Way Harsh

I’m twenty-seven years old—twenty-eight tomorrow—and I don’t know how to drive.

Smart Kid

When I was a child, I was a Smart Kid.

As you are likely aware, being a Smart Kid is very different from being a smart kid. A Smart Kid does not necessarily have to be intelligent, per se; they just have to learn how to read and write a little earlier than their peers. Because my mother worked from home, she was able to teach me to do both of those things, and by the time I entered school I was just far enough ahead to be skipped a grade. Thus, my reputation as a Smart Kid was born, and survived long past the point where I had any actual developmental edge over other children. I read books and spoke in sentences, therefore I was Smart.

Naturally, being a Smart Kid did not preclude me from being extremely stupid about some very strange things. I was able to read books, but books did not imbue me with common sense, an understanding of the subtleties of language, or investigative curiosity greater than that of the common box turtle. I was a Smart Kid, and like most Smart Kids, I had some huge blind spots.

Movies That I Would Definitely Watch if Anyone Ever Decided to Make Them

An animated adaptation of Mo Willems’ Elephant and Piggie series, with Richard Kind voicing Elephant and Nicki Minaj voicing Piggie.

A sci fi/action thriller set in the year 3000, featuring Alia Shawkat, Ellen Page, and Janelle Monae as girl spies—IN SPACE. Together they infiltrate the secret headquarters of an infamous interstellar corporation to expose the corrupt dealings of its CEO (played by Stanley Tucci). Laverne Cox plays their mysterious handler, Charlie’s Angels style. The soundtrack is comprised entirely of B-52s songs.

Literally any gender-flipped remake.

A fantasy film in which Eva Green plays a morally ambiguous empress.

A romantic comedy starring Lucy Liu and Oscar Isaac (all other details are irrelevant).

A gentle indie movie in which Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a lonely man who owns a used bookstore in a small town. He wears embarrassing sweaters and takes a lot of long, contemplative walks while listening to Simon and Garfunkel. He eventually falls for a local widow with a cluttered apartment and a beautiful dog. Said widow may be played by either Viola Davis or Christoph Waltz, I’m not picky.

This version of Stone Butch Blues.

A film starring Molly Shannon. Why don’t more of these exist?

Expanding on the above, a film starring Molly Shannon with Andre Braugher playing her love interest.

A biopic of Julie d’Aubigny, preferably directed by Baz Luhrmann.

A campus coming-of-age film in which a man completing a Master’s in Philosophy slowly comes to realize that his thesis is garbage and no one should ever complete a Master’s in Philosophy. Said man should ideally be played by Michael Cera or Jesse Eisenberg.

An adaptation of A Little Princess in which Captain Crewe actually dies. Bonus points if the actress playing Sara actually looks as bizarre and off-putting as she does in the book.

A slice-of-life dramedy about a young American Muslim family in which no one is revealed to be a secret terrorist.

A modern-day Pride and Prejudice remake (in which the Bennett sisters are in a hardcore band and Lady Catherine de Bourgh is a corrupt record executive) called Punk and Prejudice.

A movie starring Pam Grier in which nice things happen to Pam Grier.

A recut version of Chasing Amy that ends immediately after Ben Affleck is like “I love you!” and Joey Lauren Adams is like “COOL BUT I’M A LESBIAN THOUGH.” Its final shot is of Ben Affleck standing dejectedly in the rain. The audience feels very pleased.

Anything with Kumail Nanjiani.

A movie starring Gina Torres as a hardboiled detective who has Seen Too Much and is Too Old For This Shit, focusing on her burgeoning partnership with an eager, idealistic rookie (Lupita Nyong’o). They solve crimes and drink a lot of terrible coffee. There is at least one emotionally dense scene that takes place in a crowded bar after a drug bust.

A drama in which a young person begins to take antidepressants to manage their mental health and does not turn into either a zombie or a murderer.

A movie in which Alison Brie plays an assassin.

A stoner buddy comedy in which roommates Mila Kunis and Kat Dennings accidentally get mixed up in some convoluted illegal shenanigans, hopefully involving a government conspiracy of some kind, while stoned out of their respective gourds. Their dealer will be played by Danny Masterson. The cop that is on their trail will be played by Morena Baccarin. The local crime lord trying to hunt them down will be played by either Sir Patrick Stewart or Siouxsie Sioux.

A well-made lesbian film in which nobody dies, cheats on anyone else, or becomes heterosexual. Seriously. Just one.

Your Thirty Greatest Flaws, in No Particular Order

Whenever anyone posts anything slightly cryptic on social media, you assume it is a personal attack and are low-key resentful of that person for at least a week.

That Bwessed Awwangement

I have a yen for amusingly shaped kitchen accessories. Show me a cookie jar shaped like a penguin, or a set of salt and pepper shakers that are also two pugs kissing, and I will buy it, no matter how cheap or obnoxious it is. It’s a sickness, but it’s my sickness, and I am trying to embrace it.

I was browsing the home goods section of a department store recently with this end in mind. I was hoping to find a chicken-shaped egg timer. What I found instead was a wedding cake topper—just the one, as the store seemed to only carry one kind—featuring a bride dragging her groom to the altar by his ankle.

It wasn’t exactly this one, but you get the idea.

I Saw a Movie: Ghostbusters

I have never seen the original Ghostbusters.

This was not a conscious decision on my part. I have nothing against busting ghosts in general, and I am deeply fond of Dan Aykroyd, partly because he played Veda’s dad in My Girl and partly because he was goth enough to invent Crystal Head Vodka. I just never watched the film as a child, as my parents chose instead to show me Spielberg films and Oprah specials about family tragedies. (I have also never seen Back to the Future, Gremlins, Die Hard, Top Gun, or any of the Terminator films.) I have no personal connection to the Ghostbuster franchise, aside from catching the odd episode of the cartoon.

Nevertheless, when I heard about the reboot, I knew I was going to go see it, simply because it made Men On The Internet so violently, instantly angry.

Congratulations, You’re an Introvert

You—yes, you, the person reading this right now—are extremely special. You are both beautiful and precious, like an exotic hothouse flower, or a really tiny dog walking on its hind legs. You are one of the elite, a superior being, a beacon in a dark and dissolute world.

That is because if you are reading this, you are an introvert.*

You treasure. You pearl. You glorious banana smoothie of a human being.

A Brief Vignette

While walking back home from a friend’s house tonight, I saw a raccoon and her baby.

Pulse

On Sunday morning, forty-nine people were murdered in a gay bar called Pulse in Orlando, Florida. Fifty-three more were wounded. They were shot by a man named Omar Mateen. He used a Sig Sauer MCX rifle and a Glock 17. It was the worst mass shooting by a single gunman in U.S. history.

These are the facts, and I am trying to lay them out for myself.

I Saw a Movie: Magic Mike XXL

I really like Channing Tatum.