Weird but Normal: Essays
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Weird but Normal: Essays

Weird but Normal: Essays

by Mia Mercado

Overview

Birth control. Body hair removal cream. Boobs. It’s all weird, but also pretty normal.

Navigating racial identity, gender roles, workplace dynamics, and beauty standards, Mia Mercado's hilarious essay collection explores the contradictions of being a millennial woman, which usually means being kind of a weirdo. Whether it’s spending $30 on a candle that smells like an ocean that doesn’t exist, offering advice on how to ask about someone’s race (spoiler: just don’t, please?), quitting a job that makes you need shots of whiskey on your lunch break, or finding a more religious experience in the skincare aisle at Target than your hometown Catholic church, Mia brilliantly unpacks what it means to be a professional, absurdly beautiful, horny, cute, gross human. Essays include:

•     Depression Isn’t a Competition but Why Aren’t I Winning?

•     My Dog Explains My Weekly Schedule

•     Mustache Lady

•     White Friend Confessional

•     Treating Objects Like Women

With sharp humor and wit, Mia shares the awkward, uncomfortable, surprisingly ordinary parts of life, and shows us why it’s strange to feel fine and fine to feel strange.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780062942807
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 05/19/2020
Pages: 272
Sales rank: 486,896
Product dimensions: 5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

MIA MERCADO is a writer whose work focuses on intersectional feminism and identity politics. She is a staff writer for Bustle and her work has also been featured in The New Yorker, the New York Times, McSweeney’s, Reductress, Bust, The American Bystander, Gizmodo, and The Hairpin.

Table of Contents

Preface/Intro/I Don't Know What to Call This 1

Part I On Being Human™

I Am the Girl from Your Tampon Commercials 7

White Friend Confessional 17

The Happiest Place on Earth, God Dammit 23

A Time Line of My Online Personas 29

You're from the Midwest?! What's That Like? 41

Mamma Mia 45

Depression Isn't a Competition, but, Like, Why Aren't I Winning? 53

Part II On Being Professional

How to Quit Your Job and Change Your Life 69

Work Orientation for Women 87

College 101 91

How I Take My Coffee 101

Procrastination but Make It Look Put Together 103

My Dog Explains My Weekly Schedule 113

Part III On Being Domestic and Beautiful

Mustache Lady 119

I'm a Guy's Girl 129

National American Miss Pre-teen Wisconsin 133

Hollywood and Media Representation Presents: How Women Age 147

Bath & Body Works Is the Suburban Nonsense I Crave 155

Items of Clothing, Defined 159

Does This Count as Exercise? 165

Part IV On Being Horny and in Love and Sometimes Even Both

All the Things I Thought Sex Was 171

Attention Target Shoppers: This Store Is Now Rife with Sexual Tension 179

How to Date Online 183

Treating Objects like Women 193

A Nice Piece of Satire You Can Take Home to Your Parents 197

I Don't Know How to Be a Bride 201

The Holy Sacrament of Birth Control 209

Part V On Being Human

Learning How to Not Shit Myself 217

Daily Affirmations for My Sister 225

Father Mia 231

Can I Be a Good Girl While Still Getting Fucked Up? 239

Can I Ask This Person About Their Race: A Guide 247

All Rise for the Honorable Mia Mercado 251

Acknowledgments 261

About the Author 263

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