Nicole Stawiarski

Ja, Männer können Brünetten sein. (Yes, men can be brunettes.)

5. The Sixth Sense: Something about their lips is giving you a weird feeling. You’re not quite sure if they’re dead or alive.

There are fingers in my hair. They run along the line where my forehead and hairline meet and the backs of my earlobes. The fingers are sweet and soft. The fingers are kind.

The anger made my blood boil. The blood helped the rest of my muscles loosen. Slowly, I let my body take up the natural physical space it’s meant to occupy.

Rihanna crawls around on the floor while “Birthday Cake” plays in the background. This would be extremely awkward if anyone else tried it, but it’s Rihanna, so somehow it works.

She explained to me that one night, every year, the Nutcracker has to travel the globe, much like Santa Claus, but instead of delivering gifts to children, she was responsible for delivering feminism to misogynists and harassers.

When I got tired of worrying about how tired I was going to be, and telling everyone I was going to die, I decided to plan my funeral.

I’d rather be pleasantly surprised to meet someone I have a genuine connection with, because it doesn’t happen every day, or even often, and when it does, I trust myself to recognize it as something special.

I’ve always had this thing with strangers. The weird ones flock to me.

uncanny: “No, I am not fucking going to watch The Conjuring or Annabelle with you. Those movies make me feel uncanny as fuck. But we can watch Raw. Do you want to watch Raw?”

You’re out of red, so grab three of your favorite bottles of Claret (which you can pronounce correctly because you are so cultured), a bottle of Chianti, Malbec, and Garnacha, because like most Millennials, you are a global citizen, which is slang for wino-in-training.

You do not cry. Big girls don’t cry. You narrow down your diagnosis to either gas pain, food poisoning, or your real doctor’s favorite, a virus.