by Jenny Lawson
Three a.m. I couldn’t sleep. Luckily I was sharing a bed with Laura, who sleeps like the dead, but I still felt bad for tossing, so I bundled up in ten layers of clothes and a hoodie so I could sit by the pool and watch cartoons on my phone without disturbing anyone. Except the woods reminded me of Twilight and I found myself worried about vampires.
Four a.m. I decided it was late enough in Texas to call Victor. He was getting Hailey ready for school, but about ten minutes into the call I got attacked by a giant bear. Except not really, but it felt like it. Basically I was on the phone and this big animal walked into the pool area from the forest, and I whispered, “Holy SHIT. What the fuck is that?!” and Victor was all, “Where’s Hailey’s brush? Why don’t you put things back where they belong?” and I yelled, “THERE IS A FUCKING WILD ANIMAL SLUNKING UP TO ME,” and Victor said, “Huh?” but I could still hear him rummaging around for a brush.
Then I yelled, “I’M GOING TO BE EATEN BY A COUGAR. Wait, are there cougars in California?” And Victor was all, “Yeah. I think so. Oh! So I never got to tell you my idea for an iPhone app I’m going to make.” Then I considered calling him an asshole, but the animal was edging closer, and although it was dark I could see it didn’t have a tail, so I whispered, “Bobcat! I’m going to be attacked by a bobcat. Or a cougar that lost its tail. Probably because it got gnawed off by a vampire. And now it’s a vampire cougar. I am totally fucked.” But I said all that in my mind, because I was being quiet so that I wouldn’t attract its attention. It looked up, saw me, and then slunk off.
Victor was yelling, “Hello? Dumb-ass by the pool at four a.m.? Are you still alive?! TALK TO ME!” and I shakily said, “I’m fine. It ran away,” but before I could start talking about my traumatic experience he started talking about iPhone apps again, and I screamed, “WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT COMPUTERS WHEN I COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED?”
VICTOR: You’re fine. So do you want to hear about my iPhone app idea I had?
ME: No.
VICTOR: Too bad. I made an iPhone app that tells you when cougars are near you. It doesn’t work when you’re on the phone, though.
ME: I hate you so much right now.
Six a.m.:
ME: OH MY GOD, LAURA, WAKE UP. I totally just got attacked by a cougar!
LAURA: [still groggy] What?
ME: It might have been a bobcat.
LAURA: YOU SAW A BOBCAT?
ME: It was small, though, so probably a baby bobcat.
LAURA: [silence]
ME: It might have been a house cat. BUT IT WAS ENORMOUS. And it totally looked at me in a threatening way.
LAURA: Did it growl?
ME: No. But I could totally tell it wanted to.
LAURA: How big was it?
ME: Big enough that I could put it in a cardboard box and carry it around, but it’d probably be heavy. Like, I could fit it in my suitcase but just barely. We could put it in your enormous suitcase, though, and it could probably live comfortably for weeks.
LAURA: I’m going to throw cougars in the room if you don’t stop making fun of my suitcase.
ME: [to the ten people eating an early breakfast the next morning] Did Laura tell you I got attacked by a bear last night?
EVERYONE: WHAT?
LAURA: She did not get attacked by a bear.
ME: Bear . . . cougar. Same difference.
LAURA: There was no attack. She’s fine.
ME: I think someone should ask the owners how many cougars they keep on the property.
LAURA: I already asked the owners what it could have been, and they said there are some feral cats around.
ME: I’m pretty sure “feral cats” is code for “vampire cougars.”
ME: [to everyone else who came to breakfast one hour later] So last night I was attacked by Sasquatch. It was like a smaller version of the Loch Ness monster. But on land. So, yeah. It was pretty fucking terrifying.
No one really responded, but it didn’t surprise me, because it’s hard to know what to say in those situations. It’s like when someone tells you they got stabbed. There’s not an easy response in that situation. Unless it just happened. Then I suggest, “Lie down and tell us who the murderer is,” because that way it’ll save the homicide detectives a lot of time later.
The morning I found out that we were all going to wine education class I felt like I was in some kind of finishing school and I’d missed all the prerequisites. Our teacher was an author who’d apparently been on the Today show a lot. There were five full glasses of wine in front of me, but the wine teacher told us that we were not allowed to drink any of them until after we finished the lesson. I imagine this is how dogs feel when you put a biscuit on their nose and tell them not to eat it. Except I totally stole sips of the wine when the teacher wasn’t looking, because I’m really shitty at being an obedient dog.
We spent a lot of time learning how to swish the glass of wine. I’d always assumed people did that to seem snotty, but apparently the more oxygen you get in your wine, the better it tastes, so when you swish it, it spreads out all over the glass and gets more air. I felt sorry for the girl sitting on my right, because apparently I’m a bit of an overachiever when it comes to wine swishing, and so she was sloshed by me several times. Luckily she was nonchalant and simply licked the excess wine off her arm, a move that I considered both ecological and classy. Our teacher looked displeased, so to distract her I asked why people don’t just serve wine on large dinner plates with straws to suck it up, and she smiled at me stiltedly and told me she’d never been asked that before. I was pretty sure that was code for “I am totally going to steal your brilliant idea.” I wrote my number down on a napkin and told her that if she started marketing wine plates I wanted a cut. She agreed but then left quickly. I’ll probably never see any of that money.
Five vans of chicks took off to visit wineries for wine tasting. Only four came back.1
By my tenth glass of wine I started to wonder whether there was something wrong with my palate. Everyone else was marking the wine list with notes like “Pleasant finish. Robust spices.” Meanwhile, I was doodling pictures of vampiric cougars. Then I noticed people staring at my doodles, and so I started writing notes next to the wine. Things like “Tastes of NyQuil, but in a good way,” and “This one will get you all the way fucked up.” “I can’t feel my feet anymore.” “Did I leave the garage door open? I wonder whether the cat is on fire. I should probably stop drinking now.” Everyone else there had a sophisticated palate. I had one that needed therapy, and possibly an intervention.
The last winery looked totally haunted, and the ducks outside reminded me to be on the lookout for hungry-looking homeless people, but I was quickly distracted when the servers brought out cheese. I whispered to the girl next to me that I was very excited about having my first cheese tasting because I love cheese. Especially cheddar. I like all the flavors of cheddar. Sharp, very sharp, smoky sharp. I’m kind of a connoisseur. But then when the cheese came it was all unrecognizable and THERE WAS NO CHEDDAR AT ALL. I was all, “WHAT KIND OF A FUCKING CHEESE PLATE IS THIS?” but I just said it in my mind (or possibly only with my indoor voice, because I was tipsy but still trying to be a professional). The servers explained that they were a bunch of “art cheeses” that had won contests, and truthfully they were pretty delish except for one of my pieces, which had a Band-Aid in it. So I said, “There is a Band-Aid on my cheese,” and the Asian girl I’d offended earlier bent forward and was all, “No. That’s bandage-wrapped blah-blah-French-something-blah,” and I thanked her, but I ate only the end farthest from the Band-Aid just in case she was still trying to get even with me for being unintentionally racist. An hour later, though, we bonded when we got lost in a labyrinth of wine casks in a desperate search for the bathroom, and she assured me that she was not trying to make me eat a Band-Aid. The desperate need to get rid of your urine is the great equalizer.
There was apparently some sort of yellow-jacket infestation at one of the wineries, because they wer
e everywhere. The guy who poured the booze joked that the color of that particular wine came from all of the ground-up yellow jackets that fell into the casks. I peered into my glass suspiciously, and he laughed and explained that he was just kidding, but that yellow jackets really do like the wine, so there might be some in there. I still drank it. “No biggie,” I said casually, “but I’m deathly allergic to yellow jackets, so I’m probably going to die here.” The rest of the table was all, “Really?” and I was like, “No, not really. But wouldn’t that be a great way to die?” Everyone at the table was silent, probably because they were busy thinking that yeah, that totally would be a great way to die.
Eight p.m. I was supposed to be downstairs eating barbecue, but I was on the verge of an anxiety attack, so I bowed out, and everyone was very sweet and understanding. That’s the great thing about hanging out with bloggers. They already know that you’re broken, and most of them are, too, so they just nod and make you go take Xanax and go to bed. They’re very supportive. Also they probably wanted me to leave so they could talk about me.
Laura dropped off a plate of barbecue and some water, and patted my head reassuringly when I told her how bad I felt that I wasn’t down there. “It’s fine, I promise. Everyone totally understands.” She walked out the door but then turned back quickly to say drily, “But you are getting kicked off cheer squad.”
I love my friends.
Four a.m. I woke up and found that Laura was missing. I looked outside for her but I couldn’t see her. I vaguely wondered whether I might have accidentally murdered her in my drug-induced state. “Probably not, though,” I thought to myself. “Not enough blood around. Unless the blood is in the bathroom.” I decided to look later.
Eight a.m. LAURA WAS NOT DEAD! She had fallen asleep somewhere else, and came back because she was worried that I’d think she’d gotten kidnapped.
ME: No, I thought I’d murdered you and then blocked it out.
LAURA: You thought you’d murdered me?
ME: Just for a second, but there wasn’t enough blood. But the showerhead was askew, so I thought maybe I’d just washed off all the blood in the shower. But it didn’t seem like me. I’m terrible at cleaning up after myself.
LAURA: Well, it’s nice to know that I’d be the first person you’d want to kill.
ME: No way. I adore you. You’re the last person I’d want to kill. That’s why I figured I’d blocked it out. I figured I’d recover all those memories later with therapy, and then also I’d suddenly remember being abducted and probed by aliens. Which would suck. I’m glad you’re not dead, though, because I’m already fucked up enough without remembering an involuntary probing.
LAURA: And I guess that whole “murdering your best friend” thing would be a downer too, I suppose.
ME: That too. Mostly the probing, though.
Ten a.m.: Yoga in the rain.
We were all doing the downward-dog position and all I could think was, “For the love of Christ, just don’t let me fart.” I’d begun to pray to the baby Jesus to deliver me from accidentally passing gas, and then someone else farted. It wasn’t me, but all I could think was that I felt total empathy for her, and also that I really wanted to say, “That was totally not me,” but it probably wouldn’t be appropriate, since we were all supposed to be meditating.
I worked up enough courage to talk to Maggie and thanked her for inviting me, and then found myself telling her that I’d decided that if anyone there was a mass murderer it was she. She was silent, and I pointed out that I meant that in a good way, because she was the most organized. Then she asked the cook for a cleaver and I got a bit nervous, but turns out it was because she thought it was brilliant and wanted to act out a murder scene. And so we did. . . .
And it was awesome.
The final morning we all sat around by the pool, wrapped in blankets with mussed hair and no makeup, and I listened to the conversations around me the same way I had in high school, but instead of trying to block them out or sneer at them internally, I smiled and nodded. I forced myself to join in and listen to all the conversations going on around me, rather than hide my head in a book to avoid rejection. And I realized just how awesome girl conversations could be. Random snippets of overheard conversations:
“I’ve never said this to anyone before, but sometimes I think my baby is a real asshole. Is that normal?”
“Oh, yeah. My baby is a total dick sometimes.”
“You know when you’re in Nepal and there are all these Japanese people around and it’s two a.m. and you’re in a basement and you’re trying to find breakfast and suddenly a magician shows up?”
“Oh, I know exactly what you’re talking about.”
“My dad had anger problems, so his doctor recommended he go to mime school to learn how to deal quietly with his emotions. It wasn’t until I grew up that I realized that everyone doesn’t have this memory of taking mime classes with their angry dad.”
“I don’t like mimes. I don’t like the fact that they fake a disability.”
“Right? Why stop at mimicking the mute? Where are the clowns pretending to have polio?”
“I once slept with this guy who had an ENORMOUS penis. Like, it was a problem. The condoms wouldn’t even fit. I was so overwhelmed that I accidentally laughed at it. Then it shrunk. He was not pleased.”
“That should be a comic book. Penis giganticus is his superpower, and women laughing at it is his kryptonite.”
“Do you ever get on the subway and think, ‘Who is that guy in the back? He looks familiar. Did I sleep with him?’ That happens to me all the time.”
“No. That’s never happened to me. Whore. But it has happened to me on the bus a lot.”
The final hour:
As we all dragged our luggage out to the waiting vans, I looked with a surprising amount of affection on these women who only days ago I would have immediately dismissed as being snobby or mean, but who all turned out to have backstories and struggles just as damaged or bizarre as my own. Sure, I was the only person there with just one small carry-on and a single pair of shoes. But I was embarrassed to realize that those things that set me apart from other girls had turned from what I’d considered “self-proclaimed badges of honor” into defensive shields that I had used to keep others out. I’d used those same shields to judge and dismiss people who I suspected had more than me, in the exact same way that I’d been judged for having less as a kid.
I tossed my small bag in the van and went back to help my newfound friends with their enormous luggage sets and hanging garment bags, and they smiled in appreciation, shocked that I’d managed to pack for such a long trip using only one small bag. I smiled back in silence and felt a little guilty at their praise. They may have all had suitcases three times as big as mine, but I realized that the emotional baggage I’d brought with me was big enough to put theirs to shame. It was a little lighter, though, now that I was leaving.
I was leaving behind my assumptions that only snobby, rich people liked wine, and that everyone would immediately break into cliques based on who had owned the right kind of underwear. And most important, I was leaving behind the idea I’d been carrying around for years that girls were not to be trusted. Yes, some girls could be complete douche-canoes, but so could some guys (and even some babies, apparently), and I was slowly losing a prejudice that I hadn’t even realized was holding me back. Girls were fine and (until proven to be assholes on an individual basis) were worthy of my trust. Women were great and relatively harmless.
It’s the four a.m. vampire cougars in the woods you really need to be worried about.
1. Really, all five came back, but this way sounds more dramatic.
I Am the Wizard of Oz of Housewives (In That I Am Both “Great and Terrible” and Because I Sometimes Hide Behind the Curtains)
Victor and I have very different definitions of what constitutes a clean house.
Victor’s definition involves absolutely everything perfectly in its place (except for
the eight thousand wires and extension cords sticking out from every electronic device in our house, which are all apparently invisible to him). It also includes all of this happening magically, without his actually ever being involved in the cleaning at all (except for the one time when I ran into the living room because I thought I heard him doing whip-its,1 but turns out he was just spraying furniture polish. It’s amazing how alike the sound of canned whipped cream squirted directly into the mouth and lemon-scented Pledge can be. I’d felt guilty for a second that Victor was actually cleaning without me, but then I realized that he was just polishing the gearshift of his car and I went back to watching zombie movies).