for everyone I know and love to read the source by dr tara swart, and that they are all happy, healthy, successful, and in love forever.

as always, hello to my 9 true real life friends, the 22 of you in close friends, my 40 internet besties, the handful of you i was able to lure over here with a LiNk iN BiO, at least one of the girls who copy and pasted my internet persona for her 200 followers, some other weirdos, biters, and haters (and their partners), my therapist if i ask her to read this to understand me better, and anyone else who is here and can read this!! 

as a preface to a list of extravagant gifts i wish to receive for my birthday (tuesday, 26 september), i am going to tell you a little story. if you don’t care and just want to buy me a gift or just want to use this to curate yours, scroll to the bottom. (if you need inspiration from years past, i’ve been making this list for 10 years.)

without further silliness: it’s been a few years since i’ve expressed my disdain for traditional “fun” but what better time than on the eve of the eve of my birthday to dive back into it.

i define traditional fun as anything social, anything that involves hanging out with multiple friends, or any activity that takes place at a “venue” or anywhere there are dozens to hundreds or more people present doing what one would describe as “having a good time”.

if it’s a: gathering, get together, party, or event, it’s a: no.

i’d rather be run over by a lime scooter than sit at a dinner with more than 3 people i know, and if a new person is involved, “meeting me” better be on their bucket list because the *stranger to acquaintance* pipeline crashed in 2018 when a woman propositioned me in whole foods for a raya “friend pass” (again: she was a stranger), conned me out of my phone number, and then proceeded to send me her uber referral link 15 times until i blocked her.

*i should clarify before i go further that i’m not a hater. i’m so happy that people are enjoying themselves. i think everyone deserves to be happy and to smile and laugh and have such a little blast wherever and whenever they want!!! i just do not want to be near anyone who is doing that. ◡̈ *

PDF (public displays of fun) is anathema to me, and for this reason i don’t like to leave my house on the weekends because that’s when most people are convening, rendezvous-ing, coming together in droves to enjoy themselves in shared public space.

a notable exception to this rule is a restaurant or bar, because there will always be some miserable couple having the worst night of their lives or someone in a corner arguing with someone who is gaslighting them at 2:45am.

like me one time, in my “having no respect for myself” era, when an ex boyfriend swallowed a black label burger and then convinced me *i* was being weird for feeling hurt that he was going to take me home and then go see a midnight movie with his friends… on christmas eve.

v funny behavior.

(it was actually v fine because - surprise surprise - i hate movies, and movie theaters… and in all honesty i hated his ass, too.)

anyway! that’s the kind of stuff i love to see going on in public: messy nonsense, the seeds of trauma sprouting, not unflappable joy!!!!!

when i lived in new york during this time of no self-respect, i often found myself doing things i didn’t want to do. like, going to the club.

THE CLUB is a unique coming together of an inexhaustible list of things i do not like: first and foremost: DJs. secondarily: people i don’t know, big groups of people, being in a confined space, men with weird attitudes, herve leger, anyone wearing a “fashion hat”, music, other miscellaneous loud noises, social nepotism, people being coy about doing cocaine, cocaine, moving my body to a beat, being illuminated by phone light, stickiness, dirty bathrooms, unidentified wetness, and i could go on!!

the only thing i like about the club is screaming in close proximity to someone’s ear (although the fact that it’s done out of necessity takes some joy out of it) and one other thing:

that every single time i ever went to the club, without fail, a man would sidle up to my girlfriend after unsuccessfully trying to hit on me and utter some version of “what is wrong with your friend?” to her.

for my birthday, i’d love to attend an event filled entirely with those men.

it’s tuesday, so if you can’t manage to do that, here are the treasures i’d like:

(disclaimer: all i want for my birthday is for me and everyone i love and support and everyone who loves and supports me to be healthy and happy and rich, and for all of their dreams to come true (and for everyone i don’t like to accidentally commit a misdemeanor that hurts no one but is punishable by jail so they can have some time to think and find God), and for you to donate to the boys and girls club if you have the means. but here are some things i think would be funny or nice or stupid to receive:)

the intangible: to mysteriously but unsuspiciously come into 100 million dollars, that i am always perceived as a genius in the daytime, a beauty at night, and a bop on instagram, that when i get married no more than ten people RSVP, that everyone knows i’m joking about starting a cult but that when i start my cult you will all join, that no one i know ever prepares a picnic for me as a gesture of kindness or romance, that people stop misusing the word gaslighting as it takes away from those of us who are working on perfecting the art, to one day start a tequila company and for that to not be corny, for all my bot followers to gain sentience and break free from their bot farm confines to engage with me, that my mouth never writes a check my ass can’t check, to - at whatever cost - gain possession of the remaining episodes of a&e’s deeply perverse and immediately cancelled “adults adopting adults” and put every person on that show in a subterranean jail for life, to be wealthy enough to donate anonymously, for someone to get real about cancelling daylight savings time, that i remain beloved, hilarious, brilliant, and humble, that i am my best friends’ best friend, and that anyone who dislikes me never finds peace (so far so good!).

the ones you can buy:

i hate to say this but if someone doesn’t come up with $4000 and buy me this max mara coat (xs) i am going to have an asthma attack.

a speaker for my house so i can listen to my cult (meditation) a more reasonable version (black)

also to listen to cult (black) - you can engrave these, what a treat

these sheets (white/white; king)

i know this maybe for a man but this maybe also for a man??? (idk?! do men have money?!?!) this in black ok this is exhausting, i’d like a little card holder for my credit cards and it should cost one million dollars if possible thank you for understanding the parameters!!

a trip here, or here but i don’t travel with people so just for one please!! (i’m retired so i can go anytime!!)

a gift card to my dermatologist even though i don’t think you can buy a gift card from him but feel free to take a look at the services (i do hydrafacials, lasers, peels) and mail me some US currency! or be proactive and try to figure it out!!

this sweatshirt

this lighter i like

this necklace

this rattan tray gallivanting as “calfskin”????? lol this is better :) i do not understand what is going on!!!

i just restocked but i will accept you buying this for yourself as a treat a gift to me bc i love it

i’d like to speak to the medium who has a show on bravo, please. this is him. i do not want to be “read” on the tv show. i do not want tickets to see his live show. i want to speak to a dead person through this man. one on one. (you can come if you organize it.)

a baby phat tracksuit - no link bc they’re relaunching (on my birthday…),  but hopefully there’s a tracksuit on there.

here are some watches i’d like: one another one another one an insane one

a flight on emirates first class literally going anywhere!

this gorgeous vase or this one or this one; also this vase

or this one

this room spray (or it’s candle)

this art or this art or this art (i’m only half kidding)

this art or this art or this art

the cade candle from le labo (it’s not sold online i don’t think bc it’s special, like me!)

some gorgeous cartier stationery (i thought they made stationery… and i’m pretty sure they do but it seems they don’t… lol) this is an alt and so is this and these are cute (so i can write thank you cards for everyone who gets me a gift!!!)

ok thank you!!

the only magic trick i know is making myself disappear. i’ve been doing it for years, falling into a shadow, retreating into other people, moving into worlds i’ve created to avoid living in a reality that disappointed me.

two days before my dad died, i laid on the floor next to him and i begged my fiance to come be with me.

i have done every hard thing in life alone so i didn’t feel like i needed support, but i wanted him to tell my dad he was going to take care of me because that’s what i wanted to believe.

he never came, so i told my dad what i wanted. i told him i was safe and loved and strong and that [he] was on his way.

the morning my dad’s heart stopped, i called my lawyer. he picked me up and drove me home. i was safe and loved and strong.

~

when i got back to la, months later, ringless, my psychiatrist asked what i wanted.

through tears i said, “i want this to be history; i don’t want to forget him but i want him to be history.”

for lack of understanding or desire for clarity he asked what i meant.

i rambled off a bunch of nonsense and inadvertently created a diversion by saying “i just want someone to make pasta with”.

i used to say i’d know when i found my person because i’d want to burn something for them, so coming from a place other than my usual destruction felt like a marked change… especially for my psychiatrist who had been gagging to see me make progress for a presidential term.

i’ve been burning shit for years - sometimes for the pleasure of watching it burn, or the thrill of rebuilding, but usually so that the flames would envelop me and i could disappear… and if i was lucky someone would come save me.

for years, i waited for this person to save me, every so often burning something to remind him i was still there, swinging between extremes as sport because it meant i wasn’t standing still.

my whole life i’ve taken care of myself and everyone around me and never acknowledged it because i never wanted to be strong, i always wanted to be saved.

so for years i’ve begged the flames to suffocate me so he could resuscitate me.

he never did but it never mattered - nor would it have, because giving life is one thing but sustaining it is quite another.

my psychiatrist once posited that because ‘nobody listened to me as a child, i now seek partners who are deaf’ (LOL!!! huge read. absolutely brutalized by this).

this never really resonated with me because my silence always felt like a choice, but being ignored while you’re screaming will shift things!

when i said i wanted to make pasta with someone, what i meant was that i wanted to stop burning things to let people know i needed them. i wanted to stop screaming at people who couldn’t hear, and start whispering to people who were willing to listen.

i meant i wanted the normal stuff - to wake up with the person i stayed up all night laughing with, to walk through an airport together, to celebrate little wins, for the sweet songs to resonate, for someone to give to and take from in a way that doesn’t deplete either of us. i want to be private in a way that feels protective and special rather than secretive. i want that person to be there with me when the water’s about to boil over, who knows what to do next… and who fucking does it.

i no longer want to destroy, i want to create.

for years, i subsisted on chaos and called it normal because my entire life has felt like a trauma response; enduring is all i’ve ever known.

that is what i want to be history.

what i don’t want to forget are the beautiful moments, of course. but, more importantly, i don’t want to forget the strength it took to recognize myself as my own hero, or what it felt like to save myself.

i don’t want to forgot what it was like to love someone so much i made myself invisible. i want to remember it constantly so i remember that i have the ability to show up for myself like that.

so the next time i set something on fire i’ll remember i have the power to let it burn or extinguish it.

lol :) you’re crazy if you know me, know this reference, and thought i wasn’t going to include it. 😛

as always, hello to my 9 true real life friends, some of my 22 (instagram) “close friends”, my 40 internet besties, the handful of you i was able to lure over here with a LiNk iN BiO, the growing number of [redacted] who are unnervingly conspicuous with their surveillance, maybe some other weirdos and haters!, at least 2 of my exes, my therapist if i ask her to read this to understand me better, my daughter in 14-18 years, and anyone else who is here and can read this!!

as a preface to a list of extravagant treasures i wish to receive this holiday season, i am going to tell you a little story. if you don’t care and just want to buy me a gift or just want to use this to curate yours, scroll to the bottom. there are words and jokes down there too if you’re here for all of it!!! (if you need inspiration from years past, i’ve been making this list for 10 years.)

the only times i feel safe are when i am at home, or when i am 5000 miles away from it. anything in between causes absolute chaos within my emotional microbiome.

in america, i am a sentient eggshell and all external stimuli are hammers. outside of america, i am an invincible-cartoon-fireball capable of any and all things through the EU.

once a week i volunteer, and once a month i drive 40-90 miles in one of the four directions to buy a lotto ticket at a random authorized lotto retailer (surprisingly not sponsored), and that’s it.

when i’m home, i do the same thing every day -  i wake up, i go to cult (this is what i call meditation because i’ve been doing it consistently for a year and i have no idea why), i write down everything i’m grateful for*, and i read (a literal book) for 20 minutes before performing my morning ablutions and walking downstairs to drink poison (espresso) and sit in my office tip tapping my ipad for 6-8 hours. then i watch some of the worst television you can ever imagine until it’s time to go to sleep, at which point i do a cult bonus track - it’s called “three good things”, and it’s exactly as the name implies - eat two peppermint patties v slowly, and go to sleep with my television blasting and every light on.

~ (*ok sorry for being sincere for a moment but i need to genuinely recommend the gratitude journal practice because it changed my life. thank you for only engaging with this if it aligns positively with you and excluding it from your personal dossier of me if it doesn’t. anyway, i also love cult because it allows me 30 minutes of controlled focus on every thought i have ever had in my entire life without even a single moment of peace. my inner monologue is a thought-orgy and i am merely a captive and reluctant eavesdropper.) ~

when i’m on vacation, i am a different character from white lotus every day.

this year for my birthday, i chartered a yacht off the amalfi coast (cameron) and sat on it alone for 3 days (ethan). on the 4th day, danielle arrived and we confused the crew by being on vacation together in italy but not fucking. (daphne/harper)

on the 5th day, danielle found out i don’t like music (you’ll need this information later), and on the 6th day, God created man, and one of them asked us if we’d like a massage.

being of sound mind, my first thought was to question this person (employed as a deckhand) on his ability to massage.

he assured us both that he and his fellow deckhand could “of course” massage!

having seen every episode of every franchise of below deck i was wary but i trust men intrinsically (tanya) and i love nothing more than to be consensually touched (dominic) so i said great, we’ll take two! and we settled on “in ten minutes” for the time.

he returned moments later to lead us in a troubling talk on massage logistics - namely, where the massages would take place and on what apparatus.

you, like we, may be thinking: what about a massage table on the sun deck? and that’s a great thought. however, there were no massage tables, so our two deckhand-cum-massage therapists decided they’d conduct the massages they assured us they were equipped to conduct on twin beds in one of the downstairs bedrooms.

10 minutes later we arrived to a room large enough to accommodate two adults lying down, or a small child standing up but being v still:

danielle and i pretended this was not weird (mia/lucia), and as soon as our four adult bodies were within the same energy field we all signed a spiritual contract to never speak about this again! unfortunately danielle and i signed in watercolor and have spoken about it ad nauseam every day since.

one of the guys asked what music he should put on, but before he finished the question, danielle had interrupted him in an octave i’ve never heard her voice go to utter the words “MERCEDES DOESN’T LIKE MUSIC.” … effectively solidifying our fate to have the weirdest experience of our lives in deafening silence!

without leaving the room, they told us to lie down - which we did - and they each returned to our respective sides to *SIT ON THE BED* and massage us with this australian jerk off oil while our faces were mushed sideways into a twin bed for a staggering and completely arbitrary 101 minutes.

the only time ive ever had a massage this unmethodical is every time my boyfriend wants to have sex, and the only reason this one ended was because someone came in to chastise them for being *below deck* for so long… at which point they both got up and left without saying a word!!

anyway ~ that’s how i met your mother ~ (sorry i’ve taken this out and put it back in 8 times. it stays!)

danielle and i are two asexual freaks so this (our villain origin story) never registered to us as a potentially sexual thing, but it has to a lot of people we’ve told! … and to those people i say: interesting. please consider my trauma when selecting a gift from the below list to send to me 😈 thank you!

THE LIST (disclaimer: all i want for my birthday is for everyone i love to be healthy, happy, rich and divinely protected (so far so good tbh!!!!), and for you to donate to the boys and girls club if you have the means. this is merely a list of things i think would be funny or nice or silly to receive:)

the intangible: to pass a law abolishing all waters i don’t like - there are too many to name, but at the very least let’s start with dasani, aquafina, and nestle purelife, for someone to defund Revolve and redirect the money to fund research to corroborate my theory that people who wear clothes that say “spiritual gangster” lack a functioning frontal lobe and should not have rights, for everyone who doesn’t like me to continue doing that because that must be very taxing, for prison reform that allows “love after lockup” to expand it’s filming schedule, for mary kate and olivier to reconcile (please click that link if you’re new here), for jeff bezos to give me a little something in his will, to be paid for all the vacations i’m going to go on in the future and that they never involve a massage on a twin bed.

the ones you can buy: * these gorgeous little poison cups to elevate morning beverages content. also gorgeous!! these are interesting! * i’m looking to redo my whole personality in the vein of someone’s really religious auntie. it starts in the dining room, here. for more in the collection, may i direct you here. *a stunning throw: in pink!!! or this cheaper (v reasonably priced, tbh!) one, the blush pink not that crazy pink in the larger size! * this thing for my desk. i would accept this but don’t really like the branding. * a 5 night stay at this hotel (a suite or above)

* a black birkin with gold hardware in 25 or 35. no links, iykyk * this coat in grey or camel. xs! * buy danielle’s book. (this story is not in it, but better ones are) * this tray to eat chips and peppatties in bed. this will likely be sold out but here. * i don’t want these but definitely want to make you aware gucci are selling incense for one hundred dollars, and perhaps we should collectively look into deplatforming them.

* a pair of solid gold 3 inch hoops. i have no links :( * i’d like to speak to the medium who has a show on bravo, please. this is him. i do not want to be “read” on the tv show. i do not want tickets to see his live show. i want to speak to a dead person through this man. one on one. (you can come if you organize it.) * these slippers. size 8. * this bracelet and bonus if you have a platinum amex, you get $50 back or something for shopping at saks! love to pay it forward!! * this jug of perfume for a room! * this jug for water at varying temperatures. matte black.

* this art, this art, this art, this art, or this art. i’m going to buy this for myself but i love this artist, so i’m sharing. * this alluring bookend that is on sale (x2)! * i don’t need this but i like the way it looks and so i’m passing it on. it’s a weight but who exercises at home… so it’s a hat for your floor. * trying this again: for someone to create a “the floor is lava” set for my birthday where i can do “the floor is lava” SEPARATELY with each of my 9 friends - none of whom know each other, which is intentional and by design. * these shoes. size 8 * these earrings. i tried to buy these on black friday but then i forgot. i may just buy them myself. who knows!

* a real two hour massage * caviar * i like her bc i think we have the same body * these french almond praline sugar things from provence that i bought at duty free and i’ll never find again. and i went on this website and tried to email them to ask them to send them to me (it appears they cannot do that) and i really don’t want to get into it but i spent hours trying to secure them bc they’re that good so i guess this is not an item it’s just a pass on should you ever be in provence or at an airport in france. * a $24,000 tribute to the mascot for Word.

some passing it forward gifts (things i don’t need (because i own them most likely) but they are nice!!) * these cute, non threatening pajamas * my favorite luxe, somewhat threatening pajamas * the only sheets i allow on my bed and body are pratesi but danielle bought me monogrammed pillowcases (super, binx) from here and !!!! * i think i always recommend diptyque candles but we are also a cade (you have to ask for this, they don’t keep them out 😗) household now and newly a boysmells household. * skincare is kind of a lame gift bc everyone’s skin is so different but i have the most reactive skin in the world so i’d like to pass along three of the only things that don’t ruin my life: this (i’ve been using for 3 weeks) is soooo nice, as is this which i’ve been using on and off for a month but the price point was set by the us national debt clock or something. (their instagram clickbait lip balm thing is a waste of money and yes i wasted my money!) also i love this and have used since it launched :)

ok ty for reading come again bye!

mourning thoughts

when my dad called to tell me my brother had died, the last thing he said before he hung up was “it’s just you and me now, sadie.” it was valentine’s day 17 years ago.

when my dad died, it was just me and him. i was asleep on the floor at the side of his hospital bed. it was a thursday one month ago.

i called a few people; only one picked up.

it is just me now.

~~

mourning panic

i had been playing music continuously for my dad on one of my phones for weeks. one day in the hospital he mentioned beethoven string quartets, so i played an album of string quartets for 12 hours a day.

days later, his closest friend suggested a few of his favorite albums - schumann lieder, fauré melodies, goldberg variations, beethoven symphonies - so i played those for 12 hours a day.

then we moved to hospice, and i played these albums for 58 hours.

the evening before he died he developed what is called the “death rattle” - it’s a way of breathing that indicates death is near. people prepared me for it by telling me it sounds like “gurgling”. it doesn’t. imagine the cranking of a rollercoaster as it’s ascending the incline, but muffled by a blanket.

a beethoven symphony accompanying the death rattle perfectly scored the last few hours of my dad’s life. i wanted to remember this musical accordance so i used my other phone to record audio in the room, and i went to sleep.

the music had become pathological. i knew it was what was keeping him alive, so when i woke up that morning to silence i knew he was gone before even looking for the rise and fall of his sheet.

the paper i signed said time of death 6:50am because that’s when the nurse practitioner came in after i called for her, but i know it was 6:15am because i played the recording back to listen for his last breath.

~~

mourning routine

i’d been with my dad every day for three weeks. after a few days, i’d established a routine for us. i’d arrive when visiting began, and i’d say something like hi dad, it’s april 12th and it’s a beautiful day outside. we’re safe and everything is good. maybe later we’ll go outside. or hi dad, it’s the morning and we have so much to look forward to. let’s relax now. i’d tell him i loved him - i love him - and we’d begin the day.

the days were the same. my dad slept, i worked from a chair with my back turned to the east river, nurses and doctors came in to disturb us, i read chapters of books on grief, my dad would wake up and we’d talk for a bit and i’d tell him to rest when he started to get agitated, and again we’d find our peace, and we’d exist for the rest of the day until visiting was over.

on the fourth day, i started keeping a journal of thoughts and notes from the day. this is the first one i wrote:

“can we have this conversation outside?” im always whispering to someone who has intruded on the space i share with my dying father to talk about my dying father’s impending death. none of these people seem to understand that talking about a dying person’s impending death in front of the dying person while the dying person is very much alive and potentially unaware of the fact that they are dying is - at best - uncourteous, and - at worst - fucking traumatic. “if they know, they let go”!!! someone told me that. selfish / selfless. i’m doing my best. i don’t want him to be scared / know that i know. i have to protect him.

**(i don’t think it’s advisable - legally or by my own anger - to talk about the nature of my dad’s “illness” but for the sake of giving some insight: he died of a preventable medical event due to an inexcusable act of negligence that occurred before he arrived to the hospital)**

my dad was in and out of cognition during the first few weeks but when he first arrived to the hospital he was unintelligible. this meant that when i arrived i had to make decisions.

i made decisions with my dad’s best interest in mind. on bad days, these decisions made sense. on “good days” - days when my dad asked about my new home or work or my boyfriend or how weird it would be to want to live on roosevelt island - the choices i’d made on behalf of his physical body and the ones i’d made to mentally protect him from reality seemed to negate or even usurp his autonomy, so i asked my dad’s sister to have a conversation with him about “what was going on”.

she flew in the next day, and i stayed home. i did not want him to know that i knew he was dying. my aunt is brave in ways i’ll never be, so she told him.

she told me he was very angry at her. i scream cried for an hour reading and rereading the text she sent summarizing the conversation.

there were few “good days” after this.

~~

mourning lessons, mourning strength

my dad lived for me.

i don’t say that flippantly. everyone he knew told me that - nurses who had just met him told me that. he told everyone.

i lived for him, too. i wanted to have life for him. i lived on his behalf. i wanted to see and do things just to tell him about them. i took photos i’ll never look at again to show him. i did things i never thought i’d do to impress him or make him proud of me— i don’t know how to swim but i jumped into a lake just to hear him say “WOW, sadie!!” (and he did).

he saw every event in my life as a success, and he lived to see me succeed. he celebrated me every day of my life. the last thing of consequence he said to me was “i hope all of your projects are successful” after i said goodbye to him at the end of one of our long days. i had not discussed any “projects” with him.

my dad taught me to be kind, and to seek justice. he taught me to do for others, but always put myself first. he taught me to be generous, and grateful, and say thank you, and to appreciate everything i have.

he taught me how to make sigara boregi, and baklava, and to keep traditions. he taught me diction, and how to argue, and be incisive. he taught me how to play the piano, and chess, and that being smart was power, and a responsibility.

he was sensitive and artistic, and - like me - had few friends, but one of them described him like this: “one of the most memorable people I have ever met, in real life or in fiction.  He was not someone you forget.  He was a person who thought big, a person with great imagination, a kindred spirit to the great composers and poets.”

my father was deeply enamored with the parts of himself that he saw in me, and in turn i became dedicated to making those parts whole.

~

i woke up one morning in hospice and wrote down that i felt like an icicle. i was losing parts of myself every day, but the comparison was less about that which i was losing than that which was still hanging on.

every day there were parts of me that were begging for the privilege of relief, for the privilege to sink into the puddle of yesterday and every moment passed - to let go - and every day i chose to carry on as an act of strength.

“i’m losing myself but i can’t let go. i am whole here otherwise i am broken at the bottom.” i wrote.

i am strong because of my father, but he didn’t teach me that.

there’s a difference between being taught something, and learning it. teaching comes with intention, and i learned a few things from my dad that he didn’t intend to teach me - like how to play the lotto, or curse, or be trenchantly insulting at the smallest provocation. that’s mirroring behavior.

learning strength from my father was not like this. my dad was not an example of strength but he was not weak; he was resilient. what my dad had was an unshakable resistance to adversity -- even in death.

learning something from someone who wasn’t quite equipped to teach it was a survival technique, and i am surviving because of it.

~~

mourning gratitude, memories

my brother died when i was a kid so i am used to loss, and it was sudden and unexpected, so i am used to grief. having three weeks to say goodbye to my dad felt like - was - a privilege.

i feel grateful for every minute i got to spend with him, from the first time i saw him register that he was not alone when i arrived off my red eye hours after he’d been admitted to the ER, to the last time i laid my body across his chest to improvise a hug.

i will cry every day for a long time. i will cry thinking about how my dad will not walk me down the aisle, or meet my child, or ever again call to tell me there’s a program on pbs that i “must” watch.

but i will smile thinking of us casually strolling into an auction at sotheby’s… and staying. i will laugh thinking about my dad ordering a steak “medium rare, but charred - CHARRED, ok? - on the outside and pink on the inside” at every single restaurant we ever went as if anyone would ever write those words down, let alone pass them along to someone in a kitchen. i will laugh thinking about him describing a woman by telling me “she has a contemporary haircut” or telling me he needed an iphone 12 (he had the 11) because his phone was too “slippery” and it “slips out of my hand like a FISH, mercedes” (yes, he needed a case).

great memories.

~

i have always thought i’ve known what it is to be “alone”. i live in a state of “alone” by choice, but when my dad died i realized what that actually meant.

you leave me behind to fight this fight that i have always thought i fought alone, only to realize in this very moment how wrong i was, i wrote.

this is loss. this is the feeling of being without.

it is a gift to have HAD, to have known love and warmth and compassion like this, and to have been able to reciprocate. but still i wanted one more day… and one more day… and one more day.

yes, it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. but by how much?

something i thought was invincible has been shattered… i’ll know once i rebuild.

~~

mourning dawn

i have been reluctant to expose my father to the indignity of the internet because the moment we share an experience it becomes part of the collective whole, and i have long felt that my father belongs only to me.

(hi to my 9 real life friends, my 90 instagram friends, a handful of people who need to intend to make 2022 the year they find a hobby besides relentlessly keeping tabs on me, my ex bf who was the subject of the previous blog checking to see if i’m going to post the batshit text he sent me (i’m not; i showed it to God and he’ll take it up with you in 30-40 years), and my ghost’s therapist. this is my christmas wishlist; if you just want gift ideas, scroll to the bottom for this year’s treasures:)

i’m finally ready to break my silence following a solemn year and a half of mourning.

for those of you familiar with my monomania, i am of course referring to the disintegration of the union between my two most beloved chain smoking wisps, mary kate and olivier sarkozy, last may. for those of you just tuning in, start here.

these two have been my romantic north star since i became aware of their relationship in 2013. they are the only false idols i’ve ever worshipped, and i did so trenchantly at an altar fashioned from an ashtray.

unfortunately, 8 weeks into lockdown, these cognizant shadows succumbed to divorce, the covid of marriage.

when this news first hit TMZ i of course had no idea because i am not gossip reading trash, but when my gossip reading trash boyfriend shared the link i was heartbroken.

the news shook all of us within the automaton community.

if north america’s foremost contestants on “so you think you’re getting away with pretending to be human” - the reality game show that plays on loop in my head - could not survive a global pandemic, who among us could?!

some people were prepared for the pandemic because they’d been following the effects of the virus in europe, or they’d seen purell fly off the shelves in early march. as for me? i knew two months later when these XL and XS pillars of love threw their hands up and said “assez!” (that’s “enough” in french).

like that groundhog seeing its shadow, this was my indication that the pandemic was far from over.

with the threat of lung disease looming from outside the confines of a cigarette, and with global reach, mary kate and husband were forced to abdicate their role as spokescouple for Big Cigarette and separate, so as to focus on their individual roles creating new, more powerful variants of covid.

i guess i didn’t expect they would ever deign to lower themselves to the quarantine activities of the 99%, but divorcing in my personal greatest time of need was very rude.

(i know these people about as well as i know my own divorced parents, so this doesn’t feel weird.)

mary kate olsen and olivier sarkozy survived brexit, the death of noted recluse harper lee, almost the entire trump presidency, a banksy thirst trap, the fall of brangelina, the college admissions scandal, olivier’s hating ass ex wife, the advent of clubhouse; they stayed out of the press, they minded their own business, they were never cancelled… they had it all!

i really thought they’d stay together forever, but as a devout worshipper, i must pass on the gospel: marriage is the virus; divorce is king.

*

we may never know what happened to olivier, the live action pac man, and mary kate, his little pac-man food.*

what we do know, however, is money can’t buy you whatever the recipe is for staying married - which i suspect is love, lack of a prenup, kids, and a man with no instagram - money can only buy you cigarettes, lawyers you refer to as ‘attorneys’, the silence of your enemies, and the friendship of those who wish to remain on your holiday party guest list.

*(in lieu of condolences, please send prayers that their legacy will live on when i become little pac-man food to my huge pac-man husband.)

OK. HERE IS MY 2021 HOLIDAY GIFT WISHLIST. MONEY CAN BUY YOU SHIT FROM HERE, TOO!!

1. in my continued, everlasting spirit of altruism, please consider making a donation to the boys and girls club or (if you’re reading this before friday the 17th) ordering a gift from their holiday wishlist.

2. shoes for hiking. size 38

3. this jewelry or this jewelry

4. crypto… wallet address available upon request. serious inquiries only.

5. a private session with the hollywood medium tyler henry. i’m not putting a link bc you have to know someone, i feel… let’s hope someone of importance is reading this!!!

6. beach towel, even though i don’t go to the beach expensive - i love this. it is an insane product. inexpensive; also inexpensive another expensive one, in bright green

7. these travel containers which i was going to buy for myself but then i saw the reviews that said they were kind of heavy… so i’d rather receive them as a gift in case i hate them.

8. this tray, exclusively created for eating charcuterie in bed a slightly less expensive take

9. a lighter, though i do not smoke. consider it an homage. (i rly love this and will find a use for it. i can light some scripts i’ve written on fire.)

10. this throw blanket, also i love this website so much or this throw blanket; their website is fine, nothing to write home about another throw

11. this bag that i keep asking for and keep not getting

12. some reasonably priced furniture

13. a reading with astrofashionista — also… not an ad, but this is a great gift idea for anyone you know and love!!

14. wow. i should really sell ad space here. ugh.

15. this dress - size 34 this coat i very much need in an xs dress - size 0 another coat i am gagging for - xxs

16. this absolutely stunning, inspired piece of art this art this art this art big art wishes this year this art these arts are all sold out :( but let me put you on SO YOU KNOW

16. new candle alert extremely inexpensive dupe for a old favorite that will not be named here bc it’s impossible to find but if you buy this and smell it and also know of the other one well then good for you

17. this thing to dangle from your ears

18. why… would anyone… need… this

19. an anatomically correct and appropriately priced heart

20. a the real real or erewhon gift card for $10,000 thank you

21. this ridiculous thing

22. i’m running out of steam but i’d really love for my birthday next year for someone to rent out the studio where they film floor is lava so i can do it…

thank you!!!

(hi to all my best friends i’ve forced / guilted into coming here, some men who want to f*ck me, some men who are my friends, one man i have f*cked, miscellaneous stranger-friends on the internet, stephanie - the girl who copy and pasted my identity onto her instagram from 2018-2020, and everyone else. this is a birthday wishlist blog; please scroll down if you don’t have the bandwidth to read words. for those of you who do:)

the night before the last time i saw my (then) boyfriend, he and i were on facetime, and i was crying, asking him if he thought i was pretty. we had been dating 5 months, had nothing in common, broke up almost every week, and i didn’t understand what he liked about me.

i know primal attraction is ground zero for a romantic relationship but i really didn’t know the answer, so i formed the question “do you think i’m pretty?” and let the words come out of my mouth.

he was silent for a maddeningly long time, and he would have stayed silent forever had i not asked again. (i only asked again because setting myself up for disappointment is masturbation for me).

“what do you want me to say, mercedes?” was how he broke his silence.

“i want you to answer the question.”

he was silent again. so i asked again. now he sighed.

“how am i supposed to answer that?” he said, with his head in his hands, as if i were reading him his miranda rights.

“i’m asking you. i have no idea. do you think im pretty?”

i’m not exaggerating that this lasted almost 15 minutes, and culminated in him “admitting” he found me pretty, as if it were a cardinal sin.

he claimed he didn’t understand why i’d “need” him to tell me something that, to him - ye of refusing to tell me i was pretty for a quarter of an hour - was “so obvious”. he never explained why, if it were so obvious, he couldn’t just answer the motherfucking question.

unfortunately, at the time, i was too sad to clap back with “for someone who begs me to tell him how big his dick is during sex, i can’t understand why you’d find the request for validation so odd.” 

~ what a blessing it is to have this blog to sound off on! ~

the actual last time we saw each other person, we had sat in silence for 45 minutes because - and this will make no sense, but you’ll have to believe me - i’d come over to his home in a sheer shirt, and the idea that someone may have seen my nipples had enraged him… apparently to the point of aphonia.

when i left, i kissed the top of his head, said ‘this is insane!’ and never saw or heard from him again. (he’s alive, just petulant.)

he would hate that i’m writing this because he’s a very private person but he never bothered to read my blog until we’d been dating 4 months and i’d screamed “i write beautiful things that move people, too” at him after he’d asked me to, like, cogitate on a really basic rap lyric… so he’ll likely never return. though, even if he did, he’d never say anything because his personality runs on hubris and he’d never want me to know he’d ever thought of me again.

i don’t think i’ve ever been so misunderstood by a person claiming to love me since every day i’ve been alive and in communication with my chronically exasperated (by me) mother.

this man thought i was “weird” in the way a highschool bully would describe their prey (not that he was a bully; just in that classic way that my personality and entire being was anathema to him), he didn’t find me interesting, he didn’t care about anything i did/said/wrote, he laughed at things i said with pity, almost. and up until the night before we broke up i guess i never even knew if he thought i was hot!!

he never read anything i wrote - something i didn’t know i cared about until i realized he could read appreciated lyrics, and was thoughtful about their meaning - so i brought him a hard copy of something i’d written. the next time i saw him, he said “i read what you wrote” like it was a suicide note.

when he finally read this blog, he accused me of begging strangers for money online because of these frivolous birthday wishlists - which i have written for a decade when the only people who read them were my dad and a girl who stalked me in college… and let me tell you neither of them were in the market to buy me a G wagon. (and FYI: the only people who have ever gifted me things from this list are boyfriends and close personal friends.)

he also contemptuously referred to my blog as “something [i] promote on [my] twitter” as if i were not a writer, and the stories i tell here were merely an elaborate cover up for a bougie amazon wishlist… as if simply linking an amazon wishlist were not infinitely easier and more accessible than directing people to a blog on the tumblr.com platform.

when i gave him stock advice, he said he didn’t want to pull the trigger on anything unless he did his own independent research (LOL). he then received the same advice from a male friend and did a market buy in front of me…

he’d routinely send me memes on instagram, but never watch my stories.

this reminded me of a sentiment nabokov expressed in a love letter to his wife about “how we unfairly insult things with our inattentiveness”, so i told him as much, after i translated “please pay attention to me” into a language he understood.

i told him it hurt my feelings that he was online enough to see content he deemed worthy of sending to me, but never made an effort to see what his ugly, idiot girlfriend who lives online was posting!!

in response, he said he’d deleted the app instagram from his phone bc it was too distracting… which, in case you’re wondering, does not make sense.

he would always quote a chris rock joke: “what do women want? everything” in an attempt to vilify women exculpate himself from having to... attend to me.

he was like a roomba programmed to be a boyfriend. he was good to me in the general, heteronormative ways a boyfriend should be good to his girlfriend, but he was so apathetic to me as a person sometimes we would be hanging out and i would be jealous of his iPad. (henceforth referred to just as “iPad”.) 

naturally, instead of leaving, i became obsessed with making this man who was so utterly indifferent towards me become obsessed with me. [if anyone under 25 is reading this (hi caroline): this doesn’t end well.]

every act of insouciance by him was matched by an equal and opposite act of me begging for him to see me as someone worthy of his attention, like iPad was. it was the most toxic and deranged little jig i’ve ever done in my life.

i am a difficult and impossible person in a relationship. i have an attitude problem, i need an acute and sustained amount of attention, and i don’t fuck. (i’m a bomb.) … but i am always forthright about having no plans to change!

personally, i want to be smothered - by attention, by love, by compliments, by iPad’s umbilical cord.

this man wanted me to exist nearby.

i want to be watched, but i want the audience to consist of just you. i want you to pray at my church, and pay your dues in unmitigated and tangible adoration.

this man wanted to change the channel, and unsubscribe.

the only time it ever felt like i’d succeeded in proving to this person that i was worthy of his attention was when he’d chastise me for being too ‘sexy’ or whatever online. he’d say, ‘if everyone can see it, why is it special for me?’ (im choosing to leave the inherent misogyny unpacked, but have fun!) to which i’d scream in my head: IS IT SPECIAL TO YOU??????!!!

it felt like all i was doing every day was dancing for him, trying to come up with the cheat code to become the girl he wanted, trying to get him to look at me, and the only time he could see me was when i was performing for someone else, when he knew others could see me, too.

his insistence on withholding affection was what kept me drawn to him, so when i finally got him to “admit” that he found me pretty it felt more like a transference of power than a compliment or anything i wanted to receive.

he was right. chris rock was right. i want everything: for my boyfriend to find me pretty, and for strangers online to buy me all these gifts.

THE LIST (disclaimer: all i want for my birthday is for everyone i love to be healthy and happy and rich, for everyone i don’t like to be freezing for the rest of their lives, for wine and mango to stop being allergens for me, and for you to donate to the boys and girls club if you have the means. but here are some things i think would be funny or nice or stupid to receive:)

this egregious weight.

this throw that i owned in pink but i got my period on it (sorry) before i understood the concept of dry cleaning so i threw it away… there’s only one left. i’ll be refreshing all day.

this linen spray.

why are these slippers $400? i don’t want them i’m just genuinely curious. 

airpods. i don’t know why but i need the nice, new ones.

this ring.

this necklace, or this different necklace, or this necklace

this mousepad. (yes i have a mouse before you ask). 

one of these for a new personality i’m cultivating that i’m not at liberty to discuss further: this seems excessive, but this one doesn’t seem excessive enough, and no it is not for perfume i checked 5 times... ok

any of these books :) a book, another book, this (and lolita) is my favorite book.

this important thing for traveling. also a travel necessity

this dress 

this which i have in a different color (it was a gift; relax) but i’d like to have two. 

i’m gonna vomit. 

yes i have really bad personal taste and am self aware. we exist. 

these shoes

here are some bags: a bag, another bag (low in stock, you better jet on over there!!), another bag if you can believe it (this is reasonably priced! sell plasma!), this cheap little purse, i’m sorry. if someone doesn’t buy me this basic and gauche bag i’m gonna scream. here it is in black

for you to sign up for robinhood so i can get a single free stock worth exactly four dollars and thirteen cents.

what the fuck??!!!

this. it’s for intruders. i need it.

this coat. 

i’d like to speak to the medium who has a show on bravo, please. this is him. i do not want to be “read” on the tv show. i do not want tickets to see his live show. i want to speak to a dead person through this man. one on one. (you can come if you organize it.)

if you hassle me about plastic straws, i’d like you to seriously consider buying me this very stupid thing.

i don’t want this but i want you to know there is demand for a $1200 whatever beach ping pong adjacent game thing this is

i do not want this either… duh… but i would like if someone could put my face on a plate. i’ve attached a photo at the bottom for reference. (it’s acne medication)

lastly, and i probably should have said this earlier, but what i really want is for someone to make me a birthday party on the set of ‘the floor is lava’ and tell me 3 friends about it so i can have fun for once in my life. :)

when i was 7 or 8 years old, a girl asked me what my allowance was and - after she explained what the fuck an allowance was - i told her i didn’t have an allowance because i was poor.

a few days later, my mother beat my asssssss for saying that. i guess the girl had told her mom… who then told my mom… who then beat my fuckin ass!

i have no idea how i knew that what we were was “poor” or who had made me feel like that, or if i even FELT like that, or if it was just a thing i knew to be true. i hardly have memories of being a kid, but we lived in a studio apartment as a family of four until i was 12 years old and we were - relatively speaking, for new york city - poor.

my parents were savvy with money — that’s why i went to a boarding school in london when my parents’ combined income was less than $100,000. my parents were also shady with money — that’s why i wasn’t allowed to go back to that school my senior year for 5 weeks because the tuition hadn’t been paid. and that’s why i’m paying back loans my parents took out in my name to pay for my education at columbia.

yesterday i posted a DM from someone asking how i “fund” my vacations. i responded that i fund my vacations the way i assume everyone does: with money made from working. i also wrote a caption explaining succinctly what i’m rambling on about here now.

someone who i guess can’t read responded accusing me of “being ashamed of being a rich kid”.

when i explicitly clarified that i am not a rich kid and that i have worked for everything i have, this stranger told me that my “schtick” of “driving a porsche, shopping at the supermarket erewhon, and spending weeks on vacation” makes my followers presume i live off family money.

when i read this message i was so convinced that my experience was not valid that i let a stranger gaslight me into believing driving a car, getting groceries, and going on vacation indicate family wealth… when i’m literally not the spawn of wealthy people.

none of those things are suggestive of someone who grew up privileged or rich, any more than they are of someone who has worked for their money.

like, yes, people with rich parents drive nice cars and go on vacation… but so do tik tok stars, and teenagers with youtubes. and so does ariana grande, go after her!

the only reason someone would equate these things to “being raised rich” is if the person were purposefully refusing to believe a human being is capable of being successful and making their own money.

the reason my mom beat me for saying i was poor was because i was “telling our business”. she cared so deeply what people thought of her, of us. no one should ever know when our lights get turned off, or when we don’t have dinner, or when we unplug the landline because debt collectors are calling.

obviously these are moments that don’t need to be shared with the world, but when you’re a child experiencing things and concurrently learning that they are secrets, your parents’ insidious shame surrounding money gets passed on to you. at a certain point, our commitment to keeping our issues with money a secret was the only thing that bonded us. 

we were doing the bow wow challenge before bow wow...

i’ve worked really hard to not have money be a source of shame for me, and to be independent and make a life for myself with no help from anyone so it’s anathema to me that a stranger would so flagrantly and erroneously try to discredit me and my accomplishments, which is why - to the chagrin of most of my friends - i am insistent on engaging with people about things that are none of their business.

also, like my mother, i care so deeply about what people think of me, so i responded to the message, clarifying that my parents are not rich, and that i am a writer. the stranger then told me that it’s unbelievable that my job as a QUOTE writer UNQUOTE would afford me this lifestyle.

i used to say “i’m a ‘writer’” when i was a personal assistant making $50,000 a year. i used to say it when i was a coat check girl making $200 a night. when i first moved to LA, and had no money, i ate one sweet potato a day and wrote nonsense that no one was paying me for for hours. i’d still tell people “i’m a ‘writer’.”

and i used to be embarrassed.

i’ve lived my entire life never being vocal about my accomplishments for fear of seeming like i’m bragging, or for the want to make myself small so others around me can feel big. i can never gas myself up unless it’s in response to someone tearing me down, but here we are so let me stand up:

i’m a writer. no quotation marks.

that’s how i make my living, that’s how i pay my bills, that’s how i support the family i support.

i’m also financially chaotic and reckless. (THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE) up until a few years ago i had tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt from taking trips and vacations i knew i couldn’t afford. two summers ago i made $7500 in a few months on a random $600 stock investment ($FTSV). i took all that money and did the most new money thing i’ve ever done — i bought myself a diamond ring.

i eat microwave tortellini from trader joe’s five nights a week and no i’m not gonna play myself by posting that to instagram - but if you don’t believe me you can ask my friend austin because i send him a photo of it 3 out of the 5 nights.

i also go to europe on vacation every summer because i deserve to spend the money i make the way i want.

instagram is for posting your wins. you should want to see the people you follow on instagram posting their wins. and if your inclination to seeing someone win is to be jealous or incredulous, then you need to reevaluate what goes on in your house before trying to tear down theirs.

i came up. you can leave.

we been getting money :)

thank you for coming to read my diary which masquerades as a blog but is actually just a vessel for disseminating my birthday wishlists. it’s like an event you show up to where the host tries to sell you a timeshare 25 minutes after some requisite, mindless song and dance.

welcome! if you’d like purchase a timeshare, scroll to the bottom. for the song and dance, look no further:

the other day i zoned out on zoom therapy and when my therapist asked where i “went” i had to lie because i had gone to the part of my brain that holds all the things i need to think about forever for no reason (i call it the petty cache — this is an umbrella term for the space that also houses my attitude cabinet) and dusted off a memory of a comment i saw on a stranger’s facebook three weeks ago that said “message me. i lost my password and i have good news to share”.

i don’t know either person, and that’s what i was thinking about. i spend $[redacted] a month on therapy and instead of focusing on one of my numerous unsolved mysteries, i was thinking about the nuances of this comment - like why they wouldn’t just share the news or message the person directly? or what losing their password had to do with anything? or why they would comment on facebook instead of texting or calling the person. did they not have their number? imagine not knowing someone well enough to have their phone number, but still wanting to share your good news with them!

all i want (for my birthday) is to know what the news is that this stranger has to share, and i’ll never know so i have to put that comment in my minutiae repository with all the other things that will plague me until i die from texting and driving, smoke inhalation as a result of purposely leaving a candle lit in my home overnight almost every night, consuming half a dozen hot dogs a week, or a now unnamed disease that will posthumously be attributed to my chronic inability to mind my own business.

i’m constantly concerning myself with things that are none of my concern - no matter how insignificant - because my brain is a commune of sentient pepperoni running instagram polls among themselves to discern if something is worth spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about. and guess what? it turns out absolutely everything that has ever offended, confused, bothered, intrigued, slightly inconvenienced, or merely happened to me is worth spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about.

because i devote so much energy to nonsense, i can often be found persecuting strangers for insulting me on the internet (and for other miscellaneous bad behavior). the information superhighway is my home so i have to protect myself (and my friends) here, and if that means spending 45 minutes to 48 hours trying to find every misstep you’ve made in your life until i have enough ammunition to spray a dozen simulated retaliatory bullets at your virtual head because you called me a “stupid bitch” on instagram, well… so be it!

i am relentless in my pursuit of wasting time, so if that doesn’t work, i will find the cold stone creamery you frequent, seek employment there, be hired on the spot, learn the craft, be promoted to manager, poison you on your birthday, gain access to your funeral, and tarnish your reputation by reading your shitty DM in front of the few family and friends whom i haven’t already made aware of the abhorrent way you conducted yourself online!

there are so many different ways strangers will try to hurt your feelings — an interesting genre of which come from men who (like me) have definitely never had sex before, and mistakenly think i care about the ways in which my body does not make them horny.

“no tits” one will say. and i’m like, how do you want me to respond to that? my boobs are indeed small, yes. did you come here to shoot facts back and forth all day? ok: you’re going to start balding way sooner than you’re prepared for, i bet your childhood dog is dead, your time on the internet should be supervised, your closet is full of vests, and you wait on line at nightclubs… good day?!

while i will obviously engage with anyone if they want to fight, i prefer when the unsolicited criticism is personalized, and not just thoughtless, lazily devised tripe.

a year and a half ago, a man who looked like he exhales smog DMed me to let me know - among other things in a paragraph long rant - he’d “lost brain cells” watching my story. knowing he had likely never had an adequate amount to begin with, it seemed like an emergency, so i started a group DM with his wife. because his message had come just three days after a “fuckkk [heart eye emoji]” response to a photo of my ass, i included a screenshot as evidence of his devolving mental state.

being - presumably - gainfully employed, neither of them responded.

luckily, the consolation prize for insulting me is that you gain residency in my brain and stay in my thoughts and prayers for all eternity, so i checked in on them a few days ago. they’d unfollowed and wiped their feeds clean of each other!!

because i’ve never “moved on” in my entire life, i fired up our long dormant group chat, and sent my condolences: “aw. sorry your trip to positano - where you were going to attempt to repair your ramshackle marriage - got cancelled because of covid and so you just got divorced instead :(” i wrote before being blocked by both of them. 

then i headed right over to my therapist’s facebook and commented “message me. i lost my password and i have good news to share”

i spent an entire therapy session detailing this monomania before my therapist thoughtfully suggested i “pick [my] battles”.

to which i thoughtfully responded: yeah, babe. i pick every single one.

                                                        ***

timeshare time! it’s the same list as this post, with a few additions (at top) (and edits based on availability).

places to donate food education fund pretty brown girl the okra project

some furniture stuff a side table  a pointless, laughably tiny little thing this website is calling a “drink table” a lamp one of these benches i do not want this but it’s important to me that at least 2 other people know it exists

this plant that obviously does not need to cost $165 but idk how to shop economically

air pods

gifts from the previous post - all still v much in play!

a pair of shoes (size 8 or 38) one pair, another pair, yet another, these are on sale, these are not, and a final pair

a specific clutch with three color choices they allege this color is called sand but it looks white to me, pink, green for those who do not know what malachite means (it couldn’t be me. i learned it 3 hours ago when i began compiling this cursed list)

something everyone with money to waste needs this

dresses i’ll never be able to wear until there’s a vaccine because unlike someone tacky who knows me, i won’t be having a birthday party in the middle of a global pandemic (hi, you fool) white polka dot, not white polka dot, also not polka dot, a red dress, a skirt (aka half a dress), a black dress

this sweatsuit xs in this, small in this

is sephora cancelled? i want this hair dryer which i’m sure you can buy elsewhere if sephora is cancelled, which it v well may be

this item which you may think is cheap but actually it’s not soooo a hairpin

earrings one pair, another pair, and another

this dress which i’ll never wear anywhere even when there is a vaccine because… what?! but maybe. you never know. size 34. lol when i get this far into the list i’m always blown away by how insane it is that i do this every year to no audience. so i’m just laughing alone at that. :) i am v funny to myself. another dress i’ll never wear ;)

the nicest weighted blanket you know of i’m depressed!!!!! if you can’t tell!!!!!!!

every year i have asked for a weekend bag and every year i have not received one, so alas, we try again this is not a weekend bag actually but it will do. this is!

a peloton but just venmo me the cash (@merce212) because i have a hookup

an assortment of ridiculous things a $500 body scarf a $580 beach towel with an octopus on it for no reason besides “art” i cannot tell analog time but it’s never too late to start!! how mad would you be if someone bought you a roulette table for your wrist? be honest. (THIS WATCH IS FOUR YEARS RENT!!!!!!) they won’t say how much this costs :( i’m losing my mind and must be gifted a chanel watch or else i will perish. to put my salami on when i am eating salami in my bed “24k gold crocodile [?!!) teddy bear”. the website says there’s only one left, which begs the question “why did someone buy one of these rather than buying me a chanel watch?!!” *real ‘billionaires shouldn’t exist [unless they’re buying me a watch]’ energy* to put my new watch in this is ugly but it’s on sale :) idk wtf “secret box pendant” means but i wish this necklace was also a USB with every season and spinoff of 90 day fiancé on it hi yes i’m stupid but i draw the line at $1500 connect four…

*my birthday is in 6 weeks (9/26) and as i do every year, i’m going to tell a story and then bombard you with an array of gifts i feel i deserve merely for managing to continue to exist. if you can’t read, or don’t want to (and are rich), please scroll to the bottom of this post.*

on my 7th birthday, my mom humiliated me in front of the entire population of an “associated” supermarket by broadcasting my business over the loudspeaker, identifying me as some sort of child runaway, while i sat peacefully awaiting my punishment in aisle 12.

a tragically desperate amber alert echoed through the store, calling for everyone to keep their eyes open for “a young girl wearing overalls and a neon blue swimsuit”.

first of all, it was a leotard.

there was one exit, so unless my mother thought i was at risk of being smuggled out of the store in some white woman’s LeSportsac, i’m not sure what the incentive was behind blasting a message over a loudspeaker as opposed to - oh, i don’t know - walking around the store to find me herself? (... but her carrying me to term didn’t make sense, so little after that would.)

did she think i was going to make my way into the supermarket warehouse? fire up a forklift? pack it in, hit the road going 10 down 86th street?! my bicycle was a tricycle, and i wasn’t exactly prepared for the road one capri sun deep in a gusset-less bodysuit… but okay, lady.

this extremely misguided urgency was the result of years of sheer confusion about what to do with me. i’m not mommy shaming. it’s literally not her fault; they gave her the wrong manual at the hospital.

the reason i was deemed “missing” in this supermarket — aside from the fact that the language used is catering to my negligent caretaker who, in actuality, had lost me - was because my mother had refused to buy me lunchables, so when she was meticulously examining a cluster of grapes she would not be buying but sampling until she’d reached her limit, i simply turned around, made my way over to the dairy section, and cracked open a pizza lunchables.

happy birthday to me.

i was found immediately, and escorted to my mother whose look of consternation yielded to feigned relief at my unceremonious homecoming.

there should be a word for when a kid says something that makes their parent want to beat the shit out of them but they can’t because they’re in public because that’s what happened when i traipsed over to this woman 7 years after emerging from her vaginal canal, and offered the following as an explanation for causing this unwarranted spectacle: “i’m sorry, mom. i was exploring”.

oh, how everyone around me laughed and laughed, while my mother pondered which belt she would use to beat me with when we got home! (this is not funny but it’s ok, you can laugh because it’s true.)

when we left, i waved at everyone like a deviant little criminal, high off the rush of pursuit, bloated from sodium… and ready to get my birthday wiped off the calendar -- something that happened so often under my mother’s despotic rule it’s a wonder days were even systematically organized into weeks in our home.

i’ve never learned a lesson in my entire life... and so began my first annual tradition of asking for things for my birthday that i’ll never receive!

below is a list of gifts you can buy me if you want to make up for the trauma inflicted on me in a supermarket in the (v) late 90s.

no one besides a boy- or best- friend has ever actually purchased anything for me from these lists and though publicly i’ll attribute this to the fact that i withhold my address from strangers, privately i can admit that it’s because all of you are extremely poor this is because no one has ever attempted to do such a thing!!!

alternatively, don’t bother. please just donate to one of these places: food education fund pretty brown girl the okra project disaster relief for lebanon support for small businesses damaged by beirut explosion support for a friend’s lebanese family  or support a Black owned business (i’ve included some below, but they’re hidden so you’ll have to click every single link.) 

if you’re still here. my birthday is september 26th and here is THE LIST:

a pair of shoes (size 8 or 38) one pair, another pair, yet another, and a final pair

a specific clutch with three color choices they allege this color is called sand but it looks white to me, pink, green for those who do not know what malachite means (it couldn’t be me. i learned it 3 hours ago when i began compiling this cursed list)

something everyone with money to waste needs this

dresses i’ll never be able to wear until there’s a vaccine because unlike someone tacky who knows me, i won’t be having a birthday party in the middle of a global pandemic (hi, you fool) white polka dot, not white polka dot

this sweatsuit xs in this, small in this

is sephora cancelled? i want this hair dryer which i’m sure you can buy elsewhere if sephora is cancelled, which it v well may be

this item which you may think is cheap but actually it’s not soooo a hairpin

earrings one pair, another pair

this outfit which i’ll never wear anywhere even when there is a vaccine because... what?! but maybe. you never know. this is the top. this is the bottom. size 0 in both. lol when i get this far into the list i’m always blown away by how insane it is that i do this every year to no audience. so i’m just laughing alone at that. :) i am v funny to myself. another top with a bottom.

the nicest weighted blanket you know of i’m depressed!!!!! if you can’t tell!!!!!!!

every year i have asked for a weekend bag and every year i have not received one, so alas, we try again this is not a weekend bag actually but it will do this is!

a peloton but just venmo me the cash (@merce212) because i have a hookup

an assortment of ridiculous things a $500 body scarf  a $580 beach towel with an octopus on it for no reason besides “art” i cannot tell analog time but it’s never too late to start!! how mad would you be if someone bought you a roulette table for your wrist? be honest. (THIS WATCH IS FOUR YEARS RENT!!!!!!) is this ugly? i think i like this. they won't say how much this costs :( i’m losing my mind and must be gifted a chanel watch or else i will perish. to put my salami on when i am eating salami in my bed “24k gold crocodile [?!!) teddy bear”. the website says there’s only one left, which begs the question “why did someone buy one of these rather than buying me a chanel watch?!!” *real ‘billionaires shouldn’t exist [unless they’re buying me a watch]’ energy* to put my new watch in this is ugly but it’s on sale :) idk wtf “secret box pendant” means but i wish this necklace was also a USB with every season and spinoff of 90 day fiancé on it hi yes i’m stupid but i draw the line at $1500 connect four...

i was never in love as a ‘kid’, but after my first breakup i remember people around me saying the things adults say to kids who have just experienced their first heartbreak — when they’re walking the line between trying to thoughtfully console and subtly withdraw from something they deem insignificant. “it was your first love”, “you won’t even remember him in a few months”, “you’ll see, this was nothing”.

we all have the misfortune of having to have a first who will break us - and who will in turn pave the way for years of far more ruinous relationships! - but until you’ve been fucked up by the first, we (/they - pick your pronoun; mine is we) don’t acknowledge your love.

we laugh when a 16 year old couple define their relationship or profess their love. they don’t know what love is! 

we dismiss first love - young love, teenage love - with empty condolences masking an underlying, immutable point, which is: you can’t know love until you’ve known heartbreak. 

if we can’t appreciate love until we’ve been devastated by it, when we finally have what we think is it, how do we know to accept it rather than waiting (or asking!) for it to implode so it will teach us a lesson?

i have no idea! so i walk in to relationships waiting for them to impair me. expecting to be eviscerated, left for dead. breathless from ruin. 

“Maybe...you'll fall in love with me all over again." "Hell," I said, "I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?" "Yes. I want to ruin you." "Good," I said. "That's what I want too.”

- hemingway, a farewell to arms

* find who you love and let them fuck you up! *

when something ends, i am forced to look back on every previous “end” only to discover that it wasn’t heartbreak. no, this is heartbreak. here, have this — it’s an inside joke you shared; they don’t remember it. they’re playing the song they introduced you to for your successor. a thousand “LOLs” with someone new. a million little daggers stabbing you, admonishing you for not repairing yourself already.

after a relationship has been discredited and recategorized, i remember the moment i conceded my entire self to this person. you know the moment — the moment you know you’ll let them do anything to you, when you give them permission to do their worst, because you know that they will never.

when you love, you think, i want you to hold me so i can feel what your arms feel like when they’re holding something they never want to let go of.

but then you dare them to hurt you so - when they don’t - they prove themselves to you and you’re convinced of your love, or - when they do - you know that this love was merely another tutorial.

so instead you think:

i want to hold you so i can feel what my arms feel like when they’re holding something they never want to let go of… and then i want you to take that away from me. i want you to show me your weakness, and then punish me for looking. i want to feel safer than i’ve ever felt with you… and then i want you to make me panic. i want to know what bad news sounds like coming from your lips.  i want you to twist up my insides so much in a way that only you can untangle, and then i want you to go without leaving instructions.

remember: you can only understand love once you’ve been hurt. so what do you want?

i want you to impair me. i want you to awaken me from the emotional anesthesia i’ve been under since birth so that i can be entitled to feel love. 

and so they leave and they say, let someone untangle you now. let them try. i dare them.

life continues, insulting you by failing to acknowledge your pain. but this is the hurt you’ve been waiting for. finally, you get to suffer so you can know what it’s like to be loved.

you dizzy yourself with your own variation of the following thoughts:

i want to brush my teeth with your spit. i want to blink my tears into your mouth. i want to trace a haiku in your guts with my pinky. i want to inhabit the space in your body that chokes you when you snore. i want our bodies to know each other in french. i want to become a liquid that floods your house so i can finally overpower you. i want to invent a language to make fun of myself for feeling these things.

i want to laugh at the way i acted when i was invincible because you loved me because you were captivated by me. i want to captivate you. i want to get so fucking high on the sighs that temper your laughter that i understand what it feels like to do drugs.

i want to revel in the ugliness of our silences. i want to write a book about the space between us and publish it in the “further reading” section of edwin hubble’s wikipedia.

i want to disappear under the weight of not knowing anything at all and reappear in your dreams reminding you of the way you loved me the way i wanted.

i want to do the things you said we’d do — that we said we’d do. i want “we”.

i want to dance for you. and i want that song to stop playing but i want it to play louder and i want it to — i want it to be still.

i want to forget that i came into this wanting to be hurt. that was love, let me back in.

—

for years we tell ourselves we need to be taken apart to be able to feel whole, broken to feel love. so you’ll think: i want you to untangle me.

my birthday is coming up (september 26) so i wrote 1200 words about nonsense so that i could bury a birthday wish list at the bottom of this, rather than tastelessly flaunting the fact that i’ve compiled a list of things i would let strangers buy me for my birthday… which i do every single year!

(if you came here looking for the blog about being ghosted, here.)

                                                          *******

it is my understanding that “dating” is “eating dinner with someone who wants to fuck you until they actually get to fuck you and then you just get really invested in serialized television shows and have sex until the next ‘yanny/laurel’ debate inevitably tears you apart.”

it is also my understanding that once i meet someone i like, he’s my boyfriend so, historically, “dating” has been me interviewing someone to be a handyman i’ll pay in kisses.

but i am an ever-evolving, discombobulated little bug, so i recently gave *auditioning to be someone’s girlfriend* a chance.

please strap in and come along on this journey through what it is like for me to go on one single date as a person who cannot complete any task without overthinking it to the point of absolute ruin because her brain is a defective rube goldberg machine.

(if you don’t care, please scroll to the end to find the list of things i’d like for my birthday (and then do with that information what you will). if you care a lot, please also check out what it’s like inside my brain when i have to go to a party.)

A SUITABLE DATE

i have a v specific “type” from which i never stray. the main sine qua non are: over 6’3”, 200lbs+, 45+, appears to be afflicted with a football related brain injury, will disrespect me, not currently under the influence of essential oils.

further than this, what i’m also looking for in a man is someone with at least one divorce under his belt, an angry ex wife, 1-4 kids, and a complete inability to figure out what makes me happy (but someone who is in relentless pursuit of that formula).

six men meet these requirements.

THE PLAN FOR THE DATE 

i prefer to make plans with 2 - 5 hours notice because this effectively mitigates the chance of me cancelling, but this often isn’t feasible because other people have lives that don’t only involve sitting at home waiting to take me out on a date.

also, people who make plans like this are usually trying to hook up, and as we all know… i don’t even fuck!

so a date is scheduled in 2-3 days — any farther in advance i cannot plan without first consulting a psychic and my hormones’ advisory board. 

THE LEAD UP TO THE DATE

i can do nothing but spiral. i wonder if my date is on another date, if i can compete with this hypothetical other date, if i should cancel because i’m certain no one will ever love me as much as my ex, if i should cancel just to be problematic, or to exert cancelling power, or to perpetuate cancel culture?!

no, don’t cancel. we could fall in love and be really happy for a few years, and then i could get really into learning to cook or become a pilot or something. anyway, worst case scenario: he doesn’t like me, and i obsess about him for 400x the length of our courtship… but on the plus: i get to talk about him on the internet forever!

should i go blonde? should i wear a wig? i wonder if there will be hotdogs on the menu at the restaurant.

how can i unlearn every repellent personality quirk i’ve developed from birth in the next 48 hours? 

“how do you… kiss?” i wonder, right before i consider tranqing myself.

luckily, i am promptly choked to the point of syncope by these thoughts of uncertainty and self doubt. 

DAY OF DATE PREP

eventually, by the grace of God, i wake up on the morning of the date.

getting ready for anything i’ve ever done in my entire life, including a black tie wedding, has taken me 9 minutes, but i’m going to spend 2 hours sitting in a chair next to someone i’m not going to fuck, so i’ve chosen to block out a full 10 hours for no reason.

i fill the day applying every type of scrub and mask to my face, body, and hair. i try on every item of clothing i have accumulated over the past 5 years, including a $20,000 couture tom ford gown that a celebrity i forget once wore to a televised award show.

i’m now trying on sweatpants. i’ve put a heel on. “who is stopping me from wearing this?” i ask myself, knowing no one is stopping me from leaving my house and going on a date with a man i could easily get to fall in love with me in 2 hours if i don’t show up to dinner dressed like i just came from a fashionnova casting.

~ wow, time really does fly when you’re watching all your neuroses exit your body to perform a recital for you ~

moments before i have to cut this shit out and decide on something to wear, i lather my entire body in the richest lotion i can find, which notably takes 4-6 hours to sink in.

now it’s time to wiggle into the only outfit i ever leave my house after sunset wearing - a pair of black jeans that i’ll never fit into and a baby’s white tee shirt.

oh. we’re now not going to a restaurant. dinner is at his house.

i set myself on fire.

THE DATE

i am v rude for the first 45 minutes because i have no manners.

no. it’s because i’m nervous, and thus if i’m not cantankerous, filling the space with my shitty attitude, i will have nothing to say because my mind erased all logical ideation as soon as i stepped foot in this man’s home.

it becomes clear that this behavior will no longer be tolerated, so i pivot before i’m cancelled. i change the narrative. i’m nice now.

usually, when i find myself at a man’s house, the only thing i’m thinking is “please don’t have an acoustic guitar” and that thought repeats ad infinitum until i am free… but i know this man does not have an acoustic guitar (or i assume), so all i’m thinking is “does this man like the personality i’ve whipped up for him using a recipe i found in a cosmo from 2002??!”

he does to some degree - or he’s pretending - because he asks to see me again (yay!), and then shows me his house, and then my favorite part comes…

we kiss. 

we kiss and i’ve forgotten entirely how to kiss. literally no idea. never heard of it. i am a human shrug emoji.

“i don’t know how to do this.” - me, talking about kissing to the man i’m “kissing”.

he seems unbothered by this - more acting! - because we move locations, and he is doing his thing while i continue to be an oral cadaver.

that stops for a reason that seems natural and not because he realizes i am an embalmed corpse. and we talk, and that’s nice because my brains have returned for a brief guest appearance.

and then i leave, excited because i like him and it feels like he likes me. 

in the uber, he texts me the same thing he texted me before the last time i never heard from him again... and then i never hear from him again!*

and that, my friends, is a date!

*(i’m kidding. i heard from him one more time. he was cancelling plans we’d made to hang out!!) 

                                                       **

thanks for reading - or scrolling prodigiously - here are some things i’m interested in receiving for my birthday:

(if for some perverse reason you’d like to see my prior innocent but spectacularly misguided registries, please go here. it’s a doozy! however, please note i will only be accepting gifts from this year’s registry. so stay current!)

THE LIST

1. someone bullied me out of leasing a car i really wanted and so now i have no car which is unfortunate. would be nice if someone would throw half the cost of this vehicle at the mercedes store so i could pay a small amount every month to drive this until i’m bored of it in 9 months. it would also be nice if the inside were red because that’s a new kink i have - red leather seats.

2. i can’t tell if it’s basic to want this, but i also do not care at all. it’s perfectly sized to carry all of the 300 notebooks i scribble in. apparently it’s possible to have your name embroidered in lieu of the brand’s… that would be nice; my name is mercedes.

i also like this even though it looks like the only thing it can hold is a small stack of x-rays…

or this. (definitely indisputably basic. but again. i don’t care.)

this is cute

3. one of these dresses even though the only things i do are go on vacation or lie in bed. i’m a size 0 or 34 or whatever the smallest size is.

option one, option two, option three, option four (for the zero people considering purchasing a gift for me. this is my favorite, of course, because i am insane), option five 

4. a vacation - because (see above) i don’t like to be in los angeles for longer than 10 days at a time. here are some ideas:

a local vacation, a vacation in montana, a vacation in mexico. also in mexico. also in mexico.

5. either of these v big suitcases (vacation things!)

6. these shoes or these shoes. i’m a size 38.

7. gift card for an in home massage or one a week for the month of september? up to you!

8. any of these candles. they’re the only candles i’ll allow in my home now, so please don’t stray.

9. a book. i love to read, and i thought it would be nice to remind you i’m a thoughtful and educated thot.

have never read this. one of my favorites but have only read on my iPad... sad! first edition of the aforementioned

10. a necklace. a custom one (18 inch) or this long thing

misc:

i was born and raised by wolves on the upper east side of new york. all i know about love, i learned from watching my parents set fire to theirs.

as a result of this, i have two speeds when it comes to a new relationship: get the fuck away from me or you’re a shark and i’m a remora fish now.

if i like you, i love you, and if we don’t end up together - if it turns out it’s not going to work - i want it to combust and ruin my life. temporarily, but with the threat of permanence.

this explains why i’m still smarting over being ghosted by someone i’d never met last month.

i’ve never learned a lesson in my entire life, so when this man asked me what my “type” was, i answered honestly, describing the only men i’ve ever loved: “45+, 6’3”+, disrespects me”. 

falling perfectly into the first two categories, i eagerly waited for him to come through on the third.

we texted every day. he said things i needed to hear, following what has felt like an eternity in relationship purgatory— waiting for the person i was in love with to figure out how to make a place for me in his life.

he said things i’ve always wanted to hear, things that make you feel like — not “like i found my missing puzzle piece” (i’m not a #relationshipgoals meme), but like this other person is doing the same puzzle and you’re fucking up at complementary spots.

he said things i’d heard before that sounded new coming from him because they were coming at me with the same psycho energy i’d been slinging - and longing for - for a decade.

he said things that made me feel like my id was a spiritual g spot.

finally, i thought, someone who would understand when i told him i wanted him to fuck me in braille, and that i would have c*me a watercolor for him.

we texted like teenagers, like we were addicts on the precipice of either an OD or an intervention.

and then came entropy: the combust; the exit with no indication of a departure.

it was like chrome crashing unexpectedly, taking with it the 523 tabs you’ve had open since 2013, leaving you helpless, shattered, and never to discern if your dog meets any of the two dozen requirements for being “cancelled”.

but this is what happens when you make any visitor a resident. when you say: there is no outside. you cannot observe from a distance, you cannot browse. you must submit.

when you give someone access to collect information, and ravenously devour the most intimate parts of each other, you’re giving them permission to add this to their story without the need for you at all… so they leave when they get what they want.

maybe all this was was just an extended emotional one night stand. maybe it was mutual sentimental masturbation. maybe he’d just come to break my pneuma’s hymen and leave.

but, i guess that’s what dating is— hurling your biography at someone and hoping they’ll stick around to be part of it.

until then, we eulogize those who have come to contribute to our canon using this simple equation: every single minute of correspondence equals six days of recovery once we feel we’ve been wronged. (this math goes for potential suitors, postmates drivers, on screen customer service chat bots, etc…)

there are some things in life that are inevitable. for instance, if you live in la long enough, sooner or later one or more of the following are going to happen:

someone you know will die from a curable disease because they insisted on trying to cure it by only using CBD!

you’ll see an ex (who literally never knew you were dating) on a date with someone else and have to pretend like that doesn’t make you want to spit on a dog.

your favorite type of milk will be deemed a carcinogen.

you will be cancelled.

and then there are things you thought would happen to you if you moved to la because you once read a buzzfeed article on things that happen in la (that luckily - despite risk - can be avoided):

adopting a dog so as to promulgate the message “adopt don’t shop” because you care about animals, and/or the idea of owning something that could be described as “bedraggled”.

purchasing a fancy dog from a breeder because you are rich, and impervious to the contempt that you and your show puppy will likely be met with.

getting a nose job because you have a “deviated septum”. (i have a 70% deviated septum and no nose job… WE EXIST!)

falsely developing a food allergy as a means to lose weight, fit in, inadvertently ruin every dining experience for the rest of time.

joining a cult disguised as a fun place of worship based loosely around a religion you’re familiar with.

i have lived in los angeles for three years and have successfully avoided participating in any of the aforementioned “LA!” things. i had always assumed i would continue living life with agency, avoiding things that were anathema to me for the rest of my life, but then something happened. last month, i went to coachella. 

coachella is a music festival you might know of if you are alive and know of things that are annoying. 

before attending this entropic weekend, i just imagined it as an outdoor forum for people to exhibit their vast collection of beige, fringed clothing in what you might call a *real life “shop this look” you want to unsubscribe from*.

but, it was so much more. 

it was tens of thousands of people working towards a collective goal of becoming one giant, constantly rejuvenating cliche.

it was your best friend’s ex, the ghost of every girl you’ve ever seen in a bathroom at 3am, the son of that woman who’s always shouting on the app “next door” about something exactly zero people besides her give a fuck about, people you’ve seen on instagram and wondered ‘where do these people hang out’ and shuddered with gratitude realizing you’d never be in a room with them ever in your life unless you got lost and for some reason ended up at a meet and greet for one of those problematic youtube people…

it was all different types of people unified exclusively by their unique ability to exist only in a drunken coke haze.

and then there was me.

being in public socially is one of the most unnatural things for me - i’d be much more at ease drowning, for instance, or trapped inside a tabernacle - but i was obligated to attend for reasons that aren’t an interesting part of the narrative.

off top, coachella combines two of my most hated and feared things: fun, and men with verified instagram accounts. in addition, as someone who doesn’t really GET music, and whose anxiety barely allows her to hang out with the two people in her life who still afford her the privilege of calling them a friend, this, of course, was a catastrophic 72 hours for little binx.

things kicked off as you might expect - with a man spitting water out of his mouth onto my face with zero provocation (and less than zero repercussion!) while i stood awkwardly at the entrance of this thing - and then devolved from there… culminating in me walking 5 miles to a “nearby” CVS to get an uber at 11pm because the idea of that was somehow more compelling than spending even two more minutes inside that gated night terror.

i don’t understand the equation for fun; the math doesn’t compute for me - and while i assume it’s remedial because i routinely see the cast of jersey shore continuing to enjoy themselves, i cannot crack the code.

after i swiped my wristband nine hundred and sixty five times and got to the area designated VIP, i tried to have fun. i smiled dumbly into space in case someone i knew could see me, or in case i was in the back of a famous dog’s instagram story. i moved the lower half of my body v subtly so as to imitate dancing. i did my best to pretend that the sensory overload - from instruments smashing to make sounds amplified by millions (??) of speakers, the aroma of axe body spray and that perfume shaped like an apple, juul vapor, and the cacophony of clanking bangles, body chains and human beings yelling “yaas” - was not attacking my sensibilities in an irreparable way.

after 9 minutes, i was ready to go. of course, as i was not alone, and this was not an event i could just leave by myself without saying goodbye - like, say, my cousin’s wedding, or 30 seconds into any dinner party i’ve ever been at where someone was funnier or more interesting than me - i had to continue to feign appreciation for this $2000 string on my wrist by doing more smiling and swaying.

more music i don’t care about, more spray tan fumes, more photos to convey the hashtag “blessed”… and then finally it was time to leave. 

but first i had to run into someone who had friend zoned me mere weeks prior to this.

and by “run in”, i of course mean that i saw this person, *absolutely singlehandedly* made a point to go out of my way to approach him, and then harassed him for a disturbing amount of time about something i already knew the answer to!!

i am a symphony only a dog whistle can orchestrate.

anyway, great… only six hundred twenty more swipes of this hand noose and i would be free.

but no, not so fast, because once we’d swiped our wrist bolo ties enough times that it felt like we’d given dozens of ghosts hand jobs, i looked up and realized we were no longer within the confines of that delusion jamboree, but we were standing on the concrete flanked by a committee of some of the most unhelpful people i’ve ever come across outside of the people who let you into the TSA lines at the airport.

and on one hand - we escaped! - on the other - no no no.

and so began our long day’s journey into night, brilliantly erasing the horrors of coachella and replacing them with a cursed 110 minute tour of indio’s main through street.

when we got into our uber a fortnight later, an ariana grande song i had heard for the first time (and subsequently 50 times thereafter) came on and as i looked at my phone, realizing that it would take another 45 minutes to get home, i was like “ooh. this is fun.”

when i was 17, my brother died. it was valentine’s day. 

three days later, i was at my boarding school in london trying to drown myself in the bathtub.

i hadn’t slept and i wanted to stop fucking crying, so i let my body sink under the water because at that point it seemed like the only way to stop crying was to die.

spoiler alert: i live and breathe!

i know it’s de rigueur to speak of death poetically, but death is personal, and for me it was ugly.

i have never been precious about my words: my brother didn’t “pass away”. we didn’t “lose” him. he died.

he was driving a car without a license and, after being pulled over for running a red light, he sped off to flee from the cop. his car spun out of control, crashed into a warehouse, and he died.

my teenage brother’s body was so badly burned at the scene, he was unidentifiable. of course i didn’t know this at the time. at the time, all i knew was my little brother had died.

my dad told me over the phone, while i was in brussels at my best friend’s house.

“it’s just you and me now, sadie,” my dad said, in an attempt to fill the air between both of our heaving sobs.

pauline’s parents took me to the airport an hour later, and i went back to new york. 

my parents’ hatred of each other had made me the ad hoc mediator in their divorce for almost half a decade, and my brother’s death only exacerbated their animosity. they refused to speak to each other, aggressively fighting through third parties about who should possess my brother’s ashes, and what arrangements should be made for a funeral.

neither of my parents spoke to me about what happened. i had no friends in america because i’d been in boarding school for three years. my mother had left a newspaper open to the article about his death. “teen dies in fiery car crash”, it said.

i have never felt so alone or unprotected in my life.

my short stay in new york culminated in me accidentally overhearing a phone call my mother was making, reporting my father for “stealing” my brother’s ashes.

when she hung up the phone, we drove to the airport in complete silence.

in the end, there was no funeral.

when i got to school, everyone kept telling me to “be strong”. i didn’t know what it meant. i didn’t know if it was just what people said because what the fuck else could they say? or if i was being subtly derided for not being so, but i wanted to tell them — i am being strong. wanting to be alive is strenuous right now. waking up is strong. being alive is being strong.

so when i found myself lying back in my bathtub in the moments before i decided to slide under the water i just thought, that’s it. i submit. i cannot be strong anymore. i concede.

i don’t think of what i did as an “attempted suicide” - and that is not to “absolve” me of something so much as it is to highlight the reality… which is that there was no attempt. i had the thought, i began gently to implement the plan, and i stopped myself before i lost control because i realized i didn’t want to die.

i wanted to be taken care of. i wanted to feel protected, safe, like things were going to be okay.

i was no stranger to trauma - my mother had long ago robbed us of the privilege of being children when she started beating us with a belt at age 7 (for, you know, all the classic punishable offenses of 7 year olds) - this was just the first time i felt like it would destroy me.

i didn’t want to die. i wanted help, i just had no idea how to ask for it. 

“to whom could i put this question. (with any hope of an answer)?

does being able to live without someone you loved mean you loved her less than you thought…?”

- roland barthes

in the morning, i told my friend what i’d done.

in the days that followed, i was so overcome with the guilt of not being able to have gone through with killing myself. i questioned if my inability to succeed in this meant i loved my brother less than i thought, that my pain was disingenuous, and my suffering performative.

but life went on. often living felt like a betrayal, but nonetheless, life went on.

*

about a year after my brother’s death, i fainted in my dorm and went to the ER. i called my (then) boyfriend to tell him. he seemed appropriately worried and said he’d come see me.

it was probably the first time i admitted i needed help.

he arrived 2 hours later. he had been at dinner with friends, finished the dinner, and taken the subway. it was 11pm on a tuesday.*

… you gotta learn to help your fucking self.

* (i have of course held this over his head for years (and will continue until the day i die.))

when i lived in new york, i was dating someone for 3 months and i literally didn’t know if i could refer to him as someone i knew. we’d be returning a vehicle we rented for a weekend trip and i’d still be like “him? oh. we’ve hung out two dozen times but i don’t really know him know him.”

in la, you wait on line at a grocery store with someone for two to seven minutes and they’re name checking you in therapy three hours later.

i have never had to question the descriptor “my friend” more times than i have since i moved here. 

i know now that “friend” is a spectrum that includes “person you’d invite to your wedding” and “person you exchanged “wow that party sucked” banter with in an elevator once because you happened to leave a party at the same time.”

a really corny thing people with no personalities like to promulgate - and always as if they’re the first person to have ever thought of it - is the idea that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat servers at a restaurant. 

while i do think that is true - because like, ok sure - on the flip, i treat servers like deities, but i also once described a 12 year old as a “no job having ass bitch”, so…

(^ a photo of me immediately post yelling at a stranger)

yes. that is important. but, in my opinion, seeing how a person speaks about and interacts with someone they’ve met (who is of any tenable social standing) 1-5 times in the city of los angeles is a far better indicator of whether this person is objectively “good”, or if they are someone who pronounces ibiza in the way you know i’m talking about (you know. like they’re a character in don quixote. you fucking know the way), who will likely try to entangle you in a ponzi scheme in the near future.

these are your friends in NY:

the person you’ve known since you were born, who bailed you out of jail that time you got popped for jumping over a turnstile (this is called “fare evasion”, fyi) in high school

that exact person. no one else.

in new york, a guy who was v close friends with my ex boyfriend pinned me against the door of my ex boyfriend’s dressing room and tried to fuck me... two weeks after we’d broken up… while my ex boyfriend was in the en suite bathroom.

that’s what friendship is in new york! it means nothing! 

these are your “friends” in LA:

every dog

the ex of the person you’re currently dating

the kids and other patients of any of your doctors

someone you let go in front of you on line at any establishment that serves matcha or anything CBD infused

someone you have the same in n out order as

anyone you’ve ever seen before 9am in a context other than working out

someone you DMed 10 times, who responded once with the heart that’s already there for you to click

a person you’ve fucked once or dozens or times over the course of 6 months, whom you refuse to call your significant other because you’re scum

and lastly,

a person who wanted to be your friend, whose trust you broke by trying to fuck them in a v creepy and unwelcome way

let me elaborate on the last:

last year, i was actively soliciting friendship on r*ya (a dating app) by setting up a profile and indicating i was “only here for friends”*.

*(this is a setting for 1. men who want to discreetly cheat on their girlfriends and 2. girls who want to trick men into being friends with them by pretending there’s a possibility they might fuck because they matched on a dating site.)

i matched with a “famous” “musician” (i put both words in quotations because i don’t quite consider a sleepy, middle aged white man whose music’s main accreditation is being the melody playing over a man slipping from coma to death on grey’s anatomy “famous”, but ok…) and we talked for a few weeks (mainly about how i had no friends and was desirous of a handful of them).

eventually we met up. he took me to a restaurant, i ate some food, i had one drink, we had a v boring conversation, and 50 minutes later i went home and remembered that i don’t need friends.

we didn’t talk again until three weeks later on a monday afternoon. he invited me over to his place to watch the new “curb” and eat chinese food. i said yes because i wanted free chinese food (and because i still have not learned that accepting an invitation to a man’s house apparently indicates that you’d like to suck his dick).

i arrived in sweatpants at 4pm. we ate chinese food, played backgammon, and he mansplained the “me too” movement to me for approximately 20 minutes. that is not a joke.

he also told me that louis ck would be the next man to be outed (weird flex but ok), and shared a story about him “lining girls up and masturbating on their shins”! also not a joke.

impossibly boring story short… at some point i thought, “i do not even want to be friends with this white devil. it’s time for me to leave”. so i got up, ordered an uber, and walked to the front door.

as i was putting my jacket on, he walked over to me in a way that i cannot even compare to anything to emphasize how crazy it was because it was so specifically over the top in it’s own way. this man sauntered over to me with both his arms outstretched, grabbed either side of my face and tilted his head to kiss me.

after touting his beliefs on the importance of women not being seen as sexual beings for three hours while i sat in his sterile home in sweatpants, eating lo mein, this soft, balding man tried to #metoo lite me.

that’s what friendship means to a man in los angeles. 

there’s no doubt in my mind this corny bozo refers to me as a “friend”... but my only friends are on the internet + the guy who pumps my gas on coldwater.

that being said. if you made it all the way here (wow. you must want to fuck me. hello!!) we are now friends and you are therefore obligated to buy me a christmas gift from the below list of carefully curated, v expensive christmas gifts i’ve assembled:

1. what i really want is a vintage sean john velour sweatsuit that i can have altered and wear every single day of my life until i die from texting and driving, but i don’t know if that’s reasonable… so maybe this tracksuit which is for children but i am sure will fit me. or this set. or this one, which matches my sneakers:

2. i want to go to a lakers game, please. front row. i don’t want this unless it’s front row. please respect this.

3. a trip here  (+ 1 for my sister)

4. this hand soap, because i love to keep my hands clean, and i also love people to know i’m rich when they use my bathroom, which they’ll know when they exit my bathroom, and i charge them for the squirts of hand soap they’ve just used

5. a personalized tray. i do all my business, sleeping, and eating in bed, so this would be helpful, so i can organize all my things.  or a clutch. same people

6. these sneakers. or these. or these. or these. size 7

7. one of these two books. or another book. i love to read, and i can afford to buy them, i just thought it nice to include here... so you remember i’m a thoughtful and educated thot.

8. this dress. or this one. or this dress which i don’t think will look good on me

9. this candle

10. this fanny pack, but only because i want to recreate that man’s exact look, so probably not the best idea to purchase this. 

11. these shoes. or these. 7.5

12. this chair. or these

13. a series of 1 on 1 training sessions at lagree. if you’ve ever watched me simulate sex work out, you will come through with this gift before christmas  

14. this bag which is overflow from my birthday gift list. or this one

thank you so much. here is another picture of me and one of my closest friends in la - a dog i spent 90 harrowing minutes with. i hate dogs.