The Bloggess

If you are new here and you don’t know Juanita Weasel and all of her wonder then click here to meet her and then go here to bask in her memed glory.

Now that you know the backstory, check out the video below:

Someone get me a copyright lawyer and a small apron for this poor naked thing.

A post shared by Jenny Lawson (@thebloggess) on Nov 30, 2017 at 11:07am PST

You could have just asked me if you wanted replica dead weasels in your happy meals, McDonalds. That’s just Basic Etiquette 101.

I have chronic insomnia and in some ways it’s fine since most of my work gets done at 2am because I can’t sleep because my mind keeps reminding me of the time I accidentally ate a live fly in front of my 7th grade crush, or the time I literally peed my pants in public because I was hesitantly reaching out to touch a terrifying animatronic full-sized Santa that I suspected was filled by a serial killer and someone grabbed me from behind and screamed “HE’LL EAT YOUR FACE OFF!”  (I was 40 and it was Victor.)

In other ways though, insomnia is a total asshole and I would like it to go away so I’m asking you, what are your best techniques to fall asleep?

PS. It seems only fair that I share what works for me.  Mild prescription narcolepsy meds for when my days fully become nights, listening to the Sleep with Me podcast guy bore me to sleep, walking at night, using a light therapy machine in the morning to reset my clock, a heating pad on my feet because they’re always cold and it makes me claustrophobic to wear socks, stress relief tea and gas station turkey.

PPS.  That’s a link to the light therapy machine I bought two years ago but maybe there are better ones out now.  Also, my gas station has great turkey.  It’s sort of famous for it.  Don’t just eat random gas station turkey.  You will not sleep well.

Your turn.

Hunter S. Thomcat totally rubbing his easy sleep and his testicles in my face. Metaphorically, obviously.

If you don’t use Facebook just ignore this.  It’s just an FYI I wish I’d known before.

I’ve had a couple of people recently ask me why I don’t blog anymore and that seemed weird because I’ve never stopped blogging but they insisted that they hadn’t seen anything from me on Facebook in forever and Victor also said he never sees my posts on Facebook saying that I have a new blog post out and I assumed they were just crazy but I thought I’d do an experiment just to see if Facebook was hiding my posts with links to my blog.

I posted two posts at the same time asking people to “like” if they saw it in their feeds.  They were identical except one also had a link to my blog.  Within four minutes the post without the link had 5 times more likes than the one with the link and Facebook was like, “This post is doing better than 95% of the other posts on your page so you should pay us to get it out to more people” and that seems ironic since it was a post showing that Facebook was kinda being a dick, but whatever.

Final numbers 2 days later:

Post with a link in it ~ 4.4k likes.  (Facebook says 26k people reached)

Post without a link in it ~ 12k likes.  (Facebook says 57k people reached.)

Lovely people who understand Facebook more than I do explained it’s an algorithm issue because Facebook doesn’t want to show stuff that has links because it makes you leave Facebook, but that you can get around it a bit by instead putting the link in the first comment of the post, so I tried that and asked people to “like” if they saw it and it got 9.4k likes (66k people reached).   That seems pretty definitive.  I decided to share this with you in case you’re having the same issues, although probably by the time I write this Facebook will also find a way to hide any posts that links in the comments too or just erase me from existence.  Hard to tell.

Victor is finally home from Japan and I didn’t set the house on fire or eat any of our pets while he was gone.  Yay for the small things!

He always comes back from his annual trip with weird gifts that make him think of me and this time he pulled this stuffed toy sparrow at of his bag and I was like, “This bird has the dopiest look on its face” and Victor was like, “Well yeah.  That’s why it made me think of you,” and I’m not sure if he’s trying to be insulting but it doesn’t matter because it makes me laugh every time I look at it.  It’s the same look I have right after the waitress says, “Enjoy your meal” and I say, “YOU TOO!”

“PEOPLE!  RUN AWAY!” ~ this bird

I put the bird next to the stuffed slow loris Victor brought me last year (that would never sit up straight):

“I’M A HUGGER. AND A SUFFOCATOR.” ~ this slow loris.

But then I realized that I could use Slow Cloris Leachman’s little wire arms to hug Sparrow Agnew and that way they’d prop each other up and then they’re suddenly perfect together and they look so awkwardly happy and weirdly uncomfortable.

“Look away. Weird things are about to happen.  This is private.” ~ these guys

Like, no one would have thought to put them together but they fit, JUST LIKE ME AND VICTOR, you know?  And Victor said he didn’t entirely know what I was on about but said he’d agree with me if I just stopped talking and I was like, “THAT IS SUCH A SLOW CLORIS LEACHMAN THING TO SAY” and then Victor said it looked more like the slow loris was just really excited about capturing a bird and eating its face off, and the sparrow looked like she was drunk and pretending really hard not to be drunk.  Which is also a lot like us.  ROMANCE!

I don’t have an end to this post.

So it’s day 6 of Victor being out of the country and leaving me to be an adult so today I changed the vent filter in my office and it was horrifying because IS THAT WHAT MY LUNGS LOOK LIKE?  Also, I wasn’t sure if I had the filter turned in the right direction and I couldn’t entirely close the vent cover back up but I still felt pretty grown up until suddenly I smelled something totally on fire.

And I went outside and there was thick smoke everywhere but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.  It was like Stephen King’s The Mist but with fewer monsters and I was pretty sure it wasn’t coming from my house but I couldn’t tell for sure so I called security and said, “Hey.  So…how would I know if my house is on fire?” and the security guy was like, “Ma’am?” and I explained that there was smoke everywhere and he said, “Oh, that’s all over the neighborhood.  It’s fine.  It’s just a controlled garbage fire” and I was like, “Oh my God, ‘controlled garbage fire’ has been my whole year, dude.”

So long story short, I did not start any major fires today.

Yet.

Victor is still out of the country and I’m still documenting my days for him on instagram:

Day 3 of Victor being out of the country: Found a seven foot gold chicken chained to a tree on the side of the road. Sent Victor a video text of me singing "I'VE GOT A GOLDEN CHICKEN" (ala Charlie and the Chocolate factory) and then I IMMEDIATELY got a notification from Bank of America that my credit card has been cancelled "for security reasons". This is not even a joke.

A post shared by Jenny Lawson (@thebloggess) on Nov 15, 2017 at 3:01pm PST

Day 4: Went to the doctor for more blood work and my dog followed me into the lab and I was like "WTF. HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE? HAVE YOU BEEN FOLLOWING ME THIS WHOLE DAY?" and the nurse was like, "Oh, do you not like dogs?" And I was all, "That's not really the point and you're way too casual about this" but turns out it was my doctor's dog, who is Dorothy Barker's doppelgänger and the nurse just thought I was paranoid and super hostile to small dogs. And then I tried to apologize to the dog but she was like, "Bitch, not everything is about you."

A post shared by Jenny Lawson (@thebloggess) on Nov 16, 2017 at 5:42pm PST

To be continued…

Victor left for Japan this weekend so that means I have to be an adult this week and I promised him that while he was gone I would yell at myself to meet my business deadlines and throw away the cheese wrappers on the counter and a variety of other things that I forgot almost immediately.  I am however, keeping him in the loop through my instagram:

Day 1 of Victor being out of the country and leaving me to adult by myself: Grocery shopping done.

A post shared by Jenny Lawson (@thebloggess) on Nov 13, 2017 at 3:44pm PST

I didn’t actually buy the teddy bear though because when I tried to put it on the check-out lane it didn’t fit and as it went down the conveyor belt he knocked over a shitload of magazines and Juicy Fruit and people were staring and I was like, “JESUS, BEARY MANILOW.  I CAN’T TAKE YOU ANYWHERE.  YOU HAVE TO STOP DAY DRINKING” and then I ran away.

Day 2: Learned a new vocabulary word. It was scratched on a gas station bathroom mirror. #shitfuck

A post shared by Jenny Lawson (@thebloggess) on Nov 14, 2017 at 10:02am PST

I don’t know if this is a real word or just a small child learning how to curse but it was scratched really high so I think it was either an adult or a baby with a knife standing on the sink.  Also, I like how the mirror gives me holes in my hands like Jesus.

Day two continued: Saw an enormous road spider the size of two cats. Stalked and recorded it for several minutes until I realized it actually was two cats.

A post shared by Jenny Lawson (@thebloggess) on Nov 14, 2017 at 1:47pm PST

Life is an adventure, y’all.