Chicago, are you ready? Party goblins, are you ready? Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, Iliza!
Chicago! Thank you! Thank you for having me. I’d like to discuss something with you. There are two kinds of hungover. There’s the kind of hungover where you wake up the next morning and you’re like, “What? I touched his penis over his jeans? It’s okay, I’m sassy.” And then… there’s the kind of hungover where whatever happened the night before wasn’t even your fault. Because you weren’t mentally present for any of it. For ’twas not you that was is charge. ‘Twas your party goblin! Yeah. Just so you know, your party goblin sleeps in the back of your brain. For those of you that are unfamiliar with my work, she sleeps in the back of your brain – and she waits… – on a pile of rags… and regrets… and old Tiger Beat magazines. She waits! For the perfect opportunity. She’s back there in your brain, sleeping her goblin sleep, just… Channing Tatum, stick of butter. And she will awaken… when she hears you say… “I guess I’ll just come out for one drink.” “I’ll just come out for one because I have to be up early.” Eat that sandwich out of the garbage and text your ex-boyfriend that you love him then turn your phone off! And by the way, there is zero culpability on the part of your party goblin. She’s not there the next morning like, “Oh, my God, are you okay? Do you need Pedialyte?” No! She doesn’t give a fuck. She straight up ghosts at, like, 3:00 a.m. when you’re shit-faced in the back of an Uber, right? You scooped yourself into the back of this car. Your crowing achievement of the evening is that you didn’t die. And we’ve all had that moment. Anybody that’s been out drinking, you’ve been out, it’s been loud, there’s been yelling, dancing, you stole an ambulance, it’s been a crazy night. We’ve all had that moment of solitary drunken serenity where you get in the back of the car and you shut the door and for the first time all night it’s quiet. And you think, “Oh, my God, I made it.” Followed by, “I’m gonna throw up.” And the car is going, you’re like, “Oh, fuck!” You’re trying to hold it in, right? You roll the window down. You’re like, “Agh! It’s too much air!” You roll the window back up. You’re like, “Too much me!” You crack the window. You’re like, “No!” The vomit’s coming up. It’s right here, like A1 Steak Sauce, it gets you here. You’re like, “Uhh!” You’re trying to focus on anything to distract you. You’re listening to the radio. For the first time ever, you’re paying attention to the words of a Pitbull song. You’re like… # Uno, dos, tres… # We get it! We get it! You look at party goblin, she’s loving it. She’s got her head out her window like…
And you know it’s your party goblin that got you by the manner in which you wake up the next morning. If you wake up. If you wake up, Chicago. You wake up… When party goblin gets you, you wake up on your couch. Beds are for closers. You wake up on your couch, okay? You ever pass out on a pillow so hard, you get a cushion scar down the side of your face? And you wake up, no idea where you are, no idea where you were. You check your wrist, it’s just a dirty patchwork of entry stamps. Putting the pieces together from the night before is like the plot from Memento. No idea. You check your Instagram feed, it’s a blurry feed of pictures you took of your own face from this angle. It’s just me and three girls in a bathroom in East LA like, “Squad goals.” Who the fuck are they? I don’t know, but I think I’m in the gang now, right? No idea what you did the night before. We… I… You know when party goblin gets you by the amount that you sleep. I slept for 15 hours the other day. I slept so long, my muscles atrophied. Okay? I turned to fucking stone. You ever pass out with your full body weight on your hands, like… No blood in, no blood out. Your hands are just purple, bloated flippers. I slept so long, I almost died. Like, there was a point at around 4:00 p.m. where my soul was like, “Should I just go?”
There’s different kinds of drunk. Some people think they get smarter when they’re drunk, some people wanna talk. The Latin phrase is in vino veritas, which means, “in wine, there’s truth,” which is why when girls get drunk, we’re always like, “Can I just tell you a secret?” “I don’t have a neck.” I don’t really make a lot of drunk mistakes but I worry when I make dumb decisions when I’m drunk for this simple fact. In my group of friends, I’m the alpha. I decide what we do. Obviously. I pick the restaurants, I pick the bars, mostly because no one cares, but I am the decision-maker. And what worries me is, if I’m doing stupid shit when I’m drunk, what hope do the sheep who I lead have… if that’s my example? So this is the story of one such night. So, we were out the other night and we were shit-canned. Like, the kind of drunk where you can’t even read. And then you realize it’s because… you’re in China Town. Actually, you know you’re fucked up when you’re in China Town and you can read. Ohhh! Ancient secrets, not so hidden. So… We’re drunk and we’re walking through China Town and we walk into a bar. I’m reticent to say that it’s a club because I’m 33, but there was a dance floor, a DJ and I had on a little body glitter, okay!
You’re probably wondering, “Why are you wearing body glitter?” I will tell you, Chicago. Because my date was late to pick me up. Gentlemen! You need to know this about women. When we get ready, we have a list of things we do to reach our most attractive point. There is an apex, nay, a pinnacle of beauty… that women reach when they’re getting ready. And every minute you’re late to get us is one more minute we spend doubting ourselves, dicking with our makeup, and we get incrementally uglier… as time goes on. One time, my date was an hour late, I grew a tail. This guy was only 30 minutes late, thank God. He walks in, I’m on the ground, there’s caboodle shrapnel everywhere. I’ve got a Wet N Wild lip gloss wand, I’m like, “I’m a pretty girl!” “Save yourself.” But what happens is, we have time, so we start to add things, doubt ourselves. That’s where I found that glitter. “He’s not here. What’s this?” In hindsight, it wasn’t body glitter, it was straight-up craft glitter. But I was like, “I’m gonna put it on my face, make it dainty.” Do you ever feel that? Do you ever feel that you can make something work? Do you ever feel that because you’re not trashy, you can pull off doing something that’s trashy? You’re like, “I can wear fishnet stockings, I went to Stanford.” Like it’s okay for some reason. That’s how I felt about that body glitter. I was like, “I’ll just do a little bit. I’ll do a classy amount. I’m just gonna do a little bit.” Fun fact, you know what body glitter up close looks like? Conjunctivitis. Like, real up close. “I’ll do a little.” Five minutes later, “Maybe just highlight the orbital rim. That way when we’re dancing, the light will hit it and it’ll be like, ‘Bing, anime! Ah!’ Keep going. Keep going.” Five more minutes later, “Maybe I’ll bring a little bit down here and highlight the jawbone so he knows I, what, come from good chewing stock?” Five more minutes later, sparkle fish! So now… I look like a goddamn road flare and we’re in public.
So… We walk into this bar and one of the difficult parts about being a woman, besides everything, is that… It’s really hard. Is that you’re constantly battling with yourself. In the long run, we’re battling our weight, hair color, wrinkles. Minute to minute, it’s just an adjustment of your hair and your bra and your underwear and your makeup and your mustache, braid it, bead it, set it. You’re always doing something. Because if one thing is off, then the night is ruined, Scott, okay? One time, I left my house without mascara on. I did a U-turn on a four-lane highway. Like, “No!” “They will see the whites of my eyes!” Everything has to be perfect. And guys, it’s exhausting. It’s exhausting being a girl. Did you know, fun scientific fact that I made up on the way here, that women get four minutes out of every night, four minutes out of every night where our brain sends a message to our body saying, “Everything’s okay, stop messing with it”? Four minutes out of every night where your brain sends a message to your body like, “Homeostasis achieved.” You’re like… And the rest of the time, it’s just mayhem! Everything has to be perfect.
So, we walk into this bar, my first thought… “I gotta fix my lip liner. Now!” I’m not even a big lip liner wearer, but in that moment, ’twas everything. In that moment, I believed fixing my lip liner is what stood between me and eternal happiness, okay? I had to take a liner, I had to find my liner and line my chola lips, okay? That’s what I had to do. So glad that got a response. In North Carolina, nothing. Okay. Had to fix my lip liner, had to be right then. To the gentlemen in the room, I don’t expect you to understand the urgency with which I had to fix my lip liner. The only thing I could liken it to in male culture is, like… when you feel you have to adjust your balls. Similar immediacy. As we’ve seen, unfortunately. When you feel that’s gotta happen, it’s gotta happen now! Go! Go! Go! In front of children, Christmas Eve, family portrait, messing with my dick. # Messing with my dick in public # Wahoo! # It’s a dick puzzle and I’m solving it now # # Maximum comfort at any cost # # This is my right, Nancy, get off my back # So… So many guys right now have to adjust. They’re like, “I’m not gonna do it!” I believe that’s what Elvis was doing. Makes sense. Needed my liner. Now you understand that I needed it, guys, okay? Needed the fucking liner. That means I had to find the liner in my bag. However, I had a big bag.
There’s a very specific way that women will search for something when we have a big bag. What do you do? You take a designated search claw… and you plunge it. Never breaking eye contact with your prey, I mean your date. Notice I haven’t blinked, Chicago. Dedication acting. The constant eye contact being a reminder that, yes, I can multitask and keep talking. I’ll make a great partner. Marry me. Meanwhile, to the outside world, it looks like you’re wrestling with a very small bass. If you’re a pro, you keep conversation moving. Still haven’t blinked. If you’re a pro, you keep conversation moving. “I’m listening. Keep talking. Keep talking. I can look and listen. Say FanDuel one more time, motherfucker. I’m listening.” You’re digging around in there. Meanwhile, as a woman, you’re having to come to terms with the seventh layer of hell that is the bottom of your bag. It’s just a graveyard of dismembered pens, there’s coins. Why is there always a Nature’s Valley granola bar crumbled… at the bottom? You stick your hand down, you come up with oats between your fingernails. You’re like, “Ow! Ow!” Digging around. A gym lock, a phone charger, a concealer without its lid. Why? Why can’t we make them with retractable lids that don’t break off? Because you stick your hand down there, unknowingly you come up with one creamy finger. You’re like, “No!” “No!” But it was expensive, so you’re like, “No!” So now you look amazing. Keep looking, keep looking. Bits of paper. A sock. Keep looking. Tampon out of its wrapper. Maybe I keep it. No, I’ll get sick. Digging around. If it’s out of the wrapper, don’t keep it. Sometimes it’s like, “I’ll just…” Don’t blow on it and… You’re gonna get dysentery, you’ll never finish the Oregon Trail. Seven or eight seconds go by, I cannot find my lip liner. Seven or eight seconds go by, which in girl years is, like, forever, I cannot find my lip liner. So, what’s a logical thing to do? Maybe use the other hand to add to the search, right? To aid in the excavation. Maybe get a cellular device to illuminate the situation. Not me! I dropped to my knees on a dance floor, dumped out the bag and start sifting through it like Helen Keller learning how to spell water. Fun fact. Girls, if you wanna let people around you know that you’re absolutely not on the same mental playing field as them, a great way to do it, I found, is to dump our personal property onto a shared communal space, because that immediately lets other bar-goers know, “I don’t give a fuck!” “Where is it?” This body language, this body language, this feral-raccoon-like body language… was enough to alert the door guy. You’re a door guy at a busy nightclub, you’ve got a lot to deal with. However, he found my witch over a cauldron behavior… threatening enough to leave his post, flashlight in hand, and walk up to me. He was a big guy. He was, like, six-eight, black guy, good-looking. I had to say he was good-looking. Because I said he was black. Seems to be the face of thinly-veiled political correctness in our country, if you say someone’s color, other than white, you must assign them an accolade, deserved or otherwise, to prove that you’re not racist, when in the first place, I wasn’t fucking racist, I was giving you an accurate depiction of the events that transpired. I didn’t see his face! Dude had a flashlight in my eye! I can tell you this much. Black, white or other, there’s no way he was hot. He’s six-eight. They get weird-looking after a certain height, okay? Structurally, it gets weird. Okay. I am not wrong. #IAmNotWrong Okay, so… It’s true. There’s no hot giants. So he Shreks up to me… And I feel his presence and I see the ball of light and I hear his voice and he goes, “Everything a’ight over here?” Fucking no, dude, everything is most definitely not a’ight. I’m on the floor. I don’t exist on this plane. Fun fact about being on the floor. As an adult, when you choose to take it to this place, you lose all credibility. Nobody wants to hear the prerogative of someone on the floor. If you have to crane your neck up to explain yourself, you are fucked, okay? You don’t believe me? You ever tried to get the life story of someone sitting on a curb? No. Because they were sitting on a fucking curb and you didn’t wanna talk to them. They were someone who’s drunk, on a lot of meth or like a really pissed off bridesmaid just waiting for the service to be over. But now I’m on the floor and I’m nervous because that’s an authority figure and in my head I’m like, “Oh, fuck, I’m gonna go a bar jail.” “What if they repossess my wedges?” But I was drunk and in my head I’m like, “It’s cool. Be smart. Explain what you’re doing. Whatever you do, Iliza, just sound intelligent.” Instead, what came out of my mouth was, “I gotta find my lip liner, man!” And… what I feel he understood, nay respected, nay… Neigh. Resonated with wasn’t that I had to find my lip liner. What I feel he understood was the sheer amount of white-girl crazy… coming out from behind my eye. Because he then gave me the international verbal sign for, “I respect you and fear you, I’m going to back off,” which is… “A’ight, then.” And he just walked away. I never found my lip liner. It was, like, in my other bag. I didn’t like that experience. I didn’t like being on the floor. And I didn’t like being on the floor for a very specific reason. As a woman, I didn’t need a reminder of how vulnerable women are on a day-to-day basis. Being on the floor, it’s a very vulnerable place. I didn’t need that reminder. And women in our society are vulnerable by virtue of the fact that we are physically not as strong as men. That’s the root of the issue, that’s the root of the oppression. And that’s the root of oppression of any side of war throughout history. One side was stronger, they get to make the rules. Do you think for a second that if women were physically stronger than men we would’ve waited for the right to vote? It’s 1910, some jacked-up housewife is just putting up weight in her garage. She’s got a shaker of horse testosterone and creatine. Her little husband comes in, he’s like, “You’re not voting.” She’d be like… “Out of the way, Jedediah.” “Mama’s going to the polls.”
It’s physical strength, that’s the root of the issue. Physical strength. And they try to placate women. They try to tell us we’re other types of strong. Sure. But none that matter as much as physical strength. “Well, you’re a woman, so… mentally strong.” Mentally strong. You put up with him all day, huh?” Pfft! Mentally strong. Mentally strong? What do I do with that? Mentally strong. What do I do when a rapist runs at me? Math? It’s physical strength. Physical strength is what counts when it comes to protecting yourself and women are only naturally physically super-human strong when it comes to two things. The first is a recent one, and that’s CrossFit, which… It’s enough, by the way. It’s a cult. Okay? It’s insane. It goes… Scientology, CrossFit, people without celiac disease that don’t eat gluten. It’s a cult, okay? It’s enough. “I can deadlift 600 pounds.” Cool. What Starbucks do you work at? What are you… Guard a village. Join up. What are you doing with that muscle, all the horse meat? The workouts that they’re doing, it’s all snake oil, I believe, okay? Push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, the foundations of a military workout, these are applicable in the rest of your life. Instead, they’ve got a father of six at 7 a.m. flipping a monster truck tire? Why? When do you need that? When do you need to know the form for that? What post-apocalyptic gorilla playground… are you gonna find yourself in? Why don’t we give you an empty suitcase to throw around your cage, Peaches? And the rope thing. There are other ways to build up your pectoral muscles. Men have been doing it for centuries. Instead they’ve got you using a rope. When are you gonna use that? “Timmy’s stuck down by the dock under some boat rope!” “I got it!” And the only time that women are naturally, exceptionally physically strong is when it comes to childbirth. And that’s amazing. Yes. It’d be amazing if those were all men with, like, really high-pitched voices. It’s an amazing amount of super-human strength that unfairly women only get to tap into when they’re having a baby. You only get to tap into that super-human strength once, maybe twice a year, but that second baby’s gonna be very tiny. You only get to use it then. That’s a disproportionate amount of strength. Mother Nature is playing a cruel joke on us. Do you know how many pounds of pressure per square snootch inch it takes to deliver a baby? We’re not even using our hands! You’re like python-like digesting a goat. “Get out of there!” Using fucking grit and rage and, like, a mother’s love, but just, “Aghh!” Sparta! Just fucking going. You can do that with your body, yet the rest of the year, we have trouble not doing push-ups on our knees. That doesn’t seem fair. We’re only exceptionally strong when it comes to children. We have something called mama bear strength. So that means when your child is in danger, your child, someone else’s child, “Sorry, junior.” Your child… “Lift the piano off your legs yourself, okay, I’m not your mama.” When your child is in danger, in that moment, through adrenaline, you can develop super-human strength and save the baby. So if your child is trapped under a car, you can go ahead and flip that Buick like an orangutan, no problem. Yet if you’re a single girl walking alone on a Saturday night and some maniac runs at you, what’s your defense? Like, “No, two plus two is four.” We’re millennials, we’d probably use our phone calculators.
That’s why sexual harassment is such a big deal. It really has less to do with the disgusting thing a man feels he has the right to yell at you out of van or a truck. Never out of a Civic for some reason. But for the girls that might not know, you can wear whatever you want. It doesn’t give someone the right to treat you like an animal. You can wear whatever you want. You can leave the house out naked. You will go to jail, but you can do whatever you want. But it has less to do with what a man is yelling at you, and nobody wants to say this, but I will, what it has to do with is the underlying notion that if that man wanted to act on it, he could. And if you don’t believe me, every girl knows what it’s like, a guy yells something disgusting at you, and because you’re strong, you yell back. He’s like, “Nice tits.” You’re like, “Fuck off!” Immediately followed by, “What if he kills me?” Like, there’s that moment. Hoping to God that your bark was big enough that you don’t have to take a lady bite. Being sexually harassed is the worst. I’m sorry, let me rephrase that. Being sexually harassed by an ugly guy is the worst. If he’s hot, it’s just plain old flirting. No one’s ever been like, “Get away from me, you model!” That’s fine. It has to do also with an unrequited, uninvited sexual energy. And women are very aware of that. Every woman in here knows what it feels like to have a guy’s eyes on you when you find him attractive. It’s the best feeling. When you see hot guys and you walk by, you’re like, “Hope they’re looking at my butt. I feel so good about my little haunches.” When the dudes are gross and you walk by, you’re like, “Please don’t look at my butt, please don’t look at my butt.” Having someone sexually harass you, it’s their energy on you. It feels like you’re getting shot with a dick gun. That’s what it feels like. Minding your own business, like, “I love being an independent woman.” “Nice tits!” “Agh!” Aw, he got a boner for free. Women have to think about these things. It’s hard being a girl. I haven’t been a guy in, like, a while, but it is difficult. And we’re constantly questioning ourselves and we’re constantly being told that what we feel is wrong and how we look is wrong. And we tell it to little girls and it sticks with us. Take a man and a woman shopping. Nothing will fit because fashion is the enemy, for sure. But nothing will fit the woman for negative reasons and nothing will fit the guy for positive reasons. Take a woman shopping, “Nothing fits, my arms are fat, my thighs are big, I’m fucking gross, I hate my body.” Take a guy shopping, an average man of average build, five-ten, 170, “Nah, I can’t buy off the rack because my shoulders are so abnormally broad. I’m tall. For my height, my waist tapers at such an Adonis-like angle.” My dick is so girthy, I can only wear JNCOs.” “It’s hard for me.” These are good things. Women are told to change. It’s okay if men are the same. That’s why we have stereotypes. That’s why you’ve got the stereotype of your Grandpa, “I sit in my chair, I drink my beer, I’ve got the remote, I fought in Korea, don’t fucking talk to me,” right? “I’m not moving, you move!” Women aren’t like that, right? What do women do? “I’m taking a class.” Love classes. “I’m learning more about Cheryl.” “I’m meeting Cindy for the first time.” There’s two women in this monologue. I’m two different women, it’s fine. “I’m learning to breathe. I’m getting a sense of myself. I’m canning. I’m canning my own beets.” For no reason. I live in the middle of a city. I just thought I wanted to connect. I’m canning my own shit now. I take it, put it in there, I let it solidify, I make jewelry, I sell it on Etsy. It’s nice pocket money.” “I’m learning about myself. I’m learning to breathe. I’m cutting my own hair.” “I’m learning to make my own tea, putting the hair in the tea, I drink my hair.” Changing. We always wanna change a little bit, right? Always wanna lose a little bit of weight. No matter what your body looks like. “I just wanna lose, like, five pounds.” We think that’s the answer. “Just wanna lose, like, five pounds.” “Just wanna lose, like, five pounds before lunch.” “So I can have more lunch.” Because we think being skinny is the answer, right? It’s not even enough to be skinny, is it? It’s not even enough to be thin, is it? You have to be the thinnest out of your friends, who you hate. You don’t believe me? Look at any Instagram picture of more than four women. It’s a fucking pose-off. Dudes don’t care. They’ll turn around like gorillas mid-meal. “Take the picture, I don’t care. Fucking…” Girls, it’s like a Mr. Universe, like, “Fucking line up! Line up! Make it pointy! Concave! Make it fucking pointy! Kisses. Neck vein. Look at the motherfucking neck vein. Hamstring. Happy birthday, Stacey.” It’s not enough to just be thin, right? You wanna be the kind of thin where your friends… are worried for you. So thin. Horrible looking. Stalking around Gap Kids. “I wear a youth large, thank you.” Right? Fucking femur for days. Right? Mr. Peanut Legs coming out six seconds ahead of you. Like an R. Crumb comic book thinner, right? Just walking around, baby stegosaurus spine. Clothes hanging like moss off a willow tree. A fucking clavicle you can serve soup out of. Yeah! So happy! I like my body, but I always… Everybody wants to change something, right? I just wanted have shoulders that were so frail and tiny, little bird shoulders. Do they even have shoulders? No, it’s just… That’s what I want, I want no shoulders. I want the kind of shoulders where my bra strap just falls down. Just floppy hair. “Ohh. Whoops.” Men love it. They love it. They go crazy. One strap… Because it’s one less thing they gotta do, right? It’s not my fault I think that’s attractive. You see it on lingerie ads in magazines. The women are on the bed, bra strap. Men love vulnerability and that’s what that represents. “Not me, I like a strong woman.” Bullshit. Vulnerability. “Help me. Open this jar. Please help me.” They love it. What does the bra strap down represent? You’re not supported. When your tits are flopping around, you can’t run away. Yeah! I want that. I want that bone structure, right? I wanna have those shoulders. I wanna look like the girl on the cover of the playbill for Les Mis. Just… “Oh, monsieur!” It’s a ten-year-old French girl. Still, I want those bones. They do, men love vulnerability, right? That’s why the thin thing is the thing. That’s why women are expected to be… You can’t have a baby if you’re this big. That’s why we have to be… garden party. Like that kind of thin. Because if women are thin, there’s no nutrition, so you’re cold, you don’t leave the house, you don’t vote. Yeah! That’s why every model has that vulnerable look. That’s why models look like you uncovered a refugee from under a manhole cover. “Ohhh! Gucci.” They love vulnerability. And we do things to make ourselves vulnerable. Strong women are told to tone it down, right? But men are told to toughen up. We don’t let men be vulnerable. That’s not fair. But I can’t help you because I’m a girl and I can only fight one fight at a time. If you wanna come to my green room and cry after, I will… laugh at you. But, no… But we tell strong women to bring it down, right? High heels? Why do you wear high heels? So you what? Can’t run from your attacker. Good. Smoky eye makeup? Why does that make sense? What are you doing? You take the makeup, grind it into your eye. Why is that attractive? I figured it out. Smoky eye makeup makes you look like you what? Just choked on a dick and cried. Good. I am not wrong. It’s a little off-brand for me. I am not wrong. It’s not enough to be thin ever! You gotta be gaunt to the point of extinction. The kind of thin where it’s like, “What up, bitches? Find me.” That kind of thin. Maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe it’s a cultural thing. I can only truly speak from the perspective of what I am. I’m an upper-middle-class white woman. Hope I die that way. And the expectation of being thin has been put on us for about 100 years. That’s been the look. The like… “Uhh, come, have some tea. Yes, these jeans are high. That’s not weird.” We like that look. And that’s a hard look to achieve. Some women die trying to be thin. And it was only in the last… forty years that women of color and women of other ethnicities rose to prominence and made it socially acceptable, nay attractive, to have the body of a grown woman. Jennifer Lopez came out of nowhere with the backside of a brontosaurus, like… “Que paso?” And it became attractive. And somewhere, with everybody having an agenda in our social conversation, it became okay to tell white girls to their faces, “You’re fat. Kill yourself.” Bullying us on Facebook. Because you’re white, so life must be easy. Which, I’m not gonna lie, it’s great. Being white is great. But… It became okay to say that because we are not spicy, right? White women don’t have a fire in them. There’s not a chili pepper here. Inside here is a scoop of Breyer’s vanilla bean ice cream. And we’ll take it. Your boyfriend tells you you’re fat, we’ll be like, “I’m sorry, Chad, please don’t get out of the kayak.” “We’re gonna have an afternoon. I brought Jenga.” You know who has an unshakeable sense of self-esteem? Black women. You… Yes! You cannot tell a sister on her something isn’t working. She won’t believe it. Try it. Say to a black girl, “I don’t like those jeans.” First of all, I dare you. It will not rattle her for a second. Be like, “I don’t like those jeans.” She’ll be like, “Bullshit. I see you looking.” Girls, if you want respect, you’re gonna have to take it. It’s 2016. Let’s learn math, let’s learn science, let’s drop the body issues, okay? Don’t let anybody make you feel less than. Your bodies are perfect as they are. And if you want respect, you have to command respect, not demand it. Two totally different things. Commanding respect is in the actions, it’s the way that we speak about each other, it’s the way that you speak about yourself. If your whole agenda is to be sexual, and confusing being sexual with empowerment, and talking about fucking and sex all the time, thinking that that’s the reason that women are empowered, you’re fucking wrong. It comes with the way you treat yourself. Don’t call each other whores. Don’t call each other sluts. Because when you do that, society looks at you and they say, “Oh, it’s okay to talk to women that way.” You teach people how to treat you. Let’s get rid of the phrase “walk of shame.” What is that one? What is walk of shame? I don’t understand that. I’ve never had a walk of shame. What could that be? Walk of shame. What’s there to be shameful about? What’s the shame in the fact that he and I went out, we had the same amount of vodka, he got too drunk to get it up, so he passed out, then I used his credit card to buy $100 worth of Chinese and stole his golf clubs? Walk of shame!
We’re starting from behind here, girls, we’ve gotta say smarter things. From now on… Let’s make a pact. From now on, I don’t wanna hear any more women talk about how they wanna be… mermaids. Okay? Okay? It’s stupid. And I’m not trying to be a bitch, but it’s probably not gonna happen for you. Okay? Literally, you don’t have the bone structure. What worries me, I see it a lot and it’s not from children, it’s grown women, like, “I don’t wanna be adult any more. I wanna be a mermaid.” You… The amount of escapism that’s in that sentence! You wanna move to the woods, you wanna make jam, fine. At least you’re still paying taxes. You wanna be a mermaid? That means all of your achievements in life are gonna lead to you being a fictional fuck toy for a horny sailor. That’s what you want? That’s what mermaids are! Read a book! Because I see it a lot. T-shirts, right? “I am a mermaid.” “Yo soy mermaid.” “Je suis mermaid.” Let’s discuss the logistics… of being a mermaid, so that you have the information. If and when the job opportunity presents itself on LinkedIn… you can make an informed decision, okay? If you are a mermaid, you don’t sleep. Girls are like, “Oh, my God, I love sleeping.” “None for you. Just swim.” It’s chugging Mountain Dew Code Red. There are no beds, but there is Mountain Dew Code Red. You’re some white-trash jacked-up mermaid just swimming, swimming. And by the way, you don’t have fins. Remember, you’re half-human. So you’ve got arms. You’ve got these thick-ass traps, just swimming. You can’t stop swimming, because if you do, something will try to eat you, fuck you or kill you, okay? It’s not dissimilar to being a woman in a downtown area. So just swimming, swimming. Now, you’re swimming all day, you’re probably pretty hungry, right? How are you gonna catch food? Remember, you’re half-human. We don’t have animal-catching accoutrements, like claws and tentacles and lasers. We don’t have those kind of things. We have big brains. So I don’t know what you’re gonna do. Maybe talk a crab to death. Like, “Excuse me. Excuse me.” I was thinking of double majoring in psychology and communications. Excuse me. Excuse me. Are you a cancer?” So now… you’re hungry, you’re tired, you’re like, “I don’t care because I’m gonna lay on the beach like a mermaid.” No, you won’t. Sailors are gonna try to fuck you and the Japanese will definitely try to eat you just for funsies, okay? You’re swimming around like, “I don’t care because I’ll have long, flowing hair.” No, you won’t. You ever go in the ocean? You guys aren’t on an ocean, you’re on a lake. You’re a lake mermaid? What are you, half trout? Kill yourself. Ohh! Freshwater mermaid? What if you got, like, the weird end of the genetic pool and you were half turtle? No tail but just half… “Long flowing mermaid hair.” You’re not gonna have that. You ever go in the water when there’s waves? You won’t have long flowing hair. You’re going to have one giant mer-dread. And it’s just gonna follow you. It’s just one big old mer-lock and it’s getting caught on propellers, it’s getting caught on anchors. There’s sea lice living in your mer-dread because that’s a warm, hospitable environment. Then there’s fish feeding off those sea lice. There’s an entire sustainable maritime ecosystem attached to your fucking head. You drag it around. Sea lice are nipping at your scalp. You gotta get rid of it, right? You’re like, “I’ll just cut it off.” Ain’t no scissors in the ocean, all right? I don’t care what the Little Mermaid told us because she was a liar and a hoarder. Hoarder! We let it go because she was pretty, but she was super-gross. # Look at this stuff, isn’t it neat? # That’s a used toothbrush. Don’t put it in your… Ohh! Ohh! Ohh! You’re gonna get sick! Still gotta get rid of that mer-dread because it’s a hazard, so what do you do? You have to get another fish to help you. You have to do what they do in the animal kingdom. You must what? You must what? Who here took marine biology? You have to what? Form a symbiotic relationship with other marine life. Good. And have that fish… come in with his fish tooth and just saw off your mer-dread, right? It’s gonna be bad-looking. But now, remember, you gotta pay that fish back. That’s the nature of a symbiotic relationship, you must reciprocate. How you gonna pay that fish back? You ain’t got no money, shell-tits. I hate to say it, but the only thing you have… is fish sex and I don’t know if you have a vagina because I’m not an ichthyologist and I don’t know how fish work. I should’ve looked it up before the taping but I’m just trying to tell you some jokes and I think I’ve done a pretty good job. You know what fish do? They poop. You’ve got a fish butt. So think about that. So. So now you’re swimming around, you’re hungry, you’re tired, you’ve got a fucked-up haircut, you’re like a little sore, you’re like… “I don’t care. I’m gonna be a mermaid. I’m gonna swim. Because I will swim like a mermaid.” Let’s remember how mermaids allegedly, because they are not real, swim. They swim… like dolphins. Hey, ladies, do you love ab day at the gym? Well, that’s your fucking life, sister! “37. 38.” Just trying to get through. Your entire existence is that of an R. Kelly backup dancer. Just swimming through the nineties. So, you can be a mermaid or you can always get a job in front of a used car dealership. No mermaids. We can do better. No mermaids.
I worry for women. I worry for men. I worry for our country. Is anybody else really worried for our country? So I’m worried… And by the way, I am very proud to be an American and I love my country very much and I want the best for it. There’s no joke, it’s just a statement. I love being an American. What I’m scared for… What I’m scared about aren’t so much the nightmares clawing at our front and back doors, both politically, foreign, domestic, economical, ecological, whatever. What I’m scared about is the fact that, like, my generation is supposed to be grown-up and mature now. I represent the millennials. Perhaps you’ve seen our Instagram pages. Yeah, we cheer for ourselves. We’re the worst. I will say this as the Lorax of my generation, mustache, we… didn’t ask to be spoiled. Our parents loved us and they gave us everything. That’s the job of the generation prior, to give the next generation a better world than they had. So I’m gonna apologize to my grandkids for the radioactive ball of foil and Diet Coke that they’re gonna inherit from us. But that’s what the people before you do. And I believe that this wave of entitlement started with our grandparents. Our grandparents were called the greatest generation, and I believe that they were. They selflessly gave and they made this country the idea of America that a lot of us miss. White people. The rest of us, it was horrible for most of them. But in general… The main points of it, okay? Your grandparents had to fight. They had no choice. Grandpa had to fight in World War II. Grandpa was straight-up drizafted, okay? He had no choice. And when he came home from the war, all he wanted to do was have a family, have a job, be a little racist and live the American dream, that’s it. He fought, he got right to work. It’s not like guys today who’d be like, “Oh, I just wanna backpack around Oregon and find myself.” No! And they’re allowed to say that because, whether you like them or not, our military does such a good job of defending us on a day-to-day basis. And I know that TSA blows. But they do such a good job that you’re allowed to mentally check out. Like, if you don’t like the war going on right now, unlike it on Facebook. You’re allowed to do that. There was no concerted effort. You didn’t have to fight. My point is, there was no day we all gathered in our town squares and threw our iPhones into the center so the military could use the scrap metal. “What’s this? A droid? Take it back, freak.” We didn’t have that. I think it’s difficult to conceive of a world where you have to sacrifice so much and to understand what our grandparents did because now they’re old, and when you think old, what do you think? Cute, right? Your grandparents are cute because they’re tiny, shrinking. Pick them up, put them down, they don’t like it, sprinkle water, “Get it off me.” And the whiter you are, the greater a chance there is that you’ve developed some weird prerogative kitten-like nickname for your grandfather. Oh, it’s not Grandpa anymore, it’s like, “This is my Nim-Nam.” “This is my Yippers.” “This is my Pip-Pop.” Pip-Pop doesn’t give a fuck. He’s like, “I was a prisoner of war for six years, call my Pip-Pop, I’ve had worse.” “Oh, my God, you guys, my Pip-Pop is so cute. Oh, my God, Pip-Pop, he’s so cute, you guys. Sometimes at Christmas, when Pip-Pop falls asleep, we like to decorate him with Christmas bows. Isn’t that funny? Silly Pip-Pop.” Pip-Pop’s got 53 confirmed kills! Don’t think for a second Pip-Pop doesn’t remember how to repurpose that Christmas bow around your neck to get the intel that he needs out of you. “Sit the fuck down, Colton, Caleb, Ashton, Crashton, Crandon, whatever your fucking hipster name is, sit down!” Pip-Pop came home from the war and then they had our parents. Our parents are called the baby boomers because Pip-Pop came home from Normandy and he was like, “I’m not dead. Boom, Gladys, let’s fuck.” And then… The baby boomers, ask your parents, were the first generation that were allowed to be artists on a mass scale. You didn’t have to work on your family business, you could take drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, you could do and be what you wanted to be in the big city.
The baby boomers had generation X. I don’t care about them because I’m a millennial. We showed up, got a trophy for breathing and then we invented Instagram. What’s insane about Instagram is this. We use hashtags, right? Hashtag, formerly known as the pound sign. She got a makeover. What’s weird about a hashtag… is this. The more hashtags there are under a posted picture on Instagram, the less likely the last hashtag is gonna have anything to do… with that posted picture. You got more than four hashtags under your picture, you are witnessing a human thought process devolve. By the end, it’s just word association. Free word association. Bunch of people on the beach, Fourth of July, right? “Fuck, yeah! #FourthBitches #Fourth #BeachDay #BDay #lndependenceDay #lndependentWoman #Beyonce” Yes! “#Blessed #IPayMyBills #BikiniBody #BeachBody #BoutThatLife #DontNeedAMan #DontWantAMan #NeverHadAMan #SometimesToFeelAHumanEmotion ILikeToDrinkMyOwnHair… What? What? What? Say something. Talking about? And then, because we’re so hard on women, we’re mean to women when they’re proud of their bodies on Instagram. We only allow women to post pictures when they’re a work in progress, right? “Keep it going.” If you’re ever like, “This is as good as it gets, fucking check it out!” it’s like, “You whore. You showy fucking bitch.” So instead of empowering women and letting them be proud of themselves, women have to shroud their pride in misdirect hashtags. So you’ve got a generation of girls proud of their bodies in a bathroom like this, and rather than be like, “#CheckOutMyBodyImSoHappyWithMyself,” instead she’s like, “#CheckOutTheGroutWorkOnTheseTiles.” Who’s looking at that? I broke up with my boyfriend a couple of months ago. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever dated someone who is… so pretty… but so stupid? Notice, it’s girls cheering. All the guys are like, “Yeah, I brought her here. Keep it moving!” “I don’t wanna get in a fight!” So, men can do that. Women really can’t. And the reasoning isn’t because men are dicks, there’s nothing like that, it has to do with the wiring of our brains. Men are visually stimulated, women, unfortunately, are cerebrally stimulated. Men are visual creatures. They have to be attracted to a woman before they can get to know how amazing she is inside. They have to be… A dude will date a Popsicle stick if it’s got a wig. Like, it doesn’t matter. That’s why it’s tough, because you wanna be a feminist, like, “I don’t have to get ready for a man,” but that’s what they’re attracted to. Just the littlest bit. Everybody’s got that one girlfriend that’s like, “I don’t get it. I volunteer and I rescue animals and I’m very sweet.” It’s like, “Yeah, but you’re so ugly so you have to… Just brush the hair! Just, anything! One tooth.” You don’t have to have it out there. He cannot check out your personality from across the room. That’s all I’m saying. No man has ever done that. No man has ever seen a woman who’s sitting there nibbling on her nubs with, like, a gill… and walked up and been like, “Excuse me, you’re hideous, but you look like you might enjoy Tom Clancy, light nipple play and barbecue. Is that true?” And women do stuff to make themselves physically attractive. Even if you’re not trying that hard, most of the stuff we do is just to get men’s attention. Shiny hair. Why is your hair shiny? It makes you look fertile. Thanks, Pantene. But that’s why. There’s no reason to have it shiny other than to get attention. You’re not, like, deflecting a car light when you’re running. Big eyes. “Look at me! My lips look like a vagina and my boobs look like a butt and my butt looks like boobs. I’m a Mrs. Potato Head. Mate with me!” You may not like it, but I’m not wrong. Women are cerebrally stimulated. That’s why we say the number one thing we look for in a man is a conversation. “Someone I can talk to. Sense of humor.” I have dated gutter goblins who were just, like, really funny and smart. “I just wanna talk to him. It’s sexy. I just want someone I can talk to. At. Just sit there and breathe, Steve.” We need that back and forth. We have to be able to talk. And it’s something that we need, and yet we’re chastised for it. You ever been called a “chatty Cathy”? By an idiot, but still, ever been called that? “A couple of girls just yipping away, huh? She’ll talk your ear off. Bunch of giblets in a henhouse.” No-one says giblets in a hen… That means the chicken’s already dead. Women are always chastised for talking a lot. The reason women talk goes back thousands of years. The reason women talk a lot, have a proclivity for speaking… Mm! Is when men would go out and hunt and fight and get animals, otherwise known as hunting… “Go get an animal.” Women stayed behind… And we raised the kids and we made food. And because the world wasn’t really a thing yet, we exchanged survival secrets. We would tell each other things like, “Oh, don’t eat that berry, it’ll make your husband’s dick fall off.” “Don’t wipe with that leaf, I found in my studies that it really hurts your vagina.” You had to exchange this information to keep your tribe alive. Now, that’s devolved to, “What color lip gloss?” but it’s the exchange of information. Girls gather and then share. So guys, when we’re talking and it bothers you, just know we’re trying to make it so your dick doesn’t fall off! That’s what we’re doing. Trying to help you! Trying to help you live! Nothing wrong with it. I’ll say it. I’m a feminist. You know what? I’ll say it for the women that don’t know to say it. And you might not be comfortable with it. Because a lot of women are like, “I love being a woman, but I’m not a feminist.” What are you, a horse? Like, what are the other options? Let me clarify it… for the men and the women who might not have a clear idea. Being a feminist means you just wanna be treated fairly, you just want it even, no more, no less. Maybe like a little bit more. You just wanna get the same. And a lot of women don’t like to say they’re feminists because they don’t think it sounds attractive, right? Which is inherently an issue in and of itself. Because men think feminist, they have a bad idea of it. Guys think of some square-jawed broad with three chin hairs and a power suit, like, “I’m gonna kick you in the dick and take your job!” That’s not what we want. We just want it even. If we’re gonna be feminists, let’s start with something fun. Wage gap, gotta close that. But let’s start with something everybody wants to deal with. Yeah, for sure. Duh! Let’s start with porn. Because even if you’re a woman and you love being a porn star, it’s still you taking it for, like, three hours, you’re getting paid 30 percent less and he’s actually getting off, so let’s make some feminist porn. Let’s see a porn where a girl kicks a door in, like… “Who wants to lick it? Line up! Go!” Go! Next! Go! Beat your best time. Go!” That’s so gross. So off-brand. So gross. Now, all the girls are cheering, because in theory, that’s empowering. But in practice, horrific. That would be horrible. No woman could withstand that. Halfway through the second guy, we’d all be like, “Okay, okay, okay, okay!” “It’s sensitive! I need a minute!” “I just need a minute! I just need a minute. Don’t hug me. I’m not mad, I just need a minute.” “Why don’t you go order us a pizza? I’ll fire up my Pinterest page.” Let me ask you a question. This is for the girls in the audience. This is a very real question, very real statement. Have you ever been… Have you ever been having sex with your boyfriend and you’re not into it, like, obviously, and then all of a sudden, you start to get really excited? Not so much from physical stimulation, but because mentally you’re like… “This is almost done.” And when it is done… we shall go to the farmers market!” You plan out the whole day. Guys, you have to make sure her head is in the game, no pun intended, but, like, pun intended for sure. I don’t think we check in with each other enough as opposite sexes. Men think because she’s making noises they hear in movies, she’s enjoying it. Women are like, “I’m making noises, let’s fucking get it over with.” If you care about the girl, you gotta make sure she’s getting what she wants. And girls, the best thing you can do, if you have great sex, the best thing you can do the second sex is over is… not talk to him. Sounds horrible. It’s actually to your benefit. That’s not your boyfriend lying next to you. That is a husk of a man… depleted of all bodily fluids… incapable of giving you the answer you deserve. And I get it. You just had sex, you’re feeling great, oxytocin is flowing, you just hosted a human being inside of you… You love him and you wanna talk about the future. He can’t do it. You look at him and say, “What are you thinking about?” He’s laying there, dust. “Ohh.” Get him a Gatorade, give him five. He can’t answer you. You’ll be like, “What are you thinking about?” He’ll never, ever be like, “You in a wedding dress.” But guys, if you love your girl, check in with her. Because you’re far away. She’s up there. You’re here like, “I’m amazing. I’ll bet she fucking loves this.” And we’re down there like, “I wonder if lavender is in season.” Still back there. “Siri, is lavender…” “Calling Mom Cell.” “No, Siri!” “No!” Snap. The moral of that story is I was in a relationship and I wasn’t happy, so I left the relationship. I’m not advocating for leaving the person you’re with. What I am advocating for is this. If you’re not happy, there’s no reason to stay out of fear of being alone. We like to scare women. And I’m sure there are men that feel this way. But we like to scare women when they’re single and we like to be mean to them and we label them. We say mean things to them. She’s a spinster. Old maid. Really involved with animal rescue. We have names like that. And we like to question them, as if there’s something wrong. “Why are you single?” “Because the last one was a dick and I’m not stupid.” Like, that’s why you do it. Nobody wakes up married. Nobody is born betrothed to someone. We have to be kinder to women and stop doing it. And we have the audacity to have magazines, self-help books, articles, posing the question, “You’re single. Now what? You’re single. Now what?” What do you mean, “Now what?” Now I shave off an eyebrow and take up with wolves. What do you mean, “Now what?” What do you mean, “Now what?” I got a mortgage. How about fuck bitches, get money? It’s so stupid. What upsets me is that women spend so much time and energy flogging themselves mentally for being single, and changing and trying different methods and looking for guys. And men don’t have to do that. They have the luxury of relaxing because they don’t have eggs. There are no articles in GQ like, “You’re single. Now what?” There’s none of that. The answer would always be, “Now I can jerk off where I want. No-one bugs me. #Sandwich.” The good part about traveling for the last year, I’ve had time for myself. More time from my research. I don’t do research. I just watch TV. But I wear a lab coat while I do it for the tax write-off.
Before we get out of here, before we conclude this TED Talk… Does everybody here watch Shark Tank? So… All I want, all I want, is a live episode of Shark Tank. That’s what I want. A live episode. It’s a reality show. But if you watch it, you’ll notice it’s heavily edited, heavily produced, and what bothers me… is the presentations from the entrepreneurs are too polished. There’s no grit to them. They come out like a fifth-grade Thanksgiving pageant. “The natives called it maize. We bottled it.” I don’t wanna see that, okay? I want to see you mess up. I wanna see you trip. Maybe you forget your words. Maybe you chip a tooth. I wanna see you crumble as an entity before my eyes. Only then will I tolerate you rising from the ashes with any degree of hubris. That’s the way to consume American reality TV. The sheer schadenfreude of watching someone shit themselves on TV and then building them back up. That’s what we like to see. Okay? These are cattle farmers from the middle of Iowa and they get in front of a camera and suddenly they’re Winston Churchill? I don’t buy it, okay? I speak for a living and even I mess up, so there’s no way these two fucking dye jobs from ASU with, like, a new take on cookies, there’s no way! Flawlessly orating. There are three archetypes of women that they like to have on Shark Tank. They love to have moms, because most of us have moms. But what’s crazy and, like, creepy is that all the moms on Shark Tank have the exact same voice. It’s a little Stepfordian. They all sound like this. “Hi, Sharks. My name’s Nancy from Laguna Niguel and I’ve discovered a new way to get your toddler to eat their blueberries.” Then they have really smart women. They do. They’ll have brilliant women. But it seems that the smarter the woman, the longer the last name. Like, they’ll hyphenate their last names. I can’t stand hyphenated last names. If you’re in this room and you’ve got a hyphenated last name, chop it in half! Okay? You’re not Spanish royalty. Chop it! I barely care about your first name. Let alone the entire questionable heritage. When you have a hyphenated last name, all that makes me think is that mama was a big old strong lesbian and she didn’t wanna give up her family inheritance so she begrudgingly married your father, now they have separate twin beds and are co-women’s studies professors at Wellesley. It’s also just so much information. I’m trying to hear you, your valuation, listen to the equity, and you’re coming up there with a phonebook, like, “Hi, Sharks. My name’s Michelle-Lida-Julia Freeman-Cereal.” “And I’m Rebecca-Lynn-Stacey Fitzgerald-Yang. And together, we sound like five dudes.” Like, it’s a lot… of information. Are you inventors or a law firm? Like, what is that? And then in the final category, the toy category, we have the hot women. Not attractive. Not cute. Fucking hot. Teeth, tan, tits, hair. “Sharks!” Sometimes they do this. They’ll have very smart woman on the show. Sometimes it feels like the hotter the woman, the dumber the product. And I believe it’s done to keep us in line. But… a lot of the time, the women’s products have to do with two categories. It’s either wrangling your femininity. “Sharks, it’s a flap you put over your vagina so no one knows you have one.” “Move through the workplace with ease.” Or it’s a product so stupid, it will just confirm any preconceived notions you might have about female intelligence. Like, “Sharks, it’s a shower cap that you can wear while you’re cooking so your hair doesn’t smell!” No! You just set us back, like, a week with that shit, Lexi. But that’s the one that I’d like to see live. The hot one. Because I believe watching an attractive woman mentally unravel… on national television is the reason we all watch reality TV. “Up next are two sisters from Scottsdale, Arizona, with a new take on popcorn.” Jiggle, jiggle. “Hi, Sharks! My name’s Madison.” Duh. They’re always named Madison, right? “And this is my sister, Michaela.” They’re always named Michaela. Fucking obviously. “And together, we are the inventors, creators and CEOs of… Put your back against mine.” “CEOs of… Put your fucking back against mine. What the fuck are you doing? What the fuck are you doing? We do this then we do the product, yes? Oh, my fucking goodness! We haven’t done the product yet. We can’t. We can’t start over. That’s what that light is. That’s fucking live, bitch. Yes!” “We can’t… Can we start over?” “No.” “I got nothing.” “Oh, my God, I’m not yelling at you! I’m not yelling at you. I’m not making it about me! Do not do this here! It’s fucking live TV! I’m not making it about me! You’re making it about me making it about you making it about me! I am trying to make this… Oh, my God. Okay. Just stay there. I will do it. I will do it. Just stay there. It’s fine. Stay there. I will handle it. Stay there, you fucking casualty. Okay, the other day, my sister and I were at home eating popcorn and crying, and we got down to the bottom of the bag. And, shake, shake, shake, what was left at the bottom? All the unpopped kernels. That’s when my sister and I decided that we should… Put your fucking back…” “Against mine. Put your fucking back against mine! What the fuck are you doing? I am trying… No! No! You’re not gonna fucking do this to me again! I am trying to keep this family together! Do you not understand that? No, this is not about me! I am trying to help! This is nothing like when Daddy died! You are being a bitch! I am trying to keep this family… She does this! She does this every time! Everybody’s gonna know that you’re a fucking… I wasn’t flirting with your husband! You are so fucking insecure! Because I slept with your boyfriend in high school and he turned out to be gay! No, it wasn’t your fault! Big fucking deal! He wanted to talk about your birthday so that fucking Michaela could turn 40 for the third time! You’re a fucking bitch! I need a minute! I need a fucking minute! I need… I need a Madison minute! Hold on! I’m fucking good. I’m fucking good! Let’s fucking do it! You wanna go? Shit. I don’t care. I am trying… I am not… I can’t. I can’t. Why are the walls bleeding? I can’t do this. I can’t fucking do this. I can’t do it. You being a… I shit. I shit my pants. Oh, good news. It’s not shit. It’s blood! It’s blood, you fucking monster! I am trying… I can’t… No. You know what? I am keeping it together. I am the stable one! I am keeping it… I am not… I am not yelling! I am not yelling. I am not yelling. Huh? What? Yes, it’s a hive. This happens. It happens every time you open your fucking whore mouth! Yes, I know! And I’m trying… I’m a good feminist. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I’m sorry! My tan is dripping off. I am not…” “I am not… I am not… I am not yelling. I am not yelling! I am using…” “I am using the vocabulary that Dr. Goldstein told us to use.” “I am requesting…” “that you… hear… my…” “desire… to communicate… in an open way… and put your fucking back against mine! She’s ruining it! She’s ruining everything!” “She’s ruining it. This is a big deal. We put everything… We put everything into this company!” “Did you really?” “No, but my mom did.” “I am trying to keep it together. Everybody depends on me because we spent all of our money on our first company and it shat the bed.” “What was your first company?” “I’m gonna tell them.” “I’m gonna tell them and you’re gonna look like the fucking psycho bitch that you are. Everyone’s gonna know. I’m gonna… I’m gonna tell the cameras. Is this camera still on? Good.” “Fuck you.” “Do you remember when… Um… Fuck, it’s, like, stuck right here in my nose.” “Uhh! Do you remember when, um, our country went through a recession, and everybody was losing their homes and their money? My sister and I decided that rather than save up or go back to school, we would do what every other girl without a marketable skill did, we… opened up a cupcake company.” “I don’t know if you noticed, but during the recession, there was a fucking boom in the confection industry! That’s because it doesn’t take a fucking rocket science degree to shit out, like, an okay cupcake. And, like, no one’s gonna say no to a cupcake. People will spend their last dollar. They’re not gonna be like, “No,” they’ll be like, “A cupcake. My day’s okay for a minute.” And we were feeding people these cupcakes and they were upside-down on their houses and they were jobless and we were feeding these depressed people cupcakes. And it’s a scientific fact that obesity and depression have a direct correlation, and we were just feeding the belly of the beast from within the belly of the beast and capitalizing off of it. People needed answers. They needed a viable option for credit, not a buttercream… Put your fucking back against mine! I swear to Christ, Michaela, if you ruin this for me, I will fuck your husband! Screw it! Cut! I should’ve been a mermaid!” Pack your hip!
