October 24, 2002
Super Kung Fu Make You Grow Big and Tall Like Janeane Garofalo
So like... I've always been five feet tall. Five Oh. Well, technically Five Feet and One Half Inch Tall, but i always rounded down to five feet because rounding up would make me feel like I was lying, like a big lying braggart ("I'm Five One, How About That La Di Da Aren't I the Cat's Bloody Pajamas Don't You Think?"), and mentioning the half inch would make me feel like I was 4 (and a half) (years old, not feet tall). And also because when someone says "how tall are you?" you don't say "five feet and a half inch" because they might mis-hear you and think you basically meant "five and a half feet" which would be obviously untrue, and they'd think you were like demented. Which is so not hot. Tallness: hot, Dementia: so not hot. And also because "five feet and a half inch" is six syllables, and even the shorter but less conversationally casual "five feet one half inch" is five syllables, and when people ask you how tall you are they are looking for, at most, a three syllable answer, like "Five Seven" or "Seven Three" or a two-syllabler like "Five Feet" or "Six Twelve." That's what people want, and my motto has always, always been "give the people what they want." Unless they want the wrong thing, but people who want a two- to three-syllable response to "how tall are you" want the right thing, in my opinion.
Or OK, maybe they'll accept a four-syllabler like "four eleven" or "five eleven" but you'd be pushing it. I'm just warning you, if you're five eleven, no one wants to hear about it, ok? 'Cause you're pushing it on the syllables. You should shorten it to "Five Elev" so as not to try people's patiences.
Now, I know that I was five feet and one half inch tall when i was 14, because Mr. Jordan measured me in class one day when he swore up and down I could not possibly be five feet tall and I swore I could be, and was. And, I'm nearly certain that I was five feet and one half inch tall as recently as last year, because I was taking my measurements in order to calculate my body fat mass index fund or whatever the thing is called. What I mean to say is, it's not like I was only five feet one half inch when i was 14 and then promptly grew just like a regular person would. I stayed short. I am a short person. I have measured myself at five feet one half inch a number of times over the years. Because measuring yourself is something you do when you're five feet tall. It's something of an "issue" one might say. An issue that merits re-visiting and re-visiting, regardless of it's staticness. Because people are always all "No way you're over four eleven" or "no way you're shorter than me, i'm five three, we're the same height aren't we? aren't we?"
But a few weeks ago, I thought I had a kidney infection and I went to the doctor to get a kidney biopsy or pee test or whatever, and it was a new doctor so they measured me, and I was, brace yourself, FIVE FEET, TWO AND THREE QUARTER INCHES TALL by their scale. So I explained to the nice lady that their calibration was a little off, because I'm actually five feet and one half inch tall, as you by now well know.
But when I came home, I took out my trusty tape measure and made some pencil marks on the wall and lo and motherfucking behold, I am actually Five Feet Two Inches Tall in the evenings. The three quarter inches actually was some bullshit, I think it was my ponytail or something. When I say "in the evenings" I mean because when you wake up you're taller, because your spine is less compacted. So yeah, when I wake up, I'm five two and a half. But who cares about the half; five two is two syllables, and it's not a lie because I'm never under five two anymore, and my point is:
Kung Fu Made Me Grow.
Swear to god. It's just like yoga, you lengthen your spine and improve your posture and you get taller. Kung Fu uses a lot of those same principles, it just also includes punching and kicking so you can beat up the yoga people in the parking lot (i'm kidding kidding kidding that's so not kung fu. but it's kung funny.)
So now I'm as tall as all the famous short movie stars like Janeane Garofalo and... some other ones.
[applause]
Now, you might wonder what difference this has made in my life, and I will tell you.
1) Model scouts now look at me for 1/80th of a second longer than they normally would, because there is 1/80th of a second more of me to look at before assessing that I am not over 5'8".
2) While I still cannot reach the shelf where my dinner plates are kept captive, I CAN scrape the bottom of it with my fingernail! Provided I have not recently trimmed said fingernail!
3) When I'm on an airplane, and I am standing up in front of my seat but still under the overhead baggage compartments and not in the aisle, I can no longer stand fully erect! Just mostly erect! Unerect to an indetectable degree, but if I try to stand with perfect posture, my head TOTALLY bumps the overhead! Totally and completely!
4) When they sing that song "five foot two, eyes of blue" I can now HALF kid myself that it's about me, because I'm five foot two! But my eyes are brown.
5) In heels, I'm now FIVE FIVE rather than FIVE THREE. Pardon me, but that is SO FUCKING HOT. Because five five is actually, almost, in a way, tall. Ish.
6) Men have begun peeling off their clothes when walking past me on the street, singing me R&B songs about how I look really tall and hot. It's pretty cute.
