You know how bands are typically four or five people, so when you see Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, which has ten members, your brain overloads from all the questions: Are their residual checks just fifty-seven cents each? Have they ever decided on dinner in under an hour? Who is having sex with whom? What?! That’s a reasonable question. I mean, you telling me that Fleetwood Mac only had five people and they all fucked one another, but Sharpe & Zeros are just settling for hand hugs? Anyway, this level of confusion is what I feel when I see these recipes that have a laundry list of ingredients. So new rule: If your recipe requires more than twelve ingredients, do not share it under the guise of something we can all do because that’s a lie.
I understand these famous people meal tutorials aren’t done maliciously. Usually, they just seem bored (and are most likely motivated by the high they get from the attention and social media worship). Still, these videos tend to show how out of touch these folks can be. Acquiring all the ingredients for these meals requires shopping at multiple markets and stores, which is most likely done by someone who is paid to shop so the celeb can spend their time dealing with more pertinent matters. It also means having hundreds of dollars to spare so they can have what the average person would consider a “dinner of their dreams” on a lazy Monday night. So while the attempt may be to remind the public that celebs are just like us, the truth is they’re not. That’s why I want these celebs to stop pretending and just own it. Like if one of them opened their cooking video with, “Even though for many years I was living paycheck to paycheck, I got money now, so I’m a bougie bitch and I’m about to make an expensive-ass meal in my expensive-ass kitchen. Don’t worry, I will definitely be indicted for tax evasion in about seven to ten years and be brought back down to earth and purchasing Hunt’s brand tomato paste right along with ya, but until then? I’m putting saffron on everything. These grits. My tits. Everything.” At least that would be honest. Unsanitary but honest.
PHOEBE-ISM #2: IT IS ABSOLUTELY IGNORANT YET COMPLETELY ACCEPTABLE TO WEAR BLUE LIGHT GLASSES OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE
In many ways, I’ve unwittingly spent my whole life working toward my dream aesthetic: manager of a college bursar’s office. Y’all know who I’m talking about. She’s usually a fifty-something Black woman who walks around by dragging her feet, glasses dangling from the glasses chain hanging around her neck, a rubber spiral keychain living on her wrist, and she always has a folder in her hand that she intends to file throughout the day, but never does. You take one look at her and you just know her sweet potato pie tastes good as hell and that she ends all her conversations with, “Well, I’mma let you go,” and then continues talking to you for another thirty minutes. This woman is my Kwanzaa future that I’m tired of waiting for to arrive. Deep down, I wish I was already fifty-seven years old, so some young whippersnapper would show me a picture of Jason Momoa and I could respond with, “Mmm, that’s a good-looking boy. Yeah, I like that right there.” I mean, technically, I can and do do that now, but it’s not the same. When you’re AARP age, you can be as vocally horny as you want without judgment. In fact, it’s cute. Endearing. Encouraged, even! As an older person reveals their lusty thoughts, a gaggle of heauxes from Grease seems to appear out of nowhere with a refrain of “Tell me more, tell me more!” in a key of Cialis. Because life is long and hard, the least people can do is grant elders time to indulge in the harmless fun of objectifying celebrities they will never meet.
However, when you’re in your midthirties and mildly attractive, a few people think you’re actually plottin’ and thottin’. Case in point: When I posted on Instagram about Lenny Kravitz’s shirtless October 2020 Men’s Health cover and how I wished to be baptized in the jojoba oil he uses to keep his locks on point, someone commented, accusatorially I might add: “Don’t you have a boyfriend?” Yes, HEAUX, I do! And? I ain’t got a shot at banging Lenny Kravitz! The commenter acted like I was talking about hooking up with my next-door neighbor named Dave. It’s Leonard Albert Kravitz. Everyone, including my boyfriend, would smash Lenny Kravitz. So me saying that I would hypothetically hook up with a celebrity I have ZERO ACCESS to, by the way, is not a sign I’m trying to cheat, but an expression of fact. The sky is blue. 2 + 2 = 4. I would toss my NuvaRing in the trash if I was about to bone Lenny Kravitz. All straight-up facts. And if these internet strangers are too busy to write on my posts about hot celebs, they’ll just tag British Baekoff in the comments as if to say, “Have you seen what this bitch is out here doing?” The answer is: yes. Like I said, life is long and so are relationships, so me spending twenty minutes waxing hoetic about a famous sexy dude is twenty minutes that my boyfriend has without me in his grill, asking him to do unpaid IT work around our apartment. Truthfully, you haven’t lived until a British person’s query of “Have you tried restarting your computer?” is drenched in condescension, covered in panko bread crumbs, and baked at 180 degrees Celsius. But I digress. The point is, I have always aspired toward rocking the managerial look, especially the glasses part.
Growing up, kids were teased for wearing glasses, made to feel as though their less-than-perfect vision was a weakness, but to me, glasses signaled someone who is smart, respected, studious. A person who has all the answers. So when I got older, despite my 20/20 vision, I decided to give glasses a whirl. Meaning in high school, I went through a stint of wearing fake eyeglasses in class while taking notes on Gulliver’s Travels. Can I do a spin-off of Barack Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope and call it The Audacity of Nope in which I chronicle this goofy-ass mess? Like, despite all the messaging I received from movies and TV shows in which the female character is considered a babe only after she would “de-glass,” my sixteen-year-old behind was like, “Lemme have my mom drive me to Dillard’s—LOL—so I can get some unsexy and fake glasses to pair with my turtleneck dickeys and show off how interesting and learned I am, which will surely be the key to unlocking my virginity.” Ooooh, boy. I think it goes without saying that my virginity remained locked and dead-bolted for quite some time, but at least I helped Dillard’s stay in business. Anyway, I quickly realized that fetishizing wearing eyeglasses was ridiculous. I outgrew this phase and have carried on life sans eyeglasses. Until Covid-19 happened.
Suddenly, I was on Zoom, staring at my computer screen several hours a day. The glare and strain took their toll and soon I was getting headaches. Then a friend turned me on to blue light glasses, which, allegedly, are supposed to make the effects of staring at a screen all day lessen or disappear. And because I have good taste, I chose a couple of frames that fit my face perfectly. I received so many compliments on my Quay blue light glasses and snazzy eyeglass chains during Zooms that I started wearing them when I wasn’t at the computer. I’d throw them on while reading a book, eating lunch, and doing dishes. I’d call Bae into the room, just so I could dramatically take off my glasses and say, “Objection, Your Honor.” He would shake his head, but he couldn’t deny the cuteness.
That’s when I thought, Well, if I’m looking this good, then everybody needs to see this. While everyone is masked up and scurrying away from one another to keep their distance and/or rushing to get back home, the outdoors and every store became Quay Blue Light Glasses Fashion Week for me. What Naomi Campbell did for Versace by strutting the catwalks in Milan, I was going to do for blue light glasses by sporting them in Target as I searched for Preparation H for my boyfriend. And honestly, that sounds about right. Naomi is synonymous with couture and I guess I am synonymous with . . . troubleshooting tender buttholes while donning Angela Lansbury in Murder, She Wrote cosplay.
Yeaaaaah, that’s not really how I envisioned my public life with blue light glasses going down, but to be complimented on my hipster frames while holding a box of Preparation H gel has gotta mean something. Normal societal code is that when you see another human shopping for something terribly personal, you pull a U-ey and hope the twenty-five knots of wind gust from said U-ey doesn’t alert the person that you hightailed it
outta there to avoid secondhand embarrassment. However, this stranger saw the Preperaysh and soldiered on toward me. Maybe they really did like my glasses that much and just had to let me know, or maybe they felt pity over what they imagined my butt emergency to be and wanted to give me an ego boost. Whatever the case may have been, the point is that the kindness from a stranger has to be a testament to just how damn good I looked with the glasses on. So, I’m committing to rocking my blue light glasses out in public with chunky glasses chains and all as I inch closer toward my destiny as a horny middle-aged office manager.
PHOEBE-ISM #3: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WEAR MATCHING UNDERWEAR
I don’t have the evidence to prove this theory, but I believe that people who wear mismatched underwear every single day of their lives are the same people who are the worst teammates to have in a game of Pictionary. Much like a game of Pictionary where teammates are given quality and obvious clues and, in return, they provide terrible answers, ad campaigns, runway shows, and store mannequins constantly give women a visual guide on how to succeed at wearing coordinating underwear without really trying; however, time and time again, these folks put on underwear all slapdash like the Lyft XL that’s picking them up from their Eyes Wide Shut orgy went from “arriving in ten minutes” on the app to “Sahit is here” within seconds. I. Just. Don’t. Get. It. Is the mismatching a cry for help? Are you hoping it will keep you in the running of being one of Glamour magazine’s Female Disruptors of 2021? Do you honestly not care that your skivvies don’t go together? I mean, how can you not??
Now, I’m aware this stance of mine screams “peak type A” or is maybe inspired by that irrational fear some have about dying whilst wearing clashing Underoos. I mean, if morgue attendees launch into a Comedy Central roast at the mere sight of my corpse wearing a bra that does not go with the pair of boy shorts on my body, then consider me their muse. At that point, I’m dead, in Heaven, and chilling with Aretha Franklin and her hat from the 2009 Obama inauguration, so say what you want about my body.
In all seriousness, there’s no grand reason for my staunch belief in matching Underoos other than wearing matching underwear is . . . the . . . obvious thing . . . to . . . do? Think about it. When Rihanna throws her Savage × Fenty Fashion Week shows, the models and celebs waltz down the catwalk in coordinating ensembles. When you’re shopping online for underwear, the companies respect the price of your Wi-Fi enough to not waste your money by showing you images of models wearing a lacy bra with saggy granny panties. And the mannequins in the GapBody section aren’t doing their job if they’re dressed like it’s laundry day. Clearly, the Universe (as well as good old common sense) is, at every turn, showing us just how easy it is to achieve this. Like all we have to do is command + C and then command + V what we’re looking at onto our bodies. Except people act like this shit is impossible.
If I tell a girlfriend that I always wear matching underwear, the common response is, “Who has the time?” Literally all of us. It absolutely takes the same amount of time to pick out a matching underwear set as it does to Choose Your Own Adventure it. The other refrain I get is, “Well, no one is gonna see it, so it doesn’t matter.” Just because you’re not planning on having sex with anyone that day doesn’t mean no one is seeing it. Bitch, you see it! You know and control what you have on beneath your clothes. Put some effort in! Dress to impress yourself and feel good. And I’m not talking fancy underwear either.
I know there are some people who wear only designer lingerie, and unless you’re in the Pussycat Dolls and you’re on call to show up at house parties and over-sing while scantily clad, no one’s asking for all that. The basics will do. And before you accuse me of being a privileged gal whose underwear buying is easy, rest assured it’s not. I’m a 36A. Plenty of bras don’t come in that size, or if they do, the majority are padded like a Casper memory foam mattress so I can appear to have a C cup because I’m not “womaning” properly unless I possess a heaving bosom. Out of principle and because there’s nothing wrong with having small tatas, I refuse to wear padded bras. So if an underwear set doesn’t come in my bra size or have a nonpadded option, I just don’t get it. Sure, this is quite limiting, but I would rather 90 percent of my underwear sets have me looking like I’m about to go to volleyball practice—#SportsBraNaysh—than to look like I put on underwear in the dark. And if wearing coordinating undies for yourself doesn’t move you, then fine. Dress to impress others. For the potential that today might be the day you catch some strange, and if making a good first sexy-times impression is still not enough to motivate you, then perhaps you’re a lost cause?
Like when people are on the heaux patrol and still aren’t wearing matching underwear, I feel like Gordon Ramsay on Hell’s Kitchen when the cheftestant perfectly cooks the entrée and dresses the plate beautifully before bringing it up to the pass to be served. Gor-Gor gives the plate a once-over, turns, and screams, at no one in particular, “WHERE’S THE LAMB SAUCE, YOU DONKEY?” Like, you put in all this effort into delivering sexy banter, you’re rocking an outfit that shows off your body perfectly, yet you select your underwear the way people pick groceries on Supermarket Sweep: grabbing whatever the fuck. That ain’t no way to live. So, for the love of God, wear matching underwear.
PHOEBE-ISM #4: TRULY NO ONE CARES THAT YOUR IN-BOX IS DOWN TO ZERO SO SHUT THE HELL UP
I SAID WHAT I SAID. I’m so over people bragging about answering all their emails in a day like this is some great achievement. Calm. Down. You’re not going to be rewarded with a campaign of your face on a box of Wheaties. There’s no blue ribbon waiting to be pinned into your lapel. It’s just emails. Even worse than those people who behave like they are the Simone Biles of Microsoft Outlook are the people who go, “I can’t go to sleep at night unless my in-box is at zero.” An unanswered email has you so distraught that you can’t go to bed? Allow me to introduce you to my new email signature: “I’m getting a FULL EIGHT HOURS of sleep because I’m not responding to your bullshit right now and I feel GREAT about it,” which is accompanied by a thumbnail pic of me deep in slumber. Is that extremely petty and aggressive? Yes, but sometimes these heauxes need a reminder that if “Black don’t crack” under the stress of Jim Crow, then it for damn sure ain’t gonna crack because Matt’s trifling ass is emailing me (and cc’ing the main person at my job I don’t like) at 6:43 p.m. for clarity on a project I obviously don’t give a fuck about. Trust and believe I’m getting my proper eight hours of sleep every night, I’m waking with no visible signs of aging, and I’m waiting until he hits me with the “Hey . . . just circling back about this” email two days later before I respond.
PHOEBE-ISM #5: EATING A COUGH DROP IS FOR EVERY OCCASION, NOT JUST WHEN YOU’RE SICK
Everyone has their own “old person” thing—wearing a jacket when it’s not even cold outside, taking naps, getting to the mall right the fuck when it opens, etc.—and I guess a steady diet of cough drops is mine. It’s not like I have a nagging cough, I don’t wear out my throat from all the talking I have to do for work, and I’m not constantly sick. One day, I just woke up and decided to turn Halls Defense assorted citrus flavor cough drops into around-the-clock amuse-bouches.
At first, I started small, like the eight-piece packages that you buy at the checkout counter in a gas station, or the twenty-five-piece when I just wanted to have some around the house in case I got a tickle in my throat during the winter months. It has now escalated to me ordering multiple two-hundred-count value packs online and eating about thirty of them nightly before bedtime. This is ignorant enough. The worst part is when Bae and I have decided to go to sleep. We’ll turn off the lights and television. Kiss each other good night before rolling back over to our respective sides of the bed. A full five minutes of silence will pass. He is clearly falling asleep and then he’ll be awakened by the sounds of me slowly unwrapping one last bedtime Halls and putting it in my mouth.
Why is it that when it’s absolutely silent and you go to
unwrap something, the wrapping paper is made out of trees and Sonos technology? I mean, where’s the shiplap to drown the crinkling out? Oh, all of it is in Waco, Texas, thanks to Chip and Joanna Gaines renovating everyone’s houses to Luke Bryan music on Fixer Upper from 2013 to 2018? Well, thanks for that. Anyway, British Baekoff is now awake from my Halls unwrapping and we laugh. Back to quiet . . . until a few minutes later, I’m equal parts drowsy and terrified that I’m going to fall asleep, choke on the cough drop, and die. So, I turn my mouth into a loud-ass trash compactor as I crush the mostly undissolved Halls between my molars, thus awakening him once more. I. Do. This. Every. Night. You know when you watch the local news and someone is arrested for murdering their spouse over something trivial such as changing the channel? Baekoff and I have jokingly decided that if thirty years from now he murders me, it’s because he refused to let another night’s sleep be interrupted by my cough drop chewing. But at least I died living my truth and you should, too, so keep on keeping on with doing those tiny little things that annoy your partner.
Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes Page 16
