#2: thank u, death (ft. Cecily Hill)
If I buy enough breastfeeding-friendly nap dresses, will I feel like a real woman?
Welcome to edition #2 of Hot Girl Gothic. If you missed edition #1, the Hot Girl Manifesto, check back in your email (make sure to mark it as not spam), or click here. xoxoxo.
Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!!!! But like whatever the woke version is called :). Did you miss me?????
Hamsters, Halo Top, and the Death Drive
The other evening, as I was lounging in my dressing chamber scrolling through Twitter, I came across a film of a little hamster hungering for greatness. Please take a moment and watch this now.
I, too, just took a moment to rewatch this and I nearly blacked the fuck out. The experience of watching this hamster’s little body, seemingly without bones altogether, be thrown about so recklessly and ferociously is indescribable. His first go of it, you think alright, it seems like he’s aiming to jump to the plastic cage on the right. As ill-advised as this may be, as it has no opening, only a solid plastic wall, you remember he is just a hamster at the end of the day. He is fallible. He poops a little before he flies, but you still trust that he’s got a dream.
Who among us hasn’t pooped a little before we fly?
Even still, you quickly realize this lil boy is going nowhere fast. His fearless jump ends in a swan dive to the floor, missing his assumed target entirely. Soon, we cut to him tumbling down the blanket mountain again. Next attempt? Even fucking worse. His angle is off and he gets even less air before he’s back at it again: folding his own small body hamburger-style, head over heels, straight to the floor. We witness another failed attempt. Then, another, and each more violent than the last.
Then? Something happens that disrupts our opinion of what he is doing entirely.
He jumps in a completely different direction, towards the wall.
All at once, we understand that he dreams not of the cage we presupposed for him. This hamster is not jumping towards anything at all. He is jumping to fall.
He is jumping to die.
Sigmund Freud, who I definitely think would be handsome if he had a sexy voice and wasn’t so annoying like every boy I know who expects me to text them sometimes or like remember things they tell me
I bought Halo Top in the grocery store today, and I felt the beating heart of this hamster within mine own chest as I threw myself into the open door of the diet ice cream section. Halo Top, like the pain of childbirth, is a punishment for women mandated by God. Yet, we are not in the Old Testament; God cannot actively punish us, and so we must punish ourselves.
I’m very #AntiDieting because it’s like, bad. But as someone who is also generally #ProBad, I’m at a real moral crossroads when I’m faced with the option of forcing some chemical-laden xylitol sweetness into my life. Is there truly anything more goth than low-calorie dessert options? I could inject xylitol into my blood to survive, because it isn’t sugar but it feels like sugar in the same way that I am addicted to things that are not love but feel like love in the same way that for how much I want to live I also just really want to die.
As little boy toy Freud once said,
“Okay, I’ve discovered this thing called a Death Drive. It means that humans have two opposing forces in their stupid little bodies. One force is called Eros and it is the desire to live + procreate + succeed, but the Death Drive lives in them in equal measure and it makes them crave chaos + death + destruction. One might say that this dichotomy is better explained in terms ‘Hot vs. Goth’, like Maison does, but she’s prettier than me, so people will never take her as seriously! Hahahahaha!!!!!”
This hamster craves and seeks death, as do we all, in our own little ways that are not jumping off of blanket cliffs. I seek death by eating low-calorie chemical creations and by admitting things I should never admit to people who I know will Never Love Me in an attempt to try and get them to Love Me. Also, I am using a pink calorie tracker app NOT because I believe in calorie tracking but because I forgot to cancel my free trial and I paid $39.99 for the premium version and I guess I would rather be a disordered person than waste FORTY DOLLARS!!!!!
I think we seek death because it’s the only thing we seek that we can be sure to eventually find. Everything else? Risky!
But guess what, boys. I’m pretty sure death, whatever it is going to be like, is actually a whole lot of quietude and oneness with the universe and all of the good and egoless things that we are supposed to seek. So maybe our death drive is a reminder that for all of our destructiveness, we’re literally still just seeking peace. Jokes on us!!!!!
To conclude, I turn you over to my very self-destructive colleague-in-chaos, Cecily Hill. Cecily attracts horrible men because not only is she hot, but she is also dumb. This is what we call a perfect storm.
Pictured: Cecily Hill, who, in exchange for being hotter than me, lacks the necessary gothness needed to not make awful decisions absolutely constantly. May she rest in peace.
AN OPEN APOLOGY LETTER TO TIM GUNN IN WHICH I APOLOGIZE FOR DATING A BOY WHO WEARS CARGO SHORTS
by Cecily Hill
Dear Mr. Gunn,
It is with my deepest sorrows and sincerest regret that I write to you to apologize for not only the decisions I have made, but the fact that I made them continuously, unabashedly, and in the public eye. It matters not my ignorance nor my sheer refusal to see what stood so clearly in front of me. I believe in order to purge myself of these sins, I must first confess them to their fullest extent.
Firstly, the root of the problem; it is true. I have dated a boy who wore cargo shorts. There is no simpler way to state it, and yet it must be said. If you build a house on a cracked foundation, the structure will inevitably crumble. And crumble it did.
Secondly, if the cargo shorts were not indicative enough of the character that lived inside them, the soccer and baseball jerseys paired with them most certainly should have been. While other transgressions detailed in this letter are equally inexcusable, my oversight of the aforementioned cargo shorts paired with a US Men’s Soccer jersey can be explained by nothing short of demonic possession.
Thirdly, I must acknowledge that this male did not once utilize the expansive array of pockets in a single pair of cargo shorts. According to the Wikipedia.com article entitled, “Cargo Pants,” last updated October 30, 2020, the average pair of cargo shorts consists of approximately eight different pockets. And while the ex-boyfriend in question stored his wallet and keys in the traditional side hip pockets, the rest of the storage options were quite frankly, overlooked. I do not need to explain to you, Mr. Gunn, why this is a prime example of male privilege.
And finally, my greatest wrongdoing, is that I dated this boy like a flickering light bulb for multiple years. The duration of time I allowed such wickedness to occur in front of my naked eyes is atrocious in and of itself, however more concerning is that I had the opportunity to shake myself from this willful fog multiple times. And even in the gaps between bouts of him, I did not see the cargo shorts for all they were. Instead, I missed them. I craved them, and ultimately, begged for their return.
There are other things to be confessed, such as how I let the cargo shorts sing me acoustic covers of both Hozier and Johnny Cash. Or how I allowed the cargo shorts to explain to me the genius of Vince Vaughn’s performance in the 2004 movie Dodgeball. There will be more letters, I am sure. Until then, it is important to note that I have learned from you. There are some times I simply cannot make it work. I humbly hope you will accept this apology, as I know I have suffered enough in the actions that have brought about its creation.
For Your Consideration,
Cecily
You can follow Cecily on Twitter here.
This Thanksgiving, I hope you get a text from someone you need a text from and I hope it eventually devolves into chaos, because ain’t that the natural way?
xo Maison