Of all the articles predicting what post-pandemic life will be like, the most questionable are the ones that suggest shucking off your cocoon and emerging like a butterfly. “Try out a new you!” exclaimed an essay in the NYT. What a great idea, right? The me I’ve spent my life being is like a costume I can trade for a better one! By better, the essay strongly implied more extroverted. More fun. More outgoing. More optimized!

The Times essay provoked 400 comments, most from introverts who took issue with the notion that their personalities are flawed and need retooling. Some proposed that extroverts learn to shut the hell up, instead.

One of the suggested routes to a New You is to just fake the You you want to be. Pretty soon, the faked qualities will stick! Or, if you’re the methodical type, you can simply make a list of new behaviors that run counter to the Old You. If you’re unsociable, make a point of starting conversations with strangers. Interestingly, there were no strategies for busybodies who need to mind their own business or for controlling types to back off and relax.

Instead of fretting about the weight I’ve gained, I’m thinking about a New Me who is chubby, or let’s go wildly politically incorrect and just say fat. The Fat Me will have a throaty smoker’s laugh which I will employ with gusto. The Fat Me will have to be a lot more fun, and less whiny. I’m assuming people have less patience with a whiny fat person than a whiny thin one, but what do I know? A friend once accused me, in the midst of a raging diatribe about my awfulness, of having no fat friends. I was upset and mortified until I realized she was mistaken.

If I manage to lose the extra pounds, I can try out a Tolerant New Me. I will go around agreeing with people’s idiotic statements and I’ll stop shouting at the people on TV. I’ll stop making fun of mispronounced words like when Ivanka says “impor-dant.” I’ll stop arguing about word usage, like the expression “bored of” when it should be “bored with” or “bored by”. If I can’t stop arguing about this entirely, then I’ll stop taking the argument so seriously that I have to send ten emails proving I’m right.

What about a New Me who can drink beer from a bottle and talk about sports? I have secretly always wanted to be this Me. While I’m at it, I’ll stop carrying a handbag. I’ll use a functional, nondescript backpack or just use my pockets. Girls who can survive without a handbag have always been my idols. So free of vanity and insecurities! They’re not dependent on lipstick or eye-drops or Polarized sunglasses: they are free spirits who will go camping at a moment’s notice.

A Capable Me, a Fun-Loving Me, a Me who lets her hair go gray, a Me who doesn’t want to kill so many people, a Me who would just get up off her ass and do yoga or Tai Chi or pursue volunteer work or stop talking about death….they all sound delightful.

But, big surprise, people are how they are.  To quote an expert in child development, “You may be a certain way for the rest of your life, but the big issue is how you manage it—or not.”

Have you considered how the last year might have changed you in some fundamental way? Have you realigned your priorities or just lowered your standards in choosing the evening’s Netflix menu? Let’s hear about it! Just don’t go on about sweatpants, because the Old Me can’t bear one more word about fucking pandemic sweatpants.

My friend Michelle has the foulest mouth I’ve ever encountered, and that’s saying something. When she was crossed in business, she fumed that she wouldn’t bend over and take it up the ass. Once, we were in her huge SUV, entering a mall parking lot, when a Mercedes cut her off. She yelled out of her indow “Whore!” The Mercedes stopped in front of us and the Whore marched over to the window.

I was horrified and pictured a fistfight. Not only that but there was $1000 in cash in plain sight, Michelle’s weekly pin money for blowing on designer goods. The Whore was a normal looking middle aged woman who barked, “Would you like to repeat that in my face?”

I gestured wildly to the Whore, making the “crazy” sign with my pointer finger, hoping she might back down from a nutcase. Michelle held her ground without repeating the word, and the Whore went back to her car. It was one of many times I found myself both impressed and terrified by Michelle’s rage.

Michelle and her husband owned a thriving alarm business and had an office behind their house where I was their administrative assistant. I am seriously incompetent in an office setting but it took them a while to figure this out. They were both clean and sober after years of wild living, and both were heavily tattooed in an era when that was still considered sketchy. The husband had been a heroin addict and Michelle had been an alcoholic. He disparaged AA meetings but Michelle enjoyed them, dressing up in Gucci and Dolce every Friday night to flaunt her status and gossip with her girlfriends.

Underneath her bravado, of course, Michelle was a troubled and deeply insecure young woman. Years of parental abuse had taken their toll on her. She strived to be a good mother to her young son and her teenage step-daughter. She was tender with the former and brutal to the latter but the husband never stepped in. He was as quiet as she was loud but when he got angry, there was hell to pay. Or so she said.

Michelle and I grew close quickly. It wasn’t long before she insisted on keeping the bathroom door open so she could keep talking to me while she peed. Her combination of thuggery and neediness was irresistible. Even after she ran over my dog Lassie we remained friends.

Michelle and I could make each other laugh hysterically with just a glance. When I told her that I’d always hated being called “Joni” she proceeded to call me that every day. When I expressed my dislike of Bob Seeger, she began to blast his music in the office and to burst out in his songs when I was off-guard at my computer.

Michelle was preoccupied with labia, and she liked to describe her girlfriends’ imperfections in that area. One was called a swordfish and I can’t remember the other names she made up. She once caught me in the bathroom and made a big deal about my abundant pubic hair. Twenty years later she still teases me about it.

It’s impossible to convey her wild sense of humor, but it’s a large part of why I love her. She could projectile-spit on demand, and was rightly proud of this talent. She would stand yards from a target, positioning her body like an Olympic javelin thrower, and she would point at the target like Babe Ruth calling his shot. The spit flew through the air and always hit the target.

Michelle was competitive in more areas than labia. She was extremely proud of her handwriting and was pissed off when I showed her my own nice cursive. She decided that the guys in the office should judge between our handwriting samples and she refused to accept their decision that mine was the best. How could I not love her?

Seeing each other every day in the office, we developed a deep intimacy. She befriended my son, who was away at college, via email discussions. Soon, they were exchanging horrifying images in their mutual love of the dark side. I was pleased by their friendship at first. When I passed her computer one day and saw an image of a naked girl covered in shit, I had second thoughts.

The night Michelle ran over my dog, I was home alone with my younger son asleep in his bed. I heard a screech of brakes outside but ignored it until a knock on my door. Lassie had wandered into the street, thanks to the gardener who forgot to lock the backyard gate. Michelle couldn’t stop in time to avoid Lassie, who came inside through the dog door, injured and bleeding.

I ran to my dog, who bit me. I was beside myself with fear. Michelle wrapped Lassie in a towel and drive to the emergency vet hospital. I called a friend to come and sit with me.

The vet finally called and told me that they’d tried to save Lassie but she was gone. I could hear hysterical sobbing in the background. It was Michelle. I asked the vet if Michelle was alright. The vet commented that she’d never heard anyone worry about a friend after hearing about the loss of a pet. She didn’t know how much I love Michelle, a broken baby bird with a mouth like a whole fleet of sailors.

Yesterday, when I tried to like something on Instagram, I got a little boxed message that said I could not take that action. No reason and no means of further discussion. I pretended it was just a glitch, but the box meant business.

I went to google why this had happened and learned that it usually meant they thought I was a spammer or a bot or some other kind of menace. But why? Apparently, if you leave the same comment too many times, it trips some algorithm.

Did I write “LOVE!” too many times?? That’s my typical comment, along with “Beautiful” and “Gorgeous.” That’s probably because I only follow photographers, stylists, tattooers, designers, models and jewelers. And I like to be supportive.

Occasionally, if it’s a really cute guy with long earrings and tight leggings, I comment “TOO HOT FOR ME!” with some little flame emojis. Is that so wrong??

Fucking Instagram.

Why am I even there? Why do I scroll through it incessantly, even when I’m watching TV? What is so addicting about my feed? Besides my effort to avoid having thoughts, is it a desire to be liked? Do I “like” stuff in order to be liked back or to indicate that I’m a really nice person? I truly have no idea. I know it’s something about occasional rewards that causes and maintains addictive behavior.

I didn’t think of Instagram as a negative entity like Twitter, which is just a rage-and-hatred recycling machine, but clearly it is not a plus in my life. My sense of anxiety and discomfort at being locked out is proof enough.

What if I could give up Instagram! All those hours could be applied to something else. Theoretically. Maybe I would actually read the things I have bookmarked, all those essays about serious matters like “Gen Z Shopping Habits” or  “Rumination: An overview.” Maybe I could at least put my phone down.

I plan to write more, because it forces me to organize the few thoughts I still have. It may also help with my waning word retrieval function, which caused a ten minute blockage of the word cucumber when I tried to remember what a pre-pickle is called.

Would you like to help out while you’re sequestered at home, wondering where to find bread or chicken? You can either help me figure out how to get right with Instagram, or suggest topics to write about.

Thanks! LOVE! BEAUTIFUL! TOO HOT FOR ME! (flame emoji flame emoji flame emoji)

When I stopped writing for Popdust a few weeks ago, I never thought I would lose interest in celebrities.

Having to write about them every day involved a total immersion in their real and made-up antics. I labored over the Daily Mail, looking for some news or photos I could spin into a post. I refused to just copy something that had already been posted somewhere else. Even though my writing and the website itself were garbage, I took a pathetic pride in being original.

I became an expert on Kim and Kanye.

My husband had to ask me several times when we were out walking to stop talking about Kanye. I found it hard not to share the contents of my knowledge base. I thought about Kylie and Khloe and Madonna and Gwyneth even when I was off the clock.  I started checking in on them several times a day, worried about missing something.

I followed Rumer Willis on Twitter, and tried to decode her tweets to her sister, whatshername.

Now, I am blissfully unaware of Rumer’s musings, and I don’t know where Kylie stands with Tyga.

Without any deliberate detox plan, I quit celebrities, just like that!

It feels like a miracle. No longer preoccupied with celebrities, I haven’t become more productive and I haven’t developed a new interest, but at least I don’t talk about Kanye. I think it’s a win.

On the other hand, I may have a lot more free-floating rage and hatred. But I will need it for our Insane Clown President. 

In fact, given Matt Taibbi‘s brilliant nickname for Donald Trump, it would be wonderfully fitting if Insane Clown Posse and a few thousand juggalos could perform at the inauguration! Please, universe, make this happen.

Where once I could rant about Taylor Swift with the passion of a crazed zealot, now I have no idea what she’s up to, and I wonder how I could once get so worked up about her.

Maybe it’s the emergence of actual villains that has drained my hatred for celebrities, or maybe familiarity really does breed contempt. Getting some distance from Kim Kardashian’s ass has helped me to refocus on my own ass,  such as it is.

If you fear that you are a hopeless celebrity addict, take it from me, you can live without them. Step 1 is to renounce the Daily Mail, and if I could do it, so can you. Then, move away from your computer and start thinking about your ass.

*photo by Juggalo4U

I went to the doctor to get some awful infusion for my decrepit bones, and all I could think about was that I’d gained two pounds.

I don’t have a scale at home and I don’t like getting on them but the nurse told me to do it. I was horrified by the two new pounds. Just a few weeks earlier, I’d been to another doctor and I’d found my weight acceptable.

Here’s where it gets good. I complained and whined that I didn’t want to be fat, on top of everything else. Nothing would stop me from being pissed off. I decided it must have been my heavy shoes.

So the next day, I put my shoes in a plastic bag and took them to the market to weigh them in the produce department. The plastic bag shows how thoughtful I am.

Sure enough, two pounds!

Now I can breathe a little easier but this has underscored how deep-rooted the fear of fat is.

But the fear of fat, at this point, is tied up with aging, a dreadful prospect. And yet we must all age, even though the only woman on earth who is really old but not tragic and still hot is Gloria Steinem.

Aging doesn’t suit me and I don’t want it. I have looked at old ladies who are celebrated for their beauty and it’s still awful. It makes me want to just give up. Here’s a 62 year old model who posed for an American Apparel ad:

Here’s a model who is 70:

This one is 71:

This last one is a model who looks like she must spend a lot of time weighing her shoes. She is very lean and everyone loves her.

This is the best you can hope for (unless you’re Gloria Steinem.) You can look like an ancient old crone who has refused to Let Herself Go. And where’s the appeal in that??

As the years go by, try to think of me like this, asking my husband how my butt looks –

And know that these shoes weigh a full two pounds.

I’ve read that the first four years are the hardest. And you are most at risk to kill yourself.

I’m still here. That can be tough to excuse or justify.

I’ve lit my candle. It’s only right to thank the people who lit candles five years ago when I asked them to.

So thank you. It really helped.

xoxoxo

My poor darling Amy. I didn’t expect you to die, even if everyone else did. I expected you to get clean and sober, somehow. I expected you to live and I wanted you to live even if you never made another record.

Your voice moved me so deeply, its astonishing mature beauty and soul were even more amazing when I saw that it was housed in such a tiny young body.

I’m so sorry that you had to hurt that body. I know you only wanted to block out the pain you lived with. It must have been a terrible struggle to stick around for as long as you did.

I’ve always sneered at the idea of an Old Soul but now I accept it. I believe it means that you suffered from the beginning, from some burden you did nothing to deserve. I believe that you were more than a mess or a cautionary tale or a member of some stupid 27 Club. I believe that you were and will always be a holy soul.

I know your father will torture himself for leaving you alone, thinking that he might have saved you if he were holding your hand at the  crucial moment.   I’m so sorry that they took you away with no one there to kiss you goodbye.

I’m so sorry you’re gone.

Well, everybody is mad, and here’s why:   That bitch is guilty!

No matter how many lectures are written about this trial and its coverage in the media, if you followed the whole thing from the beginning, you know she’s guilty.   If your child drowns, you call the police.   You don’t turn up at your boyfriend’s house a few hours later and rent a movie as if nothing happened.

So the question remains: Is this jury just stupid?

I wonder if there’s a reliable source of data on jury selection. I’m cynical enough to believe the old joke about jury duty.   If you’re smart and sophisticated, you probably don’t want to get stuck doing jury service and you’ll probably find a way to avoid it.

An acquaintance explained why she hasn’t been following the Casey Anthony trial on TV: So many children are suffering from abuse every single day, it’s improper to spend so much attention on this one incident.

I admire her self-control and her strong sense of moral duty, but I think that people have a need to feel that justice is possible. The shock of seeing O.J. Simpson or Casey Anthony go free, instead of paying for their crimes, derives from this primal expectation of justice.

I hate those parents who enjoy telling their children that “life isn’t fair.” It should be fair! Unfairness should be unacceptable.

It was perversely gratifying to see Casey all dolled-up in court today. She looked like a Ronette or a stripper. Shedding her librarian look so quickly was another slap in the face but it adds to her mystique as a  psychopath.   I don’t know why I was surprised to learn that there’s at  least  one website devoted to the trial;   If I weren’t already so disgusted with the not-guilty verdict, I might click on the thing about Casey’s preferred snacks from the prison snack-shop or whatever it’s called.

Do you believe that when a jury speaks, justice has been served? Have you avoided jury duty? Do you think the phrase “reasonable doubt” is open to interpretation? And how do you feel about Casey’s hair?

Anthony Weiner is a gift from god for people like me who are struggling with depression.   His predicament (no pun intended) is so bizarre and tawdry, and yet  Shakespearean. If character is destiny, Weiner is screwed, or as he would put it, “First I’ll make you gag on my cock before I make you cum.”

Let me say first that I was on his side, in terms of refusing to resign, until I read the text of his online chats with women he’d never met and had no intention of meeting.

It wasn’t the fact that he was a reckless horndog that provoked my disapproval. I was ready to accept the fact that the internet is an irresistible siren song to anyone with a “weakness.” Whether it’s a weakness for shopping, for social networking, for gambling or for porn, the internet makes it  perilously  convenient to indulge.

According to friends I discussed this with, “sexting” is now common among fifty percent of teenagers. It’s a Brave New World out there, where not much is considered too personal, not to mention sacred.

I will admit to chatting online in a flirtatious manner.   Years ago I was chatting with someone who suddenly suggested “Send me a picture of your C**T” and the word was not cunt. I was so stunned and horrified, I shut the chat window and felt deeply shaken. I had no idea that people spoke to strangers like this. I learned that it’s the wild west out there online.

With Weiner, I imagined his sexy chat was something along the lines of “Baby, You’re so pretty, What are you wearing?” Big deal. Maybe he’s bored when his wife is busy and he’s just having a little tame sexy banter…. I don’t feel that calls for his resigntion, since it’s his personal business and he didn’t run for the Priesthood. Better to have a politition with a sex drive than Bush or Nixon, who seemed more interested in abusing the constitution than in getting laid.

But no matter what liberal   principles you think you have, it all goes to hell once you read Weiner’s raunchy efforts at seduction.   The deal breaker for me was “Pussy Juice.” It’s just a big NO in my world.   You can’t listen to a congressman talking about jobs or taxes or healthcare once he’s said Pussy Juice.   It’s over. He is toast.

So basically, for me at least, it comes down to literary aesthetics rather than any moral judgement. Sexting online isn’t a crime that would make someone unfit to serve as a congressman or mayor. Sending pictures is pretty lame but again, no real harm. Lying about it is only natural: You would want to avoid embarrassing your family. But a man’s game does reflect his sensibility. And “Pussy Juice” cannot be condoned. If only he could have said “Are you wet?” instead.

I cannot emphasize this enough but it must be repeated: Words matter! Choose them like everyone’s looking.

Opinions or objections?

My first response to these spring pumps by D&G was: “Sea of Shoes!” I   can’t think of anyone who could wear them better than Jane.

No one can do Nutty 70’s Divorcee like Jane does. Somehow she manages to look worn and trying-too-hard no matter what she wears. Her ‘Baby Jane’ Halloween costume was only a fraction scarier than her everyday look.

I think she could wear these shoes with a tutu over a Bob Mackie evening gown with maybe a huge bedazzled cowboy hat. Right? I don’t know, I’m crap at styling, obviously.

I’m not really mad at Jane any more. I have turned my wrath elsewhere. I’d like Jane to fix my roof or my teeth but if she chooses to buy shoes instead, I can deal with it.

Jane, these shoes are only $495. I hope their relatively low price won’t be a deterrent! You can buy them here.