SHORT:
When you say “Kirsten Dunst” over and over again it sounds like you are beatboxing.
MEDIUM:
I am currently sitting in my bedroom listening to Vivaldi while wearing a backwards hat. I am doing this to remind myself that I contain multitudes.
I have to remind myself of this after a long day of work where I stare at spreadsheets and answer people’s Vegan questions. It seems corporate life is about accidentally typing “protein bra” instead of “protein bar” and laughing until you cry.
Maybe tomorrow I will wear a powdered wig and listen to Drake to switch things up.
LONG:
Earlier today I decided to leave the house for the first time in 48 hours. I strolled through a snow-soaked Washington Square Park and looked at the Christmas tree.
As I walked through the park, I couldn’t help but remember where I was this time last year…
Just around the corner, at an old church, working the door of a 700 person Christmas party where gay Santa had six pack abs.
My friend Mark kindly offered me the gig: 100-some dollars to work his “office Christmas party” – why not? I could pass some Hors d'œuvres to some Susans, crack a pained smile as accountants called me “ma’am”.
I fueled up, as I often did at the time, with one of those sad little Starbucks protein boxes. There are no chairs at the West 4th Street Starbucks, so I did the classic lean over a table and deep throat a hard boiled egg as you sweat through your heavy jacket because again, there’s no chair, so where are you gonna put it? The NYU-freshman-shoe ground?
According to my files, I tweeted: “on way to my comedy friends PR holiday party where I will be working coat check I am pregaming with a Starbucks protein box (the one with eggs and apple) wearing an Adidas beanie and black jumpsuit it’s all going in the memoir.”
Cute that I was thinking about “memoirs” at that point in time instead of worldwide disease. Cute that I felt the need to specify that it was the one with the apple.
I also really loved that Adidas beanie and soon after left it at a heterosexual Flatiron bar that I was dragged to on Valentine’s day (by my friends Alexa and Jack who thought it’d be funny). I left the bar to go see Portrait Of A Lady On Fire by myself, and was only a few blocks away when I realized I had forgotten the hat, but I refused to go back and get it because too many customer success managers named Jared would stare at me again and I couldn’t handle it (plus, I didn’t want to be late for my French Lady spit-in-mouth gay cinema experience).
Sidenote: when I got to the theater for Portrait, I ordered spring rolls and settled into my seat and then the men next to me asked “If I was expecting someone else because it’s Valentine’s Day” and I muttered “no” and thought about what on earth compelled them to ask me that and how I wished I had the delusion/bravery of a cis man/ Jared.
When I got to the church, Mark took me to meet “the other people who would be working the event”.
The other people turned out to be 400 twinks and me.
20 twinks were stripping down to their underwear while other semi-clothed twinks were hard at work painting candy cane erections onto a wall of gorgeous, sculpted-by-the-gods bodies.
Santa was getting into his beard and… that was his whole costume.
I gripped the straps of my backpack and stared down at my little jumpsuit. This was going to be… a different kind of night.
It turns out that Mark works for two very famous gay socialite people. Instead of the little office holiday party I anticipated, I was working a massive rager in which “Santa was dead and everyone was mourning his passing.” I stood at the door and watched a sexy snowman weep on a rented hearse.
Guests lined up and “offered their condolences” (read: looked into hearse and studied sexy dead santa). A big speaker played funeral music on a loop (by the end of the night I knew every word to the slow Gregorian chant).
Inside the venue, there was a memorial slideshow of ripped Mr. Claus that included highlights of his ripped Santa life (him at the beach, him at the pool, him shirtless at the beach and at the pool).
By this point, I came to understand that I would be one of the few non-male people in attendance (the other non-male being, I shit you not, Jennifer Coolidge). I watched gorgeous men squint, confused as a stunning slough of young boys welcomed them into the Church (and then me).
I don’t really know where I’m going with this story other than I feel like you should know that at one point Santa was carried from the hearse into the venue, displayed in an open casket (amazing photo-op), and then eventually rose from the dead (thank goodness!) to join the candy cane erection dancers.
It was a weird and amazing night. I was uncomfortable the whole time and weirdly jealous? I could not, for the life of me, imagine the lesbian version of this. Candy cane … eye contact? A dykey Santa in a shapeless t-shirt? (which, for the record, I would find hot).
I dunno. I was in the middle of my “I hate gay misogyny in the comedy community” phase where I would do a show and watch boys be like “Ok You slayed, You killed, You annihilated, You bulldozed, You slaughtered, Massacredddd!” and then get to me and be like “You- look good... tonight... are you wearing makeup?” And I’d be like “no” and then they’d be like “oh huh must just be the lighting, well it’s doing amazing things for you!”
I spent the night (and a majority of that year honestly) wishing I was a part of a community like the dead-santa-twinks. Even though it comes with its own shit. Even though it’s wild and oft-problematic, it’s fun. Dykey people like… aren’t allowed to be fun and can’t have fun even if they wanted to because of socioeconomic shit and stay-at-home stereotypes that further perpetuate socioeconomic deficits and shit. Idk. It makes me sad that we can’t keep our bars open and that I feel the constant need to make a Tumblr called “Lesbians Not Sad” with pictures of us actually experiencing joy.
Ok it’s midnight. So I am going to wrap this up.
I left the party and was like “what did I just experience” and then I saw my friend Kristina on the train and was like “listen to what I just experienced” and we chuckled.
I cannot believe that I forgot about all of this until today.
Whatta year it’s been.
EXTRA:
Today my therapist of two years told me that his partner is nonbinary. This, of course, means that he’s in love with me. And has been for the past two years. Huge win for the me community.
Happy Holidays and thank you for reading this newsletter, it really means the world. Next year I will edit & not do these the night before they go out! Mwah!
-Meg
Social- @megspope@mpopetweets
Venmo- @mpope-venmo-26
Website- meganpopework.com
Donate to The Audre Lorde Project
Book Of The Week: My friend Julia gave me this gorgeous book called The Boy The Mole The Fox and The Horse – I cried reading it and have made it my goal to revisit it when I need to feel like more of a human being.
Promo Of The Week: You can still buy some awesome t-shirts that I made! Click here to purchase!
Holiday Video Of The Week: For some reason, despite being 24 years old, I decided to recreate the “Night Changes” One Direction video and you can watch it here (part two below).
I also went ahead and recreated some James Bond photos and Carol scenes because I guess I’m dying for attention.
Picture Of The Week:
Sad Of The Week:
Angst Of The Week:
Did you miss one of the previous newsletters? Read them all here.
