Yikes

Sup Readers!

I remembered that in my intro I talked about how I am excellent at being a mess, and I realized I had really lacked sharing some of the most embarrassing and cringe worthy things I have done. I don't have a lot of shame, so this happens very often. Here is a compiled list of some fun times I have done soups awk things. They might have been in front of people, they might not have been. 

1. I was reading an article about Lin-Manuel Miranda. *Since he is such a wonderful man, I sort of said it out loud without thinking. I was sitting in a hallway at work reading it because I was keeping an eye on people coming in to the office. As I said, "oh what a wonderful man," a man walked through the hallway, awkwardly waved at me, then kept walking. I mean honestly, I WISH I was that forward when I thought a stranger was wonderful, but I certainly am not and I certainly am not pumped that some strange man thought it was me. 

2. The other day, while brushing my teeth, I felt a sneeze coming on. I didn't want to sneeze on the mirror because that would be gross. I leaned my head down toward the sink** so that I could just rinse it down the drain. I'm sure you have sneezed before--taking a leap of faith. When you sneeze, you head sort of thrusts itself downward and quite quickly at that. Do you know what is in a sink? It's a faucet. Faucets are made of metal, They are not soft or cushion-like. I whacked my head on the faucet and just sat on the bathroom floor going "AHHHH" because it hurt ferociously.

3. Later than same day, I walked into the bathroom in the cathedral of learning. When I walked in I didn't recognize the bathroom. It felt like the twilight zone. I saw construction tape and I was like oh that must be it. Then I noticed urinals and I thought oh how progressive we can use those too now. Most people would have realized they were in the men's room. Not me though, I love jumping to a good old conclusion.

4. This last one... is very near and dear to my heart because it just explains so much about who I am as a person. I would like to point out that I am very neurotic and I always think the worst thing is happening, and usually nothing happens and everything is lukewarm and blah. However, every once in a while, something like this happens that totally justifies every ridiculous thing that I do and think. This one is a little gross, but also chill out. This was really the only thing I wanted to talk about because it came up in my time hop the other day and I just feel like the world needs to know. 

So last year, I lived in a dorm on a floor where I shared a bathroom with about 11 other girls. One early evening, let's say around 6, I was going to go hang out with some friends for the evening or some other event that would involve me being gone from my dorm for 4-5 hours. I had to go to the bathroom--number 2 as the kids are calling it. I will explain this as politely as possible. Basically, I went in a hurry and didn't realize that somebody had gone before me and forgotten to flush***. I realized this after I had gone. Basically, there was nothing I could do. So naturally, I panicked and left for the evening. I got a little paranoid that I was going to be in trouble. I knew that was stupid but also it was just the ridiculous thing plaguing my brain. As I was walking back to my dorm I was thinking, "Lizzie, if anything you might overhear someone gossiping about it." 

OH WRONG WAS I. I get off the elevator to my floor and the hallways are covered in fliers. What do these fliers say? Well, in bold, underlined, and in all caps is the heading "WHO DID THIS?!" Then there were two pictures of the... incident. There was a little blurb underneath the A+ photographs which read as follows *clears throat* 

"Recently, the residents of Lothrop Hall have been seeing mysterious poops left in the toilet, These are not normal poops, my friends. The picture on the right is evidence of this. Even our cleaning lady screamed in horror the day she saw the first poop left by the 'Lothrop Log Dropper'. If you have any information on who may be dropping these logs, please put it in the Lothrop Lop Dropper Evidence File**** located in the Lounge. Thank you for your time. And to the Lothrop Log Dropper... we will find you. --  Concerned Residents."

I would have loved to have been there when they all got around one person's computer and decided which vocabulary terms to employ and what sounded the best. What were their emotions? Were they laughing? Frightened? Alert? 

And what did they think was going to come out of it if they DID find out who it was? Send me to the doctor? Make fun of me? Make me pay a quarter every time I used to bathroom? Get one of those kid bathrooms for my own room? 

I will say, props for the name. If there is ever a super hero movie about my life, I definitely want the hero to be called that. I'm wondering if any of the girls from my floor who wrote it are reading this now. If so, hey. If not, bye. 

So now, any time I feel like I am being neurotic and silly about the worst possible thing that could happen I remember, "Hey, sometimes something even worse could happen that you aren't creative enough to imagine, apparently."

Honestly, I can't say this is the first, second, third, even fourth time that my bowels have embarrassed me. The other day at Shrek the Musical during a very quiet moment my stomach erupted like the cracken and growled for no less than 30 seconds. One time I was at a really fancy restaurant and I did in fact clog the toilet all by my self. I didn't want to be the worst and leave it for someone else to deal with. Honestly public places need to keep plungers in the bathroom. I went to the bar of the restaurant and asked the waiter if I could have a plunger and he just said, "I'll let someone know." That was a fun conversation. Another time, I was spending the night at a friend house for the first time and I clogged her toilet, Her dad was the only one who knew where the plunger was so he had to go get it and he came up and brought it into the bathroom. Loved that. Basically if I haven't clogged up your toilet we aren't really friends. 

I guess if I can take anything from the experiences that I have constantly which are very similar to those mentioned above, at least now I probably won't be surprised. 

*If I have to tell you who that is, you should probably get out more

**this thought process took place in a 2 second span.

***literally WHO DON'T PEOPLE FLUSH HOW DO YOU FORGET THE FINAL STEP OF THE TOILET PROCESS WERE YOU RAISED IN A BARN YOU HAVE CAUSED ME SO MUCH HARM

****which actually existed, I checked right after I read one of the signs. 

Kinky Boots

Hello Readers!

Tonight I saw Kinky Boots. It was so amazing. Without a doubt, it was one of the most colorful, magical performances I have ever seen. It got me thinking a lot about gender and the restrictive binary in which we exist. 

"Ladies and gentleman and those who have yet to decide" was repeated several times throughout the musical. I was a little hesitant to be excited about this because while it is acknowledging that gender isn't just a thing you are born in and stay with for your whole life, I would have preferred if they had said, "Ladies and gentleman and everyone in between."  Just because someone is not at one polarized end of the spectrum of gender doesn't mean they have yet to decide. It's perfectly plausible that they have chosen neither. Sexuality and gender sort of sit in the same muscle, and if people think that bisexuality is a person in the middle of the spectrum, why can't people accept that someone could be in the middle of the gender spectrum? I've heard plenty of people talk about how using "they" instead of he or she when referring to someone can trip them up and can be a little hard at first. Sure, you will have to THINK. Okay. Well, hang in there. It's a lot harder for people who have gone their whole lives feeling uncomfortable and struggling with their gender identity. Really, it takes you two seconds to remind yourself of people's proper pronouns, so why can't you just do it? If a woman got married and told you to call her Mrs. instead of Ms. you would do it. Why wouldn't you do it if someone explained that they wanted you to call them they? 

What it means to be a man was another big theme throughout the show. In the end, what it meant to be a man was sort of to accept people for who they are? It wasn't super clear, but that is what I gathered. That's not a bad thing for a man to be, but I felt a little frustrated that they made it about what a man is rather than just what a good person is. 

Gender and sexuality are really interesting to me and I haven't read nearly as much literature on the topics as I ought to. Sometimes I wonder if the world would be easier if there were no gender, but it isn't, and it won't be most likely. Some people find real comfort in their gender identity and it means a lot to them, so I wouldn't want to take that away from them. Also, I can't. Also, Nobody is asking me to make an executive vote. 

In Kinky Boots, there were a few characters who gave Lola a hard time about her gender and how she needed to "be a real man." Why is gender so strict to some people that they get angry when people don't feel comfortable with the gender they were assigned at birth? Why does it matter so much to some people what a man or a woman is that it is so vital that they stick strictly to the things associated with their gender and only that? What do you think will happen if they don't? 

Well, I'll tell ya. People will express themselves as they see fit and they will feel like the most authentic versions of themselves. There should be no reason that this would make someone angry. Even if someone doesn't understand it, why wouldn't they be excited to learn about someone different than them instead of being hostile toward them? Just like I said in my last post, patience and kindness can really make any disagreement more doable and more fixable.

Overall though, the musical was fantastic. It was a little problematic, but proper representation is so hard, every piece of art is always going to have some way it could have been better, and LGBTQIA+ representation is so yikes today so ya take what ya can get. 

Tubular Ubular Ride

Greetings Reader!

It seems like it would be in my best interest to start on a positive note for the first post on this platform, so I will do so. I think most people would agree that they are most comfortable around others when they feel like they can be the most authentic version of themselves. In fact, saying so seems somewhat redundant. Seldom do people enjoy hiding parts of themselves and apologizing for them when they slip out. That kind of tiptoeing is exhausting, unpleasant and lacks any benefit. 

I thought about this the other day when I took a somewhat unorthodox Uber ride. The ride would only be about five minutes, so I just got in as one does. The driver turns around and says, "I just have one question for you...are you ready to have fun?" I usually am, so I said yes. I assumed she was just being enthusiastic and chipper. She pulls out a microphone, looks me straight in the eye and screams, "Uber Karaoke! Do you have a song ready?" Since this has never happened to anyone ever, I did not. She said, "That's okay-- I'll go!" She put on a song that she really did not know all the words to, but sang as much as she did. She was also giving live commentary on the lyrics of the song when didn't know the words, which was hilarious. I was laughing through the entire song, and she belted out the whole thing. I wish that I had had a song prepared because she seemed like the best hype girl an uber client could ever ask for. 

People authentically, unapologetically enjoying themselves is so joyful and wholesome. Having a good time is so much easier when you aren't self conscious about what others will think about you. 

I went to a Young The Giant concert a few weeks ago. During the opening act, I was really digging the opening band. The rest of the crowd was bobbing their heads, but nobody was going too crazy except for one other guy about 15 people to my left. I really wanted to put my arms up and do the rock-out-hand-thing. It took me until the headliner came on and the rest of the crowd was really digging them to be comfortable enough to really jam. I got really frustrated with myself that I was worried about people staring at me when I paid just as much to go to that concert* and there was no reason for me not to jam out other than my discomfort with the stares of strangers. 

I will say this--I am much more comfortable embarrassing myself than the average Joanne. At one of my old jobs, we had to do a little traveling together. Once, while my coworkers and I were walking somewhere, we overheard a stranger say, "Wow! Your belt matches your shoes!" to her friend. So, okay, not that weird. Not even not that weird, it was 100% not weird at all to say that. It was a little whimsical at most. I noticed one of my coworkers shoot her a look. The person on the street didn't notice, but my coworker told us a little about her service to society. She said, "that was weird. You know, whenever people say weird stuff like that I always just give them a look." I grabbed a handful of daisies from a nearby garden to give to her as a token of gratitude for her wisdom and judgement of those below her. It really meant a lot to me that she took time out of her day to make others feel weird and bad about themselves when she had all the time in the world to concern herself with other more important and productive things- counting blades of grass, for example. 

As much as I valued my coworker as my swagger coach**, I definitely enjoyed myself so much more in my uber ride with my goofy, singing driver. I really love doing improv because of this similar vibe that is necessary for a scene to function. In improv, it's so important to say yes to the weirdness. It is vital to add to the peculiarity. "Yes-Anding" is how most improvisers refer to this method***. I never have to apologize for anything I say that might be interpreted by another as strange. Yes-anding is such a better way to treat people than "No-byeing" them. 

I was thinking about this today because I read about yet another tragedy in the news. It made me feel frustrated and I just wished people could be more kind to one another. The example I gave above probably isn't the kind of cruelty that leads to tragedies that make the news, but kindness and patience with others certainly helps remove that sort of rhetoric--or at least decreases it to a degree. 

What I have written may come off as preachy, but such is life. I have been consumed with thought about how exhausting unkind people are and how much time people waste being rude when situations would have been so much more pleasant if everyone involved had been patient as well as kind. It's just a better use of time. I think I have said my piece now. I might be the only one reading this. If so, nice work, dude. You are dope and it's totally okay that you only have dimples on one side of your face. You're killin' it.

~the end~

*I actually paid a little less because I got this girl to sell her ticket to me for less than she originally paid because I am INTIMIDATING and GOOD AT HAGGLING and you should RESPECT ME.

**or cool consultant, if you prefer 

*** I really hope me explaining this doesn't sound pretentious because I know that most people that I know already know what yes-anding it, but I didn't want to leave anyone out I don't even know if anyone will read this sorry DON'T YELL AT ME. 

Pilot

Hello Reader!

In my day to day life, I excel at being a mess. I'm usually overbooked, apologizing, and agonizing over a to-do list that grows at alarming rates. On occasion, I impulsively decide to commit to projects that I already don't have the time or the energy for that I will most likely end up abandoning and I will disappoint myself. Yay. Today--for no reason in particular other than my rampant, distracted train of thought--I was thinking about how I have a lot of thoughts. Usually, when I feel the need to write a paragraph, I go to Facebook and shout into the empty internet void. It is never as satisfying as I would like it to be. I could join some sort of article-type website, but this is easier because then I do not have to do that.

Naturally, the next logical step for me would be to start a blog that will most likely collect dust and go unread. But what the heck! I have nothing else to do*. I could use some self motivated practice in compiling ideas and experiences that could interest somebody else in the wide unknown. 

As far as the content for this blog goes, your guess is as good as mine. I just started it, so, ya know, hang on for a minute. But if you like me, and you are still reading this, you must care 1% about the thoughts which I will chose to share with the internet void in a semi-formal manner. 

Welcome to Womansplaining!

*I actually have so much to do and this is me frantically procrastinating and creating some sort of illusion of productivity.