Quietly Hostile

by Samantha Irby

Some friend of my wife’s said to me—who am I, a balding stand-up comic in 1987??—after using the dry cleaner recommendation she’d asked me for a week earlier, “That strip mall where you told me to get my pants hemmed is so depressing. I can’t believe you go there.” I leaned against my open front door, in a fraying hoodie and soiled pajama bottoms, blinking at her over my first Diet Coke of the day. What did she want from me? What was I supposed to say? “I can’t believe you go there!” she repeated, and it became clear to me that she wanted…an explanation. An apology.

Imagine me saying, “I’m sorry that the home of Bill’s Greeting Card Hut and Lucy’s Luxury Lashes wasn’t up to your exacting standards, and I apologize for making you look at dull brown bricks.” I would rather live inside the Value City that’s next door to Glamour Nails! But I didn’t say anything, and she chuckled again, saying, “It’s so ugly!” followed by an anticipative pause.

Someone reading this who understands how broken brains work is probably formulating a theory about the connection between my impoverished, unstable childhood and my burning need to create a cozy home in a space I was going to be in for the time it takes a fractured toe to heal, but I only have a high school diploma so it’s not gonna be me.

“Don’t you wish you’d had a kid?” Do I wish I could stand idly by and witness all the things I hate about myself manifested in, and mirrored back to me by, a person it’s against the law for me to kill? I absolutely do not!

I don’t like the nail salon because in my daily life, I am trying to apologize less for simply existing, and that’s impossible to do in a place where a stranger you’ve known for thirty seconds acts personally insulted by the ragged state of your cuticles.

Diseased Brain is louder and meaner—and, if we’re being honest, funnier—than Regular Brain, and the only tool I have to shout it down is one I developed called “Wedding Guest,” which mostly involves repeating “You are not the bride” over and over to myself when I get overwhelmed about being seen by other human eyes and only having greasy sweatshirts at my disposal to present myself in.

“I really love you, Mom,” I said. She held the mask away from her mouth, looked at me, looked over at my sister, opened her toothless mouth, and croaked, her voice soaked in predeath and bitterness, “Are you sure?” EXCUSE ME, MA’AM, BUT I’M SORRY, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY?