Falling Down The Stairs🤕
& Other things that are humiliating ☠️
On Tuesday morning I committed myself to a morning of hard work at Lazy Suzy, my work-from-home coffee shop of choice. I woke up at the crack of dawn (8am), waited for Solveig Gordon to leave the apartment (it is important to give commuting girls adequate space in the morning), and quickly got ready to grind. I packed my new complimentary Vogue tote with all the essentials for a productive sesh, wrapped myself in my massive scarf, slipped in my AirPods, and carefully slid my feet into my wool Halflingers. Now, the universe must have noticed that I have had a pretty good week, and decided that I needed some humbling. Immediately after I left the house and made my way down my building stairs my right foot slipped underneath me and I fell on my butt and slid down nearly the entire staircase. Cartoon character style. The slip was loud. The comedown was hard. I was left bruised in my mind, body, and spirit. I took a moment to sit on the steps, and let out a few small whimpers. Eventually, I picked myself up. Dusted myself off. Collected my fallen items and returned to my regularly scheduled programming.
Today I am left with multiple bruises and a few aching muscles, but my ego has recovered. However, the experience left me thinking about what it means to be humiliated. Like the iconic philosophical question, If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it did it really fall? I am left wondering if you fall down the stairs and no one is around to hear or see it can you really be humiliated? Is humiliation a team sport? A partner game? Or can it be a solo affair?
Falling down the stairs is certainly, stage 1 humiliating. It is a classic mess-up. The simplest of human errors. No matter where or when it will certainly feel humiliating. The experience left me reflecting on all other experiences of humiliation, so here is a list of the most humiliating things that have happened to me (or others) over the past few months ranked:
Mildly humiliating, but nothing a little chuckle can’t heal
Screeching very loudly after a rat spotting only to find that there was in fact a very pretty girl smoking her very cool cigarette in her very long trench coat a short step ahead of you
Getting caught in a solo listening sesh to Man or Muppet on Spotify
Bragging to multiple people that your Substack newsletter (for work, not Zibborazzi ofc) went viral but actually it just got hacked and one person viewed it over 3,000 times.
Explaining to the cool employee at the gym why you brought a book to your workout and that book in question is a memoir by a mommy blogger in prospect park
Accidentally getting on the wrong train, riding for way too long without realizing, just to get on another wrong train after that (solvs would like to acknowledge this only happened one time)
Getting caught at work wearing your little pink mopping shoes even though you finished mopping hours ago (they keep your toes warm)
mop shoes
Very humiliating and you will likely never forget this
Sitting on chewed gum and getting it all over your very light-washed jeans (this happened to a customer and I had to clean the gum off the bench so humiliating for both of us but worse for him)
Showing up to the function after work with a million things inside your bag and like 8 layers on and absolutely nowhere to put any of them
Taking the trash out. Every time.
Getting caught by your roommate in the kitchen watching a Kawaii stationary haul on youtube
Impulsively cutting your hair in the bathroom at work with a pair of very dull crafting scissors
Top-tier humiliating. Time to accept defeat
Missing your mouth when drinking water and having to wipe the dribble off your chin
Slipping on the train when it starts moving and propelling your Farmers Market Food Stamp produce coupons halfway across the car… and proceeding to walk around picking each one up
Sniffing your flonase in the morning (Hot girls have allergies)
Getting a little too drunk off two negronis at your college alumni event at a bar in midtown (this could be about me or this could be about Beth Ann)
Asking the Latina woman at the taco shop if she will make you a Philly cheesesteak at 2 am (I am sorry Elyse)
Humiliation is a part of the human experience. It is not an enjoyable part of the experience but an essential one nonetheless. If you are someone who doesn’t identify with being humiliated then I ask, what are you afraid of? Can you live life to the fullest if you’re afraid of a bit of embarrassment? What will it do to you if not make you a more well-rounded individual? At the end of the day, life is about having a little laugh and we all deserve that. But I would recommend not wearing your slippers out of the house unless you want to take a tumble down the steps.
Zibborazzi: Revolution or Evolution?
For those of you who have stuck around through the many shifts and changes that Zibborazzi has encountered, I thank you. For those of you who are newer, here is a brief history. The first ever Zibborazzi (St. Johns House Gossip) came from humble beginnings and spread to a small community of my closest friends and family. The intention of the first Zibborazzi was really to be a gossip column. All I wanted to do was to make people laugh and test those social boundaries. Zibborazzi: St. Johns House Gossip is an archival project of my senior year of college, and the silliness that my friends and I managed to get into when we were socially isolated on campus. In 2022 when I revived Zibborazzi (subtitled Serving the Tea at 1933), it was mostly the same but this time with new characters included. Serving the Tea at 1933 also saw some new sections and explored new formats. Now, in 2023, Zibborazzi has taken on a third form, this time subtitled Your Brooklyn Bestie. As Zibborazzi has morphed and changed, I’ve been left to wonder: is this still the same Zibborazzi that we know and love? Have I subconsciously revolutionized Zibborazzi into being something completely different? Void of gossip? Or is this simply an evolution? Is Zibborazzi just evolving as I evolve?
Back in 2021 and the spring of 2022, I was not writing as a career. Zibborazzi felt like a passion project of sorts that reminded me of the joy of making others laugh. When I started Zibborazzi I was writing often in the form of academic papers, and editing various passion project pieces, but I was not writing for my enjoyment. When I re-introduced Zibborazzi in Philly, (encouraged by Olivia Peer), it was around the same time that I considered submitting writing to publications. Being out of the academic environment last year and without the abundant creative resources I was offered in undergrad, I was feeling like something was missing. Zibborazzi was a step back into that world — it was the first evolution. Serving the Tea at 1933 stimulated my creative and design mind too as I attempted to create a brand with a cohesive color scheme, font choice, and newly organized sections. Eventually, I was too burnt out and too busy and that second Zibborazzi form came to a close.
In September, I was encouraged again (this time by Penelope Musto), to re-start Zibborazzi. At New Women Space I had overheard a writing teacher explain that they started a Substack during the pandemic as a way to commit to a regular writing process. As I was trying to navigate how to blend my work writing under a curated brand voice with Sustainable Baddie, as well as continue growing and developing my own voice, a substack seemed like a perfect way to re-commit to Zibborazzi. The third evolution of Zibborazzi was born.
Zibborazzi is still only two years old but has morphed and changed significantly. In some ways, this is a revolution. A personal revolution in which I am revolutionizing my ideas of what kind of writer I could be and revolutionizing what kind of writing I thought people wanted from me. But it is also an evolution where St. Johns House Gossip's original google docs edition of Zibborazzi has grown into a more complex existence. Although it could be argued that Serving the Tea at 1933, with its curated color scheme, font selection, and specific article sections, is a more complex beast than this substack, the evolution is in the content. Through this current version of Zibborazzi, I am learning to show up more authentically. I am choosing to micro-dose my vulnerability and worry not about audience feedback. I am learning that people will accept many parts of me and not only the ones that make them laugh. I am learning that my words can make people think, smile, and even cry sometimes. I am learning that through authenticity, and by showing up as myself, my experiences, and my stories, resonate.
That’s all for my words this week. As always — I am grateful to all of you for being here through the revolutions and evolutions. You help me feel seen. Closing out another Zibborazzi with a playlist of all the songs I have been jamming to this week. Tell me your favorite if you give it a listen.