5×5 With The Hook: Nadia S.

She’s a side-splittingly funny gal and she’s bursting at the seams with life.

What else is there to say, really?

Okay, so there are a few more things, I suppose. Let’s get to them, shall we?

For me, her comedic brilliance is best encapsulated in a single paragraph from her award-winning blog. (It’s at the top of the FBI cyber division’s “Blogs to Watch” list.)

I started What would Nadia do? after a night of dry humping champagne bottles and sweet talking a hat stand. As I make the best decisions when my liver is in a state of decomposition, I visited WordPress, ready to rehash tales of expat loneliness and my search for identity. It would be a deep and meaningful blog, brought together by just the right combination of margarita misery, Celine Dion facial expressions and toilet bowl wisdom.

You’re welcome.

But as with most writers of quality, Nadia has her dark days…

But these last two months, I’ve been fighting another bipolar depressive episode, which sadly renders my mind as empty as Martha Stewart’s sex toy collection. My depressive episode has also inspired me to create a new mental health blog, Heavy Mental.

WWND’s big sister was born out of a need to live and blog authentically. I have never openly talked about how mental illness has deeply affected my life, both positively and negatively. I want to give the silence around mental illnesses the finger, help others and kick stigma where it hurts. I hope you love it as hard and repeatedly as I do.

Told you she was brilliant. And she’s human. I like that. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish depression on anyone (well, okay, the Kardashians and Bieber, but that’s it), but Nadia has taken her challenges and used them to help others, while maintaining her upbeat outlook and continuing to make others shoot milk out their nose. (She did it to me and I wasn’t even drinking milk at the time. Weird, right?)

But enough of this sappy shit, I work for a living so I’m knackered. Take over, Nadia, won’t you?

1) If you had to pick an action star to be your spirit guide, who would you choose?

   I’d rather do a cavity search on Dick Cheney than sit through an action movie, but I’d channel Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men when the impulse strikes to go all Cell Block H inmate on that guy in the Volvo’s ass. Instead of frothing at the mouth and head-butting the steering wheel, Anton would flip a coin, deciding whether to splatter his victim’s remains over the interstate without ever changing facial expression.

   And did I mention that Anton is played by Javier Bardem? Sigh.

I’m gong to give Nadia a moment to compose herself before we continue…

2) This feature exists to shine a positive light across the blogosphere, Nadia: What do you turn to when the darkness becomes to dense to ignore? (Ice cream? Friends/family? Blogging?)

   Ten years ago my post-dump prescription included Alanis Morissette, three-for-ten-dollar Shiraz Cabernet and cheese on everything. For days when I’d rather be toiling in my feather-lined queen-sized home office, these are still my go-tos, except that I sometimes drink from a glass and prefer a hit of Patti Smith or The Rolling Stones these days. Throw in a couple of friends and some serious booty clapping, and my ladyballs are swinging again.
I love this Stones cover from Patti – the best of both worlds.

   Oh, and also this.

Let’s take a shower together.

3) Pretend you’re in a hardboiled detective novel/film: What would your character’s name be? (For some reason I can picture you as an old-time gangster’s moll. Although, you’re no one’s possession, I bet you’d look good done up in an outfit from that period. Yes, my mind is a strange place.)

   Hook, you know me too well. As I drooled over Boardwalk Empire like I would over my third cheesecake or a pantless Javier Bardem, I would be a 1920s gun moll solely for the outfits. But because I’m not afraid of getting my flapper dress dirty or ruffling my Marcel wave, I’d join my gangster man as Penelope Pistol Pumper.

4) What’s the best thing about being Nadia? (’cause you seem pretty cool to me.)

   Look at you making me blush like an 11-year-old in sex ed.

   Besides the fact that I can guzzle five gallons of Häagen-Dazs in under five minutes? Most of the marriage proposals waxed lyrical about my way with cuss words and jerky twerk, but being Nadia means there’s always an excuse to grab a bottle of Discount Liquor’s finest, round up a few friends, grab my crotch to a cheesy 90s number and stuff my cakehole with trans fats. I like to lighten the mood and make people laugh. Can you tell?

5) Your favorite fairy tale character is…

   My brother-from-another-mother is Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
On a good day, the most balanced thing about me are my hormone levels. Some days I’m surprised that I haven’t worn my crotchless panties as a crop top or tripped over my balcony railing. Even my couch has more wine stains than Lindsay Lohan’s liver, and I once nearly called a locksmith to open my neighbor’s front door after an hour’s key-turning and my best police kicks.

   I blame all of this on medication.

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 I want to thank today’s victim guest for being such a cool, insightful subject and for being a pleasure to “interview”. I don’t know about you, but Nadia’s given me plenty to think about, so you’re on your own.

See you in the lobby, kids…