SHORT:
I spent Christmas Day with my boys™ and had more Baileys than I f**ked in college.
MEDIUM:
Last week I gave my buds Alexa and Jack a little shoutout. I have decided to do a deeper dive on who they are.
The year is 2019. I arrive on the first day of writing class with an entire loaf of cinnamon Babka in my backpack. During the break, I whip it out and start to eat it with my bare hands. A fashionable glamorous girl named Alexa walks over and says, “are you literally eating a whole loaf of babka right now?”
I thought she was going to be my nemesis, but she turned out to be a very hilarious, lovely, and KIND person. She is still a dear friend. On my 23rd birthday I got too drunk and she escorted me home while I cried about being trans. I owe her my first born child (not from my womb)!
I threw up everywhere on the night of that birthday and fell asleep in my clothes. The next day, I arrived at work to find that they had purchased a huge ice cream cake for me. I thanked them and stared at it, eventually mustering up the courage to take a few bites. The cake landed on top of the vodka and Johnny Tsunami’d around my stomach for the next 5 hours. I am thankful that the guest on the podcast that day was someone I knew, because I was not operating at my highest level.
My bud Jack was also in the babka writing class. He showed up on that first day with a black eye, and I was like “I gotta know more about THAT.” It turns out he got hit by a car (somehow just in his eye hole?). He is hot and blonde and furiously straight and loves when I teach him about gay things.
Jack is sad he was not in attendance on the day that a substitute writing instructor called my Chipotle a “big salad”. The instructor told me to “please not eat the big salad in the classroom” and then went on to rip apart my genius piece about a murderous young squirrel.
Jack thinks this “big salad” story is so funny. I do too.
I miss writing about rodents in stuffy classrooms. I miss my friends Alexa and Jack. I do not miss getting drunk and vomiting and riding the subway to Atlantic-Barclays and trying not to pass out on the escalator as I take podcast people’s breakfast orders.
I hope to eat more Babka in 2021.
LONG:
My uncle Patrick used to take me camping. First in the backyard, then further away in the mountains. He taught me how to set up a tent and then made up a song about how my feet were stinking up said tent. In 2018, I ran the Chicago Marathon with him and our team name was “Stinky Feet”. I don’t know why this opening paragraph is making it sound like he has passed away. He is very much alive and probably reading this right now.
On the day of the Chicago marathon, it was pouring rain. My uncle Patrick and I rolled up to the American Cancer Society hotel room at 5am and got ready to run (yes, we ran for charity, we are nowhere NEAR fast enough to have qualified the regular way– sure this is an uncle from my non-Jewish side of the family, but still… no).
My uncle made his way down the breakfast buffet, scooping some oatmeal and a quarter of a banana onto his plate (naturally, you don’t want to eat too much before the big 26.2 – there’s a reason people on the sidelines hold up signs that say “never trust a fart”).
When he got to the end of the buffet, he turned to me and said: “You know, mile 22 is when it gets hard. Mile 22 is the mile of truth. You can’t lie to yourself. You can’t lie to me. You can’t lie to anyone.” I was like “ok… then I’m really not looking forward to mile 22.”
We started running and my right hip immediately cramped up. To make things worse, my lovely OCD brain started playing our “Stinky Feet” song on a loop.
Stinky Feet
Stinky Feet
Why Do I Have Such Stinky Feet?
All My Friends Used To Come And Play
But Now They Just Run Away From My
Stinky Feet
Stinky Feet
Why Do I Have Such Stinky Feet?
(I know, my uncle could be the next Joanie Mitchell. Real genius lyrical stuff).
Mile 1 came. Then 2, 3, 4… 21 and? 22. My legs were jello. My feet? Wet and (yeah, you guessed it!) stinky. Uncle Patrick turned to me, like clockwork, and said, “so, you’re gay right?”
I freaking KNEW he was going to ask me this. At 5am, the SECOND he said “mile of truth” I was like “this is about to be about gay.”
I was like “yeah”. Then he was like, “when are you going to bring a girl to Christmas and freak everyone out?” And I was like “I dunno” and we moved on.
I love that it took 22 miles and a weird setup to get there. But we got there.
In case you were wondering, we ALSO got to the finish line. SLOWLY, but we did it. Pro tip– if you ever choose to run the Chicago marathon DO NOT STOP when you cross the finish line. They are going to offer you beers. DO NOT STOP FOR THE BEERS! Keep on jogging until you get to the family pickup area. Otherwise you will end up in the same situation that Uncle Pat and I ended up in:
man gives you beer,
you stop running,
your legs lock up,
you cannot move,
you put beer on the ground for a second,
you realize you cannot pick it back up because, once again, you cannot move,
people are finishing the marathon behind you and you’re in the way,
your family is calling you because they’re trying to find you,
your fine motor skills have flown out the window so you can’t pick up the phone,
you waddle all the way to the meetup area,
this takes about 30 mins even though it’s real close by,
and scene.
When we were younger, My uncle Patrick used to take me and my siblings to get pancakes. He’d drive over from his little apartment and pick us up, kindly allowing my mom and dad to get a few extra hours of weekend sleep. We’d throw ourselves headfirst into the chocolate chip and blueberry stacks, getting whipped cream everywhere. One time when he was watching us, my sister fell and cut her face open. He would often put our diapers on backwards. It was chaos, and I loved it.
Another chaotic thing that he liked to do was tell RANDOM PEOPLE that he was my uncle. We’d be driving in Florida, and every time we’d pass a tollbooth he’d roll down the window, hand them some cash, and go, “by the way, that’s Megan in the back seat there, and I’m Megan’s uncle.” I would proceed to DIE of embarrassment.
He’d SCREAM it at places like Disneyland and sports games: “I’M MEGAN’S UNCLE!!!!!!!!!!”
I’d hide behind my dad or sister. Everyone else would keel over laughing. Sometimes I’d cry. I don’t know why I was embarrassed to be seen and known. I certainly was not embarrassed to be “his Megan”.
My uncle Patrick and I have dinner in New York. We down drinks and talk about being a person and parenting and purpose and fulfillment and making time for the people who you want to make time for.
Thanks to mile 22, he knows I’m gay, and thanks to this newsletter and Instagram, he knows I’m trans, and thanks to the insulation of a small backyard tent, he knows that my feet smell rank.
I am so very glad that he, a friend, has chosen to stay-and-not-run-away from my stinky feet.
Happy New Year and thanks again to all who subscribe! As always, lmk if you liked this or hated this or want to see something specific in the next one.
As I previously mentioned, my goal in 2021 is to actually outline & edit this! Not just do it the night before <3
-Meg
Social- @megspope@mpopetweets
Venmo- @mpope-venmo-26
Website- meganpopework.com
Donate to The Audre Lorde Project
Movie Of The Week: The Forty Year Old Version – I loved it.
Obsession Of The Week: Sandra Bernhard.
On Christmas Eve I made banana bread and sat alone in my apartment and watched every single one of her 30+ Letterman appearances. Perhaps we will unpack this in a different newsletter.
Book Of The Week: I’m reading The Argonauts again. Is anyone surprised?
Album Of The Week: The Burlesque soundtrack because I did this and now I can’t stop listening to it.
Thought Of The Week: Living alone means being afraid of falling in the shower and dying but then also standing on rolling chair taking and thirst traps over an open flame without a worry in the world.
Promo Of The Week: Remember that friend Jack I wrote about? He has a funny newsletter too! Linked to his meme account called Work Retire Die. Check it out.
BONUS:
Here are some pics of me and my Uncle Patrick. Then and now. And my sister and I on those camping trips. And us wearing no pants, men’s shoes, and putting things on our faces when he was babysitting (lower middle).
^ Me being gay way before mile 22.
Did you miss one of the previous newsletters? Read them all here.
I’m SORRY I had to put ONE picture of Sandra Bernhard and Madonna in this.
Ok NOW the newsletter’s done. See you in 2021.