As a concept, Go Fug Yourself is completely catty and banal way of making money: harping on celebrities for the terrible outfits they put together.  But they don’t doodle on anyone’s face and say “har har, that dress makes you look fat, ya dumb whore.”  Instead, they provide me with the biggest laughs from any blog.  Those two girls are sharp and witty without being pretentious or mean.  And I have been giggling here for a while about a Marie Claire cover featuring Beyonce with slightly raised eyebrows that most people would probably look right over, but the Fug Girls interpret it otherwise:

Her face looks like she’s ten seconds away from stalking up to a dude in a bar and blabbering, “Hey baby, I think you’re really cute, and I think we should go back to your place and I’ll make you my mother’s special omelet recipe tomorrow morning and then we can go to the park and pet some dogs but I’m allergic to dogs so we can’t go out and buy a dog together which is FINE because we SHOULDN’T do that anyway until you’ve met my mother BUT SHE’S GOING TO LOVE YOU, AND THIS BAR DOESN’T SELL ESPRESSO AND OH MY GOD I’M GOING TO NEED ONE SO IF YOU DON’T HAVE AN ESPRESSO MACHINE THEN WE’LL HAVE TO REGISTER FOR ONE WHEN WE GET MARRIED, AND I DON’T BELIEVE IN GETTING HITCHED DURING FOOTBALL SEASON BUT APRIL WOULD  BE A GREAT TIME SO LET’S CHECK OUR CALENDARS TONIGHT AND PICK A DATE AND WE’RE ALSO THROWING OUT ALL YOUR SHIRTS BECAUSE THEY’RE UGLY AND NO MORE NINTENDO AND COULD YOU PLEASE JUST ORDER ME A GODDAMN DIET COKE OR A CAPPUCCINO OR SOMETHING BECAUSE I WANT TO BE REEEEEEEEEEEEEALLY AWAKE TONIGHT WHEN WE CONSUMMATE OUR ENGAGEMENT!!!!!”

Class.

“I’ve got a million reasons for doing everything.  I don’t think there’s ever just one.”

But that’s not what comes out when the time comes. Instead, when he cuts me off with his car, I am unceremoniously yanking up my bra. It is a dark parking lot full of fellow women coworkers after a long, slow day. I assume no one will notice. He says something as he pulls to a stop in front of me, leaning out the window.

“Sorry?” I say.

“I thought you was my age, I was gonna ask you out, come out with me.”

“…No, thanks.”

“Uh huh.”

I turn around with a disbelieving laugh as he pulls past me to see if Kristen and Sharon have heard. They stand looking confused. I cross the two empty rows, about to repeat it for them, when the dark car turns around and heads back in my direction. I take the last few strides to join my coworkers and shake my head when they ask me what he said.

“Is that him?” asks Kristen. I take big gulps of water as the car circles us, achingly slow. I am flanked by two women, one of whom has been attacked outside before, yet he takes his time, still hanging out the window.

“Keep going, buddy,” we mutter when, after twenty seconds of idling next to us, he continues on.

Kristen and Sharon stand with me for a few minutes. They don’t want him to see which car I get into or which direction I turn. “Go left, go left,” I breathe when he reaches the mall exit.

“Was he in the store? Did he see you in there?”

No, I don’t know, I don’t think so.

I think it would break someone’s heart to hear the questions I have, in the voice that I feel them. Or maybe I mean, I wish it would. That’s probably what I mean.

Every couple of years I seem to have a streak of bad luck that ranges from a few months to the whole damn thing. I’ve had a good two years, which means that I’ve been long overdue for getting smacked in the head with a righteous hammer. It wasn’t the perfect school year, especially with my body rejecting nearly everything it once tolerated, so perhaps this stretches back to October, but at any rate, I certainly see no end in sight.

I just feel so sad lately. I’m working seven days a week, and I am tired of being on the train and bus, especially when I always seem to be there when something ridiculous happens (no, no, Bus 554, don’t worry about showing up for an hour and a half, where could I possibly have to be on a workday morning?). I am off of contacts for the next two weeks, at which point I’ll have to switch to dailies, which will cost me so much more money, and my glasses make me feel ugly. Never mind being ugly every second of the day, having to feel it resting on the sides of my big red nose just hurts me in my chest. I had a procedure recently that was more embarrassing than it was painful, so I have talked to literally no one about it and don’t plan to because there will not be the right reaction. I don’t see many people anymore, anyway; most of the times this doesn’t bother me because when I am this morose, the last thing I want is people, but I have this crazy idea that every person should have a Someone they can always talk to. I am also sad because I may have missed my opportunity at a Someone by a day and a half, even though probably nothing would have happened (why would it? guys don’t make passes at girls with glasses), but the almost-there possibility is driving me crazy inside–I’d talk to someone about it if there were a Someone, but if there were a Someone then there’d be little else to talk about on the subject. My haircut did not turn out the way I wanted it. I’ve been having a lot of trouble dealing with my brother’s gradual exeunt from my life, becoming no longer my brother but someone else’s husband. I’m more upset by Tim Russert’s death than I thought I would be and was so moved that his book about his father sold out by noon today. I fell for every possible trap lain for me on Friday the 13th, and it was also the day that I realized that Moses hadn’t been seen in several days.

I already feel like saying a big fuck you to everyone, because I already know that no one quite understands my love for my cat. It’s just, when I’m feeling like this, like I am the ugliest, stupidest, most unlikeable broad on the planet, and it’s a consistent feeling I’ve had since October, then Cozmo is just about the only one who knows what to do. He knows to just sit with me without projecting any vibes like he would rather be somewhere else, or that he maybe agrees with some of it, or tries to give me advice on how best to handle it; he just sits with me, falls asleep with me, and that’s all I need. When you’re as lonely as I am, you gravitate towards the things that love you the most. When the thing that loves you the most is a cat, well, then it’s a cat.

And still, the last time I remember seeing him, I was in a sleepless Sunday night rage, the type where I try to knock myself out, and I kicked him in the face for putting his wet nose against my ticklish feet. No one else has seen him since about Tuesday. He never leaves the yard, at least not more than an hour. I can’t imagine him getting eaten by a coyote because he’s faster than a speeding bullet, nor can I picture him getting lost because he’s lived here for 12 years, yet here we are. I sobbed this morning, calling for him out in the woods; I sobbed on my lunch break, holding my breath whenever someone walked in to grab a radio; I sobbed on the drive home, because the signs I had made in a fit this morning had actually been hung up around the neighborhood, in the mailboxes, on the golf course. When I came home, my mom said, “You got a haircut, I see.”

“It’s not the way I want it to be. Few things are.” I sobbed instead of eating dinner.

All the tears are coming from more places than this, simply because inconvenience after inconvenience has been building up for months, but they’re absolutely heightened because Moses isn’t here. Even with Kittum Bits sleeping on my feet and Gretty in my lap, I have never felt more alone. I deal with at least a hundred people everyday, and I have never felt more ugly and alone.

Oh, oh, I get it! Because I’m not a girl.

When I was talking to my doctor the other day, everything was coming up roses until she asked the last question, “How are you dealing with your anxiety?” I didn’t lie; the answer is not well. I can tackle it and tackle it and tackle it until there’s so much beneath me that I trip in some awful burst. It manifests in weird ways that I really should be over but just can’t seem to end. A bad hair day yields an ugly day yields a screaming ripping tearing fest in front of the mirror, and as many times as I say, “Stop it,” punches fly.

I’m just never going to feel beautiful or smart enough because I’ve got no reason to. I’ll never be able to fool myself into thinking they’re true, and why should I? If I can’t be honest with myself, then I can’t be honest with anyone, and if nothing else I like to reach for honesty.

Which is why when I’m yelling, “JUST BECAUSE NO ONE EVER INVITED ME TO PROM DOESN’T MEAN I DIDN’T PRACTICE ALONE IN MY ROOM,” try to see if I’m laughing. Try to see if mimicking the world’s smallest violin is an okay idea. Small problems? No grandkids for you.

I don’t care who can hear me: I am mortified by my years.

And just to clarify? I can walk in heels. I can also stand in the center of a room and tear out my hair and cry in heels. What are we miming now?