London Cringe: March 23

Back from travels and ready for more public humiliation and fun, Cringe returns to The George in just two weeks!

Tuesday, March 23, 7:30 pm
Upstairs at The George Pub
213 The Strand, London WC2R 1AP

Still looking for a few more readers, so email if you’re interested. If you’d just like to come along for a laugh, just turn up!

If you’re on Facebook and would like to join the Cringe group, please knock yourself out. It’s full of attractive people with cool names, and only messages you about upcoming Cringe events, never about farm chores or wanting money.

I hope they don't have kids in hell

We lie in bed at night and discuss all the ways we could screw up our future children.

“I don’t know... giving them a sexual or religious hang-up just seems so boring.”

“We could tell them that a long time ago, before Mommy and Daddy met, Daddy was in jail for accidentally killing a little boy who wet the bed.”

“We could tell them that a long time ago, before Mommy and Daddy met, Mommy had a whole other family, but one day those children were too loud, so Mommy had to leave them and get a new family, this one here with you and Daddy. It’s okay because we know you’ll never be that loud, especially in the mornings.”

“We could tell them we’re really aliens, and that they’re aliens too.”

“The way you know you’re aliens is because you have special parts down here. Humans don’t have those parts. Like when you look at a Barbie or Ken doll, they don’t have bits like you do, do they? That’s because they’re made to look like humans.”

“And if you think you see those bits on a human, that’s actually just your alien vision making you see them.”

“But you must never ask grandma and grandpa about it because they’re robots who don’t know they’re robots and definitely don’t know we’re aliens.”

“If you ever tell grandma and grandpa, it would blow their circuits and we’d have to shut them down forever, all because you told.”

“Then we’d have to leave all your friends and toys and go back to our homeworld.”

“We’re very poor on our homeworld.”

“That’s why we left it, but we didn’t get permission to leave, so we’d be in a lot of trouble if we went back.”

“On our homeworld, the way they punish you for doing something wrong is to put your children in jail.”

“Night night, now! Sweet dreams!”

“You’ll let Mommy and Daddy sleep late tomorrow, won’t you?”

Thank you

Hey, internet. Guess what? I’m feeling a whole lot better than I was just a week ago. Our situation is still the same, but my attitude is different. (Eh, that seems like a poor word choice, because I don’t believe depression and attitude are even in the same room together, but I’m just trying to say that right now, my outlook is so much cheerier.)

I think it has a lot to do with the sun finally coming out in London and staying there for nearly a week. I typically like rainy days and anytime the weather encourages me to stay inside and be cozy and read a book, but four months of that is a little much, even for me. On Monday I took Esme to the zoo, and even though it was still cold, it was sunny and bright and the sky was blue and it was so amazing to be out of the house. It was also fun to spend all day with Esme, who aside from being criminally cute is also incredibly good company. While we were walking through Regent’s Park to get to the zoo, Esme kept shouting, “AMINALLLLS! I AM COMING TO SEE YOU!” like she was Daniel Day-Lewis in Last of the Mohicans, and everyone around us kept cracking up.

But most of the reason I’ve felt up to staying out of bed is due to all the kind comments and emails you sent. Nick would read them all at the end of the day and we’d both struggle not to tear up. I know we still have a long way to go and very little to go on, but there’s a whole lot to be said for the kindness of strangers. This feels so cheesy to say, but it’s true. I can’t tell you how reassuring it was to hear that we aren’t the only ones, and that things do get better. I mean, practicality tells me that things do get better, but it’s nice to hear it from someone else.

I wish I could take everyone who wrote and put you all in a room and buy you all pizza and beer. Maybe this room is on our own private tropical island and everyone has their own suite with an attractive, blind masseuse? We’ll work out those details later. But thank you, internet, for reminding me of why I like the internet in the first place.

Blues

Hey, internet. I’m not gonna lie: things have been hard lately. Things are tight, things are stressed, things are out of our control completely, and I’ve been having a pretty rough go of it. I don’t want to get into it too much here, and I almost didn’t post this, but the last time I posted was several weeks ago, and a bunch of nice people sent me emails about where I could find some dresses, and things have been so overwhelming recently I have a hard time replying to emails. I’m sorry about that, because the people who read my website seem like really kind and supportive people, and tend to get excited and happy for me when I’m excited and happy, and you all deserve to have friendly and prompt replies to your friendly and helpful emails. But man, I’m sorry, it’s just not happening right now. I’m having a hard time just staying out of bed these days.

I know that things will eventually get better because that’s how things go, and in the meantime I’m still lucky every single day to have a roof over my head and wake up next to Nick, who makes me meals and strokes my hair and knows exactly the right way to rub someone’s back when they’re sad (with the flat of your palm, in those wide circles right between your shoulder blades, like your mom used to do when you couldn’t fall asleep). But I miss my friends, I miss New York, I miss being able to make plans. I miss having fun.

I also miss being able to thank all the wonderful people who help us on a daily basis by doing something nice in return, which I’d usually do by buying them a beer, or sending them a little present or card. When those options are removed, you feel like a child. I know it’s probably not that big a deal to anyone but me, but right now we’re very dependent on the kindness of our loved ones, and it’s really difficult for me not to be able do those normally small gestures to show gratitude. Okay, I didn’t mean to get this into all of this here. Anyway. Big, good things are hopefully coming, but they’re so far down the road I can’t even see them yet, and in the meantime, I’d just like to be able to buy a friend a drink. I’d also like to be able to buy myself a drink, but first things first.

Our favorite form of entertainment lately is lying in bed and saying “tell me a story,” which just means listing things that we’ll do one day when we’re normal people who have money and our own place. It’s basically a catalog of places we’ll go, things we’ll eat or buy, and places we’ll have sex. It’s usually goes like this: “We’ll wake up and have coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice. No, wait! We’ll go out for brunch! No, we’ll just stay in and make breakfast, but we’ll have real bacon and real orange juice and good coffee, in bed. Then we’ll get dressed and go out, and buy more coffee that we’ll just drink on the street, like celebrities. Maybe meet friends for lunch somewhere? And then we’ll go to a shop and buy a record! And maybe a bottle of wine! And take them both back to our apartment, and listen to the record while we drink the wine! And maybe order Chinese.” Dreams, people. You need dreams.

Okay

Ready for winter to be over now.