Nicole Marie Says

Today marks the nine year anniversary of my friend Kyle’s death. That was back in 2003, so I don’t have a facebook page I can link to for you. In fact, when I do a google search of his name, there is no trace of him at all. Several years ago I got results for a scholarship established in his memory for the drama department of the high school he attended, but somehow that’s been cached and buried.

I have very little concrete evidence that Kyle ever existed. I’ve found two or three pictures of him. I had held on to an old pair of his pajama pants for a very long time, but eventually donated them to good will. If I looked hard enough I could probably unearth some old journal entries I wrote; there might be logged AIM conversations on one of my old computers. It’s not any easier to lose someone now than it was 5, 8, 10 years ago, but finding ways to remember them is definitely a different experience. Memories are now more accessible and grieving can be both a private and shared experience simultaneously. I have to say that even now, all these years later, it would be a comfort to be posting my remembrances of Kyle to a wall along with all of the other people who knew and loved him.

If the state of interconnectivity we live in now existed in 2003, I have to wonder whether would Kyle still be with us today. At nineteen years-old he might have gotten the message that it gets better. Because it does. It gets better.

Every day I mention in passing how appreciative I am of the internet. I’m grateful for my friends and connections and every stupid cat picture that’s ever made me laugh. Today, between the sadness, frustration, and happy memories, I’m filled with gratitude that the internet has saved and will continue to save lives. And as far as we’ve come, I have to believe that it can only get better.

My friends, I think I have discovered the source of the “WOMAN, WHERE ARE YOUR PANTS” conflict.

Yesterday I was shopping at H&M and couldn’t find leggings to save my life. It’s H&M for heaven’s sake. Shouldn’t every purchase come with free leggings at that store? Anyway. I asked a salesperson to take me to legging land* and where did he bring me? To a wall of tights.

Let me break it down:

I asked for the leggings which are pants.**
He gave me tights which are decidedly NOT PANTS.

This really was a wall of tights with rows of packages that were all clearly labeled TIGHTS. Due to sufficient labeling, I still would have been guilty of poor pants judgement if I skipped off to the register with semi opaque tights instead of thick, completely opaque leggings. However, they had some really cute colors hanging up there, and had I really wanted to believe they were leggings, the salesperson’s endorsement would have been enough to let me carry on in no pants denial.

I know this fails to explain the flagrant no pants infractions we all see on a daily basis, but the girls who are somewhere in between? Be kind, because they may have ben led unwittingly down the “WOMAN, WHERE ARE YOUR PANTS” path.

*I know. Don’t worry, I didn’t phrase it that way. But I just thought of it and can’t stop giggling.

**Shut up. Yes, they are.***

***But, please, still cover yer bum. 

At first I thought I was kidding when I came up with that subject line, but you know what? I think it’s true. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Have you watched American Horror Story? It’s new and it’s on FX and it’s terrifying. It’s also good, but let me reiterate: TERRIFYING. I want to tell you that you should try it out because it seems to be the next up and coming cult* TV thing, however it would be irresponsible of me to do so without at least attempting to assess your ability to cope with said TERROR. Thus, I give you the AHS Stress Test, also known as your Personal Pansy Rating. 

Answer the following questions:

1. Are you afraid of the dark?
2. Did seeing The Shining (not the TV version or this version) or The Strangers almost ruin your life?
3. Even if you’re standing in the light, do you refuse to look into the doorway of a dark room?
4. Whenever your cat is staring at the wall, do you think she’s tracking an invisible otherwordly creature?
5. Does normal daytime television somehow transform into something creepy when you watch it at night?
6. Do silent or quietly singing children make you want to cry?

Forget the rating system. If you answered “HELL YES” to any of the above questions, you may want to think twice before watching American Horror Story. For full disclosure’s sake, my answer to all six questions is “OH HELL TO THE YES” so I might be a bit more of a fraidy cat than the average bear. Cat. Moving on. 

Why is AHS going to make me fat? Because of the stress. No, really. This show is absolutely relentless. It is one scary mother trucking thing after another without time to recover in between and it keeps changing up the kind of scary and there’s no formula and you just can’t be prepared for some of the horrifying things (BABIES) you are going to see. It puts my stomach in knots, makes my whole body tense up and my heart rate spike. That sounds like stress to me. And all of the health and women’s magazines I read are always telling me that stress causes of the release of cortisol and cortisol will make you fat. Therefore, American Horror Sorry + my pansy ass = fat. In fact, just writing this post makes me feel like I should go to a yoga class or something. 

Those writers (WHO ARE YOU? WHO COMES UP WITH THIS SHITTAKE?) are crafty though. There’s this whole mystery plot threading through all the scary and now I need to know what happens. So, go watch it and be terrified with me; I’ll be really pissed if the show doesn’t swing some decent ratings and gets cancelled. Then the extra ten pounds I gain and the five years off my life will be all for naught. Also, Jessica Lange is in it and she is downright incredible. 

And if you clicked the link at the beginning of this post and perused the show’s site (which is pretty much the equivalent of every creepy thing on the internet in one tidy Flash file), I apologize in advance for your upcoming sleepless night. I probably won’t be sleeping if you need company. And if I am, the lights will be on. 

*I originally wrote “culty” but decided that resembled another bad word. Is that a leap? I don’t think that’s a leap.