55. The Week in Me
Would you just watch the hair?!
(a poem shared by Rebecca)
Today’s blog commences with a recipe: humble pie for one. I made a throwaway joke here a few posts ago that, in a moment of vulnerability, a dear friend thought was a clouded dig at them. They also may have thought this because I am a fucking savant at subliminal messaging.1 It wasn’t a dig at them, in fact I assumed it a joke to them, for us to giggle at together, but it was a couplet of thoughtlessness on my part. This is a reminder that my words have impact, despite me having the interpersonal self-regard of a spoon filled with peanut butter and your dog’s heartworm medicine. To my friend: I love you, you are family, I am an idiot, and I am sorry.
I am toiling away at the job I accepted after Substacked deliberation2 a few weeks back. Morrissey is a doofus, but really got a good stroke (of the pen) in with “I was looking for a job and then I found a job, and heaven knows I’m miserable now”:
My boss touched my hair on my third day. My hair is an ecosystem. It is large, I have at least once found a penny in it, its curl patterns are used to predict bird migration across the Appalachians.
I am also an ecosystem, as in sometimes I am on some Robin Williams tapdancing while reenacting the Scopes trial steez, and sometimes I am being as moody if not worse than Christian Slater avenging his adopted Vietnamese brother’s death in Gleaming the Cube. (The cast of FernGully, from where I have derived this tangent and apparently my psyche, also boasts Grace Zabriskie and yeah, I too relate to that scene in Twin Peaks: The Return when she opens up her face at the bar. I do that shit when chauvinist Jägerbombed assholes approach me like, all the time.)
My hair was having a Something About Mary moment: no splooge, just a little Alfalfa stickyuppy. No big. It’s life. Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. I just quoted John Lennon, but for the record I am a Paul girl even though I date Johns. Or really, I have agonized over Johns which as I am now learning at the same time as you, means the same thing to me as “dated” because I have absolutely kissed a Ringo or twelve but I only consider the ones that have made me want to smash my face in a clear glass window the ones I have dated.
Anyway.
I had, unbeknownst to me, a piece of bang in its growout stage because my hairstylist won’t be back in New York for another month or two3 being a loner, Dottie, a rebel. My boss came over to explain something, which already means she walked from her spot directly across from me to over my shoulder without necessity4 and then said “oh, hold on” as her hand shot at my head, at my small little head and touched my hair. I jumped back with an alacrity that would make Mr. Hoskins, my grammar school gym teacher and jump-rope team coach, proud (for once, as I was a round and bookish child) and said “I’ll get it, thank you!” Bro?!!?!
“You have a flyaway,” she noted, as if a rebuttal I or the Hague would accept. I also have a Chipotle bowl in the tote I acquired buying the Daniel Radcliffe Weird Al biopic on bluray + DVD and seven tubes of Crest Optic White at Target, but you do not get to touch my carnitas either.
The whole time5 the following battle cry of my illegitimate father John Joseph Travolta played in my head:
I am burnt out of corporate life. I do not want to put on a sensible trouser because I will be passively aggressed if I don’t. I do not want to use Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office does not walk hand in hand with the Lord. I do not want to drive to the middle of nowhere while Green Day sings on my radio that “the American Dream is killing me.” (This happened on Tuesday. I groaned at the pointedness. Then the radio started fizzling out, because I lose my stations about 11 minutes from my office.) I do not want to spend this one short, wild, microplastic filled life giving my ass’s best years to an ergonomic chair and my soul’s best years to eating medigan pizza and working without my small cat daughter Simone walking across my laptop (she likes to be warm) and then sleeping for three straight hours as I work with the Real Housewives of Poughkeepsie6 or Wherever Andy Cohen and a Camera Descend Next.
This is all to say that I am introducing some paid features to this newsletter. (Audience groans, I know.) Sorry.
I want to see if my writing is worth a damn…and worth even thirty bucks a year (the cheapest Substack will allow me to charge you). This lovely surprise from
suggested that my “excellent” content is worth even MORE than the standard $50/year that most Substackers receive per paid subscriber!
I am still a rookie in my writing, and lack the confidence of a Nora Ephron (though I too feel bad about my neck), so I will, if you are unable to afford the paid amount but really wish to access this content, happy and honored to gift you a paid subscription. I am also happy to do this in exchange for tips on Venmo. My username there is TaraGiancaspro and if you put “Substack” in the memo line I can gift you a paid scrip.
And now, after imploring you to not send this to my employers because they are seemingly nice people and I also like buying fancy hats sometimes with my disposable income, the recs:
To listen:
My pals Nicole and Ryan at Soundtrack Your Life asked me to discuss my favorite albums of 2023, and you can check that out on their Patreon. You can (for free) listen to my previous episodes discussing Tarzan and The O.C. below:
To read:
was interviewed by Sundress about her poetry chapbook, POEMS [FOR, ABOUT, BECAUSE] MY FRIENDS. I am one of the friends! I make an appearance! You can read the interview here and purchase the book here. There are only two copies left! I am not even sure how I came across Diet Poke’s newsletter, but I needed this gift of yin badly as I have found returning to work after my long summer of funemployment. I have been outlining to Dylan how I am Yanging each day, and then going home and Yinning with some soup dumplings and some reading on the toilet. Balance.
Sophie Kemp’s “Bad Hang,” on Dirt: “En route to meet a friend, I sprint through Prospect Park in a Victorian nightgown listening to a Kraftwerk song and write on my phone ‘sometimes life is a mumblecore movie fr,’ and then imagine the scene: me running through the meadow by Grand Army Plaza, in black and white.”
A primer on Japanese bathroom ghosts I read on my flight to Tulsa and forgot to tell y’all about. There are enough upon to be primed!
After seeing how diverse Tulsa is, this interview with Charles Blow about Black migration found its way into my consideration. It is not even close to being my place to have an opinion on it, but I suggest a read.
This is literally just Simone:
This is literally just Lugosi:
(and his father and I)
Actually my babies:
Various and sundry:
me:
I stand boldly in my truth that this is really hot:
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Oh.
Me with a chihuahua singing Danzig, because I am a parody of myself::
A duet of Sean submission…submisSeans, if you will…
Haven’t stopped thinking about This Pose. May be eschewing my lifelong *hand on my waist, hip cocked to one side* in favor of This Pose:
Love you bitches,
TG
48. The Week in Me
I think I’m taking a job. I may have accepted an offer as of writing this. I may not have. I just do not know. To receive new posts and support my work, consider leaving your email here! I don’t find myself to be a woefully indecisive person. I am a woman, so I by biology am Rachel McAdams here:
My cut specialist, Haley, flies in from Austin every few months to see New York clients. Haley is great if you’re looking for a stylist in Austin or NYC - find her here. Again, ecosystem.
I didn’t even have solitaire open. I am convinced this “let me hop behind you” move is always to catch you playing solitaire.
This was a Dylan Brodie suggestion. Thank you, Dillie Brodes.
I’d hate people touching my hair for any reason. Loved the picture images. You are indeed a great writer!! 👏👏♥️♥️
Ah yes. The Hair Touch issue. We black folk get that a lot. Espesh when we wear braids. Or an afro. My reaction was usually the same as yours followed by a throat punch. Just kidding. It was just my facial expression indicating I wanted to throw a throat punch. Also, I hope that woman who threw her hubby's shit on the lawn got her groove back. So very Stella of her. LOL