The Frenemy.

• Try and cross your legs..
• But probably try to not wear a skirt, because whenever I wear a skirt I sit like a football player in one of those Campbell’s Chunky Soup Commercials and you can see my underwear and everything.
• That being said, seriously don’t mention Campbell’s Chunky Soup, or the word ‘chunky’ because I have never met a person where that word does not make somebody vomit.
• Flip your hair around your face, not in the Baby Girl Will Smith Empowerment way, but in the ‘well, maybe I smell like summer’s eve before that was a douche and kind of ruined the gentle term that is summer’s eve.’ One time I flipped my hair and my neck hurt for three days! My hair must be very heavy.
• Bathe yourself in lots of flower body washes and things that smell like coconut. In most of the books I have read where a boy has been the narrator, they have always talked about the scent of a girl when they are really attracted to said girl. And these boys haven’t even been wolves or anything creepy like that. Still, try to trick this fact into truth-even if you haven’t done your laundry-by jumping into a magical fairy field of gardenias or just sucking it up and getting Victoria’s Secret perfume like the rest of them.
• Pay more attention to the person you want to make out with then food. I know this is hard. One time I got a plate of fries with cheese sauce in front of somebody I wanted to tongue joust with, and I ended up using my pointer finger to sop up all the cheesy sauce goodness instead of paying attention to them. It took the willpower of the Gods to not lick the paper it came in, or maybe just eat the paper for leftover sustenance. Needless to say, I still did not ‘score’ that night. 
• Who says SCORE? What exactly is my GOAL here? I mean, I guess if I flirt with somebody long enough I will have the true honor of making out with their face, even if they haven’t brushed their teeth or something since this morning. Is this a sport? Or maybe I really should just bring floss everywhere I go? 
• Something is bothering me about kissing. I mean, what is so fucking great about sticking my tongue in somebody ELSE’S MOUTH for fun? Doesn’t that seem like how most diseases are started?
• However, whenever I listen to specific Coldplay songs I want to make out with people.
• I may be kidding about Coldplay
• Unless I have been drinking
• Making out is a learned activity. Animals don’t MAKE OUT, and it certainly doesn’t DO anything but make you want to crotch grab. Probably aliens don’t, make out, either. Definitely not the ones in the movie Signs, because they are allergic to water, and saliva is basically water. Also, that movie sucked.
• Ew, I have had other people’s saliva in my mouth!
• Back to kissing. If you want to flirt, you should never tell them about all the crazy things about you, but you want to tell them the quirky things about you, so they will like you. I call this the ‘Zoey’ attack, and we’re all adults and we all know what I’m talking about.
• Example of quirky thing: I totally love the Decemberists! I eat a lot of cereal!
• Example of crazy thing: I am imagining you rejecting me, and thus I am imagining you DEAD.
• Example of quirky thing: I love bats!
• Example of crazy thing: Seriously, if you reject me I will put a bat to your head.
• Wear a cute outfit. Cute outfits mostly mean spaghetti strap dresses that fall at the shoulder and have little foxes on them. Look like you should be the lead girl in some sort of YA novelization about the South.
• Laugh at everything they say. Not maniacally or anything, but almost as if you have discovered a great scientific loophole that will allow you to create an evil Frankenstein monster. There’s a ‘difference.’
• Okay, so I’ve seen too many girls making duck faces at guys. Duck faces is when you put your lips out as if you are sacrificing them to be cut off. I guess I would say don’t do that.
• Touch their thigh. Go ahead, do it. I have eaten chicken thighs that seem like a very large piece of meat, but it does not seem like chickens have very large thighs at all. Take advantage of the largeness of human thighs and touch them.
• Write an acoustic guitar song for somebody. Use the words ‘heartbeat, eyes, and spirit.’ Don’t call them a horse or a hog, or any other animal but some sort of jungle cat.
• If you want to write them a poem, make sure to use the word ribcage.
• Send them text messages late at night with emoticons, even though every fiber of your being is so against what emoticons are.
• Don’t talk about politics or religion, unless if Jesus is running for Congress and then you should mention it because that would be a definite elephant in the room as it would be so bizarre.
• Never allude to the fact that if they were a cheeseburger you would be more interested in them.
• Smile, but not in the way that Carrie does before she sets an entire high school prom on fire. Also, don’t really mention how you would have probably set your entire high school prom on fire.
• Don’t compare them to your celebrity crushes. Sometimes I’m like ‘oh but you’re so Jason Segel’ and then I kind of realize they are without the money or the ‘what I’ve decided in my brain’ commitment.
• Don’t wink. What are you, my uncle trying to give me a quarter? You are a nasty little creep, you creep thing.
• Don’t ask them about their job. Fuck it, they’re probably unemployed. In that same vein, don’t tell them about your despair. 
• Forget that watching reality television might be more interesting than this person.
• Be yourself.
• Be yourself!!!!!!!!
• Also, probably drink a lot.

I want you to sit by yourself in your room. This is the moment you are wallowing, this is the moment you want to listen to sappy music and curl yourself up in a ball and feel all lonely. There are moments when you feel self-pitying, there are moments when you wonder how you are so young and so pissed off at everything. People piss you off. People cuddling on subways piss you off more. Instead of listening to music on your I-Pod and thinking about the time somebody kissed your forehead, I want you to look at the things you have collected over the years. There are the terrible pictures you have taken of yourself in college- the one where you were at a bar with your best friends and you make the ‘holy shit what am I doing here’ face, or on the beach where you are laughing so hard because somebody just threw sand at your crotch. The necklace you got from your grandmother is here and so are the flip flops you’ve had since seventh grade because your mom bought them for you. I want you to pick up the postcards you got and your favorite book that is creased by the sides. You have read this book so much you can finish the lines by yourself and you probably love it. Then I want you to pick up your phone and look at your text messages. The one from your roommate that asks where you are, or maybe the drunk ones late at night from all the people you couldn’t be with at the moment. Oh, look! Your favorite high school bud who tells you they miss you! I want you to pick at least five people from your phone that you can call because you are feeling bad. Don’t call them, just know you can.

I want you to look at yourself in the mirror. There is a scar on your chin from the time you did something really fucking stupid with some really fucking great people. There is the face that you have grown from a little shitting baby to the person you are now. I want you to make the lamest face you can in the mirror, I want you to remember all the things you like about yourself. I want you to laugh at it. I want you to stick your butt out at the mirror and smile.

Then you put on a song that reminds you of summer, or of driving in a car. Then you put on the song that you remember listening to when somebody was in love with you. I want you to think of the best memories you have had, and simply appreciate how you have had them. How you have felt something so big for somebody it made you nauseous and when they left, the best people in the world listened to you when you cried about it. You would feel that again, you think. You just might, you think. Refuse love being the end-it-all of your life. It happens and it doesn’t, and it usually happens again (which is what is so great about it.) Then I want you to cough or scream or raise your arms and simply remember how you are not alone. How you are here and you are here and that is where you are. And then I want you to think of the worst moments, the ones that made you feel shell-like and how you got over them. How you have the ability to get over shit because you are a person and people go through bad things and you are still pretty okay. How you can still laugh and give high fives and go to bars and not get how people function the way they do.

Then you realize how many more days you will feel alone. And how you sometimes crave figuring yourself out more than other things. And how many times going out or meeting certain people will make you feel like you don’t understand humans or how much you love them. Then you remember all your friends, and how much you will laugh at all the douchebags you have dated, and all the mistakes you have made, and how one of these things will always outweigh the others. I want you to allow yourself the biggest kind of optimism you can muster for the future moments of your tiny life. And I want you to sit by yourself and I want you to fucking enjoy it. Pick your nails. Eat a slab of cheese. Savor it.

Then I want you to not feel so fucking alone. You are not.

me and I will answer. I’ve been on a bit of a bitch mode lately, and everything I want to write here is kind of along the lines of “oh so what if I just punch everybody in the face and then they explode, HUH HUH?” So I will do the civil thing and give you my ask box and hope you will respond with some things that will make me want to write something funny tonight

http://the-frenemy.com/ask

GO GO GO

1. Always carry cash. Whenever I go to brunch wif my friendz, everybody pulls out 3,000 of their finest credit cards and chucks them at the table. Somebody will figure it out, we all battle cry. Then we burp at the check, stare at each other while blinking, and see if we can stiff each other a dollar on the tip. Oh we forgot TAX! Later on, I get stuck at some bar with a 30 dollar card minimum and have to get 46 rum and cokes and start dry humping everybody to NeYo because I forget to carry a 20. Or I sort of want to pay a cab to take me home because I am wearing 8 inch heels with blisters the size of the dough bubbles on pizza crust. Where is my cash? Why is it in this little plastic card? We should all solve our problems, go to a bank, and take out forty bucks. Be a responsible adult! Blow your money in paper form!

2. Listen to your goddamn gut. It knows what it is doing, and it’s usually right. If you’re too stubborn to realize your instincts are your greatest ally, listen to your momma or your best friend. Don’t listen to your insecurities, your fears, or your blind optimism.

3. Wait for it. Wait for somebody who is perfect for you. I don’t care how long you’ve been alone, or how easy it is to make excuses for somebody who makes you feel bad. I don’t care if it’s because you kind of like them, and I don’t care if you think it ‘could maybe work out.’ Wait for somebody who is good to you. It doesn’t matter if they make you giggle laugh, because if they give you that empty ‘i’m not hungry’ feeling in your stomach when they forget to call, they are not fucking worth it. They are never worth your bathroom tears or your constant ‘what do you think it means’ barrage to your friends. You are worth it. You are stupidly cool/sometimes lame but you have a human pulse and you don’t kill people and you deserve to be happy. Maybe this person will take forever, maybe it will take till next week. Who knows when they will get their lazy ass off the couch and come find you? However, until then, don’t put up with bullshit. Don’t put up with the bad feelings. Just go do your own thing until somebody fits your puzzle piece. It’ll be something for the books. Don’t fucking settle for anything less.

4. Stop texting and call them.

5. Stop being so cynical. Smile on the subway, or when you’re walking down the street, or when you are on the line at the supermarket. Be happy. Try to look forward to something. Usually I walk around with a frowny fuck face because I can’t be bothered with anybody, but on certain occasions I walk around with a crazy shit grin on my face because it makes me feel good and nice. Smiling makes you feel okay. Try to do it as often as you can, and try to make yourself feel like what you’re doing is exactly what you want to do at the time. Listen, I usually say boring expected stuff for a girl with glasses, such as: I hate people and Everything fucking sucks. Still, every once and a while I need to feel idiotically happy and optimistic. I need to feel as if Cinderella birds are making my bed and I am pretty and floating on cotton candy air. Because you simply can’t be pissed off all the fucking time. It’s just not healthy for you.

6. Turn off your computer for a fucking second.  

7. Be grateful for what you have. I have friends. I have friends who I want to sit on every roof in the world and just talk with, I have a pretty cool pair of shorts, and adorable Corgis exist in the world. I usually just sit around and whine for all the things I don’t have, or all the things I could have, and I eventually overshadow all the great wonderful I have going on. Like hummus! Hummus is so good! And so what if I have a couple of ingrown hairs? Or some shitbag I can’t text on the reg? There’s just way more things I could be whining about, like drinking wine.

8. Eat till you’re full. Eat when you’re hungry. 

9. Love being with yourself. Get to know you and sort of like it. Try not to surround yourself with people all the time. Have inside jokes with yourself, or tv shows you only like watching by yourself. Get to know all of the things you enjoy, all the things you hate, and keep those for future reference. 

10. Your past is for learning. Your future has nothing to do with your past mistakes, except for the things you learn and know and try not to carry too heavily.

11. Everybody’s got their own shit. You’re never alone. 

12. Read more books.

13. Give more compliments.

14. Dance like an idiot when it is appropriate. 

15. Wash your hands when you get home, or just generally wash your hands.

16. Read the news.

17. Say what you mean as often as possible.

18. Realize you have only one tiny life to live, and you should just do things you are scared of and things you love and things that just make you feel good.

19. Laugh at everything. Seriously, just fucking laugh a lot and as much as possible.

20. Oh, and eat your veggies, say ‘I love you’ and brake for squirrels.

I had a bad day today. Waaaah. To top off this crap feeling, my cuticle also just peeled like Natalie Portman’s in Black Swan. People should send me some ask box love, ie pictures of puppies or cute Youtube videos or hap-happy words. 

#idontaskformuch #sadalidaisaskingforsomething

Edit: I got sent the best stuff in the world tonight. Seriously, you guys get my boozy cheesy self, and for that, my day just got a thousand times better. I cannot thank you enough.

If I like you as much as I like burritos, that is surely saying something. 

I’m not a big cuddler, but the idea of the sweet tortilla wrap holding safely the contents of cheese and beans and vegetables? I could cling onto that all night. I would definitely spoon with a burrito, mostly because it is the size of a tiny baby one could spoon with. However, this baby presents me with its shredded cheese contents, the sweet melty cheese of happiness, and it does not ask me to pay for its college education or its Limited Too clothing. I do not have to feed the burrito, for it feeds me. Thank you my food thing, for asking so little of me. Except perhaps some hot sauce to spice up our already intense relationship. And yes, it is messy. But so is love, is it not?

Sure, sometimes the burrito does me wrong by absurdly charging me more for guacamole. I know! It seems so wrong! How I often crave your green and delicious jalapeno-filled insides! Your healthy-saturated-fat flesh! Hark! I know you are good for me, but guac is often so hard to come by. Still, your promise of giving me your delicious avocado goodness for a mere dollar extra? I could empty my wallet a little bit for you, just with the hope that you will one day be exclusive and stop charging me for my fucking guacamole and we will be so committed to each other. Avocado, you are far above sour cream, but the joy of you together is much like the Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy of our time.

And yes, I also know you are bad for me. But baby, I love myself a bit of a bad boy. Fill me with your calories, your unnecessary rice, and your total disregard to the fact that sometimes I would want to wear a tank top. 

I could eat you in silence, just because we know each other so well that we can sit in the white noise and enjoy each other’s company. I remember a time where I was so uncomfortable around you that I needed your nacho chips as a buffer. Now it’s just me and you, baby. No chips in sight. Salsa requested, but pico de gallo is totally the slutty mean girl that wants to hook up with you and ruins you with her chopped tomato raw cilantro lameness. I also remember a time in college where I got a little clingy, wanted to eat you everyday. I walked with you to class and waited for you on your lunch breaks. It was a little much, I know. But I’ve backed off, haven’t I? Only saved you for the most deliriously happy of occasions? I’m not a crazy girl, I swear it. As long as you will always be my Mexican mine.

You’re a mysterious one, you yummy burrito. You reveal so much life in your boring outer shell, kind of like the ‘layered onion’ metaphor but without the tears and the gross fucking onion. And yes, I’m aware that you smoke crack with aluminum foil and burritos also come in that same foil. I’ve made the connection.

If I must say it, I will. Melt for me, burrito. Surely you must know how I melt for you. 

• I mean, I wouldn’t go Vanessa Carlton on your ass and walk 1,000 miles, which is a total crock of shit because that bitch was parked on her little piano that whole music video. But if I were wearing good shoes that didn’t give me blisters, and my I-Pod was fully charged, and I could maybe get a sandwich along the way? Then I would walk maybe 12-15 miles for you, happily. Well, maybe if I was given all day and you weren’t in a rush or anything. Why would you make me walk, though? Is the subway down? Are you worried if I got onto a bike and tried to go anywhere on it I would probably crash into a pole and lay there like a squished worm? I worry about that, too, sometimes.
• I listen to romantic songs and think “awww I am now thinking of a specific person that is you!” Although, when I listen to boy band songs like *NSync I have to wonder if all five (give or take a Joey Fatone) boys are in love with the same girl, or are they just generally okay with supporting the one singer who is in love with this one girl. It would be so awkward if they were in love with the same person, and now “I Do (Cherish You)” has taken on some terrifying polyamorous tones I’m not okay with. Good for them, though. You live your special life!
• If there was a pie, and it was sitting there next to you on a small park bench, I would put the pie on the ground and sit next to you instead. This is mostly if it wasn’t pumpkin pie. If it were pumpkin pie, I would put it lovingly on my lap and nuzzle your neck, but I would be stroking the pie when you weren’t paying attention. Shh, little pie. I still love you.
• I tease you. Much like a child on a playground, I find that making fun of somebody is the best way to show them that you like them. This childish technique has gotten me far on the playground, because I remember when I was 6 and Brendan finally threw sand at my face when I said he had ‘lady pants’ on for a taunting 30 minutes. I liked him! The sand was a grainy show of affection! Now, constantly making digs at you shows that not only am I crushing, but I wear a hearty popsicle stick mask of affection for you because I am too afraid to show my real emotions. Real emotions are for Jumanji! Not for real life! Break my walls down, Gorbachev!
• I am not a flirt. I do not know how to do the flirt things. But if I could do them without looking like Miss Piggy eating a slice of ham steak in a scary moment of puppet-cannibalism, maybe I would do that.
• Well, here I am, dancing around my room in a shockingly terrifying moment of glee.
• I am too afraid to eat in front of you, not in the ‘I will order the salad I’m so dainty’ kind of way, but in the ‘I sort of look like a zoo monkey flinging poop when I eat and I want you to find me somewhat pretty’ kind of way. I mean, I’ll still eat the cheese that is now dangling out of my mouth face, but I definitely will wear mascara and bat my eyelashes at you as well.
• Pushup bra? Yeah, maybe. I have these boob things that I usually fit into these nude colored bras I’ve had since high school, but sometimes I want them to do nice things like stand up straight when somebody is talking to them. Maybe I’ll even shave the above part of my thighs. I don’t know, let’s not go crazy or something.
• Giggling. Good Christ, it’s all the fucking giggling. What am I, a Tickle Me Elmo? I hope not, Elmo kind of scares me. He’s been around since I’ve been a kid and he’s never had any emotional growth, far as I can see. All he cares about are letters. S is for stunted!
• I try to pretend like I didn’t spend my entire day wearing no pants and catching up on the Real Housewives. Uhhhhh I sent a lot of “important emails!” I say. I “cleaned my room!” This mostly meant I burped a lot and had some chip handfuls, but let’s all look past that and say I’ve been really productive.
• I want to talk to you and not punch you in the face
• Girl talkkkkkk with my girl frienz ‘do you LIKE him ooOOOooooOOoo’ vomit vomit barf ice cream barf
• I would miss my favorite TV show for you or by favorite TV show I mean “the thousands of mindless television shows where some guy eats a lot of hamburgers or here is this medical mystery on TLC.” I have a lot of favorite shows.
• Drunk text drunk text oh sweet jesus the drunk text.
• I would thoroughly enjoy hanging out with you or making out with you sober. So what if you’re not buying me drinks and watching me spill gin on myself and peeing every thirty seconds? I still think you’re the cat’s pajamas. Not that cat’s should wear pajamas, and if they did I might immediately You-Tube that because that’s adorable.
• I would also rather hang out with you then spend a long time curled up in my room watching You Tube videos of cats being their Fancy Free selves or looking up important Internet things like ‘can catz hear my thoughts.’ Cats are cool now, right? They’re no longer the sad thing?
• If I know I will see you, maybe I will finally get around to tweezing my terrible monster eyebrows, two caterpillars that have found their way off the log to attack my face because the last time I got them waxed the lady was like ‘har har you don’t do this much’ and I left the salon and buried my face in red-skinned shame for like an hour.
• I have taken locks of your hair and put them by a bunch of Yankee Candles that smell like sea breeze and coconuts. I have worshiped to the God of Love, Jennifer Aniston-Lopez, and put quite a few chicken bones in a necklace strand for me to wear. NEVER LEAVE ME, I scream. Then I hysterically cry into the basil plant I have bought to grow. All things grow! All things GROW.
• Total joke, lol. Just like I totally didn’t hide in your bushes the other night to see if you got your texts I sent. TOTAL JOKE!
• I hope you can’t tell I like you! That would be SO WEIRD. No emotions! No emotions! I am like a tree, except not Grandmother Willow, because she felt A LOT of things.
• Oh, please, please, don’t think I am weird. I’m not that weird, right? So what if I get drunk and make odd faces at myself in the mirror? So what if I find Sally Field as a cat really condescending in Homeward Bound. Who gives a shit if I’m known to put mustard on my steamed broccoli? I’m cute, right? Totally likeable?

I have a tummy.

When I sit down, the tummy kind of sticks out. Sometimes, when I wear particularly tight dresses, the tummy is like ‘oh hey, what’s up?’ and you can see it’s little outline. You can tap my tummy and it will make drum sounds, and it is usually filled with delicious things such as sushi or potato chips and sometimes vegetables. 

My tummy (or stomach, or pooch, or whatever you want to call it) eventually turns into my hips and butt. These hips and butt are total proof that I am a Latina chick, as they are prominent and proud and also probably not going anywhere. Ever. They look good in skirts. They do not look good in certain jeans, but that’s really the jeans loss and not mine.

I used to not like my tummy and my thighs. I would hiss at them in the nighttime, like they were intruders in my body Cave of Wonders. This is because I thought-considering my mind is so saturated with television and models and shit-that having bones sticking out of me like The Elephant Graveyard in The Lion King was beautiful. Women on the cover of Stuff Magazine are so the norm for beauty derp derp derp! If I do not have a centerfold ready bikini body these cats will eventually eat all of my face off as I die alone! This was the point where I put down my beloved fry things and went on an insane diet. I would banish my tummy from my body forever! This is kind of just like the movie Braveheart! I used to measure my food, keep constant check of calories, count my blueberries, and there came a point where I tried to convince everybody that ‘a rice cake with mustard on it was a DELIGHTFUL snack!’ I mean, it sort of is, but I think only if you are on drugs.

My hips and thighs, resilient little bastards that they were, still stuck around. We want our baaaagelllls they used to moan in the nighttime. You’re not a Victoria’s Secret Model give us our creammm cheeeseee. Not yet! I’d say. According to this thinspo blog I’m reading, if I eat only tubes of air and frozen grapes for another 36 years, I will have the Photoshopped body of Adriana Lima on the cover of Photoshop: Things Photoshop Can Do! I simply refused to believe that my ‘body type’ was the reason I had hips, it was simply my inability to only eat Lean Cuisine and Splenda all day, every day. Look at all the models on the CALVIN KLEIN FEED ME billboards. They can do it! And look how sexual they look!

However, I remember a specific moment when I was watching my friends eat nachos at a margarita bar in Boston. I was sitting there, tummy slightly less defined but angrily screaming at me for food. I was spooning salsa onto one lone tortilla chip, because chips have a lot of salt and are the devil and you can’t have too many of them.

I watched my thin friend eat a burrito. I watched my slightly curvier friend (when did curvy become a bad word? I think it’s a compliment) eat another burrito. There were a lot of my friends there, and they were all eating things that had cheese and sour cream oozing out of them like the bathtub slime in Ghostbusters 2. And I was like ‘huh. My friends are pretty attractive. I find them very pretty.’

And then I suffered from an immense heart attack, because my friends weren’t as skinny as the models on the billboards and my friends TOTALLY weren’t reading into the ‘minute on our lips lifetime on your hips’ fear tactic slander bullshit. They were simply enjoying themselves with their food.

This was when I realized how hungry I was. Not just at the moment, but pretty much all of the time.

Here’s the thing: I like to fucking eat. I gain an immense pleasure from shoving noodles into my mouth, or eating gooey slices of pizza on a Tuesday evening. I feel like having these things are something in life that give me happiness, happiness in a way that only a scoop of ice cream can. And if that means my ribs don’t stab everybody at the 7-11 like an insane homeless person, so be it. I will gladly put up with a little bit of tummy and a little bit of thigh as long as I continue to get my precious, life-giving food. Because you NEED food to survive, but you don’t need stick-fucking-thin to survive. And I’m tired- very, VERY, tired- of people telling me that the women on the cover of SEX: BE SEX magazine are what the standard of beauty is. There’s nothing sexier than a woman eating a sandwich, and that is my opinion but I also suspect it is fact. Whatever your body looks like while enjoying that sandwich? That’s what your body looks like. It’s the cards you’ve been given, lady. Thick or thin.

And sure, you can run around and do some cardio and eat some salads if you feel crappy and unhealthy, but mostly I’d just like you to be happy and order the mashed potatoes. Go ahead. Go to a restaurant and every once and a while order the god damn mashed potatoes. It won’t kill you, except in a state of buttery euphoria.

That’s when my tummy kind of came back, and I’m pretty sure she’s here to stay for a bit. It’s no big deal, really, because I still basically fit into the same clothes I did when I was Countin’ Cals. Because you’re never, never as chubby or as gross as you think you are. And yes, here I am, sitting with my little tummy sticking out and my thighs with a little bit of something on them. I am not fat. I am not overweight. I’m somebody who wants to be happy with the body she has. I am me, the me that sometimes thinks she should stop eating so much crap because I have bad days and I’m not perfect. Also, the me that can sometimes stare at my backside in the mirror and be like fuck yeah, bitches.

Whatever I feel, I’ll still go eat a slice of pizza. I hope you have one too: your tummy will thank you for it.

Directions: 

• text friends of choice that ‘you had a long day at work and need a drink.’ By long day, you mean ‘googled shirtless pictures of Ryan Gosling all day but then got a mildly scathing email from somebody who is probably your mom.’ Tough life, y’all.
•  Hope the shaky hands and salivation at the Captain Morgan poster don’t reveal your terrifying dependence to the demon rum. LOL jk it’s happy hour, the magical fairy time where drinking on a Tuesday evening means you’re urban and youthful. Two for one well drinks! Sounds immensely responsible!
• Realize you can’t just get drunk on power anymore.
• Also realize that you are an ‘adult’ who is wasting away her finances by purchasing colorful, poisonous-to-your-precious-liver drinks at a sticky bar. Feel no chagrin or sense of failure, just the same continuous numbing throb you’ve felt since you took your graduation cap off.
•  Meet friends at either a: loudly decorated Mexican place where you order margaritas on the rocks and eat chips while staring at a donkey made of colorful streamers. Have those complimentary chips and watery salsa drool down your professional button-down in a sea of shame and chopped red onions. Or you could go to a blue-tiled Mediterranean/Italian place where you get some white wine and some olive cheese shit plate like mature adults. Maybe a dive bar where you get crabs.
• hug friends, secretly wonder why the hell Amy insists on wearing necklaces that closely resemble anal sex toys/tank tops with so many freaking sequins.
• shove strong drinks down gullet. Get 3,000 because they’re cheaper from 5-8.
•  Drink 3,000 things, is what I am saying. You’re with friends! Start light with maybe a beer or something. Then be the brave one that finally orders the vodka soda (the drink with the least calories! Get over yourself, bitch!) and have your friends siren scream in excitement as they release their wingspans over to the bar. Girls night out! they scream in approving and terrorizing anticipation. Realize that you cannot also yell ‘girl’s night out!’ because your hands look like they are scaly fish you have shoved in dirt. Ladies who do not manicure do not get to scream ‘woo’ or other bits of frivolous voicebox waste.
• stare at men at bar, decide that they look like alcoholic slobs because they are drinking at happy hour. I’d make a ‘pot calling a kettle’ joke, but we all very well know that pots can’t fucking TALK. See cute boy, notice he’s wearing a cellphone holder. There is not one man on the face of the earth worth making out with if he’s wearing a cellphone holder. Feel the despair of single girl life, realize Mr. Cat is waiting on your soft afghan at home, feel hope again. Imagine sticking your lonely fingers in the tub of cream cheese you just brought home! Nobody is watching! Oh, nobody will hold you!
• after two drinks, somebody says ‘I don’t want to talk about relationships!’
• spend three hours talking about relationships, although this mostly means solemnly nodding while your friend talks about her douchebag boyfriend that you’ve heard about for years and years. Why doesn’t she break up with him, you ask? Probably because he buys her food or whatever else people do in relationships that makes them worth having.
• Bring up the person you are a) humpy humping or b) internet stalking at the moment. Shit grin about it like this person just invented melting cheese in the microwave, pushup bras, or making out with your face. Drunk text this person and have them see you are a terrible monster who gets drunk on the weeknights. Ruin everything.
• Start talking about blow j’s. I don’t know why girls love talking about how they hate them, how they are still good at giving them (lol every guy who is reading this we love them we love them) but technically nobody’s GOOD at them. You can be BETTER at them then other people, but mostly if you don’t bite or fall asleep, you’re doing fine. I like to tell myself this as I am chewing on my hummus and baby carrot sticks while drooling and sleeping.
• Also talk about the mortality, the unbearable lightness of being, and your favorite summer trends.
• Get drunk enough to start hugging each other and be like ‘I LOVE YOUUUUU’ to all your friends even though sometimes you want to take your friend Krista outside and hose her bitchy ass down or flush her down the toilet. Hrmph.
• Decide that you guys are totally going to get FOOD. Because we totally ‘barely ate anything since like…..1230. And it was just a salad. And like, I can’t even eat breakfast because I am SO not hungry in the morning.’ And by that, you really meant you ate 3 bagels and also just dug into the garbage can for Kit-Kat bars. These little white lies are what keeps you feeling less guilty about all the food you will begin to consume when you stumble home. It’s not shame eating if you believe your own lies!
• Get FRIES. Let the fatty goodness dribble down your chin. Realize how much you love your friends, and how lucky they don’t mind they get to see you with your mouth open and gapingly chewing a french fry. Give lots of hugs. Burp and giggle and spill and gossip and chew and pee and have all your hormones just fly around each other like little Golden Snitches. Be very happy, especially when you dance to that ONE SONG.
• Dance to that one song while you watch your pretty little friend get unsuccessfully hit on with a guy that has seagulls on his tie. J.Crew more like J. Crew look like an idiot, am I right?
• Go home drunk and happy. But not before doing an extremely poignant Facebook status about how lucky you are to have your friends! Tag them all! With HEARTS! Also, sort of mean it.

Somebody asked me ‘what my type’ was tonight. If they’re quizzing me on what letter my blood is, I believe it’s A+ because it is both good and real blood (no preservatives). However, I suspect they are instead asking me what kind of guy I like to bring home to my tiny very creaky bed. Well, they didn’t know it was very creaky. But it is.

Basically, I’ve always had a type. When I was 12 and yes, I’m going to bring up Shawn Hunter again, it was Shawn Hunter. This man is solely responsible for making me find the ‘bad boy’ very appealing on my loins. Since then, the cut off denim jackets have since translated to guys who wear cut off denim jackets AND calf tattoos, but bad boys it is. Rude boys! Guys who flick their cigarettes into my eye! 

I also like very tall guys. This is because I am short and the evolution part of my brain is all ‘you need a chance to breed normal-sized babies that don’t get mauled by saber-tooth tigers!’

For a while, I had to date ‘dog people.’ Then, I decided that everybody I liked would have more than one copy of their favorite book, must be able to quote Jurassic Park, had to feed me homemade mashed potatoes and probably needed to be capable of growing a beard. Riding a fixed-gear bike? Excuse me, let me take of my panties. UGH I said panties.

I successfully dated these kinds of boys, mostly because I ran around saying “CLEVER GIRL” and hoping somebody would rear their raptor head up and sweep me off my feet. Well, by sweep I mean text me consistently and accidentally buy me at least one drink. Unfortunately, I forgot to add ‘has a job’ and ‘not an asshole’ to that list so at times, I was gravely disappointed. I was also pretty Judge Judy about the kinds of people I would give my number to, which is generally kind of rude. Why aren’t you perfect on my checklist? I would scream, as I wondered why he hasn’t called me in three days even though his tats were mad cool.

Then I kind of looked at myself in the fucking mirror.

I’m assuming men have a type, too? Or just people in general? And yes, there could be somebody who hopes that their girl of choice will sincerely love Terminator 2, hates eating ketchup, likes sleeping curled up in the fetal position, high-fives, and thinks wearing ripped up denim shorts is cute. That’s probably not too hard to find on a checklist. However, it’s probably pretty difficult to find somebody who:

gets really bitchy when she is hungry, bites her nails, takes bites of your food without asking, doesn’t like going out without mascara, doesn’t wash her pillowcases, gets a lot of forehead sweat in the summer, and yells out loud and obnoxious during board games. It’s not so lovely, but I guess it’s just me. 

After making such specific dating types for myself, (better have brown hair you guys!), I kind of realized I wasn’t the easiest type myself. If you saw the crazy hairdo I have in the gross messy room I am sitting in right now, you might agree. Still, I hope that people will like me for who I am, because I am the way that I am. We R Who We R, said Ke$ha and so do I, except maybe not so awesomely bad and autotuned. It should also be noted that the types I were creating were kind of just generally shitty people. I once carried on a text relationship with somebody for months who knew how much I loved getting Ben Affleck quotes on the phone It was kind of fun until it occured to me he was technically insane.

So I changed my type. Yes, if you know what “loose seal! LOOSE SEAL!” means to me, bonus points. If you like milk steak, great. But if you watch those shows with me no matter if you’ve seen them before or not, that’s probably better. If you have lots of tattoos, cool. If you are nice to me, better. 

My new type is this: makes me happy, is nice to me. Make me laugh, I’l totally dig you for it. And yes, if you have the DVD of Independence Day I will probably talk to you longer than most. And yes, if you don’t like girls who wear high heels during the morning hours, you might talk to me longer, too. But it shouldn’t make or break you. You bet your ass it would help a lot, but still.

You’re not my type at all, I should say. And I want that to be a good thing.

Bartenders made me specialty whiskey drinks.

I’m tipsy and I’m gonna answer a question, so help me cheese.

Ask box it.

To:

• cry over nothing because you feel sad and listen to sad music and just wallow
• ask your friends about the same person you are attracted to over and over again
• still mention the person that broke your heart even though you haven’t talked to them in years
• eat an entire bag of chips because you’re hungry
• or get the burger
• or any food thing you so desire because food is delicious and it shouldn’t be a guilt thing
• miss that one specific time in your life, look forward to other things
• get dressed up for no reason at all
• not wear makeup and still leave the house
• listen to the same song eighty times in one night
• Facebook stalk that one person
• stare at yourself for twenty minutes in the mirror
• and feel really fucking pretty sometimes
• text that person you shouldn’t
• look pretty fucking gross and do gross things by yourself, maybe even talk to yourself
• not give somebody your number even though you are afraid of being an ass
• giggle over somebody you are smitten with
• also, be smitten
• cuddle
• hate when people touch you
• want to wear a short skirt and feel hot and get hit on, even though you are generally against that kind of bullshit
• be a nasty bitch when you are in a bad mood
• never shower for three days
• stop doing laundry for a bit
• go to the movies by yourself
• want to explore your sexuality
• want to punch homophobes, even though violence is not always your thing
• have a messy room
• like vampire movies a little too much
• or any ‘uncool’ show or any ‘uncool’ band, because screw it
• sing in the shower or in public or really, fucking anywhere
• baby talk to dogs on the street
• go to bed without washing your face
• spend a day getting absolutely nothing done
• forget to take care of your feet
• bite your nails
• wonder if you will die alone, decide you won’t, think that it will be okay if you will
• picture your wedding as long as it’s not with somebody specific
• be unsure about your spirituality right now
• never want to have babies or get married
• want those things
• be afraid to be an adult, kind of wish you never had to do that because you don’t have to do that
• still wish you could play with Barbies or dolls or something
• wish you were a wizard
• to love sports, or not love sports at all
• not talk to that many kids from your high school
• have a favorite outfit and overwear it because you look good in it
• drink too much on a weeknight
• go to the movies with your parents
• accidentally sleep in
• smile at somebody on a subway
• ask what you really want during sex
• be naked 
• not like being naked because you need the bra support
• pop the pimple
• think you are good at karaoke
• be a sore winner
• SING OUT LOUD
• get overly competitive at touch football or board games or trivia
• fish for compliments
• drink something out of the carton or at least stand by the fridge and waste electricity while deciding if you should eat all of the fridge things
• get regular and not diet soda
• forget to shave 
• spend too money much on something you really like
• be proud of yourself
• wear a one piece bathing suit even though it’s BIKINI season
• not watch NBC comedies even though you know they are good
• wear the same socks two days in a row
• be really fucking obnoxious and loud when you are out with your friends
• turn off your phone
• like somebody ‘not your type’
• be on the Internet too often
• have inside jokes with yourself
• be restless
• wish for something more, and decide that means you want to travel or some crazy shit
• do stuff that makes you happy

Really, it’s okay.

When it comes down to it, I think I can relate to The Beast from Disney’s Beauty and The Beast more than any other thing, living or dead.

Okay. I may not be a water buffalo/wild boar hybrid, but at the very least I get his irrational temper. Also his need to hide himself out in a giant, well-equipped tower. At this point, alone time in my big room is way more enjoyable than marching around some boring ass town where everybody enjoys people breaking out into song (thanks, Glee). Also, ‘kill the BEAST’ is something I think people in particularly Republican towns might shout at me when I tell them my support for Planned Parenthood. Furthermore, I see the hungover monster I am in the mirror and growl and capture people’s french inventor dads too. It’s only a natural response, he DID enter his house without much warning.

Also, probably would have turned away that old creepy homeless woman, too. Curse me!

And when I like someone-maybe not an attractive cartoon bookworm but it’s basically all the same-I also feel the intense need to be an asshole to them. I probably growl at them and swat my large claws in their general direction. It’s only because I feel nervous, even if I I am technically this super hot human being inside, one only to be discovered when somebody likes me enough to totally dig me over…Well, I’d say Gaston types. Because I’m pretty sure he has a sick job, can eat lots of raw eggs, and decorates his sizeable cabin pretty well. He kind of hits all ends of the ‘good on paper’ spectrum. He’s not technically a terrible guy, and some people might even find his bad boy vibe attractive. I can’t always compete with the Gaston’s of the world, especially if by Gaston you mean ‘hot hipster girl who looks really good in fake ass glasses.’ Good is also subjective in that sentence.

Seriously, I growl.

When I dig somebody, I sing at them in private as I am feeding birds.

The “West Wing’ is sort of like my room. It’s forbidden because it’s so fucking messy, it’s kind of gross, and I’m sometimes scared to go in it myself. I have no idea what lies in the piles of piles that might still be alive, or contacting their family and telling them of the mountains of my sock underwears. Currently, I have all of the “laundry” I proudly did a week ago, just to prove to my mom that “yes, ma. I do laundry or whatever.” I just found a toothpick on the floor, and I have no idea how it got there. I serve no canapes in my room.

Also, there’s the talking to inanimate household objects. I just talked the fuck out of my dishwasher because it was making weird noises. Why you acting that way? I ask it. It doesn’t answer, and neither does the chair I sternly yelled at when I stubbed my toe on it. I’m sure I treat them cruelly enough for them to break out in song when I am not around them. Maybe not so much if a clock sang to me instead of waking me up so shrilly in the morning.

I’d gift somebody a library, that seems like a pretty good gift. I like guys who can use that shit. 

When Belle teaches him how to be a better, more empathetic beast, all she has to do is teach him how to use a spoon. When given things to eat with a spoon, I currently have a lot of trouble managing this task. I’m not sure if I have ever used a spoon successfully, or so says my lap. It might be a skill I should learn.

People have “shuddered at MY PAW.” Not in the Gaga ‘paws up’ way, more like in the ‘I kind of like to Seinfeld Elaine shove people around when I want to mouth bang them.’ It’s maybe rude, although I’m not sure, it’s just my way! Do you see? I don’t always cut my nails, I kind of have paws now.

If I like somebody enough and I let them see me during the morning hours, I feel it is very similar to the scene where Belle asks The Beast to ‘step into the light’ and he does and she’s like ‘what the fucking fuck that’s gross’ and then I kind of burp and step back into the shadows.

Whenever I am attracted to somebody and want to look nice for them, it kind of reminds me of the scene where Beast gets all dressed up and takes a long bath and uses some sort of hair curlers, but at the end of the day he’s still a fucking Beast. Not too bad at ballroom dancing though, I guess. Did I mention how awkward it is when I like someone?

Not that I want the guys I want to make out with to be into animal spell beasts, but it’s not like I’m going to fucking shave my legs every day. Every other day? That seems reasonable. MAYBE.

Well, if I want somebody to like me for the long term, I better hold them captive. In the Disney movie, that mostly means ‘actually holding them captive.’ In my life, this sort of translates to ‘feed them gin and constantly text them.’

I don’t get it. Are people into cruel animal beasts now? Do I have a shot?

Oh well. Somebody will learn to love the Beast, I guess.

Realize that you need some new friends.

Maybe it’s because all your college friends left to move to Los Angeles and now wear a lot of high-waisted shorts and red lipstick. Maybe it’s because they’ve all moved to New York and now wear a lot of high-waisted shorts and red lipstick. Maybe it’s because you don’t look good in lipstick and you’d rather stay home in your big t-shirt and never leave the house. Your mother’s worried. You are slightly worried.

Discover that you spend a lot of time alone, to the point that you are almost getting into arguments with yourself. Well you know, maybe if you did the DISHES more often we wouldn’t have such sticky counters. Later decide ‘maybe I should just get a boyfriend’ and then hysterically laugh at yourself and promise never, ever to shave your hairy legs or perfume your cleavage. You need friends, friends who will find your unwashed hair and the heavy circles under your eyes-due to hours of Internet browsing-adorable and only slightly worrisome.

Drag yourself to a friend’s party, even though you know that everybody will already like each other. Hope they don’t bring up their high school memories while you have to somberly nod to that awesome time they all went cow-tipping toddlers. Hope they don’t make you take a survey that asks you questions like how much do you drink and does everything fill you with an unbridled terror rage? Decide that most of them are not wearing pink bustiers or holding tiny dogs in their large purses (you watched all the seasons of The Simple Life the other day and now your view on women has been gravely affected). 

Drink wine. 

Begin to loosen up. Make that perfectly crafted joke you’ve been saving up but have never had the courage to speak aloud (Where do Avatars go where they are sick. The ICU. Yes, I know they are not called Avatars. Yes, I know that is a bad joke). Find that one or two people in particular find your incessant face-touching not very offensive. Sit cautiously by them. Get into an overly enthusiastic conversation about how much you love watching Amanda Bynes on TV or how you hate Crocs. Say drunken things like I REALLY LIKE YOU.

Friend them on Facebook. Decide that they have few irritating profile pictures and they like The Black Keys. Write a friendly joke on their wall. Casually make dinner plans, which later turn to drinks. Don’t be shy! Ask them to drinks!

Drink way too much beer. Find yourself oversharing with them about that one time you gave a handjob and handjobs are gross and aren’t they so gross giggle giggle. Revel in some creepy dude hitting on you, have that be a little ‘ew yuck’ shared moment because he smelled like Axe. Talk about how high heels hurt your feet and that one low-fat bag of chips at Trader Joe’s. Keep it casual.

Hang out again. This time you have a moment. You tell them about the ex that broke your heart, that long story about how sad you were freshman year of college and how you slept through all your classes. Tell them something real. You don’t cry or anything, but now you are both at this level where they see you have human emotions and not just a raging dislike for a lot of things.

Text them jokes. Ask about ‘what outfit you should wear’ out. Realize they know what looks good on you. Go to brunch with them. Tell them about a date. Tell them about how you feel kind of ugly today and don’t just say it because you want a compliment. Yell at them when they are stupid about something, and expect the same back. Call them when you are sad. Hug them when you are with them. Realize you have made a friend, and that friends are nice and you don’t like many people but you certainly like them.

Make lots of these friends. Repeat this as much or as little as you like, as long as there are people in your life who you want to keep around. Realize how much you love your old friends and give THEM lots of hugs too. Keep in touch. Have stupid inside jokes. Dance drunkenly with them. Love them equally or harder.

But most of all, just get out of the fucking house.

At long last, I’m putting up the winner of the Paul e-mail contest. His name is Adam Goldberg, and he’s a writer dude. I told him that I had no prizes for him except the stuff dribbling out of my mouth, but he wants to write a guest post so I’ll let him do that at some point. Thanks to all who submitted, I pop ye collars to you. This one made me laugh till I cried:

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Somebody asked me what advice I would give to my 18-year-old self. It is as follows:

First of all, slow your load. I get that your hormones are raging at the fiery furnace of vagina hellfire terror. Cool. These hormones might make you want to just dry hump all over every celebrity vampire or badass in a GQ leather jacket, but you can’t go around hoping to make out with celebrities all the time! They don’t know who you are. Take the poster down from your room and go out and meet some real human flesh people that actually know you exist.

Well, except for that one guy. 

No. I take that back. Make out like crazy with that one guy, let him buy you pancakes and hold hands with him on the street and miss him when he is gone, but realize that you are 18 and all things pass when you are young and stupid. I want you to not be so crazy about him. I want you to never curl up in a weak little ball when he leaves, I want you to realize that there are billions of people on this Earth and you will be smitten with many of them. Please note that some other person will come along and feed you hummus and make you giggle. Especially because sex will get better, and you won’t know that until you finally buy a vibrator and see what down there is all about.

Seriously. He was a jerk. You had fun, and I want you to always remember what it is like to feel so excited about somebody, but he was a jerk.

That being said, I don’t want you to be so cynical. He isn’t the only example of relationships, because he was a demon sent from hell to destroy your heartstrings. He is not the promise of people to come.

Remember being vulnerable isn’t something you only do when you are young.

Fill your I-Pod up with terrible music so you can one day loudly sing that music when you are 22 and drunk on a rooftop.

Stop wearing so many denim skirts they look stupid. Don’t spring for the Northface jacket because it’s cool. There are better things to do with your money.

Give your best friends more hugs. They are seeing you at your most emotionally idiotic, and there will come a time where your friends will no longer want to hear you yap for seventeen hours about that guy you still love from high school. Because they have jobs.

Realize that many of these friends will go away, and you will soon make new ones who ask ‘so how were you at 18?’ Let them know. Tell them about that time you lived in Beatles T-shirts and spent too many hours at the mall. Laugh at this.

Go to class. Embrace doing papers till 6am, hold onto your tiny young problems like citing 8 sources because these will all go away when you have to pay rent and do taxes.

Learn shit. Read your textbooks, and be super knowledgeable about the Industrial Revolution or Jane Eyre and be a smart person who knows stuff. Use your brain while you still have people feeding you information into it.

Get a job. Learn now what it feels like to work for your money. Have a paycheck and stop asking your parents for so much ‘H&M clothing’ money. Build your character this way.

Do your laundry.

Don’t smoke because you can. You’ll get fucking hooked and it’s expensive.

Be a kid. 18 isn’t that old. Watch Disney movies and wear pajamas with characters on them and stop trying to get into bars right now. There’s time for all that desperation later.

Fuck peer pressure. Do it because you want to.

Have the best summer possible. Eventually, summers will be hot days where you sweat out in your work clothes and you only can BBQ on the weekends. Go out on a Monday and lay the hell out on a field with your lemonade and listen to music and just do nothing. Wear sunscreen.

Don’t buy so much gourmet coffee slushies, it’s a waste of money.

Go abroad if you can afford it. I didn’t, and I will always regret not hanging out with my college friends in Italy and eating gelato and hugging sweaty cologne men.

Have fun sober. 

Have fun by yourself.

Don’t try to figure out your whole life right now. You can change your mind about your ‘life path’, and you will do so often. At 18, you are not at your smartest. Enjoy that you will only get smarter.

Tell that person you LIKE like them. Embrace getting rejected, or making out with somebody you like, or all of the extreme Capri Sun emotions you find yourself feeling all the time.

Don’t use Sun-In, but dye your hair a stupid color. Pierce something, take it out when it’s time.

Be a bit reckless because your responsibilities aren’t as big.

No, it’s not that bad. It’s not that big of a deal, and you should just RELAX about it.

You’re not fucking fat. Stop eating so much Lean Cuisine and measuring your thighs out. Stop comparing yourself to models. Stop worrying about how you look in a bikini, because you will just look at pictures of yourself five years later and think ‘damn, I looked good.’

Close your computer. Go out in the sun.

Stop worrying what those bitchy popular girls think about you. Don’t feel so insecure about other women, and don’t hate other girls because some of them are mean to you. Love your girlfriends. Overshare stupid secrets with them about how you once ate a whole box of spaghetti or really like watching 3rd Rock from the Sun. Establish now other girls are not the enemy. 

Take lots of pictures. Keep a journal. Write bad poetry so you can read it back and remember how weird you were.

Drive around as much as you can, sticking your hand out the window.

Learn good grammar, the difference between your and you’re and then and than.

Stop arguing with your mom so much. She loves you. Don’t just scream at her because she doesn’t want you to stay out past midnight, she’s just worried.

Love yourself, love this time. It goes away fast. 

Enjoy getting older. There’s a lot more great stuff to come.

Somebody ask me a question in my ask. I will answer one tonight, mostly because the Cosmo website is making me projectile vomit and my hair is too frizzy to post a video. #fuckyousummer #ilovesummer