Trixie Mattel - Trixie and Katyas Guide to Modern Womanhood

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Copyright 2020 by Brian Michael Firkus and Brian Joseph McCook

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Photos on by Gabriel D. Gastelum

Photo on by Joel Benjamin

All other photos by Albert Sanchez with creative director Pedro Zalba

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS C ATALOGING - IN - PUBLICA TION DATA

Names: Mattel, Trixie, author. | McCook, Brian, 1982 author.

Title: Trixie and Katyas guide to modern womanhood / Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova.

Description: New York : Plume, [2020] | Identifiers: LCCN 2019051047 (print) | LCCN 2019051048 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593086704 (POB) | ISBN 9780593086711 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: WomenConduct of lifeHumor. | Beauty, PersonalHumor.

Classification: LCC PN6231.W6 M38 2020 (print) | LCC PN6231.W6 (ebook) | DDC 818/.602dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019051047

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019051048

Accordingly nothing in this book is intended as an express or implied warranty of the suitability or fitness of any product, service, or design. The reader wishing to use a product, service, or design discussed in this book should first consult a specialist or professional to ensure suitability and fitness for the readers particular lifestyle and environmental needs.

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For all the ambitious female scientists out there

INTRODUCTION:

A s far as we know, there are THREE facets of your humanity that make you YOU.

Have you ever heard the phrase shes got a good head on her shoulders? This isnt alluding to your competitively priced dandruff-controlling shampoo. Among all the attributes one can present, being the sharpest acrylic toenail on the foot is the most select. In the real world, outwitting another is the equivalent of creeping up to their ear and whispering, I am inherently better than you.

The iconic John Waters said, If you go home with somebody, and they dont have books, dont fuck em! Dont sleep with people who dont read! Truthfully, you dont know where they keep their books, so this advice is fairly incomplete. In the summer, I keep my books in my refrigerator next to my AAA batteries and my watermelon SKYY vodka. Also: Owning books doesnt make someone intelligent. Reading books doesnt even make someone intelligent. Youre reading a book right now and youre dumb as hell.

Of course, intelligence presents in many forms. I once worked the front desk at a prestigious salon in Wisconsin. (Contradictory, I know.) Thats where I met Tara, a gorgeous young stylist with glowing skin, bright eyes, and supernaturally blond hair. She had a baby-doll voice and long charcoal lashes. Her clients consisted of women who wanted to be her and married men who wanted to abandon their families and abduct her. I was obsessed with Tara.

The average person would look at a Tara and decide she couldnt be a thinker. After her client consults, however, I would watch Tara bubble into the color room, pull out her glasses, and transition into a talented chemist. She could double-, triple-process colors and buzz out a couple ultraprecise mens cuts in between. After performing dazzling feats of beauty, she would leave every client feeling like they just had lunch with a Playboy Bunny.

Tara the not-so-scatterbrained stylist can teach us something! I learned that the girl who presents as ditzy might not want you to know how smart she is. Wielding intelligence welcomes expectation. Its better to lie in wait as a drooling stooge. Then you can floor everyone by solving a Rubiks Cube at a holiday party and be like, What?

As long as Ive been alive, I have known I was gorgeous. The longing glances from adult strangers, the catty remarks from peers, the sexual advances from Uber drivers. Using vocabulary from my Friday afternoon Lyft trip with Mohammad, I am what you would consider five stars.

However, beauty is entirely in the eye of the beholder. For example: A Trixie Mattel show was reviewed in Newcastle. Lets call the reviewer Kate because thats her name. Kate described me as someone who revels in the repulsion she exudes. Kate is, as my eye beholds, an ugly fucking cunt.

Of course, many physical attributes are inherently beautiful. Symmetrical features, an oval face, a gold grill. But in modern beauty, individuality and confidence are the oval face. Look at me, for example. Young? Childlike. Tight? As a drum. But I am, most importantly, odd-looking. Some would say I look like Patrick Stewart as a gay farmer. Some would say I look like an ASL interpreter who moonlights as a Klan member. I think I look like Caillou with fetal alcohol syndrome. But looking like a cross-dressing Elmer Fudd gives me uniqueness, and uniqueness has a magnetism all its own. Even now, you are flipping to the cover of this book to reexperience my hypnotizing gaze. Go ahead. Ill wait.

Conversely, let me tell you about my sister. In order to protect her identity, I dont want to use her real name, so lets call her an embarrassment to my whole family. My sister is classically beautiful. Shes a tall Native American goddess. Almond eyes, full cheekbones, and artisanal arched brows. Even our familys tradition of poorly-cared-for teeth (see the chapter titled Personal Hygiene) hasnt stunted her maturation into what rappers would call a thicc shawty.

However, the ETMWF has a tongue piercing. She also vapes and makes Instagram videos blowing the smoke out through her nose. A corrupted natural beauty, she is a Westin presenting as an airport Howard Johnson and I cry every night about it. Maybe living in the shadow of my beauty and fame has impaired her.

In any case, a true beauty knows how to make it work, Tim Gunn style. With the transformative magic of styling, hair, and makeup, two gay men can meet on a reality TV competition show and rise to the top of the entertainment industry. Or, for even more of a stretch, you could love yourself.

I believe it was the great prophet Britney Jean Spears who said, Theres only two types of people in the world; the ones that entertain and the ones that observe. Beauty is a lovely thing to possess, like dual citizenship or a will to live. And intelligence can really help you own a roomparticularly if that room is a commercialized escape-room experience. But a great personality can perform wonders: get an ugly girl invited to a social event, keep Ted Bundy on the run, or even land you and your vascular friend a book deal.