Stay, get your ass beat.
It happened, I finally got recognized for my substack. I ordered food via doordash and the delivery guy (won’t say dasher as it is derogatory) took a picture of me. I was just about to go back into my apartment when he stopped me. “Can I get a picture of you with your food?” he pleaded. “Yes, of course. I’m not on the clock right now but I’d be more than happy to.” I even offered to sign his phone case and address it to one of his children who might also have heard of my work. He declined.
It’s May and the NYU students are graduating. The 4,5,6 trains were all taken up by ignorant optimistic scholarship students. I was happy for them at first but the second that my commute was inconvenienced, I felt rage. It took 3 seconds to go from “the future ahead is beautiful and I’m grateful that I already experienced the majority of my twenties.” to “Fuck you Tara, Fuck you Jash, Fuck You Zach, Fuck You Kaitlyn.” That’s my best guess at what the names would be for a graduating class of NYU students.
Spring has a certain paradox. It can serve as a reminder that pieces of your past self have died from previous winters and will never be brought back. While the death of the past is emotional, there are a plethora of seeds available to plant at your fingertips right at this very moment. The paradox of reflection is that if we stare too long we might make up mistakes that we didn’t make and if we look too far ahead, we might never act on our desires because we are overwhelmed with what there is to do.
“What we began to learn about Valerie Cherish is that she creates her own reality.” - said Lisa Kudrow in an interview with Gay Guy, EVAN ROSS KATZ about her third season of The Comeback. The Comeback is a genius show to me. A lot of people find it to be a hard watch because it is very difficult to watch the main character, Valerie Cherish played by Lisa Kudrow get abused by the entertainment industry, a male dominated field. As for me, I always knew that Valerie created her own reality. She was never beaten down by the lack of respect she received from Hollywood. Her obstacle in Season 1 was convincing the network that her sit-com was worth making, season 2 she gets manipulated by her documentary crew, season 3 she stars in the first ever AI written sit-com and she gets blamed by all parties for allowing AI to take writing jobs from humans. Throughout three seasons spanning over three decades, she genuinely faces the fresh threat of the decade by doing the best that she can do in the circumstances that reality gave to her. We all have to balance the weights of career and family. However, we are not forced to keep our humor and morals intact when we do so. We are allowed to shut down, get angry, or stop. Valerie Cherish never let her spark leave her from 2005 all the way to 2026. We can all learn from Valerie.
“Tik tok is gone, Instagram is gone, X is gone, but I’m still standing.” I’m referencing Madonna’s 2016 billboard speech when she accepted the “Woman of the Year” award. Look it up, it’s hilarious! My version of Madonna’s quote is what I felt after I decided to delete all my apps only to redownload 2 out of 3 of them a day later to buy my dog an “interactive lick ball” that is 30% off only on Tik tok shop. I had to download Instagram because I told my friends I was taking a break and my gay friend said “well, you have to post for my birthday.” I couldn’t neglect a gay guy like that. I understood his concerns completely. For a couple hours I felt defiant, rebellious, and free. But my dogs lick ball and gay friends birthday post will always win.
I went to the doctor once because I was having chest pains. The visit made me so uncomfortable. It felt like the tests being done weren’t pathways to a solution but rather further validation that I was fucked. The entire appointment made me uncomfortable. I was so stressed out after that I decided to go to Panda Express. AI is similar. We can use it as a shortcut but we lose the value of the process. We end up ordering Panda Express and having a heart attack if we can’t slow down and process on our own.
I once closed the store down at my cafe to try cold brew at another cafe because I was extremely bored and there were less than two customers per hour. I decided that I needed to feel something new. When I came back, the owner was there. He said “What the fuck?” and I said “Are you serious? I work day in and day out for this company, busting my ass. The least that I deserve is to try a cold brew with different notes.” Jwow from Jersey Shore once said to Angelina: “Stay get your ass beat, stay get your ass beat.” I felt like if I didn’t leave, I was allowing myself to get my ass beat. I wasn’t making money, I was having shitty cold brew, I wasn’t famous. It was time to take a risk and change it up. It was time to make my own reality. I say as if it’s inspirational and I wasn’t a completely horrible employee. But, who could blame me? We’re all going to have our last ice cream cone one day and we won’t even know it. So, have fun y’all!
