Rom Com Read online

Kate applies herself.

  Kate stands up.

  Kate transcends.

  Kate stars.

  Kate eases.

  Kate whispers.

  Kate reminds.

  Kate Kate Kate Kate Kate Kate Kate Kate Kate Kate Kate.

  Kate.

  Kate.

  Eat, Pray, Love

  I took meditation classes

  and I’m still alone.

  You’re Supposed to Be Engaged

  The camera pans over a wedding ceremony. Two young lovers rush out into a burst of flowers and confetti.

  The camera pans down a neon theatre sign. A young couple walks out onto a snowy Chicago street.

  The camera pans over Florida. A man comes into focus.

  He puts on his jeans while a woman sleeps in the bed.

  The camera pans over San Francisco, cuts to Chinatown, firecrackers frighten a man. Two trolleys pass by. A man wanders the street in New Year’s garb. A couple talk excitedly about a party they are heading to.

  The camera pans over a Halloween party in full swing.

  A man in a Bill Clinton mask dances. Three women dressed as Monica Lewinsky dance in a circle. Another person in a Hillary Clinton mask arrives and Bill Clinton mask runs away. He lets himself into apartment 11b and begins to take off his clothes. He gets into bed with a woman who is asleep. She screams when he wakes her up.

  The camera is out of focus. Pink. A woman pulls away a bra from the camera and her image becomes clear. Women shop for lingerie, the camera moves towards a man looking at tiny panties. He is offered help by a lady. He says no, awkwardly. Hands her the panties.

  The camera pans over a hill. A woman is in a wedding dress, riding a horse along a large pasture. She is clearly frightened.

  The camera pans over a children’s room. A young girl is playing with her dolls, which are set up as if they are at a wedding. The light shines through the window, and the room turns to the colour of nostalgia. A small pink vinyl player turns and turns as the girl organizes the dolls.

  The camera zooms slowly towards a foggy city. Cut to a woman waking up in an apartment. A radio announcer is promoting a contest. The woman frantically grabs her phone.

  The camera pans over the head of an officer showing a very large crowd of people behind a gate. The officer looks concerned. Cut to a magazine cover with a missing cover photo with the headline Wedding of the Century. Cut back to the officer opening giant doors, a woman in a wedding gown runs out, her face blurred by her veil.

  Jokes

  Set-ups, contrived

  misinterpretations,

  dog-park precursors, good

  old-fashioned lies. No

  pay off.

  Men’s underpants, hair and hair

  removal, jockstrap, sexualized

  fruit.

  Women’s oversized underpants, hairy

  knuckles or faces, bras and bra-removal

  techniques, sexualized fruit.

  Can we please

  get some decent potty humour?!

  A beautiful woman walks into a bar,

  drinks until blind, stumbles

  onto a dick.

  Break it down, make it

  easier:

  Did you hear that one about _____________________?

  _______________________?

  Punchline

  That’s not funny.

  It’s not

  supposed to be, it’s a

  romantic comedy. But

  I’m still laughing.

  The Funny Thing Is

  The funny this is you can’t remember

  how to tell a knock-knock joke.

  What do you get when you cross

  a kitten’s face with Jon Hamm’s face

  and a grilled cheese sandwich?

  Turned on. And probably disappointed.

  Knock, knock?

  Who’s there?

  Your dusty vagina.

  Your dusty vagina who?

  Um, no one.

  What do you call a woman

  standing in front of a mirror

  pretending she is talking

  to a crush? You don’t call

  her. Nobody does. Don’t

  check your phone. It’s fine.

  Don’t you get it?

  The joke is you.

  Matthew McConaughey’s Abs

  Haven’t been alive for

  over seven years. This is why he is always

  falling over in movie covers, tilting due to

  ab loss. So you fall in love with Matthew

  McConaughey’s zombie abs. They are

  flesh dripping and flapping from his stomach.

  They awkwardly try to buy you a coffee

  at the Starbucks. You decline because

  you are late, but his dead abs manage to

  sneak their phone number into your pocket.

  Then his dead abs keep bumping into you.

  At the abandoned Blockbuster Video, at

  the abandoned Gap, and the abs

  always say the wrong thing, so you don’t

  forget them as you walk away. Now,

  you can’t stop thinking about dead zombie

  abs. The way dead zombie abs laughed

  at your jokes and took you to abandoned

  beaches that are too toxic to swim in.

  You both sip coconut water from sterilized

  plastic coconut containers. When you decided

  that the earth was too much and you wanted

  to leave, his dead abs stopped you, just

  at the rocketport, to tell you they were

  in love with you too, so deep in love

  that it shook them to their dead core.

  Matthew McConaughey’s Arms

  Are T. Rex-sized

  and he can barely fit them around

  any human body. Optical illusions

  are used to make everyone believe

  in his romance and sweet Southern

  magnetism. Hot lights illuminate

  his cheese-eating smile, a soda

  in his folded knuckle, a woman photoshopped

  into a Barbie husk. His hugs are weak,

  like, have his arms been smoking weed too?

  Who makes an arm so short?

  I thought you had to go big in Texas

  or go home sad and alone to some other place.

  A place of stubby appendages.

  Short arms deliver less love,

  lack urgency and force. Every embrace

  a pinch, a fresh lobstery cling.

  He grasps at emotion

  and it slips from his arms

  like a satin sheet. Satin is also not that

  romantic. This is why he started making

  awards-baiting dramas.

  There was no way

  he could fool everyone forever,

  his cover blown any time

  he reaches for the top shelf.

  Porn Parodies

  Dick Edition

  Under the Tuscan Dick

  Dicks Actually

  27 Dicks

  (500) Dicks of Summer

  Mystic Dick

  Dick of Honor

  50 First Dicks

  Dick Wars

  How to Lose a Dick in 10 Days

  My Best Friend’s Dick

  Dicks with Benefits

  My Big Fat Greek Dick

  When Dick Met Dick

  Pretty Dick

  Groundhog Dick

  The 40-Year-Old Dick

  You’ve Got Dick

  10 Things I Hate about Dicks

  Bridget Jones’s Dick

  Dick Could Happen to You

  Porn Parodies

  Vagina Edition

  The Vagina Singer

  Vagina’s Day

  The Vagina Planner

  Music and Vaginas

  Sweet Home Vagina

  What Happens in Vagina

  There’s Something about Vaginas

&nb
sp; Notting Vagina

  Groundhog Vagina

  Silver Linings Vagina

  Four Weddings and a Vagina

  The Philadelphia Vagina

  Vagina In-Law

  Forgetting Sarah’s Vagina

  40 Days and 40 Vaginas

  Pretty in Pink

  Definitely, Vagina

  The Back-Up Vagina

  Just Vaginas

  Vagina Crashers

  He’s Just Not That into Vagina

  Crazy, Stupid, Vagina

  She’s All Vagina

  Ever Wondered If You Might Be

  the City as a Character

  in a Romantic Comedy?

  FIND OUT NOW!

  Check all that apply:

  You consider romance your roadwork.

  The way you approach civic responsibility is through corner flower shops that sell only red roses by the dozen.

  Your streetlights are perfect for illuminating the faces of lovers overcoming petty feuds.

  Your landmarks are so universally known they can be identified from space.

  You can’t see stars from where you are.

  You are London.

  You are Paris.

  You are New York City.

  Slow Motion

  Coil your hair into a tight bun. Wind strands until you feel societal pressure claim your soul. When you see your potential lover, pull out whatever holds it in place. Shake your hair around like you have a horrible spider in it.

  Walk down the street in high heels. Stare at something beautiful in the distance, like an imaginary ideal life-partner. Do not trip.

  Look up from your first edition of Ulysses. Look directly into the sunlight. Take off your glasses and reveal crystal blue irises. Never blink.

  Make meaningful eye contact with the person you love. Linger on the darkness of their pupils. Be drawn in. Raise a finger to your lips. Bite down until you draw blood.

  Adam Sandler

  A Love Story

  He was the one. First crush. Big nose,

  big head, big T-shirts, baggy shorts

  slung carelessly. A sloppy fool.

  To me he was perfect.

  Charmed by his childish voice

  I aspired to be more ridiculous,

  to seek unpopular, bumbling love.

  I imagined life with a man

  who wouldn’t know how to wear a suit.

  I never thought about the meaning of grown-ups,

  never used the word “man-child.” I watched

  him love and rage in movies and on television,

  flickers of tenderness as he strummed silly songs,

  glimmers of mischief as he mocked everyone.

  I never questioned a man living his fantasy

  of never needing to behave like a “grown man.”

  I never thought it was wrong to think

  with my heart, even when it acted like an idiot.

  I never thought a heart could steer you into a mess.

  When he sang, “PUT A BULLET IN MY HEAD!”

  I wanted to cradle that big head

  in my lap, whisper gibberish in his ear.

  What’s not to love?

  What’s Not to Love,

  Adam Sandler?

  1

  The movie came at me with fists,

  it closed around my neck. I saw

  Chuck and Larry in the theatre

  and the laughter behind my seat

  sounded familiar. It left the same

  iron taste in my mouth as the time seven

  men followed me and my friends

  into a 7-Eleven and taught us the way

  mens’ fists can change a face

  and what bloody shirts feel like.

  2

  When I hear the name Rob Schneider

  it sounds like someone whispering transphobia.

  You do this voice when you’re trying to be funny

  but it is the punctuation to a racist joke.

  When the First Nations people walked off

  your movie set, did you wonder why

  you didn’t just clone Rob Schneider so that

  he can play all of your ethnic roles?

  When the two male friends kissed

  in Big Daddy, I had to suppress my desire.

  I guess that’s one thing I will love

  about you, dumbass.

  (500) Dicks of Summer

  You spent the summer at weddings, making

  invitations for friends, holding babies on

  the dance floor. Lacing speeches with memories.

  Your ex followed you wherever you went

  to remind you that ghosts are real, shadows

  miss you, anxiety is your real boyfriend.

  At the last wedding, you are the emcee

  and make jokes that fall flat for the audience.

  You are Katherine Heigl as a punchline.

  Your ex finds you again, one last time,

  his new boyfriend next to him, smiling,

  saying how touching your speech is.

  He has that glazed look in his eyes:

  familiar, it transports you to the

  first night he kissed you behind elevator doors.

  The next day you have drinks with the

  wedding party, and they recount last

  night, joke by joke.

  They look at you and ask if everything

  was okay with your ex, especially

  considering he was so high on coke.

  Dicks Actually

  a found poem

  A philanderer faces a major life

  crisis when his penis detaches itself

  and takes human shape, forcing

  him to try to control his wayward genitalia.

  A Series of Romantic Comedies

  That Could Never Be Made

  for Jonathan Ball

  A woman dates every man on earth until she is too old to date. On her deathbed, she meets the man of her dreams: the doctor who pulls her off life support. “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette plays during the credits.

  * * *

  A man must relive his entire life over and over again until he meets a woman who can alter space and time.

  * * *

  A man does not feel human emotions. In his quest for empathy and feeling, he finds a woman without human emotions. They decide to spend their life together due to similarities. They are neither happy or sad about this outcome.

  * * *

  A woman must murder every single other woman on earth in order to marry the man she loves.

  * * *

  A man falls in love with a corpse. He reanimates her using technology.

  * * *

  Steve is one of the last men on earth. Adam is one of the last men on earth. Adam changes his sexuality in order to avoid the loneliness. With no females, the earth collapses. They walk back into the ocean and let the salt water consume them.

  * * *

  A man falls for an inanimate object that becomes an alternate life force only the man can feel or see. Parker Posey plays the best friend.

  * * *

  Kyle has a rage addiction. Sally has low self-esteem. They meet at a group counselling session and fall in love with the cycle of their rage and low self-esteem until they no longer exist.

  * * *

  Darryl is perpetually trapped in Friday. He can never escape Friday, it just repeats itself over and over again. Larry is the soulmate he would meet on Saturday.

  * * *

  Kate and Steven never meet. They spend their entire lives just missing each other. One leaves a coffee shop just as another enters, one works the day shift, one works the night shift. They would fall in love if their paths ever crossed, but they never do. Love inhabits the spaces they never meet. It fills the blank spots.

  Valentine’s Day

  for Dina Del Bucchia

  Otters are about love,

  or about the other, about the way

  we change the world
in each moment;

  a YouTube video that forgets depression

  or, you are the otter,

  holding my small otter hand, or

  they placed a fuck-load of celebrities

  in a movie that confuses the idea of love

  that gets it wrong every time.

  And I spend $13.50 on that notion.

  We send the one we love an animated GIF

  instead of asking, “How are you?”

  Valentine’s Day had a budget of $52 million.

  I told you I loved you in a Facebook message,

  but I wrote it between a joke,

  did you notice? When you see Ashton Kutcher

  walk into the scene, you know the movie

  will be a disappointment.

  They met for an “I Hate Valentine’s” dinner.

  They should have stayed home and finished their laundry.

  Sometimes, life feels like

  Ashton Kutcher just walked into the scene,

  When you leave, when

  the plane floats off, and I am still here,

  we blister. Or,

  we flood.

  I’ll still be here, when the water damage

  crusts, or when we callus.

  They confuse the notion of love.

  They get it wrong every time.

  They spend $52 million getting it

  wrong in under two hours.

  I am $13.50 divided by $52 million,

  or,

  what if my dislike of Ashton Kutcher

  is just another way to avoid loneliness?

  Or, maybe we both relate too much to Anne Hathaway,

  because poetry can’t pay the bills but the phone sex can.

  All the celebrities in the world

  can’t fix a broken heart,

  or, Kathy Bates

  just reminds me of Misery,

  or,

  that,

  love

  is the all-consuming moment

  before Ashton Kutcher

  walks into the scene.

  What’s Your Number?

  [Opening credits]

  Scan over magazines,

  headlines about how to fall in love.

  Those love-life instructions induce

  anxiety and confuse so many heroines.

  [Intro to leading lady]