WEEK 30 CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?
SHORT:
Monday afternoon.
I sit on the West Side and beg myself to come to peace with the women in my orbit who see themselves as queer or queer-adjacent just because they’ve grown tired with heterosexuality.
Because ultimately it’s like… who cares. Right? Live life.
Ever still, something in me howls like Frances Mcdoorhandle at the Oscars.
I can’t quite allow myself to accept the whole queerness-as-an-aesthetic/ social currency thing.
MEDIUM:
I eat Bahn Mi in a freezing cold park and call into my gay satire group meeting just in time to hear a girl talk about the first time she saw a dick in San Francisco.
After the call, I go to a coffee shop where my girlfriend stands all day with no breaks and smile at her boss as he takes my order.
“I know all about you,” I think, smiling up at him.
He can’t really see or hear me through the fogged-up COVID barrier.
“Oat Milk, please” I repeat, trying to put a real hard emphasis on the “t” in oat without sounding like an absolute nightmare.
He thinks I’m a girl.
I sit and read a passage of Detransition Baby that talks about how “no matter how you self-identify ultimately, chances are that you succumb to becoming what the world treats you as”.
Awesome.
I’m trying to remind myself that my genderfuckage bullshit is not me being snooty. It just is what it is and anyone who thinks I’m doing it for attention can go lick a pole.
I wonder if I’ll ever feel old because people read short haircuts on boy-ish girls or girlish boys as infantile.
Some people don’t want to feel old, but I want to feel old-er so I can stop babying myself. So I can feel grounded and like people take me seriously.
The book says, “when you’re old and alone and feeling sorry for yourself, your daughter will roll her eyes at your theatrics and bring you in from the cold”.
What about when you’re young and alone and feeling sorry for yourself? What if you never have a daughter?
The book says, if I have a kid and the kid identifies as a girl, she’ll probably feel the need to confirm her gender through male violence (consciously or unconsciously).
It details the strange satisfaction of women who talk about men who hurt them in the past – as if that solidifies their womanhood.
The trans girl in the book is struck by a man: “Each blow a minor illustration of her place in the world that did its gendering work no matter what you called it. So Yeah, Stanley, bring it on. Hit Reese. Show her what it means to be a lady.”
I flip ten or twenty pages.
The book says “The first year of transition [is] about learning how much you’ve lied to yourself. How unreliable your own self assessments were and how little the sense of self from your past could be put to good use in transition.”
This is true, but old stories creep in anyway, making for an incredibly frustrating day-to-day sorting experience.
My therapist is obsessed with reminding me that this is my first year.
First year. First year. First year. First year.
It makes me feel like a baby.
Or a freshman in college who can’t wait to show off.
Snooty snooty.
I’m writing this on lesbian visibility day, and I feel like it’s not a day for me anymore. I worry about posting, because I posted on trans day of visibility, but I still like the word dyke. God forbid I contain multitudes.
All the visibility shit is dumb anyway. Try as we might, we’re all staring at one another through fogged-up COVID screens screaming “what?”
Maybe one day they’ll invent x-ray vision or mind-reading machines, but until then everyone should just take some deep breaths I guess.
And by “everyone”? I mean me.
LONG:
Tired of my weird emo lyrical bullshit? Well you’re in luck! Cuz it’s time for Megan Pope’s ADVICE COLUMN!
In honor of the 30th iteration of this newsletter, I have decided to answer the ONE advice question that was submitted via my awesome survey (that still lives right HERE, plz send me your Q’s).
Before I answer these questions, I want to make clear (even though I think it’s pretty crystal), that I have no formal training or degree and really shouldn’t be offering guidance but you ASKED, and I am a people pleaser so I legally MUST deliver!
I feel like the judges at my old diving meets who would watch me fling my little body through the air and then be like “eh, ugly” - even though they’ve never stepped on a diving board in their lives (let alone thrown themselves backwards, flipped, twisted, and plummeted 35 miles an hour into a pool of chemicals in front of a discerning audience)...
… Every time I write about diving I feel like I lose people and yet? I do not care. Come talk to me after you’ve spent 10+ years of your life upside down and soaking wet.
Anyway! Onto the advice!
This was submitted as one long question – but I broke it up like Madonna broke up Sandra Bernhard and Ingrid Cesares*.
*allegedly. Not trying to get sued for slander by Madame X.
Whole Question:
How to feel like what you do is good and worthy while other people do things that are better and worthy? How to keep going? How to find the absurdity in it all and laugh at it? How to admit to yourself what you actually want in this one godforsaken life? Too much? I’m a Pisces.
—
The Breakdown:
How to feel like what you do is good and worthy while other people do things that are better and worthy?
First of all, nobody is doing anything that is better or more worthy than you
(eye roll, who am I? your therapist, your MOM? i know, but it’s true).
We’ve assigned value to things, we can un-assign value, it’s all tangible and fragile and meaningless
(and I’m trying to learn to see that as more of a liberating thing than a terrifying we-are-all-going-to-turn-to-dust-one-day thing so why even try etc. etc.)
What you do, whatever you do, no matter what it is, is good and worthy.
(except maybe like, murder)
So do it!
—
How to keep going?
Try to drop into (and make and pursue things) that feel good and true to you.
Do things you want to do rather than things you think you should do (obviously this comes with privilege and luxury and TIME, but if and when you have the time, do this).
I used to get all stressed about what people “wanted from me” comedy-wise and internet-wise and gender-wise and life-wise, and oh BOY do those old stories I would tell myself come creepy-crawling back every now and then- but I am able to identify them as old which is nice.
At this point, I just try to write and make and communicate things that make me laugh or “feel” (ew) on a gut-level. Because physical, grounding, embodied things are the only way I can tap into myself and my power to continue to move forward.
Was that an answer? Sounds like a lot of nothing when I read it back.
Hate to be a mug you’d buy at a store that smells like synthetic rose and sarcasm but also: coffee keeps me going.
and water and sleep and like I don’t know, looking at a flower or leaf or two every now and then.
it used to all feel dumb but i sort of just fake-appreciated it until i really did.
—
How to find the absurdity in it all and laugh at it?
Again. gut reaction. I always remind myself that comedy and truth are f*cking. They’re so close. Married maybe even (if you or they believe in that etc. etc. all love is beautiful and disgusting and FAKE but also viscerally real and true and hot so… what’s what? You know what I mean?).
Anyway, every comedy teacher in cool socks and too-tight pants or basketball shorts is like “start with what’s true” and then explode. THAT’S COMEDY.
But I’ve found that to be, wait for it… kill me for saying this… true.
And again, I’m 24. What do I know?
Answer: how to edit a podcast in Adobe Audition! huge for me. everyone’s so proud. RIP Adobe founder.
Real Answer: only what feels gutturally true for me rn! SO there you GO.
God, I feel like that woman with the short haircut who is known for giving advice. What’s her name? Susie Ornie? Abby? Abby Susie? Ornie Sue? All of the above?
Please don’t picture me with a short blonde bob (not that there’s anything wrong with that!!) Picture me typing this, full of wisdom and warmth, but also like… in a jean jacket and smoking a (fake) cigarette.
Another Answer: just like lookup YouTube blooper compilations make my little brain pee itself.
(^ok brain pee… I’m a poet! this is why y’all subscribe!!!)
So just pop some of those on when you’re sad. Or the show where celebrities eat hot wings… that one sometimes backfires though because you end up spiraling about why you’re not Zoe Kravitz and/or thinking about how the host is good but a white guy and that’s unfortunate but you have to respect that he’s created an absurdly interesting and engaging thing and also his shits must be like …………… the first word in the title of that movie starring Charlize Theron as a lesbian spy (Atomic).
I never saw that movie but the trailer was hot. After a quick google, I am hearing that “Lesbian fans were heartbroken to learn that Atomic Blonde, whose trailer boasted a female/female romance (complete with anatomically impossible sex), brutally murders its only lesbian character in the third act.”
Tale as old as time. lesbians in movies r like lesbian bars in America - hard 2 keep alive. at the end of the day (for both) it’s like… I guess at least we have Lea DeLaria.
(^ wish i could perform this at a Brooklyn bar in front of 1 million rich gay men to raise money for the lesbian bar project but i can’t cook for shit and they definitely would know that from the minute I stepped onstage… some things in life you just can’t sell… no matter how hard u try…)
—
How to admit to yourself what you actually want in this one godforsaken life?
Start with writing out what you want with a million disclaimers and then cross out the disclaimers and put the piece of paper on your wall. Then stare at it for a long time until you take baby steps to get to the other baby steps that MIGHT lead you to the thing that you want.
I personally am always complaining about how I have no idea what I want and how life is just asking that question until you die (people love to say that) - but one thing is TRUE (callback! to the comedy/truth thing):
if you don’t do it and die ur still gonna die, so might as well do it or whatever
“secrets keep you sick” - demi lovato on the drew barrymore show yep i watched it
—
Too much? I’m a Pisces
Never enough. I’m a Cancer. Thanks for writing. I don’t know who you are, but you made me google “blonde bob advice lady abby susie?” so, thank you.
Was this too “woo woo” ? Was this good? Tangible enough? Need more concrete examples? LET ME KNOW. I don’t reallyyyyy care because I wrote it from my gut-heart and that’s all I can do.
If you’re my therapist, yesssss I’m plagiarizing you to hell and back and you should be honored.
Every one of my friends right now is like THIS BITCH is giving ADVICE? You gotta laugh.
^and there you go, if you’re one of my friends, and this made u chuckle- mission accomplished.
Thank you for reading! Apologies for any type-o’s. I canonically write this the night before I send it out. Wanna read older newsletters? Sad essays? Funny jokes? It’s different every week, baby! Click here for the archive.
You can still fill out this survey with your thoughts, questions, topics you want me to write about, etc!
-Meg
Social- @megspope@mpopetweets
Venmo- @mpope-venmo-26
Website- meganpopework.com
Donate to The Audre Lorde Project
This Week I Read:
Detransition Baby
Wow, No Thank You
Make Your Art No Matter What
—
This Week I Listened To:
if you’re not listening to Poog, what are you doing?
—
This Week I Watched:
Why Are You Like This
Beasts Of The Southern Wild
The Bling Ring (while sitting upright in a chair at 2pm drinking a smoothie)
The Oscars (yikes)
Sandra Bernhard Live-Tweet The Oscars (perfect)
—
PROMO!
TUNE IN THURSDAY FOR MY AWESOME PRIMETIME THEATER COMPANY SITCOM EPISODE !
—
re: the cover photo @ top of this - in case anyone cares, i didn’t find the video of me singing Moana, but i did find a video of me singing about how i want a massage chair that instead of giving massages it just punches me in the side of the head especially whenever i consider “pursuing acting”
