The Middle Class Starving Artist

My mother once said that there were only two joys in life and they were her own two kids. She said giving birth was the other greatest joy but I’m not so sure about that one… am I right mothers? I feel that there are two more joys in life, at least they are for me and they are meeting old friends for a quick bite to eat and watching a brand new movie, never before seen.

I worked till five thirty today and met my friends at Panera mainly because, one, we finally had our own money to spend and two, because it was the closest to our places of work (my friend and I both work at the mall, he at Hollister and me at Macy’s.) My other friend goes to school in Pennsylvania and comes home for the holidays and I was so excited to see her because, in all reality, I miss her! I miss us, the squad, our inside jokes, our talks, us, before moving away, before college.

So we all met at Panera and instantly our talk turned from catching up to sex, like it always does.

“Tell me something… who do you think would work at the strip club?”

“Who wouldn’t?” PA says.

“Like for real. In thirty years, say, at our reunion will be the girl-”

“Or guy,” I chipped in.

“Girl, guy whatever, who stayed in town, lived off welfare and did nothing with her life?” Hollister asked.

“You should be talking you’re basically a starving artist yourself,” I say.

“Okay yes, so I sleep on a cot whatever I need space for my studio,” Hollister said.

“But you aren’t starving… you’re like a middle class starving artist," I put in my two cents again. 

“So… who would it be?”

We couldn’t come up with an answer not because it was hard, no, it was because we honestly didn’t know. Our class, in itself, was so different. Some are married, some have kids, some have three kids, some are pretty successful and others…

“Who do you think was the biggest?”

“The what?”

“The biggest… you know…”

“I’ve always wondered that!” I said, “I always thought it was that tall guy, you know, the lurch.”

“No the taller you are the smaller you are,” Hollister said.

“Is that why all the skinny guys have huge…?” PA said.

“And all the bigger guys, one tug and done,” Hollister said.

Remember how I said there were two new joys in life? I lied. There are three and the third is opening a new book and taking a really big whiff of that new book smell.

Am I right?

The Rainbow Monologues

Oh, hello my darlings, my dear readers how I missed you so. It’s been too long, a week but whose counting, and I have nothing to tell you. I’ve been working like crazy; six days last week, five days this week but I really shouldn’t be complaining because I’ve been getting some really good Christmas presents for everyone! Myself including.

I always tell everyone at work to buy gifts for themselves first and then gifts for everyone else after that way you get what you really want. I got myself sixteen Agatha Christie books (all used and bought for a penny on Amazon), five screenplays and a Woody Allen DVD collection that I fought for on EBay.

Can we talk about EBay? What the hell is it? I bid forty-five dollars on the DVD collection last Monday and literally no one else bid on it. So I waited and waited for the seller to just give it to me when some asshole bid, get this, forty-five dollars and fifty cents. The war was started. Mr. T***1990 (I’m not trying to hide his identity or anything that’s literally all EBay gave me for a name) and I went back and forth for three days when I finally gave up and stopped bidding and fifty dollars and nineteen cents.

But I eventually won anyway because I found the same collection from another seller at the low price of thirty-eight dollars and fifty-eight cents.

I haven’t written anything since the last week in November. November people! I feel like I’m writhing away from you all and you all are powerless to stop it…. unless-

I bought myself a book called The Vagina Monologues and read it in a day it was so good. A monologue is a spoken piece by one person but then again I guess you all knew that. The book is composed of about fifteen, maybe more, monologues about, you guessed it, vaginas. Its funny, true and real and, at one point, made me question, “Why are vaginas so cool?”

The Vagina Monologues gave me an idea, an idea to tell our stories, our coming out stories and the people it affected, the way it made us feel, laugh or cry. And we’ll call it, drum roll please, The Rainbow Monologues…

Working title of course. But I’ll need your help. I’ll need to know your stories so that I could get a real sense of how everyone came out. I know it seems like a lot of work and it is, trust me, but if you want and only if you want, you can email your story to me, comment your story below or hit me up on Facebook or Twitter.

Joerusso8writer@aim.com

Joseph Russo (for both Facebook and Twitter)

Hugs and Kisses.

Oh, P.S everyone should watch American Horror Story: Coven on Netflix its fabulous. I finished it in three days.

Guest Blog: Unicorns & Where to Find Them

Nothing bothers me more than when people say they don’t believe in same-sex marriage. It’s not that they’re against it (okay, it’s like 10% because they’re against it), it’s the wording. They don’t believe in it. It makes me want to laugh and wring their necks all at once. 

Same-sex marriage isn’t a unicorn. It’s not a myth. It’s not some urban legend passed down from generation to generation like Big Foot or whatever curse will follow you if you wear white after Labor Day.  It’s an actual thing. People do it every day. It’s real.

You can’t not believe in something that already exists. You can oppose it, disagree with it, throw a tantrum and rant about it, set up protests, shame/blame/bully/abuse the people who agree/partake in it. You can make it your life’s goal to ensure that someone else’s happiness that literally has zero to do with you is denied because your religious views- which you’re granted because of our country’s constitution that gives you freedom to practice whatever religion you want- don’t agree with it. You can do all of these things, but you can’t say you don’t believe in something that already exists.

Speaking of phrases that bother me- when people say they want ‘their America to be run from the bible’ I just want to quit life. You want to live in a place where we all adhere to the bible? Cool. Do it somewhere else. Live on a commune, create a cult, gather in New Mexico and succeed from the U.S.-have at it. 

The ENTIRE POINT of America is freedom. Freedom of speech, to assemble, of the press, to petition the government, and- wait for it- freedom of religion. That means that if good ole ‘Murica made it’s laws and values on a specific religion it would be forcing a religion on it’s people, and therefore would be denying it’s citizens a basic human right. 

I believe in God. I have a relationship with him. I go to church, I’m involved in it, and I invite people to visit my church all the time in an effort to show them how great and important said relationship is. I do not, however, condemn people who don’t agree with my faith. I don’t push my views on people. I would never want to live in a place where people felt cornered and shameful and oppressed because they don’t agree with me, and I think it’s really selfish for people to say they want to live in a country that is run by the bible, because they’d be forcing their friends and family who practice other faiths to feel that way. WRITTEN BY TORI STAMBAUGH. 

I received this post this morning and I am blown away. My friend, the one who wrote this, is right and her words speak the truth. I had to re-read some of her points because they were SO FREAKING GOOD. Re-read the second paragraph for an example. XOXO- JOE. 

Reflections of a Single Man

“Tistheseasontistheseasontistheseaon,” I whispered to myself knowing that with each chant the season was getting shitter. I woke up early this morning to get ready for work and checked my “morning papers” which just so happens to be Facebook and Twitter. And there, after three scrolls down (I checked it on my phone this morning which was my first mistake), I saw something that took my breath away.

Remember the guy I went out on a date with? Guess who just got into a relationship? That’s right. I stared at it for just a few seconds, thinking it was a dream, a horrible nightmare but there it was… staring back at me. His boyfriend wrapped in a scarf and I have since dubbed him that “scarf wearing cunt.”

I just wanted to know a few things. Why couldn’t he tell me that it didn’t work out? Why couldn’t he just send me a text instead of ignoring me and me, feeling like Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed waiting for Billy Loomis. Was it something I did? Was it because I didn’t kiss him goodnight? Maybe I didn’t hold his hand hard enough. Maybe he wanted something more… and I never caught on to his advances. I wondered how long he talking to this cunt scarf wearing asshole? Was it during our date? Was I, for the briefest of moments, the other guy? A test piece to see which one he liked more? 

But on the flip side I wondered if we would’ve even worked. We came from different backgrounds, had different interests, and had our own lives to life. He had the personality like a limp dick and my personality is all over the place. He liked video games and I liked film. He was twenty-three; I was nineteen.

I went to work with this laying heavy on my mind. I decided, after a few rants to GBF and my work partner, Miss Chanel, that I was going to be the bigger person, the ADULT, and move on. I had a fabulous day with this asshole, saw a fabulous movie and went out of my comfort zone to meet him. I came. I conquered.

I deleted him from my phone and my memory and unfriended him Facebook. This is the last mention of him from here on. I hope he’s happy with that polka dotted, scarf wearing cunt rainbow.

And breathe. Tis the season. Tis the season. Tis the season.