by Jenny Lawson
But Twitter was there through it all, reminding me that if I did actually get my shit together no one would know who I was anymore.
And that? That is why I love the Internet. Because they turned a really horrific moment into a memory I could laugh about later because I was experiencing it with people who could commiserate, or at least appreciate it as a terrible train wreck. And it was good. And terrifying. And I survived even though I had to go onstage with a slightly squelchy shoe and then hide in my room immediately afterward.
I continue to do what I do because that is life, and because one day I’ll maybe get used to this. Maybe one day I’ll have the same reaction to life that I have when I’m locked in a plane or onstage. Maybe I’ll be able to relax and enjoy my life without letting fear keep me from living it. Maybe one day I’ll easily acknowledge the frank truth … that I have no other choice but to breathe and move forward.
Things My Father Taught Me
• Always pull a tank dog out of a hole by the tail. Also “tank dog” is a fairly awesome name for an armadillo.
• You can’t leave a donkey in the car. But you CAN take it into a bar. And then you can never go back to that bar again.
• If you have too much grass, and your neighbor has too many goats, you should just rent some of your neighbor’s goats to eat your grass. But make sure you get all female ones because otherwise you’ll end up with too many goats too. Too much grass and not enough birth control: that’s how goats are made.
• If you want to learn the Native American way to skin buffalo you should let a bunch of them come live in your yard. Native Americans, that is. Not buffalo. Honestly, we barely had room for all those goats.
• The grass is greener on the other side of the fence but only because most people don’t have a bunch of rented goats in their backyards. Those fucking goats eat everything.
• You can trade three goats for one slightly used kid’s motorcycle.
• You can trade one slightly used and now vaguely crashed kid’s motorcycle back for those same goats if you just make sure to trade really bad goats the first time around. They should change “You can’t handle the truth” to “You can’t handle these goats” because it’s more realistic. Goats are terrible to handle.
• When life gives you lemons you should freeze them and use them to throw at your enemies using some sort of trebuchet. Also, you should never ask your father what a trebuchet is because he will show you. It’s like a catapult but more complicated, and inevitably it breaks or the goats wander into its path and run away dazed.
• On the other side of fear is freedom. And usually fewer fingers than you started with.
• Everyone is born with extra fingers. God expects you to cut a few off during your journey. Otherwise he wouldn’t have made power tools so awesome.
• If you toss a freshly killed deer on the kitchen table with its stomach on the tabletop and its front legs on one side and back legs on the other it’ll look less like it’s flying and more like it’s just badly failed at the hurdles. It’s a bit funny and horrible all at once. Much like life.
• Always shoot first. Because bears don’t shoot. They just eat you. You’ll never win if you wait for the bear to get the first shot. This is all basic hunting 101.
• There will be moments when you have to be a grown-up. Those moments are tricks. Do not fall for them.
• Refrigerators are good for keeping homemade moonshine less gross. Freezers are good for keeping rattlesnakes less angry. Garages are good to hide in when your wife finds either.
• If you leave the freezer open, the rattlesnakes will thaw and bite your hand. (I’m not sure if this is an actual fact or just a way for my father to get my sister and me to close the freezer quickly before letting all the cold air out. This is such an electricity saver that I’m considering using the same tactic on my daughter. But without the actual rattlesnakes. Because that would be insane.)
• Don’t make the same mistakes that everyone else makes. Make wonderful mistakes. Make the kind of mistakes that make people so shocked that they have no other choice but to be a little impressed.
• Sometimes stunned silence is better than applause.
• You don’t have to go to some special private school to be an artist. Just look at the intricate beauty of cobwebs. Spiders make them with their butts.
• Be happy in front of people who hate you. That way they know they haven’t gotten to you. Plus, it pisses them off like crazy.
• You can make a hat out of a cat’s face but that doesn’t make it a good hat. Unless you line it first.
• Don’t sabotage yourself. There are plenty of other people willing to do that for free.
• It’s okay to keep a broken oven in your yard as long as you call it art.
• If you’re going to buy glass eyeballs you should buy them in bulk because you’re going to need more. Glass eyeballs are like Pringles. No one can have just one. Mostly because you seldom taxidermy one-eyed animals. Unless maybe you make them wink at each other. Or make them pirates.
• If you stick a couple of giant glass eyeballs made for taxidermied cow heads inside your glasses you will freak a bunch of people out. You’ll probably also fall and break your hip. But it’ll totally be worth it.
• There’s a point when roadkill is much too decomposed to be used in taxidermy. It’s several weeks after a normal person would expect.
• You can make a very convincing taxidermied Sasquatch out of a deer’s ass. They don’t sell well in the taxidermy shop but it’s very entertaining when gullible people get an inch away from a deer’s butthole to stare at it with wonder and skepticism.
• Most Sasquatch sightings are probably just deer who are walking away from drunken hunters.
• Normal is boring. Weird is better. Goats are awesome, but only in small quantities.
• Hand me those eyeballs.
I’m Going to Die. Eventually.
“So,” said my psychiatrist, “what’s going on today?”
I took a deep breath. “I’m going to die.”
“Oh,” she replied, eyes opening in surprise.
“I mean … eventually,” I added.
Her eyes narrowed. “Right. So, everything is normal.”
“It’s not normal. I’m dying. You’re dying. WE’RE ALL DYING.”
She crossed her legs. “That’s a normal phase of life.”
“Dying? No. Dying is like the opposite of life.” I crossed my arms. “Aren’t you a medical doctor? Because I think you should know that.”
“No,” she replied. “I meant that thinking about your mortality is a normal phase of life.”
“I can’t trust anything you say right now. You just found out you’re dying and you’re obviously in shock.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I already knew I was dying.”
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”
“No,” she said. “I’m not dying now. I’m just the regular kind of dying. It’s called ‘aging.’ And that’s a good thing. Each day is another chance to enjoy life.”
“It’s also another chance to get kidnapped by a serial killer,” I countered. “Or to end up at the bottom of a well. Or both. That’s probably where serial killers dump their victims. Which is probably why we don’t use wells anymore.”
“Hmm,” she replied absently, writing something on her notepad. “What about wishing wells?”
“You know, I always assumed that the dead girls in the wells were the ones giving out the wishes. And that’s why my wishes never came true. Because dead girls don’t give wishes.”
“Huh.”
“You know,” I said, “I feel a lot of silence coming from you and it’s feeling a lot like judgment.”
She put down her pen. “Okay. Is this fear of death a real thing that we need to discuss, or…?”
“Not really. Just coming up with small talk. Which is sort of weird because I’m paying you to talk to me and yet I’m the one having to c
ome up with topics of conversation.”
She paused. “Do you want me to come up with the conversation?”
“I’m just saying, you could try a little harder.”
“You seem a little defensive today. What’s going on with you?” she asked.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “The entire time I was driving here I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about today and for once I’m totally doing okay, and now I don’t know how to entertain you for the next forty minutes.”
She glanced at the clock. “Thirty minutes, actually.”
“Yeah. I’ve been meaning to ask you … why do therapy hours only last fifty minutes? Because that’s sort of fucked up. What if I tried to pay you with a five-dollar bill and I told you it was a ‘therapy six-dollar bill’? That’s not a thing anywhere other than therapy and I think that’s probably because you guys know you’re dealing with crazy people so you’re pretty sure you can get away with it.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Is this really what you want to talk about or are you just being defensive again?”
“I’m being defensive.” I sighed. “Damn, you are good.”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “It’s my job. You don’t have anything you want to talk about?”
“Okay. Here’s one. Every time I walk into a public bathroom I do it cautiously and tentatively because I’m always convinced there will be a dead body in the toilet stall. Every. Single. Time.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“No idea. I almost never find dead bodies but I do find a lot of potential dead bodies. Those are the black plastic trash sacks abandoned on the side of the road. I always want to open them because I’m convinced there might be a body in there, but then I don’t because I’m not responsible enough to take care of a dead body. I mean, like, to call the police and have them take care of it. Not like ‘Here’s your new goldfish so take care of it.’ You don’t have to take care of dead bodies. That’s one of the few positives about them. If you don’t feed a dead body it doesn’t look at you accusingly, and it never gets deader. In fact, dead bodies make much better pets than goldfish because someone has already killed them for you so there’s not as much potential guilt attached.”
My doctor lifted her pencil as if wondering where to start.
I continued, trying to explain myself. “I’m always afraid that once I find the first dead body it’ll start a weird streak because I’ll never stop opening garbage bags after the first one pays off and eventually the police will finger me as a suspect. That’s probably why so many people distrust the police. Because they’d rather assume you were a murderer than think you were just really lucky at finding bodies.”
My doctor removed her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Well … it’s an unusual way of looking at it but really, a phobia of dead bodies is very common.”
“Oh, I don’t have a phobia of dead bodies,” I countered. “‘Phobia’ implies an unreasonable fear and this fear is perfectly reasonable. You are supposed to be afraid of dead bodies. It’s what keeps you from hanging out with them and getting cholera.
“Of course,” I admitted, “‘fear of finding dead bodies on toilets and in bags’ is maybe a more uncommon variant, but people find dead bodies everywhere.1 A DJ friend of mine once went to the radio station at midnight because there was dead air and she found her boss dead of a heart attack on the soundboard. She had to DJ over his dead body while waiting for the police to arrive, which her coworkers at the radio station found brave and dedicated, but which I thought was a bit bizarre and unsettling. Just put on a long record and go hide in a less corpsey room, lady. If anything, she’s the weird one. Not me.”
“Anything else?”
“Whenever I go to wash my hands, if the automatic sink doesn’t work I immediately assume that I’ve died in the bathroom stall and that it’s my ghost trying to wash my hands.”
“Huh.”
“Because the automatic sensors won’t work since I’m a ghost,” I added.
“Yeah, I got that.”
“Also, I’m really, really good at peeing … like almost too good. It’s like a superpower.”
She looked at me critically. “Is this an issue?”
“Yes. Because I’m such a fast pee-er that I always have to stand inside the bathroom and count to twenty so that the people outside don’t think that I’m skipping washing my hands.” I waited for her expression to change to impressed but it seemed like I’d be waiting a long time. “Also, I can’t stop pronouncing the ‘p’ in ‘hamster.’”
“There is no ‘p’ in ‘hamster.’”
“Well, obviously you’ve never squeezed one hard enough. There’s tons of pee in them.”
She stared at me.
“That was a joke,” I explained. “Not a very good one,” I admitted. “But seriously, it should be spelled ‘hampster.’ We’re all saying it that way anyway.”
“So,” she asked, “do you think you’re finished with therapy?”
“Every time I get a pimple I worry that it’s the beginning of a new nipple.”
She stared at me in silence.
“And that was not the answer to your question. I’m sorry. I jumped ahead.”
“To tell me about your nipples?” she asked calmly.
“And then I assume the nipple will turn into a new person and I’ll be a late-blooming conjoined twin. This is what it’s like in my mind pretty much ALL THE TIME.”
“So, I’ll pencil you in for next week?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I’ll clear my whole day.”
And This Is Why I Prefer to Cut My Own Hair
ME: I just need a trim and maybe some highlights.
BEAUTICIAN: You know what we should do? We should get you a Brazilian blowout.
ME: Oh HELL NO.
BEAUTICIAN: Why not? It’d look great. And we’re doing them for $150 this week.
ME: Seriously? That sounds like torture. I have no idea how you convince someone to sit for that, much less pay for it.
BEAUTICIAN: It’s not that bad. It just takes some time and you have to be extra careful for the first day or two. You can’t, like, put your hair in a ponytail or anything, or it could compromise the treatment.
ME: WHAT THE SHIT? WHO PUTS THEIR PUBIC HAIR IN A PONYTAIL?
BEAUTICIAN: Wh … what?
ME: I just don’t get it. Every year I hear about women doing more and more with their pubic hair and I just don’t understand it. Vajazzling, waxing. I don’t want anyone helping me style my pubic hair into a ponytail. And frankly it makes me a little weirded out that people have enough that they can put it in a ponytail. I mean, no judgment, but I didn’t even know I was supposed to be coveting extra-long pubic hair. I can’t even keep up with the stuff that’s on my head, much less on my lady garden.
BEAUTICIAN: I am … so confused right now.
ME: That makes two of us.
BEAUTICIAN: Okay, a Brazilian blowout is a blow-drying treatment for the hair on your head. It straightens it and makes it less frizzy.
ME: Oh.
BEAUTICIAN: Yeah.
ME: So I can understand why you look so confused.
BEAUTICIAN: Yeah.
ME: But in my defense? If I asked you for a Brazilian you’d take me in the back and style my pubic hair, so I just assumed a Brazilian blowout meant that you’d just blow-dry it first.
BEAUTICIAN: Huh. That’d be … messed up.
ME: Frankly it’s not that much more messed up than me asking you to take me to the back and rip out all of my pubic hair by the roots. Honestly, it’s all a matter of perspective. Either way? You’re still styling pubic hair.
BEAUTICIAN: No. I’m not. We don’t do any sort of waxing here. We only deal with the hair on your head.
ME: Ah. So now I understand why this might have been the first time you ever had to have this conversation.
BEAUTICIAN: I’d like to think it was the first time that anyone has ever had this conversa
tion.
ME: Touché.
It’s All in How You Look at It (The Book of Nelda)
When I was young we were quite poor, but we never really talked about it. There was no need to. It’s the same reason why hippos don’t talk about being hippos. Or at least, one of the reasons. I did, though, as a teenager, mention to my mom (Nelda) that we were dirt-poor and she promptly stopped drying the dishes, raised an eyebrow in baffled amusement, and said, “Nonsense. We have plenty of dirt. Too much if anything. We’re practically buried in it. In fact, we eventually plan to be buried in it. THAT’S HOW MUCH WE HAVE.”
“Semitics,” I harrumphed in that sarcastically bored way that only stupid fourteen-year-old girls can properly master.
“I think you mean ‘semantics.’ ‘Semitics’ is … I dunno … when you really like Jewish people, I think? Get up off the kitchen floor and go look it up.”
“There’s an entire word for just liking Jewish people?” I asked. “That seems strange. Is there a word for people who really like Christians?”
“Yes,” sighed my atheist mother as she side-eyed the pictures of Jesus my father had hung on the wall. “‘Tolerant.’
“The point is,” she continued, “we are not dirt-poor. We are wealthy with dirt. Our whole house is built on it and I suspect it’s what’s keeping most of the furniture stuck together. That’s why you should never dust too much. Because dust is what holds the world together. The whole world is made up of it. Dust from the wind. Dust from dinosaur bones. Stardust. We are wealthy with dirt. I can assure you, we are far from dirt-poor. It’s all in how you look at it.”
My mother’s words have echoed through my head for years. Mostly because they’re a really good excuse to not dust. (And technically my sister and I never minded if she didn’t dust because her dust cloths were usually my father’s old pairs of underwear. It’s weird knowing that the house was cleanest when it’d been wiped down by your father’s underpants.) Plus, it’s a really good way to get out of cleaning because whenever I try to explain my mom’s dusting theory to Victor his eyes get all squinty and he accuses me of being insane and I just scream, “IT’S A FAMILY TRADITION, VICTOR. YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND IT.”
