Drafted: Yay-Nay Movement

8/09 - What started as a pep talk about optimism became the roots of a movement. Drink your optimism!

You want to believe in the yay

I believe in the yay. I totally subscribe to the yay

That's what I mean

Wait! I'm not jaded and cynical! I'm all peace love and save the world. Everyone should yay the dickens outta everyone else. But I recognize that they don't

But it shouldn't keep us from doing so...I know you're yay.

Yay as I say not as I do?

Exactly

That's gold-plated yayism! We've come full circle

Yay all the way. I didn't exactly mean jaded/cynical as a belief…I meant as a response to people who would rather give the nay than the yay…nay-sayers suck…there's a long line of them. The Yay line is non-existent.

The world needs nay-sayers mister. Don't be a yay-elitist. It's pessimistic genocide

LOL…I'm a Yay aide... a yaide. I aid and abet the yay

You would harbor yays. You can make an UNderground Railroad of sorts for optimism

Yay Pride

Oooo, you could make an Anti-Nay Strike Force! Down with Down

I could have a 'No' with a red line across it. Buttons that say, "I can't even think nay" or  "I'm not nay. My ex is."

Hell No, We Won't No!....Oh, that may not work...but you should start the Anti-No Movement - AllWeSayisYay.org

All in favor? Yay!

"Nay is for Horses"

Wow, all of that came way too easy for you... lol

I've been waiting for a Nay-archy movement to come along

I'm OhNophobic

Nay causes cancer…

A yay a day keeps the nay away

Make yay not nay

First World Problem - First World Problems

The expression "First World Problem" is now ruining my ability to dwell and enjoy my First World problems.

 

Oh, but at least it's not disease or famine right? WRONG.

 

Because even if it was disease or famine, it would be First World disease, or First World famine. Then I would be starving, suffering and a dick because I'm not doing so Third World-style.

 

Wow, how horribly insensitive Jessica! How can you be so callous?

 

What are you gonna do? Tell the Third World on me? Go ahead. Call or email them...oh wait...

 

And besides, I'm fairly sure they don't give a shit in the midst of their starvation and civil unrest. Think the Sudan is going to take pause from genocide to notice what I say? Not even I'm that pompous.

 

Or, perhaps they will all become so incensed, that they unite against me - their new common enemy. In which case, you're welcome.

Drafted: Au Courant Simpleton

See, the problem is I can apparently come off as being devoid of any emotional sensitivities. This is wholly untrue. I wear my emotions on my sleeve, but apparently that shirt is under a couple of other layers, perhaps including a windbreaker. I'm an emotional simpleton, just in a clever disguise.

 

No one understands me, and as a result, I don't express my emotions a lot; thus creating a vicious cycle. When you try to repress something naturally occurring, Jurassic Park logic ensues - life finds a way. Only, this is my life, so the way it finds is illogical and untimely. So when I do have an emotional collapse, it confuses even my closest of friends, and frustrates me.

 

And just like any true simpleton, I get angry at what I don't understand. I don't know why I'm feeling this way, nor do I want to know. For me, getting in touch with my feelings is just asking to end up on the floor of my apartment; rendered entirely useless, and crippled.

 

What is the matter Jessica? Just go. Leave me. You could never understand what is happening to me.

 

Of course, I don't know what the shit I'm talking about either. I'm often so epically consumed by my own emotions, that I somehow convince myself I have the capacity for feeling beyond what modern man can understand.

 

I'm feeling all the feelings!! At once! It's an emotional abyss beyond comprehension.

 

Because I am a pompous dick, I deem the whole thing as signs of impending evolutionary genius. Sadly, the reverse is probably true: that I'm an emotional retard, and my inability to effectively express myself means my emotions come out all wonky. All of these things I can acknowledge, but refuse to change, which is completely opposite of any sort of evolution.

 

Yet, I like myself; advanced or retarded.

Women Are Fake

No really.

I'm sitting here, listing off the things I need to get done: color my hair, pedicure, perhaps try false eyelashes, get a new t-shirt bra, order my contacts, buy more Crest Whitestrips, go for a run, exfoliate, apply lotion, etc.

HOLY CRAP - I am a fraud! But apparently not the fraudiest fraud...

Did you know there are some chicks who get feathery vag weave things? Peacock feathers glued down there. Girl, is that one of those feather waxes or a cat toy in your panties?

I don't know what kind of highfalutin guy is accustomed to that kind of bullshit, but it would seem any self-respecting, regular guy would at least take pause.

Worse, there's another kind made from fox hair. MOTHERFUCKING FOX HAIR?!

You mean to tell me, that these bitches are paying to have their own hair ripped off, and for feathers or fox fur to be glued back on? How is this not entirely counter-intuitive?

Festooning your vag with jewels is frivolous, but at least there is a level of practicality to it. But feathers? Fur? Everyday activity would ruffle or muss.

And what of sexy time? You'd look like your vag was the setting of a bird being eaten (yes, I know what I said there). The fox fur would look mangy.

How could you ever hope to bag a guy if your lady parts look like they've gone rabid?! Have you seen Old Yeller?! Do you want to cry like that over your vagina? It was rabid, but no guy will shoot it (yes, I know what I said there too).

I am breaking up with women. Bitches be crazy and this is entirely too much.

Drafted: Bottom of the Oceanliner

This is from 8/2010, and actually is timely, as well as dedicated to Bethany...


I don't like the idea of going on a cruise ship. All of my friends who have gone on cruises swear up and down that I'll just love it once I try it but this is one of those experiences I just don't have the luck for.

Every, "Oh seriously Jessica! You'll absolutely love, love, LOVE it," is immediately followed by a news story about someone who fell off the side, mysteriously disappeared or an outbreak of something that makes 300+ people shit themselves. Today, CNN has a story of one that hit a rock and is stranded in the Arctic.

Oh please, it's not like Titanic.

Ummm, yes it is...yes, yes it's exactly like Titanic! The ship hit something in water! Titanic hit something, this boat hit something. I want a 100% life back guarantee that the only thing my boat will hit is itsy bitsy fish.

I don't believe any of you and you're stories of cruise awesomeness. None of you fell off the side. None of you got rampant diarrhea. Just get one of those people to recommend it to me and I'll maybe reconsider.

Maybe, but probably not. I'd rather run around on the beach where there's no side to fall off of. No infinite blue abyss to disappear into. I refuse to be lost at sea.

I can't even have a normal trip to the gas station, let alone 7 days, 6 nights on a cruise ship. How many creepy people do you think go on cruises anyway? It has to be appealing since there's no way to escape their creepiness.

We all know it'll be somewhere in between Jaws and Ghost Ship.

Drafted: Murphy - 1, Me - 0

I have these really boss shoes from Nine West; quintessential casual/dressy heels. I love them. You love them. They are the business.

 

So, imagine my horror today when one of them drowned.

 

This is Oprah's fault. She's the one who emphatically suggested on one of her fervor-inducing shows about germs, that women should NEVER touch the handle to flush the toilet. Surely there was a black light involved, insuring calamity and disgust at just how much poo and other ickery lurked all over the handles of everything in a public restroom. And as a result, I have been conditioned by my mom, who was conditioned by Oprah, to never ever ever touch the handle to flush the toilet, but instead use your foot.

 

This whole practice is flawed. I can't stand on slippery bathroom tile, balanced on one foot, in 4" heels, and press down the handle with my other heel-clad foot. Not without putting at least one hand on the wall; and thus, undermining the entire don't touch doctrine of Oprah.

 

Surely the wall isn't as icky as the toilet? Actually, it's probably MORE icky, since every other woman had to do the exact same thing!

 

Only Murphy's Law says it can't just be germs on your hands. Nooooo, that douchebag Murphy made my dainty shoe fall off my dainty foot and right into the motherfucking toilet.

 

That was probably weird for whoever went into that stall after me.

 

Similar weirdness walking barefooted through the mall to the nearest shoe store.

Big Ups v. Clusterfuck

Typically, I can write a post in about fifteen minutes; 30 tops. If I think about it too much, I become irreversibly hemmed up in potential consequences, and talk myself out of the post. The draft list in my blogger account is massive. 

It just works better for it to be off the cuff, instinctual, and reactive. I’m not angry all the time; I’m just literally writing it mere minutes after infuriating event happened. Nor am I sad all the time, just writing in the moment. I am; however, tempering the posts with patience, seeing how I’ll feel tomorrow, and fucking up the funny. 

Remember last year when I was funny, and then the funny when away? My maturity got the best of me. My draft list tripled.

But I’ve got to get over this draft list nonsense, or I’ll never break free of my own inhibitions. Which has led me to the idea of just publishing rough cuts. 

I feel it may be enormously entertaining just in the fact that the posts are now incomplete, meandering and completely out of synch with current events. 

This will either be fantastical or a clusterfuck. But who doesn’t love a good clusterfuck. 

My Hillbilly Childhood Story

When I was really little, we spent a brief time living in Cruso, NC. If you've never heard of it, it's outside of Waynesville, which is outside of Asheville, which is outside of Charlotte; all located in a state of no consequence. Seriously, up until the Google Fiber Initiative, North Carolina was irrelevant. Except that it's the setting for this story.

 

We moved there when I was 4 because my dad installed satellite-tv antennas, so that backwoods, Deliverance-types could get a glimpse of civilized folk. And so that small children - like me - could imagine what it would be like to one day live in a big city, and not 100 yards a river named after flying rats. But the satellite-tv antenna industry wasn't so much booming in rural North Carolina, and we were dirt poor. In fact, we only had kerosene heaters to heat the house with, which I managed to regularly burn myself by running into them. I still have scars on my hands and stomach from one particularly bad incident involving a Sit-n-Spin.

 

My dad was off installing Godzilla-sized dishes, and my mom had a job as a secretary, so I was babysat by the actual people from Deliverance. Who needs day care when you have the river and the side of the mountain?

 

Every morning, my mom would drop me off with Jack (the dad), Lou (the mom), Travis (sister; 5), and Jesse B. (brother; 3). I don't remember what Jack did, other than shoot at things, namely his neighbor. Lou was a stay-at-home mom, but who knows what she really did since we were never allowed to stay inside the house; even if it was raining - we had to go play in the barn. Travis and Jesse B. hated one another, but loved me, and I relished in their attention.

 

One afternoon, after being banished from the front yard for pulling clothes of the drying line, we thought up the idea of going on a bear hunt. Of course, not even in rural North Carolina are small children allowed to play with loaded guns, so we found large sticks with which to poke the ferocious bear to death. We snuck the Honey Bear jar out of the kitchen (for bait), and set out on our hunt.

 

It didn't take long for us to scare the shit out of each other, and soon every unexplainable noise we heard was attributed to a child-eating black bear. Unfortunately, because we were listening for sounds of impending mauling, we were missing the sounds of a much more plausible impending catastrophe.

 

We climbed up on top of an old pig shed (I'm really not making any of this up), to take a break and perhaps spot bears from our high vantage point. As we prattled along about whatever 5, 4, and 3 year olds talk about, we became aware of another sound nearby. A very scary, and dangerous sound.

 

I can't say that my 3 years in the remote mountains of North Carolina taught me all that much about outdoor survival skills, but I can say, that the handful of skills I had learned served me well on this particular day.

 

First, a rattling sound should always be immediately assumed to belong to a rattlesnake. Rarely, if ever, is there a baby shaking its favorite toy in the woods. Second, bear poking sticks are useless against rattlesnakes. Third, the closest medical facility is in Asheville, and too far away. In fact, we had been repeatedly instructed by Lou to not get hurt because she "wasn't going to drive all that damn way, so you'll just have to stay broken or bitten, until Jack shoots you like we do the horses."

 

Finally, screaming "SNAKE!" at the top of your lungs is the hillbilly equivalent of yelling "FIRE!" and it really gets people's attention. And that is exactly what we did, in the special, high-pitched way that only small children can shriek.

We clamored down off the pig shed, and ran full speed toward the house. In the panic, I forgot one very important thing - duck when you get to the driveway, or...

YOU WILL BE LAID FLAT THE FUCK OUT BY THE ELECTRIC FENCE.

Yes - there was an electric fence. To keep the horses from wandering away. And we knew to duck, but I had forgotten to duck. Now being 4, I was the perfect height to catch the electrified wire right across my neck. It, being an electric fence, shocked the shit out of me, and knocked me flat on the ground. I lay there, crying and screaming, doomed to become snake bait.

But my little hillbilly friends were all the way to the house by then, screaming and pointing chaotically toward the driveway.

"SNAKE! RATTLESNAKE! IT TRIED TO BITE US!!"

I can only imagine how this must have looked to Lou, and my mom who had just arrived to pick me up. There I was, in the middle of a dried up creek bed (that doubled as a second driveway), screaming and writhing in pain.

My mom ran over asking where it had bitten me. "Oh no!" I thought, "I've been shocked and bitten?!?!"

This only re-doubled my hysteria. Unable to get an answer out of me as to where I had been bitten, Lou and my mom proceeded to strip me down to my underwear looking for a snake bite. Of course there was none. Finally, my mom noticed the large, red whelp across my neck.

"Did you run into the fence??"

"Yes."

"Because you were running from a snake?"

"Yes."

"Get up young lady! And pick up your clothes. You are in a world of trouble."

To this day, my mom still seems a little angry about this incident, like I somehow orchestrated it on purpose to make her look foolish.

Horse Face

There's something about being a girl that just isn't right. Or fair. Or logical even.

I decided I wanted that Clarisonic Mia skincare brush.

Unfortunately, they aren't free. I've yet to resort to shoplifting, so I decided to get a manual exfoliating brush instead. The analogue version is 1/10th the price; and therefore, right up my alley.

This is the logical conclusion, not the ridiculous part. The ridiculousness comes in how I got to the conclusion. The part I made Karen passively participate in...

Me: I'm going to Sephora today to get one of those Clarisonic things.

Karen: Oh, those are the pricey ones right?

Me: ...yes, but they're apparently amazing.

Karen: That works, I wanted to go by Banana Republic

Me: They're well worth the price tag! Seriously...worth...it.

Karen: Just let me know when you want to leave.

Me: Stop harshing on my financial decision-making!! Judgy McJudgerson!

As you can see, Karen was TOTALLY being Judgy McJudgerson about how expensive the Clarisonic system is. So, in an effort to keep her from nagging me to death, I decided to look what other - possibly cheaper - alternatives were also available. But in the meantime, because I was feeling sulky and irresponsible, I declare that our mall trip is no longer going to happen.

Me: I'm not going to the mall anymore. Tough cookies.

Karen: Ok, I'll go to Best Buy instead.

Me: Stop being such a harpy!

I know! Karen seriously needs to relax!! Anyway, I found a manual brush at Sephora that is significantly cheaper, and better rated than its plug in Clarisonic counterpart, so I've decided to go with that. Then I can buy a fancy face cream with some insulting, ageist name like "Hope in a Bottle."

Me: OK, I'm going to go to Sephora, and buy the manual face brush. And the fact that I'm buying a "face brush" makes me feel like a horse.

Karen: Uh...ok.

Yes, I agree, Karen does need to calm down with all that noise. Anyway, I did buy the Clarisonic Mia. Fuck that manual brush. If I'm going to need to be cleaned like a horse, at least it'll be like a goddamn fancy horse.

And, if I'm being really honest, some of that exchange with Karen isn't historically accurate, but you get the gist.