Listening to This American Life and a metal fan that looks like something the Wright brothers designed with a dog who rolls on his back when touched, submitting to belly rubs in a way that makes you think it was your idea.
Today someone walked in on me naked in a dressing room. She proceeded to scream in horror. I was all WTF? Not because she walked in on me naked, but because she screamed. Hey, I wanted to tell her, I’ve been running.
What matters most while filling out an online dating profile
Have you ever cried on the first date?
Oh Jesus, should I answer this honestly? There was that girl who spoke with a French accent. A fast talker, she tossed compliments like dishes in an argument. She said she could love me. It was a quiet cry, soft, hot. Will people think I’m a whore for it? Maybe. I should just say yes. Be honest with yourself, Sara.
No.
Optimally, how many dates would you wait to cry in front of someone?
1-2
3-5
6 or more
After marriage
Ah, shit. I should skip this question. This is a horrible question. Optimally? What the fuck does that mean? Like how sensitive is this person? It’s an enjoyable experience, but probably not enjoyable for the other person if it’s ideally on the first date. What would you have to cry over? Spilled wine? Maybe I should say three to five. That sounds right. Definitely three to five. It’s both hip and open. The kids will find you very cool, Sara, but in like a nostalgic sort of way. They’ll probably think you listen to Pink Floyd.
3-5.
Are you a loud crier?
Wow. This is probably over personal. I shouldn’t answer this. I mean, if I say yes will people think there has been un-consensual crying in my past? Or, that I’m just a very free and liberated woman?
Skip.
Once in a relationship, how often would you like to cry with your partner?
Every day
Every other day
Three times a week
Once a week
Every day sounds exhausting. You’d get nothing done; you’d be emotionally drained. But, how much can you get done with all that built up inside of you? And who only cries once a week? Doesn’t that person have a heart? Or do they just listen to shitty music?
Every other day.
Will you have sex without the intent of procreation? For pleasure?
Duh.
Yes.
I couldn’t relate to any of the characters in Girls, until one of them masturbated. And then I was like, oh yeah I can relate to that.
I shouldn’t feel this happy about outsmarting my dog into a bath. But, there have been too many times when I think I’m about to sneak up on him from behind only to find out he’s right behind me.
Anonymous asked: What are your five favorite pieces you've written?
I’m going to do this David Letterman style in that it won’t be funny:
5. This story I wrote about local graffiti
3. This story I wrote about student co-op housing in Lawrence
1. This
I should also mention a few others that people like:
Oh, and this short on boudoir photography ( I think people only like this one because my side boob is in it)
I just want to jump
Not off or in
But up
Away from this world
The one in which I often feel
More like three kids in a trench coat
Than an adult
Like I know more now
Than I’ll ever know
Which isn’t to say I know much
But I will never know much
That moment when you think your crush at the auto repair shop is giving you his number…and then realize he is actually giving you the password to the wifi
I STILL LOVE YOU!
I was a scrawny kid. My arms could easily have been confused for a bundle of strings that strayed off my shirt at some point and were never clipped off. I was the last person I knew to get my period. At one point, I thought I had willed it to happen, but later realized the vermilion color I was peeing was the result of too much orange Fanta. I finally did get my period, as a sophomore in high school, on one of the few days we got to swim in gym class. I pretended that I’d had it before, asked another girl to “remind” me how to work a tampon, and spent five minutes in the bathroom pretending I was a surgeon with a British accent.
I was different, but I never felt like I didn’t have a place. I wanted to be a forensic pathologist, like Scully on X Files. To be a scientist meant that I was allowed to be eccentric. I wore ¾-sleeve abstract printed shirts and men’s ties as belts. Sure, my friends laughed when I fell in love with jeggings in the 90s — the same women who wear them now — but they still let me tag along with them on their frequent trips to Sonic.
But, a problem arises when someone tells you your difference is a weakness, disability or flaw. I’ve been told that I’m “over emotional” as though it were a sickness, as though it were something that I should change, could change, would want to change. It’s in these moments that I think about how society has created a world more accessible to those who have two functioning legs, who are white, who are male, who are heterosexual…
People who are differently-abled, who have a different skin color, who identify as female and or queer have always existed. Nature did not make staircases to buildings. Nature did not make heterosexual marriage, or any form of marriage. Society constructed these things, just as we construct barriers in ourselves. We too make it more difficult for people who are different than us to access our internal selves.
I’ve spent much of my life with people who I perceive as different or who perceive me as different. There have been times when this has led to self-doubt, to questions of character judgement. I have said to myself that certain personality traits are less than, are character flaws. I have created strata of differences in the past. But, recently, I was reminded how beneficial different can be when someone much different than myself taught me how to love being “more emotional.” I’ve since embraced the desire to cry at a movie, to laugh so hard I sound like a squeaking shopping cart, to say some things “too soon,” and understand that it’s never too late.
I guess what I am saying is… next time you think about building stairs to yourself, try building a ramp instead. Becoming a more accessible person to others might just mean becoming more accessible to yourself.
Letter to a friend
So, life in Lawrence has been pretty all right. Goose is still a bad dog, no matter how many kisses I give him. I did put a lot of thought into making an altered image of him with a monocle and top hat. I’m thinking about starting him an account on OK Cupid.
Sorry to hear about your breakup. You deserve someone who is willing to move to the Arctic Circle for your career aspirations. So, he’s dumb. As much as we try to convince ourselves that we are independent and don’t need to follow the “normal” path of life, it does suck a bit to think about your life without a long-term partner or maybe without kids. Sometimes I cry. I just wanted to say that. You know, I do, because people suck often times and why is it so hard for SOMEONE TO LOVE ME.
haha. Awkward.
Congrats on your job! I’m glad you found something that you like to do and you’re able to continue doing it. That really is the best and so maybe you’re one step ahead of a lot of people. Some people don’t have the family or the job.
Speaking about people, I’m a person and I’m graduating in one year. I’m taking it easy this last two semesters. My goal is to get a badass job writing for a magazine. Also, to convince Kayla to sleep outside once in this next year.
Always great to hear from you. Hope to hear from you again soon,
Sara (& Goose)
Meet Professor Butt Wiggles
I’m sitting in the third stall of the fourth-floor bathrooms in Wescoe Hall. I’m telling you this not because I’m double tasking, but because it is here that I’ve found an unrestricted discussion among KU students. Slanted letters in black sharpie are scribbled on the door:
“May the bridges I burn light my way.”
“Don’t believe in yourself. Believe in me, who will believe in you.”
“My professor says Toxic is a more appropriate name for Tonic. #kugirlproblems”
Several more of the writings on the stall have the hash tag “kugirlproblems.” It’s also noted on the door that there is a Twitter account with the same name. I contacted Kugirlproblems on Twitter. The writers (who wrote back “we”) say they are not associated with the writing in the Wescoe Hall bathroom. Though, it could be that they are lying about public vandalism or that they do not want to confess to such a meager beginning.
Adam Trahan, an associate professor in the Criminal Justice Department at the University of North Texas, would argue that sharpie on a swinging metal door is the perfect medium for an open discussion. A recent study by Trahan, The Dialogic Nature of Latrinala, which analyzed 323 works of bathroom graffiti, found that anonymous graffiti is a uniquely accurate and unrestricted expression of sentiment.
“…the dominant theme is best characterized as an impassioned dispute where no single ideology prevails. The debate is clearly ongoing,” Trahan said. “It does, however, reflect, as do the rules of bathroom behavior observed during data collection, a general discomfort regarding the nature of the space where it appears.”
The anonymity provided by a bathroom in addition to the fact that everyone has business to attend there creates an environment where all sides of an argument can take part in the discussion, as long as they brought something to write with.
On my way to the KJHK studio to finish up a couple of stories I’m working on. I was about to leave my house in sweats. So close. I just couldn’t do it. Somehow I feel like people will be able to tell if I write a story in sweat pants. Is there such a thing as sweat pant residue?
I Can’t Make You Love Me by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin and recorded by Bonnie Raitt
Turn down the lights
Turn down the bed
Turn down these voices inside my head
Lay down with me, tell me no lies
Just hold me close, don’t patronize
Don’t patronize me.
Cause I can’t make you love me if you don’t
You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t
Here in the dark, in these final hours
I will lay down my heart and I’ll feel the power
But you won’t, no you won’t
Cause I can’t make you love me if you don’t.
I’ll close my eyes, then I won’t see
The love you don’t feel when you’re holdin me
Morning will come and I’ll do what’s right
Just give me till then to give up this fight
And I will give up this fight
Cause I can’t make you love me if you don’t
You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t
Here in the dark, in these final hours
I will lay down my heart and I’ll feel the power
But you won’t, no you won’t
Cause I can’t make you love me if you don’t
My name’s not Friday, it’s Frank. Friday has become very popular, what with everyone thanking God for her. And so, every third week I fill in for her. Yet, no one seems to notice. An underemployed day, like myself, just can’t afford the same advertising as the other days. My dream is to see my name at the top of a calendar. But I’d settle for being in a Rebecca Black song.
Sometimes, when the days run over and you’ve lost track of time. I give you the overwhelming notion to find the nearest swing and kick your legs so hard back and forth that the chains shriek and the bars shake. Friday would never do that. Sure, she’s casual, but she’s not spontaneous.
I enjoy seeing your face, when you wake up to me. I’m happy to give you a feeling of relief, after a long workweek. I just wish you loved me for who I am. I don’t blame you for thinking I’m Friday. I know I’m standing where she usually does. But I have so much to offer. Frank the 13ths are even more rare, and there are no lines on Black Franks.
Sometimes, I wish I were in your shoes. I wish I could love a day so blindly that I didn’t even know which day it was. But, I’d never do that to any other day. I’d never make them feel the way I do. To know so many people love her for being someone else. To know no one will ever love her for being frank.
Me: And his voice, it sounded like he was talking through some kind of voice modulator. Very douchey. What would be a good name for a voice setting that made your voice sound douchey?
Kayla: Douche Acoustic
Me: Yes! He was using the Douche Acoustic voice setting. Everything was followed by a “bra” or a “dude.”
