BLCKSMTH introduces its first contributing editor, Jennie Kay. Jennie Kay poses as a communication design specialist while packing a six-shooter of creative wit and observation. Originally from Michigan, she has lived in California for the past thirteen years, and currently resides in Antigua, Guatemala.

Anaheim Gothic (hat-tip to Paul Plunkett)

Here’s a piece of hers. It’s typical of her fresh, vulnerable, authentic voice. I’m a fan. You will be too. Visit her website, or find her on Facebook.

“Welcome To My (Microwaved-Organic-Low Calorie-Horribly Unsatisfying) Life”

I have decided to split up with my boyfriend. I made the decision.

I realize that it is not for lack of care or anything he has or has not done, which unfortunately I blame way too much on him in the first place, poor guy. Simply put, there is nothing he does that makes me a better person.

He helps me throw better parties, but that is not really a relationship skill, or is it?

My friend Greg says it is.

He says it means you ultimately know how to work together. That is great, but throwing a good party isn’t helping me finally lose some weight and feel better about myself, throwing a better party is not getting told my tits look fantastic (frankly, it usually is, but not by him), throwing an amazing party is not going to help me figure out what the hell I am doing with my life, throwing a great party isn’t helping me pay off the credit cards I have been living off of the last three months and it sure as hell won’t tell me if I can seriously commit to helping a child grow up.

What it will tell me is that I can have a great time and be the life of the party by drinking too much, or I can sit back and observe everything and then have no less than nine people on at least fourteen occasions in the evening ask me if I am doing “OK”.

(My favorite are the repeat askers, because in my sobriety I was certainly not convincing enough)

What is OK?

I looked it up on dictionary.com and it gave a list of defining adjectives.

Agreeable; acceptable: Jennie, are you OK? Are you agreeable and acceptable to the environment that your party is providing and us, as guests, ultimately sustaining?

Satisfactory; good: Jennie, are you OK? Are you finding yourself to be a satisfactory and with any bit of push, a good person?

Not excellent and not poor; mediocre:  Jennie, are you OK? Are you not excellent and not poor? Are you mediocre? Because I am asking you in a caring tone, I am letting you know that is the most I ever hope or expect for you, mediocrity; and to show my sincerity, I am going to furrow my brow, lower my tone and at any point in the next three drinks, offer to talk to you in the bathroom for the reason that it may possibly elicit some type of life-confession to explain your current sobriety.

In proper or satisfactory operational or working order: Jennie, are you OK? Are you in proper and/or satisfactory working order? I am concerned you are not, as I expect you to be hammer-down drunk and not wearing pants, but I see you are standing here having a polite conversation drinking San Pelligrino and this concerns me.

Correct: Jennie, are you OK? Are you standing here wondering if you possibly were not correct in some action or moment in your life? Because we are all OK, therefore, we are at best to inquire and aide if you are not OK.

Uninjured; safe: Jennie, are you OK? Since you are actually completely sober, I am worried ultimately, about your safely and well-being. I would be far more comfortable if you were putting cigarettes out on the carpet and throwing your drunken soon-to-be-corpse down a flight of stairs.

Fairly healthy; well: Jennie, are you OK? Are you fairly healthy? Are you well? Are you not receiving any serious hair-altering treatment for cancer, but still obviously overweight? As long as you are not sick enough to make me feel guilty and not well enough to make me feel like crap about myself, then I am going to have a better, more rewarding, experience at your party. I just need to know that you…are….OK.

You get the point.

I don’t want to be in love right now. Which is good, because I am not, but I do want to be someday. I never really subscribed to that whole best-selling Mars/Venus trap, however the older I get (take two, this time with the sage hat) it does make a little sense. Every girl, I don’t care how big of a dick they think they have, always wonders what it would be like to be married to or in some kind of long term situation with the people they meet/date/become friends with. I am not saying every single one of them, but yeah, hmmm…that good friend that has two kids, boys, of course. I could be a stepmom! For sure, they would love me, it would be great, we would high-five (I would learn how to do this and not look like a complete fool) and I would wear their high school team jersey on game days. I would be that cool semi-attractive (in that great funny way) step mom and their friends would tell me how sucky their parents were and I would listen and I wouldn’t be sucky. I would be very non-sucky and neat and stable and super and supportive and I wouldn’t want to do things like drive away to Mexico and never come back, I would never think of doing things like stabbing my sister in law in the face when she says something that she doesn’t mean to be rude, but ultimately totally is and most importantly of all I certainly wouldn’t be living the life I am now.

I would be a great person, a good person, a person that knows how to barbeque, but wouldn’t because I would be tossing a salad and my husband would be barbequing. There would be meat, lots of meat and no one would even think of not eating meat because it would all be sustainable, or we would all be too delightfully dumb to even consider sustainability in any factor of our life and everyone would be laughing and sweet and I wouldn’t be crass or coarse or any of those things, I would be fun, and everyone would know I could be crass and coarse, but I wouldn’t, I would be witty and charming and law abiding and roll my eyes when the funny uncle smokes a joint on the porch and I would do something clever and fun as a career, out of the house and I would be organized and never stressed and never put duct tape over the service light on my car, because I would also be financially responsible and would have the money and wherewithal to get a tune up when it is needed, on my not too flashy, but still kind of hip in its own way car that isn’t brand new, but isn’t too old either.

Or better yet, I could become the endearing life partner to my friend, the artist-cum-contractor, which is of course deeply soulful and misunderstood, and we would be those great hipsters with a tiny place in San Francisco with just enough room for him to work on his art in the tiny garage, but not to park a car, and I would never buy more than one small-reusable-bag-that-I-would-never-forget-to-take-to-the-store of groceries at a time, from a local market and I would be totally with it and organic, but still sassy and chic. My art would be together and complete and non-manic and he would still be a contractor, to a point, but more to the point of the projects he chooses, but his main love and commitment would, of course, be his formerly-fueled-by-cocaine-but-no-longer art and we would have this great, deep understanding love that would eventually produce a very much loved child that would be adored by our small circle of friends (gay and straight) who all are minimalists and we would only own one vehicle and we would camp often, with no conflict, and I would be that great cool person who has a kid on one hip and still can figure out public transportation without any worry or stress.

There would be knowledged banter about local politicians and measures on the ballot. There would be sincere and furrow-browed concern over violent acts by our government.  There would be confessional laughter over secretly enjoying big blockbuster hits that involve tidal waves, but our love would be, naturally, for independent film. Our friends that did home school wouldn’t be weird, they would be good people that are involved in some type of collaborative effort toward bettering themselves and their neighborhood. Did I mention the little garden with his sculptures cradling our future feasts? We would have a great relationship with both of our families and a rocking sex life that wasn’t as wild as I would like it to be, which would be my gripe, in a funny way, but we would laugh about it and it wouldn’t be weird, it would be fun sex and silly sex and sex that makes you wink the next day across the room.

If neither of those paths work for me, I could possibly go a whole other path, wherein I fall deeply and madly in love with my holy-heavens-cock-strapping-manchick professor. We would have had a witty repoire, we would have carefully played it until the grades are in, and then somehow through a course of wordful, yet consistent emails we end up late at night slammed up against a tree being fueled by great wit and better passions.  Fast forward on and years later we have big dogs and small SUVs, with a great circle of friends that fully understand that it is not about being gay, it is about being with someone that makes you complete, and we would be that complete couple. That complete fun lesbian-but-not-so-lesbian-just-to-be-lesbian-but-because-you-met-the-right-person-so-lesbian couple that would be great and supportive and well read and she would be a great intellectual and I would always try to keep up and she would be at conferences and we would talk late at night and I would tell her what the dogs did that day and she would tell me how she almost tripped onstage at a speaking engagement and we would complain about injustices and write the letters and host campaigns and do things that make a difference. We would both complain about our weight, but we would still share tiny overpriced tubs of ice cream.  We would walk the dogs together and laugh at the other dogs on the beach and we would read things that make us better people, not books that bitch about dating, and she would make fun of me because I spend too much on make up, but it would be ok, because I was her girl and she would make me soft and sweet, but still kind of tough, and we would never have to deal with either family, they would just disappear and we would grow old and own a little house somewhere that made us happy and lay down at night and kiss softly as only two girls can.

Despite any of these non-existent scenarios, that can be made up regarding any person one meets, what I wouldn’t be is sitting alone braless in a tank top and hemp mini skirt listening to songs no one else wants to listen to but me realizing that I dripped part of my frozen-organic-low-calorie-and-horribly-unsatisfying burrito on my desk like thirty minutes ago and now have to scrape it off with my thumbnail, and of course my desk is completely white so it sits there, this scab of microwaved-organic-low-caloire-and-horribly-unsatisfying-failure staring me in the face, only to be brushed to the ground to fester into the carpet making me feel even worse about my terrifying fear of the noise the vacuum cleaner makes. This would not be the outcome of any scenario I had ideally painted, so it makes me wonder why I am here, what I am doing with my life and what life I can possibly sustain to take all this and meld it with another person and who the hell that person is going to be.