The Frenemy.

For Natalie, On Change

Tue, 22 May 2012 01:49:00 -0400

For the most part, I say I dig change, but for the most part, I can be a real fuckin’ liar sometimes. I get upset when my favorite show ends, and I have trouble taking different routes home from the subway. I have parted my hair in the middle for three years. I would say YOLO, but that’s a new phrase and so I won’t say it and stop trying to MAKE ME.

I was thinking about change because it was May, and that always makes me think about how eventually, I would get really hot and would have to shave my thighs and I would have to find a decent pair of sandals soon. This is the kind of change I am familiar with. Easy. Constant. Sweaty. Then I thought about it again because one of my closest friends decided to up and move from New York to Los Angeles, and I liked her for it because it wasn’t easy, and I was jealous of her for that too. There are things I could use in Los Angeles—I thought of at least two specific beards, of double doubles and tacos, and palm trees I’ve never seen. I said no goodbyes and I ate a bite of her cookie and I sat in her empty apartment and I missed her already and I thought

“I wouldn’t be able to do this”

I don’t think I could. There comes a point in your life where you realize how willing you would be to change your life, and for many, that probably isn’t much. For me? I don’t think I could switch cream cheese brands.

Anyway, shouldn’t you want to change when you’re older? Guess what. You’re OLDER. You should want to do something now.

There is a routine I am comfortable with. Two Splendas and some skim milk. I take my socks off with my feet not my hands. I drink a beer and I stick my sticky hands in some bags of chips and I watch the television. If it’s Friday, I’ll stare off in the corner of a bar I won’t like but will always go to. I’ll decide I’m getting a cold. I text with one finger. I remind myself to buy eggs. I live a life that is always in forward motion but little shift.

There are dreams, vaguely in the distance, that I think about as if they couldn’t happen. As if going left instead of right, or moving to Los Angeles, or taking a deep breath and taking a plunge are the kinds of things fantasy dramas are made of. “I’M 22 I CAN’T CHANGE MY LIFE WHAT AM I SALLY FIELD IN A MELODRAMA?” As if being young suddenly became impossible, like if getting on planes or telling people how I feel or changing my life is the new kind of daydream. Why? Because we get in a place and we wanna stay in a place. Change is difficult. Change isn not what sloths do, or people who want to nap do, or sloths that take naps do.

It take courage. Some people might say it take balls, but fuck that it takes heart, and heart is the hardest.

I blame my unhappiness or my routine or my disdain on life itself, like everything that happens to me is just baseballs being thrown at me and I don’t have a glove. However, change will come anyway. It’s happening, and it’s gross, and it’s hurtling towards you and you’ve got to get some of it. I remember how comfort and complacency, even if your life is shit, sometimes works as a substitute for “doing fucking SOMETHING.” I just want to say you can always change, and it will suck and also, you can still do it.

What I’m really saying is that change doesn’t always have to be big. It has to be little, and then you’ll get some courage, and then you won’t be 25 and wonder “if only.” You should never have to wonder that, because that’s not fair to you.

Here’s what I think. I think you should take a different route home. I think you should step out of the box and do something for this one stupid life. I believe you have it in you, and I believe being scared shitless is appropriate. Life is big and stupid and always, always yours. Do something about that.

Remember this: Time will always move on. People will always miss you. People will always be proud of you.

It’s time to step over to the other side, whatever that means to you.

September will always, always come.

Things I Would Like In Five Years

Sat, 12 May 2012 02:57:00 -0400

a week of good hair every month
nail polish that never chips but removes easily
a faucet that produces, when you want it to, Snapple
a tub of hummus the size of my body
gay marriage legal, celebrity marriage a state by state kind of thing
the ability to make my favorite television characters exist, and so Ron Swanson might suddenly be my uncle or something, and that bar in True Blood is actually real
the ability to make your favorite television characters come back to life on that show
a phone that floats to you when you are drunk and it has disappeared under the sofa or something
a time when I get up at 830 and do my laundry and don’t just sit in my filth and feel like death
an argument on the Internet that is well thought out and even shows its work
a couple that met on the subway and not on OKCupid and isn’t annoying
an umbrella I haven’t lost
a field of puppies
flats that don’t make your feet smell
a guy who wears hoodies under a denim jacket and is nice and stuff
okay, so this one is complicated but people are like ‘yeah, so a woman is allowed to choose what happens to her own body and that’s not what politics is about’ and everybody is all ‘sure, of course.’
so the Easy Mac is still bought for a 1.25 at the bodega but somebody is required to make it for you and season it correctly with hot sauce and feeds it to you THAT IS EASY
a makeover montage
necklaces you can put away and won’t tangle
a gel pen that never runs out of ink
American Girl dolls an acceptable toy to play with at 23
a reality show about all the people from my high school that do townie stuff or have kids or something
no more weird hair in places you don’t respect them to be at
Wifi for everybody
a waterproof computer, just spill shit on that and it only gets stronger
a really good first kiss
you can no longer say ‘i hate drama’ when you clearly love drama
a card that allows you forever shotgun in cars
complimentary guac in burritos or death
people pay you to travel to Thailand and meet attractive people and eat noodles
everybody you love on the Internet is actually in your town now
meeting your celeb crush at a bar and he’s like ‘yeah I search your tags on Tumblr all the time’
you can electrocute people at a bar who are grossly making out in front of you
unlimited ice cubes in your freezer
Crocs and Ed Hardy go out of business
more food trucks than people
Frozen food is actually pretty delicious and not just settling
people walk faster and stop lingering when I am trying to GET SOMEWHERE
I have the ability to make text messages from people I want to hear from appear
clothes always fit, like the sisterhood of the traveling pants, but only for me and not just dirty jeans people write on
feet can no longer fall asleep it’s the LAW
drunk no longer has consequences
Facebook doesn’t make you want to blow out your brains
You can’t start work until you have brunch
Disney World in every state
Goosebumps books come back and everybody reads them
Doritos 3D are back, okay, perfect food
light jacket weather forever
headbands worn across the forehead are illegal
annoying teenagers live on a different planet
pizza is national food
cats begin to slightly, almost undetectably, respect you
memes die when appropriate and no dead horses are kicked, people just know when to bow out at the right time
American Idol finally realizes, no, the title of the show is not what happens
Ludacris releases an album of fifty 30 second guest verses
ATMs are free no fee
People finally agree that yes, Zac Efron is attractive, and we should all just live with this
People give Ryan Gosling a much needed break
Everybody who decides to ‘become a singer’ goes through a serious screening process
Nobody can talk at the movies unless it’s a legitimately funny opinion and not just some annoying comment on cinematography
my singing in the shower is beautiful
Forever 21 becomes a manageable store to shop in
baby dolls aren’t so creepy
egg yolks never break
Romantic comedies become realistic, like maybe you can’t meet a guy by falling into a puddle and he’s engaged and you’re Kate Hudson
NO MORE COSMOPOLITAN SEX TIPS ABOUT WHAT TO DO WITH GENITALS
people are cool with all types of body types because love handles are FINE, OKAY
ex-boyfriends pine for you then blow up
people stop saying stupid shit THIS IS TOO MUCH TO HOPE FOR
no humidity, only thunderstorm kind of rain
everybody you like is happy and so are you

ELECT ME FOR PRESIDENT I HAVE GREAT IDEAS

Dreams

Mon, 07 May 2012 01:32:00 -0400

For a little while, there was all the things we talked about and all of those things were love.

There was a restlessness we equated to lack of love, to missing love, and oh, god, I am so tired of talking about love. I am not here to talk about love because I don’t know what it is and I don’t know where to find it and I am tired of making up solutions to answer these questions.

I want to talk about dreams, I want to talk about the real things that might make you happy that are also things you can control. I want to talk about the core of you, the bones and muscle and insides of you.

If you’re lucky, which I think you are, you have a passion. You never call it your passion because that sounds pretentious and difficult, but that’s what it really is. For me, it’s sitting in front of my computer and trying to find all the little words I have in my head that want to be big nice words. For others, it’s television or paint or numbers or putting their hands in the dirt or some shit. It’s the REAL GOOD you found between being a child who wanted to be a princess and an adult who just wanted to pay their bills. It’s the burn in your stomach you forget about when you think too hard about your heart, or your brain, or why you should maybe go to the dentist. Gut! It’s the something you are on this earth for, not the somebody.

Remember you were put here, maybe, to make an impression—a billion particles that have the chance to make something of all of it. Remember you are a billion particles and not a missed chance with an idiot boy or a paycheck or anything else that happens again and again. Really, it’s kind of like eating breakfast on a Wednesday—it’s forgotten until it isn’t and only then you remember how damn good it is.

Today, I had a cup of coffee and I walked around in the daylight and I realized how important it was to choose a piece of fruit in the sun and smell the char of the hot dog stands and to simply be out in the afternoon—without the short skirts of night, without the walks to work of Monday, just a lazy lull. I think I wrote an entire something in my head about the subway grates and the bite of egg yolk and the confused calm I always feel at 2pm on a weekend when I have the chance to.I write a lot of things in my head that never make their way to paper, and I think it’s funny and also terrible that these things float around somewhere I can’t find them 2 hours later. Then, I am okay with being a lot of things I put together that I can’t always remember, but always love when they happen. I also thought briefly about how much I wanted somebody to sit with while we sat in our own heads, and also how much I liked both long and clipped sentences. So.

But sometimes, oh sometimes, it is so much better to think about the real dreams. The stuff that gets your motor going, the stuff that you used to think about before you thought about love. I’ll call it passion again, although that word still kind of kicks me a bit.

What I mean by that is you have this in your hand ALREADY. It’s there, in all the times you are by yourself and you are wrongly using those times by yourself to think about the stuff you don’t have. Love is hard to find, okay, but love is simple. There is more to life than what makes hearts beating—there is what you have for yourself and what you build for yourself and what you can hold in your hand when everything else goes through like sand.

Let all that is inside of you get you through everything else. Let it pulse through your veins like fire, let it move through you like determination and spit and all the things you want to have for other things. Let it be the moving force in you, and let the rest come later. Become the best thing you can be in a million ways other than somebody else and circumstance.

It will be the things you dream about when you remember how to dream.

#3 On The Boots and Leather

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 02:59:20 -0400

When I was a real small baby, I used to carry this thing I called ‘a rag.’ Spoiler alert: it was a blanket and I wouldn’t go outside without it. Frankly, to call the most coveted item of my childhood ‘a rag’ is vaguely offensive to my toddler self, but I didn’t know that at the time and that’s what it was named. There’s a point to this..

Frankly, to start a story with a tale of my childhood is offensive to your literary expectations, too. So. What I’m getting at is we all have our thing.

There was a time I can’t remember, somewhere in between high school and listening to Nirvana and The Cure and what I thought was cool and tough that I started wearing pleather jackets. There was a time I CAN remember where I realized being funny was a good idea, and poking fun was a good idea, and jokes were a good idea and I was happy. We’re always coveting the cool. We’re coveting a personal style, a way to handle ourselves, a definition but then OH

did I mention a WHO? There was a who, because there’s always a who who is either a tall dark-haired thing or a monster. There’s a questioning, a confusion, a defiance to become EXACTLY who you are at the EXACT moment you really want to. It’s a panic, it’s a rush at the five minutes before something is due. Suddenly, the pleather become a brick, and the frown becomes the cement, and the funny becomes a wall. It’s what we can make of it! IT’s who I am, mom! Suddenly, in between “I can’t stop thinking about you” and “I can’t do this” there was a thing built. Did I mention a defiance? Did I mention a wall?

Oh hell, It’s not always a WHO. Sometimes and always it’s a side glance. It’s a laugh directed at you. It’s a family who doesn’t approve. It’s a lost fork in the road. It’s the “afraid to fuck up.” It’s a whole bunch of things that build something you can push and push and it won’t collapse.

How do you become who you are like this? How do you become who you are in the pressure vat? Well.

This was eighteen. This was eighteen and young and scared and stupid in a totally different way, because you will become scared and stupid in a different way.

When you get older, the pleather fits. The stupid shifts. When you get older, you spend a lot of time building walls and suddenly spend a whole lot of time realizing you like the jokes, and you like the jackets, and you no longer have time for the people you built those defenses for. You become happy. You mold. You like who you have become, change what you need to, and keep what is at the core. For me, that’s the jackets and the jokes—-just shot at a different dartboard, if you get that.

Basically, they won’t have to break through walls. They’ll see who you are. YOU’LL see who are. They’ll like who you are. They’ll get the jokes—all of them. The difference between eighteen and twenty is that this is scarier than you want it to be, but also realer and you care about that.

You won’t mind being called a rag, is what I’m circling at. They’ll call the pleather a pleather, a spade a spade. It hasn’t happened, but it will.

It’ll be nice

#2: On The Book

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 01:58:00 -0400

I want to talk about the book. I guess one of the reasons I want to talk about the book is because sometimes I forget that I’m not writing an incredibly long paper for some kind of college assignment. It’s a 240 page thesis? Okay, I’ll do it!

I’m kidding about that, but only mildly. I know the seriousness of this, in the way I know the seriousness of the interest of my college loans: I’m aware that it’s happening, but it scares me like hell. OKAY I’m terrified. It’s released with Plume (a part of Penguin) in mid-2013, and I think about that day like Ben Affleck thinks about Armaggedon…”Meteor!!!!!”

Who gives a shit that I’m scared, huh? Well, I’m scared because of you. Tumblr is my home, my safe place, my comfort zone. You guys are my weird, funny, awkward family and I am so absurdly grateful for you. I don’t want to be a disappointment to you and I think about that all the time, every draft I hand in. For whatever reason you do, you guys read my stuff and I just want you to desperately to know some things-I want you to know that your belly fat is okay, and being single is okay, and getting too drunk and crying is okay, and making mistakes is okay, and being confused is okay. I am all those things. I stare out the window and wonder what the hell, too. I burp burritos and wonder what the HELL, too. I want you guys to be okay. I want you guys to fall in love, to be happy. I won’t ever forget you or that.

I also want you to know that I was pissed I was single and I felt too fat and I felt all too lost before I started The Frenemy. I was a bit sad. However, you gave me a whole lot of confidence and wisdom I DEFINITELY didn’t have before. So thanks to you more than you know—because of you I’m pretty damn hopeful.

I won’t talk about how this book is my dream. Why? Because I’m not a shithead, and because Shawn Hunter used to be my dream, too. Dreams are reluctantly given out and most people don’t deserve them. But hark! The book! I’ve done 8,000 drafts and get little sleep and talk about guys I don’t want to talk about and phases in my life I don’t want to talk about and okay-I’m having a lot of trouble paying my bills because this book doesn’t exactly give me ‘full-time’ bank…

But I’m excited for it. I’m scared for it. It COULD be worth it.

And oh hey, I am so lucky to have it. I am so grateful to have you. I would choose this life over ‘sexy girl at the bar’ any time. I would choose this life over everything, and we should all choose our own stupid little lives over everything else.

P.S. Fuck Cosmo

Love,

Alida

#1: On Procrastination

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:23:00 -0400

As it goes, I’ll never have to outrun anything. Dinosaurs, for example, are dead. Zombies are a distant dream, one that pictures me swinging a sword that ostensibly, I have no real access to. I’d probably cry over my loved ones and die. I’d probably break my glasses and die. There are also no rabid chimps in New York City, so no, running is something I do not have to do.

However, I can sort of run from deadlines. Deadlines are my Goliath and my Koopa Troopa. I am the action hero, the John Connor, the heroic Leslie Knope at the Pawnee debate over my deadlines. They are mine to conquer because they are all I’ll EVER have to conquer. Waiting till the last minute is the adrenaline rush of your early 20s, after all. That and ‘should I put this on my debit card,’ or the ‘can I put my jacket down at this bar.’ I’m past the age of telling guys I have a crush on them (mostly), since I’ve resigned myself already as a ‘tiny baby who locks up her emotions’ (mostly). I’m past the age of musical chairs, which is technically the most stressful game in the world. SO deadlines it is. Paying my bills late it is! Hurrah!

There are things I crave with procrastination. It’s the stupid rush of fingers typing rapidly at 6am, eyes so tired I have to down some Red BULL, which, let’s face it, isn’t so much ‘gives you wings’ as ‘tastes like toilet.’ I feed on lack of sleep, on telling people I have no sleep, having no sleep, nodding off, seeing sunrise. The feeling you get in your bones when you haven’t slept in 26 hours, and the kind of clarity that brings to you. Being up when no one else is. The click of the keyboard. The idiotic music playlist, over and over again. The surprise in the mirror that you have bags, big suitcases, under my eyes.

I’d say I’d like to change it but I’m too stupid for that. I enjoy it too much. I’m too young to want any better. I know this tactic too well. Yep-I’m too stupid and too interested in the last thrill I have besides making the subway on time. It’s got me. I’ll lose it, like my haircut and my choice of shorts, when I grow up more.

Also, let’s not romanticize this bullshit. I’ll get caught up in television, I’ll get caught up in Internet, in the mundane conversation, in the bag of chips. I like being lazy. Lazy feels indulgent.

The excitement comes when I look at the time and my heart starts to pump.

Question Time

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:08:00 -0400

Here’s what it is. I’ve got popcorn. I’ve got beer. I’ve been away from the blog a little longer than I’d like to be because a) I got a parttime job working at a thrift store and my feets be tired and b) book and c) oh GOD I just want to watch bad television sometimes and eat the things all the things. But today is Friday and I’ll answer the first three questions I get tonight. Make sure they are good and not gross! LOL

OKAY. I’ll answer the questions I like. Ask away!

Things I've Learned

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 02:02:00 -0400

Here are some things I’ve probably learned by now. Please note that some of these things I should have learned by now but it hasn’t quite set in yet. Please note that some of these things I am so, so close to finally getting. I am a sloppy work-in-progress.

Everything is worse and better and bigger at night and in the exact moment you’re having it, and then it’s just ‘oh wah no big, dirt off my shoulders I wasn’t sobbing ALL NIGHT or anything’
cry it out, run it out, talk it out, ice cream it out, just get it out of heeeaaah
I don’t care how stupid this SOUNDS but wearing a good nice outfit sure makes you feel great as hell, so do that
Smile every once and a while and sit up straight and people won’t constantly think you’re the lady in the corner who’s gonna burn down the place
You can’t burn down the place but you should fantasize about it
I don’t care how old you are, fantasize as much as possible
It’s your body, goddamnit, so you decide what to do with it, okay POLITICS?!??!
If you are going out drinking, leave a bottle of iced tea in the fridge for the morning and you will liken yourself to a GOD come sunrise
Call your mother or whatever family member is required to hear your boring bullshit because most people don’t want to hear that
If you have to ask a friend if “YOUR CRUSH” likes you, they don’t.
No really

Get some sunshine when you’re in a bad mood, get out of the house when you’re sad
You won’t just “become” a teenaged witch
Try to learn something new because your brain will rot like something probably in an Edgar Allen Poe story if you don’t
Don’t be afraid of doing things by yourself, like BEING by yourself, but also note that sometimes somebody else is good
Eat burritos while walking it’s better this way
Love the body you have at the moment you have it, and change it healthily if need be as long as you sometimes eat the hamburger and say fuck it and kiss your muffin top hello. Stop hating it IDIOT
Don’t talk badly about your friends for hummus’ sake, you’re not a housewife
and if you have friends you damn well better not ever say you’re “alone”
Cry over something
Cry at Disney movies
Pity parties are like birthdays, throw them only once a year and shut up about them everybody has them
Have at least one pair of comfortable shoes
Wash your face before you go to bed or CONSEQUENCES will never be the same
Do something nice for somebody, including yourself. You GET that froyo, you naughty girl.
Oh hellll no, don’t read magazine articles that say shit like ‘how to please your man’ because sex is gross and lovely and all you have to do is enjoy it
If you’re a good person, you tip well and cry at books
Always buy a lot of mustard, underwear, shampoo, and asprin
Don’t text past your 5th drink
If you want it that bad, try to get it
Don’t judge a book by it’s cover other than books with the movie posters on the cover, and don’t judge other girls just because they’re other girls
Know a lot about grammar but don’t be a dick about it
JEEEEZ will you just keep track of your finances and pay your credit card bills, can you DO THAT?
don’t be embarrassed by how much you think about somebody, be embarrassed at how much you berate yourself for why they might EVER LIKE YOU
If you’ve got the DVD set, no, one episode will not be enough
If you’ve got the bottle, no, one glass of wine will not be enough
Sleeping till 2pm is never, ever a good idea but is sometimes necessary and makes you feel like the laziest little Prince
Don’t roll your eyes and stop huffing, you can be wrong and you can make mistakes
Before you step out of the house, read the headlines and check the weather. Get an umbrella you savage your hair won’t handle this kind of pressure
If you have to get up really early, please close your computer now
Don’t look at the cats, close the computer
Nobody wants to hear you describe your dreams but you’ll never stop describing them to people
Doing laundry is cheap and easy and seriously, you’ll feel so much better if your clothes aren’t a molehill of weird smell
You can’t make somebody love you
But somebody else will you
Romantic comedies are the crack of network cable
You will be sad that your childhood is gone, so remember that about your youth, too
NOBODY TALK during your favorite show, or make fun of your favorite ship, or just generally don’t fuck with the things you like or face death by scratches
That nail polish won’t last two days, so have patience if you want nice nails
You will never look good or say the right thing when you bump into your crush, but stop obsessing you weirdo. Stop OBSESSING OVER EVERYTHING you freak
Stop leaving the house so late
Be more empathetic to people because you’re not the only angel on Earth who has problems
Tell people how you feel, oh okay I am going to reiterate this almost constantly because it’s the hardest thing to DO
Apologize/Forgive
Don’t hold grudges cuz The Grudge was a shitty movie
Stop complaining by a third
Drink more whiskey by yourself
Don’t make fun of yourself so much
Love is good and stuff
Keep in touch
Enjoy the time you have while you have it

(send in your “things I’ve learned” for a future readers only post to my ask box or Iamthefrenemy@gmail.com)

If The World Ended

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 03:51:00 -0400

If the world ended tonight, everyone knows we’d end up on the roof. The roof is where you go when there’s fireworks, when you need lemonade in silence, and when everything is over. There would be whiskey for me just when the fires started. A real display. I’d throw the empty bottle thirty feet down because really, who cares?

In the hours before, I’d eat a twenty dollar bill. I’d ball it up and I’d eat it goodbye. See what you’ve put me through, all these years? I would let it know what it’s put me through all these years by EATING it. I’d kiss my computer and then savagely break it because that is just the frustrating relationship I have with money and technology. Kick, kick, kiss.

Also, I would do other things. I would lay upside down and see how long I could let the blood rush to my head. I wouldn’t clean my room, I’d throw my clothes around like confetti. I’d listen to the songs that made me remember everything. Ice cream. I’d get three brain freezes in a row, I’d wipe my mouth with my sleeve, I’d refuse to use utensils. The television would be off. Maybe I would kiss a stranger just so I could say something like “kiss me, you animal!” and I would also grab his collar. I would hug a tree or a person or myself. Maybe I would run down the street screaming, and then the screaming would turn to leaps, and the leaps would turn into as fast as I could go, as fast as I could possibly go. There would be real good kicks to walls, and scratchy throats, and I wouldn’t think how my hair looked at all. Not even a little bit. I would make plenty of good noises, final sound bites in a universe that would be no longer. I wouldn’t look in a mirror. I’d take the biggest bite. I’d stomp. I’d falsetto. I’d try to laugh so loud and I’d hold somebody’s hand and chip my nail polish.

Also, I would do a lot of other things, like thinking. I wouldn’t think about crowded bars or the smelly sticky corners of a Friday night, or the forty dollars I wasted on 6 beers and a bad time. I wouldn’t think about 8th grade, or the lady who walked real slow in front of me on Avenue A and I was like “COME ON” and that was in my head so she didn’t hear me. I would think about the East Coast, and then I would think about the West Coast, and I would think about little dots of people that I knew on those coasts and I would feel good about that. I wouldn’t think about long days or pop music or paper cuts but I would think about the word fuck. I would think about every sandwich I ever loved, and every person I ever loved, and I would think about planes. I would think about people, my people, most of all.

Of course, I would have to tell these people some things. I never told people things I should have, and now would be the time to reconcile this mistake. I would wish I had done it sooner. I would send texts to every corner of the United States and I would not in any way be rude, but very nice and very warm. I would hope somebody would confess their love to me so I could write back “about time.” The things I would say would include

You are the funniest thing to happen to me I miss you My days were stupid good when you were in them I should have visited you more often ~~You hurt me~~ Damn you might be the coolest You made me the best kind of fool It’s too bad this couldn’t happen I hope you’re having a swell time You are a wonderful person You are a lovely friend See you later okay I think about you a silly amount I love you I love you But they are not limited to those things.

I would think about the ocean. I would think about water. I wouldn’t think about the end, or after the end, but I would close my eyes so tight my eyes would start to see those tiny black and gold dots floating around and I would imagine those would be my particles exploding into every little universe

Then I would go to the roof of course, because I already told you I would go on the roof. I would sit silently on a lawn chair that would obviously be there and I would think “this was a good run,” and maybe I would think “I should have done so much more because I could have, and I would know that if the sun actually rose tomorrow and the world didn’t end…

I would get up and I would clean my room and I would say things I meant and I would dance to Drake on my bed and wouldn’t care if the neighbors saw. I would cry openly in a movie theater. I would run as fast as I could until my hair was straight behind me and I would say I love you and I would high five the guy at the bodega and say ‘how about that, huh?’ And I would be happy and grateful and oh so not as angry as I usually am.

But I don’t have that option when the world is ending. So I would sip my whiskey, straight out of the glass with ice, and I would wonder where the hell all this time went by, and why I never saw it going.

Of course, the world isn’t ending, but you never know when it might.

Of course, the world isn’t even ending tonight at all.

A Dive Bar Review

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 02:45:00 -0400

12:30am, The H.M.S. Dive Bar:

I’m writing this because I’m not sure I will ever see the light of day again. This place is not what it seems, but the decor is adorable.

I was stuck on the bathroom line for approximately 20 minutes or 36 hours, because there are only two bathrooms and the girls in front of me come out in new outfits or something every time they leave, like they are in some macabre Hillary Duff circa 2004 dressing room montage. Except instead of wacky hats or feather boas, it’s vomit on their shirt or maybe just drugs on their face. Someone’s IN HERE, the mighty ghosts wail from the other side of the door if you touch the knob. My bladder is filling up rapidly like the Titanic (new topical reference, huh 3D?) The girl in front of me has stilettos so high and the kind of eyebrows you only get with practice, so I am too scared to make a lighthearted “ladies bathroom lines, am I right ladies?” joke.

I am afraid I will spend the best years of my life on bathroom lines.

When I get to release myself, I have discovered that I am actually able to pee standing up. Why? There is no other option. I have to stand or else the used toilet paper on the floor will double rapidly like the thorns Prince Philip has to fight in Sleeping Beauty. Is anybody’s favorite Disney Princess Aurora? She is the most like me, as I am also likely to hurt myself on obvious things I should not touch, which is both a true thing and a metaphor. No time to think about her right now, first I must find out if this is soap or something far more sinister, like “no soap.” Oh please, I don’t want to be a petri dish simply because I wanted a beer.

I leave the bathroom. There is so much more to bars than bathrooms. There is ‘waiting for drinks,’ which is almost exactly like the play Waiting For Godot except the booze eventually DOES come. Art does NOT imitate life in these walls! I stand there forever as people slowly move in front of me in a Zion-like trance, shouting things like “Long Island Iced Tea” to which I silently think “oh noooo!” Everybody at every place in the world is better at getting a bartender’s attention than I am. Somebody accidentally shoves me to the front of the bar and I say something like “Drink!” This is a place you can get drinks at! There are drinks here that taste exactly like other drinks! The bartender grows great, powerful wings when I ask about a tab: “It’s a million dollars! Spit! Spit!” I answer by dribbling vodka all over my chin and giving her my moaning credit card. If I were a standup comic I would joke “My credit card doesn’t get miles, it gets migraines!” and then I would get a divorce (unrelated). A cocktail napkin is stuck to the bottom of my glass, the most wasted paper in all the world is a cocktail napkin which I think should be inan Arbor Day commercial for children.

I have a bunch of drinks because I hate having money and I hate feeling things. This is when I realize there are too many people here and none of them will ever let me leave. I will be stuck here forever because nobody will ever move and the door is a million “band t-shirts” away from me. What if I started making “air quotes” all the time again? Answer: this is impossible because there is always a drink in my hand, and the one handed air quote just doesn’t hold much weight. I smile at somebody probably wearing plaid (Gentleman: I’m a sucker for plaid but not the kind that looks like Science Teacher plaid, which is a thin line I think most of you are not aware of) but then I realize “Oh God, what if they TALK to me?”

If somebody talks to me I would have to talk to them about what I DO and what my NAME IS and I’m scared of new people. Why? Because I fully expect Marcy Playground’s Sex and Candy to come on and the crowds will part and whatever old so-and-so I’m currently thinking of will come in wearing the right kind of plaid. This is impossible for almost every reason, but it’s also why I am wearing lipstick! Instead, something terrifying like Robyn comes on and people starts dancing. Bars are sometimes like the television show Glee where everybody starts doing the same weird upper-body dance move and the audience is like “who PLANNED this” but is willing to drop their sense of disbelief.

I am wearing a skirt. I am always wearing a skirt. I am always touching my hair and wondering why I am somewhere. I am always clutching my phone. One day, the DJ will say “all you ladies clutchin’ your phones will be transported to the place they REALLY want to be at, holla!” and there I will be.

The place serves drinks and has music and if I’m lucky, it has fries and if I’m real lucky I ask the fries “what are you wearing” and it says “cheese.” If I’m in HEAVEN it has the good kind of nachos and I’m also on the most comfy couch in the world (which is my couch) and I’m watching Heathers.

This bar is great, I yell to my friend because really, what else could it be? Just okay? It has booze and loud and I don’t know, sometimes my swirling “social anxiety mixed with this unrelenting fiery rage and surprising optimism that everything will be better” schtick get tiresome. Don’t you just find some time to not be mad at stuff? Barbara Walters will one day ask me this very question and I will say “Whatever, Barb, when’s the last time you had to maneuver your way through a busy subway platform?” Still, honest fact: everything is usually “just okay” but if you’re with good company it’s fine. My friend smiles at me in a way that says “I didn’t know you were just having this idiotic inner monologue right now.” I like her.

My friend of choice is probably talking to somebody now. This is when I start drinking things on the rocks, which really means I’m just imagining something like maybe buying a bulldozer and bulldozing lots of things. Insanity Plea is not only the band I will one day start, but also how I will get out of all my future crimes.

I notice people seem quite happy to be here, because all there lips are turned up into odd little not-growls. I think it’s just because they don’t have to hold Red Solo cups anymore, like that’s some sort of adult passage, but I can’t be sure. Time passes but there are no clocks in bars, so it might be Sunday by now. I shake my hands and roll my eyes and wonder where the arcade games are. How easily I could draw the best crowd of people who think I’m their champion if I could find a place that has the Lion King on Sega Genesis. I try to be present by telling a story about sandwiches or the economy or 9th grade. No small talk! I am anti-small talk because we all get weather on our smart phones now! Maybe I’m just missing something, because oh lord, how I am always missing something.

Eventually, the drinks and the bathroom lines are too much. We become lethargic, thirsting for something more like “taking that guy home” (that one’s not me) or “pajama pants” (you got it). I finally close my tab and leave, wondering if I had fun or not. On the way home I think: Bar was bar! What a bar it was! And do it all again, later.

I go to bed and think of sunshine, or tomorrow, or waiting, or something exactly like that.

You Should Seduce Yourself

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 02:36:00 -0400

I think you’re a pretty good lookin’ lady. There. I said it.

I think you’re a such a good lookin’ lady, but baby, I don’t like you only for your body. Don’t worry, your body is slammin and all but you’re pretty nice too. I like you for your MIND. You got some funny things tumbling around in there.

In fact, I think you are so all around great that I want you to go home and…treat yourself. By yourself. You know what I’m talkin’ bout. I’m talkin’ about good down home loving. I’m talkin Ludacris and Lil’ Kim but you are both Ludacris and Lil’ Kim in this situation. I’m talkin’ when a lady loves herself very much, she wants to use her fingers and write herself a sonnet.

Don’t blush! We all do it from time to time, except I don’t want it to be in the furious “all I’m wearing is my flannel pajamas and my head is buried in this pillowcase and I’m trying to think of something sexy but oh god, time is running out why is this taking so long? DO I NOT WORK ANYMORE?” Give yourself some respect. There is no shame in this! Make it a mother fucking occasion!

Tonight, put some candles up in this bitch. Maybe one, because God knows when there is more than one candle in a love making scene I expect the whole place to burst into flames and engulf you in your bed. Put some mood music on, but don’t overdo it with the Boyz II Men. Maybe keep it at one Boyz II Men song and then put something on the playlist to switch it up. Man in the Mirror. Party in the USA because damn it, you’re touching yourself and you’re an AMERICAN. Dance a little. Oh, that looks weird. Don’t dance, now that I think about it.

Start slow. Build the anticipation. First, go get yourself a sandwich. A big, melty, gooey sandwich and eat it in your kitchen and cock your eyebrows at the television and lick your lips slowly and ooops…did you just get a little sauce on your collarbone? Oh, baby. You get that sauce off you. Don’t use a napkin. Use your fingers. Nobody’s watching. Lick the plate of its cheese like Kim Kardashian in those hamburger commercials. I’m sorry. Don’t think about Kim. It’s just you and you, sugar pie. Drink a glass of wine till you get an nice sexy haze of fermented grapes in your stomach. Cross and uncross your legs while drinking the wine and giggle: “oh this? This is just some ole three dollar 2011. 2011 was a good year for Shiraz. Hey! My eyes are up here…but you can keep on lookin’.” Be playful. Be flirty! Make yourself laugh, but that kind of tinkly laugh that sounds like fairies having consensual, loving intercourse.

Drop something by a mirror. Bend over and pick up the thing by the mirror very slowly and look at yourself from behind. Oops! I didn’t mean to do that! Giggle. Bend over again. Bend and snap, but LOL that reference is dumb now.

Sit on the couch and tersely watch an episode of a show you’ve already seen. You’re distracted, though. You can’t finish it, thirty minutes with commercial interruptions of diet pills and depression pills and 5-hour energy is too much. You know what’s coming. Do you…do you want to go to the bedroom? Don’t just go to the bedroom. Retire to the bedroom.

If you don’t want to do the whole rose petals thing, just scatter kettle chips all over the bed. Eat the kettle chips off the bed without using your hands. Then, slip into something more comfortable. A giant t-shirt from your summer camp. A 14 dollar H&M dress. Hanes Comfort Fit. Whatever works, because you’re only trying to impress yourself. I often wear a bird mask and a large cape I bought in a Halloween store. Kiss your own hand. “I’ve been wanting to do this since the first time I laid eyes on you.”

Now you must spend the next 36 hours impressing yourself. Lock yourself in a room. Don’t eat or drink water until you actually hallucinate Michael Fassbender/That Kid From Shameless/Vampire Diairies dude/Guy who works at bar/Jennifer Lawrence in the bed with you. They are eating a bouquet of flowers. They are covered in a thin sheen of chocolate. Float up to the sky. Set your bed on fire. Do stuff that nobody’s ever done before and tell yourself “nobody’s ever done that before.” Take a summer vacation in your genitals- take a mother fucking Sandals vacation with the running around and the having the time of your life, but in your own naughty parts. Not naughty! They should be called “Precious Moments parts.” Summon Ra, the Sun God. Scream “more” in 36 different languages. Learn bird calls. Break a mirror, turn off your phone!

Now, eat through all your pillows. Waken a sleeping giant whom you know have to fight to the death! You’re losing! Hark! A SWORD! Battle him with that dirty sword, and make love to yourself on your victory. Throw gold coins into the sky. You’re making love in this club, in this club, in this club! You’re in the Room of Requirement! You’re the new Spiderman! Discover that you have entered thirteen other dimensions through a pit in your floor. Explore them all.

Dirty talk! Say stuff like “you’re such an animal” or “I’m covered entirely in mud and I need to be cleaned off.” Have your room become a palace of animalistic lovemaking. Discover body parts you didn’t know you had. “Where’d this arm come from?” you think. Caress this newly discovered arm till it can take no more and falls off, never to be seen again. Blast Pitbull till your building collapses and you are having sex in the rubble of it.

When it’s all said and done, lay there and hold yourself. You’re such a nice girl. Maybe you’ll call yourself sometime. I don’t know, though. Things get complicated. I’m going to be busy with work for a while..and well, I already made plans this weekend. Tersely put your number into your phone, and wait two days before you text yourself a smiley face. Don’t respond to that smiley face until Saturday when you’re drunk. “If you only knew what I’d do to you if you were here.”

That’s right, go ahead, touch yourself. You deserve it.

Then, when there’s a real person in your bed, and there is no Sun Gods or pits of dimensions in the floor of your room, you can smile at them and say

“You were good, but you’ll just never be as good as the last one.”

Mean it.

When In A Bad Mood

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 03:49:00 -0400

What I Do:

curl up in a ball on my bed like a feral cat that has just found its way into a human bed so it feels the need to roll around on it and scratch at the pillows because who gives a fuck, it has claws
never leave the comfortable cave that is my bed, my bed is my cave and my special place and my Sabrina The Teenaged Witch Other Realm, leave me alone
eat all the things and the progression of all of those things, like the cycle of life, begins and ends with cheese that is gooey
guzzle whiskey like I am a baby who is also a gas-guzzling car
listen to sad or loud music and stare off into the distance, and if a photographer took a picture of it he would be like “whoa that is so profound this is my greatest art”
G-chat at least three friends with various expletives like “fuck” if I’m being creative
endlessly stare at the Internet as a portal
silently but poignantly curse the world whilst feeling great despair even though come on, it’s not like my problems are huge

What I’d LIKE To Do:

walk around the streets like “YO you wanna fight” and successfully punch buildings into oblivion, because I’ve just been granted the most powers in the world
furiously work out SO HARD in the span of twenty minutes that I become sort of a really sexy Hulk that looks great in a maxi-dress because I’m not THAT green
be able to translate my bad mood into the most beautiful of words, and all those will love me and despair, and be in awe of all those words
be able to Christmas Carol see my way into a time where I am so happy and giving fuck-alls to everybody because I’m drinking lemonade
have people bring me lots of food to my bed and bow down to me and only care specifically about my mood
feel something good, like look at a ladybug on a flower and be like “oh this metaphor makes me happy” or some shit
control the rain like Storm in X-Men, but without the white hair because I don’t think I’d look good platinum
make Adele write a really good song about my bad mood, which is something along the lines of (NOT THAT I’VE THOUGHT ABOUT IT): This song is about poignant sadness/Suck it everybody/Suck it everybody and die (But it’s sang really pretty and stuff)
gain the ability to murder and then bring them immediately back alive when I realize the grave consequences of my actions
discover my sink produces nothing but queso
be able to call Adam Scott and be like “oh this day is shit” and he would be able to text me back because we’re friends and stuff
relocate to this city that is great and advertises no problems
change my sheets to puppy cover and it’s just spoiler alert: puppies
play Oregon Trail and I win and everybody I’m mad at gets some weird Oregon Trail disease and flips over on the river cross and dies
on another note, punch my 15-year-old self in the face for various reasons, mostly her optimism
discover 100 dollars on the street because I bet that happens!
host American Idol and rudely insult everybody on it because I feel angry
notice that everybody else is as miserable as I am and everybody’s scowling and no children or couples or happy teens are running around doing things that remind me of happiness
clean my room or do something productive with my life, sometimes I wonder if I have a floor
have other people pay my bills and do the responsible things while I wallow
It can’t be THAT hard to burn things with my mind, right?
Find out I’m actually in a TV show that is beloved and my plight and words are just reblogged .gifs on Tumblr
I don’t know, maybe Jason Segel tweets at me or something
guess what? My bad mood is just an ADVENTURE of the most epic proportions
learn that I can do an excellent acoustic guitar version of every song in the world, maybe we should all just sing Creep together or something
lose my temper over something but I am able to say something like ‘YOU LOST THE ACCOUNT!” and the account is millions and bajillions of dollars because I am very “high up there”
have everybody just feel SO BAD for me constantly
sit in a quiet theater and watch The Hunger Games without any interruption, which almost sounds like “the impossible dream” at the moment
meet a precocious child who will teach me something about life
meet Morgan Freeman who will teach me something about life
have this amazing realization about life that will make me start living my life almost constantly
not think at all about my past because oh BORING YAWN that’s NEW
the world is my sunrise! I feel the calm emotions of this sunrise!
Oh come on, how could I be in my early 20s and not add TRAVEL somewhere and LOSE MYSELF (not eminem) in Thailand noodles and beaches?
realize that the ‘tiny violin’ joke is actually just one of utmost sympathy
be able to comment honestly on Facebook and those people implode
listen to my friend’s pleas that I should just calm down and open my eyes to the beauty of things or some CRAPSHOOT
meet the human double-rainbow of awesome
be able to hop out of bed and let the sunshine in
REVENGE is a dish best served bloody
laugh maniacally while thunder claps around me
have at least 5 good things happen to me because I heard that’s nice
get over it, huh?

What I WILL Do Now:

be mad, be pissed, smile, feel hope.
Tomorrow.

On Saying What You Mean

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 02:02:59 -0400

If I counted the amount of times I went without saying how I really felt on my hands, I could simply clasp my hands over my mouth and let the 1,000 other phantom fingers float somewhere in space.

Funny enough, it goes without saying how much I really don’t really say anything at all. Ever. If you were an outsider (i.e. not my brain or my best friend) you might never see it. I can be really fucking loud, sometimes! I raise my glass and I laugh and I am social and I make jokes and I seem like one of those ‘sassy pants ladies who wears pants never, really, just skirts, but also says what she means.’ My secret is that I don’t. I’ve got a heavy suit of armor in the disguise of an old jacket and and an old knowledge that sometimes people are assholes. Or worse, simply don’t feel the same you feel. You wouldn’t know this, you wouldn’t ever know how hard I bite my tongue. Somewhere along the way, emotions have become weakness to me, for I am the most equipped of islands. Islands don’t sustain themselves on “here’s what it really it is, buddy.” It sustains itself on Lord of the Flies Piggy murder and stuff. And silence, always silence. The truth is, I find emotions to be an annoying burden: if I feel them in my head, why do I have to go the extra mile to express them? Haven’t my emotions ever heard of rejection? Of disagreement? Are they stupid or something?

The first time I felt rejection was probably when I was a kid, but kids are precarious and obnoxious and don’t let things get to them because they are constantly adorable. I got rejected from school plays. From crushes that I exclaimed on the playground. As I got older, rejection raised its mighty wordish sword in the form of high school: everything sucks and everybody hates you. I battled it to the best of my ability and with braces, of all things. I think I lost the battle somewhere in college (without the dental work), when I was finally tired of what was to be known as “putting myself out there.” I built a comfortable little box of sarcasm and sat myself in it, never to be seen again.

The problem is, we make it seem like expressing ourselves is akin to standing at the edge of the world with no bottom to see. It’s the end of the world. It’s awful, no matter what the outcome. We encourage others to do it so we can test the waters on what it’s like, we are brave with everybody but ourselves. So I began to shut my mouth, and shut it always has stayed. Shut up, mouth! Keep talking, brain!

I spend a hell of a lot of time with things on the tip of my tongue. The moment where I could let it all fall out lives at the very point of my mouth. It’s caged in my lips, where all of the many wild things are, and it ain’t coming out any time soon, buddy. You don’t need to see how vulnerable I can be, how much I can think about things, or how much I can wish for the plummet to the unknown. I hear it might be nice there. I hear we miss 100% of the shots we don’t take, but we also technically DON’T miss those shots, either, nah mean?

I have stopped setting fires to the things I feel. I go home and I spend hours listening to music and drinking wine and promising myself “next time.” I light the flame and let it extinguish, and this is precisely why we relate these things to fire. Fire burns only for a minute in our minds because we’re not forests and Smoky the Bear don’t need no warnings with it. It’s a god damn sparkler. It goes away unless we keep fanning the flames. I wake up and praise myself for not being brave and there’s something very wrong with that sentence.

I wish I could be real weird with it. I wish I could be stronger skinned about being bolder. But that’s risky- that means fighting the zombie apocalypse and realizing you actually suck at it. That means having to move up and on.

If I say nothing, nothing happens. This used to be a beautiful thing. I have my bed and my laundry piles and my almost. Lately, I’ve begun to hate that. I want to express things and I want to explode. I want to feel extra pain or extra happiness or anything that shows I went for it. I want that badge. I want those consequences that come with it.

Listen, I’m not telling you to do anything, I’m actually asking you for something, today. I’m asking you because I can’t do it by myself because I’m the toughest boot-wearing baby that’s got an iron mask on made of cheap Target lipstick. I’m asking you to open your mouth and scream in the proverbial ‘I’m young’ way on a mountain with me. I’m asking you to tell somebody how you feel, to stand by the sword to rejection and hope that it doesn’t cut your face and your heart and your brains off. I’m asking you to breathe deep and just go for it, no matter how many years you’ve lived on an island without fire. I wanna see the starts of a spark.

I want you to unclasp your mouth because I want to try with you. Let’s see if we can fall head first into something thorny or soft, just to feel the fall.

I bet it’s as awful and as big as we think it might be.

Cosmopolitan Articles I Would Write

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 04:02:20 -0500

As a full-time freelance writer and part-time lady, I feel like I am completely qualified to write for Cosmopolitan magazine. For instance, like a human or maybe an intelligent monkey, I can type nonsense into my computer at any given time! Furthermore, like a human with breasts and a sassy hairstyle, I can translate that nonsense into female-centric ragtime! Here are some of the articles I would pitch if given the chance:

Tomatoes! The SEXY food? Eat a bunch of tomatoes and squirt them all over your face when they are in the off-season months, so they will be mealy and you will be prettier than them. Men will flock to you like wildebeests, ravaging you and licking the tiny squishy seeds off your face. Bonus tip: try them on a salad and watch your girl friends go wild! Wild will be the theme of this article.
Quiz: Are You TOO Ugly? Questions would include (a) Are you an independent thinker and if you answer yes, that’s the end of the quiz and the magazine will delightfully catch fire.
Skirts and Shit! What will be hailed as the most “deserving of an Edward R. Murrow award more than Edward himself” because LOL it’s really Robert Pattinson, this will be a parade of ladies in various skirts that are short. Some of the skirts will be paired with sensible tights. Then ANOTHER skirt will be calf-length, because 1 out of 46 ladies has a job. This will be my article about skirts.
It’s Not Love If You Didn’t Meet At A Sports Bar: Alicia Jorgenson thought she had a happy relationship with her partner Jake, a philanthropist who saves baby elephants, until she realized she didn’t meet him at happy hour cocktails with her girLLLZ. Alicia Jorgenson then bludgeons her boyfriend to death and meets Mike, an ex-rugby player who rated her ass “3 out of 4 Bud Lights.”
Doctors Say WHAT?!??!?! I found this doctor who wrote this book with a title that is probably “It’s Not A Break Up Until He Breaks You Emotionally” and SHE says that if we don’t keep our shoulders visible with the right top, we’ll get a very rare uterus disease. That disease is called SAD UTERUS, and it’s serious, because it makes your uterus cry and keeps Katherine Heigl movies in constant production.
Sex Position #23564, The K.O. You’ve played Mortal Kombat, right? This is an homage to that game, but you just wrap your legs so tightly around him in the shower (the number two best place to have sex) that he stops breathing and then some guy yells “FINISH HIM” and you chop his head off after he’s found your g-spot. Which reminds me…
The G-Stop!!!!! You’ll get that little pun after I explain it to you. The G-Stop is a play on words of the illustrious g-spot, which is this thing ladies have when she wears an expensive teddy and marries her boyfriend. It only works 15 times in your entire life, so if you’ve USED it, you eventually lose it. I know, I know, it’s been rumored that if you DON’T use it you lose it, but that’s just a tricksy to expose the harlots.
Lesbians and How Guys Think They Are Sexy: 37 stories of how you made out with your friend in college and this doesn’t mean anything except one day you will experience a Bridges of Madison County type scenario where a hot old person will come to you house when your hubby’s away and you’ll make love and they’ll leave and it’ll be a WOMAN!
Taylor Swift’s Makeup: In which I examine Taylor Swift’s makeup and cite various sources about what this means for the potential economic upturn. Trend: what does red lipstick say about health insurance for the unemployed?
Channing Tatum’s abs: It’s a scratch and sniff picture, and you scratch it and you smell your cat’s litterbox in your bathroom.
Woman and Stuff: A three sentence column where I say something viable about women’s health/women’s issues, right underneath a giant article about how to make your breasts smell like lavender. Hint: grow lavender and wear it under your breasts all day.
I’m Jeremy, and I am “Your Man”: In the shocking article of the century, I meet up with everyman Jeremy McCarthy, the guy they are referring to whenever they say “your man” in any Cosmopolitan article. “I’m just a dude,” he says. “I didn’t know this would get so out of hand.”
Are your friends talking behind your back? The word yes will appear in this article almost 900 times.
Pictures of Girls Crying: A subtle reminder of what can happen if you put your foot down in a relationship, or do other stuff like wear patterns with a chunky necklace or forget to Google Alert Zac Efron.
The Final Definitive Answer on How To Be The Sexiest: This title will be on the cover but then all of those pages will be ripped out in every magazine ever and all the girls will explode.
Dick: AWWWWWWWWWWW YEAHHHHHHHHH
4 Things That Freak Men Out Every Time: The article where I reveal that men are in fact just skittish dogs, and so you shouldn’t have thunderstorms or vacuum cleaners or scary strangers around them ever. The fourth thing is loving him TOO much, which is when you accidentally pay attention to him the way you might a friend, like when you invite him out in public.
But I Am The Way I AM: Laila Johnson is exactly the way she is, and that is why she’s such a boring, idiotic person.
Dying Alone. Is it for me? A cute little sunshiney blurb on the art of the 3 lb. weight loss. Tip One: It’s not hard to do ab crunches in a room MADE FOR ONE.
The MOST Embarrassing Story: This one couple got caught having sex in her parent’s beach house by her parents, and it was so much more mortifying than any story you’ll EVER tell, because her parents are strict Catholics. Therefore, no more embarrassing stories can ever be told again, because this one couple got caught doin’ it in Martha’s Vineyard.
Got A Crush? Here’s Some Subtle Signs That He Doesn’t Like You: He blinks being the number one reason why he might not like you.
Shave Your Legs: A cute Raymond Carver-esque “slice of life” piece about shaving your legs.
Reiterate: The Dick! YEAH! Put that thing all over you!

On Hope

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:45:07 -0500

Somebody asked me what made me feel hopeful. Here’s my answer:

Days I wake up and feel happy even though I have nothing to look forward to
Days I wake up and know exactly why I feel happy and that’s the best
The tiny, ridiculous victory of not sending a drunk text
A free drink, bought by a friend or given by a bartender and not some shitbag in Dockers trying to get in your pants (because his are so bad! Dockers joke!)
Exact change
Oh whatever, pretty much the ending of any Disney movie and also Sleepless in Seattle so sue me.
Your best friend or mother’s opinion of you
The kind of news story that makes you get all happy before they start talking about Republican debates again and you blow your ears up with dynamite
When my roommate empties the dishwasher so I don’t have to because really, I might take another day with that
People who have cute dogs who bop around like they are smiling and well taken care of, because Sarah Maclachlan has taught me that all dogs are in fact suffering and miserable
Finding an outfit in my closet I actually want to wear and it satiates me
Nice cashiers at the grocery
A coat of mine with a dollar in it: “I’m SO RICH” -me
Good pizza that doesn’t flop down and spill all of its cheese on the plate like an asshole
A stranger who smiles at you on the street
Any general stranger who does something nice like opens the door for you and isn’t like ‘oh I’m a dick who you’ll never know!’
When people acknowledge my sneezes
Having a really good laugh with somebody you just met and it’s like, oh people aren’t all trash
A really good view of something, preferably a skyline or ocean. It’s fun to have depth of emotion!
Solid girl’s night where you finally admit all these feelings and everybody nods and says ‘good job’ and then you barf three bottles of wine
Complete silence with somebody
That person who produces a stupiddumbidiot grin on your stupiddumbidiot face, hearts hearts LOL stop LOOKING AT ME swooon
Amy Poehler
The friends of yours who have ambition and drive and work for stuff and don’t just roll around on the couch like a log
Good books that make you want to not turn on the television and waste your brain away, but make you want to sit and read and enjoy
A burrito one can be proud of, with no dry rice or chunks of salsa and the cheese is melted
Little kids who say stuff like “being gay is oh WHATEVER” and you just really hope that the next generation isn’t as lazy as this one and as homophobic as the one before us
Girls who look like they might be kind of intimidating and bitchy but they’re actually really nice
Girls who are proud of their bodies
Girls who stand up for themselves
People who seem to have clean apartments and their lives together and you’re like, oh maybe I can do that. There are magazines on their coffee table and matching plates and what IS this world
The song “This Must Be The Place”
Sloths
Any weekend where you relax and don’t feel the weight of responsibility on your weak, terrified shoulders
That inspirational poster of the cat that says “hang in there” and you’re like “yeah”
Television that is well-written and doesn’t make you bang your head against the wall to forget
The third beer that makes you go ‘oh man, everything is so great and you kind of want to hug everything.’
Any moment of stupid optimism, peeking it’s head out of your brain like a sunbeam
Good weather
The rare person who is happy with who they are and it shows
People on Twitter who don’t constantly make an ass of themselves
Functional relationships and you’re like ‘hey, don’t want to pelt THOSE guys with oranges’
That one thought of that one thing that will always make you happy
A manageable credit card bill, or just the general feeling of being able to handle your own finances like an adult
The eventual end of both Jersey Shore and American Idol
Cool parents with cool-looking babies
3am in your bed being like ‘okay, I think I got this.’
Any moment where you might think you actually got this!
The people that inspire you, push you, change you, awe you, and fill you with the kind of good stuff that makes you think “Hey, I’m glad I know them. Now I want them to think it’s glad to know me, too.”

Question Time!

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:18:00 -0500

Given that the only things on my mind right now are: what I should have for dinner, the great abyss(!!), and how Bud Light Platinum should admit to us all that it’s their beer for douchebags, I believe it’s time for some questions from all you lovely readers.

This is my ask box.

Fill it up with the things you’d like to see me write tonight, personal questions that I’ll almost avoid but often hint at, queries you have about life in general, or whatever else your heart desires. Even if you have a creepy or weird question, keep in mind that I won’t be putting your url on this blog, but I will continue to refuse to go anon because I get really sensitive when people are mean to me. Either way, you can still get real weird with it!

Tonight, I will answer one or two or a million of those questions.

Good! GOOD! GOOOOOOOOD! Go!

Or A Declaration

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 02:33:00 -0500

What happened?

There, with the young face slack with worry, disdain, and exactly the kind of look eyeliner or a beer on a Saturday doesn’t cover up. I’d call that longing, you call it boredom. A listless feeling that where you are is not where you want to hang up your coat and stay a while. Nobody will notice, you think.

This is your sadness, your secret, the comfort blanket of discomfort that makes every night nothing more than adequate. You fake a smile that could be genuine if you went three degrees to the left. A laugh that feels genuine until you think about it later. Connections you’d like to have if you were in a better ‘you met me at a bad time in my life,’ because that’s when you assume things will happen.

Be in the present? To try that would be to consciously exit all the parts of your brain that are churning, and to enter a door with people you never know anything about. Your brain is your little closet of words and memories, of reminders of the things you could say and be. The present is only a vehicle for some better tomorrow, a tomorrow you hope will come faster than your alarm. I see you, though. I see you right before that fake laughter, the way your hands always lean towards the window like a plant heading to light. I see you for reasons, most including how my face has the same beginning etches of worry, or why I’m always waiting for Friday, or April, or next year.

Welcome to the generation of wishes. The I miss you. The ‘somebody’s got to be able to express the things I’m feeling so I don’t feel so alone.’ It’s the feeling that makes you misquote the poetry of people who lost love in the exact sentiment you feel like you lost love. You stare at pictures of three years ago and remember the moments you weren’t so hurt or weren’t so upset or had the shorts you think you left somewhere else. It’s a person, it’s not a person, it’s the uncomfortable numb that times were better in moments you’re not exactly in now. It’s what happens when you have a whole week of days where nothing happens—no upwards motions, just little conversations that lack bite, of whole Tuesdays that pass without you noticing. It is a sit and wait. It is a ‘please get more interesting.’ It is driving you crazy.

It’s also this feeling of messing up. The feeling of being on your own without the tools to guide you to the spot you’re supposed to be, only because there was never a spot you were supposed to be. And again, it’s the constant longing. A homesick without having a home, the decision to ignore the home you have now.

When did we start to feel this longing? I’d say around the time of uncertainty, around the exact time somebody handed us our lives and said ‘go, baby, go.’ You had no footing. You wish you did. The last few months, years for some, have been little moments of routine, of the hike trail to the life you might have somewhere far away and distant. Where there is a somebody, there is a secure job, there is a bank account and an apartment that don’t constantly need checking on. A beam of light in the eyes of 26 and cardigan sweaters you finally found.

There is the ignorance of the present. You, on the tightrope of yesterday where things were simple, walking towards the things you think will happen. You don’t look down. You see neither the ground or the string. You are stuck somewhere in the back of your mind, because there is nowhere safer to go.

I just want to say I see you, because I am that way. I just want to say that you should get out of there.

I’m asking you to look down for once. The bottomless pit you’ve been ignoring is still there, but this time you need to feel the fear of being alive. This might be the worst and best moments, the one foot on the tiny rope where you have no idea you might fall. Spoiler: You will fall, maybe once or more, and it will be fine. It might even be lovely.

I’m asking you to look down and see the little molehills and trails and tiny houses you have built. I’m asking you to stop thinking of yesterday, or tomorrow, or any other day that is not today. To consider this day, in all of it’s sadness and terrifying moments and potential slips on ice. To see all the things you have. To look, and marvel. To be alive and young is something that only happens right now. It’s not 16. It’s now. If you don’t, the rest of your years will be filled with the longings of this day, of this today, when you forgot who you had and where you had it and why you had it. You will have more things, and this is the place to start.

The view is lovely! It is so nice, and so deep, and so scary.

Wish you were here.

Watch Me On This Thing For Reasons

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:31:10 -0500

My friend Gaby Dunn of 100 Interviews/New York Times Magazine has a chat show:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/are-we-best-friends

If you click this link and go to the most recent post, you can see the hour chat we just had. Or ten minutes of that chat, if you get bored. Maybe you’d like to see my face, or why I hate the word Frenemy, or why I like you girls so much, or hear the title of my book. Reasons to tune in also include:

it’ll be like watching a National Geographic show of a rabid hamster let loose in the wilderness, but she finds herself in NYC, so she decides to wear glasses and spout witticisms of the gentle frustrating feelings of love.
You’ll get to see what “natural curly hair” really looks like if you weigh it down with Garnier Fructis.
Nobody does anything interesting at 6:30pm.
I drink almost three beers the entire time.

I hope you tune in! If not, meet me in Montauk.

If I Miss Things That Never Happened

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:44:00 -0500

It is cold enough to walk around without gloves for no more than six minutes. Breath is visible, but I am (always) searching for a slice of pizza and must not fail. I am missing summer, I think, exactly in the way a freezing person might think that.

At first, I picture the sweat that sticks to the back of the neck, the forty-seven gulps of water in desperate relief, the ice cubes that melt, the tossing and turning on a bed with no sheets. This won’t do at all. Scratch that. The thoughts will soon become a hand out the window of a car with no air conditioning and paper plates that withstood all the corn cobs in the world. I held three (four?) sparklers in my hand and ran down streets, just good old fashioned American screaming nostalgia. There were nights I could roll down a grassy hill and watch the stars float above me like they were the backdrop to the best picture nobody would take. Docks with my feet dangling off, you know, the kinds of memories with teeth.

I’ve never had this summer, though. This summer has never really happened.

To me, my memories have become four drinks in—a mixture of hazy and real, of scars and blips that I ignore, of moments built from moments that I wanted to happen, almost happened, brief seconds of bliss and stolen ideas of different kinds of bliss. They are my own creation.

In my head, there is an idea of July. It is me on the beach with twice the amount of peace I got from staring at the ocean. I am content with this idea because good memories, really, are just accidental standards for the future. Gives your life some sort of measure and comparison, with a dash of ‘let’s romanticize the hell out of this.’ In my head, there is also an idea of heartbreak being more the clean knife sweep than the jagged edge of a can it is. My years at college were a blur of laughter and all-nighters. My first kiss was awkward yet sweet.

In my head, there is also an idea of love.

This is a harder one than summer. At first, it’s the days right before I buried my head in my hands and decided to be extra irritated at every rom com I’ve ever seen. It’s vulnerable admissions and frustrations. It’s messy and gross. Frankly, I’ve learned to cut out the specifics. No face necessary. No ‘this is where we had pancakes.’ Just general feelings remain, the kinds of memories that sneak up on you when you’re out in a bar or sitting on your own legs, watching television. Sometimes they are bad. Sometimes they are better than good, air conditioning in the hottest months. It could be the recollection of the way 6am felt or the idea that somebody’s scent can be recognizable to you, or that a pillowcase can leave an actual dent where somebody’s face once left it. Arms extended out. Falling thirty stories onto something impossibly soft. Did I actually feel this at one point, or do I just wish I could?

It’s both. It’s mostly the second one now, because you can’t write with a pen that’s run out of ink, kid.

My mind, at the moment, is simply hiding in the grass, ready to pounce. When I become too cynical or too forgetful, I’ll hear a song that emits a feeling. The feeling turns into: Hey, I don’t want you to remember WHO made you feel this way, but wasn’t it nice to sit in traffic and just be content about somebody? Hey, fuck you, why don’t you remember why in the world you would want to take somebody to the doctor’s office/pick them up at the airport/buy them a box of cereal because they would like it.

I’ve never done any of those things. I miss them and hey have never happened.

These memories have simply become feelings now. Promises. Hopes. There is only the hope that these memories might one day return, in forms and people that I want to file away and never forget, until I stand on a beach and feel twice as much peace as I did last summer. Until I pick somebody up at the airport and say hello. It is the idea of becoming happy, of being happy. Of a person, not of stock footage.

Let’s return to my search for food.

I sat in the pizza parlor, wondering when the hell slices became more than two dollars and what evil pizza monster thought this was okay. As I got warmer and had more cheese on my mouth than previously mentioned, I started to miss summer less. It was an “in the moment” moment, one that contained a feeling: I like that this will happen someday. That when it did, I would have an idea of the kinds of things I would like about it, but that the reality of it would shock the hell out of me. They weren’t memories, after all. They were unexpected futures, of how somebody wears their pants or a laugh I liked but was actually unattractive. Of season changes. Of summer. These things will come, I said to the empty paper plate.

And back into the cold I went, happily keeping my own hands warm.

The Things I Wish I Could Say

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:01:00 -0500

I’ve already done my laundry today and it is folded and put away!
Of course I have no responsibilities right now, we can just get drunk all day on this Wednesday.
I love handing over my rent check, it feels somewhat like flying
Why yes, ‘dancing to *NSync in my underwear’ is on my resume? So now I get ALL the money in the world?
My credit card bill is so manageable, you know?
I have the exact weapon to kill this orc/zombie/cyborg and live
You mean Mufasa never died?
Yeah, let’s go see Harry Potter 9 this weekend
I slept a reasonable amount
Cheese goes straight to your hips? Weird, it just makes my hair longer.
My alarm went off and I just woke up immediately!
You mean Snookie just EXPLODED oh jeez
I mean, I work out but it’s so easy and enjoyable it’s like watching Netflix and snacking
Open bar?
Singing this out loud sounds as melodic and wonderful as I thought it might
No, I’m only on the Internet a sane amount a day
Everybody we had brunch with brought CASH!
Wait, so we’ve never talked and you’ve found me hot this WHOLE TIME too?
No, I don’t want to watch this You-Tube video
No, I don’t want to hear about your dreams
A marathon of freaky medical conditions and Intervention is on!
All my friends live so close I can see them all the time
It’s light jacket weather!
My hair looks really great constantly
Of course I don’t feel like rocks are pushing down on my chest when I have to talk to new people at parties
Good thing I don’t procrastinate or else I would be screwed right now
I love dangling my feet over the edge of my bed so the monsters can feast on it
Oh, you’re vampire? So is Dakota Fanning? Hmm. Wanna make out?
I have acquired the WHOLE SEASON of my favorite show on this illegal DVD that nobody will ever catch me for
My nail polish just won’t chip!
No, I don’t just get caught by the tides of the rivers of responsibility and sadness
Of course gays can get married in every state. What is this..2009 or something?
Being in my 20s feels so easy and enjoyable
Take a number, gentleman callers interested in me!
I know exactly what I want to eat
Friday already? That went so fast!
There is this puppy in my room and it loves me
Spotify got rid of it’s commercials? Cool!
I have so much money for new clothes
You mean I won a Grammy for my karaoke skills?
No, I don’t care to know about his ex!
All of these clothes I tried on look so GREAT on me and they fit like gloves
I can’t believe this perfect dress is in my size and on sale!
Oh yes, I absolutely have a lot of groceries in my fridge including perfectly ripe avocados
I have both hummus and things to dip the hummus in
Is that Michael Fassbender? Oh, we’re real tight, I better say hi.
Only ten minutes and our delicious restaurant food came already! What a surprise!
I like you and I’m not going to be creepy about it at all because I’m not creepy, I’m just endlessly adorable
I’m so glad you enjoy those drunk texts I sent you because you are so great
You are so great and I can tell you this because I don’t have a crippling fear of rejection built up slowly, years at a time.
These commercials don’t bother me at all
This Internet is almost TOO fast
I have nothing bad to say about my friend’s new significant other
I don’t have to pee at all
Of course you can give me a massage, person that is not gross
I am so excited to hear about your on-again, off-again boyfriend, again! More! BRAVO! MORE STORIES!!
So unshaved legs are IN?
So unplucked eyebrows are hot now????
Adding guac to this burrito is FREE?
No pants needed
I won at this board game and I wasn’t even a dick about it!
This Law and Order ep doesn’t put the fear of the LORD in me
I was right about this fact that I was really stubborn about but still had no real evidence that I was right
This mascara was real easy to wash off
My commute was such a breeze
This baby is so quiet in the movie theater! I can’t believe nobody’s even obnoxiously whispering!
My apartment’s totally clean, come on over it’s like a Windex commercial in this bitch
I have nothing to complain about
I feel the little joys of this lovely life
I am not annoyed
I’m not nervous all the time at all
Romance is fun and enjoyable
People are great
Please, don’t kill me I love when people cut me off in traffic/teenage girls talk in the mall
This is exactly what I mean