Tag Archives: embarrassment

Coney Island Shenanigans

26 Aug

I was going to edit this for Dad-safety, but really, Dad, you should just skip this one entirely.  It’s like that one time I wrote this blog post and warned you about not reading it and you read it anyway and then you regretted it.  Don’t make the same mistake twice, Dad.  Just, yea, close the tab and slowly back away from the computer.  That’s right, ever so slowly…

For the rest of you, there are two very important things that you all must know about me.  First, I love Coney Island.  It is one of my most favorite places in the world.  No matter what time of year, what time of day, that you go to Coney Island, something crazy is always happening.  Good crazy, mostly.  I really believe that Coney Island is one of the only places where people just sort of let their freak flags fly.  Even those people who go about life trying to fit in and be normal, when they get to Coney Island that shit goes right out the window.  People who are still too repressed to let their inner weird-o see the light of day?  Well they steer clear and I feel sorry for them.  Such a boring life they must lead.  Second, I embarrass myself all the time.  Or, well, seemingly embarrassing things happen to me but I think that for the most part being embarrassed is just sort of a waste of energy and so I don’t feel embarrassed.  I just sort of carry on.  Like that one time I ran 10 miles and then worked out at the gym for 45 minutes before realizing that the light blue string hanging out the bottom of my running shorts was not attached to said shorts but was coming from the tampon that was, at that time, shoved inside my body.  I could have been embarrassed but no.  I continued right on stretching until I gathered the energy to make my way down to the ladies locker room to tuck the string back where it belonged.  Life, ya know?

Anyway, normally my love of Coney Island and my tendency to get myself in potentially embarrassing situations don’t really overlap.  Only today they totally did.  So there I was, all by my lonesome on the beach waiting for my friend Kendra.  The sun was strong so I thought to myself, “self, you really ought to put on some sunscreen.”  So I went about putting sunscreen all over, even taking care to get some under the strings of my bikini so that I didn’t end up burning the skin just around the edges of my bathing suit.  I always, always, always burn the area of my butt right where my bikini ends.  Every fucking time.  In fact, I even did it today.  That is not important.  What is important is that in the process of trying to get the sunscreen on around my bikini top I totally managed to, initially unbeknownst to me, flash those sitting around me on the beach.  And, obviously because it is me, rather than just quietly putting my boob back where it belonged I said, to no one in particular, and while tucking it back into its temporary home, “get back in there!”

Sigh.

Sometimes it’s like I have no control.  In all the hubbub happening with the right boob, I didn’t realize that the left one was also exposed.  So there I was, on Coney Island, before noon, boobs out.  Good work, me.  I was almost hoping that, since I had already exposed myself, at least someone could enjoy the show.  But not like a creepy someone.  Just someone who would be like “oh, breasts!  Well isn’t that a nice little surprise for a Tuesday!”  I imagine this person with a British accent.  Perhaps thankfully, now that I am thinking about it, the only people standing near me were a dude in a Speedo standing up and meditating while leaning on his bike and a woman flailing around listening to music and drinking Cannabis Energy Drink.  I fucking love Coney Island.  And so now I am left to ask the age-old question:  if a girl flashes the beach at Coney Island and no one is around (or conscious enough) to see it, did it even happen?  I am not so sure myself.  I guess I’ll find out if a picture of my tits show up on the internet.  God forbid.

But that’s not all!  After Kendra arrived and I told her all about my misadventures in sunscreen application, we decided to go for a swim.  So we went over to the life-guard protected area and hopped in.  There we were, swimming, when all of a sudden I saw what appeared to be, at first glance, either a tentacle-less jelly fish or a very small shark.  Then, upon looking again I realized that it was the biggest condom I have ever seen.  Like so big.  I screamed, obviously, and Kendra and I quickly ran out of the water.  Here’s the thing though. I partially screamed because, ew condom in the water and what if it comes near me and sticks to my leg and then I have some sort of crazy horrible disease because that’s how it works, right?  But also I screamed because that condom was so goddamn big.  I mean, I know there is that thing that people a lot of times think that bigger dicks are better but I’ll tell you what, I would not like to meet the dick that belonged to that condom.  No way Jose.  Once, when I first moved to the city I had sex with this guy with a huge penis and I swear the second I laid eyes on that thing I lost all color in my face.  My lady parts are fucking delicate, you know?  I had trouble walking the next day!  And I think this condom, if memory serves, was even too big for his penis.  If I ever had sex with the penis that fit into that condom I would never be the same.  For real.

By the by, does anyone else think that the sentence construction I just used was really weird?  It’s like, through this whole thing I have not imagined a penis attached to a dude.  I have imagined just like, a free-standing gigantic penis kind of going through life, unattached, waiting to find a similarly unattached vagina or else someone in possession of a vagina who didn’t run the other way when faced with this particular phallus.  I would say poor penis only, judging from the condom which appeared to have been used, it did find someone that wasn’t afraid of it.  I hope she, or he, enjoyed him or herself.  Until that last sentence there this imagination game I had was totally heteronormative.  Not cool, Rebekah, not cool.

So, that’s what happened on Coney Island today.  People may or may not have seen my boobs without a bathing suit covering them, and I definitely saw a condom that was, at that moment, thankfully lacking a penis.  Also, I have learned that I do not have a future in erotic fiction, so that’s a career path to cross off the list.  Happy Tuesday, everyone!

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The Full Monty

22 Apr

Sometimes I rack my mind thinking about what I could possibly write about.  I start a whole bunch of different posts and none of them really go in the direction I want. I spend hours on them, and then simply discard them uttering to myself the now familiar “that was stupid anyway.”  Then other times, I wake up in the morning simply FULL of ideas.  Well, not exactly full if you want to get specific.  Yea, let’s try that again.  Then other times, I wake up in the morning with an idea!  That’s better.  Anyway, this morning was one such morning and I wouldn’t quite say that I had an idea as much as an idea was sort of given to me.  Right when I woke up.  Thanks to my cat.

So my cat, Clark, has spent a fair amount of time over the past year attacking the shades next to my bed.  It’s as if he thinks that maybe all the slats are going to band together in the middle of the night and kill me with their blunt edges and their flimsy constitutions.  He has been so concerned about this that slowly, one by one, he has broken the slats in half, leaving them hanging off sadly until I get sick of how pathetic they are and throw them in the garbage.  RIP slats.  This slow and pain process has left my shades essentially useless.  The top is still robust, full of slats, but at the bottom, right next to where my head is while I sleep, there is a big gaping hole, an area devoid of any sort of protection.  I have toyed with the idea of purchasing some nice curtains – useful accent pieces, if you will – but have never found quite the right ones.  Also, I need a paycheck but that is a gripe for another day.  Suffice it to say that at this very moment, there is quite a bit of space on and around my bed where I have to be aware of my state of undress in case there is a Peeping Tom out there somewhere.  (Which, by the way, there is!  He talked to me once and it was terrible.)  Anyway, the Peeping Tom can see through my other window when I am irresponsible and don’t pull the shades down which, arguably, is my own fault.*  The lucky thing about this whole scenario is that the view by the broken shade is unobscured by other apartments, meaning that no one can really see through because I don’t have any neighbor-windows. The closest apartment window at the level of mine is a whole block away and unless someone sits there day in and day out with a telescope they would never be able to see me.

Oh my god what if someone actually DOES sit there day in and day out with a telescope.  I just totally creeped myself out.

Okay, moving along.  So this morning I woke up, looked out my window, and noticed that on the roof closest to my window there was a construction guy, just walking around.  I took note and was like

“Okay, Rebekah, whatever you do do not get dressed in front of that window.”

I think we all know where this is going.

I went down the hall, brushed my teeth, started the coffee machine (why would I drink coffee right after brushing my teeth?!) and then came into my room to get dressed directly in front of the exact window where I had, a mere 5 minutes earlier, told myself not to get dressed in front of.  Not only did I decide to get dressed there, but I also decided that my skin was dry so obviously I should stand, entirely naked, in front of the window putting on lotion.  Obviously.  About one leg in I realized the err of my ways, screamed, and ran to the other side of the room directly in front of the other window whose blinds I had left wide open because I was changing in an area out of the line of sight of any Peeping Tom’s who might use that window as their peep zone.  Also, by screaming, I potentially drew the attention of any additional construction workers who might have not already seen me in my birthday suit.

Sigh.

So anyway, I am fairly certain that this construction guy saw me naked and putting on lotion this morning which was not exactly the way I wanted to start my day.  But then I had this sort of descent into hilarity where I thought about how funny** it would be if the dude started like, yelling work out tips or brands of lotion that he thought might help me with my dry skin.  Like,

“Girl, you ever try that Jillian Michaels’ shit?” (and then he would demonstrate some of the moves)

or

“Girl, Jennifer Aniston swears by that Aveeno and her skin is positively radiant!”

Anyway, it was funny to me right when I woke up.  It was also funny to my sister Lucy who said, via text,

“Were you acting lude with food?  In the nude?!”

She told me she was quoting from a Flight of the Concords song but I like to think she was just quick on her feet.  Then she sent me a photo of herself looking “angrily disappointed” in a birthday hat when she was like 5 and that made me happy.

The end.

*I should say something here about victim blaming and stuff but I am too lazy so I just want to acknowledge that my starred statement was slightly problematic.

**Theoretically funny because in real life I would get mad about it and write a blog and a strongly worded letter to anyone who I thought responsible for the construction workers on the roof next door

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Happy Bloody Valentine’s Day, Folks.

14 Feb

It’s Valentine’s Day which, as far as I can tell, is just as good a day as any to get my blog rolling again.  So, here we go.  I have no plan (except to stir up zero controversy) so let’s just see where this takes us, shall we?

Things have been stressful around here recently but, never fear, while all of the stress has been raining (snowing?) down on my head, embarrassing things have not stopped happening to me.  I don’t know if you have noticed but embarrassing things happen to me often.  And I find that I become less embarrassed if, rather than skulking around feeling like an ass, I broadcast my embarrassment to all who feel compelled to read about it.

Before I continue I should probably let you know I am about to write about my period.  For those of you who are weird and don’t like reading about such things, you should maybe just stop reading now and then go in the other room and grow up a little.  Then come back and try again.  You’ll get there eventually.  I believe in you.  (Dad, maybe you get a free pass on this one.)

This past Tuesday I returned from my annual friends-visiting trip to New Orleans.  My period always comes on vacation.  Always.  No matter what time of the month I go, no matter when my last period was, it always always always comes.  I know this and yet I never pack accordingly.  It’s like a game of chicken I insist on playing and my period always wins.  Every single time.  When I was packing I even thought to myself, “Self, you should probably pack some tampons. Nah. There is no way it’ll come.” Stupid.  I was just like willing it to arrive.  Taunting it.  You know what periods don’t like?  Being taunted.  Take my word for it.  So there I was, on Monday morning, realizing that perhaps it was coming.  But did I do anything about it?  No, of course I didn’t.  I just went about my day, casually passing all manner of store, not stopping in to buy the appropriate gear.  I made it through Monday unscathed and then Tuesday came.  All morning I was good to go.  I decided that it would probably be in my best interest to buy a box of just-in-case tampons.  But I was on a time crunch so instead of walking to where I knew there was a pharmacy with all kinds of choices, I went to a little store in the Quarter to buy a box of “regular” tampons which, when I am in the midst of my flow, are utterly useless.  But did I think about that?  No.  And did I think about the impending danger when I put one, yes one, useless little tampon in my shoulder bag and the rest of the box in my bag that was checked under the plane?  No, if course I didn’t.  Because I am a smart and reasonable human being.  I bet you can guess what happened next.  But in case you can’t, I will tell you all about it.

Cue dramatic music.

It was exactly halfway through the flight when I decided to stretch my legs and take a walk down to the bathroom.  I stuck the one solitary tampon in my pocket and moseyed on down the aisle.  I got into the bathroom and wouldn’t you know it, blood everywhere.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is my worst nightmare.  Being on an airplane in a teeny tiny bathroom with a toilet that I am always afraid is going to suck me in and spit me out into the open air, impossible to use sinks, no maneuvering room, clothes packed up and locked under the plane, and one stupid ass tampon with the absorbancy of a fucking cotton ball.  Obviously I had a mini panic attack.  And of course there were like three dudes waiting to get into the bathroom when I emerged after trying, in vain, to blot all the blood away.  And to bring the trio of terrible home, there was only one female flight attendant and she was without supplies.  I took a stack of napkins to sit on for the rest of the flight in an effort to not run the upholstery.  She looked on in pity and said “we’ve all been there.”  I don’t know if we’ve all sat in a pool of our own blood on the plane for over an hour, but I appreciated the sentiment.

And then the plane landed. Hurrah!  I felt lucky that I had worn my darkest pair of jeans but sad that my sense of style did not allow me the foresight to wear a long enough top to cover my ass.  I also cursed the vanity that simply would not allow me to tie my sweatshirt around my waist.  I figured if I walked really fast to the bathroom people would be none the wiser.  Only do you know what they no longer have in the bathrooms at John F Kennedy International Airport?  Tampon and pad vending machine things.  Do they think only bionic and pre and post-menopausal women travel by air?!  Clearly yes.  Obviously all of the women in the bathroom fit into the latter category.  As I ran to the door to go to my flight’s assigned carrousel to check and see if my bag had miraculously not been the last one to emerge from the depths of the plane, a woman appeared, as if from heaven itself, and handed me a pad.  Oh, happy day!  Of course I was wearing a (ruined) thong which meant that when I stuck the pad to my underwear and walked around it just burrowed further and further up my ass.  Not terribly comfortable but better than blood dripping down my legs, am I right?

Anyway, I retrieved my bag, got in a cab, got home, threw my underwear out, used that shout stain guard stuff that works pretty well and also gets this song stuck in my head for days (still singing it!), and took a shower.  I haven’t had the guts to look at my pants to see whether or not they are ruined foreva.  They probably are.  And that, my friends, is what happens when you taunt Aunt Flo.  She eats you alive.

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