The other day, somebody accused me of not being romantic. ME?! Not romantic?! Okay, well I’m not going to run and stop a plane  you’re on, but that’s because you can actually go to jail for that kind of grand gesture. I would beg to differ, even though that’s a phrase that doesn’t make sense to me. Why would I beg to have an opinion? Anyway, the reason why I disagree with this is because I find myself an extremely romantic person. For example, I once saw Love Actually and I probably enjoyed it. For other example, I once stood in the rain but I think that it was for a taxi cab. The rain is romantic, right? Okay, listen. I want love just as much as the next person who sits in their room and watches Curb Your Enthusiasm and doesn’t really make any active moves to find it. Oh hell, I do want it, eventually. Which proves I’m not a cyborg. However, the old way of ‘you brought me roses? Well I guess I’ll keep them in glass until they die” is a little dry turkey overdone to me. Tonight, I list things that I find really and truly romantic:

1. Allow me to lay on your couch for days while I watch old Intervention back episodes on your Netflix account. Supply me with a comfortable pair of sweat pants and spray me with water if I start wilting as if I’m a plant.

2. Instead of taking me out to dinner, bring me avocados or just perhaps just a funnel that you put something with pancakes in. Oh my fuck, avocados. First of all, I eat most food like a slob and I’m probably just going to stress out about how much pasta is going to end up “on my face” rather than actually consumed. So it’s best if you leave me alone in my corner to make guac in my little bowl right now.

3. Buying me shit like jewelry is a little pointless because I’m just going to lose it when I done drank too much tequila at a margarita bar (if those don’t exist DO IT). Use the money to give me more cell phone minutes! Well, really it’s best that you buy me a couple of seasons of Buffy or maybe something really sensible like a loofah or a Swiffer because I won’t “buy that” but I’ll always think “I’ll need that.” 

4. You don’t need to tell me I’m beautiful. I mean, you CAN, but the real gesture is when you insinuate “I’m going to like you even when you stop shaving your legs every day and just let the stubble grow a bit.” I won’t let it get it out hand, I promise. I just don’t like doing it every day. If you think I’m pretty when I’m wearing your t-shirt, well..double points if you think I look pretty when I’m wearing my marinara-spotted alumni “I didn’t go here but my friend did” sweatshirt. YOU’RE WRONG BUT I AIN’T GONNA ARGUE.

5. Pie. Cake is for birthdays, and cupcakes are for me to buy for me when it’s me time and nobody’s watching. Pie, I never really buy. You can get me pie.

6. Listen to me for a really long time and always agree with me when I start complaining about how terrible this thing that happened to me was. I hate it when somebody like, says ‘excuse me’ in a rude way at the supermarket. Or when my friend cancels plans at any point. What a bitch let me explain about it!

7. Write me a song and instead of singing it, have somebody famous sing it instead but better. In fact, just leave it to people who know what’s up sing the songs. I like “This Must Be The Place” so it’s easier to play me that instead of writing about me.

8. Give me personal space when I’m sleeping next to you. It’s not that I don’t want you there, it’s just that I enjoy drooling on a pillow and sprawling my legs wherever the fuck they want to go. Still, seriously, suggest breakfast in the morning. I’m like, shit grin for breakfast.

9. LET ME WATCH MY SHITTY SHOWS WITHOUT PROTEST. Okay, I like Glee and Bravo. Jesus Christ. Let me watch it! I read books, too, so give me a fucking break.

10. If you feel like you need to buy me a drink, instead buy me a bottle of the expensive good booze I won’t buy on my own and I will be yours and we will share it. Or most of all, when I ask you if you “want to drink tonight” say yes because that might be most nights and I don’t want to drink by myself if you’re there. JOIN ME ALWAYS. 

11. Let me whine a lot. Allow me to sit on a bench for ten minutes when my heels hurt. I wear heels to look attractive and this means I end up whining about them and rubbing my feet because they have actually ripped my skin and exposed bone on my inner foot. Pretend like you think this actually is a legitimate problem. Pretend the fact that my throat ‘kind of hurts’ means I need to curl up in a ball and be stroked for three days. CODDLE.

12. When I explain to you a story that I told a friend because I lied about being busy/sick when I wasn’t, I need you to be prepared to vouch for this story.

13. EVERYBODY IS NOT AS ATTRACTIVE AS ME. HUH? 

14. It’s totally cute when I snort when I laugh, right? And it’s totally cute that I stop and pet every dog I see? RIGHT?!!?! Pretend that the quirks I acknowledge I have are the quirks you actually adore about me.

15. Spend hours people watching and angrily observe clingy teenage couples, teenagers that wear hoods in the mall, middle-aged women that wear unflattering pants, children that suck but parents think are cute, and decide that a ‘day beer’ is the best way to truly understand the awfulness of this cruel world.

16. Read a fucking book! Remotely comprehend the fucking book!

17. Talk to me about stuff that you think is awful. Complain to me, baby, like I’m the only thing in the world that doesn’t suck as much as everything else. Send me texts about awful people! I love that!

18.  Suggest “something that requires no makeup or pants” -Sandy WHY YES PLZ

19. Make me feel like I like you enough that I listen to really sappy romantic songs that I “somehow have on my I-Pod” and I’m like “oh okay I can swoon at these because I’m by myself but I would never let on that this is how you make me feel.”

20. Make me secretly enjoy the endings of rom coms. If I don’t throw my remote control/explode my TV at the impossibly tied up ending of a shitty rom com, it’s because I like you. Or smile on the subway. Or get cheese-high without cheese. If you make me feel this way, props. Shit ain’t easy.

21. Keep little ziploc bags of my hair in your possession. Okay, maybe just know my “smell” but pretend like it’s “coffee and amber and lavender” not “all that plus whiskey.” Know my favorite stuff. Be a stalker without actually stalking.

22. Me. Like me! Act like you do! Sometimes go out of your way to express that. That’s about it, dude. I ain’t fancy. What, you fancy?

I wrote this note a month or two after I graduated college. I thought I’d share it with you guys.:

Of course, this was how I studied in college, so maybe I deserve what I get.

Dear College:

Twenty minutes ago, I changed from my track shorts to my ‘goin’ out shorts’ which is, in fact, just long denim jean shorts that I find acceptably cool because they are ripped. You should also know that I don’t use my track shorts to go “running.” I use them to go “drinking and sleeping.”

Why am I telling you this? Because this is my life now, post- education. This is the bed I am laying in or lying in. I’m not even sure how to use that correctly anymore, although in case you are wondering, I am quite dignified enough to write this note sitting up. In my bed.

After four years of attending college, there are a couple of things that I thought that I would be when I graduated. None of them were: lost, terrified, and irritated. This is why most college movies end at graduation. Nobody wants to see Elle from Legally Blonde curled up in the fetal position in her parents basement, although don’t even get me started about how she would have never gotten into Harvard Law. Anyway, I’d like to name a couple of things that I thought I would be, but am not, months after graduating with a BFA in writing:

1. Intelligent. Not that I am dumb by any means. I can spell and read just fine, and one time I won free beer at trivia because I knew that nutmeg was the CT state spice. I am not, however, sitting around like the people in all Fitzgerald literature, drinking fine bourbon and talking about world issues. This is how I thought all scholars, like me, acted. I’m a scholar because I read The Odyssey, right? I had to cite at least three literary critics in an essay once. Anyway, I read blogs, kind of skim over them actually, and I know that the light in the Great Gatsby is green but is not from an alien. Screw the Great Gatsby! I couldn’t even FINISH LOLITA. 

2. Creative. I know this one girl who makes soap. I know this other girl who makes art pieces out of wax. I know another friend who knows how to make the exposure on a picture look like blah blah here is my performance art and I am also a great writer. I am not making fun of them. They are all very good. I am very jealous of them. I also saying that I have not picked up one GD crafty, cool, copper making skill in my four years of liberal artism. I can write comedy sort of, but not many people on bikes they have made themselves out of old victorian spoons and clock pieces care that I improv a decent dick joke. I can: make eggs. I cannot: string christmas lights/ hang posters evenly. I have nothing to talk about in the dim lit party arenas of people who just got back from the latest exhibit except ask them what they think of Nickelback in the hopes they will laugh.

3. Capable: In high school, I had home ec. I learned when I was 15 how to make a pie and iron a hem. This is the last time I was ever physically taught a life skill, and it was at a time when I hadn’t even tried beer or made out with a boy who didn’t have braces. So it was obviously very helpful at the time. At this point, oh, I thought I would just magically know how to balance my checkbook. And not get screwed over on my *Nstar (*NSync?) Bill. And how to compile all of my loan checks into one fat check of sadness. And increase my credit card minimum. And make rice. And know what a mortgage is. And remember to carry my health insurance card with me. And clip coupons. What’s a 401k? WHAT IS ADULT?!?!?!??! 

4. Cosmopolitan. I eat pizza a lot. I also think a ‘fun night’ is a six pack of the cheapest shit you got and a running commentary on everybody else who isn’t in the room. Movies are good too, but I like the kinds of movies where people get their faces eaten by the undead. I watch Battlefield Earth and Lifetime Movies and I am oh so content. I have not seen that French movie, and I have not seen that other movie, either. I have, however, seen the movie “She’s Too Young.” Go ahead. Google it. Alas, I never thought I’d be Carrie from Sex in the City or anything- I’ve never had the horse face for it. I DID think that I’d have at least one fancy sparkle dress I could whirl around on the street in, just having come back from a crazy night with lots of martini glasses, slow motion laughter, and European men nodding at me from other ends of the room.

5.Rich as FUCK: By now, I thought I’d be making smart witticisms with Andy Samberg. Well, actually, at the time it was more like Dane Cook. Granted, I thought I’d be getting coffee for them, never talking to them, and faxing stuff, but I did think that I’d be “on my way to the top” instead of “watching True Life in my socks with such fervor” like I am instead. I also thought that “Stafford Loans” were like unicorns- as in sure, I could take them out and have them, but it’s not like I’d ever ride them across the rainbow or anything. I also thought that going to the ATM wasn’t going to be like playing russian roulette but instead of getting shot in the head, I’d have to eat cream cheese and toast for a week. Lucy just pointed out that “you love cream cheese and toast.” That’s right, I forgot. I have my toast. EDIT: Three to four months later, I’m making a small and growing income, thank the children. But for some reason, I thought that, no matter what job I’d have, I’d be wearing smart high-heeled shoes, pencil skirts, and carry an important briefcase with lots of papers. I’d complain about my Cosi salad, I’d constantly be on my cell phone, and I’d have shinier hair. Or I’d wear Converse sneakers and be pointing at a computer while people intently listened to what I said. I didn’t know WHAT I wanted to be, I just knew how I wanted to look. IMPORTANT. 

Anyway, that’s what I have. Lots of nothing. But I’m whatever, I still have Facebook. And the hope of my big break of getting on a game show, or perhaps Intervention. However, I really don’t feel bad about these things I just listed, because Sex and the City is fiction. And Dane Cook sucks. And that chick in the Great Gatsby was cuh-razy! And! Optimism! Constant, Throbbing, Numbing Optimism! Anyway, don’t feel bad for me because….

We’re all in the same boat, class of 20-whenever this economy gets fixed! So suck on that!

Love, Alida