Social Tip # 246 - Never Remember

I have a friend who will defend everything about drinking, except for blacking out. She says its the worst part about drinking. I’m thinking, “What about remembering when you get raped?”

I’m just saying, if you’re blacking out every night, maybe your life isn’t worth remembering. Most people drink to forget their problems, you’re a step ahead, you drink to not find out what your problems are in the first place.And that’s a smart plan. If you are going to get wasted, drive to the bar where your ex boyfriend works and set fire to his car, then go to his apartment where he lives with his pregnant girlfriend to steal your cat back... it makes sense that you would drink enough to pass a lie detector test in the morning.

Social Tip #106 - YOU CAN'T HAVE "JEW" WITHOUT "EW"

A few years ago I was approached by a homeless-scented man with long, curly sideburns and a pilgrim's hat as I was walking down St. Marks. A Hasidic Jew.

"Kosher food?" he asked me.

"What?" Gross.

"You are a Jew?"

"No. I'm not," I said. I am, but only culturally. I had a bat-mitzvah but only because my parents made me. I never believed.

"Yes, Jew," the Hasid said, convinced. "Please," he begged, and wiggled his index finger towards himself and leaning in, indicating that he needed to tell me a secret. I leaned in to hear it. He opened his mouth to say "Kosher food," and then grabbed me by the back of the head and forced my mouth onto his. His starchy beard hairs mashed against my face and filled my nose with sebum and tooth rot, the scent of asceticism smelling unsurprisingly like a retirement home.

"Jesus, what are you doing?" I screamed.

"Where is kosher food?" he asked, as though he hadn't just violated my body and his religion. Hasidic men aren't even allowed to shake hands with a woman, but this one was attacking me in full view on the street. The only secret he had to tell me was that he was a pervert; the horrifying result of internal religious oppression. He came toward me again.

"Get away from me," I screamed as I ran into the street, "I am not a Jew!"

That's what happens when you turn your back on god, he sends his most devout to molest you.

Social Tip #104 - THINK HARDER

Someone just told me that when they were little, they used to eat their own poop. I don't remember the last time I heard something so disgusting, let alone repeated it.

Social Tip #78 - SEXUAL MOLESTATION

When I was young I heard about how some adults had to go the therapy because they had repressed memories of being sexually molested as children. I spent the rest of my childhood paying close attention to every encounter to make sure that I would repress nothing.

When I look back on my childhood I have no memory of being molested. I can't believe I missed it.

S

Social Tip #52 - Meat

During high school I lived with my father and brother in my childhood home in Scottsdale, Arizona. Despite the fact that none of us cooked or cleaned anything ever, we had a second dishwasher, oven, microwave, and refrigerator/freezers. We hid the extra refrigerator in a laundry room that was buried in decaying clothes, dusty children's shirts and tennis whites that were too out-of-date to wash and too dirty to donate. They were left there the day we moved into that home, long before my mom stopped doing the laundry.

No one ever used the second refrigerator except for my dad because he signed himself up for the "Meat of the Month" club. My dad considered the meat to be too precious to cook, so he banked his cow parts in the freezer.

Some time after the meat membership lapsed, that refrigerator died, and went untouched for many months, possibly years, until out of curiosity I made the mistake of opening it. I was met with a force powered by death. I smelled that smell with my entire head. All of my other senses were shut down and my entire existence became that smell.

I slammed the refrigerator shut and abandoned it, and over time the entire east wing of our home smelled like the slaughterhouse I had already come to associate with the city of Scottsdale. That smell gave me a purpose in life, a challenge waiting to be met. I spent years building up the courage before I reopened the refrigerator, dumped gallons of bleach into it, and dragged it out into the backyard where it stayed until sometime when I was in college, right next to the second of two grills that were never used.

R.I.P

Social Tip #27 - Recalling Fond Memories

I love TV. Here is a transcript from a classic episode of the Morning Show in 2006:

Bindi Irwin: Hi. I’m Bindi Irwin, and I’m on the Morning Show because my daddy was killed by a stingray on TV

TV Host 1: Oh, yes, I remember that video. Horrible. It just goes right through him.

TV Host 2: Who could forget? They made a costume of him for Halloween, my husband wore it. It had a stingray coming straight trough his heart.

Bindi Irwin: I wore that costume as well.

Social Tip #5: Meeting People for the First Time, Again

If you're like me, you are going to meet a lot of people not worth remembering. If they're important, or interesting, or I want to have sex with them again, I'll remember.

Past Person: Myka! Remember me? We met at Jonathan's party.
Me: No, but don't feel bad. I was probably really drunk and keeping my eye on an antique vase.

I don't want to lie, but I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or burn bridges because I might discover that a person is important.

A lot of books will recommend taking note of particular facial features to associate to a name when meeting people. Unfortunately, I've found there can just as easily be a "Big Nose Brian" as a "Big Nose Brandon," and all I've succeeded in remembering is that I meet a lot of people with big noses, a fact I will easily remember when meeting them again. Likewise, "Oozing Zit Suzie" does not always have an oozing zit, and "Shaved Eyebrow Sherman" regrows his brow. Of course, some are easy, but the "Burn Scar Bettys" and "Sloppy Crotch Veronicas" come too few and far between.

Don't bother trying to remember.

Here's what I do:

Past Person: Myka! How are you? Remember that we agreed to adopt a highway together?
Me: No. [Wink]

That's when I point to my eye and wink. Now that person thinks I remember it so well that to suggest otherwise is a joke. Or, I remember but am not at liberty to talk about it at that time, and now we are in on some exciting secret together!

Later, if the person comes up to me again, here's what I do:

Past Person: But seriously, you have to remember. We took that road trip to the middle of Arizona and drove over a condemned bridge... twice.

Me: Of course! [Wink]

And I'm out of it again!