.SOMETIMES RAW.

Good morning dear applicants,

we are proud to announce that the Literary Ladybug Guilt (LLG) would be open to all applicants even the non-binary.

Non-Binary Defined:

“Some people don’t identify with any gender. Some people’s gender changes over time. People whose gender is not male or female use many different terms to describe themselves, with non-binary being one of the most common. Other terms include genderqueer, agender, bigender, and more.“

While we did everything in our power to get it right, we did receive some pushback on the application process. Comments such as “I am not a woman yet, but soon,” “I am tired of having to misgender myself just to access the already scarce resources for different genders in this world,” and “Will there be separate bathrooms for those who identify as ‘ally'” (see explanation in the picture above), and “Please, can I just use the bathroom in peace” made our evaluation committee stop and take notes. As the chair of that committee, I want to take some time to put your fears to rest.

Some people think that adding “nonbinary people” to our application form while not changing anything about our application process, or internet presence is evidence that we want credit for being inclusive without doing any actual work. Let me be clear: We want to create opportunities for ALL genders. That includes women, girls, men, queer, transgender, transsexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, questioning, intersex, ally, asexual or pansexual applicants.

But listen, we hear you. You, nonbinary people, are super-sensitive about being grouped in with the ladies for some reason, and we want to respect that enough to stop people from making mean Facebook comments about us. Your feedback has led our steering committee to take several steps to make the LLG even more accessible to nonbinary applicants, so we decided on the following rules:

• Wishing all applicants a Happy International LGBTTQQIAAP Day, and ignoring all of the feedback we have received on that practice earlier
• Spelling various gendered words with an “x” because inclusivity means all consonants are valid
• A mandatory screening of Brokeback Mountain during our last board meeting (we couldn’t find any movies about nonbinary people, but we figured it was close enough)
• Emailing several prominent nonbinary writers and asking them to give hours of free labor to our committee, and then passive-aggressively dragging them on Facebook when they say no
• Updating our application forms to LGBTTQQIAAP and “Diverse”

We have also heard your concerns about how your applications are evaluated by a committee that lacks sexual diversity, gender diversity, or racial diversity. While we share your concerns about diversity, we do not have the capacity to expand the committee at this time. Instead, we are making other efforts to include diverse voices in our operations.

We also acknowledge that for some, these efforts will not be enough. If you choose to withdraw your application, please be aware that we cannot refund your application fee, as we have already spent most of our budget on changing all the application form to LGBTTQQIAAP, non-binary and diverse. The other part of the budget spent goes to all those who applied as male and now identify as female and vice versa. Also, all the queers. For any disappointments, we are happy to offer a free ticket to the LGBTTQQIAAP Gala in Austria. It is mandatory to bring a rainbow flag. You’ll also need to help serve the hors d’oeuvres.

For those who decide that the LLG is not the right opportunity for them at this time, we hope you’ll see the changes we make and choose to apply again in the future. Thank you for supporting our mission of creating opportunities for every human being and also making sure those opportunities are branded like an eight-year-old girl’s birthday-home-pick up with a limousine for reasons we refuse to examine.

Gxrl pxwxr!

Yours,

—The LLG Committee

Employees:

Now that we are all finally starting to return to the office, I just thought it would be helpful to remind everyone again of the rules we had and have in place for keeping food in our shared refrigerator. Please follow these guidelines to help ensure the fridge remains a sanitary and healthy space for everyone who works here:

1. I will throw out everything in the fridge each Friday by 6 p.m. If you don’t want your leftovers to end up in the trash, TAKE THEM HOME!
2. Do NOT eat any food that isn’t yours, whether it’s a mostly full container of pad thai or a mysterious glowing paper bag that has been in the back of the fridge two weeks ago. If you see someone else’s name on it, leave it alone. If you don’t see someone else’s name on it but know it isn’t yours, leave it alone. If the glowing seems to be getting more ominously radiant as your flesh inches closer and closer toward the bag, definitely leave it alone.
3. If you accidentally eat someone else’s food, just own up to it. Do not pretend that you brought in the same meal or try to blame it on the glowing bag, as that generally just seems to make it angrier. Daniel was the last person to try that, and we never saw him again.
4. No, Daniel was not fired. We honestly have no idea where he went and am pretty worried.
5. If you see something in the fridge with a note on it that says FOR ANYONE, I guess you’re technically allowed to eat it, but keep in mind that this may just be the glowing bag trying to trick you into consuming something for sinister purposes. I am pretty sure it gained the ability to write while we were all working from home and is using this skill to foster a false sense of trust among our employees.
6. I know the fridge gets crowded, but try to keep your food away from other people’s food—especially if it contains peanuts or fish—and at least ten centimeter away from the glowing bag. Sarah hasn’t been quite the same and is suddenly fluent in Arabic since she left her salad right next to it all weekend. This is one of the reasons why I instituted the “food gets thrown out on Friday” rule, just FYI. That, and the smell was attracting flies.
7. The glowing bag is exempt from that “food gets thrown out on Friday” rule, in case you didn’t already assume that. The last cleaning lady who tried to throw it away vanished soon after, and now the temperature instantly drops by twenty degrees whenever I say her name.
8. Yes, I assume she and Daniel are in the same place. I just don’t know where that place is.
9. I really don’t like to ask about our employees’ religious beliefs, but I will say that one time a certain colleague put some sacramental wine in the fridge, and everything except the paper bag was covered in blood three minutes later. It totally spoiled the piece of pumpkin pie I had been looking forward to all day, so please don’t bring in any sacramental food items.
10. Make sure to always shut the fridge door completely. Leaving it open even just a crack could cause the food to spoil and allow the essence inside the glowing bag to escape its current confines and spread to all other parts of the office.
11. Do not adjust the temperature settings. I have confirmed with a sustainability expert and an exorcist that the fridge’s current temperature is optimized to be environmentally friendly and ward off evil spirits. Any adjustment could put both of those things at risk.
12. Clean up all spills immediately, unless the spill comes from the glowing bag, in which case flee the office immediately.
13. If you open the bag, you are subject to immediate termination. But you should let us know what’s in it before you leave. I’ve always assumed it was a demon, but Eva is convinced it’s just some really old egg salad.

Sincerely,
Jay, your beloved supervisor

P.S.: Print these rules and stick them to the fridge in your office. This is mandatory.

I knew nothing about owning a home, or any property for that matter, as I have always rented based on how things were looking, and I thought I will most likely rent for the rest of my life. Here’s what I assume owning a home is like:

There is a lot of dust everywhere. You spend 60 to 70 percent of your time dusting, but the house is never fully clean. In general, a home tends to be a dusty shrine to dust, hellbent on being dusty, and you must constantly rage against this. All homeowners have a duster thingy to clean spiderwebs —that’s one thing I know for a fact.

You’re always on the cusp of purchasing “a few chickens” to roam around the yard. Hell, you’ve got the space.

You host (garden) parties and invite friends, family, and—most importantly—neighbors. Children are all left with the neighborhood thirteen-year-old for the duration of the party or simply play with all the other kids at the party.

People are always coming to your door and either giving you stuff or asking you for stuff. People greet each other, even in the car on the street. People talk to you. Like people always have something for you (bread, jam, a ladder, tools) or want something from you (bread, jam, a ladder, tools). And they know you by name. Because you’re a homeowner and everyone knows homeowners by name.

Okay, so houses are either free or come at the price of your immortal soul, which is usually, in most cases, damned to hell for eternity. This is called a mortgage. If the home is free, it is usually due to a well-timed death in the family, I think?

You sometimes have to peel up your floor to see what’s underneath, and sometimes there’s a surprise. It could be tiles or just more floor but, like, better, or sorrowful letters from the previous owner dating back to the 1860s (best not to touch these because of curses and all that).

Owning a home means you also definitely have a book deal in the works. These two things go hand in hand. This is because houses have libraries where you can store all the books.

Also, ghosts live in the house and you have to befriend them. They like to open things and close things and you have to let them. It’s a nuisance, but sometimes they’ll sing for you.

You have at least one—and more than likely, two—serious chill out lounges. You sometimes cannot decide where to hang out at night because they are all so comfortable.

You have lots of toilets. And if you clog one, you can just use another one. And then you don’t have to unclog any of them until they’re all clogged. It’s maybe the number one benefit of owning a home.

You eat three meals a day at a table (square or round, both can fit inside a house) and talk with the people you’re with. These people tend to be your loving life partner as well as the child you didn’t think you would ever get, but have grown to love. You have to do a lot of talking because houses are big, so you don’t actually see these people very often.

You never lock your doors, but you have a floodlight over your driveway that even the slightest gust of wind can trigger. If this happens, you have to go downstairs and check to see if someone is trying to break into your house and murder you. You usually bring a tool with you in this scenario, and I believe the options are: a baseball bat, golf club, or heavy book. I could be missing a few.

Lots of dancing. Very spontaneous, late-evening talks, the silhouettes of you and your partner visible from the outside, contoured against the warm light from your fireplace.