Hey girlie!
It’s Nancy (Webb). Just popping in to introduce my dear friend Emma Overton, who will be taking the girlie reins this week while I’m oceanside, staring directly at the sunset and wondering how to actually be present in this one life. Emma is a comedian, screenwriter, video game scriptwriter, teacher, dogsitter, daughter of a Finnish mother who enjoys Scrabble and does not like the raucous nature of international travel, unlike her daughter Emma who just went on a whirlwind European romp. Emma is the friend who I can look across the room at and we will both start laughing, knowing exactly what we’re both laughing at without having to say it. A good example of this is a time we worked at [Redacted Tech Company] and a man was giving a presentation about Quality, but the slideshow wasn’t working and I got borderline mad at Emma because I couldn’t stop laughing and people were looking at us and I was hoarsely whispering at her “SERIOUSLY STOP I CAN’T LOOK AT YOU.” Please enjoy Emma’s joyous, WRY!!! and hilarious voice. Thank you! ❤️
OH BOY is how I will start this newsletter to indicate that this is, in fact, NOT the voice of Nancy Webb but instead the voice of your pal, Emma Overton. I’m honoured to provide this Hey Girlie x Emma Overton collab as Nancy continues her spiritual quest out West.
So here’s what I’m gonna tell you about: I looked after a dog for two weeks recently! Here he is:
His name is Zeno and he’s a two-year-old Black lab/retriever. To state the obvious, dogs are the best. They get stoked about the simplest things: food, being outside, other dogs. And they just love you so much, even the stinkiest parts of you -- especially the stinkiest parts of you!
I want a dog, but my landlords won’t allow it. So I look after dogs instead. I realized recently that my life is very “sharing-economy” based. I use Bixi instead of owning a bike, Communauto instead of owning a car, Rover instead of owning a dog, and Hinge instead of owning a boyfriend hahahahaha, dating is hell!
I took Zeno to the dog park a lot while I was looking after him. I imagine it is, for him, what going out dancing is for me: very stimulating; socially engaging, but in an ecstatic way that doesn’t involve talking; and a purge of the soul where ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN.
The dogs go nuts in the dog park: wrestling in puddles, drinking straight from the water spigot. One time, Nancy and I saw a cursed little French bull dog who was whipping around snatching up turds right as they dropped out of other dogs’ butts.
Conversely, the humans in the dog park tend to be pretty docile, letting the dogs have their moment. Except NOT ALWAYS. The other weekend, there was a man in there sitting at a picnic table with a full-on camp barbecue just grilling up meats and drinking beers. Realistically, it was completely insane, BUT in some ways I respected his pushing of the dog park limits because, to be honest, I have wondered what sort of things I could get away with in there. You’re in there for like 30 mins to an hour and I KNOW I could just be present and enjoy watching the dogs play but my high-achieving, girlboss, striving-toward-individualistic-based-goals conditioning within capitalism urges me to multitask while at the dog park. Could I eat a meal in there? Get drunk? Exercise? Go on a date? Do a phone-based therapy session? I’m tempted to say yes to all…
Unfortunately, I couldn’t really afford to have my attention divided because Zeno was compelled to hump every single dog he played with. He’s a black lab-retriever – a very dog-y dog, a dog’s dog, if you will. My friend joked that his personality is just “bro trying to fuck”. But I think he just has trouble knowing how to relate to other dogs. Is this me projecting? Or overlaying a tacit acceptance of rape culture onto the dog world? Maybe!
Anyways, back to the humping. Some of the dogs just resigned themselves to getting humped, but others barked or snapped at him, which usually stopped the humping. It made me think about anger. And whether or not it’s a useful emotion. I used to think no. I used to think anger was just an emotion that masked other emotions like sadness or pain and that it was better to just inhabit those feelings than to express an emotion that has so much potential to hurt other people. But sometimes it’s important to use anger to express that you don’t want to be fucked with! Like when you’re being forcibly humped! And I guess if you feel angry and you don’t express it, it probably ends up hurting you? So, I guess my remainder of summer 2022 goal is: BE MORE ANGRY!
Aside from the dog park, I would take Zeno on some long, meandering walks around the city. Dogs want to explore SO BADLY. I wish we could have a day where we just let all the dogs in the city off the leash and out into the streets. But there would be no vehicles on the road. And I guess dogs who aren’t good around other dogs would have to stay home. But other than that, just like a full-on dogs-only day in the city. I know it would devolve into full-on chaos, but it would be an apocalypse I’d be willing to succumb to. Dogpocalypse. If society is on its way to completely unravelling anyway, it might as well be as a result of the dogs having the absolute time of their lives.
On one walk, we were doodling around the famously labyrinthian Mile-Ex one night and I was thinking about how I probably looked like I knew where I was going next but I didn’t. I saw a couple walking together holding hands and was like, they also look like they know what they’re doing, but they probably don’t. But they’ve committed to both pretending to know in the same way and that’s something. A happy illusion. Our belief in them seems to make them real. I wish them, and you!, all the best in the impending Dogpocalypse. <3
Reading, watching (and listening)
Nathan Fielder’s new show The Rehearsal
So incredible. And very relatable in this phase of the pandemic where navigating social scenarios can still feel pretty alien. Some rehearsals would help!
Shallow Hal
It’s one of the weird movies we have at my cottage. Sorry! It’s insane how many jokes in movies in the 90s were just trans jokes or fat jokes.
Love Streams
Made me feel anxious in the same way as Uncut Gems because I just wanted them to REST. But a pretty wild movie in a lot of ways and Gena Rowlands is so fucking cool.
Wall of Love by Night Lunch
Kelly brought me to see this band and I can’t stop listening to their album now! Local band!
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
I’m like half-reading this because it’s supposed to be a notable work of satire. But It’s about British socialites in the 1920s and I’m just not getting most of these extremely dry jokes about bowler hats, mutton and steeplechases.
Until next week, girlie!
Kiss kiss