GIRLS AREN'T FUNNY.

Dear Writer (although we both know I’m being wildly generous with that title),

Certainly you are aware that Haughty is the largest magazine in the world, so we must assume that your submission was a mistake. Yes, we at Haughty are magnanimously assuming your submission was a mere slip of the finger, a twitch you really should get checked out.

You see, and don’t take this personally, you are nothing but a crumb on our plates; you are lint in our intern’s belly-buttons; you are a stranger’s hair clung to this season’s Michael Kors pea coats, extant only because of the torments of static electricity in winter months. But, in the laughable unlikelihood that you in fact intended to contact us in regards to your humorous essay, wistfully and preposterously expecting us to consider it, I’m here to inform you, and then reiterate, that Haughty is the largest magazine in the world. Not large. Or larger. But largest. Capiche? Excuse me, Italian isn’t sophisticated enough of a language for us here at Haughty. Allow me to rephrase: Comprenez-vous? Ugh, excuse me again: that was the formal conjugation, but there’s no need for such linguistic respect on my part given that I hold the coveted position of Staff Member at Haughty magazine and you are a–forgive the assumption–high-school dropout who will never see her name reflected in Haughty’s glossy pages so, one last time: tu comprends?

Haughty does not consider itself a starting point for writers or those just learning how to read. No, Haughty considers itself the pinnacle of a writer’s career; we are a snowcapped apex glittering at sunset. We are the starving artist’s Everest, which is why our unofficial motto is, “It’s all downhill from Haughty.” When a reader opens Haughty, she expects the pages to radiate with esteemed names such as Dior, Prada, and E. L. James. She doesn’t expect, well … you.

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Dear Neighbors,

Everyone has a right to a Saturday night, but—especially as summer approaches—please try to remember that you live on a very residential block, and when you start blaring the Killers, U2 and Kanye West on a constant loop from 2 p.m. to 5 a.m., it can make your neighbors want to throw things at you. And I have. Eggs, cream, cheap whiskey, sticks of gum, clumps of cat litter. Who knew a slotted scooper made such an excellent catapult? No pun intended. I’ve never hit anyone, of course. I usually wait until the party has adjourned inside and you’ve left the Counting Crows whining outside for my 6 a.m. listening enjoyment.

When you survey the damage in the noon-light of day, do you collapse into a fluorescent lawn chair and say, “Dude, things really flew off the hizzandle last night— someone brought cat litter!” I wish you would only look up. See that window framed in grape vines? It’s raining obscure food items, gentlemen, and I am the rainmaker.

The question these days is: Who owns Saturday night? More often than not, I tend to stay in on Saturday nights. I feel pretty good about this, having made enough of an inebriated buffoon out of myself on, say, Wednesday. For years now it’s been said: “Saturdays are for amateurs.” Sometimes I even try to get work done on Saturdays—so, boys, unless you intend on cutting me a check for a couple grand for every night I can’t hear myself think, please keep it down past 11 p.m. Yes, you’re that loud. Loud enough that I always regret, in the cold silence of Sunday, that I forgot to buy better earplugs. Loud enough that even huddled against one wall, I can’t escape the noise.

You see, I’m not even your neighbor, technically. We don’t have the same set of mailboxes. I live in the brownstone next-door, facing the back just like you. And I have my own crazy noisemakers to deal with: the fighting couple, the fighting couple’s make-up sex, the late-night redecorators. If it was traffic or construction or people on the street, I would be able to sleep through this madness. Those are the noises we all sign up for living in Manhattan, and I find them strangely soothing. But there is something rural about the noise you make. At first I wondered if I was being a noise snob. If you replaced Coldplay with Arcade Fire, Eminem with Ghostface Killah and Bud Light with Stella, would I be equally as annoyed?

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So, you want to make a “viral” video? Congratulations! Luckily for you, I have ten easy tips that will give you all the secrets to internet fame and fortune.

1. Own a Cat.

That’s right. All you have to do to make the internet your bitch is to show them your cute pussy. Ew, no, not that pussy - that’s an entirely different and WAY more popular segment of the internet.

2. Get Will Ferrell to star in your video.

It doesn’t matter what it is about. If you can’t get him, try Felicia Day.

3. Make a Parody.

Why come up with something original that no one will watch when you can rip off someone else’s intellectual property, by making a low-fi “funny” version on the internet?

4. Moderately Attractive People are Useless.

If you don’t have famous friends, you need either super models dancing in slow motion or horrendously unattractive people dancing and/or crying about Twilight.

5. Own a Cat.

6. Be Funny.

How? Any way you can. I’m not here to hold your hand. This is your viral video sensation.

7. The Three Bs: Booze, Balls and Boobs.

The internet is the new America’s Funniest Home Videos, so play by old school rules. Either get someone doing something while drunk, hit someone in the balls or focus on lady bits. If you can manage all three in one video then you obviously don’t need my help.

8. Babies.

This is the other magical “B” but in this case the baby has to be doing something that a grown up would do: ie. Holding a 5th of whiskey while driving a car. Or have them accompanied by a dog.

9. Do Not Make Your Video About Anything Important.

The internet is home to trite wastes of time. If you want to make art, go to film school. Unless you are making something cool with time lapse and Legos, in which case, you are golden.

10.Own a Cat. Or Be a Cat.

The latter is best, if possible.

Keep these ten handy tips in mind the next time that your boss (who doesn’t even know what Tumblr is) asks you to “just make a viral video” for the company. Or for your new career as a YouTube celebrity after you realize that your boss doesn’t understand that if there was actually a sure fire way to do this, everyone would be doing it and, thus, he is in no way equipped to be your superior.

Amanda Deibert is a writer and actress/filmmaker type in LA. Most recently, you can see her writing in more than 300 episodes of Hulu’s daily pop culture/comedy show “The Morning After.”  And for even more giggles, be sure to check out her weekly web comic “Hot Mess” on Comediva.com, which she creates every Monday with her lovely and talented illustrator wife, Cat Staggs. You can check out the rest of her hijinks in writing and filmmaking at amandadeibert.com.  

Granite walk-in closet
Stainless steel armoire
Functional paint
Duplex master suite
Jack-and-Jill-and-Jeremy sinks
Man yurt
Massaging deck
Bedazzled countertops
Convection nursery
Gas-burning sink
Non-sexy neighbor girl who can babysit
“Dream. Laugh. Love” room
Lap pool table
Triplex master suite
Sensual backsplash

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One woman’s search for everything across India, Iran, and Iceland… excerpts from my extraordinary upcoming novel of self-discovery:

Prologue

It was fall in Como, Italy. The leaves were changing. The peasants smelled of freshly baked bread. The spaghetti was in season. I was married to a handsome and generous man whose salt and pepper chest hair reminded me of salt and pepper. Every evening he would take me walking by the pond he had filled with geese for me because the Canadian goose is my spirit animal. He was kind, and tall and very good at riding motorcycles and acting. And I was miserable.

And so I found myself night after night lying on the expensive marble floors of the villa we occupied, weeping into a towel made of imported orphan-baby hair that we had, years before, lovingly registered for in a secret section of Bloomingdales where you can still get Nazi gold and dodo birds.

See, the thing was this: I did not want to be married anymore.

The realization had come to me months before when I was on assignment in Oaxaca forBlimp magazine, exploring the primitive dirigibles of the Mayans. Before I had left, something happened that made me think that my husband wanted us to have a child and that I was not ready. He said:

“I want to put a baby inside of you.”

And then I threw up on his face.

I told a wise man in Oaxaca what happened, and he said to me:

“You are not meant to have a baby with this man. Instead, you will go on a journey around the world for free, and then write about it.”

His words came back to me as I lay on the bathroom floor. Sure, he was a stranger, and probably the drunkest person I had ever met. But still, he had told me what I wanted to hear, and who was I not to listen?

And so I called the maid to lift me up off the bathroom floor and then, with my own feet, I walked all the way down the hall to the bedroom I shared with my husband. I walked past the portrait of us in Richard Branson’s invisible space yacht. I walked past the monkey butler. I walked past the robot that does my hair.

I pushed open the platinum doors to our bedchamber and grabbed the porcelain waking stick. I poked my husband gently in his perfect buttocks and I said to him:

“George. George Clooney. I want a divorce.”

Part One: An Idea

If you have been married to George Clooney, you know what he can be like. Very petty and jealous and conniving. He tried everything to stop me from leaving. He cried. He pleaded. He trapped me in an electrical cage. He put a snake in my wig. As our divorce dragged on, and I became more devastated, my friends noticed my decline. They all had ideas about why I was depressed. They advised me to see a therapist, to become a vegan, to “just shut the fuck up.” But nothing could stir me from my funk.

I realized I needed to go away. I remembered what the drunken man in Oaxaca had told me, that I was meant to go around the world. I thought to myself, that man was probably born onto Earth for the sole purpose of telling me how not to be depressed about George Clooney anymore, and so that’s what I did.

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Everyone knows that a successful party starts with a great guest list. It should be diverse. Eclectic. A mix of people from all walks of life. I know you’re fond of those pasty losers from the Robotics Club, Ashlee, but trust me: shotgunning cases of Mountain Dew and reprogramming the neighborhood’s garage doors does not a wild teenage rager make. Instead, reach out a little and ask the mean girls. The freaks. The skanks. The playas, the hatas, the skaters, and possibly even a divorced math teacher or two. Don’t worry if you don’t know them, because no teenager will ever turn down a party invitation. Even when it comes from someone in the gifted-and-talented program.

As anyone who’s ever watched the WB knows, the best time to throw a killer “par-tay” is when your parents are out of town. Or at least farther away than across the street playing Jenga at the Wilson’s. I mean, honestly, Ashlee. If you want to be a rebel,think like a rebel. Did Amy Winehouse ever ask her mother’s permission before snorting lines off the nightstand? So wait until your parents go on their anniversary trip. Or to the church retreat. Or, better yet, wait until your grandma breaks her other hip, the poor thing. Then simply lock up the pets, throw open your front door, and get ready to get your house party on, y’all.

Per proper etiquette, invites should be sent no later than four weeks before an event. However, since most of your guests can’t even remember to close their mouths while chewing, it’s probably best to wait until the last possible moment to spread the word. Besides, as any insurance adjuster could tell you, teenagers thrive on spontaneity. The day of the shindig, simply text your guests with the message “Party at Ashlee’s!” or “PAA!” or “STWPAPBYJ!” or any other of those ridiculous little codes you all seem to prefer over proper English grammar. Or just save yourself the trouble and tell Janice Hopkin’s daughter you’re having a party. Lord knows that girl’s got a mouth on her.

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Wool Suit Pants: Will board before you.

Wool Hunting Pants: Will board after you.

Pleated Dockers: Will loudly talk on cell phone about ROIs and vertical markets.

Pajama Bottoms: Will be flying either to or from a city with a Señor Frog’s.

Sweatpants with Dallas Mavericks Logo: Will clog one or more bathrooms.

Stained Yoga Pants: Will be carrying a screaming child.

Stained Gymboree Pants: Will be a screaming child.

Leather Pants: Did not pay for own flight.

Pants with Underwear Sticking Out: Did not pay for own flight.

Jeans with Rhinestones: Will get wasted on tequila and Sprite and graze flight attendant’s boob.

Tight Black Stretch Pants: Will be a pharmaceutical sales rep named Morgan.

Hemp Pants: Will be flying either to or from a city with a yurt resort.

Golf Pants: Will “accidentally” click on a porn link on his laptop.

Camouflage Cargos: Carry-on is a styrofoam cooler sealed with duct tape.

Blue Capris: European on business.

Red Capris: European on holiday.

Plaid Capris: European on way to rehab.

Pink Sweatpants: Will laugh her ass off at the Adam Sandler in-flight movie.

Beige Slacks: Will nervously clutch book about how liberals are destroying America.

Linen Trousers: Will swallow a Xanax and mangle your hand during take-off.

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On August 17, 2010, the writer received an e-mail from her ex-boyfriend’s mother. Its subject heading was “Goodbye from Nancy and Bill,” and the message informed her that her ex-boyfriend’s parents were blocking her on Facebook. The writer was dumbfounded. She promptly unlinked her Twitter and Facebook accounts. The main result of Nancy’s Facebook rejection was to send the writer down memory lane in a pretty disconcerting way. The writer had met Noah, her ex-boyfriend, in her junior year at Oberlin. He had recently returned from six months in India and wore hemp cargo pants. Their first meeting took place in the cafeteria. The writer and her friend Molly were pounding veggie burgers when Noah and his friend Brian walked in, holding hands. “It’s an experiment,” Noah said. “Girls hold hands with their friends all the time. Why can’t Brian and I do it, too?” The writer said something unenlightened like, “Because it looks super gay. Are you gay?” He eyed her with vague sadness. “I used to wonder about that,” he said. “But then I realized that being gay is much too easy a solution for the problem that I have.” Noah took a liking to her, and they hung out a lot, but he never tried to kiss her.

He said that sex was “complicated” for him, and that he was more interested in figuring out his life’s work. “I’m warning you,” a friend said. “He’s weird with girls.” The writer can draw a very clear diagram of the sixteen months that followed. At first, he liked her more than she liked him, but then, suddenly, she loved him. He graduated and stuck around their college town, though he swore it wasn’t because of her. She started wearing clogs and baking a lot of gluten-free food for him, and stopped speaking to most of her friends. Relationships often change people, but this was a weird one, because she was the same before and after it, but very different during. The writer was wildly supportive of pursuits she would normally parody. When she graduated, they’d been together for more than a year. They moved to Brooklyn to house-sit for the writer’s high-school voice teacher. Noah mostly ate canned beans and basmati rice that he prepared in a rice cooker. They almost never had sex. He got into Internet college and decided not to go.

Eventually, he told her that he was moving back to his parents’ house, in Arizona, on August 17th. Two years to the day before Nancy unfriended her. The writer called him, crying, every day for a month. Noah said that she needed to accept that the relationship was over. She moved in with her parents and developed a crush on a rude guy at her menial job and rekindled her old friendships. One morning in October, she awoke to see Noah standing above her. He had moved back to New York, he said. He missed her. She found everything about him revolting. In a strange twist of fate, she now lives across the hall from the voice teacher. One night recently, as she headed out to the corner store, the voice teacher popped his head out at her. “Oh, hey,” he said. “I have your boyfriend’s rice cooker.”

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The infamous “She” of the “That’s What She Said” jokes has released a new tell-all book making shocking claims about the joke’s validity.

“No, I did not say that,” She [her real name is totally irrelevant] writes on the book’s cover and throughout the nine-hundred page point-by-point refutation of things She’s never said. “The joke takes a normal situation and makes it uncomfortable and juvenile for the sake of comedy. But jokes, like condoms, have a shelf life.”

For a closer look at life in the Slander Lane, we sat down with the eponymous She.

Magazine: It’s been a busy couple of years for you! Or so we hear…

She: Mostly likely I didn’t say anything about that. Please just start the interview.

Magazine: It says in your book that you are not actually the original “She.” Can you explain this?

She: When the joke started with Wayne’s World in the eighties it was in reference to my mother, who actually was a prostitute. After she gave birth to my twin sister and me, she cleaned up her act and loaned her name instead to the newly launched “Yo Mama” line. But being at the center of a pervasive joke that just won’t quit no matter how old it becomes was different with two kids to take care of, and she ended up taking her own life in an attempt to stop the jokes. Truly a tragic end.

Magazine: But the joke just wouldn’t go into the grave, would it? It kept coming in and out and in and out.

She: Right, my sister got pregnant in high school so the “Yo Mama” joke passed on to her in its modernized “Your Mom” form, e.g.”That’s the sound Your Mom made last night,” etc. I got left with “That’s What She Said.” There was a falloff in interest for both jokes around the turn of the millennium, so it wasn’t so bad for awhile. But then The Office happened.

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…The bride and groom are writing their own vows and will make them even more generic than the traditional marriage vows… By the grace of whoever’s God, and with the help of not-actually-Champagne champagne, attempts at dancing will follow.

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Life

Let’s get real. Unless you plan on keeping your kid in an ivory highchair forever, you have to teach him about sharp edges. Problems don’t dissolve as soon as your saliva touches them, like those flimsy Os do. Just try drooling all over that lien on your house and see how far it gets you. I’m tough, stringy, and make your gums bleed. That’s why they call me Life. I’ll show your baby that he has to chew hard on challenges, and that mashing his enemies into a fibrous pulp is worth the pain. Try me yourself. Without milk. Right now. I dare you.

Alpha-Bits

Excuse me if I’m being presumptuous, but I assume that you, as a parent, are aware of the declining literacy rate in this country. This can be blamed on what I call O-verexposure: too many tots feeding on a single letter, instead of on the entire alphabet banquet. I offer the glorious triple-pronged E, the delightfully asymmetrical Q, even the commercially co-opted X. These are the building blocks of words, communication—dare I say, of civilization itself. Do not let your child join the growing hordes of illiterate dullards hastening in the new Dark Ages. The highchair tray is nothing less than the battlefield for the final conflict between ignorance and enlightenment. Take up your sword against the tyranny of the O.

Special K

I see how it is. You like me, but you don’t want me around your baby. Sure, if you want to take a break from that safe domestic nest and fantasize about slimming down and looking hot, you’re all, “Hey, K, let’s hang out.” We used to spend two meals a day together before you got married. Now, somehow, that’s become “unhealthy” behavior that you don’t want to “model” for your kid. I totally supported you in getting down to 97 pounds for your wedding, and now I guess I’m not enough of a nurturer! Give me a chance. It’s lonely in this cupboard. I’m not stale yet. I have a lot to give. OK, leave me out. But let me tell you something: no matter how much you secretly hang out with me, those stretch marks are not going away.

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