Where my Murderinos at?
Part self-help book (kinda), part memoir (mostly), and all kinds of things you didn’t know about Georgia and Karen (and probably weren’t afraid to ask), Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered is a breezy, easy read with some serious points underlying all the humor — a lot like the “My Favorite Murder” podcast only written down in a version you can hold!
We have gone from living inside your headphones to pouring ourselves out onto the page like a couple of Edna St. Vincent Millays. We invite you to drink deeply of us. We’ll get you good and f*cked up. (Kindle location 57)
(She says, knowing perfectly well she bought the Kindle edition which is therefore binary zeroes and ones and intangible as all fuck.)
If you’re already a murderino, then you’re familiar with the way Karen and Georgia talk to and about each other (and the victims of the murders they discuss each week) — that same honest but guarded vulnerability, masked just a bit by the bite of humor, comes directly off the pages of their book. And while there is lots of good advice spread throughout chapters titled “Fuck Politeness”, “Sweet Baby Angels”, and the title of this blog post (all of which are also quotes from the podcast), the anecdotes told are, while often sad, also reinforce both the advice and an acknowledgment that all the advice, no matter how well meant, may be wrong.
Because they do talk about being wrong, and about how hard it can accept to admit you were wrong, and how vital it can be to admit you done fucked up and go forward making changes to try and make the world a better place.
Politeness doesn’t require actual humanity. It’s just cultural ritual. Kindness means you actually care and have good intentions toward a person. (Location 592)
There is so much I want to say about the essays in the book, Georgia’s, and Karen’s, and the little interstitial “interviews” between the two of them at the end of each chapter. But I also want you, dear reader, whether you’re a murderino like me or interested in reading what little I’ve managed to share with you here, to have the joy of going in to this only knowing what you already know. Maybe you’ll learn something — advice your mother didn’t give you. A different understanding of what it is to be a murderino, or of what anxiety and stress and life for women who grew up in the 80s and 90s looked like, or of family camping trips, or of making the wrong choice because you didn’t want to rock the boat.
People who claim to have all the answers NEVER have ANY answers. Anyway, thanks for buying this advice book. (Location 1052)
And drinking (and alcoholism) and drug use (and quitting because of Ray Bradbury) and the difference between running toward and running from, and the importance, above all, of allowing yourself to be vulnerable and how it can lead to incredibly good things.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go pitch “…because I’m old and wise and therapized” as the next tee-shirt for their merch site.