I take my giraffe everywhere with me. She is too tall for regular plane seats, so I need to buy a seat with extra, extra leg space. Only one airline offers transport for giraffes, because a famous actress who likes flying economy demanded it for her own giraffe. I’m not a famous actress. Not yet.

My giraffe is shy, and I am not. I’ll yell in the street asking who knows what day it is, and my giraffe will try to hide behind the lamppost, embarrassed. I’m not embarrassed about forgetting the days of the week. It’s a miracle I remember to shower. I often use perfumes as an alternative, and I wear the scent of the famous actress. She smells of pomegranate and peach.

My giraffe and I like to watch the famous actress’s movies on repeat. Last week, my giraffe cooked me chicken pot pie, and we watched the famous actress’s new blockbuster in which she plays a heartbroken tubist who finds an injured bird in her instrument and tries to teach it to fly. All the famous critics are saying it will win her more awards, fame, and riches than she already has. In the last scene, the famous actress plays the most beautiful tuba solo of all time as the bird flies away. Both my giraffe and I were brought to tears, and I went to the store that night to purchase a tuba of my own.

Every day, I have been practicing the tuba solo, and my rendition is nearing perfect. I have been posting videos on my blog to document my progress. My blog is dedicated to the famous actress. I have disabled the comments because my upstairs neighbor keeps telling me to shut up, but he won’t come downstairs to say it to my face. I have no patience for cowards.

After I got an official noise complaint from my landlord, I began practicing my tuba in the park. Just last week someone accosted me there and called me a poseur. I told him that I can’t help it I am a tuba prodigy and that I’ve had my giraffe for as long as I remember. In fact, it was the famous actress who copied me. To prove my point, I called my mother and made her text me a picture of my fourth-grade class. I was always the shortest, so I was in the front row, and my giraffe was always the tallest, so she was in the back row. The man apologized to my giraffe but not to me.

Lately, I’ve been arguing with a lot of people, so I’ve set a quota of one argument a day. After my debacle at the park, my ex-lover called me up to schedule an argument. I brought my giraffe against his wishes. We met in a coffee shop, and I ordered a latte for myself and my giraffe. My ex-lover ordered nothing and accused me of never loving him. I told him it’s rude to go to a coffee shop without ordering anything. He demanded that my giraffe leave. I demanded he order a coffee. He did and accused me again of never loving him. My giraffe snorted and this angered my ex-lover. He is so ugly when he is angry. I told him that at least I had my giraffe and my tuba and all he had was a terrible haircut. He called my tuba playing lousy and my giraffe grotesque. I could not believe that I had dated such a bigoted man. I should have known he had always been jealous of me and my giraffe.

After we stormed off from the coffee shop, I blocked my ex-lover’s phone number, and my giraffe and I watched our favorite movie of the famous actress. In this movie she got drunk on a hot air balloon. It looked like the most fun thing in the world. I bought two tickets for a hot air balloon festival a thousand miles away. Then we opened a bottle of wine by cracking it on the fireplace mantle. The bottle shattered on the floor, so my giraffe drank all the wine that spilled on the ground, being careful to not slice her tongue. My giraffe is a lightweight, and she fell asleep while I wrote an excellent review of the movie on my blog.

My blog is really blowing up, and people have even begun to mistake me and my giraffe for the famous actress. Sometimes they even ask for a photo. My giraffe has a great smile, but I never learned how to smile properly, so these pictures always turn out half-ugly. The good news is that my giraffe has promised to teach me how to smile for all the pictures we will take together at the awards ceremonies.