#nasty crusty pictures of the pictures (on the tv)

[i-promise-im-not-crying]

Literally bouncing off the walls rn

my 2 special interests collide >:}

[niallismymuse]

Chapter 2

Tessa went to bed that night feeling happy and content, even with the knowledge that she would have a wicked hangover the next morning. It was all worth it, just for the look on his face when she had kissed his cheek.

Yet when she woke up the next morning to a splitting headache, it didn’t matter for long. Because her feed was filled with texts from her mother and sister and some of her colleagues, all with links to various articles online. Articles written about her.

She clicked on the one her sister sent, ignoring the other messages. It opened up to pictures of her and Niall hugging inside and outside of the bar, and one showing her kissing his cheek. The headline was ‘Popstar Niall Horan and YouTuber Queen Tessa – Dating?’

She blinked about eight million times, despite how crusty her eyes felt, and let out a groan that would have woken the dead. She couldn’t deal with this. She could not. And Niall – he must be embarrassed right now. She hadn’t seen any messages from him, but surely someone had told him that he was in the pop-culture articles once more. Especially over something like this.

Dating? No. Did she wish? Yes. Was it likely to ever happen now? Mm, probably not.

They hadn’t been spotted out and about together before, not that they had gone outmuch before. But of course, the one time she decided to have balls, someone took pictures.

With a sigh of utter despair, Tessa tossed her phone aside and buried her face into her pillow. Tears burned at her eyes, and she sniffled, her bottom lip quivering. Sure, this wasn’t the first ‘story’ that had been sold about her, but this was by far the largest. She would be lucky if it didn’t affect her friendship with Niall – unless that was already screwed. He hadn’t messaged, after all.

Neither had Jess. So much for having a best friend.

Tessa reached down and yanked the covers over her head, blocking out the light of day streaming through her curtains.

✩✩✩

After wallowing under the blankets for at least an hour and pushing back tears a majority of the time, Tessa decided she had to get up and deal with the trials of the day. She took it slow – she emerged from her cocoon and got some Advil and a glass of water to ease the headache pulsing through her skull. Once the pill was swallowed along with the rest of the water, she rummaged around her fridge for some breakfast. She found some leftovers to eat, not in the mood to cook; that was sacrilegious, because Tessa was always in the mood to cook. Today, though, she let it slide.

She munched on some cold quesadilla’s from the other night and filled the ache in her stomach. Yet the ache in her chest was still there, pulsing beneath everything else. She couldn’t believe someone had taken pictures of her and Niall. Wait, yes, she could, but what she couldn’t believe was that they were all over the Internet. How had her fun night out turned so sour?

Tessa decided she couldn’t dwell on it any longer – it would make her headache come back, stronger than ever before. She needed to get her mind off of it, so she would do the one thing she could: work.

And work she did. When she was about halfway finished with putting the Othello video together, she sent Niall a text, a simple ‘hey’, and then set her phone aside. She lost herself in the editing process, and when the video was complete and ready to be stored for uploading, the sun was westward in the sky.

Blowing out a harsh breath, she saw that Niall hadn’t texted back.

Okay, ouch, she thought, but I have better things to do than overanalyze that.

It could have been anything. He was likely dealing with fallout of his own. Now that she was back on her phone, she could see that her social media was blowing up. She was being mentioned in practically triple the Tweets that she was normally mentioned in. People were commenting all over her Instagram, and yeah, about half of those were nasty comments. Like, ‘why would Niall kiss her? She’s ugly’ and others in a similar vein.

When Tessa checked her YouTube account, she saw that her subscriber count had definitely increased since yesterday, which caused some mixed emotions.

Perhaps this wasn’t entirely bad, then. But then she felt guilty over the thought – she did not kiss Niall’s cheek for more views or subscribers, she kissed Niall’s cheek because she liked him.

Tessa could feel herself beginning to spiral, and her chest tightened. She set her phone down again and took a deep breath in through her nose, and then pushed it out through her mouth. After repeating the process for a few minutes and narrowing her focus until breathing was all that she could think of, her chest loosened. That tight, anxious feeling still lurked, but it was manageable. As long as she had something else to do, some way to keep her mind occupied, it would stay that way. Doing nothing would make it come back, full-force.

She turned the notifications off on her phone and ignored the several texts her mother had sent her. Maria Jenkins would have to wait for her daughter to catch her breath.

Tessa sat there in her desk chair and thought about what to do next, lacing her fingers together. She needed to get her car. She had taken an Uber home last night, which meant that her poor car was still sitting in that bar’s parking lot. That was a priority.

Mind focused, she ordered another Uber and worked on a script for a video while she waited.

✩✩✩

Driving in LA always took a lot of concentration, at least in Tessa’s opinion. The roads were crowded and full of traffic, and in certain tourist-trap areas, there was always at least one person who darted across the street when and where they weren’t supposed to. She didn’t mind; not today, anyway. It was just another thing to focus wholly on.

She stopped at Trader Joe’s and bought groceries for dinner, keeping her eyes down and her steps quick. She’d been stopped by fans before, and while she always loved seeing them, today was just not the day for it.

When she got home and unloaded, she took a moment to check her phone. She hadn’t checked it since the Uber had arrived and wasn’t surprised to see more messages from her mom (‘Are you ever going to message your own mother, Tessa?’), but she wassurprised to see a single text from Niall.

It read: hey…how are you holding up?

She typed back: I’m okay. You?

His response came a minute later. I’m okay, used to it. I’m more worried about you. Want to talk?

Not really. Not about the media and the pictures that were taken of them. But she did want to see him; Tessa realized that she missed him already.

Want to come over for dinner? I’m making spaghetti.

His response came a mere second later. Yes. Anything I can bring?

Tessa texted back no and sent him her address and apartment number. Then he was on his way, and she looked around her apartment and panicked.

It wasn’t dirty or messy, necessarily, but this was the first time Niall had ever come over. She had dishes in the sink, and the floor needed a quick sweep. She set about completing her chores quickly, all while the water for the noodles boiled and the sauce came together, and then she wiped down her kitchen table and the coffee table in the connected living room.

Oh God, what was she going to wear?

All too soon, a knock sounded from the door. Tessa glanced down at the yoga pants and thin sweatshirt she was wearing, and then shrugged. This was what it was, then.

She padded quickly to the door and opened it, smiling just because she knew who would be standing behind it.

Niall was dressed in a similar attire; he was wearing gray sweatpants and a comfy-looking blue t-shirt. He hadn’t shaved. A light coating of stubble decorated his jaw. He tugged at his shirt almost self-consciously. “Hope ya don’t mind my clothes…”

“Oh, pfft.” She waved his comment off. “Look at me. I work at home. We wear what we want in this household.” And with that, she gestured him inside. “So, this is the place where I live. Welcome. I’m still cooking the spaghetti.”

His eyes rested on each piece of the apartment that he could see from where he was standing. The kitchen, next to a large floor-to-wall window. The small wooden dining table, a few feet away from the kitchen, and the living room with its blue sofa and TV a few feet back. Her bedroom door was closed, and right beyond the kitchen with a bathroom connected. The second bedroom was on the other side, by the living room.

“I like your apartment,” Niall stated, and she could tell that he wasn’t lying or just saying it because it was the polite thing to say – there was a genuine warmth to his tone, and his eyes lit up when they landed on a tiny stone turtle knickknack that was on the kitchen counter. “You like sea turtles?”

“Love them,” she replied as she headed back towards the kitchen, giving the cooking noodles a stir. She added some parmesan cheese to the sauce and stirred it, then gave it a quick taste. She had already put some sugar in to cut the acidity of the tomatoes, but she had forgotten salt in her rush to clean. Tessa fixed that quickly before turning to look at Niall, who was watching her intently. “They’re my favorite animal. What’s yours?”

Niall looked a little nonplussed. “No one has asked me that in years.”

Tessa frowned. “Well, I think having a favorite animal says a lot about a person. See, my all-time favorite is the sea turtle, but I also really love meerkats. And sharks.”

He blinked, before coming closer and peering into the spaghetti sauce like it would have an answer for him. “Um…huh. I think giraffes are really cool. I kind of forgot that I liked them so much, actually. Especially when I was younger.”

Tessa nodded sagely, before grabbing a clean spoon and dipping it into the sauce. “Good choice. Want a taste? Be careful, it’s hot.”

Niall took the spoon and tentatively tasted the sauce, and his eyes widened. “Holy shit, Tess,” he chuckled as he shook his head, “this is good. Quite possibly the best red sauce I’ve ever had.”

She beamed at him. “Thank you. I love cooking, so I try to make the best food that I can.”

“I like cooking too. Is there anything I can help with?”

Tessa thought for a moment. She knew this wasn’t really why Niall had agreed to come over for dinner – it was obviously about the pictures and media attention – but this was a nice detour from that situation. “You can slice up that bread over there and make garlic bread, if you want.”

He smiled. “Cutting board?” he asked, gesturing to the cupboards. She grabbed one for him and handed him a knife, while he rummaged around in her fridge to find the butter and garlic. They worked separately on their tasks, but together. Tessa put her oven on to preheat, and Niall chopped garlic and melted butter before combining the two. It was nice. There was a comfortable silence between them.

Once the garlic bread was in the oven, Niall leaned against the counter and gazed cautiously at her. “Are you okay?”

She knew what he was asking. Self-consciously, she stirred the bubbling sauce, avoiding looking at him. She needed to get the noodles out of the boiling water, but it could wait just a little longer. “It was…a shock. I’ve never dealt with something quite this big, you know?”

He nodded, folding his arms across his chest. “It gets easier, the more ya deal with it. I just don’t comment on my relationships.”

“I haven’t been in one since my YouTube career started, so it’s never been a problem before,” she admitted before looking over at him. “But we’re not in one. So, it’s okay. We just won’t say anything…right?”

There was an odd silence, filled with a sort of half-tension. Niall swallowed harshly, and she saw his throat bob with the movement. Something inside of her was aching, just waiting for his response.

“Right. Won’t be a problem. Everyone’ll forget about it with the next scandal. We just have to wait it out.”

That ache plummeted inside of her, leaving Tessa feeling a little empty. He didn’t like her after all. If he did, he would have said something…right?

She forced a bright smile in his direction before grabbing the pot of boiling noodles and moving over towards the sink. She poured it into the colander, leaning back to avoid the steam, and let the heat and strain of staying still cleanse her mind. She shook the colander, trying to get rid of as much water as possible. When she turned back to face him, she was over it, as much as she could be over it.

“Spaghetti’s done.” She smiled, and Niall hummed softly in response, pulling open the oven to check the bread. When he said it needed just a minute more, she nodded and grabbed two plates, setting up the counter buffet-style.

She was fine. She was Tessa Love Jenkins, dammit, and she could handle an unintentional rejection. She compartmentalized it and shoved it in the back of her brain, making herself be ‘more fine’ than ever. The area of her brain containing her feelings for Niall was pushed wayback.

Niall plated himself some spaghetti, and when he was out of the way, Tessa pulled the garlic bread out of the oven and set it on the stove beside the spaghetti. With a flick of her wrist, she turned the oven off, and then began to serve herself. They sat down across from each other at the table. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and began to eat.

“Holy fuck,” Niall grumbled after chewing, “this is fuckin’ delicious, Tess. Damn.”

She grinned, unable to help being pleased. “Yeah?” She took a bite herself and then nodded enthusiastically. “It’s good!”

“Just good? It’s fuckin’ fantastic! Give yourself some more credit, love.”

They ate quickly, not because they were in a hurry, but mostly because it was that good. When they were finished, Tessa put the leftovers away and waved off Niall’s offer to help clean up. She would do it later.

“Want to watch something?” she asked as she sat down on the couch, remote in hand. She turned her TV on and pulled up Netflix before reaching down and grabbing a blanket from underneath the coffee table. It was chilly outside, and she wanted a bit of warmth and comfort, especially considering the day she’d had.

Niall sat down at the opposite end of the couch, which, ouch, definitely hurt a little, but then she threw the other end of her blanket over his feet and tucked that piece of information away to analyze later. He grinned at her and pulled his side of the blanket more fully over his lap.

“Absolutely, unless it’s a murder documentary. You mentioned you liked those. Whatcha got on?”

“No murder documentaries, this time.” Tessa side-eyed him. This next question could prove to break their friendship. “Would you be okay with Blue Planet?”

He dipped his chin, nice as ever. “’Course. I’ve never seen it.”

She gaped at him. “But it’s David Attenborough! Blue Planet II is what made Queen Elizabeth declare a war on plastic!”

Niall chuckled, looking just slightly sheepish. “Well, remember, I may live in London sometimes but I’m Irish and constantly traveling.”

Tessa shook her head, speechless, and started the first episode, which was about all of the oceans and habitats in some way. The documentary was beautiful and breath-taking, and Attenborough’s voice narrated it wonderfully.

Niall scooted closer, slowly enough that at first, she didn’t notice he was moving at all. Next thing she knew, his knee was bumping against hers and the blanket had settled comfortably over both of their laps. She swallowed, nervousness rising for some reason; she fisted the blanket before forcing her hand to relax.

This was nice. This was good. She liked this. All Niall needed to do was stretch his arms over her shoulders, and everything would be perfect.

They watched in silence as Attenborough described the mating habits of a particular fish. “He attempts to make with her and any of the dozen or so females that live in his territory, whenever he gets the chance.”

Niall snorted. “What a player.”

She giggled, dipping her head in agreement, and when she peeked over at him, he was staring in fascination at the screen. His lips were parted slightly, eyes wide but intensely focused, drinking in every word spoken. When the episode was finished, he shook his head in amazement and turned to look at her. Their shoulders brushed.

“I think you’ve gotten me on to something new to do with my time, what little I have of it.”

Tessa smiled gently. “I’m glad. I care a lot about our oceans and our water life. In fact, when I do my first charity livestream, I’m raising money to give to ocean conservation. I still have to put everything together, like who I’ll be donating to and what I’ll be doing, but it’s something I would like to do this coming year.”

His eyes lit up with interest. “Sounds cool, Tess. Keep me posted, I’m interested.”

“I will. I haven’t made a lot of progress with figuring it all out, since it’s just me on my channel so far, and I spend a lot of my time making sure I have weekly videos. I have to come up with a concept, script it as much as I can, get whatever I need for filming, film it, and then edit.”

“You do a lot of work,” Niall mused, looking at her steadily. There was a flash of concern in his eyes, and it gave her pause.

“Yeah,” she replied in an odd tone, “I do.”

It had gotten to the point where she rarely left her apartment, so consumed in filming and editing. By the time she was finished with something to a degree that she could be proud of, it was often late, and she was almost too tired to do anything. Tessa could recall going to bed without eating dinner more than a few times. “I guess…I’m something of a workaholic.”

“I get that.” Niall leaned back against the couch, gazing blankly at the coffee table in front of them. “When I get a song in my head…sometimes I can’t stop working on it until it’s as perfect as I can possibly make it. I’ll be asleep, and hear it in my head, and I’ll wake up, fingers twitching, needingto finish it.” He loosed a breath, shaking his head before running those fingers through his hair. “I love what I do, and I love creating music, but sometimes I can’t get out of my own head.”

Tessa understood that perfectly. Certain videos she had produced had been the result of hours upon hours of work, of 2am wakeups filled with the urge to do something, of rejections to go out with friends because she was worried that if she didn’t finish whatever she was working on soon, the concept in her mind would burn out and take the whole project with it.

“It sounds like you and I need to relax,” she told him because she didn’t know how else to process this, and Niall laughed a little breathlessly.

“I’ll relax when I’m dead,” he chortled, and she could tell he was only half-joking.

The thought she had yesterday came rushing back. “I don’t post a video or do any work the first week of the New Year as a way to reset and recharge. In fact, I go away every New Year’s Eve with my friends to a cabin in Big Sur Campground…would you like to come with us?”

Niall turned once more to face her, eyes calculating. She could see that he was weighing the pros and cons quickly in his mind, and she waited, breath baited.

“Fuck it. Yeah, I’ll come.”

“Great.” She exhaled, a wide smile breaking on to her lips. “We leave in two days.”

Niall grinned at her. “Awesome. I could use a good time.”

“Oh, it’ll be a great time. We basically just get drunk and eat junk food. It’s my favorite time of the year.” She paused, remembering the circumstances that had landed Niall on her couch in the first place. “It’s private, too. No one should bother us.”

Of course, no one should have bothered them last night either, but they always rented a cabin far away from all of the others, just so they could party and do as they saw fit.

He nodded. “Sounds good. I’m excited, Tess. Just text me what to bring.” He stretched slowly, loosening his muscles, and she didn’t pretend to not notice when his t-shirt rode up, exposing a thin sliver of his stomach. She didn’t pretend (to herself) that she didn’t want to see more. “I should get going. But I had a great time. You cook a fuckin’ delicious spaghetti.”

She smirked and led him to the door. Halfway out the door, after already saying goodbye, he pivoted and turned to face her. “Oh, and Tess? We probably shouldn’t be seen in public together for a little while…just to let things die down.”

Tessa blinked, before nodding her head in silent agreement. That funny feeling in her chest was back – like something was about to crack, but it wasn’t quite there yet. It hurt in an all-new way.

Niall smiled, waved, and then disappeared down the hallway of her apartment building.

She closed her door, mind whirling with every little thing Niall had said or done that evening – every note of disinterest, every smile or move that spoke of the opposite. She leaned against her door, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath in before slowly blowing it out.

What had she gotten herself into?

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[arbitrarymelodist]

a stupid liveblog

it’s 1 AM and there’s some nasty weather in the area so im gonna watch some paid programming. right now it’s commercials. yes there’s commercials between the commercials.

we’re gonna watch “the gem insider jewelry” for obvious fandom jokes. omg this lady is wearing a full body leopard print dress. please.

i have no idea what she’s talking about, she’s talking about looking like a “plumper, fresher version of you”. this is not jewelry. what is she going on about

does anyone actually buy this stuff? it’s literally a $75 little tiny thing of cream. also it’s 1 AM. who watches this

A DOUBLE WHAMMY FROM INSIDE TO OUT

colla holla?? that’s what it’s called?

oh now there’s a dude talking about neck cream. oh he’s even wearing scrubs and using the word “anatomy”. that’s how you know he’s a real doctor.

when are they

oh here’s the jewelry. omg this lady looks like a gremlin

$6 for white diamond earrings? somehow i feel like that’s a jape

who’s donald and why is she talking to him? “oh my gosh”

“Can I just tell you something?” No. no you can’t. but you’re doing it anyway

THE BIGGEST STUDS WE OFFER

fesafewf “Updates are available for your computer. Install now?” > Remind me later. More like remind me never

WHY WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR 5 YEAR OLD NIECE A 5 CARAT DIAMOND fOR GRADUATING KINDERGARTEN?

this lady has a really obnoxious spray tan and the pink fake nails she has on does really not match the color of her wrinkly hands

i have to watch twenty more minutes of this. because i said i would. for science.

they’re literally just showing the same two pictures twice over and over again except her nasty pink fingers are in one of them

They’re getting ready to go into the last hour of the show?? darn, another whole 51 minutes of this.

GOING BACK TO THE TURNTABLE??

oh it’s just got more rings on it. :( i thought they meant like it was gonna get interesting

these are some big ass gems dood.

pink and white diamonds hmm? she’s GONE

omg i just noticed her eyebrows look like waluigi’s mustache upside down

“Hello gorgeous” *shows really gaudy ring with like 6 gems on it*

this, this is why the economy is bad. don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. it’s this show, right here.

“YOU HAVE TO GET THIS RING IN YOUR LIFE, GOING INTO THE NEXT HOUR FOR SURE.” How about no

OH YEAH IT’S LIKE $70 HOW ABOUT NO

omg she’s trying to sell those earrings along with it

baguettes??

“There’ll be another one at midnight” ... uuh, anyone want to tell her it’s 1:12?

Ugh it’s 1:12. 18 more minutes of this.

why does this looks like it was recorded with an iphone 4? these are like, diamonds. these should look amazing on tv. they don’t though. maybe this is a rerun from 2008??

Milk juuj. i don’t think she said juuj. idk what she said, the tv is too far away

WOW IF I PUNCHED SOMEONE IN THE FACE WHILE WEARING THAT IT WOULD LOOK LIKE THEY HAD A RASH

#5 is thicc

thicc pink diamond

these are all horrible. these are all an abomination

why are there popups on this ONE HOUR ADVERTISEMENT

i have never felt sleepier in my life than i do right now. except maybe that time i stayed awake for 36 hours straight flying from germany to new york

OMG THEY PULLED THE PUNCH FACE RASH RING AND THEY ZOOMED IN ON HER ORANGE PINK HAND UGH

those nails wouldn’t look good on anyone tbh and

WHO IS DONALD??

those nails wouldn’t look good on anyone, especially not this crusty ass orange waluigi

im so sorry if this appears in like, anyone’s tags. no one’s going to read this anyway but if you do, HI

99 DOLLARS AND 99 CENTS!!

that is like half of my paycheck tbh and why would i spend it on ugly rings

Call Me On Your Studs.

twenty-four hours ago my phone bit the dust. i am still mourning the loss of my beautiful pahoney (for the second time, damn stupid cheap ass replacement battery ribbon)

every time she says 10mm rounds i think of a gun

STOP SHOWING HER NASTY PINK AND ORANGE FINGERs

literally her fingers look like this

pm me for photoshop requests

i suddenly feel nauseous. maybe because i had to look at her fingers for so long to color match on firealpaca

maybe it’s just me but right where those two colors meet it hurts my eyes. if it also hurts your eyes, that means you understand my feelings right now

im gonna try to draw her in the last remaining 7 minutes

i pulled up my mouse and a corrin amiibo landed on my bed. ok

this is a masterpiece. a culmination of 30 minutes of programming no one was meant to watch. thank you for sharing this half an hour with me. please do not buy brownie bites

[lovemohamadus]

15 Things Your Cat Hates About You

1. you would like to offer Me water a day I know you think that I don’t drink from my water dish. Well, neither would you if you looked closely at it. Half the time it's a crusty scum line, a dead fly rotting at rock bottom, and mud and fur floating on the surface. you need to wash it a day then fill it with water. I mean, you employ a clean cup or glass whenever you've got a drink, don’t you! So, please provides a clean bowl of water every morning. If you’d wish to make it easy on yourself, buy me a drinking fountain.

2. Wash My Food Bowls I don’t like eating my dinner from a plate that hasn’t been washed either. It’s a tract for bacteria. If I finish my dry food, could you please clean the bowl before you refill it as otherwise, I find yourself eating my very own fur that’s fallen into it. And if you only keep topping it up, the things at rock bottom gets soggy and rancid, to not mention germy.

Shocked cat 3. you're So Noisy! My ears are super-sensitive. they will hear very quiet sounds and also really high-pitched ones. once you yell, it hurts my ears. Loud music and television upset me too so I’d appreciate it if you'll lower the quantity before we both find yourself completely deaf. which monster you drag around the house to eat dirt from the floors freaks me out of so could you warn me before it starts makes that blood-curdling noise? I’d be happier if you'll just be tons quieter generally, especially when I’m asleep.

4. You’re a Slacker With Some Chores I don’t mind a touch of a mess I like to sleep on the clutter that you simply leave on the table. and that I wouldn’t care if you never vacuumed up again as I’ve told you I hate that vacuum-monster-thing.

I do have one gripe though and that’s about my toilet. I notice you wish to play with your daily thereupon funny grooming coat a stick which you fail cleanly after every use. Ideally, I’d like my litter box to be cleaned after every use but I do know that’s a large order. If you'll remove any waste from it a day then empty it right out, wash it and put new litter in every few days that might be fantastic. once you don’t do that the thing just stinks and gets overrun with very nasty and dangerous bacteria. I’m thinking of your health here also like mine. If it gets really bad, I'd just be tempted to eliminate outside of it, and that I expect you'd then wonder why and obtain the hump with me.

White Maine Coon asleep 5. You’re a Sleep Spoiler! If I wake you up when you’re asleep, you don’t love it . does one want to understand one among The explanations why I do this? It’s because you don’t have any qualms about waking me up when I’m napping. I want 15 to twenty hours of sleep a day just in case I ever got to hunt my very own food. Without my sleep quota, I won’t have the energy to zoom around the house within the hour or wake you up. On a cold day what I’d adore is one among these lovely heated beds (click the link to read reviews on Amazon) seeing as you’re too tight to go away the beating on behalf of me.

If you want to wake me up could you be gentle about it to not shock me? However, I can’t promise that I’ll extend this courtesy to you within the middle of the night as I’ve found being gentle doesn’t seem to stir you, whereas jumping on your head or full bladder works whenever.

6. you only Won’t Leave Me Alone Sometimes I like your attention but occasionally I just want to be left alone. I attempt to allow you to know but you always ignore the warnings. I’m fine with you rubbing my cheeks and under my chin, as then you finish up smelling a bit like me. I can even tolerate a kiss on the highest of my head. I'd even enjoy a stroke along my back, but don’t rub me up the incorrect way! But, I might rather you kept your tickling finger way from tummy and paw pads. When I’ve had enough attention I will be able to start to wag my tail then you’ll know to prevent. If you don’t I'll issue a light-weight non-skin piercing bite. If you don’t listen, I’ll bite harder and a claw or two may become involved.

Also, if I would like to take a seat on your lap I do know the high there. You don’t need to grab me when I’m going about my business and plonk me there – just saying.

White Maine Coon Cats: 9 interesting facts 7. Don’t Ridicule Me! I don't want to wear clothes, OK! you simply put them on me so you'll post embarrassing pictures on social media for your friends to tease. I'd tolerate a hat but nothing else please. Why would you like to form me look silly? If you would like to decorate something up, buy a doll.

8. You Let People Annoy Me I like children but they will be a touch clumsy and annoying. I wish you'd supervise them around me. They pick me up all wrong under my armpits and it hurts when my legs dangle. They chase me about, squealing and grabbing at my tail. I attempt to escape but they often corner me leaving me no option but to guard myself with my teeth and claws. I don’t want to harm anyone so please control things and teach kids the way to be kind and considerate around me.

Cat with children 9. You explode Galivanting All Day Long I hate it once you swan off and leave me alone all day. I don’t know if you go hunting or something else but I buy bored and anxious when you’re not around. I sleep a number of the time but would appreciate more things to try to once I am awake. If you'll buy me a climbing tree (here’s my favorite one BTW, a scratching post, and a variety of toys, I’d much appreciate it. I’m happier when the doors to many rooms are left open so I can wander about and appearance out of various windows.

When you do click give me some attention rather than ignoring me and sitting down ahead of the TV. I might like someone to play with for a short time to form up for being so alone all day.

10. you wish Strange Smells You do smell strange sometimes. you choose me up for a cuddle then I even have to spend ages washing to undertake to get rid of whatever it's you rub everywhere your hands, neck, and wrists. Could you not pick me up when you’re wearing it.

You spray horrible smells around my litter box to mask the smell of it. If you cleaned it out better you wouldn’t get to do this. You set light to odd-smelling waxy stuff within the evenings – they're a hazard to my fur by the way, especially if I jump up and don’t realize one is there. The smell of my fur scorching will cause you to wish you hadn’t lit that thing. you furthermore may plug things into the wall which give off a pungent odor. What I’m saying is I hate those artificial smells. They play havoc with my nostrils and make me feel unsettled.

Grey cat biting the hand 11. You Don’t Play With Me Enough I would such as you to play with me for an honest amount of your time. Wiggling a touch of a string with a toy mouse thereon unenthusiastically for a few minutes just doesn’t cut it. I can’t be bothered because I do know you can’t. Use your imagination a touch, please. I prefer it once you make something act like my prey. Give me something to stalk and pounce on. one among these would be perfect. Act such as you is enjoying the sport and check out to form it last for about quarter-hour whenever or until I decide I’ve had enough. If you stop when I’m still excited I feel confused. And twice each day would be good. Mix it up a touch, change the toys, maybe buy a laser, and spoil me with a touch of catnip from time to time.

12. You serve Some Dreadful Food I know you think that I’m fussy but a number of the food you serve me stinks! If you'll note of which brands and flavors I eat every morsel of and serve those all the time, that might be great. It annoys me once you serve me something I left the day before. Why don’t you remember I didn’t eat it. Write it down! It’s not hard. Don’t start calling me fussy and telling your friends that I'm a picky eater. I’ve heard you say I eat something at some point then turn my nose up at it subsequent. How could you create such false accusations?

Kitten in its food dish 13. You Never stick with a Routine Just once I get won't to your schedule, you modify it then I don’t know where I'm. once you plan to have a dwell my breakfast is served up late. Sometimes you don’t get home once you should, then dinner’s late too. This makes me fret. I’m unsure where you’ve been but sometimes once you do rock up, you can’t enter a line then go straight to bed! once you continue holiday and send strangers in to feed me my nose is put out of joint.

You see, I thrive on routine so I’d love it if you'll attempt to abide by one the maximum amount as possible.

14. What does one neutralize The Bathroom? You must realize that I'm intrigued about what goes on behind that door once you close it. you're in there forever then you emerge looking bedraggled as if you bought caught during a rainstorm. it might be far more convenient on behalf of me if you'd leave the door open so I can keep up of what you’re doing – then I wouldn’t need to meow myself hoarse on the opposite side of the door from you.

Red Maine Coon during a Basin 15. Your Fussing Over My Appearance is Irritating It’s my coat and that I would rather keep it so as myself. you ought to prevent thereupon comb thingy that tugs at my knots. I prefer looking a touch tussled so why can’t you permit me to?

[riting]

Dynasty Handbag: Shell of a Woman by Jibz Cameron

Other Animals on Shell of a Woman

“Is this a painting?,” Jackson Pollock once asked the painter Lee Krasner, of a canvas still wet with drips. Krasner and Pollock were married, standing in a studio in Long Island. Her response is never included in the story. But recent research by Dynasty Handbag has illuminated more of this historical moment. We can now see, from beneath a pile of old potatoes and rotting wool jackets and crusty brushes, a Professor Bags lurching forward, screaming, “NO!!!!”

Here, now, stands Professor Bags, limbs akimbo, searing holes in the audience with her stare, her massive brocade trench coat partially eclipsing the PowerPoint projected on a screen behind her. In this LA premiere of Handbag’s latest show, Shell of a Woman, she concerns herself with the 10 Greatest Works of Art ever, according to the Internet. Those in the audience consider her first on that list. PeeWee Herman is here, sitting demurely in the third row, in bifocals. Hannah Gadsby is here, with a handsome fade. The comic illustrator Nicole Georges perches next to Gadsby

, as attentive as a disciple. We would all trade next to anything to watch this lesbian Venus emerge from her scallop shell on loop, the gay world’s most sacred gif.

While Dynasty Handbag’s work doesn’t appear on the Internet’s greatest hits list, here onstage at Dynasty Typewriter (no relation), she crouches atop it, a gargoyle in shoulder pads, lipstick freshly smeared from her kill. It’s fun to watch her woopsy daisy destroy the greats like she’s knocking down a Jenga tower. Irreverent is too golf-clappy a word; Professor Bags is out for blood, even if just to smear an F in front of the word Art with her own tampon. It’s deeply satisfying to fumble along with her Braille for Beginners description of revered works of art – a sort of way-finding around a painting that dispenses with assessment or valuation. Here, a blob, there, a long sandwich or maybe a yellow finger. And here, a large rock with one breast. Thank you, next.

In an alternate dimension, where The Guerrilla Girls never aped around in front of MoMA and La Barbe was just a Parisian secretary, Professor Bags lectures for her undergrads – PeeWee, Hannah and Nicole – with what little is left of art history in the aftermath of broadband patriarchal apocalypse, the ruins reeking of turpentine and strewn with legendary dismembered ears. Bags née Handbag panics, revels and screeches her way through the lowest brows of Art, flashing her teeth at acres of beige male flesh and rote recitations of time-worn accolades, collapsing the soufflé of every Famous Art Man one by one, execution style.

Because she can, she sings, intermittently changing costume on stage, struggling with the projector remote, and draping herself over a stool or lectern to finish a long, howling crescendo. Ending on a seasonal note, Handbag takes the mic from Professor Bags to deliver the world’s most disturbing, slinky, elf-pitched rendition of Santa Baby.

I wish this was the Internet. Would like to feed every Wikipedia page and Bing.com search result through this filter. Want to stay here and watch forever. Only the Bags dynasty can make sense of it all.

Other Animals is Valentine Freeman who writes and overestimates herself from Los Angeles, California.

From E.S.P. TV Presents: Merry Christmas, Mary Boom! Taped live to VHS at Clemente Soto Velez, Flamboyan Theater, NYC, Dec. 15, 2012 by Scott Kiernan and Victoria Keddie.

Amanda Horowitz on Shell of a Woman

Dynasty Handbag is the shell that performer Jibz Cameron constantly slips into, providing discombobulated and hilarious slip-ups for her devoted audience. I’ve seen Dynasty Handbag perform a lot, mostly as a host in her monthly Weirdo Night! variety shows, but also in these smorgasbord theater pieces in which she trolls the formal qualities of comedy, cabaret, and solo-performance art. Dynasty Handbag has absorbed the horror and embarrassment of performance into a method of her own. I love the moments when she stops “performing” and putters out, totally exhausted or mortified by what she is doing. She meanders into anxious self-reflection, descends into wordless baby-talk-babble, and makes herself laugh at the depths of her own character’s absurdity. In these moments, there is an experience of second-hand embarrassment, and I realize just how weird it is to watch someone perform. Entertainment flips inside out, like the banana peel she alludes to at the top of “Shell of a Woman”: it no longer looks like the comedy, song, and dance she was giving us, but instead becomes the excessive, anxious, shedding of an entertainer. This shedding is latent in most performance, and for a reason, it is deeply uncomfortable to know just how desperate our performer/actor is. Dynasty Handbag prods just how far she can go down with the shame-train, teetering between a campy intensification of character and a cringey self-awareness. This is why it’s so hard to accurately describe exactly who/what Dynasty Handbag is; at times she’s abject and revolting, absurdly solipsistic, but her shell-like persona defies internalization of these things. Shame is less a tenant of her character and more a transient force within any performance.

When camp becomes cringey, it creates what my collaborator and I, in our own theater projects, have termed as “cramp.” We began using the term to speak about a particular tone of camp inadvertently performed in viral videos. In cramp, all the inward shivers of vicarious humiliation are brought on by the deep embarrassment of watching someone commit to artifice with total unawareness. Cramp combines camp’s (as noted by Susan Sontag) “glorification of character” with all the shades of othering that is platformed online. Campy performance, with its roots in cabaret, drag, and experimental theater, has long been a way for outsiders to perform their subjectivity to a simpatico audience. But, when these tenants go viral, everyone takes up performance as a way to declaim and defend their otherness. Schools of the unaware perform for each other in vacuums of jingoism, and in the end, no matter what camp you’ve come to represent there’s a cringey moment somewhere for you to watch or to be a part of. 

Throughout “Shell of a Woman,” Dynasty Handbag lectures her creative adjacent audience on the ten best artworks in history. She parodies a bourgeois art historian who, with cramp in hand, infantilizes the male-centric history of art through a performed innocence, making observations such as “Jackson Pollock's painting is a picture of spaghetti and beans,” and pronouncing Picasso as “Pick-A-Sew.” A particularly crampy moment in Dynasty Handbag’s performance occurred during the encore rendition of Santa Baby. She came back on stage in a tight red bodysuit and over-sized furry slippers to sing the Christmas carol as an adult baby. She whines and screams the Crampus number, humiliating and perverting the camp of Christmas cheer. Dynasty Handbag’s cramp also turns up monthly at her Weirdo Night! comedy shows. She’s become a routine nasty pain in the Los Angeles performance-art scene’s core, the lesbian cousin to the belly laugh.

Early on in the show, Dynasty Handbag claimed that “Shell of a Woman” is a lesbian show with nothing inside. It was one of my favorite ongoing jokes. Her continual claiming of the show’s “lesbian content” is entirely uncool. A more fashionable contemporary performer would have traded in the term for queer by now. But Dynasty Handbag claims her lesbian content hard, and with folly. As a shell of a woman she can talk back to herself and be entirely uncool and uncouth, as there is no inside to return to. Thus, she is able to reflect our own cringe worthy fears of being the incorrect thing, or claiming the wrong way to express otherness, which just creates yet another subcategory of alienation and ignominy.

Theater is inherently an embarrassing medium. It can be awfully excruciating to watch live bodies grab for emotions, especially those of campy and melodramatic size. And what’s more, you are stuck there, and the possibility of leaving, while available, would be public, you might trip over your neighbors’ feet, it could be a worst-case-social-situation. So, as a platform for cramp performance, theater seems far more risky and effective than that of the computer or television. In cramp theater, the audience has to confront embarrassment, and they are not cushioned by the safety and distancing of the screen. The inward shiver it produces could be a sort of collective erotics, a place to experience disgrace as a group feeling, rather than one of individual or virtual perjury. In a culture in which shame is used to control one’s body and one’s experiences as good or bad, diving further into the inward shiver could be a good place to start in detangling the anxieties that keep us separated and in fear of each other. 

Amanda Horowitz’s work exists between written language and live address, sculpture and getting dressed, personal soliloquy and satirical declamations from fictional characters.

Shell of a Woman happened at Dynasty Typewriter on December 16, 2018.

Jibz Cameron is a performance/video artist and actor living in Los Angeles. Her multi-media performance work as alter ego Dynasty Handbag has spanned 15 years. In addition to her work as Dynasty Handbag she has also been seen acting in films, theater and television. She works as a professor of performance and comedy related subjects as well as lecturing and teaching workshops. Jibz also produces and hosts Weirdo Night!, a monthly comedy and performance event in Los Angeles.

Photos by Charlie Gross.