Emma Howard

I'm just going to write stream of consciousness 

I don't like women I admire I'm scared of them I'm scared I'll never be like them and I'll always laugh at every joke and be afraid of feeling angry and letting people know every time I was angry I ate a lot of something really salty or really sweet and kept the wrappers in my bag so roommates wouldn't see them in the trash can 

I remove them at irregular intervals, when I'm in public by a trash can and I don't know anybody there I move to a new one for each different wrapper so a stranger won't know how much I ate in one sitting not to feel angry 

I think it's important to be kind to strangers but you don't always need to be nice and you don't owe anyone your politeness this is something I think but not something I believe 

I think there should be more women in comedy 

I also think there should be a way to express myself on a wider platform in an unironic voice that cracks and wavers because I cry a lot when I'm angry before I make a joke of it

Anything that feels too heartfelt or passionate or opinionated has to be followed by an lol so no one will be uncomfortable 

I don't know when I learned to bond over insecurity and forgot how to bond over anything else. Confident people have something I don't understand and can't relate to and I want to learn but I'm afraid to, afraid that if I spend too much time with them I'll see how much I want that 

I laughed and smiled when Mike From My Hometown said are you a virgin is that why you won't have sex with me and when Tom something stuck his hand in my pants and his fingers inside of me 

I was drunk and I said I didn't want anything and then he put his hands inside me it hurt and I pretended to enjoy it i didn't know what else to do I backed away and laughed and started to close the door he said are you okay you look like you're scared of me and I laughed and then I closed the door 

The night I slept at Mike From My Hometown’s house I lied to my mom 

It didn't feel sneaky in a fun way 

He was a manager he was the first manager I had who said he wanted to fuck me and I liked that he could tell me what to do 

Invitations became obligations that I thought I liked but knew I wouldn't in the morning 

I didn't have sex with him but I didn't want to be there in his house or his room or his bed 

He was high on quaaludes and I didn't know until later 

It made me feel worse 

He made eggs the next morning with onions 

I love eggs with onions 

I was upset that he was the person cooking me eggs with onions and also they weren't done enough 

I don't like eggs over easy 

I drove home the license plate still says "thespian" without an e cause it wouldn't fit and that was the first morning I felt wrong being in my teenage car like something adult had happened to my body and now I needed to change my license plate 

I listened to this CD of old French ballads I got at goodwill and I felt icky but I couldn't cry even though I wanted to 

When I was 12 I watched Chicago and convinced Maddie to reenact scenes with me for her parents and we sang "When You're Good to Mama" even though that's not one of the duets so we didn't do harmonies we just sang all of it in unison and I danced in this vulgar hypersexual way on a chair and her parents sat there and tried to smile 

I miss when my sexuality was all my own accidental performances 

Living room skits for adults I hadn't learned not to trust yet 

And we laughed the whole way through 

Because everything was funny and nothing was uncomfortable 

For us 

And that was all that mattered