by Jenny Lawson
Actual things Victor has suggested I should do in my spare time:
• Idea 1: Open an art gallery.
• Idea 2: Open a comic book store.
• Idea 3: Open a restaurant.
• Idea 4: Anything that doesn’t involve ferrets.
Actual things I’d consider doing in my spare time:
• Idea 1: Start a club for small monkeys. Set them up with people who like to have their hair played with. Note: There might be some technical problems because typically monkeys only pick out bugs in hair, and some people might be weird about getting insects dumped in their hair, but people who’d pay to have monkeys play with their hair are not entirely predictable, so it could still work. Or maybe we could just dump edible glitter in people’s hair.
That’s where we’d make our money. Selling edible monkey glitter. I don’t know how monkeys are with edible glitter but it’s gotta be a step up from their current diet. I mean, YOU EAT BUGS, MONKEYS. Stop being so goddamn pretentious. Also, I have a real-life model to base this on because my dad’s friend has a pet monkey, Amber, who likes to pick off scabs on people’s scalps, so we call her Amber the Scab Monkey, which is a terrible name. Who names a monkey Amber? Total waste of a monkey. Also, I’m not sure how many people have scabs on their heads, but I suspect if you’re letting monkeys dig around in your hair you’re going to end up with scabs. This business builds itself.
• Idea 2: Adopt a stray cat and name it the President. Set it up with a Twitter account. Sell pardons from my cat that you can buy for whenever you forget your wife’s birthday or for when you accidentally let too many ferrets loose in a store. Like, “I know you’re still mad at me but I do have a pardon from the President. That’s gotta count for something.”
• Idea 3: Watch videos of goats doing funny things.
In the end, Victor and I both want the same thing—for me to get my shit together. That’s where we find the common ground. And when Victor starts up again about opening an art gallery that sells comics and crepes I respond with some variation of what I always say: “It’s a very good idea, Victor, but right now I’m just too involved with writing/catching up with TV/developing edible monkey glitter/the President. But maybe in my next life I’ll do it.”
And it could be true. Maybe in my next life I will open a successful business, and buy and sell stocks, and memorize my driver’s license number, and do my taxes on time. Or maybe in my next life I’ll open a deli that specializes in mashed potato sandwiches (mashed potatoes and tater tots stuffed inside warm potato bread) and spaghetti pies (no definition needed) and I’ll have a big sign saying “The President Eats Here!” And he does, because cats fucking love spaghetti. And at least Victor won’t be mad at me in my next life.
Unless, that is, in his next life he comes back as a customer. Then he’ll shake his head a little confusedly as he steers his third wife away from the cat on the counter eating a spaghetti pie. But I bet Victor’ll turn back once more to see a very happy woman handing a potato sandwich to her glittery monkey-waiter, and I imagine he’ll feel a small pang of regret and sadness. Probably because he’ll never know that potato sandwiches are fucking delicious.
PS: Victor just read this and he agreed that “mashed potato sandwiches are delicious” but stated that he’d more likely be looking back to see a woman covered in stolen ferrets getting arrested for not handing in her taxes on time because none of her glitter-eating monkeys loved her enough to make her do required paperwork.
I really hate it when he’s right.
What I Say to My Shrink vs. What I Mean
“I feel like I’m making some real progress.”
I HAVEN’T STABBED ANYONE IN THE FACE IN WEEKS. SOMEONE GET ME SOME KINDA TROPHY. BUT NOT A BOWLING TROPHY. I ALREADY HAVE ONE OF THOSE.
“I’ve been having problems concentrating. I think I might have ADD.”
I’VE BEEN WATCHING YOUTUBE VIDEOS OF KITTENS FALLING TOO MUCH WHEN I’M SUPPOSED TO BE WORKING AND IF MY EDITOR FINDS OUT I’M GOING TO NEED FOR YOU TO WRITE ME A DOCTOR’S NOTE EXPLAINING THAT IT’S A MEDICAL CONDITION.
“Your waiting room is so cheerful.”
WHY DO YOU HAVE ALL THOSE CAT FANCY MAGAZINES IN THE LOBBY? ARE THOSE SOME SORT OF TRAP, OR IS IT JUST SOME SORT OF PROFILING?
“But I didn’t look at those magazines because I’m not some kind of crazy cat lady.”
I STOLE THE CENTERFOLD.
“Although I do, of course, love my pets as much as any normal person.”
THE OTHER DAY I HAD INSOMNIA AND I MADE MY CATS A WATER BED OUT OF A ZIPLOC BAG AND A SHOEBOX. THEY POPPED IT WITH THEIR CLAWS AND THEY ALMOST DROWNED. THEN I TRIED TO PUT BABY SOCKS AROUND THEIR FEET BUT THEY KEPT PULLING THEM OFF SO I TRIED WRAPPING RUBBER BANDS AROUND THE SOCK HEMS AND THEN MY HUSBAND WOKE UP WHILE I WAS PINNING ONE OF THE CATS DOWN TO PUT THE SOCK ON HIM AND HE WAS ALL, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHY ARE THESE CATS ALL WET?” AND I WAS LIKE, “I’M TRYING TO HELP THEM ENJOY WATER BEDS,” AND THEN VICTOR MADE ME GO TO SLEEP. IT WAS A DISAPPOINTMENT TO EVERYONE INVOLVED.
“Who let all these squirrels in here?”
NO, SERIOUSLY. WHO LET ALL THESE SQUIRRELS IN HERE?
“I swear I saw two squirrels duck behind your receptionist’s desk.”
FOR REAL. THERE ARE SQUIRRELS INFILTRATING THE BUILDING.
“No? Really? Huh. Must’ve just been a trick of the light. Ha ha.”
WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TRYING TO PULL, LADY? I TOTALLY JUST SAW THOSE SQUIRRELS.
“So, how are you?”
IS THIS SOME SORT OF TRICK? DID YOU PURPOSELY LET SQUIRRELS IN HERE TO SEE IF I’D PRETEND TO NOT SEE THEM JUST SO THAT YOU CAN SEE IF I’M PRETENDING NOT TO SEE THINGS THAT AREN’T THERE? BECAUSE THAT IS FUCKING SNEAKY AND UNETHICAL. AND PROBABLY A CRUEL USE OF SQUIRRELS.
“I’ve been well, thanks.”
BETTER THAN THESE SQUIRRELS YOU’RE HOLDING HOSTAGE, AT LEAST.
“What’s that? I seem ‘distracted’?”
HOLY SHIT. WHAT IF THERE AREN’T ANY SQUIRRELS AND I’M JUST SEEING IMAGINARY SQUIRRELS? WHAT IF SQUIRRELS DON’T EVEN EXIST? IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?
“I’m not distracted.”
DAMN IT. I PROBABLY NEED TO PROVE THERE ARE SQUIRRELS IN HERE OR ELSE THIS DOCTOR IS GOING TO THINK I’M REALLY INSANE. THIS IS THE LAST PLACE I NEED TO IMAGINE NONEXISTENT SQUIRRELS. MAYBE I SHOULD SMUGGLE SOME IN SO SHE SEES THEM TOO.
“Honestly, I’m doing really well.”
WHERE COULD I GET SOME SQUIRRELS AT THIS TIME OF DAY?
“Sometimes when I’m staying in thin-walled hotel rooms I’ll open up my laptop and play TV murder scenes really loudly to see if anyone ever calls the police to report a murder. No one ever does though. It’s like people just don’t care anymore.”
MOTHERFUCKER. I CAN’T BELIEVE I JUST SAID THAT OUT LOUD.
“I can’t believe I just said that out loud.”
I BLAME THOSE FUCKING SQUIRRELS. WHICH MY SHRINK PROBABLY SMUGGLED IN TO THROW ME OFF SO I’D ADMIT TO STILL NEEDING HER.
“Well played, Dr. Roberts. Well played, indeed.”
PS: That was obviously a slightly hyperbolized account of how my psychiatrist achieves job security but last week I went in for my appointment after getting a call reminding me of an appointment I didn’t even remember making. When I got there the nurse insisted that I didn’t have an appointment and that no one had called me. And I stood there in the office wondering if I’d just imagined someone calling to tell me I needed psychiatric help, or if the office had intentionally called me so that I’d come in and question my sanity when I was told that I wasn’t actually supposed to be there. It seemed like a highly questionable but also somewhat brilliant way to increase customer loyalty.
Then I walked outside the office and checked my phone and that’s when I realized that it was my other doctor I had an appointment with and so I yelled, “Oh, shit!” and ran to my car so I wouldn’t be late and then I looked back and saw the nurse staring after me in confused concern. It’s almost l
ike I showed up there just to show them how little progress I was making. And I was too frazzled to look at the cat magazines.
It was disappointing on all accounts.
LOOK AT THIS GIRAFFE
Last week a stranger showed up at my parents’ house with an antique, six-foot, dead giraffe head in the back of his truck that he wanted to get rid of. This sounds slightly less weird when I explain that my dad is a professional taxidermist who has a reputation for trading dead animals for strange things. Or maybe it sounds weirder. Honestly, I’m not good at judging what our lives look like to normal people.
The stuffed giraffe was the head and neck, ending at the shoulder blades and mounted to stand on the floor like a strange, questionable hat rack with eyeballs. My father decided to pass because it was weird looking. But then he remembered that I like terrible, old taxidermy and this giraffe seemed exactly like the kind of fucked-up thing I’d love, so he called and said, “There’s a guy here with a third of a dead giraffe in the back of his truck and it looks pretty messed up, so I thought of you.”
I considered responding with “Who is this?” but it was perfectly obvious who it was and I wasn’t sure if I should be insulted or perhaps flattered that my dad knew me so well.
“Which third?” I asked. He explained, and I asked him to buy it for me, but only if it died of natural causes and was cheap, and only if it was truly weird looking. “But ‘funny and whimsical’ weird,” I explained. “Not ‘sad and awkwardly depressing’ weird.”
“I’m not sure I can tell the difference,” my dad replied. The love of taxidermy had not skipped a generation, but the evaluation of it certainly had.
* * *
Victor overheard part of the conversation and told me that I could not have a giraffe because we had no place to put it,1 and I pointed out that it was only a third of a giraffe and that it was the most interesting third, so it was almost impossible to say no to. Victor then proved me wrong by saying “no” several times. He argued that we had no way to get the giraffe to our house but I explained that I could pick it up from my parents’ home and put it in the passenger seat of our car. And then I could roll down the window so Monsieur Giraffe’s head could stick out and then I’d even be able to use the HOV lane. Victor disagreed because all of a sudden he knows everything about HOV regulations, but it didn’t really matter because my dad called back and said he couldn’t get a good deal on the giraffe head so he passed. Victor was relieved, but I reminded him that my father is a terrific liar so there was still a small possibility that he’d bought the giraffe stalk himself and was fixing it up for me as some sort of weird Christmas present. That’s the thing about my father. You never know when he’s hiding a giant surprise giraffe head from you. I can’t really tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I’m leaning toward good.
Victor seemed concerned that a surprise giraffe might show up at any moment, but he didn’t need to worry because my dad really did pass on the head, but oddly enough he ended up picking the head up from a local auction when the woman who won it hired him to fix the damage. He was shocked she’d paid double the asking price but when he was driving the giraffe back to his taxidermy shop another woman saw the giraffe’s flowing mane and followed my dad home offering to pay double that price. The lady who bought it at auction refused because she’d fallen in love with him and my dad shook his head in bafflement. He called me that night and said in a hushed tone, “My God. There’s more of you.”
But that’s another story. Let’s get back to the story of gift taxidermy. I’m quite good at giving gifts. Several years ago for our anniversary I gave Victor a giant metal chicken named Beyoncé. Then last year I surprised him with a live sloth, a loose wallaby, and a hedgehog in our living room. This year Victor decided to surprise me instead. And he did. First, because it was like a month away from our eighteenth anniversary, and second, because when I opened up the big box Victor had left on the kitchen floor, a giant bear attacked me. Mostly because my sleeve got hooked on the wooden frame that was securing the bear in the box and I got off-balance, and when I fell backward it rolled over on me and I was suddenly pinned by an unexpected bear in the middle of the kitchen.
This gift is especially sweet because 1) Victor does not like taxidermy and the fact that he bought me a bear head makes him the greatest husband ever, 2) he assured me that this bear died of natural causes, and 3) now I have a quarter of a bear to hide around the house. Sometimes I hide him outside Victor’s office so it looks like he’s being eavesdropped on by a bear. Sometimes I stick his head quickly through the shrubbery outside our house so that people driving by will think they’ve seen a bear, because I like to add intrigue to other people’s lives. Victor says it’s because I have too much free time on my hands. I think it’s because I’m a giver. It could be both.
No one knows where the other three-quarters of that bear are but I’m okay with having just the face, although I did mention that I would have liked for the bear to have arms because that way it could hug you when you were having a bad day. Victor argued that bears give terrible hugs because they’re made of claws and teeth but he’s wrong because everyone knows that bears give the best hugs. That’s why you call a good hug a “bear hug.” I didn’t mention that to Victor though because it’s probably not cool to look a gift bear in the mouth.
Instead I just started looking online for someone who was selling taxidermied bear hands from a bear that died of old age because I thought I could just nail them under the bear like he was coming through the wall. Or maybe I could glue him and the paws to a mirror like there was a bear magically coming out of the mirror and then Victor was all, “WHAT THE SHIT? You can’t glue a bear to a mirror. That’s fucking crazy. And also, WHY IS THERE A BEAR IN MY BED?” and I was like, “Because that one’s juuust right,” and Victor looked at me incredulously because apparently his mother never read him “Goldilocks.” He glared at me and so I just sighed and said, “Because I was all out of horse and I know how much you like The Godfather?” Then he got mad that I was going to spend money on bear arms, and I was like, “I have the right to bear arms, Victor,” and then I realized what I’d said and we both started giggling for a bit. And that moment? That’s the moment when I realized how incredibly lucky I am to have spent eighteen years with a man who can laugh at bad gun-control jokes while a severed bear head is lying on his pillow.
“His name is Claude,” I said. “Get it? Clawed?”
I could tell he got it because I could see him rolling his eyes. Although he might have been rolling his eyes because Claude has no claws and he thought I was being ironic. I’m not actually sure if it’s ironic or not. That Alanis Morissette song sort of fucked up irony for everyone.
“You really do love me, don’t you?” I asked. “You bought me taxidermy. You are literally bearing your heart.”
Victor scratched his head. “I don’t think that’s how ‘literally’ works. And that’s not really the right use of the word ‘bare’ either.”
And, well, maybe not … but I think that’s how love works. Sometimes it means doing the washing up when it’s not your mess, and sometimes it’s driving to the airport three times in one week to pick up a loved one, and sometimes it’s all unexpected bears and possible surprise giraffes. Probably not so much the last ones for most people, but then again, we’re not most people.
And thank God for that.
PS: This is Claude. Please give him a hand. (Two, preferably.)
The Fear
(Note: This is where I’d put a mild trigger warning for self-harm, but frankly this whole damn book—and life in general—deserves a trigger warning. Sorry about that.)
Some stories aren’t meant to be told.
There was too much blood, I remember thinking. I could feel it dripping down my neck and I ran to get a towel, applying pressure to the cuts along my scalp.
“You okay in there?” Victor asked quietly from the other side of the bathroom door.
I was fi
ne. I was fine. I was … bleeding. Badly. And I felt … relief? The pressure in my head was gone. The pain in me was floating away, making room for a pain so much easier to bear. The panic was fading slowly, and I told Victor I was okay and that he could go back to bed, but I could already hear him fumbling with the lock on the bathroom door. He was an expert at picking this lock and I knew I only had a few seconds before he’d be in. I shoved the bloody towel in the cupboard and turned the sink on to wash my hands.
Too late.
Victor walked in, that look on his face. I could never quite place it. Resigned. Angry. Scared? It was probably the look I’d have on my face if I allowed myself to feel those things. But I didn’t. Instead, I cut. Not with a knife. I chose a weapon much more personal, and more punishing. I chose me.
It wasn’t really a secret anymore. Victor had known that I hurt myself for years. But it had never been this bad. I picked at my cuticles until they bled, but so what? So do lots of people. I picked at scabs when I was nervous. It’s gross but not unusual. I pulled my hair. Out. By the roots. And I couldn’t stop until large handfuls were on my lap. I scratched my scalp and forehead. Deeply. With nails specially filed for slicing. Victor would grab at my hands while we lay in bed to keep me from doing it, but I couldn’t stop myself. Nor could I explain it.
Impulse control disorder. Trichotillomania. Dermatillomania.
That’s what the shrink called it. She said it wasn’t uncommon for people like me with anxiety disorders and avoidant personality disorder. I thought she was wrong. I’m fine being labeled with an anxiety disorder. I’m perfectly fine. It’s just my anxiety that’s in disarray. But “personality disorder”? That meant … broken.