emmy blotnick

Texts with my sister-in-law

Karen: Plans for Christmas?
Me: I’m going to see as many movies as I can in a row without getting kicked out
Karen: Lucky. Movies are the first thing to go when you have kids.
Me: Sigh. Well, I’ll send you some homemade video cliffs notes of Mission Impossible 4
Karen: Don’t bother. If Tom Cruise is in it, we know how it ends. With Suri on top!
Me: Gross!
Karen: Ewwww. Didn’t mean it like that for chrissake.

(I laugh like Butt-Head into infinity.)

This entire week

I’ve been at home, writing in my living room (that sounds poetic, right? Wait for it, it’s not) and early on I realized that nobody at eye level with my apartment has curtains. None of us. We can all see each other throughout the day and it brings up a handful of weird questions: Should you fight the natural human instinct to wave? Do you still dance around if the mood strikes? Do you still, like, pick your nose? Is it okay to lick that plate? What if we ever meet?

From Monday through Thursday, there was an elderly Asian woman in the apartment across the street who stood at her window facing out the entire day, just watching and watching. Pale little somber face. She never moved and I grew incredibly tired of second-guessing all my “home alone” behaviors. Can’t go through life that way; being home alone is too awesome.

So I let my neighbor-guard down. Way down.

On Tuesday I split my favorite pants dancing to “Get Into the Groove” (consider that groove Gotten Into) and it doesn’t matter who you are, if you get to see that from the comfort of your home on a quiet weekday you’re lucky. All day Wednesday I picked my nose so consistently I convinced myself I was pulling a prank on her, that I was going to trick her into thinking time had stopped. Thursday I made a pretty offensive “new take” on nachos that I’m not going to tell you about in any detail, but I definitely licked every last bit of Awful off that plate.

It wasn’t until Friday morning that I put on my glasses for the first time all week and saw that the watchful old Asian woman was actually a large curtain tied in a knot.

I know. I know. But listen, I am deeply glad I did all my stupid shit. I have no regrets besides maybe not putting on my glasses sooner. I want to extrapolate this experience into life philosophy territory and I can already tell it’s going to be a clunker, but let’s try. Here’s the dismount: “Live like the old Asian lady watching you is just a large curtain tied in a knot.”

Whew.

My friend got a job

The following is his reaction to the news. All are gchat messages I received from him consecutively.

• “WHAT THE FUCK
• TIME 2 SWIG SUM SWAGU
• I’M GONNA LIE DOWN ON THE GROUND AND DIE
• MY NOSE IS BLEEDING
• I just fell down
• DAMN WHAT THE FUCK
• WHAT WHAAAAT
• I’M GONNA PISS ON MYSELF TO CELEBRATE
• DAMN I’M GONNA PUMP SOME FUCKING IRON
• FEW TIMES BEEN AROUND THAT TRACK
• Motherfucking fuck yeah
• DAMN I NEED TO TAKE A POOP ON SOMETHING
• FUCK
• ALL OF MY FEELINGS ARE IN CAPS LOCK
• I’m literally blasting “How Do I Live” and singing along
• Shit, in my overzealousness I accidentally sent the boss a picture of my penis
• Like seven of them
• I LITERALLY JUST BURIED MY FACE IN A PILLOW AND SCREAMED “FUCK YEAH” LIKE 10 TIMES
• THEN AIR BOXED
• Fuck
• Shit shit shit
• SHIT
• DAMN!”

Over 30 hours later, he added, “I JUST PUNCHED A HOLE THROUGH MY COMFORTER.”

I hope we all get to experience this feeling at some point in our lives.