i got a hotdog tattoo

plus i had diarrhea in a gas station bathroom while lindy west waited patiently in the car

i really am an absolute fucking dumbass, and it’s always extremely funny when a person projects a level of depth and intelligence onto me that i will never achieve even if i live five hundred years, but it’s never more funny than when i add another stupid asshole tattoo to my permanent corporeal collection and someone earnestly asks, “what is the meaning behind that?” lmao it means nothing! i mean, maybe it means i’m allergic to not wasting money? seriously though, nothing i do ever means anything, especially when it comes to permanently inscribing things on my actively-decaying body. sad but true, if you and i walked into a tattoo shop right now (wait, should we??? come over!) and you were like “hey dude you should get a stick and poke of grimace sucking big bird’s dick while holding a baguette” i would get that. without hesitation. right now i have a large wiener with sport peppers, tomatoes, mustard, relish, and onions inked into my left hand because my man sent me a chicago hot dog sticker and i thought “hmm i love encased meats and i love [evanston, il] and i love stickers so why don’t i profess my undying love???” i don’t care, i like to have fun, and i love when things are funny.

my best pal lindy lauren west recently undertook an incredible adventure that i am jealous of but will never ever recreate: a cross-country expedition from seattle to florida to the midwest to the mountains and back to seattle in a scary white van with a cartoon bunny spray painted on one side and a cartoon sheep spray painted on the other, a trip she is hopefully going to chronicle in a forthcoming book. can i tell you that as a writer with limited ideas for what to write beyond what color underwear i’ve chosen for the day, my first reaction was HOLY SHIT WHAT A GREAT IDEA. a self-discovery solo road trip????? imagine all the weird shit you could see that would be perfect joke material. this country is so hilarious and fucked up! i can’t believe i’m such a coward with such a weak constitution that this is something i’d never even consider!!!!!!

a woman driving from state to state, alone and sometimes at night (!!), subsisting on gas station snacks (this is in the “pro” column, btw) and not knowing where she can safely poop or what’s happening on TV (definitely a “con”!!!!!!!)??? that’s bravery, babe. i spend so much of my life feeling embarrassed, being embarrassed for just being alive which is a decision i didn’t even have a part in making, and a huge source of that embarrassment is my overwhelming number of needs. i’m not a low maintenance person! i cannot just toss a handful of things in a bag and go!

lindy rolled through kalamazoo on the return leg of her big trip and the first thing i said when i went out to look at her scary van (oh and say hello welcome to my house?) was “do you need me to show you where the washing machine is” because, if she were me, i know the first thing i’d want to do when traveling for weeks in my own filth would be to douse all my belongings and myself in extra strength tide and climb into an industrial sized washing machine with my soiled underwear and travel utensils. i need so much shit i can’t even leave the house for a few hours, let alone crisscross the country without some sort of, oh i dunno, mobile living room/bathroom situation? i like to think i’m tough but a few years ago i drove a few hours north to traverse city to chill with my dude fernando for a week and an hour and a half in the tire light came on in my rental and i got off some country ass highway and went to some country ass gas station and pulled up next to a giant stalk of stale corn who was smoking a winston while he filled his tank and got out of the car hyperventilating like “help sir i’m pretty sure this car is about to explode please fix it!!!!!!” i didn’t know this man! instead of killing me he checked all the tire pressures and reset the car computer (???????) and the light went off and i was very grateful and gave him all the cash in my wallet but if we’re being honest he probably should’ve just put me out of my misery and done us both a favor.

but lindy isn’t a soft coward who comes completely undone in the face of a glitchy 2019 nissan rogue, and when she got here i took her to the three places i like to go in kalamazoo, then we got our noses pierced and got dumb tattoos and watched the nba finals. i drove her to benton harbor so she could taste “the good tacos” and put her toes in lake michigan while i sat in the car, then she got soft serve at this place called the dairy barn (maybe? it’s something that sounds rural as hell) and sat in the car waiting while i had diarrhea in a gas station bathroom from the tacos. all in all, i feel very confident in saying that looking at my cats and trying all my fancy hand soaps was the best part of her trip, butts down.

i’m reading:
an early copy of mrs march, this book that comes out on tuesday. to celebrate the launch i’m gonna have a conversation with virginia feito that you can watch and participate in courtesy of politics and prose in dc on tuesday night at 6pm, and if that sounds fun to you please click this link to sign up, it’s free.

i like thrillers and scary shit and for a long time resisted them because i was trying to read more ~literature~ or whatever, but that’s boring. i’m 41 fucking years old and i still have to regularly remind myself that it’s okay to do whatever i want to do no matter what anyone thinks about it, even if that something is looking like an idiot reading a james patterson book i bought at walgreens in the parking lot outside of the school where i take the dog. this is absolutely an imaginary problem considering that we live in a burning world, but i am gonna stop reading books that i gotta put down every few pages and ask myself “do i understand what i just read?” the answer is always no! you know what i do understand, tho? blood and stabbing!

i just read this book bath haus that caused my stomach to fall out of my butt several times, it was so juicy and good and i’m not a book screamer but at one point i did yell “OLIVER WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT” so loud i startled carrots so bad she hissed at me. i also read the other black girl which was also very good and not what i expected. should we start a little thrills n chills book club? is that……………………..what i’m actually doing right now??? my favorite creep grady hendrix (i am obsessed with him, read all his books right now!) just released a new one called the final girl support group and i haven’t started it yet because i’m waiting to deserve it, i.e. if i get some work done i will allow myself to crack it open. it’s like, emotional dessert. or something like that. there is a new stephen graham jones (have you read the only good indians yet and if not why the fuck not) coming out in a few weeks called my heart is a chainsaw and i am literally salivating as i wait for it. andi bartz has a new book called we were never here that my friend katy’s dad bought for me and i’m amped to read that too because i love her work. a “backpacking trip with deadly consequences?” ok bitch sign me up!! finally, i read noah hawley’s before the fall and it’s so good, and written in such an inventive way, and i want everyone to read it. i’ve been a fan of his fargo tv series from the jump and of course his book is good as hell, too. it’s so goddamn compelling, sheesh.

i’m watching:
ok let me be shameless as hell for a minute and say that you should be watching tuca and bertie season 2 on adult swim sundays at 1130pm not only because i worked on it but also because that’s what i’m doing at that exact same time and we can pretend to be doing it together? it’ll be like a pajama party but i won’t have to be embarrassed about you seeing my nightgown. (although, if you would like to be a super creep before eventually single white femaling me, i only sleep in these and my snack of choice is sour cream and onion pringles and my favorite tv watching weed is an indica-dominant hybrid.) you can watch the first episode in its entirety here if you still need to be convinced but come on now, the show is so funny and great and i wrote one extremely horny episode and another extremely spooky one, what else could you possibly want? hot goss from behind the scenes??? well, i don’t have any, but tiffany haddish did say “hi samanthaaaaaaa” in a very cute way at the table read for the first episode of season 3 a couple days ago, and last summer i tried to trick stephen yeun into believing that i currently live in his old kalamazoo college frat house and i’m pretty sure he bought it. is that enough? now go sign up for cable.

speaking of, get showtime too while you’re at it, because season 2 of work in progress starts on august 22 and i worked on it and it’s incredible. we started the room in february of 2020, right before the whole world came grinding to a halt, and i associate everything good about the free world with the six weeks i spent in chicago cracking jokes with the funniest idiots alive, and i mean that as a compliment. first of all the room was 90% improv nerds (plus me and lilly wachowski, lmao) and i know that sounds like a waking nightmare but i promise you it was hilarious and fun. i would tell you what the show is about but honestly just watch the first season if you haven’t already (the episodes are short, i promise) and you can watch the first episode of season 1 here, isn’t that convenient!

okay the things i’m watching that i don’t have a personal stake in yet are appealing to me are as follows:
1 mythic quest which is so funny it makes me S C R E A M, please watch the trailer and know that i made myself and my mate amanda t-shirts that say “inquiry withdrawn” (0:48) because it made us laugh so hard
2 good girls we’re currently in the middle of season 3 and this dude is why
3 old episodes of survivor
4 the white lotus i’m not sure i understand what is happening on the show but it is very nice to sit and look at
5 i am patiently waiting for the return of the two shows that are most important to my life and happiness, and thank the good lord we were blessed with trailers for them both??? billions is so fucking good i can’t stand it, everyone is hot and mean and rich and that’s how i like my shows to be, dammit. plus we got a season 3 succession tease that spiked my blood pressure enough to make me feel alive for a minute and a half, and i wanna go on record and say that if gerri and roman don’t bang this season i will be flooded with impotent rage and maybe even write a sternly-worded letter of complaint.

i’m listening to:
-this spotify playlist i found called mitski ranked in order of sadness that is quite good even though i mostly just listen to “wife” on repeat
-a playlist i made called little yachty rock filled with only good 70s soft rock and 80s smooth jams and it absolutely rips (yes, i had old parents)

miscellaneous snacks and stuff:
-in beauty news, from now on i am only gonna use this incredible body lotion from the hardware store
-but to balance shit out this le labo neroli oil is my favorite fragrance lately
-trader joe’s scandinavian swimmers are a jam even though they make me think of swedish sperm
-but i can’t eat a lot of them because i’ve been having weird rectal pain (???) and if you do too this fancy french burn cream is very soothing

i have a new book due to my editor in december and i haven’t started it, thank you for letting me procrastinate for so many words!
XOXOXO SAM