SHORT:
Each morning I wake up, I don’t put on any makeup, I say a little prayer for Jude Law.
(Sing that to the tune of that 1 song… u kno the 1)
Remember how this newsletter used to be full of beautiful lyrical essays? At one point I even referenced Kant… that was awesome… wonder when that kinda writing will return…
MEDIUM:
On Friday I went to a taped comedy show that featured 16 senior citizens doing stand-up and I can’t stop thinking about the woman who brought her husband’s knee bone onstage and also the guy who came out in nipple pasties and a speedo and said, “what’s red and bad for your teeth? A brick”.
In the lobby after, I heard a woman talking about how there was a point in her life when her IBS was so bad that she couldn’t take the train.
I want my gay senior citizen pen pal to do the next version of the class. He’s always saying “I dunno about stand-up comedy, I think if I tried it, I’d shit myself”.
I told him about the woman in the lobby and how everyone on the lineup was sort of at risk of shitting themselves… so he’d be in good company.
There was even a lady who brought Depend’s onstage and put them on her head as sort of a hilarious PROP BIT!!
I used to be afraid of old people and now I think I love them.
LONG:
There comes a special time in every young boy’s life
when they attend a comedy boat party
and fully dissociate during it
because they’re convinced that everyone on the boat thinks they’re “annoying”
and then,
despite the dissociation,
the young boy will choose to attend the afterparty
at a gay bar that they swore they’d never return to
and the young boy’s therapist will randomly be at the bar,
and the young boy will spiral
and then
finally muster up the courage
to go talk to the therapist
and they’ll have a brief conversation
about how
“It’s good to see one another in person after 2 years on Zoom”
and how
the therapist “was actually invited to the boat too but decided against it”
and the whole time the young boy will be drunk off 900 vodka sodas
because there was an open bar on the boat
and they thought that
“if they got drunk enough they wouldn’t realize they were seasick”
…
That special time, for me, was this past weekend.
Do not ask me what else I said to my therapist, because I do not remember.
This town is smaller than a grain of rice.
The day after the boat party, I went to a 4th Of July BBQ thing where I screamed about how hot dogs are phallic so they should only be eaten cut up (a powerful but also kinda biological essentialist way to demonstrate ur desire to dismantle patriarchal power!!).
After the screaming was done, I couldn’t find a knife, so I ate it the regular way.
Much like at the boat party, I felt annoying at the 4th of July party.
My therapist thinks that I think that people think that I am annoying because of something something something my eight year old self something something I should pay more attention during our sessions.
I’m back to not knowing who I am or what I want (if that hasn’t already been made abundantly clear). I feel 17 and 40 at the same time.
The thing about containing multitudes is it sometimes means that there’s too much boing-ing around inside of you so you don’t really feel like you contain anything because the stuff is moving around too fast to identify.
Does that make sense…
My therapist (blessed be he, invoked 3 times in this damn section), is like “put both feet on the ground and tap them back and forth and be mindful and it will help u not feel like a bunch of saran wrap filled with a tornado-ing grey matter.”
I’m trying to do that right now, but I bought a table and chair set that’s too tall so my feet don’t touch the ground. It’s Monday at 6:42 and I just ate cucumbers covered in tahini and thought, “Is this healthy? At least it’s sort of hydrating…”
I hope this whole thing doesn’t come off like I’m trying to play the “quirky and lost totalllyyyy random 20-something that eats weird and feels weird and constantly lives in that stupid ravine between utter despair and spoiled happiness because adulttingg is hard”. I hate that shit.
Each week, I just sort of type and see what comes out of my brain/body/fingers.
When all else fails, I remember that a brick is red and bad for your teeth.
Should I get a buzz cut? Could be liberating…
If this is your first time reading the newsletter, read the archives. Sometimes I’m funny, sometimes I’m not – it’s very much like when people fall down.
Sincerely,
Reid
Venmo: @rpope-venmo-26
Donate to The Audre Lorde Project
Everyone on the boat:
