Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes

by Phoebe Robinson

  * Da hell was I talking about? I’ve never seen one singular frame of this show, but I was trying to convince him I was gonna watch ten seasons of a series I don’t know much about. I mean, I know there are zombies . . . and it’s set in Louisiana? Tennessee? Look, I know it’s set somewhere in the South where people read strangers with the condescending phrase “Bless your heart.” Is that the full title of the show? The Walking Dead: Bless Your Heart? That sounds fun and catty. I’d definitely watch.

  * Honestly, the show should be retitled Peaky Fuckin’ Blinders because every time I’d walk in on my boyfriend watching it, Cillian Murphy would be hitting someone over the head then saying, “We’re the Peaky fuckin’ Blinders!” And I’d be like, “In seas three you still have to announce yourself? Isn’t the ONE rival gang up to speed on who would be beating their ass right now?” Even Jason Derulo stopped singing, “Jason Derulo!” after his second hit. We all get it, Cills!

  * LOL. Can you imagine the USPS wasting adhesive technology on their stamps because my face was going to be on them during Black History Month thanks to my contribution to the culture being “Thirsty Black Woman Who Traveled Sixteen Hours to Be the Only Black Person at a U2 Concert”? But, also, this isn’t my fault! The Obamas, Mariah Carey, Colin Kaepernick, and LeBron James have practically taken the last of notable firsts a Black person can achieve, so now I’m left with bargain basement options, so I’ll take what I can get at this point if it means my mug is on a stamp that someone will use to mail out their holiday cards.

  * Dear reader, that’s my nickname for Bono and he, for some reason, puts up with it.

  * Essentially, the Marco Polo app is the video version of text messaging, in which we all can live out our direct-to-camera The Real World confessional dreams and communicate with friends and loved ones on our terms with no pressure on the other party to have to respond right away. Holy hell, we’re a noncommittal generation.

  * Truthfully, a whole essay could be devoted to the damage that occurs from videos of Black people being murdered going viral. On one hand, these videos are what it “takes” for the nation to pay attention to the blatant injustices, abuses of power, and results of systemic racism. On the other hand, the circulation of these videos reinforces the notion that Black life is a wholly traumatic experience, that death by the hands of, usually, white authority figures is a fate that cannot be avoided, and I wonder what the cost is mentally and spiritually when these videos are used as a means of raising “awareness,” when Black people are forced to compartmentalize at work in order to engage in small talk to their coworkers and bosses as if Black people aren’t being slaughtered. What are the nuanced results of repeatedly being fed the narrative that Black people are victims? At what point are these videos no longer “news” and just propaganda to uphold patriarchal subjugation? I reckon that we crossed this threshold a long fucking time ago.

  * Leap years don’t count because mofos are like, “Black History Month ends at 11:59 p.m. regardless!” and roll up to work with shamrock glasses they bought from Duane Reade in anticipation of St. Patrick’s Day, which is a full fortnight and a quarter away.

  * Why was it so poorly acted by such a talented crop of people? Y’all have careers that have lasted decades, won you awards, and paid for your mortgage and your plant-based diet provided to you by your private chef. Like BIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH, you were in The Devil Wears Prada. Is this how the fuck you did a chem read with Meryl Streep? You just did this trash-ass acting, wilting her fresh AF blowout with the hot air you lifelessly blew out your mouth? Get. It. Together. You shouldn’t have to act like you care about Black people. Just do, and do it not in front of the cameras for brownie points.

  * Laurieann Gibson is a music video director and choreographer for top acts including Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Alicia Keys. In 2005, Gibson rose to prominence on Diddy’s seminal MTV show, Making the Band, and became known for the way she taught steps at hyper speed to ratchet up the drama and then, in post, the editor punctuated each “boom” and “kack” with a door slam sound effect, which was foreboding, I guess, as the music industry closed its doors on all the bands who tried to make it. #JusticeForDanityKane #JusticeForDiddyDirtyMoney

  * LOL. I know that me building on top of a James Baldwin quote is like putting ketchup on filet mignon, but go with me here, please.

  * I know! I don’t look like it. Lol. But also, I’m not, as Mai vehemently reminds me. I’m only thirty-six, which she says means I’m firmly in the midthirties camp. But the other day, she and I spent twenty minutes texting about the various stages of my foot peel (complete with me sending her pics of my feet with the “live photo” option turned on in case she needed to see the peel in motion) and the best moisturizing heel socks and foot repair ointment creams to treat cracked heels. I mean c’mon! That alone should be enough to legitimize my on-the-cuspishness-of-forty claim.

  * Kidding! I do not condone robbery of any kind even if it’s to give back to the financially insecure.

  * That is a real plot from the comics. Normally, I choose a side, but I’m Switzerland this time because cats need a balanced diet.

  * This might be a deep cut, but fans of The Real Housewives of Atlanta will remember what I’m about to refer to, but even if you’ve never seen the show, you should still get it. Anyway, in an episode of RHOA, all the ladies and their boos were on a group trip when Marlo Hampton tried to get clarity on salacious rumors about Kandi Burruss (read: Marlo wanted to be messy as hell while everyone was eating shrimp scampi). Once the rumors were repeated, Burruss, Kenya Moore, and Porsha Williams took turns saying, “Who said that?” “Who said that?” “Who said that?” for approximately twenty-seven minutes. Well, that’s literally what every colonized and formerly colonized group on the planet said when they read “One of my favorite things about dating a white person from the UK” before finishing the sentence.

  * I know we live in a Cash App, PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay, direct-deposit-my-paycheck-to-my-City-National-Bank-account society, but once upon a time (ten-plus years ago), people, sometimes, still carried around checkbooks and wrote checks to pay for things. If the check was to a friend, you’d be like, “Don’t cash this until when you look at the nighttime sky, you see Orion’s Belt is slightly obscured by three clouds moving west at 11:57 p.m. . . . then wait three days after that and cash that shit.” What’s unsaid but understood in this request is “Look, I don’t have the funds right now, so don’t fuck up my life with a bounced check charge. Just wait. Puhleeze!” However, if the check was to a business, it’s like, “Key Food, you and I both know what this is. I’m paying for cereal, milk, olives, and orange juice with a Betty Boop–themed check. Clearly, I’m not great at decision-making and I don’t have money to pay for this ragtag group of grocery items. So if the check bounces, it bounces. I still got my Kashi corn flakes.” #BrokeAndBougie

  * By the way, an article in the Guardian that was published the next year reported that the number of posts is now over eighteen million.

  * Many are up in arms about Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s comically raunchy collabo on “WAP” and their sensual dancing, because of the potential effect it could have on their young fans. I hear them, but I would like us all to remember that in the early aughts, the default go-to dancing across the cunch aka country in high school and college was literally teenage girls and women backing their asses into men’s crotches and then grinding against them until their thighs tired out or a Bad Boy Records playlist ended, whichever came first. Like, we weren’t even smooth with it. It was legit like, “Hi! Do you mind if I rub my butt against you the way Tom Hanks in Cast Away rubbed two pieces of sticks together to make fire for him and his bestie, Wilson, and then when the song is over, I’mma leave you to deal with your half chub while I go for a snack break and dip a Tostitos chip in a bowl of salsa con queso?” We all used to do this and went on to become Sallie Mae phone operators, essential workers, Apple Genius Bar empl
oyees, COOs, etc. So let’s calm down, ’kay? The kids are alright.

  * I recognize that this Shakespearean spin on an early aughts Crime Mob hit may be confusing to some of the white readers. Now, y’all know how I feel when I’m in a room and a group of white people starts talking about Ben Folds Five. Lol. Was that a wild reference? Should I be more current? Hmm, nah, not my style.

  * Here’s the tea. A few years ago at a meet and greet, a Texas fan threw up after smelling Post Malone. It became pop culture fodder for three days and then, apparently, everyone moved on as if Post smelling like BO and Costco corn chips isn’t a hot-ass mess. Y’all, I know this is garbage, but when I reincarnate, I ain’t tryna come back as a weeping willow tree or a hummingbird. I’mma see if I can come back as a white dude who “audacities” aka doesn’t wash his legs in the shower and is still allowed to be famous and open a bank account.

  * LOL. Suggesting you buy one of my other books while you’re reading this one is similar to that college professor putting their own work on the class textbook syllabus. I used to make fun of those teachers for being what I perceived as tacky, but now that I’m older, wiser, and have bills to pay, I get it. Y’all think I was going to suggest you read something from Mark Twain? Does his estate need more money at this point? NO! But I do! So buy You Can’t Touch My Hair in paperback, audiobook, and Sanskrit. J/K, there is no Sanskrit version of my book. Can you imagine a translator wasting their time and education attempting to figure out the Sanskrit equivalent of “peen”?

  * Look, the nineties were a much more innocent time, so I will not allow y’all to judge me for this because no one could have predicted that Geraldo would devolve into taking naked selfies and claiming Donald Trump as a friend.

  * Wait, can you do that? Someone get Ta-Nehisi Coates and Roxane Gay on the phone and see if their educated selves are out here multiplying hences.

  * I spent more time on this than I care to admit trying to come up with the alliteraysh. #MuffMishaps was a contender, but it’s a bit too playful for discussing the patriarchy, and #PussyPickles sounds like the cousin of the yoni egg, and is also ignorant AF. Anyway, the takeaway here is, why haven’t I been nominated for a National Book Award yet?