Furiously Happy

by Jenny Lawson

  Our guide, whom I’ll call Jessica because I’m a terrible journalist and I don’t write down names, drove us (plus an older American couple and a young Danish girl) the short distance to the base of Uluru, where she began explaining that the part of the rock we see is “just the tip” (high five if you giggled there) and that the majority of the rock is still underground. Jessica used a stick to trace out in the red sand what Uluru actually looked like: the long shaft hidden, rising slowly upward until just the tip penetrated the surface. I stared at Laura with wide eyes and she stared back at me as we realized our guide had totally inadvertently drawn a penis on the ground that all of us were looking at in amazement. I got a quick photo of it but it doesn’t really show up in black and white, plus our guide was in the process of stomping it out. But if you’d like a color picture of a young woman stomping on a penis on the ground, I can deliver. Not that you would want that. I’d like to think that no one really wants that.

  We were sent to explore the desert and find out what might want to murder us. After an hour of heat we suspected it was Jessica, who kept pointing out new rocks. It was the same rock. I was no fool. Except that I was out in the desert on a forced walk, seeing imaginary snakes in every twig, so all bets were off.

  I never saw any live snakes but apparently Australia is lousy with them, and they have so many that even the lizards are snakes. Please note: If you’re a lizard but you don’t have legs, you are a snake. That’s how snakes work.

  “I am not a snake.”

  This snake is a dirty liar.

  It’s never not snake season in Australia. In Texas in the winter we at least get a break from the scorpions when they all seem to disappear. I assume they must be hibernating with bears, which is sort of terrifying because imagine waking up a cranky bear and he’s dripping with angry scorpions. That would be the worst thing ever and, now that I think about it, is probably something that totally exists in Australia.

  Laura and I started our walk around the big rock and it was quite enjoyable except for the flies, which followed you in hordes, like an angry entourage intent on setting up house in your nostrils. I just pinched my nose closed at one point and then I accidentally ate two flies. You’d think that would teach the other flies to avoid me, but no. These were stupid, reckless flies following stupid, reckless tourists. We pretty much belonged together.

  Uluru was quite cool and a bit mysterious. Laura and I both heard chanting, which we assumed was piped in, but which Jessica assured us was all in our heads. She suspected we were drunk. We weren’t, but we appreciated the suggestion and quickly located a pub. We found out that getting drunk in Australia is referred to as “putting on the wobbly boot” and “getting off your face” until you do the “Technicolor yawn,” which I think is the funnest euphemism for vomiting ever.

  We also learned how to pronounce things with an Australian accent. For example, if you say “Good eye, might” it sounds like “Good day, mate.” Also, “Raise up lights” = “razor blades” and “Dee yoon unduh” = “Down under.” Basically you just clench your teeth like you have TMJ. And drop a lot of “R”s haphazardly. Honestly, Australia is just wasting a lot of its “R”s. It’s a little idiculous.

  Goal Number 4: Find Out If Kangaroos Really Have Three Vaginas

  Did you know that kangaroos have three vaginas? Because they totally do and that’s probably why they’re always hitting each other. They probably have PMS every damn day of the week. But on the plus side, kangaroos have plenty of places to smuggle things because they have so many holes in their bodies. In fact, they’re so full of holes it’s sort of shocking that all the kangaroo doesn’t just leak out.

  Interestingly, female kangaroos have three vaginas, but male kangaroos only have a two-pronged penis. It’s like they’ve started a Darwinian game of one-upmanship and the girls are winning. (Fascinating factoid: Kangaroos also drool on themselves to keep cool [because nothing looks cooler than a drooling kangaroo] but that’s helpful to know because when you see them drooling at the mouth it doesn’t necessarily mean that they have rabies. It just means they’re hot [hot referring to their temperature, not sexiness]. If you find drooling kangaroos sexy you probably need help.)

  I wanted to ask the Wild Life Sydney Zoo about whether kangaroos actually do have three vaginas, but they wouldn’t even let me touch their koalas so I thought a gynecological exam on a kangaroo was probably out of the question. And also I didn’t have my forceps with me. Instead, Laura and I drove into the bush and looked for real, wild kangaroos so I could peer up their bums when they leaned over. I couldn’t see anything through the fur, although one of the kangaroos did get an erection. It was pink and not attractive. At least not to me. But then, I’m not a kangaroo. Although I did dress like one to put them at ease. Here’s a picture of me showing a kangaroo a picture of himself. He was unimpressed. Kangaroos don’t understand selfies.

  I gave up on my idea of looking at vaginas and I just decided to be a kangaroo better than a kangaroo. (Courtesy of Laura Mayes)

  Nailed it. (Courtesy of Laura Mayes)

  We also ate kangaroo, which I feel a bit bad about. Partially because they’re so cute and partially because they taste terrible. Well, maybe not terrible, but they taste a lot like blood, because if not served very rare, kangaroo becomes tough as shoe leather. This always seemed a strange analogy to me because when are people eating shoe leather? How do they know what it tastes like? Why not purse leather or pants leather?

  Australia is a very strange country because you spend days running around trying to find wild kangaroos so you can see their majesty and then you eat them on a pizza an hour later. Bloody, vampire-friendly pizza. People in Australia really seemed to like kangaroo meat, but the only time I ever had it and didn’t hate it was when it was served sliced very thin and drizzled in something alcoholic. I think I only liked it more then because there was so much less of it than usual. If they’d sliced it so thin that I could read through it I suspect I’d have liked it even more, and I probably would have even asked for seconds if they’d just waved a fork of kangaroo juice near my lips. Or maybe not. I’m not much of a foodie.

  Goal Number 5: Boomerang

  We had the opportunity to learn to throw spears in the outback but it was always scheduled right after we’d been drinking. Technically everything was scheduled right after we’d been drinking, but it was the outback. There’s not a lot to do other than get drunk. I tried a plastic boomerang that was sitting in a bin outside the gift shop but it failed to return and then I realized I’d basically just tossed unpaid merchandise as far as I could throw it. I considered going to get it but then I was concerned that when I picked it up it would be considered shoplifting and it seemed like that would have a stiffer penalty than just throwing merchandise into the desert. So instead I just went inside the gift shop to see if anyone would say anything to me. No one did. Probably because it happens all the time. You can’t just leave boomerangs out in the open and expect people not to throw them. It’s like Australian entrapment. I thought about paying for the boomerang but then I considered that it didn’t come back when I threw it so it was probably broken anyway. If anything I was doing unpaid boomerang testing. Laura didn’t entirely agree and thought perhaps my technique was bad, but she’d been in the bathroom at the time so she wasn’t really allowed to judge. “Honestly,” I said, “boomerangs are made to make people feel inadequate and unloved. They’re supposed to come back but they never do. Boomerangs are like bad, disloyal dogs or hot ex-boyfriends who your mom assures you will return after they realize they’ve made a terrible mistake in leaving you but they totally don’t.”

  “I’m pretty sure boomerangs work,” she said, “I’ve seen them on TV.”

  “And I’ve seen cartoon cats eat an entire pan of lasagna in one bite, but that doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t kill a real-life cat if you force-fed him that much cheese. Trust me. Boomerangs don’t work unless you throw them up.”

  Laura stared at
me. “Well, there’s your problem.”

  “No, I mean in the air. Not vomit them up,” I explained.

  “Ah.” She nodded. “I was wondering how that would help.”

  “Everything is a boomerang if you throw it straight up in the air,” I explained.

  “Not blimps,” she countered, with surprising speed considering the number of drinks she’d had.

  “Touché,” I replied. “I always forget blimps.”

  Goal Number 6: Just Get Out the Damn House

  This sounds absolutely ridiculous; however, leaving my house was the single hardest part of the whole weird trip. For someone who stays home for weeks at a time and struggles to even have a conversation with the UPS guy, saying yes to leaving my safe place was an achievement. And it was worth it. Sometimes you have to force yourself to leave your house even though every introverted bone in your body wants to secede and make you into a human jellyfish. But I pushed through. And it was amazing. And horrifying. And back to amazing. And weird. And baffling. And fantastic.

  We saw dangerous blowholes and hopped with wallabies down the beach and played in tide pools and learned Aboriginal dot painting in the outback and snuggled with camels in the desert. Then we watched six Shakespearean actors simultaneously vomit onstage at the Sydney Opera House. (It was on the small stage though. It was only like, three hundred babies long.)

  And it was good.

  But I still want to lick David Tennant’s face.1 Get to work on that, England. Australia’s in the lead here.

  Voodoo Vagina

  Last week my friend (Kim) mailed me one of her homemade, educational felted vaginas (with a small, felted baby inside of it so children can understand where babies come from). My first thought was that I no longer want to understand where babies come from. My second thought was, “Wait … is this pubic hair real? Because if it is I think I need to wash my hands. Also, isn’t that how voodoo dolls are made? I think if you add human hair to a doll it becomes a voodoo doll so logically wouldn’t that make this a voodoo vagina? WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING HERE?”

  (Courtesy of oneclassymotha.com)

  I left the vagina on my desk while I went to get my camera to take a picture of it (because no one would ever believe that I’d gotten a voodoo vagina in the mail and they’d be all, “Pics or it didn’t happen”) but when I got back to my desk MY VAGINA WAS MISSING. I mean not my vagina. The gifted vagina. (Not that my vagina isn’t gifted. It’s fine. This isn’t a contest.)

  I was instantly reminded of a story I heard when I was little, about a severed human hand that came to life and gave you wishes but murdered people while doing it. I always thought there could be nothing creepier than a severed hand running around the neighborhood murdering people, until I was faced with the notion that a lone voodoo vagina was skittering around my house. Except that the vagina was oval shaped and had no fingers so it’d have to roll, I guess. Which made it slightly less creepy, but only slightly.

  Then I remembered that Hailey was home and I didn’t want her to find a random voodoo vagina lying in wait because I’m a good mother, so I had to ask Victor for help “because someone sent me a vagina in the mail but it wandered off while I went to go get a camera and might be on a murderous rampage now.” He assumed I’d been drinking, but probably just because he knows how hard it is for me to ask for help.

  I clarified that it was an arts-and-crafts vagina designed to show how babies are born but that I think it did have real pubic hair on it and that’s why it probably came to life and ran away before I could photograph my friend’s vagina. Then Victor shook his head, but instead of shutting his door he came out and helped me go vagina hunting because honestly when else are you going to have the opportunity to do that?

  Fifteen minutes later we discovered the missing vagina halfway up the stairs, where the cat was chewing on it. I was a little grossed out, but more just concerned about my friend, because if it was a voodoo vagina she’d probably just fallen crotch-first into a chipper-shredder.

  I had a closer look and realized it was that plastic doll hair you can buy in bags from craft stores and I felt a bit relieved, but Victor said I couldn’t keep the vagina even if it wasn’t made from pubic hair. This seemed a waste of a perfectly good vagina, but then I noticed that the cat had really torn it up quite a bit and had gnawed off the felt baby’s head and so I figured it was a lost cause.

  I was worried that the cat had eaten the baby’s head and would have a digestive block, but then later we found the head in the toilet. It wasn’t really a surprise because that cat loves to carry small things around and then drop them in the toilet. Cat toys, Polly Pockets, Barbie doll heads, lipsticks. They all end up in the toilet if you don’t keep the lid shut. It’s like her own personal wishing well. I have no idea what the hell she thought she was going to get in return for a baby’s head she’d ripped out of a vagina, but regardless she seemed optimistic and mewled sweetly, rubbing against my legs as I peered down into the toilet. I flushed, delivering her small sacrifice to whatever toilet god she was praying to. God knows what she wished for. Probably more felt vaginas.

  PS: For some reason people seem to leave this chapter with more questions than they had before they started so let me reiterate that Kim makes these felt, baby-filled vaginas as an educational tool for young children. She calls them Beaver Babies and they now feature “new and improved pubic hair.” You can also use them as really gross wallets if you want people to never steal change from you.

  PPS: I didn’t make a single “pussy” joke in this chapter. Someone get me a damn medal.

  The World Needs to Go on a Diet. Literally.

  Yesterday my doctor said that I need to lose about twenty pounds to be at “a healthy weight.” I really didn’t appreciate it because I’d already had quite enough fat-shaming from a dressing room that week. This sounds ridiculous unless you’re a woman and then you’re probably nodding because you know the struggle.

  All dressing rooms are just small cubes of vulnerability with mirrors to help multiply the shame. The worst dressing rooms are the ones that are missing doors for some reason. It’s like a nightmare, but real. There was a store in the mall when I was in junior high (back before malls got sad and dangerous) that had open, non-doored dressing stalls that were located all around the edge of the room with a big empty square in the middle, so every other person in the dressing room could witness you not realizing that there was a zipper, or see you with the dress stuck over your head, or sweatily struggling to pull a pair of too-small pants over your hips as you heard an unfortunate ripping sound and hoped that people thought it was just gas.

  Even in regular, private dressing rooms clerks inevitably come to your door right when you’re most entangled in something and say, “Can I help?” And you say, “Nope. Doing great!” in that shaky, high, fake voice that you hope says that you totally don’t have a shirt stuck around your shoulders. And you know the salesclerks are probably watching you on camera and know that you’re stuck, which makes it even more embarrassing. My guess is that several stores probably have entire blooper reels of me falling and breaking things.

  I feel almost as bad when I take eight things into a fitting room and none of them fit but I don’t want to tell the fitting room attendant that, because “None of these worked” feels like code for “Sorry. I’m fatter than I thought I was.” Instead, I give her all but one outfit, which I then put back myself when no one is looking. Because apparently the opinion of a total stranger who hands plastic numbers to people all day matters to me. I’ve tried saying, “These didn’t work for me,” because then it’s like you’re putting the blame on the clothes. Like, these clothes just weren’t even trying. But the downside is that the clerk might offer to help and that’s worse because then they start bringing you stuff they think you’d like and it’s never the right size and by not buying the clothes they suggested it’s like you’re rejecting them too. It’s better though than those stores that only go up to a size ten and I just
have to pretend that I came in to look at the scarves and jewelry with all the other curvy women who feel insulted too. Usually it’s only an accidental insulting, but sometimes it’s intentional, like the time the clerk looked at me like I was the Michelin Man and said, “I don’t think we carry your size.” It felt shitty and Pretty Woman–esque, so I explained that I was just there to buy clothes for stray, homeless dogs, because I like to put them in outfits that are warm but not nice enough to steal from a dog. That shut her right up.

  I try to love myself exactly the way I am, but it’s hard to not feel a bit crappy when your doctor is focused on “health” and all that bullshit. And yes, I might be slightly overweight but I’m pretty sure this isn’t entirely my fault. It’s the world’s fault.

  Technically, if I were farther away from the center of the Earth then I’d be subjected to less gravity and then I would weigh less. So I’m not really fat. I’m just not high enough. Victor says I sound pretty high already but I suspect he’s just being insulting.