The Frenemy.

So the venue is secured. Me and Gaby Dunn have decided on Cake Shop in the Lower East Side for our Tumblr/reader meet up party on June 3rd at 9pm.

Come get fucking faced with me. Let’s do shots and talk about how awesome grilled cheese sandwiches are, how awkward it is to date anybody anywhere, and how sometimes sex feels weird. Well, I’m not very good at doing shots, so let’s just keep it to some vodka sodas, if that’s cool.

I am so, so excited about this I can’t even express it. I’m going out to buy a DRESS tomorrow for this occasion, so show up looking fly if you feel like it. I want to MEET YOU GUYS SO BAD.

Here’s the website of the place:

http://cake-shop.com

It’s off of Ludlow. I’ll probably take the J there, if that means anything to you New Yorkers.

Let’s do this, buddies. Let’s do it up rull hard. I’m so essited!!!!

(Note: If you get me drunk enough, I will dance)

(Note #2: I mostly like dancing to Ke$ha. UGH!)

A reader from outside Cleveland wrote to me today and asked me if I ever felt insecure about myself around other girls. You know, being a funny tiny human who makes jokes all the time and spends her time eating hummus instead of preparing my bikini body for the bikin-ocalypse, she wondered if this was a thing I ever felt.

I just want to take a moment and say Fuck Yes.

Living in NYC, where half of the female population are 5’11 females who look really good in bustier tops while holding cigarettes, I can’t help but sometimes be like ‘oh shit, what the hell are my hips doing here? Did I invite them to this party?’ There are always days when I see people who are good at flipping their hair/wearing red lipstick/giggling and I cringe. This is because when I do these things, I sort of look like a Muppet. I don’t necessarily enjoy watching other people getting hit on by attractive men at bars while I just sit awkwardly and think ‘how much are these bacon wrapped things I can eat here?’ Of course, it doesn’t help that I also have lots of friends who smile and look pretty all the time and I just make Jerry Bruckheimer jokes so one of us is successful with dating and one is not. There are days I sit in the minestrone soup of sadness and wonder why the hell I can’t be one of those people other people take sunlit photographs of and be all like ‘how beautiful is she?’ This is because there are days when I’m a fucking idiot.

It’s stupid.

I never had abs you can bounce things off of. I use my humor as a defense mechanism. I’m short as hell and my hair isn’t always as ‘not frizzy’ as I want it to be. I can’t always be bothered to shave my legs, and my makeup is usually running. There are people who have made me feel ‘beautiful’ and there are people who have made me feel no so beautiful. I hate the word beautiful, except when describing a sandwich or Ryan Gosling. However, as many times as I have felt insecure about this, I have also really fucking loved it. Because it’s me, it’s my thing, and I don’t particularly look good in floral rompers.

I’d mostly like to tell you how important it is to just get the hell over yourself. You’re fine, and shut up about other people. It’s important to like yourself, as you are not just a ghost spirit who can inhabit other people’s bodies and change who you are. I enjoy being funny. I like that my feet stink and that I sometimes don’t paint my toes. I hated the days when I measured my cereal cups and counted calories so my collarbones could stick out more. I also hated the days when I tried to be less funny than the guy who was hitting on me so I could make him feel more comfortable. I’m not going to do that shit anymore because it’s a lie and I’m sick of lying about who I am. I’m a ragged, nasty ass bitch! I want to be that all the time! Pretty is such a boring thing to want to be, because it’s a relative thing and it’s not measurable. I’ll always be pretty to someone, and the most important ‘someone’ I need to feel that for is fucking ME. So yes, tonight I wore lacy bicycle shorts and a vintage shirt and I felt good so I didn’t give a shit. 

Also, I’m a really hungry person. So I’d like to eat copious amounts of chocolate cheese fried piles so if I have a little bit of stomach fat so be it. Fuck it, I run sometimes! Fuck it, I don’t look as bitchily attractive as Megan Fox! Megan Fox doesn’t even seem to be that funny, I bet I could outjoke her! Which isn’t the point, really. The point is I am me and she is her and that’s just the end of the story.

Remember that people will like you for all these things, but mostly remember that you need to like yourself for these things too. Getting hit on is nice. Having days where YOU feel good about yourself is way, way better. The real point isn’t to find the person who likes you for your flaws, the point is to feel like your ‘flaws’ aren’t flaws at all. They are things about you that make you YOU.

Please, be your fucking self. You are great, and the pretty girl who gets all the guys takes big ass shits in the bathroom, and you are pretty to people too. It all evens out in the end. So eat a fucking burger. Have some stretch marks. Have some bad days, and I’m not perfect and will continue to have those too. Still, never forget that you are just fine the way you are, Bridget Jones Colin Firth Style. Be exactly the kind of person you want to be, because comparing yourself to other people doesn’t do jack squat. Eat. Drink. Be happy. 

Be yourself, people. You can’t help it, after all. It’s just the truth.

• What the fuck?
• Why do you act like such a bitch when it’s raining?
• I don’t get it. Are you scared of the rain? If the rain did something to you, maybe you should just tell me now and we can work it out, maybe have a talk. It’s best to get things out in the open sometimes.
• Stop shriveling up. Rain is just water. Rain never killed anybody except the vast majority of creatures and people who weren’t allowed on Noah’s Ark. Also, rain has killed a lot of people. But it doesn’t kill hair.
• I am torturing you with this hot heat because I love you. Pain is love.
• It’s a hair straightener. It wouldn’t kill you to acknowledge what it is supposed to do and stop defying it all the time.
• If you keep acting like an asshole, I am just going to put this hot iron on you again.
• I swear you’ll like being dyed cherry red. No, that’s not a natural color, I just want to look like a pinup girl but cannot afford the tattoos right now.
• I swear that me stripping out the color in you is the best thing for both of us right now. Tough love, baby. Tough love.
• If you don’t mind, I’d like to put chemicals on you in order to dye you another shade of brown that really isn’t that different from my natural color.
• This blowdryer is blowing steam at you and making screaming noises because it hates the way that you are. 
• I do not love you the way that you are.
• I like the way THAT girl’s is. Why don’t you look like that girl’s? If you were naturally wavy, maybe I would not resent you so much.
• I need to cut my own bangs because I need to, okay? Stop being so upset and looking like a mopey idiot. Why don’t you look like Zoey Deschanel’s? Is it because I don’t put enough bows in you?
• I’m sorry I put bows in you.
• You looked really fucking stupid in bows. Like an adult baby, an adult baby who probably listens to Death Cab For Cutie.
• Death Cab for Cutie used to be pretty popular, you know. They used to be the perfect accompaniment with tofu and striped sweaters.
• Well, now I guess it’s Yeasayer. 
• Die Antwoord? I know you don’t listen to that shit. Stop trying to seem cool or else I’ll cover you with this hat and you won’t see the light of day for hours.
• I’m sorry I took this hat off you in public. Now you look as flat as Ke$ha sings.
• Good Ke$ha joke right?
• I’m sorry I bought this fedora. It makes you look like you listen to people who wear zootsuits and maybe play the saxophone.
• This guy is going to pull you right now. I’m sorry, but I really do enjoy it. It’s nothing against you or anything. Well, maybe it is.
• Yeah, I know you look really messy, but we just totally had sex right now. Be grateful! 
• LOL we didn’t have sex I’m just too lazy to shower.
• You’re dead to me. Get it? Because you’re already dead. 
• You were dead the whole time like Bruce Willis in…
• No, I didn’t know that you haven’t seen the Sixth Sense yet. I just figured everybody had. It’s like me spoiling that Dumbledore di….
• ….what do you mean you haven’t seen all the Harry Potter films yet? Are you serious with this? Whatever, you look terrible today.
• Do you have something against me?
• Is this because I got guacamole in your hair? And sucked it off?
• No, I don’t know why some girls get undercuts. Well, don’t get me wrong, it’s very attractive on some chicks but I think for us it would just look like we were getting medical experiments-maybe shock treatments-on our heads.
• I get that you like the humidity, but you don’t need to get all excited and puff out like that right now. Stop bragging. We all get that you are huge and unruly and rebellious, you don’t need to do it in the mall.
• Oh I need you to stay up in this ponytail while I talk to the adults. 
• Why did you come out of the ponytail? Do you have to go to the bathroom?
• This updo really isn’t going to stay up for more than 30 seconds. I feel like you and I just need to go into the bathroom and spray all these Herbal Essences chemicals I bought from Target. They’re in an aerosal can. Get ready to choke.
• You’re not my dog, stop shedding.
• This gel won’t do anything, but I still spent 46 dollars on it.
• Of course I didn’t want these curls to stay curly. I only kept them in curlers and hair sprayed them for an hour for my own misguided amusement. Sometimes I like to stick my hand in jelly just so I can wash it off.
• Shut up you fucking bitch, I realize my asymmetrical cut was a bad idea.
• No, I don’t know how to French braid. 
• Because it took me six years just to learn how to tie my own shoe, okay? Stop hassling me.
• Oh my god, do you look really good right now? LOL okay you moved.
• For fucks sake, why can’t you just behave?

I have a lovely friend named Karen who lives in NYC. Being a girl of the attractive nature, she is often victim to shrouds of creepy, lecherous men staring at her ‘lovely lady lumps’ and I imagine asking her slimy questions like ‘what’s your poison?’ while licking their Burts-Bees-But-Still Dry-Lips. They try to take her out on dates, hoping their boring pleated pants will fool her into compliance. Sometimes, a lot of these men are so boring, they have to somehow mention their plentiful bounds of douchebag scented money (Gucci cologne-scented and probably houndstooth patterned). She is not impressed by this.

Enter Paul (not his real name).

My friend met Paul at and event on Friday. Paul is 42, twenty years her elder. Paul talked to her for all of three minutes. She politely gave him her business card, which is the international symbol of mature women for “not interested.” I don’t have a business card, I just stick a restaurant menu in their hand that I have spent a good thirty minutes licking. He didn’t get the hint, and sent her the following email this morning (along with a picture on his boat):

I fucking LOVE this email. The sailboat! The traders! It’s comedy gold! Upon viewing it, my good friend Amanda decided to write a joke response to email to our friend in return. This, in turn, inspired a lot of our friends to do the same. Here is the response that I ending up sending to Karen (not to him!):

I have a request for you guys. I want you to send me your response letters to Paul, either in my Tumblr inbox or at IAMTHEFRENEMY@gmail.com

Be creepy. Be funny. Be rude. Take up any voice you like. Please note that we will not be sending him any of these emails, because that would be shitty. I just want to read some hilarious emails.

Me, Amanda, and my friend will be judging the best ones, and will post the winner and some particularly good ones on this site. There will be a prize, although sometimes the pure feeling of victory counts as a prize.

Seriously: I hate douchebags. I like laughing. Have some fun with this, because it has made my day, will continue to make my day, and I can only hope it will make yours. 

• Let them call you out on your shit
• Listen, silently disagree, have them make some valid points
• Realize that sometimes you’re a fucking idiot, or you’re fucking selfish, or you really screwed up that one thing
• Not resent them for pointing out flaws, learn from them
• In turn, tell them the stuff that bothers you too
• Go for drinks later
• Weepy drunk sob at them
• Listen to their relationship problems
• with the same dude
• for as long as they need to
• Never be the asshole who thinks their attraction to chicks is ‘a phase’
• if they’re quitting, swat the cigarette out of their hand
• remember their birthday
• I don’t care if they aren’t in the same state. “I would walk a thousand miles” -Vanessa Carlton
• do absolutely nothing with them for a whole day
• hold their hair back when they are gross and sick and vomit is disgusting
• pay for the cab when they’re too drunk to pay 
• brunch
• Go shopping with them
• and tell them that dress looks stupid on them but man, that skirt makes their ass look great
• remind them why they shouldn’t date that guy
• tell them when themy should
• see them without makeup
• put makeup on them
• remove phone from hand when drunk, even if death vice grip occurs
• wanna cry? Fuck it, go ahead and cry
• A lot
• Realize you will never get those socks/that hair tie back
• Be okay when they ignore your texts sometimes, because you will do the same for them
• But mostly, make time for them
• Keep their secrets
• Make fun of them for those secrets
• Deal with the fact they like that AWFUL band and really? How can you still like American Idol? Okay, I’ll watch it with you. 
• never leave them behind at the bar, I don’t care how hot he is
• Don’t be a slut and talk about them behind their backs
• Watch Mean Girls with them
• Pig out
• No, really. Eat a whole bag of chips with them
• Get the order of fries to share
• Sit on a bench and eat fro yo with them 
• FOOOOOOOOD
• Spend a whole night just staying in and getting overly nostalgic with them
• Let them yap forever when they need to ‘get something off their chest’ and it’s boring but you pretend you are interested
• Don’t interrupt, they’re talking!
• Get to know their creepy sister/frat boy brother
• Dance around with them like an idiot with that gross face you only make when dancing
• Watch that idiotic romantic comedy with them, I mean I want to see that movie and it’s not a big deal okay? It doesn’t make me any less cool! Shut up!
• Talk about buying a vibrator
• Overshare about sex
• Be mildly embarrassed about this
• Tell them that one song you are really ashamed you like hearing
• Lay in their bed
• Make plans to travel with them
• Probably never travel with them
• Oh, you’re tired? But they’re sad? Listen, you bitch! 
• Drunk dial them instead of that guy you’re furiously making out with on Fridays
• Give them your favorite book to borrow
• Go to dinner even though you’re totally dating this great guy, he’s like, so great. He’s so cute! Oh my god you should have seen what he did yesterday!
• Tell them their ex’s new girlfriend is a bitch
• Even though she isn’t
• Silently sit sipping your drink when they get hit on a bar, swear not to be jealous about this
• Buy them a drink every once and a while because they are worth buying a drink for
• Talk about being 35 together
• When they want to lose weight, tell them that is fucking stupid
• But eat some shitty fat-free vegetable shit dish with them anyway
• Realize you don’t like their ex even though he was kind of cool, I guess I don’t have anything against him oh wait yes I do.
• Giggle. Only giggle at your friends and Anne Geddes photos
• Mention they will be in your wedding
• not that you wanna get married anytime soon, Jesus
• Pray you’ll never have to bail them out of jail, but you totally would
• Seriously, I wouldn’t even know what to do if I had to bail you out of jail
• Text them that thing that is funny
• Meet their high school friends and end up liking them
• No, you shouldn’t dye your hair blonde, MORON
• Serenade them with Total Eclipse of the Heart or You Oughta Know
• Let them take their PMS out on you
• Don’t let them borrow more than 100 dollars, says my mom
• Never murder them!!!!
• Don’t buy them a cat, they don’t need that kind of responsibility
• Borrow their clothing and maybe wash them when you’re done
• Coffee? Okay! Let’s get coffee!
• Realize you have had that shirt in the bottom of your hamper for a year
• Talk to them in person more than you Facebook them, okay ZUCKERBERG
• Tell them you are secretly attracted to that creepy mouth breather or Conan or something
• Be proud when they do something good, like when the puppy finally goes to the bathroom on the wee-wee pad
• Casually tell them they are pretty
• make some time to go out to a bar with them
• Shit, you’re not that popular, calm down
• Feel very, very lucky they are in your life. Always.

It’s been one year today since I put on a cap and gown, tried not to look too hungover, and walked across a stage to receive my college diploma. It was a great day! I drank margaritas with my grandma! I did it! However, the excitement of getting a free college t-shirt on grad day have worn off, and all that’s left is the ice cold boyfriend of reality. Now, I list the things that I have learned in this pivotal year of academic absence:

• Craigslist isn’t just a happy playground of probably-not-you subway missed connections, cheap old furniture, murderers and genitalia. It’s a land of ‘oh wow, I have no idea how to get a job, so I guess I will just scan this site. Oh, lucky me! Everything is spam or a 1.00 an hour paid internship! Look! The ‘writing job’ section is just a large portal to hell! 
• College loans are not at all like the phrases ‘I’ll clean up my room tomorrow, I’ll work out three times a week, I’ll stop making out in bars.’ As in they are not lies at all. As in they are real and come in your mailbox and slowly enter your bank account like those creepy spirits in the movie Ghost. Then, they drag all your savings into the pits of hell, and please notice how I have used the word ‘hell’ a lot and might continue to do so.
• Not having to do papers ever again is like walking around without pants ALL THE TIME. It’s awesome. Because you know what sucks? Staying up till 5am eating cigarettes ashes and coffee grinds, trying to decide if you can write 30 pages in 2 hours on ‘The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire’s Impact On Globalization in the Time Of Cholera and Biology.’ Sparks Notes suck. Using footnotes suck. Not being able to use Wikipedia sucks. Papers, I do not miss thee. (Gibson 42)<—-LOL bibliography joke!
• Your resume should basically be a tear-stained Word document that says ‘listen, I only attended the school newspaper meeting once, but I swear that I am a heavy drinker that doesn’t leave the house on time! Please, please hire me to not iron my button-down shirts and start going to happy hour.’
• If I hear ‘well, in this economy’ one more time, I’m going to Hulk rip your brain out of your skull. It’s not the greatest, maybe, but you can still get a job. It’s not as horrifying as you might think. Gary Busey is WAY WAY scarier.
• You really do make some of the coolest fucking friends in college. Some of them you will never talk to again, but a surprising handful of them you will continue to discuss ‘that one party sophomore year’ with for six months. Until you actually become real life friends who care about each other even though they live in LA and will probably be in your wedding or some shit.
• Talking to people who are not continually chain-smoking and being cracked out on Adderall is a refreshing experience.
• Wearing leggings as pants, drinking out of plastic handles, looking hungover on a Tuesday morning, using Solo cups, and going ‘wooooo!’ are generally frowned upon now.
• having a clean apartment is suddenly a requirement because you are a sort of adult. So go out and buy a fucking Swiffer and learn how to dust. Also, having a clean toilet, a steady supply of toilet paper, garbage bags, and a vacuum make you more sexually attractive.
• everybody should have fucking RESTAURANT EXPERIENCE because you can’t work anywhere without it. Even if you’re like ‘yo I have an english degree and I can quote The Crucible or talk about ‘the racial other’ in Gulliver’s Travels,’ you’re not worthy enough to serve smashed potatoes to people. No menu has ‘mashed potatoes’ on their menu anymore. Because mashing is for, I don’t know, lowly creatures like those giant bugs in District 9.
• BROKE BROKE BROKE. You will be a little broke. So if you’re still in college, get those piercings and Vespas and gourmet cheese now!
• Burritos. Will always. Be. Delicious.
• No. Look at me in the face. You listen to me, damnit! They will always, ALWAYS be delicious.
• You can’t just go around banging and mouth grinding the guy who lives on your dorm floor or in your Ethics class anymore. You have to go all nuts on some creepy dude you met at a bar, who nobody has ever met before, and could definitely be a serial killer. What a gamble! A sex gamble. 
• You never have to get another shitty midterm grade again.
• You never have to listen to that dumbass student in class who raised his hand at EVERY question and smugly starts to tell anecdotes about his life in relation to the poetry you are reading that day/his misguided current event opinions….
• ….JK he’ll be your boss
• you wanna get a job in a creative field? Adorable!
• you wanna go to grad school? Gimme your money!
• you got a passion? This matters.
• your parents don’t think your pipe dreams are so cute anymore.
• everybody has advice on how to get a job. They are mostly all wrong. They will give you this advice anyway but they will sound like those Harpy Sirens, screeching in your ear and ruining a good buzz.
• Harry Potter will never stop being fucking awesome, and you will always want to secretly be a wizard.
• if you want to be a real fucking adult, give up the Easy Mac. Instead, get boxed white cheddar macaroni and cheese! One of these days, when I get a 401k, I will attempt baked mac-and-cheese for my grandchildren. Only then I will be an adult.
• You will still have no idea what a mortgage is. There are so many adult things you will have no idea how to do, but you will have a mildly fun time doing them. What are taxes? HOW DO I DO THEM? Why haven’t I bought fabric softener yet?  ALL WILL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR.
• Yes, you fucking miss college. No, not that much.
• Dating will not get better. Sex might. (ew, sex!)
• It’s a terrifying, exciting, enjoyable time. Welcome to adulthood, kiddies. Hold on to your butts.

• that one guy I broke up with four years ago but still think about because he was such a jerk but we had a ‘serious connection,’ which actually was just genital bumping and being 18 years old
• how hard it is to find a ‘serious connection’ with somebody because I’m not fucking 18 years old anymore in love fantasy Notebook world
• that one really graphic story about my period, which is definitely worse than YOUR worst period story. My period hurts more than yours, you bitch! I had cramps for SEVENTEEN DAYS!
• how I need to lose five pounds by summer. Really, I gotta fit into that dress so I can go out and grind to Pitbull. Please ignore how I am now dipping my french fries into butter, smearing them with avocado lard, putting them in a hypodermic needle, and shooting them up.
• the amount of hair on the lower half of my body
• what color I should dye my hair, as in I will not listen to you and I’m going chocolate espresso bean pudding mouth and that’s it.
• that one time I hooked up with that person at a bar and you were there and it was SO FUNNY. Remember the old days when people found me sexually attractive?
• how I love my vibrator, or stories about a vibrator, or some other terrifyingly personal masturbating story because we are progressive women and I really need to know how you bite your pillow and scream ETOUFFE every time you reach a climax.
• features of my new cell phone
• my new shoes. Do you like them? DO YOU LIKE THEM?
• handjobs. Nobody should ever, ever talk about handjobs, because nobody needs to know I look at a guy in the eyes and sing Air Supply to them as it all goes down. NO, I’m kidding, but handjobs only make me think of trying to be really good at sex and failing at it.
• Britney Spears
• my other friends and their passive-aggressive Facebook wall post, their terrible boyfriend we all hate, and how they’re like ‘totally not themselves lately. I mean, don’t get me wrong I totally love her but she’s a fat ugly slore.’
• ‘ugh, my cuticles are totally ripping’, ‘I bought like, 18 boxes of Special K today’ and other mundane shit nobody cares about. I’m not sure why I believe that my friends give a shit when I clean my room, but often times I think they might.
• the people you are playing genital air hockey with, their genitals, that one time they did that awesome thing, the one time that last guy did that other thing that was so bad, and I really can’t look at any more guys in the eye knowing exactly how they thrash around in bed with my best friends.
• if birth control will actually make you gain ten pounds or not
• Leo DiCaprio in Titanic being so hot
• the evil ghost inhabiting my apartment in the form of a girl from the 1800s.
• Capri pants. Never. Again.
• that other time I was so drunk and ended up drunk texting my dad and projectile vomiting a rainbow of glitter or something
• how we should ‘totally take salsa dancing lessons or a pottery class!’ Bitch, you know that I just want to sit around and drink whiskey with you, but I have to pretend to want to do crafts or some shit because I need to seem like I can step away from the demon rum for a second
• how I am incapable of doing laundry, but overly capable of shopping
• that one hot guy you saw on the subway
• how climaxing during intercourse is HARD LOL ITS SO HARD LOL Am I right girls? Sex be difficult! But then there’s always that one bitch who is like ‘oh I always climax’ and you’re like secretly thinking there is something massively wrong with you and you cry on the inside.
• cat videos
• suggest hitting on guys, than realize that bars are only full of creepy dudes who wear Tivos and have stock portfolios, guys with neck tattoos, and attractive men who will never talk to me.
• if I can have half of their fries.

Don’t get me wrong- I watch Sex and The City. I never got why she wore a lot of shit on her head, or why she thought Chris Noth was remotely fuckable, but I still dug that slutty old lady who made all the cock puns. I’ve seen most of the episodes, I’ve drank booze and saw them with my ‘girlfriends’ and at one point I concluded I may have been a Miranda even though I’m not a ginger bitch. However, there’s been something about the show that has been gnawing at me lately. 

I’ve been out of college with a writing degree for almost a year now. I too, moved to NYC (well, Brooklyn, but I wear more skinny jeans than Charlotte) to pursue writing. And I’ve done pretty well with it, soo fucking whoop-de-do for me, but something’s been bothering me and I just need to get it off my chest:

Carrie Bradshaw, you gotta be tripping balls to have us believe that you can sustain yourself that extravagantly on that one stupid-ass column. You lying bitch!

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I’ve got some monuments coming up: Soon, it’ll be my first anniversary of The Frenemy and the first anniversary of graduating college. It’s time to celebrate proper. “Proper” means getting drunk and also, I want to meet you people. Readers are what get me going/fuel my alcohol romances. I want to hang out. We can compliment each other’s floral dresses, fall in our heels, and awkwardly try to stare at guys and girls in bars before we have to squat pee in dirty bathrooms.

What I’m saying is this:

June 3rd. 9pm. Lower East Side. Come meet up.

Me and Gaby Dunn (her blog is great) are getting together and hosting a drinkathon for blog readers in New York City. I’ll let you know the bar as it gets closer. Wanna meet up? Wanna get drunk? Who is down? 

LET’S DO THIS. I’ll be waiting, or I’ll be drunk texting. Burp.

Tell me you’re in, kay?

I made you drink bourbon at lunch today, because it’s Mother’s Day and you should relax. I realize that you never really drink it, I have no idea how you raised a daughter who likes it so much, and I appreciate that you usually laugh this off. Sometimes you worry about how much I like it, but only because I think that you are required to as a mother. Frankly, I think you’d rather me just change my sheets more or cut my cuticles instead of biting them. No matter-I can see that you are happy with the way I grew up to to be a girl who grows soft at puppies and orders dessert at restaurants. In retrospect, I forgot to tell you how I’m glad you drank all the bourbon, and I realize that I will forever be bad at hugging and affection but will always try to give the things I love to the people I love. That was what I was doing today.

You worried that I would get to brunch late because you know I drink till some stupid hour on Saturday nights. I did do that, actually. I told you I didn’t but I did. I stayed out till the sun came up because now I live in the city and most nights I am slithering around looking for a good time in a skirt you sometimes approve of. (Because of you, though, I don’t give out my number to anybody I meet and I don’t ever leave my drink alone). I pretended to be upset that you would even suggest I would come to brunch late. Which was another lie, because I got out of bed at 11, took a shower because nobody wants to see their daughter with messy hair, and almost left the house without my keys. I was rushing. You would have woken up at 830 and made coffee. I drooled on my pillowcase.

You didn’t really get why my poached eggs were so runny or why I would desire to eat something with raw yolks, but I appreciate that there was no mention of the salmonella poisoning. I know you were thinking about this, and when you asked me ‘so is this neighborhood okay to walk around in at night?’ I know that you pictured me, 4’11, walking home by myself and I know this worried you. It’s cool, Ma, I always look behind me. Sometimes I walk with my keys between my knuckles, just in case I have to punch. I did this one time or maybe six.

You wanted to see my apartment but I said ‘oh not now’ because it’s messy and you would want to clean it. It’s not dirty or anything, but there are a lot of cans lying around at the moment. I am not yet mature enough to clean every day, and this will be something that bothers me till I change it. I’m working on it! I did laundry on Friday! Anyhow, there is a pile of clothes on my floor I haven’t gotten around to picking up and you are tidy and you would hate this. 

Sometimes I think to myself how different we are, what with the different food choices and how our laughs aren’t really the same. Well, I have your eyes. Not your eyebrows, your eyes. And then I realize that I am all the things I am because you had let me be all the things that you aren’t. You just compliment me on the one dress I wore because I know you like the color, you just brush it all aside. I like that you always want to know what music I listen to. I like that you always want to know what kind of boy I could be ‘seeing’ or ‘going steady’ or ‘I don’t know what you call it, Alida. Hooking up?’ I like that you curse, that you laugh when I curse, and that you shake your head when I make a dirty joke.

I am all these things you are not because of you. I love these things because of you, and what I’m really saying is that I love you for that. 

I can picture it now, one day and far away. I have a daughter. I don’t get her. I’ll call you up and you’ll laugh. One day, you’ll say. One day, you’ll see her just fine.

Happy Mother’s Day, y’all.

Thirsty? Bored? Sad? FRIDAY?!?! You probably need a drink. Today I went to a bar and climbed over the bar and said ‘gimme it’ like Gizmo the Gremlin, all grabby and adorable. The bartender was like ‘you have to choose one’ and I said ‘Huh? What? All?’ and then I drooled on the bar. I don’t like making decions, first of all. I try to never, ever make them about anything. For example, if we eat at the place that you chose for dinner, I will silently brood over my veggie wontons and wish plague o’ both your houses because I wanted the tacos. But if I had chosen that taco place, I would just end up flinging the taco meat at you like a monkey in a caged zoo who is unhappy. Read: I can never be satisfied. So if you’re like me and unsure of what to drink one night, I’ve made a handy questionare to help make the process easier.

DO YOU:

• want to beat the crap out of everything
• need to get out your rage issues in explosive ways
• feel like you are a stupid beat poet or some sort of ‘well-read’ smart ass because you read Tom Robbbinnnns and understood maybe 3 sentences out of those books, those books were insane I need the acid why were they so insane
• feel like you are bad-to-the bone type who wears pleather jackets and has a lighter in their skinny jeans pocket
• lol reading references, so smart!
• tough! so tough! so many bad, painful relationships!
• need to chain-smoke while staring out at the horizon 

ANSWER: WHISKEY

• want to feel like an old man on a stoop? Well, not the kind of old-timey racism dude, the kind of old man who wears tweed and smells like vanilla cigars and buys a lot of gentle and delicious shortbread cookies/misses his dead wife. I saw Up. I know.
• want to feel like you are munching on the evergreen tree, like a squirrel in a magical Christmas story and he finds the presents and saves Christmas, because Christmas in children’s books is always in dire need of saving.
• need a ‘usual’ drink at a bar that doesn’t sound too stupid
• need to be an intellectual who slowly sips things while staring at the idiot masses, and if you had a pipe you would suck on that and just be like ‘why was I born in this place?’

ANSWER: GIN

• want to get so totally drunk with your girls, let’s just go all out and forget him! Forget her! Wanna borrow my cleavage glitter?
• feel like ‘taking shots’ will somehow alleviate the pain of a break-up that much more? 
• feel the need to dry hump everybody you see ever
• want to graduate from rum
• party dance party dance to Lady Gaga dance dance

ANSWER: VODKA

• hey, you! Want to drink a FROZEN DRINK because you can’t actually stomach anything that tastes like booze, and strawberries taste like Strawberry Shortcake and I miss my childhood
• want to vomit in a trash can just like college? or just be generally in college
• need a tropical drink because it’s so cold you feel like maybe your ass could fall of somewhere in your pants
• underaged and haven’t had a bad experience yet with the po po/the RAs/the toilet

ANSWER: RUM

• I’M VOMITING CAN’T ANSWER HERE I AM VOMITING
• margaritas lol I can do it I can do it

ANSWER: TEQUILA

• need a delicious thing that doesn’t get you drunk but makes you feel full
• craving some sort of booze with dinner
• are you casually watching the NBC lineup with your friends
• have had too much hard liquor but still need to drink
• day drinking

ANSWER: BEER

• HIPPIE
• FRENCH
• ALCOHOLIC

ANSWER: ABSINTHE

• Real Housewife
• Popping Xanax
• light-weight lush
• need to drink with your aunt on the beach
• want to eat candy but get drunk

ANSWER: WHITE WINE

• watch too many movies about Spain
• need to make important life-changing decision about yourself over cigarettes
• need to prove to your parents you can drink things
• need to get drunk at a family event
• drinking by yourself, are we?

ANSWER: RED WINE

• weirdo
• who drinks this

ANSWER: LIQUEUR

• insane?
• really, really, insane?
• love doing stupid ass shit?

ANSWER: FOUR LOKO

• want to make out with everybody
• drunk text all you have hooked up with
• make relatively hilarious but bad decisions
• end up buying food 
• or other things you can’t afford
• smoke a cigarette even though you don’t smoke
• start high-fiving people
• be so cool
• be really really cool

ANSWER: ALL THE BOOZE

Oh hey..this is awkward. I didn’t see you come in. Did I invite you? It doesn’t matter, you always seem to crash the party like that guy who quotes Dane Cook and pounds Miller High Lifes. I’m guessing you invited yourself onto my hips somewhere after I fell into a pile of Halloween Candy and ate my way out of 3,000 pounds of Almond Joys? Oh yeah, I forgot how I tunneled through a Thanksgiving mountain of mashed potatoes, rolled around in a barrel of gravy, stabbed a Christmas pecan pie in the face, and then mouth fucked a wheel of cheese on New Years Eve. 

Huh. I just didn’t see you coming, which I imagine was poor planning on my part.

Needless to say, you probably RSVP’d during the three billion handfuls of chips I noshed on over the last few months, the late night diner hamburgers, and the ‘who gives a fuck, might as well just get over this dude by shoving my mouth so full of mac and cheese I resemble the most single squirrel in the world.’ Was it because I bought sorbet? Was it the taco truck?!?!?! Oh, man. It was definitely the taco truck.

(Somebody also once told me that gin and tonics have calories. I refuse to acknowledge this or the caloric possibilites of hummus. So I’m going to say that neither of these were the culprit.)

Either way, I noticed that you had entered my party when a bunch of commercials and H&M stores were like BIKINI AND SHORT THINGS, HUHHHHH? So I peeled off my thirty layers of sweatshirts and layers of leggings and felt the cool breeze on my back for the first time in months. It’s been a really cold winter. I also like wearing sweatshirts, because I look kind of cool and evil with a hood on.

Still, when I tried on said mini shorts and rompers and bikinis and all of the floral things that only remind me how much I will sweat in the next upcoming months, I realized that..humph. Things were a little tight. Just a bit. Just the tip, which is something I don’t think any girl has ever said but every frat boy thinks she has. I stared at myself in the mirror with the kind of growl that is usually associated with me staring at guys who wear Axe, babies that don’t shut their mouths, and people who get too fucking close. It seems as if I perhaps have a bit of a ‘five pound bonus’ on my body cavity.

I could lose it, I thought as I purchased the same pile of black tank tops I was intending to wear all summer anyway. I mean, I could eat only grapefruit for three weeks straight. I could go running 36 times a day. I could, I don’t know, put down the uh-mazzzzing bread and wine I just bought for myself and am eating as I type this? I could do these things, I guess.

Or I could just wear a fucking sundress. Sundresses hide so many things! Secrets! Cellulite! Dust bunnies! Lonely, untouched and unshaven thighs!

I’ll tell you what I did. I went to the grocery store. I bought multi-grain pita chips, which I intend to shove down my gullet at any given moment. I bought some fresh veggies, and also some fucking frozen cauliflower in cheese sauce which was gross but I will eat anything frozen and it was like 35 calories of sad Weight Watchers points. Whoa! Don’t ever think I will go on Weight Watchers. I am a normal girl who has normal body parts and I will not count the number of grapes I eat just because Jennifer Hudson and some stick figure model tells me so. I think I will start walking places some more. Maybe ordering only light beer. Go for a run. 

Or maybe I should do a little of that and also stop freaking the fuck out. Oh, well, I guess I didn’t really freak out. Because my body is fine with five extra pounds!

The fact is, it’s really not that noticeable. It’s like Carson Daly at a party for relevance. It’s like Outsourced on the NBC Thursday lineup. WHO CARES. Sure, maybe it’s noticeable to me, but I’m not going to look at pictures of me thirty years from now and be like ‘this was the summer I was bigger than I was last year.’ Well, that’s stupid, because I literally gain the same five pounds every year. And I lose them because I eat eggplant and do some jumping jacks and I. Refuse. To. Freak. Out. About. This.

Because honestly? All that food I ate this winter? It was fucking delicious.

So welcome to my thighs, asshole. You might not be around for that much longer, but I’ll see you again next year. Now excuse me, I have a small serving of pita chips to attend to.

-A