When you send me an email, don’t think I don’t know what you’re really saying.

“Hi.”
This sounds friendly at first, sure. But the curt punctuation confirms that the sender is actually pretty pissed off about GOD KNOWS WHAT. I devote the next three hours speculating, pouring over everything I’ve said and done near and around this person in the past six months.

“Great. Thank you!”
This person doesn’t care about me enough to elaborate upon her general feelings of non-hostility towards me. Bitch.

“Thanks.”
This person–probably from HR–smirks with disdain as he writes this email, like my Granny does when she tells me that the fish tacos I convinced her to order at On The Border are “very… different.” Why do I have this effect on people???

“Thanks in advance.”
Why exactly am I such a piece of shit? I wonder if it has something to do with my obsessive personality. Whatever the reason, this person–probably someone recently promoted and proud of it–is sure sick of it. I spend the rest of the day not working, obsessing over this instead.

“Did you put that file on the server?”
This person obviously finds me, you know, just generally boring and awful.

“Could you re-send?”
Do you ever think maybe YOU are the boring and awful one?!

“Hello again…”
Oh, dear god. I am starting to grate on this person. I am the worst, ever. I am inept, careless, clueless. I am caught in a loop of my own elaborately constructed failure.

“Please liaise with the appropriate department.”
This person wishes I’d shove it, immediately.

“Please advise.”
I am disgusting.

“Let me know.”
Everyone knows I forgot to shower this morning. The baby powder that I’m using to conceal my greasy roots smells like a Koala Bear Kare Baby Changing Station in a Wendy’s bathroom.

“See you later.”
Oh, so I should just fuck right off, should I?

“Best,”
No one can’t not wish someone the “best” in an email, so I can’t really assume this means anything positive.

“See below.”
Fine. I’ll just drop dead already.

“Love you.”
Just because one measly person loves me doesn’t mean everyone else in my office/apartment/parents’ house/old college dorm/that Wendy’s bathroom isn’t sitting around talking about what a jackass I am. I need to grow up and get real.

“Cheers.”
Who’s the dick now?

**

Please submit your own funny writing to funnywomen AT therumpus dot net. See first: Funny Women Submission Guidelines.

To read other Funny Women pieces and interviews, see the archives.

Follow the column on Twitter: @funny_women

Related Posts:

• Thanks this isn’t happiness
• FUNNY WOMEN #73: How to Write Like a Funny Woman
• FUNNY WOMEN #72: People We Want to Be and the People We Are
• FUNNY WOMEN #71: My Attempts at Sexting
• FUNNY WOMEN #70: Top Vaginal Scents for the Holiday Season

Recently, I started taking improv classes at Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York (founded by the high priestess of funny, Amy Poehler). During each class exercise, I’d think, “This would help my writing.” I compiled a list of

1. Be in a scene (a place, a time, an action). I used to start scenes with a joke and go from there; one day my teacher, the venerable Chelsea Clarke, stopped me and said, “Be rowing a boat.” I began rowing a fake boat, and suddenly, I was a character in a boat; the audience knew where I was and what I was doing.

It’s similarly knee-jerk to start a chapter discussing the metaphysics of unrequited love or whatever, but that’s disorientating to your reader because it’s like soliloquizing in space. Put your reader in a scene. Make one character be unrequitedly in love with another character rowing her boat.

1a. Relatedly, I wrote a chapter that is 80% me talking about my emotions and blowjobs. After an hour-long conversation with an editor about how to organize/overhaul this chapter, she finally said, “Elissa! Get out of the talky headspace, and present [verb] moments, rather than talk on and on about them. Basically, I need to see the blowjob. Take me into the blowjob room.” Take your readers into the blowjob room.

2. Play to the top of your intelligence. I wish I could explain this one better, but I think I just like the phrase, “Play to the top of your intelligence.” (Here is what Google says: ”If your character is stupid, be smart about how you’re stupid,” which I take to mean, be stupid in a specific way).

2a. I am trying to write a book. The book begins with me as a college student, a nineteen-year-old girl. I did a lot of dumb shit at that age. As the writer/present-day narrator (no longer a college student, no longer a teenager), I have to be smart about showing that young girl doing dumb shit.

3. “Yes, and.” Tina Fey’s Bossypants gets this right: “The Rule of Agreement reminds you to ‘respect what your partner has created’ and to at least start from an open-minded place. Start with a YES and see where it takes you. As an improvisor, I always find it jarring when I meet someone in real life whose first answer is no . . . ‘No, I will not hold your hand for a dollar.’ What kind of way is that to live? . . . You are supposed to agree and then add something of your own . . . To me, YES, AND means don’t be afraid to contribute. It’s your responsibility to contribute. Always make sure you’re adding something to the discussion. Your initiations are worthwhile.” Do I agree with Tina Fey? YES, AND I want to be her sister.

3a. Once applied to writing, you’ll be saying to yourself, “Yes, I want to write this emotionally traumatic scene, and I want to write the healing scene that comes a few years later.” “Yes, I want to hear your constructive criticism, and I’m going to make this chapter stronger because of it.” “Yes, this character goes down on that character, and then they switch it up.” “Yes, this horrible thing happened to me, and I’m going to write about it and turn it into the most beautiful piece of literature.” “Yes, I’m going to write a book, and I’m going to write another.”

4. Support your scene partners’ success. This is all about not being a jerk. Applaud your team every single time they/he/she get(s) the courage to do something creative/crazy in front of you and your judging eyes.

4a. Here is a rant:

I used to believe that if someone else is really funny, then I’m obviously less funny. If someone else is the best in the scene, then I’m—if not the worst—not the best, because the best is taken. If another woman in the class is getting better, then I’m getting worse. If she’s succeeding, I’m not. Not true in improv (and life)! A few things to consider: A) The better your scene partner is, the better you are, because you’re trapped on a sinking and/or floating ship together. B) If your ship is sinking, it’s fine because you are not alone. C) Sometimes, to make the scene work, it’s in your benefit to be “the straight man” (this isn’t a homophobic term; it means: the one who isn’t the funny scene-stealing star. “Straight men” are important because they make the scene work, and therefore make the show good; it’s not about them—it’s about their team. “Straight men” are also important for sex.)

4b. How this pertains to writing: it may very well be true that another person is succeeding and you are not experiencing success, but one has nothing to do with the other. There’s not a limited amount of success going around. In what world does it make sense that if I am funny, you are not funny? NO WORLD. We need to believe in, encourage, support, and massage each other’s egos. I believe in you. I believe in what you’re doing. Please keep doing it, and maybe do a little of it near me.

(Sidebar rant to The Rant: There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and I think it’s harder for women than for men, because in men, arrogance is sexy. In women, it’s bitchy. I’m making generalizations based on my own generalizations and those of my friends—this may be hard to accept or you want to argue or say I’m not being objective or I’m being reverse sexist. This female community doesn’t exclude men; what I’m emphasizing is that we need to fortify the female community. There is work to be done. How do I know this? Because I know there’s work to be done inside me. [Insert dirty joke here.])

5. Make strong choices. The more specific you are (“I’m in a graveyard, and I’m a vampire slayer who is also a vampire [real scene that happened to me]“), the stronger you are communicating. If you’re a vampire, try biting your scene partner right away (the strong and obvious choice), instead of what I did, which was to stand still and say, “Hey, I’m a vampire slayer who is also a vampire, so I guess I’m suicidal.” And then I staked myself and died. The scene was over before it began.

5a. I can visualize a strong female lead who likes grilled cheese with American cheese and white bread; I do not have a clear picture of a character who eats food.

6. Don’t be precious. This is another way of saying, “kill your darlings.” Move on. Let go of your expectations. Let’s say you’re planning a great joke, but the scene changes/takes a different direction and the joke no longer works—let it go. Be comfortable letting it be gone forever. Know you’re in the next scene with a new joke, a new opportunity. As Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” I also like what Will Eno wrote: “Let’s not be precious. The history of plays and the history of the world is a set of the same conversations being had by different people. We’ve all been through them. ‘You are the only one, forever,’ we swear, having sworn it before.” You are the only one, forever, fantastic first sentence; goodbye.

6a. If you can’t kill your darlings, anesthetize/copy & paste them in a separate Word document.

7. Be present. Yoga also says this. If yoga and improv say this, it must be the truest of truths. Not being present in a scene is the real-life nightmare of showing up to a test for which you haven’t studied (and you are naked and your crush is noticing you for the first time and there is shrinkage). Not being present in a yoga pose means you have probably fallen on your sacrum or your shockra or your perineum.

7a. Writing takeaway: When talking about Elizabeth Bishop one day, my poetry teacher, Jennifer Michael Hecht, said she believed only in work created with a high level of concentration. Install the hilariously-named Freedom program that turns off the Internet; place your phone in a drawer; put up a sign that says Mining Coal; do whatever you have to do to be present with your writing. Go into the blowjob room if you have to.

There are a lot of other rules, and I’ll update this as I learn them. Namaste, Funny Women (and that includes men and everyone else).

**

Please submit your own funny writing to funnywomen AT therumpus dot net. See first: Funny Women Submission Guidelines.

To read other Funny Women pieces and interviews, see the archives.

Follow the column on Twitter: @funny_women

Related Posts:

• Thanks this isn’t happiness
• FUNNY WOMEN #74: My Debilitating Anxiety Decodes My Unread Work Emails
• FUNNY WOMEN #72: People We Want to Be and the People We Are
• FUNNY WOMEN #71: My Attempts at Sexting
• FUNNY WOMEN #70: Top Vaginal Scents for the Holiday Season

This is all to say: I think I am a pretty good catch. If you were to put me in a line with ten other women, I like to think I would be among the top five. If you let the judges smell me, I would make the top three. I have been told, on several occasions, that my scent can be “suffocating” in a way that is good. I know because I asked, because that adjective can go both ways.

So when I went to the party the other night, I imagined I would have a good time. Maybe I would do some flirting, and I most certainly would do some dancing. I didn’t know how to flirt, but I knew it involved laughing at things that were said and leaning in close, pretending I hadn’t heard a man who spoke perfectly clearly. I knew it was important to talk quietly, too, so he couldn’t really hear me, and then he would have to lean in, and that’s when he would smell my fancy papaya-mango soap.

I had been single at that point for some time then for no good reason, as far as I could tell, and what with summer quickly approaching, I was in need of a good spider-killer. The bugs crawl under the crack beneath my door and sometimes I find them in my kitchen in the morning, quarter-sized and dark.  They move fast, these spiders, and there’s only so many I can put in my vacuum before it’s full and I’m too scared to unload it. I have Googled, on several occasions, Can spiders survive a vacuum’s suction and Can spiders survive coated in dust and I can’t tell you what it said, because of the photos that got loaded, but it didn’t look too good for me.

My friend who threw the party had a house on the corner of town. She strung a line of neon Christmas lights and hung a disco ball, and the idea was that we were all to get very drunk and then begin to dance. I didn’t like dancing, but knew I could lure a man in much easier by gyrating my hips than with conversation on a couch. I was all about efficiency.

The basement had a make-out room, too—a division furnished with a shower curtain hung along a rod along a doorframe. There were red Christmas lights inside and when my friend first pulled back the curtain, she said she doubted anyone would use the room, but if they wanted to, there it was.

“Because it’s the worst when they do it on the dance floor,” she said, and it seemed a logical argument.

I brought two bottles of wine with me to this party, one for me and one for the sort of man who looked unafraid of bugs, and it was as much a test as anything else because if he partook in the wine then it meant maybe he offered other talents, as well. For example: I always thought it would be handy to have someone around who knew how to make a quality red sauce. I like spaghetti quite a bit, especially when paired with wine, and in the simplest terms it seems a safe bet that a man who drinks wine is a good, good man.

But the problem with the party presented itself immediately: it was full with people I already knew. I hadn’t slept with these people for a handful of good reasons, or I had slept with them and I didn’t wish to sleep with them again. There were two who I had slept with and who had slept with me and who did not wish to sleep with me again, for reasons I find unfathomable, but they would be taken care of when they saw me go into the make-out room with a man with very strong forearms.

The friend who owned the house did have a friend, however, one I didn’t know, and she told me in the kitchen that he built houses for a living.

“A construction worker?” I asked, because that seemed not only promising but sexy.

“Habitat for Humanity,” she said, and that was all she needed to say. A man who builds homes for people who do not have them was as good as gold, and plus I bet he’d feel heavy and strong as he pressed against me, smelling my suffocation.

It was all very promising.

So I went up to the man and said hello. Then I disappeared into the bathroom like planned so my friend could tell him I found him attractive.

When I came back, he was smirking at me, so we finished our drinks and went to the basement. No one else was drunk yet, so we danced alone for a good long while. There was one other person down there—a girl who looked lost—but she went upstairs after a while and it was just the two of us.

“This is the make-out room,” I said, pulling the curtain back as if it was something of my construction.“This is where the people go to make-out.”

He smiled at me, and when it felt good and weird, I pulled the curtain closed again and we resumed dancing. Michael Jackson came on and then Tina Turner, and when R. Kelly’s “Ignition” began to play, I resigned myself to the fact that he would not be coming home with me at all but instead I would have to buy a new vacuum.

Instead, the man put his hands on my hips sort of weirdly, and I pressed my body into his in a way I would later describe to friends as “ballsy.” I pushed him against the wall and put my own hands along his torso, and he was a good kisser, this one. The grip was good—the lip grip—and it seemed likely he could do many things, not the least of which was help a nice girl out with some stinking bugs.

“In here?” he asked, and I let him lead me into the make-out room as if it had been his idea all along. We kissed and kissed and it was beginning to feel good—not scary anymore or helpful but really just pretty darn good. The curtain was open and the only thing I wanted was for someone to come down to see us, maybe one of those guys for whom my affection was not returned, but either way I was pretty happy and either way I was being a really big fucking badass.

I felt his hands go lower and lower so I said, “Should we go?” and he said, “No.”  I wasn’t certain I was the type of person to hook up in someone’s basement, even though I always wanted to be that type of person, but his hands kept going lower and I decided it couldn’t hurt to try.  He lifted my dress and put his lips against me, and then I felt not awesome but kind of creepy, kind of like a little too easy.

The thing about all of this, I should say, is that generally I’m really into it. Really. Like I said, I am a woman of the twenty-first century, and among the many things I do, I take pleasure in taking pleasure. But this was all wrong, all of it, because this man did not know my name and I did not know his name and if he was to stand in my kitchen and make me red sauce, how in the world would we communicate? Or that’s not what it was about at all—not really, anyway—and instead what it was about was that this man did not know me and he was going down on me anyway, regardless, with a fair amount of fervor. His eagerness and relaxed demeanor suggested this was something he did often, like how a person can untangle a necklace while watching television.

“Um?” I said, because to be in that situation is to not know what to say. “Um,” I said, and then again, “Um?”

“I just want to do this,” he said, and then for no good reason that I can see, I pushed him away and pulled down my dress. I said something coy and smiled real big, then went upstairs and when he joined me on the couch I looked over again and smiled. I gave him this impression like we would resume everything later, and I tried to will myself to do it, thinking, Spiders and strong men and houses, but that still didn’t stop me when twenty minutes later I got up for a drink and never came back. I walked myself home and whacked a spider with a Wiffle ball bat.

I felt guilty and mean, and when I retell the story to friends, I feel guiltier and meaner with each new telling. They laugh and call me a badass, say, “That’s a really badass story,” but really it just feels cruel. And worse yet, the guilt is not the good kind, because what kind of liberated women turns down anonymous oral sex? What kind of reasonably-average women leaves a cute, strong man waiting? He builds houses, for fuck’s sake.

But there are people we want to be and the people we are. And when I next saw my friend, she said the man was hurt, and that he’d really liked me, and that he told her that the next morning over breakfast, which he made.

“Omelets,” she said, “with gruyere and sautéed mushrooms.”

Summer did come, and the spiders came, too, each one bigger and faster than the last. But I am a girl of the twenty-first century, and now I own a Hoover, and last month that guy went down on me, and what the fuck ever, I seriously don’t know.

**

Please submit your own funny writing to funnywomen AT therumpus dot net. See first: Funny Women Submission Guidelines.

To read other Funny Women pieces and interviews, see the archives.

Follow the column on Twitter: @funny_women

Related Posts:

• Thanks this isn’t happiness
• FUNNY WOMEN #74: My Debilitating Anxiety Decodes My Unread Work Emails
• FUNNY WOMEN #73: How to Write Like a Funny Woman
• FUNNY WOMEN #71: My Attempts at Sexting
• FUNNY WOMEN #70: Top Vaginal Scents for the Holiday Season

SMS Message sent 5:18 PM
Just wanted to remind you that we have penciled in “maybe some sex” for later tonight. Get excited.

SMS Message sent 5:30 PM
Thought a sexy picture might get you in the mood.

SMS Message sent 5:32 PM
Sorry, that was actually a funny license plate I saw earlier. But did you see? It said “ROCK ON,” but on a crap Honda. I’ll try again.

SMS Message sent 5:37 PM
No, that was a picture of the back of my knee. Don’t you see my foot down in the corner?

SMS Message sent 5:38 PM
Well, I think the back of my knee is VERY sexy, and I don’t think the dimpled parts look “nipply.”

SMS Message sent 5:52 PM
Just got home, and there is a seriously funky smell going on.

SMS Message sent 5:55 PM
Ew. No. Not funky “in a sexy way,” funky in a “gagged a little” way.

SMS Message sent 6:02 PM
Gagged again.

SMS Message sent 6:10 PM
I guess I see where you got “nipple” from in that picture, now. But I still think it’s pretty obviously a coyly revealed knee-back.

SMS Message sent 6:44 PM
Just started thinking about cheese trays. Does that turn you on? It seemed like it might turn you on.

SMS Message sent 7:42 PM
Finally figured out what the smell is – burning candles to get rid of it, and to set the MOOD, if you know what I’m saying.

SMS Message sent 7:43 PM
In case you were wondering, it WAS a piece of poop stuck on the cat’s butt-hairs. I owe you five bucks.

SMS Message sent 8:01 PM:
Getting settled on the couch with Tivoed episodes of Barefoot Contessa.

SMS Message sent 8:04 PM:
They just showed a cheese tray on the garden party episode…so if you hurry, maybe I can rouse myself. Sexually.

SMS Message sent 8:07 PM:
Now it’s fish tacos. Too late. If you’re still at work, why not pull up your calendar so we can pencil in something else. How do you feel about next Tuesday?

SMS Message sent 8:10 PM:
Week from Thursday it is.

SMS Message sent 8:11 PM:
If you want to rev yourself up between now and then, why not read over these messages? Rrraaoooww.

SMS Message sent: 8:12 PM:
Sorry if that last one reminds you of the cat poop. It reminded me of the cat poop right after I sent it.

**

Please submit your own funny writing to funnywomen AT therumpus dot net. See first: Funny Women Submission Guidelines.

To read other Funny Women pieces and interviews, see the archives.

Follow the column on Twitter: @funny_women

Related Posts:

• Thanks this isn’t happiness
• FUNNY WOMEN #74: My Debilitating Anxiety Decodes My Unread Work Emails
• FUNNY WOMEN #73: How to Write Like a Funny Woman
• FUNNY WOMEN #72: People We Want to Be and the People We Are
• FUNNY WOMEN #70: Top Vaginal Scents for the Holiday Season

Roses

The floral symbol of love. For centuries men have been giving women bouquets of this fragrant and erotic flower, and it’s about time we return the favor in our own unique feminine way. Whether by the dozen or a single perfect rose, your man is secretly saying, “I want your vagina to smell like this.”  Fortunately there is a myriad of products out there designed to give you that rosy aroma.

Editor’s Pick: Aunt Jessie’s Panty Potpourri ($8)

The Ocean

There’s a fine line between the ocean where your boyfriend whiled away his childhood summers–feeling the first pangs of pubescent love for a bosomy lifeguard–and the ocean where fish poop. If you can strike that happy pH balance, he’s sure to fall in love.

Editor’s Pick: Love Is in the Air Ocean Spray ($10; 2 for $18)

Innocence

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Your man wants your vagina to smell as though it’s never known the outside world, and can you really blame him? Ladies, am I right?! Who among us hasn’t held a sweet sleeping infant in her arms and thought, “If only I had an infant-scented douche!”  Well, thanks to the folks over at Parsons-Schmitt, Inc., now you can! The product was made possible when biochemists at MIT isolated and extracted the scent from the stem cells of aborted embryos. Thanks, science!

Editor’s Pick: Baby Your Labia Feminine Cleanse ($45)

New Car

Out of 100 men polled, 17% want your vagina to smell like a new or new-ish car. The great thing about this scent is that it is comes in a convenient 16oz spray can and is available at your local Wal-Mart or auto parts store.

Editor’s Pick: Auto Moods Air Freshener ($3.99-$5.99). Please note: does not protect against STDs or any other kind of infection. 

**
Whatever scent you choose, one thing’s for sure: it’s extremely important your vagina does not look, feel, taste, or smell anything like a vagina. In the coming issues we’ll be offering more advice on how to make your cooter tolerable to the opposite sex. Until then, happy douching!
***

Please submit your own funny writing to funnywomen AT therumpus dot net. See first: Funny Women Submission Guidelines.

To read other Funny Women pieces and interviews, see the archives.

Follow the column on Twitter: @funny_women

Related Posts:

• Thanks this isn’t happiness
• FUNNY WOMEN #74: My Debilitating Anxiety Decodes My Unread Work Emails
• FUNNY WOMEN #73: How to Write Like a Funny Woman
• FUNNY WOMEN #72: People We Want to Be and the People We Are
• FUNNY WOMEN #71: My Attempts at Sexting

I’m delighted to see Lifetime breaking new ground in source material for feature films, tapping directly into the zeitgeist and speaking straight to the next generation of viewers, in the 140-character terms they understand best.

I watched with excitement the film Unanswered Prayers, which you recently aired and described as follows on your website (emphasis mine):

“The film explores the themes of marriage, family, community and second chances with love, asking, ‘Did I let the one I loved get away, or is she right in front of me?’ Executive produced by Garth Brooks, and based on his song.”

With this precedent in mind, I submit a few script ideas that may generate some buzz in your weekly development meetings. I would be happy to deliver completed manuscripts within forty-five minutes of your expression of interest.

Yours,
K. Munro

**

International School of Hyderabad:

The heartwarming story of a nonprofit English international school on the outskirts of Hyderabad. Based on this Wikipedia article.

You Have Been Specially Selected:

This film explores the theme of second chances through the story of a household’s failure to subscribe to Men’s Health and Good Housekeeping at exclusive introductory rates. Based on weekly mail sent to my home.

New Clothes!:

Based on a fortune thumbtacked to my cubicle wall after lunch at Good Taste Noodles three months ago, the movie dramatizes a lone diner’s journey from not having new clothes to having them.

Re: hi! Enlargement bonus business proposal:

A surreal trip through the mind and times of a junior sales executive who has played Beautiful Katamari for sixteen hours straight. Based on composite sources from my spam box.

Stoked to Brew:

Unemployed paperhanger Toby Poots (Topher Grace) learns the age-old secrets of brewing from his wise and sensual mentor Mrs. Lowdermilk (Sophia Loren). Based on the Full Sail bottlecap message.

STOP: The True Story of Fourth and Vine:

For nearly seven years, all vehicles have been required to come to a full stop at the corner of Fourth St and Vine Avenue in Middlewood, OR. For the first time, this story is told in full. Based on that sign down the street. (Script may require DMV review and approval.)

Between G and I:

A (re)cursive interrogation of the typographic, linguistic, orthographic, and philological resonances of the eighth grapheme of the modern Latin English alphabet. This rigorous documentary, awarded highest honors at Cannes, ranges far and wide to explore the painful segmentation of phonemes, the treatment of vowels in abugidas, and the impossibility of perfect phonology. Based on the letter H.

Worlds Within: The Truth Revealed:

In the tradition of the widely-acclaimed Qatsi films of Godfrey Reggio, this film explores themes of cosmic destiny, interconnectedness, entropy, and rebirth through a kaleidoscopic meditation on the nature of a particle of dust. Based on a particle of dust.

**

Editor’s note: Please notice no one has made a joke about the number of this week’s column. No one even thought to joke about it. Not a single person imagined the sexual position this week’s column number implies.

**

Please submit your own funny writing to funnywomen AT therumpus dot net. See first: Funny Women Submission Guidelines.

To read other Funny Women pieces and interviews, see the archives.

Follow the column on Twitter: @funny_women

Related Posts:

• Thanks this isn’t happiness
• FUNNY WOMEN #74: My Debilitating Anxiety Decodes My Unread Work Emails
• FUNNY WOMEN #73: How to Write Like a Funny Woman
• FUNNY WOMEN #72: People We Want to Be and the People We Are
• FUNNY WOMEN #71: My Attempts at Sexting

Because in real life, sex can be boring…

***

INT. OF DIMLY LIT RESTAURANT, NIGHT. An attractive woman in her 40s stands up and bursts into tears as she sees a man walk towards her table. 

KELLY: I can’t believe you came! Twenty years I’ve waited. There was never anyone but you, Ryan. You’re the one! You’ve always been the one!

RYAN: Oh man, I totally forgot about that. I just get takeout from here sometimes. Sorry, it’s Rhonda, right? Try the salmon teriyaki.

***

EXT. DAY, NEW YORK CITY. A couple in their early 20s sits on a park bench.

GERT: I didn’t think you’d call.

JOE: Actually, I didn’t plan to, but I was hoping you’d loan me $10 so I can get back to Park Slope.

GERT: I’d invite you back to my place, but my roommate has a “no overnight guests policy,” and well, we have bedbugs again.

JOE: Hey, it’s cool. I’d rather get back home. When we met at the bar last night, the light was dimmer, and I didn’t realize your face was like that.

Gert gets up and walks away crying. She doesn’t look back, because that angle gives her a double chin. 

***

INT. OF TRENDY BAR, NIGHT. A man approaches a woman sitting at the bar. 

MAN: Waiting for someone?

WOMAN: No, I just saw Samantha do this on Sex and the City, so I’ve sat at this bar every night since 2009, waiting for men to talk to me.

MAN: Cool. Excuse me while I pretend to take a call even though I lost my iPhone yesterday in a cab.

***

INT. SHABBY LIVING ROOM, DAY. Roommates COLIN and JANET sit in their Astoria apartment.

JANET: You know what they say, true love’s always just under your nose. Come on, let’s go out to a beautiful romantic spot in the West Village so I can take off my glasses and you can realize how beautiful I am.

COLIN: That’s like an hour on the N train! And why spend 12 bucks on a drink? Let’s just look under the futon mattress for change and get beer.

JANET: Whatever, I have to work at two of my three jobs tomorrow. I’m going to bed.

Janet walks to her room and goes to slam the door, until she remembers it’s only a curtain partitioning off the living room.

***

INT. TRENDY NIGHTCLUB, NIGHT. A song by Nickelback featuring Pitbull fills the room. Slow motion montage: a man walks through the club, sets his sights on a beautiful woman and heads her way.

GUY: Hi. I find you attractive. Do you find me attractive? One day you’ll age, and I can promise you, sweetheart, you’ll never regret going home with that guy from the club who’s a total tomcat in the sack.

BEAUTIFUL WOMAN: Dude, you know other people besides you were allowed to see Crazy Stupid Love, too, right?

***

INT. ONE-BEDROOM APARTMENT, NIGHT. A 46 year-old-Orthodontist sits at his computer filling out his J-Date profile. For his profile photo, he uploads a photo of Brad Pitt’s torso from Fight Club.

***

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Related Posts:

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• FUNNY WOMEN #74: My Debilitating Anxiety Decodes My Unread Work Emails
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• FUNNY WOMEN #72: People We Want to Be and the People We Are
• FUNNY WOMEN #71: My Attempts at Sexting

Here is a recipe to match:

***

INGREDIENTS:

• White flour (or youthful arrogance, whichever is in your pantry)

• Butter

• Lemon zest. You may substitute a difficulty, as long as you triumph over it by calling forth your inner Warrior.

• Sugar (or sugar substitute)

• Also: Salt, milk, yeast, water, dried grapes, and 1 “token” such as a bean, silver coin, china figurine, or thimble that you will hide in the cakes for a lucky child to find.

DIRECTIONS

1.  In a large bowl, mix 6 cups of white flour with ½ teaspoon salt. When I made my very first batch of epiphany cakes, I was completely out of white flour. But I was 29 years old, and just happened to be second-in-command at the Burghölzli, a renowned mental hospital in Zurich. That year–it was 1904–a beautiful Russian Jewess traveled to Zurich from Rostov-on-Don in Russia to enroll in medical school. Her name was Sabina Spielrein. She was extraordinarily naïve. Her anxious parents had cosseted her all her life in a bubble of protection so impenetrable that, at age 19, she was entirely uninformed about sex. By the time she arrived in Zurich, however, nature had taken matters into its own hands, and Sabina’s hormonal status had become disturbed. Indeed, she fell spontaneously into waves of orgasm that terrified her, and in the midst of one particularly overwhelming wave, she destroyed her hotel room. Apparently, it was an attempt at self-defense. The police brought her to my emergency room in handcuffs. My diagnosis: hysteria. Primary symptom: orgasms. Secondary symptom: she had lost the ability to talk. Remember, I was only 29 myself. I thought both symptoms were about me.

2.  To the salt and “white flour,” add about ¼ cup sugar or saccharine. I told Sabina I would help her.

3.  Stir in 2 eggs. Set the mixture aside.

4.  Then, in a smaller bowl, dissolve 1 ounce of yeast in 5 tablespoons of warm water. Add 2 additional tablespoons of sugar, or a few more saccharine lies. (“Everything will be fine” and “I will hold anything you say in complete confidence” would both do nicely.) Now set this mixture aside, too.

5.  Sabina spent almost a year in the hospital under my care, during which time she regained her ability to talk, and I intoned Christus, oratorio to keep my behavior assiduously correct. After her hospital time, she continued as my outpatient. Alas, this is when she developed an intractable fantasy that she and I were twins who, having been separated at birth, had unwittingly become incestuous lovers. She believed that, with me, she would conceive a baby who would grow to be the Messiah. Let’s call this butter.

6.  Melt 1 stick of it in a saucepan, and add to it 1-1/2 cups milk.

7.  Have I mentioned that the twelve days of Christmas ends the night before the Epiphany? And that Sabina was unusually perspicacious? One day in her analytic session, she wondered aloud whether her fantasy was not just a symbolic manifestation of her desire to become a doctor–maybe even a psychiatrist like me–and make a difference in the world. An unfortunate development, that. And, indeed, “lemon” is what I quickly called it. Drawing on my inner Warrior, I assured her that sometimes a fantasy holds a literal truth; if hers did, she would discount such truth only at great loss to the world. There you have it: “zest.”

8.  Pour the lemon zest, the butter and milk mixture, the yeasty sugar water, and the flour/egg/salt/sugar mixture together. What will result is a soft dough, which, for simplicity’s sake, I will refer to as Sabina’s easily molded personality. Add the dried grapes, distributing them evenly.

9.  Optional: Add cheese.

10.  Tear Sabina’s personality apart, forming six or eight discrete dough balls of confusion. Trust, love, purpose, integrity, respect, and even reality would all qualify. Realizing that one of the balls–perhaps the confusion about reality–is the largest of them all, arrange the other balls around it on a greased tray. Think “livestock around a manger” if you need creative direction in the arrangement.

11.  Slyly insert the token into one of the balls. Ouch!

12.  Let Sabina’s confusions grow until all of them have at least doubled in bulk and she begins spontaneously to sing “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” One way to accelerate this would be to leave her in a warm, draftless room for as long as it takes. More fun would be to engage her in “We’re Making a Savior!” whoopie romps for a minimum of three years of analytic sessions, withholding from her for at least some of those years the satisfaction of actual intercourse. (You see, I was married to one of the wealthiest women in Switzerland. Were I to have engaged Sabina in actual intercourse, I would have needed to explain to her about biological reproduction while putting on a condom, which might have given even my messiah-focused darling pause.

13.  After the three years, if Sabina’s mother lets you know she has received a letter from her daughter proclaiming her ecstatic love, sweep the cakes with the yellow of an egg.

14.  Bake for about 40-50 minutes at 440 Fahrenheit. Perhaps this is where my own original batch of cakes fell flat. Instead of baking my darling, I wrote her a short note telling her that I was no longer available to be her doctor.

15.  Some people create a paper crown to give to the lucky child who finds the token in the cakes. I didn’t, because Sabina so clearly was not a lucky child. As things turned out, neither was I.

16.  As fervently as I have always celebrated the providence that brought the Magi to Bethlehem, I neglected to respond to Sabina’s increasingly desperate letters. She arrived unannounced at my office one day, and stabbed me with a knife.

17.  I drifted free of my own emotional and cognitive moorings. Diagnosis: hysteria. Primary symptom: The drivel I wrote.

18.  Set the cakes aside for 3-4 years. This is how long it took me to recover my sanity and begin my steady ascent toward celebrity psychoanalyst status. By the late 1930s my client list included high-ranking members of the Nazi party.

19.  And the icing on the cakes? In 1942, Sabina died in the Holocaust–but not before becoming a student and adherent of my chief rival, Sigmund Freud, and writing a seminal paper on the link between the urges towards sex and death. From this paper both Freud and I borrowed liberally, usually without attribution.

20. Ambivalent as I was to hear about Sabina’s demise, I found comfort in epiphany cakes–delicious, if you remember to bake them, and full of inspiration!

• Epiphany #1: The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. Well, not for me.
• Epiphany #2: The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
• Epiphany #3: I am not what happens to me. I choose who I become.
• Epiphany #4: As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Cheesy, gritty, and yummy!

Traditionally served on January 6th, The Feast of the Epiphany.

(N.B. Fragments from Sabina Spielrein’s journal were discovered in a basement in Geneva in 1977, along with bits of her correspondence with Carl Jung. Recently, Jung’s hospital notes about Sabina were made available in translation. This adds to the notion: “it’s funny because it’s true.”)

**

Please submit your own funny writing to funnywomen AT therumpus dot net. See first: Funny Women Submission Guidelines.

To read other Funny Women pieces and interviews, see the archives.

Follow the column on Twitter: @funny_women

Related Posts:

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Ever wondered what your day would look like if you lived in the Top 40? Wonder no longer. (Bonus points if you can sing parts of it. Our sympathy if you can sing all of it.):

Wake up in the morning feelin’ like P Diddy. 5 a.m., turn the radio up. Where’s the rock n’ roll? I’m gonna kick my feet up then stare at the fan, turn the TV up, throw my hand in my pants. Gotta find my bowl, gotta have cereal. Keep drinking coffee, stare me down across the table while I look outside. Let me thank you for your time and try not to waste any more of mine. Get out of here fast. I’m movin’ on; I’m throwin’ on my Louboutins. Watch me walk it out. Walk it out. Walk it out. Walk this right up out the house.

Here we go again, I kinda want to be more than friends. Ain’t about the cha-ching, cha-ching, ain’t about the ba-bling, ba-bling. And oh, I’m into you and girl no, no one else would do. You know that I want you. And you know that I need you. I want your bad, your bad romance. I said, “Excuse me, you’re a hell of a guy. I mean m- m- my my you’re like pelican fly. I mean, you’re so shy and I’m lovin’ your tie; you’re like slicker than the guy with the thing on his eye, oh.”

You know you love me. I know you care. Just shout whenever, and I’ll be there. You are my love, you are my heart, and we will never ever ever be apart. Are we an item? Girl, quit playin’. We’re just friends? What are you sayin’? If I wrote you a symphony just to say how much you mean to me, what would you do? If I told you you were beautiful, would you date me on the regular?

Gave you all I had, and you tossed it in the trash. Tossed it in the trash, you did. To give me all your love is all I ever asked, ‘cuz what you don’t understand is I’d catch a grenade for ya, throw my head on a blade for ya. I’d jump in front of a train for ya. You know I’d do anything for ya. Yes, I would die for ya, baby, but you won’t do the same. I’m your biggest fan. I’ll follow you until you love me. Papa-, paparazzi.

I see you drivin’ round town with the girl I love, and I’m like “Fuck you.” How could you be so heartless? How could you be so cold as the winter wind when it breeze, yo? I bust the windows out your car. And no, it didn’t mend my broken heart. I’ll probably always have these ugly scars. But right now I don’t care about that part. And now you wanna get me back, and you gon’ show me. So you walkin’ round like you don’t know me. You got a new friend; well, I got homies. But in the end it’s still so lonely.

If I never see your face again, I won’t mind. I’m all right; I’m just fine. And you’re a tool, so so what? I’m still a rockstar. I got my rock moves. And I don’t need you. My life is a movie, and you just Tivo.

So we back in the club, with our bodies rockin’ from side to side (side side to side). Thank God the week is done; I feel like a zombie gone back to life (back back to life). Hands up, and suddenly we all got our hands up.

All the single ladies; all the single ladies. All the single ladies, now put your hands up! Up in the club, we just broke up, I’m doin’ my own little thing. I got gloss on my lips, a man on my hips, got me tighter than my Dereon jeans. I’ll get him hot, show him what I’ve got. Can’t read my, can’t read my, no he can’t read my poker face. P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face.

Tonight’s gonna be a good night. A good, good night.

I kissed a girl, and I liked it. She’s nothing like the girl you’ve ever seen before. Nothing you can compare to your neighborhood whore. I’m tryna find the words to describe this girl without bein’ disrespectful. Damn, girl, yous a sexy bitch. A sexy bitch.

I know you want me. I made it obvious that I want you too. They call me heartbreaker. I don’t wanna deceive ya. I’m only gonna break break your, break break your heart. You know my motivation given my reputation. Please excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude, but tonight I’m lovin’ you. My room is the G spot, call me Mr. Flintstone, I can make your bed rock girl. I can make your bed rock. ‘Cuz I might be bad, but I’m perfectly good at it. No, I don’t even know your name. It doesn’t matter; you’re my experimental game, just human nature. I won’t tell you that I love you, kiss or hug you, cuz I’m bluffin’ with my muffin. I’m not lyin’, I’m just stunnin’ with my love, glue-gunnin’.

I wanna make love in this club.

Please don’t stop the music!

Oh shit, my glass is empty. That sucks!

***

Songs in order of appearance, in case you are curious about how awesome you are:

Ke$ha, “Tik Tok”
P!nk, “Raise Your Glass”
Bruno Mars, “Lazy Song”
Rebecca Black, “Friday”
Sara Bareilles, “King of Anything”
J-Lo, “Louboutins”
Neon Trees, “Animal”
Jessie J, “Price Tag”
Chris Brown, “With You”
Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance”
Nicki Minaj, “Super Bass”
Justin Bieber ft. Ludacris, “Baby”
Justin Timberlake (otherwise known as Elissa Bassist’s boyfriend), “My Love”
Bruno Mars, “Grenade”
Lady Gaga, “Paparazzi”
Cee Lo Green, “Fuck You”
Kanye West, “Heartless”
Jazmine Sullivan, “Bust Your Windows”
Kanye West, “Heartless”
Maroon 5 & Rihanna, “If I Never See Your Face Again”
P!nk, “So What”
Usher ft. Pitbull, “DJ Got Us Falling in Love Again”
Beyoncé, “Single Ladies”
Lady Gaga, “Poker Face”
Black Eyed Peas, “Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night”
Katy Perry, “I Kissed a Girl”
David Guetta ft. Akon, “Sexy Bitch”
Enrique Iglesias ft. Ludacris, “Tonight”
Taio Cruz, “Break Your Heart”
Enrique Iglesias ft. Ludacris, “Tonight”
Young Money, “Bedrock”
Rihanna, “S&M”
Katy Perry, “I Kissed a Girl”
Lady Gaga, “Poker Face”
Usher, “Love in This Club”
Rihanna, “Please Don’t Stop the Music”
P!nk, “Raise Your Glass”

**

Please submit your own funny writing to funnywomen AT therumpus dot net. See first: Funny Women Submission Guidelines.

To read other Funny Women pieces and interviews, see the archives.

Related Posts:

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• FUNNY WOMEN #72: People We Want to Be and the People We Are
• FUNNY WOMEN #71: My Attempts at Sexting

“It was like, because I didn’t have a penis, I wasn’t allowed to pee standing up,” she recalls, shaking her head. Matters weren’t helped by the fact that Sarah was more of the quiet, literary type, while the boys were made of noise and brawn.

Sarah says, “I used to stand in the middle of their football games while they tackled and pantsed each other, and I’d shout, ‘This is a stereotyped scenario! These gender roles are blatantly archaic!’ But they never listened.”

Still, Sarah knew from the long magazine articles she read about dysfunctional families that developing strong ties with her brothers was important, so she made great efforts to reach out. Unfortunately, these attempts were one-sided.

“I was constantly lending them emotionally wrought novels about teenaged girls dying of cancer, staring at them balefully across a moor, inviting them to audit both ‘Jane Austen: The Biker Chick’ and ‘Liberated Vaginas for the Sovereign Woman,’ but they couldn’t even bother to circle ‘no’ on the calling cards I had specially made in London.”

But things came to a real breaking point earlier this year when Sarah asked her favorite brother, Eric, to read her first-person essay. Things did not go well.

Painting by J.C. Leyendecker

Eric reports: “I believe my response was, ‘It’s good,’ and I even gave a head nod to show her I really meant it. But when I went back to watching TV, she started ranting about how she’d hoped I’d said that the essay really captured what it’s like to be a woman in her mid-twenties struggling with assertion within a larger power structure that primes women to deny their own needs, and that her exploration of an obsessive female friendship was interesting and nuanced. I had no idea what she was talking about, but when I made the sound of a yowling cat, she just stormed out of the room. The next thing I knew she was hovering over the bathtub with stones in her pockets shouting, ‘If Virginia Woolf can do it, so can I!’”

It was clear that Sarah needed a new approach. “They think just because I’m a feminist I won’t ‘get’ it. But now I’m going to prove to them how much I do.”

Sarah’s efforts so far have been multi-pronged, including eating nachos on the couch and dropping cheese between the cracks, picking arguments about inane things and promising to “look it the fuck up on Wikipedia,” and not lecturing her brothers about feminism when they listen to rap (she’ll even go so far as to really enunciate ”bitches” and “hos” when appropriate).

“It’s been tough,” Sarah says, slapping a nearby gyrating scantily clad woman on the behind while holding a dog-eared copy of The Feminine Mystique.

More difficult still has been adjusting to all the talk about boobs. “At least I’m trying, unlike the guys, who just glared at me when I yelled at a passing hot chick, ‘Nice left tit!’ How is that not a compliment? It was like the guys didn’t even care that most women’s breasts aren’t proportional. Having seen so many lumpy, saggy, old lady breasts in filthy locker rooms, I think I know I thing or two about the subject.”

Her brothers, though, say they have noticed her efforts. “It’s really weird,” says Eric. “We love her for who she is and wish she would just relax.”

To that, Sarah’s eyes fill with tears, and as she clutches an Emily Brontë novel to her chest, says softly, “I get it. I really do . . . but man, did you see that right butt cheek? Holla!”

**

Please submit your own funny writing to funnywomen AT therumpus dot net. See first: Funny Women Submission Guidelines.

To read other Funny Women pieces and interviews, see the archives.

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