The Wreckage of My Presence: Essays

by Casey Wilson

So loudly, in fact, that the neighbors on both sides built fences around their houses and added mature hedges so the sight of my dad didn’t greet them at the start of each day like a suburban rooster.

This book is hilarious and I love Casey Wilson.

BUT SHOULD IT BE SO NORMALIZED??? Again, I blame them all for making me feel so free to be me.

Seems no one needs to touch Steve for Steve to enjoy himself.

They are still children, I think. They are still innocent. And here, I have become a woman, being air-penetrated by a bearded potato wedge.

Steve makes a sound I have never heard before. Nor again. It’s not often you encounter a new sound. Most every noise is like, “Yeah, I’ve heard that.” But not this one.

I debate looking for the small S-shaped tool that came packaged with the bed, but much like my pride, I know I won’t find it anywhere.

Try as I might I can never keep up with the Rashida and January Joneses. How are they such? How does one become? Why not am I?

Cool girls tend to not lift a finger when it comes to social lubrication. It’s as if because they’re so comfortable with themselves they don’t recognize the feeling of discomfort and therefore lack the natural instinct to put others at ease.

Cool people have anxiety! I don’t! I’m just a depressive! I win!

I started babbling, as I do when I think someone thinks I’m annoying or lame. It’s a wonderful quality I hope never to shake.

I do care. I care deeply if someone feels upset or embarrassed or left out. I not only care, I take on their emotions in what some would describe as a codependent form of trauma bonding.

“Penny?”

Penny was the best part of that show.

The other was its new reality show, The Real Housewives of Orange County.

I hate reality tv and have absolutely no interest in watching any of them, but I kind of enjoy watching other people enjoy them.

“You don’t have the life experience to sing ‘Send in the Clowns.’”

The two of us share the same greatest unrealized dream: to be on Broadway. Since Broadway has said “no” to us, we make our fans say “yes.”

anytime I call her, she answers the phone with a panicked “Are you okay????!!!”

Who is she, my mother?

(This type of thing happens a lot with me and June. One of us will become incensed about something and pull the other into our rage spiral. Then, sure enough, the later adopter begins carrying the mantle of hate even more fervently than the original hater.)

“Men have anger.” To that, I now say, as an adult: SO. DO. WOMEN. I’m furious. In today’s climate we all should be. Have to be. If you AREN’T angry—amidst a global pandemic, systemic racism, and a disintegrating planet—there’s something wrong with you, boo.

She called it “Italian”; my astrologer called it “Scorpio”; my husband called it “actress.”

well-meaning boyfriends who wondered why we couldn’t just “sleep on it and talk rationally in the morning?” Because I wanted to scream on it now!

This was a wonderfully liberating and privileged way to grow up. I had self-confidence for days.

WHAT DOES THIS FEEL LIKE???

How could I communicate the loss of someone he had never met? How unfair it was that he’ll never get to feel the force of her love.

Before I continue, I’d like to take a moment to address those of you who might be noting the disturbing, astounding, and likely alienating amount of white and class privilege these experiences represent. I couldn’t agree with you more, and I’m laying all this out in an effort to be truthful and for a laugh. At my expense, as always!

My mom got out of her sleeping bag but didn’t have to pull on any clothes, since she was already wearing her signature one-piece purple Speedo bathing suit and shorts, an outfit that transitions beautifully night to day and one a daughter can be exceptionally proud of when her mom wears it to school pickup.

They asked for volunteers from the audience, and my dad stood up and waved his hands like he was stranded on a boat trying to get the attention of a rescue helicopter.

My mom stormed off, out of the ocean. It was a tough storm-off, though, because the second the oxygen tank surfaced from the water it weighed a million pounds and dragged my mom back in. She fell backward, but God love her, she got back up and continued the slowest, most labored dramatic exit I’ve ever seen.

I staggered like a zombie over to where Nick was ABOUT TO SHOOT, and pulled him aside with tears in my eyes and asked him if I could run out really fast—just a quick three-hour-and-change round-trip. He was stunned. And then he inexplicably said, “Go. We’ll film around you and do your stuff when you get back.” Hero. Angel. Mensch.

I always knew in a shadowy part of my heart that I wasn’t meant to be on SNL. I felt like an impostor. It was slightly excruciating, like I was on a sports team but sat on the bench week after week, watching people do what I so desperately wanted to be doing. I felt like I had been invited to a party where everyone knows each other but the host doesn’t bother introducing you.

Penny was desperate for love and initially written in a sharp but slightly cynical way, so I decided to play her with optimism because most of the amazing single women I knew who were looking for love were fun and genuinely hopeful. I connected to this thirsty and wildly over-the-top positive disaster of a human

“OH, DID WE ENJOY.”

My FONDEST wish??? Is to watch the CEO of Bayer (parent company to Afrin) sit in an empty room with only his bare paws and see if he can open that bottle.

he started tweeting messages he’d intended to text: “Be there in five minutes,” “How are you,” “Call me,” and lots of pocket missives like “Pppppxppp.” (Follow him @powilson. Questlove does!)

Right off the bat, Lorraine’s elderly mother hits us with five words you don’t want to hear, “So men can’t flirt anymore??!” I contemplated calmly standing up and flipping Lorraine’s beautifully set eight-foot table but realized that then I would have had to help with cleanup.

Hats off to them, but as their child I felt like I had to play the straight man to balance them out and keep people from writing us off. I was constantly following them with a metaphorical dustpan and broom and a panicked “nothing to see here!” look in my eyes.

In the car after one such afternoon I ask him what he wants to be when he grows up and he replies: “A stranger. A stranger who sits alone in a movie theater eating popcorn and no one talks to them.” Huh. Now, obviously this is my dream career as well, but for a two-year-old it implies something is off. I just don’t know what.

It was almost as if, were they to take any steps to safeguard their security and that of their small children, it would mean they had given up on humanity. It would be rude for us to protect ourselves, really.

Or the Starbucks cup I peed in at a stoplight, dashing from work to pick my son up from school. (What choice had I????? If I’m even a minute late getting him, the preschool director looks at me with such disappointment I have to take to the bed when we get home.)

There is zero shame in not being funny, only shame in thinking you are when you’re not.

Don’t offer anyone with chronic pain or a critical illness any treatment suggestions based on something you “read.” Assume and have respect for the fact they are doing all they can.

Similarly, I’m over this well-meant but rather insufferable demand that we all practice mindfulness all the time. In these times?? In 2020? You want me to be present for this?? No thanks! I will be practicing mindlessness, please and thank you. Let’s all make a pact to live our worst lives.

whistling is basically saying, I am so incredibly at ease in this world I feel fine filling the few sacred silences we have left with the sound of my dippity-doo-dah dipshit whistle.

beware the liberal white male. We know to shelter in place from conservative white men, but liberal guys are often hiding in plain sight.

Even the most well-meaning, bleeding-heart white men benefit HEALTHILY from the systems of oppression in this country that keep them at the top. And they may allow that boat to be rocked, but they still don’t want it tipped over.

And be wary of the liberal white woman. The feminists who I believe are trying very hard to advance women but have often forgotten to include and fight for the advancement of ALL women.

And up until a year ago, candy and I remained joined at the hip. Frenemies, though, really. I enjoyed hanging out less and less, and felt sick and demoralized after our times together, but I couldn’t quit her.

Mommy, It’s so fine. It’s so very fine to want to be better. To look better. To do better. To feel overwhelmed. To feel self-conscious. To feel trapped. To not know how to get out of something. Or be able to when you do know. Life is so hard. It’s okay to want to soften the edges. You were brave. You put yourself out there. You worked so hard to create change, and that takes a toll. You gave us so much. You had such a generous heart, so many big feelings (like me) and I understand. I get it. I’m mainly just so sorry you were ever suffering. I wish you got the help I am able to get. But it was a different time. And it’s okay. You were just being human. A warrior. A lioness. A Mama Bear. A big-hearted dynamo named Kathy Wilson, trying to do it all. And you are so much more than this. I love you to pieces. Love, Casey Rose