So. Last week. I’m on the train before I notice that the new pink nail polish that I smeared on top of the old, chipped pink nail polish has globbed into the little crevice between my toenail and my toe fat (can toes be fat? “toe bulge” doesn’t sound okay) and I try to scrape the glob off with my finger, casually, like, you know, oh hey just digging around in my toes on the subway don’t mind me but instead I get pink gunk in my fingernails and my thumb. Shit shit shit shit. I rustle around in my purse for a napkin, and all I can find is an old Starbucks receipt, so I’m trying to scrape pink nail polish off my thumb and my forefinger AND my toe looks all banged up AND I realize I’m kind of sweaty which is a problem because I’m not even wearing my own shirt, I borrowed it from my former college roommate because I’m in New York City and I’m on my way to a job interview that I’m not even sure if it IS a job interview because the email was really vague and they just used a lot of words like “Let’s talk about how we can collaborate together; can we set up a meeting? which is just, like, NOT QUITE ENOUGH INFORMATION/WHAT DO YOU EVEN WEAR TO SOMETHING LIKE THAT, and it’s my stop and I get off the train and walk through the subway station and up the steps and I smile as I smell the stale hot air belching out of the grates and feel the sun hit my face and I think you GOT this, girl. Hello, New York!!!

And that’s when the bird shit hits my pants.

I’ve had very few formal interviews in my life. The very first one, I was very nervous and very overdressed and a weiner dog had explosive diarrhea on my shoes in the waiting room. Apparently, I handled it so well that I got the job, even though I was also referred to in the hiring notes as “dog shit girl.” And that job brought me to Philadelphia, and I’ve never looked back.  So it’s not my first rodeo. It’s just that I can’t quite believe that I lived through a second rodeo. Of animals pooping on me before an interview. (Also, I shouldn’t use that phrase in this situation. I’ve been to an actual rodeo, and a job interview where a dog and/or bird poops on you is really nothing like a rodeo. And also, now I can’t stop thinking about the phrase “poop rodeo.” I’m sorry, everyone).

So, okay. So I’m walking into this massively intimidating building with these enormous escalators and I wash off in the bathroom but the wet spot on my pants is still wet and some extremely old security guard simply can NOT find the extension of the person I need to meet with and I’m late by the time I make it upstairs and it just doesn’t feel like the Mary Tyler Moore Show anymore and all I’m thinking is stop thinking about the bird poop and I walk into this office with three incredibly beautiful women and I can’t stop staring at them because, I don’t know, one of them is approximately seven feet tall and has Pantene hair and is wearing this dress that shouldn’t look good on any other human but it looks incredible on her, and I need to just stop thinking about the bird poop. So I immediately blurt “Listen, a bird pooped on me on the way here. I really don’t think you want me for this job.” And then I showed them the poop stain. Because there’s something wrong with me.

Except that they still offered me a job. My first paid freelance writing job. And I was like are you sure, because, you know, THE POOP THING. And also, seriously, are you SURE? and they were like Yeah, no, you’re going to be good at this. And I still don’t totally believe them, because I’m pretty sure that I dreamed the entire thing or am living in some elaborate delusional state, but it’s been a week and they keep returning my emails, so I’m operating under the assumption that this is really happening.

And so I’m really excited to tell you guys that I’ll be doing some part-time writing work for MTV Style, blogging regularly about pop culture from a feminist perspective. If anyone is curious, starting within the next few weeks, my work will be appearing at style.mtv.com.

I have no idea what that actually means, to tell you the truth. I’m still trying to figure that out. But I’m really, really excited about it. Last week, the big story in style news was Rihanna’s see-through dress that she wore as a tribute to Josephine Baker at the CDFA awards but all anyone could talk about were her boobies, and so I sort of tentatively pitched maybe I could write something about Rihanna’s dress, except that I throw in a sentence or two about toplessness laws in New York State and elsewhere and why it’s important that they exist and then maybe we talk about double-standards as it pertains to basic human anatomy/sexuality and I photoshop her dress onto, like, hunky male celebrities on the beach to make some kind of statement about gender roles? And they were like That’s great, yeah and I was like WAIT YOU WOULD ACTUALLY PAY ME FOR THAT and at that precise moment I knew I must be hallucinating because someone is telling me that it could be my job to photoshop a sparkly evening gown on a shirtless picture of Jon Hamm.

*flings hat in the air // you’re gonna make it after alllllllll*

For the record, I’m never going to write that article, because I think everyone’s forgotten all about Rihanna’s dress already, so the moment’s over but ….

 

challenge accepted.

 

FAQ!
Q: will you still be writing this blog?
A: Duh. Yes. I promise. This just means I’ll be even *more* obnoxious/prolific on the internet.

Q: Will you move to New York?
A: God, no. Have you been there lately? It’s like twelve dollars for a beer.

Q: How did this even HAPPEN for you?
A: THE INTERNET IS SO WEIRD AND MAGIC. Someone tweeted Ladypockets to Ann Friedman, she put it in her newslater, three days later, the internet exploded and it started to get a lot of media attention and now here we are.

Q: You bitch.
A: I KNOW.

Q: Will you continue to update Ladypockets?
A: When I feel like it, but honestly, only when I feel like it, because those posts are really time-consuming.

Q: Does this mean you’re really fancy and glamorous now and probably too cool to hang out with me?
A: No. I have two hundred dollars to my name right now and my car is making some really discouraging rattling noises and did you even read the post? I’m not cool. I got a phone call today from the woman who writes for my tiny hometown’s weekly newspaper, who interviewed me about all this and then said, “I still think of you as the little teenager who sang These Boots Are Made For Walking at the community theatre evening of Shel Silverstein poems,” which is a memory that, were I in therapy, I would be paying my therapist a lot of money to help me repress.

Q: Really?
A: Please imagine a thirteen year old girl channeling her budding sexual impulses into a rousing rendition of Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made For Walking while straddling a chair wearing a flower-print dress made out of a tablecloth. It was basically that episode of Bob’s Burgers where Tina Belcher reads her erotic fiction to the whole middle school.

Q: You really aren’t that cool, are you?
A: I assure you, I am not.