I’m sorry I’m not sorry I now live in Miami

February 3, 2015 3:36 pm , Leave a Comment ,

I’ve temporarily relocated to Miami, and I want to write about all the ways in which this place is paradise, but meanwhile my friends and family members are actively catching hypothermia in climates north of here, so I can’t describe paradise without sounding like I’m gloating, but on the other hand I kind of want to gloat because I can see green ocean and palm trees from the balcony of my condo, and because it’s 80 degrees and at any moment I could go swimming with the local dolphins, and I don’t think you should resent me for my change in fortune because it’s entirely possible that I froze to death a few weeks ago in Brooklyn and am now enjoying a sunny afterlife in a place masquerading as Miami, and most people would rather be cold and alive than warm and dead, so if it makes you feel any better we can all operate under the assumption that I’m deceased, or that these palm trees are fake, or that soon this entire metropolis will be underwater, and then everyone in South Florida will have to relocate to the island of Kokomo, which I found out recently doesn’t exist.

A few of Miami’s key (get it?!) elements:

1) Donald Trump

Once upon a time Manhattan real estate mogul Donald Trump gazed across a pristine white beach where Floridian children were playing with sea turtles and listening to the hallowed voice of the ocean through an abundance of conch shells. “I would like to erect forty thousand condos here,” Trump pronounced, “and their foundations will be strong with the crushed bones of blissful children. And I will also sell sea turtles in vending machines down by the seashore.” Two decades later Trump’s dreams have been realized. When M and I drive up or down A1A, Vanilla Ice’s beachfront avenue, the view goes like this: Trump condo, ocean, Trump condo, ocean, Trump condo, Trump condo, Trump condo, ocean, Tony Roma’s. Every evening M and I stand on our balcony and watch hundreds of ominous black vultures circle the rooftops of Trump’s extensive skyline. We think Trump commands these birds like a storybook witch. He hovers on his penthouse balcony with arms raised to the sky, calling to his pretties. But I’m sure the lobbies of his condos are quite nice. I know at least one of them has a waterfall.

2) colossal fishing boats

Every weekend a fleet of colossal fishing boats emerges from Biscayne Bay and takes to the Atlantic. These boats are usually stark white and about 20 stories high. Some of them have colorful, curly slides on their decks, which must be the chutes down which the fishermen send their catch at the end of the day. The fish spiral down into the boats’  chlorinated aquariums where they can be kept alive until they go to market. A massive crew of sailors and deep sea anglers—mostly hailing from Chicago, mostly wearing flip flops, mostly drunk and bloated—keep the boats on course in the Caribbean’s prime fishing grounds. These working fleets might strike you as old-fashioned, but many people in Florida still depend on traditional fishing boats for their livelihoods, and to feed their families, so they continue to take to the sea blaring ancient maritime Disney music.

3) nudie beach

To be frank, the primary reason I chose to rent our particular condo is because it’s directly across the street from the biggest public nudie beach in America. This means that if I veer left when walking toward the ocean, I encounter white lifeguard stands and the bathing-suited denizens of Trump’s condos, but if I veer right, I encounter pink lifeguard stands that herald all the pink, untoned flesh to come. I’m not talking about topless sunbathing either, which is a rampant and delightful custom in South Florida. I am talking about naked penises that look as if they were shrunk by evil shamans and I’m talking about jelly rolls that could have been liposuctioned from a herd of manatees. I love it all so much.

4) weird birds

M and I are determined to become ornithologists while we’re here, but only if we can juggle the binoculars and our wine glasses at the same time. This place is full of weird birds that chose to migrate south for the winter just like us. If we’re not being captivated by Trump’s avian minions, we’re watching pelicans fart in trees at the marina, or speculating about what makes the giant flocks of starlings vacate the telephone wires all at once. My favorite bird by far, however, is the one that lives in the parking lot of the shopping center where we ate Cuban sandwiches yesterday. Food was scarce because we weren’t sharing, so the bird snatched up a packet of Splenda and proceeded to jump from one car hood to another pecking wildly at the sugar, playing keep-away with the rest of the birds, and generally enjoying a decadent lunch. I never knew that birds liked artificial sweetener, but now I will be sure to bring some Equal when I go to feed the ducks.

5) tennis

I insisted on bringing our tennis rackets to Florida because I want to improve my hand-eye coordination. My mom gets beamed by every ball I throw at her and I really don’t want to end up like that. This morning M and I went to the condo’s tennis courts for the first time. We were feeling cocky because last spring we played a few matches at the only court in Brooklyn that didn’t shake us down for expensive permits and tennis decrees from the mayor and such. The court belonged to the Marcy Projects and its net was a chain link fence. Much like Jay-Z honed his rapping skills and street smarts at the same housing project, M and I both assumed that we had improved our tennis game by playing in the ‘hood. But we were not prepared for the vigorous competition of Florida retirees. Ten minutes after we arrived at the court this morning, two elderly men challenged us to a doubles match. It was a brutal defeat. I hadn’t known you were supposed to hit the ball hard, or straight across the net, or within the white lines. I’d thought tennis was a game played with gentle lobs and a lot of flirtatious teasing, but suddenly a gray-haired Austrian man was shouting “Forty-love!” and whacking balls toward my floppy sunhat. The Marcy Projects tennis court had not been the elite training ground I’d thought it to be. Those facilities will probably not host the U.S. Open anytime soon. Though if they do the security costs will be minimal because the neighborhood already boasts a strong police presence.

And now, while you manage your long underwear situation up north, I must excuse myself to go perve on the nudists. Adios, amigos.

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Four unwanted pregnancies

December 4, 2014 4:39 pm , 2 Comments ,

1)

He hadn’t planned on getting pregnant. He always wore a condom, sometimes two. But when his habitual hangover queasiness extended into Sober Week, and the smells of car exhaust and Indian spices nearly brought him to his knees, he began to wonder. Could I be knocked up? The last time this happened he’d been a freshman in college and his girlfriend had been adamant that they weren’t ready. She’d offered to pay for it, which was a nice gesture. He’d always sort of regretted the abortion, but in his heart of hearts he knew she’d been right. And now, 20 years later, he still wasn’t ready. Would he ever be ready? He had two roommates, one of whom refused to turn down his music. He was supposed to go scuba diving in April, which meant bathing suits. He didn’t even know which of last month’s Tinder dates had gotten him pregnant. But he suspected it was the narcissistic, angular girl who’d just left for Europe on a four-month tour with her synth pop band, because wasn’t that always how his cookie crumbled?

2)

She was pretty sure this one was immaculate. The other two were straight-up love children, but here she felt that the devil himself had cast his semen into her. Not cool, man, she mumbled while stuffing peanut butter sandwiches into her bastards’ lunch bags. Not cool at all. The trouble with immaculate conception was the lack of child support payments. If the father were a player or even an administrator with Major League Baseball then she might consider keeping the child, just for the sake of her family as a whole. But no one was more of a deadbeat in financial matters than a divinity. You made a grave mistake, she said, looking at the cracks in the ceiling, of not giving this one to a virgin. I know my way around Planned Parenthood.

3)

Kay sat in the car outside the clinic debating whether or not to go through with her appointment. Her best friend Lonna sat beside her, credit card in hand. When you can’t afford the abortion, said Kay, is that a sign for or against having the kid? Probably against, said Lonna. Unless God is trying to prevent me from killing his creation, said Kay. You mean the creation of you and a hipster butcher and a dozen pickle back shots and two slow songs, said Lonna. Whoa, Lonna, said Kay, pressing her face against the car window, smearing the glass with her tears. Is that Adam from Girls? Walking by with that blonde chick? Holy shit it is, said Lonna. I guess that’s what happens when you put a Planned Parenthood in Downtown Brooklyn. Do you think it’s a sign? said Kay. A sign of what? said Lonna. A sign that my life is finally as rich in urban female drama as Hannah Horvath’s? Is that something you aspire to? said Lonna. Kay opened the car door so she could take a last, wistful look at Adam’s back. Let’s hurry up and get this appointment over with so I can start writing my novel.

4)

She was very short, about four feet tall, and she worried that her offspring would be short as well. Her lover had been of normal stature, but she suspected that these things tracked the female gene pool. Her kid would never outgrow his or her children’s clothes. She’d always have to buy socks with rainbows and cartoons on them. There was nothing inherently wrong with being short, but this was a tall person’s world. If only she could have sex with a giant and split the difference. Sadly there was no way she was going to give birth to someone her own size if she had a choice in the matter. She could barely reach the counter to fill out the form. She patted her belly, which was the same height as her obstetrician’s knees. It’s for your own good, she said. After the procedure, she would console herself by getting a puppy and a few outfits to go with it. It’s going to be all right, she thought, imagining all the dog apparel she could choose from.

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Baby Truman Show

November 21, 2014 3:50 pm , Leave a Comment ,

I’m watching him in the video monitor, but naturally he doesn’t know he’s being watched. The second you put this kid down for nap, he starts his calisthenics routine. He’s up. He’s down. He’s spinning in circles with his fists full of binkies. He’s like a chubby Gold’s Gym instructor who works out in a potato sack. This potato (a.k.a “sleep”) sack restricts the kid’s leg movements, but he’s still able to bunny hop from one side of the crib to the other. He sings the ABC song in his trademark slur. He halfheartedly calls for his grandmother, but only because he likes the sound of her name. I think about pressing the Talk button on the monitor and saying, “This is the voice of God. Stop squirming around, peepee pants.” But to this kid, God is just another adult who will have to retrieve his binkie if he throws it over the side of the crib in order to evade his nap. So the gods do not interfere with this child and his deranged projects behind bars. In thirty minutes, when the kid’s body finally goes still in the monitor, I sit and watch the lump.

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The television commercial from hell

November 19, 2014 11:05 am , Leave a Comment ,

Yesterday I was rolled up in a blanket watching a mildly entertaining television program when this marketing atrocity came on the air. It started off like a prescription drug commercial or something. A white, middle-aged professional walks hand in hand with his smiling eight- or nine-year-old daughter through an affluent, suburban neighborhood. She might have a backpack on. Maybe she’s got a bow in her hair. In any case it’s a pleasant father/daughter bonding stroll, perhaps to catch the school bus, UNTIL the adolescent boys in the neighborhood catch sight of this nine-year-old girl and are suddenly whipped into a sexual frenzy. They start shaking and salivating. They’re losing their GD minds over this girl. They can’t resist chasing after her—while she’s with her father, mind you—and telling her how horny they are over the picket fence line.

At this point the burrito that is my body has gone completely frozen. Is this commercial really sexualizing a young girl? But it gets worse. Through some miracle of our digital age, the girl’s body morphs into that of a labrador puppy. On a leash. Because this whole time—joke’s on us—the father has actually been walking his female puppy, not his human daughter. And the young neighborhood rapists who were harassing the father’s human daughter actually wanted to have sex with the father’s puppy, who is apparently in heat and giving off all kinds of lustful signals. Because the rapists were also dogs, all along. And then the advertising geniuses behind this blizzard of bad ideas arrive at their triumphant message: spay your pets.

I don’t know why I should object to this commercial because it hits all the notes that usually wield a positive influence on my decisions: pedophilia, bestiality, slut-shaming, and sexism. Consider the lesson learned. If I ever have a daughter I’m going to make damn sure she doesn’t walk to school wearing some revealing cardigan sweater that might provoke the carnal appetites of neighborhood males following their instincts. My little girl can’t help being sexy as hell, but I can at least put a leash on her and sew her vagina shut. That is how things work in the animal kingdom. Spay your pets, people.

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I wrote a young adult novel under a pen name and this is what I learned

November 17, 2014 1:40 pm , 3 Comments ,

A year and a half ago I signed a contract with Penguin to write a young adult novel. I chose to write the YA novel under a fake name so as to reserve my own illustrious name for the thousands of stories about sex, death, and misery that I planned to write for masochistic grownups in the future. My pseudonym—let’s call her W-2—has been trying to build a fan following in advance of her January 2015 debut by Tweeting about her boyfriend and responding warmly to teen bloggers who read the galley and pronounced it either “amazeballs” or “awesomesauce.” W-2 has sort of taken on a life of her own, which I guess is the point.

The author John Banville, who won the Man Booker Prize for his 2005 novel The Sea, also happens to write noir detective novels under the name of Benjamin Black. “If I’m Benjamin Black,” Banville once said, “I can write up to two and a half thousand words a day. As John Banville, if I write two hundred words a day I am very, very happy.” He prefers his crime fiction to his dense and poetic literary novels that tussle more with human consciousness than with bad guys. “My Banville books are attempts to be works of art,” he told The Guardian, “but because perfection can never be achieved they always ultimately fail. So when I look at my Banville books all I see are the flaws, the faults, the failures, places where I should have kept going to make a sentence better.” Literary fiction seems more about achieving an esoteric ideal (the Great American Novel, for instance), while genre fiction (crime, romance, YA) seems more about connecting with an audience. They’re almost different forms of media altogether.

In a 2011 Slate article, Katie Crouch and Grady Hendrix wrote about their experience co-authoring the YA novel The Magnolia League. “[R]eaders in Y.A. don’t care about rumination,” they wrote. “They don’t want you to pore over your sentences trying to find the perfect turn of phrase that evokes the exact color of the shag carpeting in your living room when your dad walked out on your mom one autumn afternoon in 1973. They want you to tell a story.” Crouch apparently had trouble letting go of her “M.F.A. background where the rule was that good writing requires rumination, pain, and the slow loss of your best years” and embracing the “insane pace” of writing YA. This was similar to my experience. I wrote three distinct drafts of my YA novel in nine months. That’s a book every three months, which is a timetable that even Grisham doesn’t maintain. Psychologically, it was grueling. By the end of the process I felt like the worst writer in the world. But that’s only because I was thinking about it all wrong.

For the past year, when I’m at a party or something and am asked what I do for a living, I say I’m a writer. Then my boyfriend (who two-times me with W-2—the bastard) usually pipes up that I wrote a YA novel and it comes out in January and it’s going to be a big deal, etc. Though I think it’s sweet that my cheating boyfriend likes to boast about me and my future millions (sometimes he even seems to think I have a movie deal on par with The Hunger Games), I always feel sheepish when my YA book is made public like this. I thought it was because I’m somewhat insecure and I tend to downplay my accomplishments. “It’s nothing,” I’d say to counter his brags. “Just some silly kids’ book I wrote under a pseudonym.” This response left me feeling that I was betraying my novel (and how hard I had worked), and that I needed to be a better advocate for myself.

But now I don’t think it was my dismal self-esteem making me respond in such a way. I actually like the story and the characters and the message of the book. A lot. The trouble is I didn’t write it. W-2 is entirely responsible. She’s more interested in things like plot, paragraphing, following an outline, hitting the right emotional beats at the right time, getting those pages turned, etc. She doesn’t tear her hair out when a cliche sneaks into her work. She’s cool and she’s crazy about teen readers and she’ll be positively thrilled to sign your copy of her book, come January. But if I try to identify with her, I start feeling low. My whole sense of self is called into question. Being a writer is integral to who I am. But I can’t write just anything and still own that sense of “being a writer.” I can only write the stuff that comes from that rock-bottom place that would make most teenagers (and many adults) say, “WTF?” It’s nice to have met my alter ego and I will enjoy tagging along with her on book tour, but it’s like Banville said about himself and Benjamin Black: “They are two completely different writers who have two completely different processes.” In order for me to conserve my sense of self as Some Kind of Artist, I have to divorce my meager talents from W-2’s. It’s not a question of highbrow versus lowbrow or young versus old or whatever. The categories are too fluid for that. It’s a matter of “THIS IS WHO I AM” versus “This is something I wrote.” Thinking in these absolutes seems to help me. Creative desolation only strikes when I don’t know who is writing.

So I’m going to keep doing what I do and maybe W-2 will keep doing what she does (or maybe she’ll take some time off to backpack Europe with my boyfriend), but never again will I confuse the two writers. Meanwhile I can learn a lesson from the teen audiences that W-2 wants to reach. As Crouch and Hendrix point out, these young readers are “still fresh and unjaded.” They’re loyal and excited and communicative and they just want something honest to hold onto. They’re the main reason Crouch turned from the elitist world of literary fiction to YA. But it seems to me that instead of writing YA in order to connect with that tremendous audience (and its allowance money), we intermittently sophisticated grownup authors who actually enjoy describing “the exact color of the shag carpeting” should strive to treat our own and each other’s work with a comparable level of freewheeling enthusiasm. Or at least that’s the only way I can foresee Hollywood turning my Great American Novel into a four-part movie trilogy. Fingers crossed.

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Girl power

November 16, 2014 9:52 am , Leave a Comment ,

You’re becoming too much of a celebrity. Cloistered and out of touch. All your shoes are unattainably expensive. You have the physical dimensions of a fruitatarian fashion model. You own houses in places that would have fallen into the sea ten years ago if money hadn’t intervened. And the boys are no longer on your side.

Why not? My stylist has been lowering the necklines of all my formal gowns.

You have a reputation for being a prude.

That’s hurtful. You know I have always been a closed system. It’s just how I operate as an artist.

That works for novelists and schizophrenics, but if you want to remain a power player in the music industry, you need to make some changes in your lifestyle before consumers turn on you.

But I surprise and delight my fans all the time by showing up unexpectedly at their Bat Mitzvahs and baking them cookies and things.

True, but it’s like watching a baby snow leopard leave her zoo enclosure and pretend to enjoy a shopping spree at Wal-Mart. It just looks off. And creepy. It doesn’t help that you lack friends in real life.

But I have lots of friends in real life.

Who?

My mom. My dad. The attractive Latin woman who does my hair. Sometimes my fellow celebrities and I exchange mutual admiration on Twitter. I always sign glossy photos with “xoxo.”

But female friends go shopping for makeup together and they have secrets and sleepovers and they take hilarious selfies and have inside jokes and defend each other against evil boys. Your fans need to feel that you’re best friend material. If you’re best friend material, then they can potentially squeeze in there. If you’re a hothouse flower, then you’re just another millionaire idol, and idols fall every day.

Of course I’m best friend material. I just haven’t met anyone who really gets me yet. Someone who shares my drive and ambition. People should be allowed to communicate through personal websites and music videos. That’s what Bey and I do.

Would you feel comfortable calling her Bey in person?

No.

Here’s the thing. From an outsider’s point of view, your world is becoming more rarefied by the minute. You’re transitioning from being an earnest, vulnerable young woman with relationship problems into an omnipotent robot with a hundred burned bridges and twice as many tubes of red lipstick. So I brainstormed this list of famous women who are considered sincere and down-to-earth—and who maintain loyal fan bases within the blogosphere. If you can be seen disporting with these women on social media and if you mention them enough in magazine interviews, noncompetitively, people will forget that you’re a snow leopard and an emotionally stunted former child star and they’ll want to buy your next album.

I’ll do whatever you say. You’re my best friend.

I’m your 63-year-old male publicist.

But you sent me that Dean & Deluca gift basket.

…

Please don’t make me wear sneakers.

You can still wear your Louboutins. Just get photographed tripping in them every now and again. Clumsy girls scream “relatable.”

What are you doing now? Do you want to go for a drive in my Town Car? Do you want to come over and watch Dance Moms?

I thought we talked about this.

You’re right. I’m sorry. Just give me the list.

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Incubation Period

November 15, 2014 1:48 pm ,

“Tighten up, Felicia,” says Felicia. “Two more houses and you’re done.” She wrings the sweat from her bandit mask then stuffs it into the pocket of her stretchy jeans. How long has her fly been down? “These stretchy jeans came straight from hell,” says Felicia, zipping up. She leans over a blue mailbox, murmuring ad jingles and trying not to vomit, as the shortie princesses pass by with their parents.

“What are you supposed to be?” asks a preteen gremlin in a surgical mask. “A fat old lady?”

“Fuck off,” says Felicia. “Halloween is for everybody.” She’s got thirty years and seventy pounds on the gremlin, making her infinitely better at trick-or-treating. His plastic bag barely bulges, while her flannel pillowcase is almost at capacity. She peers into its gaping maw and begins to salivate, which induces a coughing fit. “You will feast tonight, Felicia,” says Felicia, when she catches her breath. Precisely once a year everything goes right for her.

Rich neighborhoods are known for the superior quality of their candy giveaways. Five city blocks of Georgetown will net Felicia enough booty to take her through November. Sours are her favorite. If it doesn’t make her mouth pucker into a butthole, it’s barely worth opening. No to caramel apples. No to toothbrushes. Yes to Jolly Ranchers, but predominantly greens. No to things that taste like coconut. Her stomach is killing her so she sucks down a WarHead’s bitter medicine.

A solitary witch skips by wearing goggles and holding a plastic pumpkin bucket. The bottom hem of the girl’s black gown collects more filth than the bristles of her broomstick. Felicia tails the witch to the next townhouse, the kind you live in if you’re a United States senator. They make their way up the stairs through the warm gauntlet of jack o’ lanterns. “Go ahead and do the bell if you want,” says Felicia, feeling weak in the jeans, and the witch rises gratefully to her tiptoes.

“Trick-or-treat,” they both say when a statesman answers the door in a werewolf onesie. He seems surprised to see a middle-aged woman standing at eye level on his stoop, brandishing a pillowcase. Maybe he’s from the country. When he removes his merkin of a monst

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An addendum to my roster of embarrassments

November 14, 2014 4:52 pm , 4 Comments ,

Because I always start out trying to be inspirational and end up being discouraging and overly ironic, I thought I would add a little something to my last post and not be so evasive this time.

For a long time I didn’t do my blog. I was embarrassed. I felt ashamed of what I’d already written and of what I might write. Strangers could see me in all my unbearable colors (i.e., earth tones). Worse still, friends and acquaintances could find me and scrutinize me through the aquarium glass of the Internet like I was some scaly, immobile thing in the Reptile House and they had to figure out if I was dead or not.

But that is all in the past. I no longer care what goes up and whether my visitors think I’m such a poor specimen that the snake handlers have forgotten to feed and water me. I am committed to busting loose. Here is what happened:

  • My friend A started an art project. Every day she forced herself to post one item of work online. One picture per day. It doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re sad or cranky or down on yourself, it’s everything. And now she has this badass portfolio that no one would ever guess she created with a gun to her head.
  • My friend X has kept a LiveJournal since 2006. She doesn’t publicize it, but it’s there and it’s wonderful. She’s been published in lots of prestigious journals, but writing something secret online every day makes her feel less lonely in her art. Right now I find her quiet URL to be the most powerful place on the Internet.
  • I read the book Show Your Work which basically told me to get over myself.
  • I let go of projected opinions. That snobby old writing professor is not looking over my shoulder, judging me for my attempt at online relatability. David Remnick is not sitting in his corner office at Conde Nast thinking, “I’d give her the fiction centerfold in the next issue if she weren’t such a blogger.” Nobody gives a shit. Besides, my mom’s opinion is the only one that matters.
  • I finally found my visitor stats, which indicated that no one was reading my website anyway.
  • Unemployment.
  • My therapist started working with me on being more assertive. Being assertive is not only about saying, “Hey buddy, it’s not okay that you’re stepping on my toes.” It’s also about saying, “Hey buddy, here are my toes tra-la-la-la-la and when I wiggle them the sparkle nail polish catches the light and yes I might have a mild case of athlete’s foot but only angels are immune to fungus.”
  • I realized how unhappy I was not participating in the world, even in a little, whispery way.
  • I’ve changed my mind about so many people. On too many occasions I’ve judged as I’m petrified of being judged myself. And yet I’ve often found my judgments to be wrong—or at least pliable. A writer I thought was a talentless hack eventually wins me over by her unapologetic hackiness. A novelist’s second novel makes me go back and read his first with new eyes. Someone on Facebook whose feeds I once found obnoxious starts posting about whales or something and I’m like, “Hey, this guy’s actually pretty cool.” So even if I annoy the shit out of someone one or one hundred times, there’s always a chance I can redeem myself later. If Gawker.com can eventually come around to Lena Dunham, a handful of people can eventually come around to me. (Gawker hasn’t done this yet but I imagine that one day maybe they will under duress from their advertisers.) The important thing is to keep making people sniff your fungus until they finally realize that they’d miss it if it disappeared. Never stop itching. Never buy the Tinactin.
  • Whatever I put online does not affect the sanctity of my work in progress, which will not see the light of day until it’s absolutely ready. In my novel I can indulge the perfectionism that would make blogging unthinkable. Whether I have a complete mental breakdown if that novel is ever published remains to be seen.

Finally, the only person I hurt when I’m in my hidey hole of embarrassment is myself. I like to write. I like to throw various foods on the wall—Twinkies, spaghetti, whole cabbages—to see what sticks. And in my limited time on this earth I’d like to be the party guest who tries to add to the conversation rather than run to the bathroom where I pretend to wash my hands for an hour. In the long run, being embarrassed is more embarrassing than doing embarrassing things.

Now if I could only stop crapping my pants.

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A fresh roster of embarrassments

November 13, 2014 10:54 pm , Leave a Comment ,

Yesterday a woman called to offer me two free tickets on a Caribbean cruise if I would just answer a few of her questions. At the time of the call I was sitting in a crowded coffee shop so naturally I hung up on her. It’s always been my dream to set sail on a Caribbean cruise ship, but the idea of random people overhearing my conversation was just too embarrassing. What if the woman asked me something deeply personal like “How do you feel about buffets?” My cheeks were already hot because my phone had vibrated three times on the cafe table before I’d answered it. I could not endure any more public humiliation.

Which got me thinking about embarrassment. I am embarrassed about how many things I’m embarrassed about. And it’s not the stuff you might expect. FOR INSTANCE.

1) When I got all dolled up one night to drive to the Chevrolet sales lot because I’d trusted a newspaper insert saying that I’d won a new car and I thought that when I put the key in the door for the first time someone from Chevy might want to take my picture for promotional reasons, I was not embarrassed.

2) When I got an F in Physics because two weeks into my freshman year of college I simply forgot I was enrolled in Physics and consequently neglected to attend class, do the homework, take the tests, etc., I was not embarrassed.

3) When I blew a snot rocket at the park a couple days ago and it touched down on my sneaker in plain view of all the other joggers stretching their quads, I was not embarrassed.

And that is because I am a grown woman who has read a lot of pop psychology online and who contains enough inner reserves of strength and self-confidence to weather any social mortification. But a few things still manage to get to me. They’ve gotten to me for a long time, but only recently have I identified and tried to come to terms with them. So in the therapeutic interest of revisiting “humiliations past” as World of Psychology recommends, I give you three of the fundamental embarrassments that are currently shaping my life.

1)  I didn’t write all the books.

This one comes up a lot because I am a writer of books, and yet all the books on bookstore and library shelves seem to be written by other people. People like Shakespeare and Thomas Pynchon and Virginia Woolf and Jesus. Even if I had written just a few of the books I’ve recently enjoyed—Beloved, Dog of the South, Awakenings—it wouldn’t be enough. That’s not all the books. And my guess is that tomorrow more books will be published and I won’t have written those either. Frankly it makes me want to be a shut-in.

2) I was a particularly ugly child.

Even if I could excuse the grotesque fat rolls that plagued me as a baby and gave me the same tan lines as Jabba the Hutt, I cannot accept the unappealing little girl whom that infant morphed into sometime in the 1980s. There’s a good reason I’ve never had the habit of showing new boyfriends my family’s photo albums. If one of them saw a picture of the five-year-old, gap-toothed Medusa who still lives somewhere inside of me, characterized by her ill-fitting red snowsuit and her herpetic lip blown open like a hotdog in a microwave, he would most likely not want to come anywhere near my reproductive equipment ever again. The shame lives on.

(Is this still healthy? This no longer seems healthy.)

3) I’ve messed up bad and I don’t know the first thing about time travel.

I’m less embarrassed about the messing up bad part and more embarrassed about my failure to do even a fraction of what Bill and Ted can do. I’m told that everyone makes mistakes. Terrific. Those people can accept and learn from their errors. But I am a special case and my mistakes have been egregious and I would much prefer just to get into my time machine and redo some stupid shit I’m still paying for, rather than be seen as someone who only gets to live her life once because she’s too much of an unexceptional dingbat to travel back in time. But here I am, a woman without the phone booth that would render her first kiss a little less awkward. Please just look away.

I could go on. I pick my nose when I’m not turning it into a rocket launcher. I’ve never been to MOMA. I’m not a movie star. I’ve never been the democratically elected president of even the smallest nation. They say that embarrassment is a product of perfectionism. As if being perfect is a bad thing. As if my dream of being an exquisite kindergartner sunning herself on a Royal Caribbean deck while autographing copies of The Divine Comedy and Ulysses is unattainable. I only want to live in harmony with the universe, and the universe wants me to be tan and rich and glorious like the love child of Angelina Jolie and Sir Isaac Newton. The universe will accept nothing less than an A-plus-plus and if I don’t perform to the universe’s exacting standards I’ll have to cower blushing in the corner for another three decades.

There’s no enlightened, elegant, nonironic way to wrap this up. Unless. UNLESS. I accidentally pooped my pants. Goodnight.

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The Face Expert

November 12, 2014 5:38 pm , Leave a Comment ,

The animator took the call from Barbie’s people at noon on Veteran’s Day. They said they liked his work on Cyrus the Blimp and would he be interested in coming into Mattel to talk faces.

“I thought Barbie’s face was already a done deal,” said the animator, opening another can of Budweiser.

“It is and it isn’t,” said Barbie’s people. “Her appearance evolves with her target consumers. No one likes looking at the same face year after year.”

“I thought that’s why you created those teenage hooker dolls with the big eyes.”

“That wasn’t us.” The animator thought he heard a collective sigh on the other end of the line. Or maybe it was his sigh. His 12-pack was almost empty and his stump was throbbing.

“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel here,” said Barbie’s people. “Our doll designers just need a consult from someone who knows faces. From someone who’s used to moving them around for marketing purposes.” Apparently they didn’t know the animator had been out of work for nine months. “You drew Cyrus the Blimp with simplistic strokes and yet movie-going audiences considered him an airship of great emotional depth. Essentially, we want to know how you pulled it off.”

“It’s funny that we’re having a conversation about faces when I can’t see any of yours,” said the animator. Sometimes he forgot what he looked like and had to run a hand over his face because he was too down in the dumps to look in a mirror. Sometimes he forgot that his right leg had been blown off in Iraq.

“I’m sure you can use your imagination,” said Barbie’s people. The animator envisioned a conference room full of pink ponies wearing telephone headsets, each one grinning within the strict parameters of red paint. Better than an ex-soldier getting drunk in an Echo Park studio bought with ephemeral cartoon money.

“I can tell you right now that the number one problem with Barbie’s face is that it’s made of hard plastic,” said the animator. “She’s practically a Lego person. You might as well put a blond wig on a flesh-colored gumball and call it a day.”

“We’re open to using more pliant materials.”

“For me, personally,” said the animator, “Barbie has always been more about the bod.”

Barbie’s people were silent. The animator remembered one of his sister’s Barbies after it got chewed up by their pet ferret. He could still see the puncture wounds in the cheeks and the torn nose. It was the most emotion he’d ever seen on a doll’s face.

“We already have a body guy,” said Barbie’s people. “He’s very good.”

“Have you ever put a Barbie’s head in your mouth and bit down?” said the animator.

“Of course,” said Barbie’s people.

“There’s nothing there.”

“That’s correct.”

“It seems to me that what you really want to give her is a brain. Let me put you in touch with a brain guy.”

“Not necessary,” said Barbie’s people. “Our problem is perception. People don’t believe that a woman could be happy all the time, for going on six decades.”

“Since Vietnam,” said the animator, adjusting his prosthesis. “The question I would pose to your face people is this: If Barbie were a flesh and blood human of the same stature, let’s say twelve inches tall—”

“Eleven and a half inches,” interrupted Barbie’s people.

“Okay. If she were that size, but real, what kind of things would she be interested in? Furthermore, what would she want to talk about? How would she feel from day to day? Is she a heavy drinker?”

“Barbie is a woman of many enthusiasms,” said Barbie’s people.

“Personally, if I were that short and didn’t have any toes to speak of? I’d probably kill myself.” The animator wished he could scratch his missing ankle. He opened another beer.

“You’re saying that her face should reflect gloom and unhappiness?” said Barbie’s people.

“If you want consumers to love her, her face needs to express more than lobotomized delight.”

“You’re saying she should frown?”

“Have you ever pressed down so hard on a Barbie’s head that her neck disappears?” said the animator.

“Yes,” said Barbie’s people.

“Have you ever disfigured Barbie’s face with black permanent marker? Or pulled off one of her legs and beat her with it?”

“Yes,” said Barbie’s people.

“You people are worse than my ferret,” said the animator. They seemed chastened. “When little girls play with baby dolls,” he continued, “they want them hungry and crying. Do you know why that is?”

“So they can feed them and comfort them,” said Barbie’s people.

“Precisely,” said the animator. He closed his eyes and saw rows and rows of Barbies with his face on them. Untidy beards. That same ragged scar across their foreheads. Flak helmets of synthetic hair. Their features were contorted with fear and anguish. Their mouths were wide open with weeping. Then little girls descended on them, gathered them in handkerchiefs, cradled them and sang to them.

“I’ll be there tomorrow morning at eight,” said the animator. “Let’s get some faces on these bitches.”

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