Awkwardly Social

The internet has been on sappy letter writing spree as women write (figurative) curlyqued cursive letters to themselves in their twenties.  Oof, we bloggers are a drippy feel-good lot.  And since I’ve been in a bad mood since I left the womb, I’m giving you  a letter to 20 year old Tamara that she would actually listen to, not some love song to a time gone by that 20 year old Tamara would have flipped the bird to.*

Dear Idiot,

1. Get rid of the overalls.  You are not a farmer.

2. Keep the Doc Martens, you are going to miss them when you’re 34.

3. No, that guy is not giving you mixed signals, asshole, he thinks you’re a chubby 20 year old who gets ugly drunk.

4. That guy too.

5.  None of those boys like you.

6.  Stop pining.

7.  And while you’re at it, stop eating fast food.  You are getting fat.

8.  No really, you don’t look good.

9.  Oh god, slam poetry?  You are so fucking embarrassing.

10.  Keep writing that stuff in your journal, though, it’s hilarious when you’re 34.  Like, seriously?  You thought boys just didn’t get you?  Believe me, they got you, you desperate embarrassing idiot.

11.  You will lose that freshman 15 weight in your 30s, but it will be hard because you’ll think you remember a time when you could just eat fast food 3 times a day, forgetting that you were fat when you did that.

12. If you stop wearing the same jeans every day, you’ll be forced to see what size you really are, and that size will make you unhappy, and you will lose weight.  Let’s get on that.  Before your metabolism takes a dive.

13.  That guy doesn’t want to marry you.

14.  Don’t worry, he doesn’t either (THANK GOD).

15.  Seriously, give up on the boys.  You’ll be fine in your 30s when you stop fucking caring so goddamned much.

16.  The no bangs experiment goes on too long.  Just let it go.

17.  And finally, it’s going to be ok, asshole, don’t panic.  Crying makes you look terrible.

Love,

Future You

*I haven’t forgotten the Ode to my 20s I wrote when I turned 30.  So, I was a little sentimental then.  Whatever.

I don’t know, is it just me? Or is 8:15am on a Saturday a little early to start with the RRRRRREEEENNNNDINDINDINDIN?

Sincerly,
The girl with no bra who glared death rays at you

To the plumber who was on time,

Thank you for being on time. Sorry Louie fixed the faucet making my desperate plea to the landlord ring a little false. The drip (long pause) drip (long pause) drip (long pause) didn’t seem like quite the Saturday morning emergency.
Also, sorry I made you put your hand in the garbage disposal. Louie dropped the hinge from my garlic press in there and couldn’t get it out. That rotten piece of lettuce… not intentional.
Also, I know it sounds like I’m blaming Louie for our kitchen problems, but they’re his fault so…
Just kidding. He’s the one who does the dishes, therefore spending more time in the kitchen with both the faucet and the garbage disposal. Sometimes, I do them. But usually it’s Louie.
I dust. Just so you don’t think I’m lazing around reading magazines all day. Also, I vacuum and feed the fish.
Oh, that made me sound like I have the chores of a seven year old? Well, if Louie would let me have a dog I would promise to walk it and feed it and brush it and teach it tricks.
That made it worse?
God, English isn’t even your first language. Also, you touch rotten lettuce for a living.
What’s that? You make more in an hour than I make in a day?
You win.

Sincerly,
The girl who hovered nervously explaining that last night it was really much worse than now.

You know how I said I wasn’t going to post today. Well. That was a lie. I’m addicted to you.

Dear Santa,

When I got honked at for waiting for a pedestrian to cross the street before making a right turn, I looked into my rear view mirror, flipped off the lady and shouted fuck you. We made eye contact. I think she felt bad, and that made me feel good.

I think that you should punish her, not me. I was waiting patiently for a pedestrian. She was being a stone cold impatient bitch and deserved to be ‘fuck you-ed’. I hope you agree. ‘Cause I really want a puppy. I promise I’ll feed it and walk it and you know, love it.

Love-
Tamara (more nice than naughty)

Dear Infertility Blogs-

Oh. My. God. You have filled the hole in my heart left by Another Drink?. I thank you. Cats thanks you. My sister thanks you. But I’m wondering, is it weird that I Iove reading infertility blogs?

Yours truly-
Tamara

Dear baby Jesus-

Now would be a good time for you to send your message about love and acceptance. Especially to those people trying to ban gay marriage. Seriously. I’m thinking like a web page, maybe a blog… Or a popular television show. You know, something that really will get their attention. I mean, I know you tried with the hurricanes this year, but you didn’t really follow that up with anything. You’re going to have to try harder. We have the internet now (which I thank you for) so we don’t really pay attention to anything ‘natural’. You’re really going to have to step it up a notch.

Oh. And also, if you could do something about the alarm clock across the alley that keeps going off all morning with no regard to my sleep schedule. That’d be great. Thanks.

T

Now, for reals this time, I gotta shake.

Stop pounding. It’s like a goddamned construction zone up there.

I’ll make you a deal, My Head, if you make it through the day, tomorrow you get to sleep in. With my boyfriend. I’ll be there of course, My Head, so don’t get any crazy ideas.

Love-

Your Brain (you know, the squishy part that lives inside of you.)

I’m not going to pretend what I’m saying here is eloquent or that I have any answers to correct the wrong-headed direction in which our country is swinging, but I’ve been thinking about these things and I wanted to say them. This post isn’t funny. It isn’t particularly well written. I am preaching to the choir, I’m sure. But I want to say it. And since it’s my blog, I get to.

Dear Americans-

For those of you who voted for Bush for moral reasons, I don’t want to hear any more sentences that start with “The Bible says….” Because I don’t subscribe to those beliefs. And because I’m an American, you cannot force those beliefs upon me, but since you insist on looking to the Bible for answers please take a look at your Bible, flip to The New Testament. The part where Jesus says to love thy neighbor as thyself, the part where Jesus forgives the prostitutes and blesses the lepers, the part where hate is so viciously rejected that Jesus put himself on a cross to wipe away the sins of the world. Then think about how you voted for someone who allows you to hate men who love men and women who love women, for absolutely no reason. Allows the death penalty to be viciously enforced, sometimes killing innocent men and women, sometimes killing kids, and never, not once, deterring violent crime. I hope for a country that allows no amendments to our constitution that limit the rights of its citizens, because it won’t be long before your rights start to get stripped away too.

For those of you who voted for Bush for economic reasons, you rich Republicans, I ask you to do me and the other poor men and women who don’t make over 200,000 dollars a year a favor. Put the money back into the economy. That’s why it was returned to you. Your tax break was given to you because you were meant to spend it. You were meant to create jobs and stimulate the economy. You haven’t done that. If you didn’t vote for Bush and you still got that big tax break, you can do even more. Pretend you didn’t get that tax break, give that money to a student who otherwise would have to drop out of college because their Federal aid ran out. Give that money to research so we can find a cure for AIDS or get closer to unlocking the answers held in stem cells. Do it because that is what it was intended for.

For those of you who voted for Bush because you think he will protect you from terrorism, and you approve of the way he’s ‘handled’ the war in Iraq. I ask you to listen. Listen to what the world is saying. We have made things worse. Not purely by virtue of attacking and occupying Iraq, but by doing so in a way that makes Stalin look like he was straightforward with his people. Things aren’t going well there, no matter what Karl Rove tells Bush to say. Listen closely. The world is scared of us, but not so scared that they won’t retaliate. They see us as the bully. Listen to them. Bullies get their comeuppance and we will too if we don’t change the way we’ve dealt with the Middle East. Believe me when Bin Laden appeared again, I was terrified. How a simple man could mastermind such a horrible act terrifies me. Think of how the innocent people of the Middle East (and don’t let the images of crazy Middle Easterners fool you, there are innocent men and women there, trying to practice their faith and live their lives) feel when they look into the eyes of George Bush and see standing behind him not a handful of insurgents but a nation of millions of supporters whose eyes are filled with misplaced hate and rage.

Finally, for those of you who voted for John Kerry, let’s do something good in the next four years. Let’s talk to our Senators. Let’s talk to the President. Let’s tell him how the rest of the country feels. He isn’t the boss of us, we are the boss of him. That’s the beauty of democracy, even though we didn’t vote for him, we still get to tell him what we want. And we must do that. We must tell him how we feel about his proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. We must tell him how we feel about the war in Iraq. We must tell him we don’t approve of the corporations in his pocket (the same goes for the Senators). We must tell him his education plan isn’t working. Tell him whatever you want to tell him. Tell him he has made it difficult for people with higher education to get a job that will support their student loan habit. Tell them you believe unlocking the secrets of the human body through stem cell research will be the biggest thing his Presidency can do for the world. He has to listen. It’s his job. We didn’t hire him, but we do get to tell him what to do.

Sincerely,

A fellow American

I have a list of things for you guys who are up and comers. You don’t know you’re going to be famous yet. Your manager just seems to be blowing smoke up your ass. Your parents are telling you to get a job. Everyone has a different opinion about how they should market you. But listen up.

1. Do not fuck with the camera rolling. (This includes still cameras. And fucking includes getting blow-jobs, giving blow-jobs, etc. et al.)

2. See number 1.

So. If you have aspirations of stardom, keep the goddamned camera out of the goddamned bedroom, or limo, or back alley, or where ever it is you like to get laid.

Pamela and Tommy Lee- You guys… Come on. Were you going to watch the tape again? Were you going to show it to your children? Why?

R. Kelly-You are a fucked up bastard. Get some therapy. Seriously.

I propose this. No more sex tapes. You bore me out of my skull.

You stink. Which means that I stink. Because to have you stink means that I somehow put that stink on you.

Someday when I am very wealthy, I won’t ever have to touch you again. And I won’t miss it. I won’t miss rifling through you to find the least stinky piece to put on in the morning for work. I won’t miss lugging 300 lbs of you to the laundromat. I won’t miss all the crazy ladies in the laundromat hogging dryers and folding tables, that you force me to silently struggle with. I won’t miss tripping over you on my way to the bathroom in the morning.

So, in closing, dirty laundry, I must tell you that I hate you. I hate how you reappear every week, like a smelly stalker. I hate how you make me look like a slob. I would break up with you, but you know that’s impossible.

Until next week…

I appreciate your trouble around this time of cleaning and rebuilding. But seriously. Do you have to scream at me? Do you have to take hold of my brain and tell it that it’s dying for chocolate? Must you make me swelled and sad and weepy? I mean really. It’s been almost 15 years that we’ve been doing this (with the exception of the time you stopped and I thought I was pregnant even though I had never had sex, what was that about?) can we try and get it together? I’ll make you a deal. I’ll stop with the fried foods if you stop with the cramping. I will start running again, even if it’s just twice a week if you stop with the bloating. I will eat a few fruits and vegatables if you stop with the crying. Deal? Deal.

Talk to you next month.

Love,
Tamara

Dear Time Travel People Who Have Put Me in The 1950’s-

If I’m going to be someone’s Girl Friday, I think you should warn me. Taking an innocent woman and placing her in a different time without warning is bound to cause you guys some trouble. The last time I got called a ‘good girl’ was when, I don’t know, say, I was a girl. And honey and sweetheart? Jesus Christ. And what the fuck is a Girl Friday? Am I even using that correctly. And if I’m in the 1950’s why don’t I get to smoke at work, have cocktails at lunch and get picked up by a cute boy in a fedora for dinner?

Love,
Tamara

PS-Tell Humphrey Bogart I love him.

You are an interesting filmmaker, I’ll give you that. You make movies that make me jump, I conceed. But I ask you this, did you have anything to do with the marketing of your recent film? I’m sure they ran the trailer by you, you are a producer on the picture for Christ’s sake. Did you ever wonder if you made us think the film was going to be really scary, we would then go to the movie and expect to be scared? I understand if the studio wanted to market this differently, but seriously, you made it seem scarier than Signs (and that scared the shit out of me, my brother-in-law too, but he has an unhealthy fear of aliens) and it wasn’t. The trailer was, the movie was not. It was kind of long. Not boring long, but long movie long, if you know what I mean. Anyway Mr. Shyamalan, I just wanted you to know over the next couple of weeks I have a feeling you’re going to get some Unbreakable type backlash, from your public. They might call you a one-trick pony, a Hitchcock wannabe (I like your cameos), a hack. I don’t feel that way. I think you make interesting films, with pretty great actors (dude, seriously, Ron Howard’s daughter fucking carried your film…I’m just saying), and this little one, (I’m going to call it a little one, because even though it had costumes and Special Effects, and monsters, etc… it felt kinda small) was your 4th, not counting the stuff before Bruce Willis, and I think it wasn’t awful. Maybe next time I won’t have such high expectations and will be less disappointed when you trick me waaaaay at the end.

Love,
Tamara
PS Do you have Adrien Brody’s address, I need to talk to him too.