deadline

Gemma (italics): Exactly a month ago, I found a blog. A blog that I liked so much, I went to the heights of liking nearly every single post, commenting on a few and sliding into the blog owner’s DMs on Twitter to fangirl about how much I liked his blog. Somehow, this was well received? I judge Matt over at deepsarchasm as much as you do. After no more than 10 messages, we were already discussing writing something together. And so here we are…

 

Is that the introduction? It’s really quite effective. Does speaking in italics count as stealing your identity?

 

Don’t you dare, turn off italics immediately and introduce yourself properly.

 

TURN OFF ITALICS IMMEDIATELY. (I could have resorted to the spongebob meme here but I have morals).

 

Matthew, this shitpost is already way above recommended blog post word count, get on with it.

 

Matthew (normal text and italics when I want to. I saved my teenage rebelling for this moment): Shit posts are actually a different art form I’ll have you know. This is many rungs above the lower tier *cough* blog.

Instead of introducing, let me gush. I thought I was lost in sea of travel blogs and cooking recipes. Now I know that there  are other people that write about their life and pee and feelings and maybe more pee because apparently Gemma has a lot of pee stories. I feel like our blogs are just two condensed people. Gosh it’s like you’re being filled in on years of life reading through it. Ok, so gushing is meant to be fast. I think this is more like a slow trickle of something.

 

Damn I leave you for a minute when my laptop overheats and shuts down and you get all deep. I’ll remind you we have 17 minutes until you have to delete your blog.

 

My name is Gemma. I agreed to delete my blog at midnight on SUNDAY. Yes, I think this is midnight Sunday but I’m just not very well informed about the world around me. ANYWAY, I feel like my blog could take one for the team. It’s generous and it would definitely take the bullet.

 

Stop with the identity theft, Matthew. Italics are reserved for me and me only. Let me explain this deadline properly. After an entire month of attempting to collaborate, we set the deadline of midnight on MONDAY the 23rd of October. With the time restraints, we were unable to complete our account of the Crayon Genocide of ‘03 nor were we able to crash a wedding. So in place of actual good content, we’ve copied and pasted an absolute shit post of effort.

 

Excuse me? You’re going to call our baby a shit post? It’s composed of GOD DAMN words and you think it can’t understand you?

Let’s just reveal our baby to the world. Perhaps this will be its christening which will cleanse it of its sins.

 

It’s name is **DEADLINE- SUNDAY THE 22ND** and we love it very much. Sure it could have used a bit more time in the womb so that it could be classed as an actual idea (8 months and 3 weeks more maybe) but what can you do!

[secret side note that’s outside of the google docs and, hence, outside of the law: please follow gemminess (https://gemminess.wordpress.com/). She’s an enabler and I’ve known her for a damn month and she’s the wittiest, funniest and most fantastic blog writer you can find. Here’s to many more months of me leeching off her sharp words].

 

 

**DEADLINE- SUNDAY THE 22ND**

That’s much scarier, isn’t it? Ok, it’s time. I’m just going to write. This is me tapping into our collective brain wave and writing my coup de gras. I think that means cherry on top in french but please do not check or reference that. I hate writing about NOT being able to write. It’s writing about nothing. You were impressed with my number of drafts? All of them are just carbon copies of this. It hasn’t worked yet but I feel like the faster I type the more chance that something will just pop into my lap. It’s tapping into my subconscious and begging for ideas. Rap, tapping on its door and getting on my knees.

Weird.

Last time, I did this it TOLD me to write about what I think about people taking antibiotics when they shouldn’t. I have a full fucking page  about how we’re actually just traitors to the human race since we are on the bacteria’s side and creating super bugs when we take too much antibiotics. You feel me? Apparently, I’ve shoved my serious side ALL the way into the back of my brain. It feels like I’m partaking in a seance when I go back there looking for ideas. You don’t believe I’ve crushed my serious side into the back of my skull? Well, there was another time I brushed away the cobwebs and accessed the serious side. I came back with an idea called “Borderless, Limitless” which talked about the benefits of eradicating borders and getting rid of territorial aggression. Maybe a full moon will swap my two halves. Goodbye wacky and clumsy boy and hello serious man. It would be like that episode of Spongebob where he gets slightly more rounded and gets rid of his holes. I mean it would be pretty serious if I lost my mouth, nose, ears and… Ha Ha that’s great. Fast typing creates awkward butt jokes. Zing.

“Is it for the best that we have a divided world? Nationalism and patriotism can motivate people but do their negatives outweigh what they contribute? Can humans exist without a structure?”

“The real question is why are so many bacteria becoming immune if only a couple of survivors remain after a blitz. Well, it’s partly down to your feeble body/mind and the bacteria’s godlike superiority. You’re offended that I’m calling you feeble? I’m sorry, buddy, that’s the only word for it I’m afraid. The people who have colds and go to the doctors complaining are traitors. They are spies and are secretly working for the bacteria. The doctor gives them a kilo of antibiotics to treat their COLD and let them go about their way. Some people get these antibiotics and don’t even finish their course. This is the highest transgression. I will see you at court.”

This is what I like to call: “Removing the bottom of the barrel, digging a hole and THEN scraping that”. The cream of the crop is a nice, warm embarrassing tale. The light cream of the crop (?) is movie reviews or talking about any piece of media OR just rambling about some topic that I definitely didn’t want to research. Ok, so I don’t know if light cream is in any way worse than normal cream but that’s the only way I could tier my preferences using cream. OK? Is whipped cream the worst type of cream? Well, the whipped cream of the crop is the meandering stuff like this. The posts that I take out to pasture and shoot before it gets to realise how miserable it is. Oof, ok I don’t like that metaphor. What the hell, fast writing, you creep?

I feel like I’ve farmed my own life for embarrassing stories. We have entered the drought period. There are bodies LITTERING my shooting pasture. What’s my plan to get out of this? Creating synthetic embarrassing stories OR mine other people’s. I could be an entertainment leech. So how would I go about these two avenues? Mining other people’s embarrassment MIGHT be ethically wrong but here’s how the process works. Step one is I become a Mrs Nancy figure. Someone who gets mail from people begging for you to get out plywood and nails and fix up their messy, messy problems. Here’s the twist though. The newspaper column doesn’t exist. *audible gasp* This is actually messed up. Uh. You post their letters on the blog and profit from how entertaining their heartfelt cries are. What about synthetic embarrassment? That involves placing yourself in the crosshairs. It involves hiking up your pants and placing yourself in PRIME embarrassing situations. It’s like poison. If you endure enough embarrassing moments, you become immune and eventually transcend into GODHOOD (the sequel to boyhood). I shrugged in real life when I wrote that so don’t ask. Now, you may ask why I don’t just pick an event and EMBARRISIFY it in the post. Well, I have basically a set of unbreakable rules for my blog. They were not engraved on a stone on Mt Sinai (or they could have been and I’m not aware) but they are very important to me. Topping that list is “thou shalt not lie”. I will admit that sometimes I sprinkle in a little something-something (code for a small lie) in a blog post to make it a bit funnier. It’s usually something small like how I felt in that moment. It ends there, though. If I ever dreamt of fabricating an entire event that never remotely happened, I would hang up my writing hat and writing apron (this is the sort of little something-something I’m on about. Just little absurdities. Unfortunately, i don’t have a writing apron YET).

**OK. That’s my attempt. Your move, bucko**

 Woah. I misspoke. It’s my turn again. I’m just going to take the wheel and- SKKKKKKKKRRRRRT- get this burning mess back on track. Exciting, right? With 1 day, 1 hour and 48 gosh darn minutes left we need an idea. There is a mob amassing outside and they ARE calling for blood. Blood or a blog post. They are really into their “bl” words. Ok, so I was curious and looked up “how to start a mob”. I am now on a list somewhere and all that came up was how to start a mafia. A mafia. Easier than setting up a start up I’m guessing. Think about it. All you need is a bossman (and yes you CAN be the bossman) and people that say “yes, boss”. This, however, is deemed illegal activity so watch where they say “yes, boss”, if you don’t want two metal rings on your wrist. The ol’ bracelet and chain. The sinner circles. The burglar bangles. The housebreaker … handcuffs. That didn’t happen and you have the RIGHT to remain silent. Do they actually say that in the real world? When does a cop ever rat on the criminal about what he was saying when being arrested? That’s like a little kid tattling. Cops are the evolution of playground snitches. Red and blue lights flash outside my window. I mean uh these pigs are alright. The sirens cut out and they pull out of the drive. A warning.

Cops. Ok, so here’s a tenuous link. What I wanted to be when I was older.  I wanted to be a vet. I wanted to be a vet for so long and I wanted it so hard that when I started falling out of love with it I felt guilty. Whenever I watched an “AirBud” movie, I remember feeling obliged to go and roll around with my dogs because I’d be a damn imposter if I didn’t. Actually, fuck. Traumatising moment incoming. This is one of the memories where time slows down. My sister and I were watching TV and one of those road safety adverts comes on where a guy gets smushed. Well, I’m fairly sure it was more tame than that but in my kids mind he got SMUSHED. I have never felt more inept in my life with a remote. It kept slipping out of my hand and my sister was screaming and crying. I actually cannot watch any of those videos anymore. Anyway, my sister noticed that I only super coddled the dogs after watching dog movies. That’s the link there. While the passion was still there for injecting medicine into animals, I kept my own vet journal. What does it matter that I didn’t know anything about vets? I looked up “Vet” on google and printed out the entire wikipedia page and glued it in. This is problem solving. I also drew my ideal vet. This was a rectangular brick with the name “Matthew and Pet”. Apparently, I felt like numerous pets would get a bit too much. How could I consult my wiki guide for more than one? Behind the building is where the true magic was. It was a massive park and it was lined with cages. During the day, the cages would open up and all the sick animals would be able to limp around the park and enjoy themselves AND definitely not hurt each other because they are nice, sweet animals.

Fast forward to seeing 30 animals being neutered in the space of a week. Oh. This does include horses. Fast forward to an elderly lady barging into the clinic and demanding that we help the dying crow on the pavement. Of course, I was sent out to nurse it back to health. Let me tell you, I knew nothing about ravens, crows, birds, maybe animals as a whole. I went up to the vet and kept on asking questions but he just brushed me away. I did probably the worst thing first. I named that sad, sad bird. It was Theon. I then did the second worst thing. I put him in a cage with water and dog food. I STILL DO NOT KNOW WHAT CROWS EAT. I looked it up now and they’re carnivores. You know what? That explains why MY Theon was replaced with a dead crow in the morning. I was really excited to look after something and that something was dead in the morning. So, now that vet has been scared out of me what do I want to be when I’m older. Well, I never got to want to be a fireman or a prince when I was younger because of the vet phase. I’m thinking a prince that fights fire as a hobby but I just can’t figure out the logistics of that one. How in god’s name would I fit a crown AND a fireman’s hat on my head? Absolutely not feasible. Why didn’t they just teach firemen to walk down the stairs faster instead of getting poles installed?

**What’s a more formal word than bucko? Get typing, ruffian.**

Excuse me, I actually prefer to identify as a delinquent rather than a ruffian, thank you. I have so many comments on your various thoughts, I wish I had been writing at the same time as you, we could’ve structured this like Ryan and Shane from Buzzfeed. Of course I’d be Shane, the pessimistic sceptic and you’d be Ryan, the dreamer who believes in ghost blowjobs and the prospect of us actually getting this blog post finished.

[wheeze]

[sigh]

 

I need to put you in contact with my TY science teacher. She was as passionate about the conspiracy of antibiotics as yourself. I don’t trust anything that prevents you from drinking alcohol, to be honest. This is why I’m wary of babies and don’t plan on getting pregnant…never mind the fact that I can barely take care of myself and Irish secondary schools don’t prepare you for parenthood with a flour baby like they do on American TV. Now that I’ve low-keyed expressed my concerns about motherhood, let me attack you for labelling movie reviews as “light cream”. My “Decaying Potatoes” segment is at least…ehm…full fat double cream. Wow, I don’t like this metaphor either. Regardless of your shitty metaphor, I’d still send you a Mrs Nancy style letter BUT on the condition that you dress up as an old heartwarming woman. There’s a blog post right there; I write a letter and you reply on your blog with hilariously bad advice? Now that could actually work as a collaboration. As blog collaborations aren’t as damn easy as you might think hence this massive shit post.

 

A vet? You wanted to be a vet? You could’ve contributed something to society, but no, you’re doing philosophy? You only serve to fuck up our minds more than they already are. I wanted to be a cleaner when I was a child after being gifted one of those gender stereotypical toy cleaning sets. I did indeed go on to do experience as a cleaner in TY despite that dream being well dead. I hadn’t intended on cleaning hotel rooms from 9.30am until 3.30pm every day however that’s what the hotel I approached offered me. Of course, they jazzed up the job title as “working in the accommodation department”. My favourite task was checking the bibles beside the hotel beds for condoms because apparently that’s a common place they’re found. Although I did not find any to back up that claim (I’m not complaining).

 

I think they installed poles in fire stations so the firemen could double up as strippers. Think about it. There are many firemen strippers but where are the accountant strippers?? Maybe if they installed poles in an accountancy firm, there’d be more accountant strippers out there.

*currently on a train and getting into the Mrs Nancy uniform I have with me at all times. Very Mrs Doubtfire-esque.*

Here’s the part where you tell me your problems in letter form and I advise. My first advice is that yes you can drink while having a baby and it just depends on what state you want that baby in. Also, flour babies? A bag of flour is probably the worst representation of a baby I can think of. Eggs on the other hand are perfect. If you’ve ever held a baby, you know that they are really just shell. Since you’ve probably never seen the inside of a baby, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. It’s all yolk. The whole thing. The problem is nobody has ever tapped a baby three times against a bowl.

Do you think that the bible imbues the condom with powers of some sort? Does a “holy” condom become more pleasurable? The man beside me on the train might have a few ideas. Oh God, he keeps on glancing near the screen. Please stop.

 

**Be prepared for the best Dear Nancy of your damn life**

 

Dear Nan,

 

Is it okay if I call you “Nan”? We’re that close, right? It’s not that you remind me of my grandmother or anything like that (although I’ll admit the hair curlers don’t exactly look youthful). I just feel that a nickname is necessary for the person who helped me through my divorce, coming out and The Office being taken off Netflix.

 

I don’t really have any problems at the moment but I thought “Are we really friends if I only hit you up when I need YOUR help??” ( a common white girl made me realise that on Twitter). So how are YOU? I doubt you get many people asking you that. It’s always so ME ME ME ME when it comes to Dear Nancy. Sort of like the way my needy child is always crying out for attention. I give it food, change its nappies and sit it front of Disney movies. What more does it need? My mother tells me love and affection? Where can I buy those? Does Lidl do their own brand version?

 

Okay, so maybe I do need your advice here. We’re not friends. I’m using you. I’ll go back to referring to you as Nancy.

 

• Not your friend

 

Dear Nancy

Dear Not your friend,

Fact: Other people’s problems sustain me. I can’t think about my own when there are millions of marriages stacked up near the universal shredder. You did not ask me a question. This lapse in concentration may have cost me my fucking sanity. Have you ever questioned what dear old Nancy does when she has a fucking problem? Newsflash, bitch. There is no Omega Nancy for me to cry to. I turned to prayer but no god exists that can send me quaint letter answers. No. I have to answer questions. No.

I’m shaking. No, you can not call me Nan. Common mistake. My first name is Dear. Sometimes I smell my hair burning when I’m using my curling iron and I realise that I’ve been crying. Curls make you look like a well put together woman. That’s why all the strong grannies rock them! A 1950s woman sure knew how to hide tears!

I know this is the first time this has ever happened but I can’t answer your most pertinent question. How am I? You do realise that if you help a Nancy you become a Nancy. Nobody wants to be a Nancy. The transformation is hideous. A Nancy’s duty doesn’t end at letter writing. Whenever a problem is solved, that is a Nancy’s doing. We have the weight of the world crushing and crushing and crushing until it’s only screams and cries. There is a bubble left of the original person. I was 25 when I became a Nancy. That 25 year old has problems and dreams and hopes and it’s all stuck there and it can’t get out not even if I wanted it and I wouldn’t want this for you.

A mother’s love and affection doesn’t come from Lidl but I’m sure Aldi does a good deal. I’m only joking, hun! Motherly love is probably the most difficult thing to give but makes the most impact and it just involves the spontaneous. You can throw food at a child but if you kiss them on the forehead and take them out for a treat every once in awhile it can make a world of difference! These aren’t the only spontaneous things you can do but it just involves eeking at your comfort zone and displaying something profound to your kiddies.

Not your friend, I am not feeling good. I’m sorry. I thought about it. I can’t live like this anymore. Welcome to the Nancys. I’m so sorry.

-the woman who was Barbara