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Jane was a garden-variety Los Angeles-based neurotic.
Twirling her hair, staring at a screen, and waiting for the Oscars to begin.
She was a "writer," allegedly.
Although she hadn't written much recently.
But now she was starting her period and suddenly had "something to say."
So she took to Google docs.
Started typing things that would likely lead people to call her: fatphobic, ableist, vain, sex negative, judgmental, and highly deranged.
But she had to speak her "truth."
And her truth was: she felt fat.
Bloated. Massive.
Five minutes ago, Jane had looked in the mirror and said:
You're an artist, you're a muse, you're a fat girl with rosacea.
Jane laughed.
She wasn't anyone's muse.
She wasn't an artist either.
But her face did look like a pizza.
Oily, round, red.
Her stomach looked like it contained a small fetus.
Maybe 12 weeks, perhaps 24.
Her uterus was cramping violently in a way that perhaps resembled contractions.
Honestly Jane knew nothing about pregnancy.
But she had one close friend who had given birth.
She had this app that was like: this week your baby is the size of a mango.
This week, a Tamagotchi.
This week your baby is the size of a guinea pig.
Jane shuddered at the idea of a guinea pig in her abdomen.
Sick.
Jane had had nightmares about giving birth since she was a small child.
The whole thing seemed like a horror movie.
Her recurring nightmare was that she found out she was pregnant when it was too late to have an abortion, or even an epidural.
And she had to push that baby out au naturel.
Jane shuddered again.
Blood trickled into her underpants.
Her period felt very pointless.
Jane was not designed to reproduce.
She always felt she radiated infertility.
But once she had an ultrasound on her uterus because she thought she was dying or something.
And the doctor was like "you're very fertile!"
And Jane was like "ew!"
She felt like the doctor was calling her fat.
She felt so fat right now.
Round, red, boring, loser.
Jane needed to get over herself!
It didn't matter if she was fat or if her face looked like a pizza.
She was alive, and all her basic needs—and even some luxury non-essentials—were met.
She got laser treatments on her pizza face.
She had 30 black dresses that all looked nearly identical.
She drank kombucha almost every day.
She should be GRATEFUL.
Grateful for her fat, bloated body and rosacea-stricken pizza face.
Earlier this morning, Jane's girlfriend had told her to "tone down the grandiosity."
Jane supposed she had been acting very cocky.
She did that sometimes, strutted around the apartment saying things like "I'm famous" and "everyone wants a piece of me."
Jane had told her girlfriend, "if Demi Moore doesn't win best actress I'm hurling myself out the window."
Jane's girlfriend had rolled her eyes.
This was the perfect way to treat Jane.
With vague disdain.
Jane only felt safe when an attractive woman was making her feel dumb and frivolous and mentally ill.
She didn't need to analyze that.
If she did, she would pay someone to analyze it for her.
That was on Jane's to-do list.
Find a therapist.
Her future therapist would have black hair and strong eyebrows, like the therapist on that Showtime show.
She'd look like a therapist on television.
And she'd find Jane's brain so fascinating.
Jane would wear a mini skirt and a romantic blouse to their sessions.
Maybe a bow in her hair or on her shirt.
She'd look like an adorable teen slut, despite being almost 40 years old.
And after several, very intense, very charged sessions.
Maybe Jane would finally figure out what was wrong with her!!!
There were so many things.
The therapist would probably write down "tough case" on her legal pad.
Jane would ask many questions:
Why am I in love with every girl who makes me feel stupid and looks like she wants to suck my blood?
Are my violently painful menstrual cramps a physical manifestation of internalized homophobia?
Is my rosacea-stricken pizza face a physical manifestation of latent Italian heritage?
If I stop paying you, will you ever talk to me again?
Will you miss me?
Do you zone out during our sessions?
Do you fantasize about jabbing your pen into my jugular?
When I'm going on and on about the same unsympathetic bullshit?
Like "my botox did something weird to my eyebrow"
Or
"I fear I'm too niche for this world"?
It's fine, I'd want to murder me too.
Maybe Jane just needed a happy ending.
No, she definitely needed a therapist.
That seemed like a lot of work, though.
Researching, sifting through the freaks.
Jane had a lot of friends who were therapists and she didn't trust a single one of them.
They mostly considered themselves artists.
And gossiped about their clients.
And gave Jane terrible life advice.
Jane also gave friends terrible life advice, but at least she didn't call herself an LMFT.
Or an artist.
Oh wait, she had called herself an artist and a muse just minutes ago.
But that was performance art!
Jane was so excited to watch the Oscars.
She thought they were so stupid and so funny.
Just this grand, self-congratulatory celebration of utter mediocrity.
Kind of like Jane's entire existence!
But Jane was joking, and actors took themselves so seriously.
They really thought they were "changing the world."
Jane liked when the actors thanked God, but they rarely did that anymore.
Instead they talked about climate change with the confidence of renowned geophysicists.
Although none of them had gone to college and most of them couldn't even read.
Whenever actors posted their political opinions on Instagram, Jane caught flagrant misspellings.
And Jane wasn't even a good speller.
The actors were giving severe cognitive impairment.
Jane was following the Justin Baldoni v. Blake Lively lawsuit like a hawk.
Not because she found it interesting on a legal or moral or ethical level.
But because the actors were all so fucking cringe.
There was a quote Jane thought about a lot.
A leaked text from Ryan Reynolds to Justin Baldoni.
Ryan said, "I'm excited for Blake to crack open her creative piggy bank with someone as dynamic as you. This is gonna be INCREDIBLE. I happen to adore you, Justin."
That was Hollywood, baby.
Extremely fake and incredibly cringe.
Jane suspected that she, too, was cringe.
That people were talking shit about her, calling her cognitively impaired.
Maybe that was a narcissistic assumption.
Maybe no one was talking about her at all.
But Jane was a gossip.
She was judgmental and harsh.
She figured that because she spoke cruelly about others, they likely spoke cruelly about her.
That was how the world worked, right?
Jane liked to believe that God had a plan.
It was easy for her to believe in God because her life was very cushy.
Minus her demons.
But those all came from inside the house.
Outside of her brain, things were very nice.
Well, outside of her brain and her bloated figure and violent menstrual cramps and rosacea-stricken face.
Life was good.
Jane needed to believe that.
If she believed something, it was true.
That's what they said in The Secret.
Which Jane hadn't read, but she'd heard it referenced on reality TV.
Southern California loved The Secret.
Southern California loved a lot of dumb shit.
Jane loved a lot of dumb shit too, like actors, and television, and shopping, and glitter, and scented candles, and ribbons, and tiny dogs who wore dresses that said "sassy like my mommy."
Maybe if Jane went to therapy, she could find out what was underneath all the glitter and the ribbons and the celebrities.
Maybe there was nothing.
Maybe that was fine.
Being shallow was a gift, Jane thought.
A gift from God.
Like the La Croix she was sipping.
Peach-pear, a very rare flavor.
They only had it at Gelson's.
A very holy grocery store, apparently.
The Oscars were about to start.
Jane wanted Demi Moore to win because she'd starred in a campy French body horror that the vapid art gays loved.
The film was all about the feminine urge to be at war with oneself.
Jane went into the bathroom and doused herself in tuberose perfume.
One reviewer on the internet said this scent was for a woman who "can do anything she wants...be anything she wants to be...go anywhere she wants to go...the sky is the limit!!!"
"You're going to give me a migraine," Jane's girlfriend called from the other room.
Jane's girlfriend was very sensitive to the many fragrances Jane was constantly spritzing.
"I'm going to Trader Joe's," her girlfriend continued.
"Be back in time for Demi to win the Oscar!" Jane shouted as she heard the door shut.
A menstrual cramp seized her abdomen, causing her to grab the sink.
She popped two Advil, then sniffed her wrists.
In the Victorian Era, unmarried women were forbidden from smelling tuberose because they thought it would cause them to have a spontaneous orgasm.
A brief wave of horniness rushed over Jane.
Followed by more pain, then self-loathing.
The bathroom lighting was unforgiving, accentuating her rosacea.
She knew she'd wake up tomorrow feeling different.
Thin. Light. Glowy. Cocky.
An artist and a muse.
The sky was the limit!!!
Or maybe the sky was the floor and her face would grow only more pizza-like.
Whatever happened, it was God's plan.
Like the Drake song.
Jane liked that song.
Although Kendrick Lamar had implied Drake was a pedophile in a song that had won several Grammys.
Hollywood award shows were so stupid.
Jane loved them.
She returned to the living room and sipped her rare La Croix, then turned on the TV.
The dumbass actors flooded the red carpet.
Demi Moore sparkled like the Empire State Building.
Jane bled into her underwear.
"Let's fucking go," Jane said to no one.
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