Color Me Twentysomething

Letter to My Teenaged Self

2013-06-13T18:36:00.003-07:00

Looking back at past versions of myself, I feel like an entirely different person in many ways. I like that we're always evolving. If there's such a difference between high school and early 20's, I can't imagine how different life will be - and I will be - in another decade.

I decided to write my 13-year-old self a note, which I know would be much more warranted if I were older and had lived a longer life and tacked some more experiences onto my belt. Nonetheless these are, I think, priceless lessons to hypothetically pass down.

Dear Jill,

You're awkward.

Everyone knows it and, on some level, I think you do too. I respect the choice to deny it for purposes of self-preservation, but life might really improve if you were to allow even a slight glimmer of recognition to peek through. Here are some helpful tips from yours truly. Just consider them.

1) Be confident and outgoing. People, having no other way of determining who you are, have to trust what you're outwardly showing. They will accept however you portray yourself if you sell it well enough. So the only thing getting in your way is you. And I know your social ineptitude is really a bummer at this point, so if you really can't figure out the cool code.... well, fake it til you make it, sister.

2) Stop sucking your thumb. Really, it’s embarrassing. Speaking from experience, it's coming from a few different places - the sheltered youngest child syndrome, a certain stubbornness stemming from getting what you want, and some degree of oral fixation. (As I idly bite my cuticles...) Biting your nails doesn't look great, but if you hopped on that train a few years earlier, you could save your parents and yourself a few grand in orthodontia bills. Food for thought.

3) Try new things. Step out of your comfort zone! Literally... just one new thing would be great. A sport? A club? A new route home? Something. At the rate you're going, you'll need to compensate with some kickass grades in college and some white lies on your future employment applications..... You're welcome.

4) Shower. Coming from an older version of yourself who still doesn’t love the whole production of showering, trust me - I get it. But you look mangy and oily and unkempt. If you were a cat, someone would have to bathe you against your will in the tub cause you refuse to lick yourself clean. It's enough already. Oh, and put some chapstick on, girl, cause these crusty-crusts....

5) Stop being awkward and take advantage of your unbridled freedom. There are only so many years left where your biggest problem is which Wawa hoagie you should order. Stop being weird and shy and actually appreciate what you have. Those big windows of free time will still be preserved through college, though they'll be fewer and farther between... then BOOM. Real world. The time to gallavant around your 2-square-mile town in your pajamas and buy junk food at 7-11 is up. Love it while you got it, kid.

6) For the love of God, no one wants to date you yet. It's adorable how unjustifiably confident you are in yourself, but the overzealous advances to guys way out of your league have to stop. Learn from your mistakes. If you throw a love note at the hottest boy in school, he will share it with all of his friends and laugh at you. If you ask a hot guy out, then he dodges you for days in school, do not - I repeat, DO NOT - call his house repeatedly hoping he's come to his senses. You've been flagged.

7) Buy a hair straightener. Use it.

Bucket List

2013-06-10T20:41:00.002-07:00

To sum up my current feelings in life, I'm both grateful for my blessings and anxious to move onto the next chapter whatever that may bring.

More and more, I'm feeling the importance of being patient, positive and appreciative for everything. I feel like I'm hopefully on the precipice of something new and big and different. Last time I asked the universe to shove me in a new direction, it did. Within hours. So here's to what's next.

In the spirit of being open to new experiences, I've started a bucket list. It's not so much "What I want to do before I die". To me, it's just about putting on paper experiences that would mean something to me and having things to work towards that fulfill me. So I'll update it in the future as it is rather short right now, but here's the first draft:

1. Learn a second, if not third, language fluently. (Spanish, then Italian).

2. Learn to read music.

3. Take a road trip around the United States.

4. See as many countries around the world as possible.

5. Try to learn something today that I didn't know yesterday.

Italian Injustice

2013-05-31T21:23:00.000-07:00

So I just finished a new book and I should've seen this coming. After losing sleep - either by being held captive, unable to stop reading, or by choosing to reading a true murder story right before bed - I've finally finished Waiting to Be Heard by Amanda Knox.

I don't know where I was when this worldwide sensation of a trial was happening. Both Italian and American medias apparently fed on this thing like parasites. Guess I didn't care much for current events in my sophomore year of college. Anyway, I'm more than caught up now and I'm obsessed. I didn't want the story to end. I have a pile of books on deck just waiting to be read, but I'm literally taking a grace period just to let Amanda's story marinate. It keeps running through my head. I got five hours of sleep last night after a marathon of her YouTube interviews, and I don't regret a thing.

This girl was steamrolled. I genuinely can't imagine being in her shoes. The absurdity of her trial sounds like it can't possibly have happened in real life. I understand that, being an autobiography, this book is the definition of biased. However, I feel 100% confident that this girl didn't kill anyone. There's no evidence whatsoever proving what Amanda was indicted for, and the antics the prosecution pulled (and got AWAY with) are insane.

I now present you with a short manuscript meant to truncate the 4 year trial into its most basic, ridiculous form and smother it with as much mockery as possible. Almost no exaggeration necessary.

Prosecutor: Amanda, can you tell us what you were doing in Italy?

Amanda: I was so excited to be studying abroad! I grew up in Seattle but have always loved the Italian language, so I thought a trip overseas would be the perfect way to push my limits and jump out of my comfort zone in a beautiful foreign country!

Prosecutor: Cool, so why'd you kill your roommate then?

Amanda: What?! I didn't. I wasn't there that night. I was at my boyfriend's place. We ate dinner, watched a movie... I never left the apartment.

Prosecutor: Oh, you left.

Amanda: What? No, I said I didn't leave all night.

Prosecutor: Okay, you did though. Who was with you when you murdered Meredith?

Amanda: I didn't!!

Prosecutor: Yessss.......?

Amanda: No!

Prosecutor: But yes?

Amanda: No! I was never there. I have no idea what happened or who killed her.

Prosecutor: Cool, so you were there. Mark that on the record. Was it your boss Patrick that killed her with you?

Amanda: What?! No!

Prosecutor: Okay, so you and Patrick killed her. Perfect. Who else is guilty - your boyfriend? Yeah, yeah, he was there too.

Amanda: This is ludicrous.

Prosecutor: So you met up with Patrick that night. Yes? Patrick came with you, say it. Patrick. Patrick was there, come on... confess. Patrick? Patrick. Patrick. Patrick? Patrick and you. Killers. Patrick, yes? PATRICK! Patriiiiiiiii - (42 hours of interrogation later) - iiiiiiiick!!!!!

Amanda: Fine! God, shut up! I guess it might've been him....?

Prosecutor: A ha! Sign this.

Amanda: Wait!! I don't know why I said that. None of us were there. I have an alibi.

Prosecutor: No one cares. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.....

PRE-TRIAL

Amanda: I didn't do it. Don't know anything. I wasn't there.

Judge: Likely story. Jail immediately.

TRIAL

Prosecutor: Amanda's a she-devil, a real ho bag. She's sadistic and violent and sexually deviant and loves to kill people for fun.

Jury: Mmm hmm. Yep.

Prosecutor: She and her buddies killed Meredith.

Jury: Sounds like fact to us.

Prosecutor: This is the knife she used. I was looking through the drawer of the person I was trying to accuse & found a random knife in a pile of other kitchen knives. I feel like it's probably the one... It's pretty sharp and could probably kill someone, so it killed Meredith. Irrefutable.

Jury: Yep, yep. We're with ya.

Prosecutor: Also she just looks like she probably did it. So....

Jury: Right. So she did.

CROSS EXAMINATION

Forensic Detective (Prosecutor's Witness): There's Amanda's DNA on the blade, too.

Defense: Oh, really? Can we see the tests that show that?

FD: Uhhhh.... my dog ate it.

Judge & Jury: Good enough for us. Aw... dogs are cute!

Defense: Did you do your job correctly, following protocol every step of the way?

FD: Of course.

Defense: So you didn't interrogate Amanda for 4 days, slap her, threaten her family, use leading questions, and neglect to read her her rights?

FD: Well....

Defense: You didn't wait weeks before thoroughly investigating the crime scene's DNA, move things around, test levels of DNA that are legally-speaking invalid, and use the same dirty gloves to contaminate every piece of evidence you touched?

FD: Uh.....

Defense: You didn't disregard and cover up multiple declarations of innocence by Amanda? You didn't then make up stories from your imagination that perfectly fit your theories and leak them to the press as fact?

FD: I mean......

Defense: You said some other guy's DNA was all over Meredith's body, room, house and belongings. And that his handprint and footprint made in her blood were found in the bedroom.

FD: Yeah.

Defense: Did you find ANY microscopic scrap of Amanda's DNA anywhere near Meredith or the crime scene?

FD: She probably washed it off before we got there.

Defense: So not only could she see the DNA with the naked eye, but she could discriminate between hers and this other guy's. Then she used her magic disappearing ink to get rid of only hers.

FD: Uhhhh. Well, we found her DNA in the bathroom they shared!!

Defense: Right. Seeing as though they SHARED the bathroom.

FD: Stop making sense. She killed her; everyone knows it.

CLOSING STATEMENTS

Defense: She didn't do it cause there's literally NO credible evidence or witnesses to speak of.

Prosecutor: She did it. We just have a feeling about this one.

Jury: Okay, 26 years in prison.

Thank God after 4 years of unjust imprisonment, Amanda won her appeal case and finally went home. All of their evidence was deemed invalid and improperly analyzed. Good riddance, ya stupid Italian judicial system. Basically they had an unbiased, actually-intelligent team of outside investigators come in and analyze the way all the evidence was collected in the first place. Turns out the prosecution team are a bunch of persuasive apes who had the media, and consequently the public, wrapped around their finger.

What's the Opposite of Bridezilla?

2013-05-28T20:13:00.002-07:00

Well it's that time of year again, folks. Wedding planners are booked through the summer, florists are in high demand and engagement photos are abundantly sprinkled across everyone's News Feed. Save-the-Dates adorn the fridge of every house you visit. On any given rainy day, you can practically hear the bridezillas from coast to coast cursing the gods of fate and weather.

Weddings are a $50-billion-a-year industry. On average, 500 people are married in the U.S. every day. In short, they're a big deal. And I can understand it to a degree. I love the idea of a marriage and the meaning of it. I love celebrating the union of two people in a fun, fancy way that says "This is no ordinary day." I get why it's a much bigger deal that planning a family BBQ.

That being said, there is one overarching concept that I will never comprehend about weddings: cost.

Let's imagine for a second that a man and woman go on a leisurely afternoon trip to Target, spend $40,000, then head back home. That's essentially what your average engaged couple is doing. Out of context, who still thinks it sounds acceptable to see a year's salary spent in a matter of hours? It's one party one day.

I know I'm in the minority on this, having never imagined my wedding day as a little girl or scrawled my signature with different last names into a Lisa Frank Trapper-Keeper. But my future husband doesn't know how lucky he is. I'm about to save him a buttload of money.

Things I Refuse To Spend Lots of Money On
(Spoiler Alert: It's Most Things)

1) My Dress

The large majority of brides are willing to pay at least a grand on the dress alone. Again I ask.... WTF? It's a dress. You'll absolutely only wear it once; that's not even arguable. I know the point is to look like you're a Disney fairy princess waiting outside the ball for your prince to whisk you off into your sunset. But you know what else is pretty? Another dress that's half the price. Here and now, I vow to drive up to the nearest discount bridal shop, stick an arm out and buy the first pretty ivory dress my fingers touch. I'll still look nice and I won't have to take a second mortgage out on my home.

2) The Bridesmaids' Dresses

These dresses all look the same. Usually strapless or with little straps, slightly pleated for some texture, then either knee or floor length. And the average price for these things is $250. I know Dolce and Gabbana make versions of this dress. I'm sure Christian Dior does too. You know who else does? The Target in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Not only will I be ordering $40 dresses for all my bridesmaids, I also plan on buying them for them. Who invented the modern grandiose wedding and put in the rule book: "Bridesmaids must buy their
own dresses"? If most women have hopped on board the Expensive Express and dropped a year's salary on their Special Day, why wouldn't the cost of the bridesmaids' dresses be included? You're effectively gathering around a handful of your closest loved ones and asking them, "Would you please be a part of my wedding? I would be honored to have you there by my side. You will? Wow, that's so wonderful. Okay, that'll be $250 for the dress, $50 for altering, $50 for the gift, $150 for the bachelorette party, another $50 for your part of the bridal shower....." No judgment towards those girls asking their bridesmaids to help by paying for their dresses; I know that's tradition. I just think there's room for some cutbacks here.

3) Venue

Who wouldn't want to be married in a solid gold mansion perched atop the French Alps? That sounds like a lovely place to recite one's vows. Unfortunately, my future fiance and I would have to offer a down payment of our entire life savings along with an annual interest of 50%, our first born, and my left leg. So ya know ... maybe we'll just find a nice meadow and sparkle it up like Bella & Edward. Or set up some towels on the prettiest dune in Ocean City, New Jersey. Sure, I'd like my ceremony to be in a nice-looking place that accommodates everyone, but I think there's room for cutbacks here too.

4) Flowers & Centerpieces

Pop quiz: Does an arrangement containing my weight in flowers brighten up a room? Yes, yes it does. Unfortunately, they're also super pricey and die within a week. I'll absolutely have flowers at my wedding but I plan on keeping the whole as minimalistic as possible. A couple of little bunches around the ceremony sound lovely and sure, bridesmaids, hold onto these bouquets. But I don't need to say "I do" in a bed of daylilies I planted and nurtured myself. And I don't need flower pots dangling from the ceiling or lining the rows of chairs. While we're simplifying everything & saving money, I also expect to make some cute, cheap centerpieces in one afternoon. Haven't thought it through entirely - if that wasn't already clear - but I'm picturing some table numbers I typed up in Microsoft Word, some plastic Dollar Tree fishbowls, and a few pics of me & my husband-to-be.

5) Save the Dates

Skipping them altogether. No, really. As soon as we're engaged, we'll figure out the venue & catering choices and you'll be getting your one and only invitation on cute cardstock. "Here's the date. Please come. Love you all!" Except classier choice of phrasing. The way I see it - no need to dole out the money for two rounds of invites. Let's spend that money elsewhere! Yay!

6) Cake

Let's face it - by the time the dessert course rolls around, everyone's out on the dance floor anyway. You might Electric Slide back to your assigned table to shovel a few forkfuls of raspberry butter creme down your throat before going back out to shake your groove thang. Thang? Is it thang or thing? Both are embarrassing and outdated? You're correct. Anyway, my master plan will be executed in steps. Step 1: Get a fake cake. Something that looks like an elegant masterpiece of fondant and icing swirls but is actually hollow

or stuffed with cardboard. Step 2: Have one real piece made if I feel like doing the "cut the cake" picture with my hubby. Might even skip this step. Step 3: Get a delicious and super cheap sheet cake from the lowest priced bakery in the area. Pre-cut everyone's slices from this cake beforehand and bring these out to everyone. Hundreds of dollars saved. Of course, there's the alternate plan which forgoes the cake altogether
and brings everyone out some cheap, sugar-filled, pretty, scrumptious cupcakes instead. Or this cake of a black woman.

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The list goes on and on. You get the picture. It's every woman's prerogative to plan and execute the wedding of her dreams. This is just one girl's perspective on her future plans. In case you're wondering if there's anything I would be willing to splurge on, the answer's yes. The photographer. To me, that's huge and a professional album is worth every penny. Also? Food.

Inspiring

2013-05-24T19:55:00.001-07:00

Don't you love when something comes out of the blue and smacks you over the head? Changes your perspective on life?

This something had me bawling to myself at 2 in the morning. Intrigued? Keep reading.

Two nights ago, I was lying in bed checking a few more posts on Twitter before getting some sleep. (For the record, I created a Twitter with the sole purpose of reading about celebrities with more interesting, entertaining lives than my own. I'm acutely aware that no one cares about what kind of salad I had for lunch.)

Anyway, a random tweet caught my eye. I casually clicked a link and found myself immersed in a video for 20 minutes, frozen in place and crying harder than I have in a long time. It was the story of a boy named Zach. At 17, he was diagnosed with bone cancer. After months and months of chemo, radiation, pills, and surgeries, he was told the cancer had spread to his lungs and pelvis and he had only a few months left to live.

So Zach chose to stop all treatment and return home to spend his last days with the people he loves. He and his family came to accept his imminent death in the most beautiful, peaceful way. He even had a girlfriend who knew he was terminal when they started dating and she saw him through everything anyway.

Sadly he passed away two days ago, but the song he wrote for his family? #1 on iTunes. WHAT?! Not #20, not #5... The most downloaded song, blowing past hundreds of famous musicians and artists. That's amazing. Here are the thoughts I've been ruminating on since watching this incredible story (four or five times).

1. What a beautiful example of positivity, empathy and human connection that people would buy this amateur song, be moved by this guy's story, share it with others, and make it #1 on iTunes. I love when the bond that connects all of us peeks through the everyday sensationalism of the media.

2. What an incredibly beautiful human being this guy was. Always a smile on his face, boasting a motto of "Just make others happy". He managed to change the future plans that he had naturally created for himself (college, then marriage and kids with his equally amazing girlfriend) and accept the imminence of his death as another part of life. "It's only scary because you don't know what's coming next... or if there is a next. It's like sitting in the dark. You can be there freaking out about what's out there or you can just close your eyes and fall asleep."

3. I appreciate so much the opportunity to have my life put in perspective. It's like being recalibrated. Here I am, worrying about my goals and why I haven't reached them and what my future holds. And there Zach is, knowing he has no future and choosing to live every minute to the fullest. It's like going from the upper echelon of society to abject poverty and quickly learning the true value of a dollar. Others in his position may never learn it. They may spend the last part of their unfairly truncated life wallowing in self pity and cursing their fate. Not to say that these aren't natural reactions or that those people aren't just trying to cope and weave their own confusing path to acceptance, but hats off to Zach. Only 17 and living his life more fully than the majority of the healthy people around him.

Here's the doc. It's well worth watching. Below that is the music video where celebs sang his song for him.

A Lifetime of Eating

2013-04-22T22:28:00.001-07:00

I love when I write memoir-esque entries. As if I've reached an appropriate age to look back and analyze anything. Here I am at the end of my days, pondering retrospectively about the meaning of life.

Make no mistake... I know I'm a spring chicken. Still, one of the biggest changes in my life recently - my diet - has got me thinking just how much I've changed in twenty-four years. My eating habits have gone on a rollercoaster ride, often taking sharp abrupt turns at unexpected times. So join me now as I chronicle the adventure, raising an imaginary toast to the plates I've cleared thus far and the food groups I inevitably still have to re-examine.

Chapter One:
"White Meat, Please" (Years 1-12)

Who had two thumbs and knew the words "soy", "tahini", "tofu", and "carob"? This girl! Since the womb, thank you very much. My parents raised my three older siblings and I on a half-vegetarian diet. In essence, only white meat. If it wasn't turkey or chicken, some soy product replaced it. Thankfully, I like the taste of every food ever so it wasn't a problem. As a human, you accept the world with which you're presented ... and my world was chock full of veggies, rice cakes, soybeans, and tofu everything. Cool, Mom and Dad, let's do this. The term "treat" was also redefined by my parents. First off, we had the Egg McMoses - a crowd favorite - which involved an egg, cheese, tofu and mayo between two buttermilk waffles. Sound gross? False. My mouth totally watered while writing that sentence. Then we had the infamous Tiger Milk bars which were our family's version of a Snickers. Found at your local granola stand, you could dive into one of these little babies for a savory taste of some natural carob, peanut butter, and nougat. Also completely delicious but judging by its equally high amount of sugar, not worth the deviation from regular person candy bars.

Chapter Two:
"Once Was Blind But Now I See" (Years 13-17)

At some point, my parents decided we were old enough to make our own decisions and venture out. So I embarked on a rumspringa of sorts, which involved trying out the phrases "Medium well, please" and "Why, yes, I will have a sixth Reese's cup". I started hanging out at people's houses just to raid their cabinets. Equally amazed and perplexed, I couldn't fathom this new world where people ate chocolate and marshmallows in various shapes for breakfast and a new group of Old McDonald's (unfeathered) friends were on the menu. Quickly, I considered Mrs. Butterworth and the Kool-Aid Man new friends. I felt like Charlie Bucket being set free in Wonka's backyard of goodies. No, scratch that. As I recall, Charlie was the restrained, responsible one who shared a single Twizzler with Grandpa Joe. If I had been let loose in there, I would've probably beaten Augustus Gloop to the chocolate river and eaten the Cool Whip out of every mushroom along the way. Anyway, it's obvious at this point healthy eating was not a priority. This became even worse by the time high school rolled around. French fries were often an entree. These were paired with a tall bottle of "Icy Lemonade", which I believe was once a stack of sugar cubes dyed yellow then liquefied so they would fit in a bottle. Then six packs of Welch's fruit snacks ("It's fruit!"), nine bags of Sun Chips ("French Onion! They're practically a vegetable!"), and I'd be on my way back to class. Hard to imagine, but the nutrition boundary was about to get pushed even further...

Chapter Three:
"The Freshman ~~Fifteen~~ Twenty" (Years 18-21)

When I first got to college, I was panicky, socially awkward, and quickly retreated into myself. This translated to a semester of stress dieting and, contrary to the trend, actual weight loss. This stage didn't last long, thankfully. (Though the anxiety of dealing with crazy ass roommates would not subside until later, but that's another story.) Once I got into the swing of collegiate life, I succumbed to your stereotypical diet of fat, carbs and sugar. In a way, I'm glad I wasn't tracking calories or nutrition at that point because I literally had no other choice. If I was in the mindset to look out for myself at all, I would've had to forgo eating and wither away to nothing. One of my favorite meals at the dining hall was a tuna panini. Basically, they'd scoop a mystery mixture (75% mayo, 20% tuna, 5% ????) onto a buttery flaky white panini bread, smother that with as much cheese as space allowed, decorate it with various other accoutrements, then paint each side

with an oil-drenched brush, and smush it into a panini press until the flecks of lard were a perfect shade of golden brown. F***ing amazing. Then I'd top off the meal with a raspberry "iced" tea that was room temperature at best and had to contain my weight in grams of sugar. (Again, I'll reiterate, if I ordered a water, the dining hall workers would have pointed me to the nearest puddle.) Anyway, I'd jump into my dorm room bed and scarf this down without blinking an eye. The best, though, was night time. My roommates, and later apartment mates, and I would do "Half Price Apps" at Applebee's a minimum of twice a week. We'd finish classes for the day, someone would suggest Half Price, we'd all celebrate this amazing novel idea and pile into the car. As you might expect, these discounted appetizers did not include celery sticks and kale chips. We're hitting the ten o'clock hour and are elbows deep in fried chicken wings swimming in sodium and fat-flavored chicken quesadillas. Only time in my life I've experienced heartburn. Curious.

Chapter Four:
"A Weak Attempt" (Years 21-23)

After indulging in a lifetime's worth of crappy eating, I emerged from college with a diploma in one hand and a newfound resolve to turn things around. Gone were the days of burgers and late night pizza; I was going to figure this out. So I started wading through the sea of contradicting nutritional guidelines and trying things randomly. I wasn't looking to be perfect; I still believed in indulging in yummy foods to enjoy what life had to offer. "Quality of life!" I'd say, "Can't restrict yourself too much!" So while I was starting to hit the gym occasionally and read food labels, I was still a sandwich fiend and a suggestion to order pizza was a no-brainer every time. Carbs were whatever, sugar was "Yeah, I should probably stop at eight cookies", and no food was off limits.

Chapter Five:
"Full 180" (Years 24-?)

Then, two months ago, came the most jarring upheaval of my diet to date. My sister has been eating Paleo for years - no grains, no dairy, no refined sugars, no legumes. She's made gentle suggestions to loved ones along the way. From the inside looking out now, I'm actually impressed that she managed to refrain from preaching full-on sermons during some of our family meals. Slowly but surely, she started recruiting on the DL. "Oh, Zach's doing it now." "Oh, guys, guys, she got Michele!" And as I stated before, my favorite foods were all on the opposite end of the spectrum from Paleo. I was carb happy. The idea of shunning pizza and sandwiches from my life forever was completely unfathomable. Impossible. Then one day I thought I'd give it
a try just to see what all the fuss was about. I went for about three weeks without any wheat, then thought I'd reward myself with a whole-grain pizza. HA. My stomach laughed at my naivete, then attacked me from the inside out. I texted my sister to report the pain; she said I had reached my "A-Ha!" moment. My reply? "Damn it." But from that point on, I've dedicated myself to the Paleo lifestyle. I feel lighter, cleaner, healthier. I also hit the gym five times a week on average. My system has done such a full turnaround that any legumes or grains causes an immediate reaction. Who would've thought? Certainly not me. I'm not super strict all the time; I'll have a damn cookie if I really want it. But gluten is out the window and I don't imagine it'll ever make a reappearance.

Who knows what the future holds? Guess I'll just have to live life and continue being surprised.

Pop Star? In Your Dreams!

2013-04-22T12:27:00.003-07:00

I'm waiting in the wings. It's five minutes before showtime. My two friends - and fellow bandmates - are standing behind me, giggling about something. The bustling sounds of a huge crowd seep through the heavy red curtain when suddenly it hits me - I don't have any idea what I'm supposed to do. Never learned a lick of choreography. I spin around.

"Wait, guys, I don't know any of the dance steps. Did we ever come up with any?"

"Oh, yeah," one of them says, "We've been practicing for months. Every Wednesday 4 to 8."

"Oh," I mumble, trying to suppress the hot wave of panic that just seared through my chest, "I didn't know that. I guess I'll just... walk around and point like Posh Spice."

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True story. Well actually, no. That was a completely fictional story made up of far-fetched, illogical events. To be fair, when I was dreaming it, my unconscious mind perceived it as 100% true.

And why wouldn't it? I'm in a girl group with my pop star best friends? Yep. We're popular enough to fill a packed arena to perform what I can only assume are covers of other people's songs? Sure. And following months of secret rehearsals, no one thinks it's strange that only 2/3 of the band knows any of the choreography. Yep, well... everything checks out!

No exaggeration ... that's maybe the most logical, realistic dream I've ever had. Unlike most others floating around in my subconscious, this one had a setting that stayed the same, characters that didn't sporadically morph into other ones, and a sequential plot you could actually follow. Usually, if I remember a dream at all, it's not even worth rewinding and analyzing. I'm running down a street made of pizza crusts and I pass a Cookie Monster who's actually my dad but is now my high school Chem teacher and he's late to catch a flight going to New Mexico where I am suddenly am now and I see a lizard crawl over my foot but it's really a koala. That's more like it.

It's actually fascinating to get an occasional glimpse into the inner workings of your mind, as ridiculous and erratic as these manifestations often are. Want to know the dramatic conclusion of my pop star dream? Of course you don't.

Well, after eventually deciding I wasn't prepared enough to join the show (you think??) and pulling out, I realized I had a chance to redeem myself. After the concert, there was an open mic hour where anyone was welcome to showcase a talent. As I watched my bandmates perform our dynamic repertoire of Destiny's Child songs (Yep, definitely my subconscious), I thought I'd sign up to prove I was a vocal prodigy once and for all. Like anyone was wondering or cared or actually existed.

Cut to me on stage seconds later, bypassing all laws of time and space, warming up the crowd with a few jokes. Then the lights go down, everything goes quiet, and my mind is blank. I can't remember how the song starts. I can't come up with a single word. (In retrospect, that's probably because the song didn't exist and improvised songwriting has never been my strong suit, especially when I'm dead asleep.) I leave the stage flustered and spend the rest of this sleep cycle getting laughed at, having my picture taken to document the embarrassment, or watching family members struggle to compliment either of my botched performances.

Maybe I'm not meant to be Beyonce after all. Oh, who are we kidding? I'm a Michelle on the best of days.

All Created Equal?

2013-03-27T19:46:00.000-07:00

This will probably be the easiest post I've ever written. Simply because, in my opinion, there's no logical opposition. Also the most preach-y, by far. I'm talking about same-sex marriage and why it's an embarrassingly bad case of history repeating itself. A modern day fight for civil rights. I understand this is controversial, but I'm just stating my strong opinion. I'm beginning it with the intention of making it short and sweet, but that almost never happens. So, here goes. I give you....

Top Five Arguments Against Gay Marriage

& Why They're Invalid

1.) The Bible says so.

Does it? That's fantastic. You know what else the Bible says?

Don't you dare eat that ham sandwich: And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you. Of their flesh shall ye not eat.

Women in church? Ugh! Fine, but be quiet: Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.
Second marriages? Say what?!: Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.

Totally real, by the way. Why would you base your beliefs on a book of stories written 3500 years ago by, we'll assume, some apostles? I know this is controversial because a third of the world is Christian. However, from my perspective, it's unthinkable to allow your moral compass to be stubbornly stuck to this collection of tales from centuries ago when here we are, in real life, in modern society. We are people - real human beings - with all the same needs & desires (love, acceptance, safety, etc.). Why is one person more "valid" or worthy of these things than another?

And if for whatever reason, you insist on dividing the human race into castes based on your own criteria, you could at least put the Bible down and take note of a document more concrete, more recent and more relevant: The U.S. Constitution. If you refuse on seeing the natural equality among people, at least follow what we pledge in school every day or declare implicitly when we wave the American flag. All men are created equal. Although fairly sexist wording for today's world, it's right there in print. If you disagree, then change it. Ask the government to rewrite it as "People are relatively equal except for the following groups of individuals...." I doubt we could find enough people to support a legislation change of wording like that, regardless of our differences in beliefs. So until the foundation of our country is adapted to be as fickle and stubbornly judgmental as these anti-gay protestors, let's agree to actually follow the rules.

2.) Kids do better with a mom and a dad.

Of all arguments, I understand this one the most. I absolutely recognize the benefits of having both a female and male role model in one's life. Unfortunately, just because we see the advantages of an ideal situation,

doesn't make it reality. This argument is based on the notion that all heterosexual couples lead a happily-married life under one roof. In reality, there are single parents raising children. There are grandparents raising their grandchildren. There are husbands and wives who hate each other and are raising their kids in a negative, unsupportive environment.

I'm not saying one parent or parenting team is better than another. My point is that you can't declare such a thing. Children grow up in less-than-perfect environments all the time every day everywhere, regardless of who's running the household. The common denominator in a family that breeds well-rounded, well-adjusted, happy kids is the heart & devotion of the parent(s).

There are plenty of heterosexual couples raising imperfectly perfect kids and the same goes for their homosexual counterparts. There is no ideal. If one person, or a union of people, want to raise a child, I guarantee the love & support they provide will be all that baby needs to become a wonderful human being. Irrespective of his/her parents' sexual preference.

Here's one personal account:

3.) It's been that way forever.

Mmm hmmm. I know! Change is hard. We're creatures of habit. Get over it. The world was also flat as a pancake, the atom was the smallest thing, and witches were burned at the stake on the regular.

The Bible-based belief that men and women are the only ones worthy of a marriage license and equal rights may have seemed perfectly reasonable in the past, but here we find ourselves in modern day. We've made it through the worst of racial segregation, suffrage opposition, and - in the most drastic of examples - concentration camps. LGBT individuals and their allies have worked tirelessly to raise awareness and allow for people to openly be themselves for the first time ever. Just because it took them centuries to step out of the closet doesn't mean this closet is a recent development. Or, as I'll discuss later, the gays created a closet from nothing so they could step out of it.

"We're here, we're queer, so get over your fear." That's what the signs should say.

In my opinion, the majority of the anti-gay perspective stems from fear. Exacerbated versions of natural human fears: fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of what we don't understand. Well, at what point did these instincts supercede common sense and the acceptance of all human beings for what they are? Educate yourself. Don't know any gay people? Then, by definition, the judgment you're passing on them is coming from a place of ignorance. Open yourself up to meeting, learning about and accepting others around you instead of preaching from your small corner of the world at large.

4.) It validates and promotes the homosexual lifestyle.

If by "validates" and "promotes", you mean "allows everyone the right to be themselves without judgment, ridicule or shame", then YES. Yes, it does. These people aren't lepers. A gay man's preference for the same

gender is not contagious and in fact, does not affect anything at all. Except for that man's happiness, peace of mind and quality of life. It may make you anxious, but as we've learned in Item #3, that's your mountain to climb.

Let's say you're walking down the street with your young son, for example. A same-sex couple walk by on the opposite sidewalk holding hands. The likelihood of your son then spending his allowance on bedazzled jean cut-offs and asking Santa for a boyfriend is low. Unless, of course, said boy is already gay and/or happens to like those things. Essentially, it's quite possible that by opening your mind to the concept of equality, your children will learn to see the world through a sensitive, non-judgmental lens. And you can't have too many of those type of people walking around.

5.) Being gay is a choice. Therefore, gay people are choosing to ruin the sanctity of marriage.

Are people serious? Why would anyone actively choose to be different from and socially outcasted by half of the population? The choice that a person unfortunately has to make is not whether he/she is gay; it's whether or not he/she feels they have a support system and the self-confidence to let the world see him/her as they really are. A human being shouldn't have to weigh acceptance & love against the ability to live their life and feel comfortable in their own skin. These shouldn't be mutually exclusive. In a logical world, these would go hand-in-hand.

Again, homosexual people are not trying to creep up and "ruin" anything for heterosexuals. They'd just love to use the word "husband" or "wife", get the same medical and legal recognition, and feel validated. The divorce rate is currently above 50% in America anyway. And in the time it takes to eat lunch, a Hollywood marriage has come and gone. So what sanctity or success rate are we really debating here? Love is love.

Why pass judgment on something we've never experienced? Or treat it like it's so unbelievably foreign?

These are questions on a Heterosexual Questionnaire meant to help people see things from a new perspective. From where I'm standing, it supports everything I've been talking about:

What do you think caused your heterosexuality?
When and how did you first decide you were heterosexual?
Is it possible that your heterosexuality is just a phase you may grow out of?
Is it possible that your heterosexuality stems from a fear of others of the same sex?
If you have never slept with a member of your own sex, is it possible that you might be gay if you tried it?
If heterosexuality is normal, why are so many mental patients heterosexual?
Why do you heterosexual people try to seduce others into your lifestyle?
Why do you flaunt your heterosexuality? Can't you just be who you are and keep it quiet?
The great majority of child molesters are heterosexual. Do you consider it safe to expose your children to heterosexual teachers?
With all the societal support that marriage receives, the divorce rate is spiraling. Why are there so few stable relationships among heterosexual people?
Why are heterosexual people so promiscuous?
Would you want your children to be heterosexual, knowing the problems they would face, such as heartbreak, disease, and divorce?

So I know this is just my opinion but it always feels good to stand up for something. Even if it is just in my tiny corner of the Internet. In closing, enjoy this genius song by a fearless, enlightened rapper:

Watch This. Don't Watch That.

2013-03-17T20:10:00.000-07:00

So I've finished my latest long-term sub position and the only absences available in the per diem pool leave something to be desired. Unless I'm willing to make minimum wage teaching wood shop to urban high school seniors. (I'm good, thanks.) So what's a girl to do with all of this time in between working out, job hunting and applying for unemployment? Television, of course. A girl's best friend.

There are two shows in particular that I want to discuss, and they couldn't be more different. One is a show that I unfairly abandoned before even giving the pilot a chance; the other I realize I should've abandoned weeks ago. Let's break them each down respectively.

Breaking Bad

I admit I sometimes judge books by their covers, movies by their posters and people by their faces. Television is no different. I'd been told about this show for over two years by pretty much everyone I know, as well as people I apparently knew at one point but are not ringing any bells on my News Feed. I continued to disregard their avid recommendations. This is their main character? Yeah, no. Archetypal guy show, I said, for sure.

Before I say anything, let's run down the basic framework of this show. Middle-aged chemistry teacher is diagnosed with cancer and starts cooking meth with a junkie ex-student to provide for his family postmortem. Said family? A brother-in-law in the DEA, a son with CP, and a lovely wife with an inappropriately low level of suspicion about the whole operation. Cue druglords, murder and overdose.

If I were a network executive, there's no way this pilot would even be made. On paper, it's a sick and twisted not-ready-for-TV plotline. But - you guessed it - I'm obsessed. I'm literally losing sleep over it. The writing is genius and suspenseful, the directing and camerawork is so creative, and the actors disappear into their characters.

Let's play a quick game called Things I've Said Out Loud to an Empty Room. I'll go first. "Oh my goddd." "Jesus Christ, get outta there." My personal favorite? Escaping in barely a whisper, "How does she knowwww?"

Oh, also? There's this eye candy to enjoy in all his law-breaking glory.

Girls

On the other end of the spectrum, there's the kind of show that people love because everyone else loves it. I'm guilty! I bought into the whole masquerade, too. An updated, quirky Sex and the City for twenty somethings? Sure!

Then the weirdness set in. I realized I don't relate to a single one of these characters. The shy paranoid one, the Bohemian hipster one, the whiny self-involved one, and the one that looks like she just stepped off the runway. Their problems in any given episode involve living in the city, having graphic weird sex with and/or marrying strangers, doing drugs in nightclubs, banging openly gay men, and tangential monologues in inappropriate situations. None of which I can personally relate to either.

Then there's the nudity. Now I'm not a total prude; a naked body is a naked body. But I'd have to conservatively estimate the ratio of unnecessary to necessary nudity on this show to be about 10:1. It's usually unprompted, inappropriate and painfully awkward.

Like I said, there was a good period of time where I was riding the Girls bandwagon. The critics love Hannah (Lena Dunham)'s fearlessness to write, direct and star in her own provocative scenes. "Good for her!" people say, "She's unapologetic for who she is and shines a spotlight on real women's bodies and insecurities." And if she's helping insecure people or people who feel like they're not represented on television, I'm being honest ... that's awesome.

For me, personally, I'm signing off. I can't watch another minute of this show. I refuse to watch her whine one more time about her problems while dancing around in a hideous onesie jumper, banging weird hot hippie strangers on a Sunday afternoon, then playing ping pong naked for no reason. Can't do it. I shouldn't have wasted my time watching a season and a half's worth of episodes thinking I'd find something I relate to or connect with anywhere in this show.

I might've just been watching for shots of this guy. It's a strong possibility.

The lesson here? I find more relateable emotion in the eyes of a crystal meth cook than a quirky twentysomething.

Wait..... what?

Two Girls Walk Into a Bar....

2013-02-06T19:23:00.001-08:00

So I've never been much a bar dweller. In fact, apart from the standard rite-of-passage allotment of sloppy college nights, I'm not usually a big drinker. So when my friend Kim and I decided to go out to a bar a few Fridays ago, we were pretty excited to be doing something different. Something that didn't involve surfing YouTube and ordering Chinese take-out.

I have to say, having experienced the bar scene for the first time in a while, it's quite a sociological study. We walked in, squeezed a path through the bumbling crowd, and managed to score the last two stools. And we didn't need to move a muscle after that. As we were about to find out, the entertainment would come to us.

Before I introduce them, it's amusing to know that all of the following people are related, in some twisted Kevin Bacon way, to a guy named Johnny. We met his best friends from home, his college buddies, some lady friends, a handful of cousins, his mom... But we never met Johnny himself and part of us still doubts his existence.

The cast of characters (in order of appearance):

Overconfident Frat Boy Impressing His Female Groupies

A friend of Johnny comes sidling up, showcasing dorky dance moves. He looks back at his giggling tribe of lady companions. We're not sure if he wants us to join in or just sit there baffled. We go with something in between - a few silly body movements, followed by an awkward staring contest. Finally, he moonwalks away.

Little Miss Lack of Spatial Awareness

Just as we're getting back to our conversation, some twenty-something in a half-shirt dives between me and the stranger on the next stool. She's waving a $20 in the busy bartender's face. Her boobs are pressed against the counter and I've lost so much personal space, I'm practically sitting in Kim's lap. Johnny's girlfriend's cleavage and aggressive approach get her served quickly, which ends up being a real blessing for my lungs as I can now breathe again. Cue drink spilled on my coat.

Mr. and Mrs. Infidelity

At some point, I realize that the stranger to my left is cute and sitting alone. These qualifications make him a worthy candidate, I figure, so I introduce myself. Within a few minutes, we're in full flirt mode and he's whispering sweet nothings in my ear. (Make that loud nothings yelled directly into my ear canal; the music was on full blast.) But no sooner does his hand leave the small of my back than he is making out with the closest blonde chick. "Your girlfriend?" I ask him in between incredulous laughs. "Yep, five years," he replies, winking, "Kind-of wish we weren't together tonight though." Wow, okay. Over his shoulder, his girlfriend is grinding against another guy. These two are a match made in adulterous heaven.

Guy Pearce from Memento

I turn around to check in with Kim. Her latest suitor is leaning all rico-suave against the bar, but I soon realize what Kim has been dealing with for the past ten minutes. First off, he's super drunk. Secondly, he's about as rico and suave as a Brillo pad. Somewhere amidst all of this, we learn that he's Johnny's (socially inept) second cousin. Of course he is. He keeps blurting out the one pick-up line he must have practiced in the mirror that morning, then immediately becoming unsure, awkward or accidentally offensive. The best part? In these moments, the seven shots he has just taken are swimming around his head, instructing him to revert back to that tried-and-true pick-up line. So he introduces himself again. And again. And again. And though he seems to know his name pretty damn well, he sure doesn't know Kim's. So by Round 10 of this mind-numbing cycle, we both stick our hands out. "Hi, I'm Kim," I say. "The name's Jill," announces Kim.

Lance Bass, Still in the Closet

Okay, he's not that flaming. But, by my estimations, he likes dudes. He's trying to flirt, but I'm a little jaded by what the male population has had to offer tonight. Which makes the coincidence that our names rhyme - which he's pointed out every other breath - considerably less funny. Sweet kid, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was Johnny's gay lover.

Ode to a Third Grader

2013-01-25T19:32:00.003-08:00

Fresh off a five-month position as a third grade teacher, I have gained a lot - perspective; ideas for the future; the ability to yell at a group of small children with ease. But there's so much more to be shared. So rather than writing the next great American novel on the trials and tribulations of being an educator, I'm choosing instead to close this chaotic chapter in my life with a series of succinct Top 3 lists. As a forewarning, these lists are all derived from my worst days as an educator - for humor's sake - and ignore the great ones.

Top 3 Quotes That Have Fallen Out of My Mouth

3.) I’m not impressed with how cool you think you are. Take a seat.”

2.) “Whatever you need, the answer’s no. Walk away from me.”

1.) “At this point in the day, Stephen, I don’t care. Find me tomorrow and see if I care then.”

Top 3 Incidents

3.) That time the sink overflowed in the middle of a lesson, all hell broke loose and I spent the next twenty minutes on my hands and knees shooing away children and mopping up dirty water with 1/2 ply paper towels.

2.) That time when, in a moment of frustration, I threw a pen forcefully across the room towards my desk. Except the toss came up short and it hit an unsuspecting 8-year-old directly in the face. Time stood still. Both of our jaws dropped. The ringing of angry phone calls echoed in my ears. Then one month later, the aforementioned kid accidentally pegged me hard in the face with a beanbag so I guess we’re even.

1.) That time when I wished for something different to arise in my day
to break up the monotonous school day routine, then promptly regretted it. The time is 2 PM. The lesson? Level I Geometry. All students are seated and accounted for when suddenly a putrid, unmistakable odor wafts into my nostrils. I scan the room and there it lies: a turd. My brain struggles to compute its existence on my classroom floor, but as a mature adult I know it is my responsibility to take charge of the situation. Which, naturally, involves calling Jon the custodian to come clean it up for me. How did it get there? We'll never know for sure. But next time you have an accident on the job, take notes from this stealthy third grader: Shake it out your pant leg and get back to work.

Top 3 Skills Gained

3.) A keen ability to listen and respond to five questions at once. Sounds a little something like this: "Bobby, yes. Lucas, in five minutes. Hannah, page 37. Grace, second shelf on the right. Josh, the answer's 12."

2.) Sharpening pencils like a boss. They're needed at all hours of the school day and yet they appear, disappear, break, become dull, snap or are rendered otherwise unusable at a ridiculous rate.

1.) The perfect death stare. Say you've pulled a guided reading group or you're in the middle of progress monitoring a kid. You look up and see young Billy hanging from the ceiling lights. Not a good time to yell? No problem... just switch on the anger and shoot daggers from your eyes until Billy turns and sees the face of wrath staring him down. No words needed and Billy is promptly back to work.

Top 3 Lessons Learned

3.) Kids are resilient. In my five-month tenure at Anonymous Elementary, I was yelling or punishing these children at least half the time. I'd say 50% of the time would be rounding down. It was always warranted by some kind of impulsive misbehavior, but I was still concerned that they'd forever associate my name with an image of the Trunchbull or Cruella de Ville. Then the day finally came and there they were hugging me from all sides and dropping chocolates and roses in my lap. Glad to know that they see around the discipline and know I really do care.

2.) If you give a kid something, don’t expect them to still have it in their possession sixty seconds later. If I had a donut for every time I heard "I lost that paper", I'd be clinically obese now. Where did you put it?!! Did you ball it up and throw it out? Swallow it? Fold it into an origami crane and fly it out the window? Good lord, children.

1.) Left to their own devices, kids will regress into a form not unlike their ape ancestors. I am no longer surprised if, in the span of ten seconds, each of them has crawled onto a high shelf, stood up on a table, began sprinting around the perimeter of the room or initiated a round of arm wrestling to flex their pre-pubescent muscles. Indoor recess looks like the stampede scene from Jumanji.

Top 3 Responses on a Test or Student Survey

3.) Question: If you had three wishes, what would they be?

Answer: I wish to get good grades. I wish I was in love. I wish I have 500 cats. (Who doesn't?)

2.) Question: Name one thing you are certain will not happen.

Answer: I will not get older than God. (Accurate.)

1.) Question: What is your least favorite subject?

Answer: pretending to be a princess (WTF?)

X Factor Travesty

2013-01-01T20:59:00.003-08:00

I have recently bared witness to a tragedy that, for whatever reason, has yet to grace the front page of any major newspaper. I, for one, am outraged. A transgression this deep should be making national headlines. I've spent the last two weeks reeling from the impact of such profound civil injustice. And to think - the majority of the public played a role in this mess, however small, and how they sleep at night is beyond me.

I am, of course, referring to the season finale of the X Factor.

Let me set the scene for those of you on The Voice bandwagon who are missing out on an even better competition just two channels away. After the mandatory number of weeks, thousands of singing hopefuls - mostly gimmick-y, mediocre fame chasers - got whittled down to just three acts.

I'll describe them to you now with all the obvious bias and favoritism I can muster:

Fifth Harmony - These ladies all came in as solo acts. Then Simon Cowell got a twinkle in his eye, similar to the one that birthed teenaged royalty One Direction, waved his magic wand and boom! A girl group. They were underdogs for the entire competition, mostly due to almost-weekly name changes and the fact that they had just met 10 minutes prior. Over time, the girls known as LYLAS (wow) became 4231 (wtf?) and eventually blossomed into Fifth Harmony. They found their sound and a gaggle of devoted Twitter followers in the final few weeks, which earned them third place.

Conclusion: They've got serious talent and adorable personalities. Definitely a group to watch out for!

Carly Rose Sonenclar - Since I was a kid, I've gone through periods of obsession with different music artists. From Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls to John Mayer and Pentatonix, there's always a fixation. What I'm saying is I should have seen this coming. The minute I saw this girl perform, I was hooked. She's 13, has been on Broadway and if Adele, Beyonce and Celine were having a tea party, Carly would be the guest of honor. She's a prodigy. Her raw talent is incredible and her confidence is ridiculously disproportional to her age. I could go on, but what I'm really doing is trying to justify the number of times I've watched her on YouTube in the last week. The view count is embarrassing but completely warranted by this little diva.

Conclusion: Here's where the travesty comes in. She finished out the competition in second place - I know, choke back the tears - to a cowboy buffoon I'll introduce to you now.

Tate Stevens - I have to get up for work in five hours and his story's not worth the lost sleep, so here are the key points: He's 37. I'm pretty sure he sleeps wearing a ten-gallon hat; I've never seen his hair. He sings country songs as well as any ordinary Texan riding through town, but he's boring as hell. He doesn't have the X Factor nor does he know how to spell it. I skipped most of the performances he gave - thanks, DVR! Yet some unidentified group of U.S. citizens passed over Carly's unprecedented genius and gave this joker enough votes to win. I've thought long and hard for an unreasonable amount of time and can attribute this mass lapse of judgment to two things:

Country lovers are blind. They'll vote for anything with a twang in their voice and a spur on their heel. Essentially these people voted for an overall genre, not a singer.
People love a good sob story. Tate probably heard Carly casually warming up in the dressing room next door, went into survival mode and called his wife. "Shit! We gotta play up this poor man's angle, honey. Cry harder next week when the camera pans to you." I sound heartless, I know. But this is a competition of singing, not sympathy. The fact that you may not have a job when you return home and you've dreamed of being Garth Brooks since you were a kid is sad, yes but unfortunately irrelevant to anything related to this show.

Conclusion: In my eyes, it's not even a matter of opinion. Carly is, in every way, a superior and more marketable vocalist than Cowboy McGee. I realize she'll go far anyway, but it should've been an open-and-shut case. Carly for the win.

That being said, I just read in the news that all three acts are getting record deals with Simon. So all of the above is moot. You're welcome!

Manly Man Movies

2012-08-09T21:41:00.000-07:00

So the other day, I'm walking out of the movie theater with a friend, having just seen the Dark Knight Rises. We're talking about our opinions of it and mine was essentially: "Great direction, great acting, great effects, but............ it's a guy movie."

I've used this phrase "guy movie" quite a lot recently because I've reached a point where I recognize what I'm looking for in a movie. In the case of a movie like Dark Knight, I can completely appreciate all the hard work and talent that went into making such a beast of a film. I can barely make a slideshow in iMovie; I get the blockbuster appeal. But I just don't love it. I don't feel the need to ever watch it again.

This is a sweeping generalization, of course. I don't mean to scoff at and disregard all guy movies. And though it may sound like I'm confirming gender stereotypes, I actually don't need bubble gum fairies and rainbow unicorns in a meadow of baby's breath to enjoy a film. I don't cover my ears during streams of foul language or shield my eyes when someone pulls a gun. And no, I don't own the Full House series collection (though, to be honest, I'd love to).

The quintessential "guy movie" I'm referring to usually has three or more of the following:

incessant, unnecessary violence
lots of blood, weapons, casualties, explosions and gunfire
car chases just because
ubiquitous drug use
robots and superhuman villains
curse words every other sentence

Again, I don't have iCarly and My Little Pony episodes saved in my DVR. A lot of my favorite movies do have at least one of the above. The difference is that I believe mine have substance. If it has a deeper layer or something legitimate to offer me as a viewer, I can make peace with some of the dumber aspects. If a movie has a dumb car chase but I laugh so hard I pee, I can probably deal. Maybe half the cast gets shot, but it keeps me on the edge of my seat guessing. Fine. I just need a film to have something more than sensationalistic, surface-level, 3-D blockbuster stuff. Some character development.... a believable love story .... a well-developed story arc.... anything!

Exhibit A: Transformers

To be fair, never saw it. But I'd bet my life savings this movie's offering a healthy serving of weapons, giant robots, and lots of running. Presumably from said robots with weapons.

Exhibit B: 300

Again. Never saw it. Don't need to. Manly men with muscly armor killing each other. I'll pass.

Exhibit C: Fast and the Furious

Boys and their cars. Ugh. I've given up in my attempts to understand the male obsession with anything motorized. I guess I'll just sit back and count the 11 dollars I saved from not seeing this one.

Exhibit D: Pineapple Express

From what I can tell, the theme centers on two guys trying to score pot, then smoking the pot, and then looking for more pot. Someone alert the Academy.

Exhibit E: Saving Private Ryan

This is a war movie, I know, so of course there's violence. But I'm not ever going to see this movie. I'm not interested in a long slideshow of people dying. Sure hope someone saved that Ryan guy.

The Perils of Shopping

2012-07-22T12:21:00.003-07:00

I almost didn't write this post. I figured I had already expressed my dislike for shopping enough. But after a recent trip to the mall, I felt another Ode to the Salesperson was in order. If I were going to rank my grievances, somehow "trying on endless piles of clothes" and "dealing with crowds of coupon-wielding soccer moms" still fall short to "an overemployed overzealous staff". These garment-pushers drain my patience more quickly than anyone I've ever encountered.

I'll start at the very beginning. ("A very good place to start"). On this particular day, I was on the hunt for some new shorts. After twenty minutes of searching the racks, I had managed to filter out a few candidates from the masses of ripped, acid-washed, butt-peeking variety. Any hope that I would actually leave with a pair of somewhat-dignified, properly-fitted shorts was squandered when I reached the dressing rooms and found an empty counter and a sign: "DRESSING ROOMS CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE". I see. So I'm supposed to just hold up each garment and visualize myself in it? Perfect. I left my jean orphans on a rack of bikini tops and got out of there. But not before stopping in the grocery section and picking up a pint of greek yogurt. I figured if my search for shorts had failed, the least I could do was bring home some protein.

Five minutes later, I had my yogurt buckled in on the passenger side and we were on our way home. (Kidding.) On a whim, I decided to swing a left and stop by the mall for a last-ditch attempt at some summer duds. This made me nervous because I didn't want my newly-purchased yogurt to spoil in the 95-degree car. The plan I formed was to run in a side exit, quickly scope out a few of the nearest stores, then hightail it out of there.

What could go wrong?

I set my shorts radar on high and proceeded at a break-neck pace through three or four clothing stores. I looked like one of those grannies with one-pound hand weights power walking past your house at dawn. I would stride in, down some aisles, and back out of the store without stopping. All I could think was "Yogurt. I've got yogurt. There's yogurt." Nothing on the racks was catching my eye, so I didn't even need to slow down. This version of Speed Window Shopping was actually saving me from dealing with the aforementioned ~~bane of my existence~~ saleswomen. By the time they took a breath to start their spiel, I was just a memory.

My streak of good luck ended when I reached American Eagle. From thirty feet away, I could see the staff members pacing just inside the window. Sharks waiting for fresh meat. That was almost enough to send me running for the hills. Or, more accurately, my rapidly-warming yogurt. I could practically feel its expiration date moving closer and closer to yesterday.

But my desire for new shorts superceded my desire to be left alone. So I took a breath and stepped through the threshold. I literally counted "3....2....1...." in my head. Before I hit 2, the blondie closest to me has swarmed in and stopped me cold in my tracks.

"Hey! Just so you know, we're having a big sale on our summer line. All the shorts are buy-one-get-one-half-off. And the tank tops over there are up to 40% off."

Okay, let's call you Stephanie. First of all, Steph, I didn't hear most of the words you just said. I haven't got much time. All I heard was "yogurtyogurtyogurt summer line yogurtyogurt 40% off." Secondly, the fact that your ~~pointless drivel~~ sales pitch - for once - was entirely relevant to my shopping needs and I still resent you is a testament to how much I want to be left alone right now. Lastly, are you having a big sale on your summer line? It's 90 degrees outside. I was hoping to find some deals on parkas.

I politely smiled, thanked her, and moved forward on my quest for shorts. I thought of the pint of dairy riding shotgun and quickened the pace. I rifled through their selection, picking five or six different sizes of five or six different styles. Who the hell knows? I had now enjoyed two whole minutes of blissful me time, but now here comes Steve. (That was probably his name.)

"Hey there! Can I help you find a size? Do you need any help with anything?"

In an attempt to banish him away, I chose the ever-popular response: "No, thanks. Just lookin'." What would make you think I needed help with sizes? I'm only trying on one of every item in stock. Now shoo.

Now, unfortunately, American Eagle is one of the many stores that employs Keepers of the Dressing Room to guard what I can only assume are stalls filled with diamonds and bars of gold. I figured I'd ask Stephanie for a key since we were already BFFs. Unfortunately, my beeline to Steph was cut off by Employee #3. We'll call him Arthur.

"Hey! Just wanted to let you know that shorts are buy-one-get-one-half-off and all these tank tops here are like 30 and 40% off. We're having a huge sale on our-"

Summer line, I know. Thanks, Artie. I'm on board.

"Just let me know if you need any help or a different size," Steph told me as she permitted me temporary access to one of her coveted dressing rooms, "And don't forget! The shorts are buy-one-get-one-half-off!"

Shut up! They ARE?!

Cut to me ten minutes later, bringing 53 pairs of shorts back to the rack. The 54th pair I tried on actually fit (praise Allah) so now I really need to get out of this place. As I'm shoving all these hangers back on random racks, a blonde figure materializes in my peripheral vision. STEPHANIE!

"How did we make out? Did we do alright in there?"

We? Were you in there with me? Cause if "me" really was a "we", you already be in the know. For the love of God, go FOLD SOMETHING.

I practically ran to the checkout counter. I passed Steve on the way, who asked if I was finding everything I was looking for. (No, I was looking to be left alone.) Arthur checked me out and offered me a store credit card. (No. I'll never come back again.) Then Steffy - I swear to God - reminded me about the buy-one-get-one-half-off sale one more time. (I know I only got one pair of shorts, but I don't have time to find its companion. Damn you, woman. Think of the YOGURT.)

Predictions for the Future

2012-07-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

I have this obsession - okay, "recurring thought" would be more accurate - about time travel. Usually it's just me wishing I could go back in time to various decades or specific points in history. That said - I would never want to travel to the future. I think the unknown, while frustrating sometimes, is what makes life interesting. Plus, I think my mind would be too blown if I had an opportunity to see what's comin'. It'd be like opening all the Christmas presents early. And the presents are a jetpack hovercraft and a hologram image of an elderly Lady Gaga.

But just because I would never want to be let in on the secrets of the future doesn't mean I can't make a few innocent hypotheses. Some of these are just for fun; most are probably pretty accurate. Which are which? Your call.

1) Last names will overtake first names. Our children’s classmates will sound like characters from The Great Gatsby. Names like Templeton Jefferson and Williams Johnson will be all the rage until eventually, that trend will run its course and we'll come back full circle. That's when Jennifer and John finally make their grand reappearance.

2) Texting will make phone calls nearly obsolete. 911 dispatchers will be the only ones with any need to physically speak words over telephone lines. Communication in general will break down. In person, everyone will have completely forgotten or never developed the ability to express themselves. The average research paper in college will look like the lyrics of a Ke$ha single, expertly annotated with emoticons.

3) Everything will get smaller, with the exception of cell phones. iPods and ear buds will be one in the same. Computers will be the width of a sheet of paper. But cell phones will have to compete with the high demand for HD media and internet, so they’ll probably evolve back into bricks a la Zack Morris.

4) The percentage of the population between fitness fanatics and lazy obese people will dwindle to almost nothing. Either you’ve got a gym membership or you’re on a first-name basis with your local McDonald’s drive thru personnel. (Hopefully health makes a comeback but who are we kidding? To our international neighbors, U.S. will probably be synonymous with deep fried Oreos.)

5) Kids will read about civil injustice in History class. They'll start with slavery, breeze through suffrage, and land nicely on legal rights for gay couples. And the kids will say “Really? People couldn’t just marry whomever they loved? That’s silly.”

6) The first campaign for Queen of America will be under way. Oprah Winfrey will win in a landslide victory.

7) Movies will be shown in 9 dimensions. Tickets will have risen slowly and steadily to $25 a ticket. Popcorn will be a week's worth of wages and a month's worth of calories. A small soda will have tripled in price and quadrupled in size. We will still be happily buying these products with no contention.

8) There will be some new invention on the market, making DVDs and Blu-Rays defunct. I will continue my stubborn refusal to restart my movie collection.

9) Gas prices will be so astronomically high that cars will become a status symbol, only affordable for the richest members of society's upper echelon. And by that, I mean Jonathan Papelbon, still living like royalty off his 2012 closer deal with the Philadelphia Phillies. The rest of us will be subjected to public transportation or our own legs while scientists continue to ignore the long-standing existence of cheaper, locally-based, environmentally-friendly fuel sources.

10) Dubstep electronic dance music will invade the music world entirely. Billboard's Top 100 will consist simply of a series of beeps, bass thumping, and cowbells.

11) Bookstores will go the way of video stores. I sincerely hope this one never comes true.

Off Balance

2012-06-25T13:02:00.001-07:00

Okay, time to talk about something that's been bothering me.

I could talk for days about turn signals, but that's petty. So instead I'll focus on a legitimate issue that always finds its way back to the forefront of my mind: the imbalance of money and resources in the world. The middle class is shrinking, and the polarity of Richie Riches and Homeless Joes is growing larger and more distant. How can someone own six mansions in one part of the world and somewhere else, a person can't afford shoes or clean water? It's mind boggling to me.

The thing is... if Jim and Tim were both getting enough resources to live comfortably but Jim just had slightly more, that would be fine. You'd wish equality among everyone, but understand that variability is inevitable. But in today's world, the Jims of the world are getting excessive, inordinate, unjustified amounts of money. And the Tims are living in abject poverty or dying needlessly of malnutrition.

Here's my gross generalization of the day: People who work more tend to get paid less. I have to clarify that this is not the case in all careers or lifestyles, but it is a trend that's becoming glaringly apparent to me. Por ejemplo:

Jonathan Papelbon

I've become a huge Phillies fan over the last few years, and I've always been a fan of Philly sports in general. So when we first recruited Jonathan Papelbon as our new star closer, I was eager as ever to accept a new player to our team. Then I heard how much he's getting paid and - hard as I try - I can't get on board with this. The man got a FIFTY MILLION DOLLAR deal for four years as our CLOSER. Now you can riddle me with all the baseball psychology you want, but as far as I'm concerned, a good pitcher should be able to pitch any time he's needed. This whole concept is BS. Bringing a guy in to pitch every once in a while for ten minutes? Then letting him hang out in the dugout the rest of the time on a bench made of dollar bills as the ballgirl fetches him his solid gold jacket? Screw that. You play BASEBALL for a living. SOMETIMES. Only when it's the bottom of the ninth and you haven't played for a while and we have to hang on to a win and your arm's feeling okay. Ugh....no.

Jerry Seinfeld

There are few bigger Seinfeld fans than me. If you don't count the legions of fans that attend conventions and name their children Elaine and Kramer. And unlike Jonny Paps, I do recognize the great deal of hard work and dedication Jerry Seinfeld put into creating, producing, writing and starring in this awesome TV show. However, his net worth is still a prime example of how RICH these people actually are. Between stand-up comedy, nine years of churning out a #1 sitcom, and the royalties from another decade of syndicated episodes, the man is worth $800 million. Eight HUNDRED...... MILLION dollars. He owns a garage full of Porsches and mansions out the wazoo. Just to put his wealth in perspective: He was offered $110 million to make one last season of Seinfeld and turned it down. "No, thanks. I'm good."
Julia Roberts

She's just one example of an army of high-earning actors and actresses making their way through Hollywood right now. Yes, she's one of "America's Sweethearts". Yes, she's pretty and good at pretending to be someone different in front of cameras. But let's, again, put all this in perspective. Imagine for a moment that someone filmed you sitting in a chair reciting some lines. Then they went and edited these together to make a six-minute clip. Then they handed you $3 million and sent you on your way. That genuinely happened to Julia Roberts. She was in a chick flick for six minutes of total screen time, which involved a couple of casual conversations to a stranger on an airplane, and was awarded for her "genius" with a $3 million dollar check. Geez, I wish I was paid $500,000 a minute.

David Beckham

I can almost justify this man's net worth based on his looks alone. The man is beautiful, this much we know. However, he's famous for being able to play ~~football~~ soccer really well. That's excellent. Kudos on your powerful feet. However, I can not get past the idea that you are worth $210 million essentially for your flawless genes, athleticism and ability to look pretty while holding a razor or Burger King's smoothie. Oh, the humanity.

Jersey Shore cast

If you've been sitting there arguing with me, playing Devil's Advocate and supporting the "hard working" people of the entertainment industry, your time is up. There is officially no more to debate. While the good people of America are struggling through these hard economic times in the attempt to find a respectable way to make use of their collegiate degrees and experience, there is a gang of guidos beatin' up the beat and blowin' up grenades in Seaside Heights. The cast of Jersey Shore got famous for doing nothing but being combative alcoholics with excess hair gel, fake body parts and borderline melanoma. And YET... the majority of these idiots are making $150,000 an episode. WHAT?!

Meanwhile, people are deprived of basic human needs like money, clean water, food, shelter and medicine. That's the worst of it, but even when you consider the imbalance within the same economic class, it's silly. Teachers work really hard every day and get paid $40,000 a year maybe. Snooki trips and falls off the boardwalk and makes a third of that. See what I'm sayin?

Orient Yourselves

2012-06-14T19:06:00.003-07:00

When I was a junior in college, I decided to interview to be a part of the summer orientation program for the incoming freshmen. That might have been the single greatest decision I've ever made in my life. I'm known for citing those two years as the peak of my happiness because it's hard to imagine my life will ever be in such a carefree, excessively joyful place again.

The program was mandatory (much to the chagrin of high school graduates everywhere), so every incoming freshman had to sign up to attend one of nine 2-day cycles. Twenty college students were hired as "facilitators", paired up into ten guy-girl partnerships. So for each cycle, the freshmen were designated to one of our ten groups (with roughly 20 per group). The experience was much different depending on who you were. If you were an apprehensive 18-year-old newbie, those two days were the epitome of overwhelming.

As facilitators, however, we were livin' the dream. We were showered with monogrammed merchandise, free food and housing, and endless laughter to boot. Oh, and almost $3000. Ballin'.

20 Tiggers Meet 200 Eeyores

Part of our job description was to be excessively - borderline annoyingly - excited at all times. Despite getting little to no sleep, we were expected to be Energizer Bunnies. Which generally wasn't a problem because energy stems from happiness and as I've already described, I was elated to be there.

However, this level of enthusiasm could sometimes cause some friction. Particularly when sleepy-eyed, confused teenagers arrived on campus and a crowd of college students were there to ~~overstimulate~~ welcome them with boundless energy akin to the Sham-Wow guy.

One time, I was beckoning some newcomers over to the check-in table with quasi-cheerleader moves and an iPod blasting "Come On Over" by Christina Augilera. One of the bewildered guys comes sauntering up to us, looks us right in the eye and goes, "It is too early for YOU." Point taken, my friend. Duly noted.

Let's Play!

There were plenty of sessions these kids were required to attend, but to keep them entertained, build group morale, and create opportunities for new friendships, we'd play games with them. Almost immediately on Day 1, we'd have 'em under a tree on a quad somewhere playing the Name Game. Ever went to summer camp or been forced to introduce yourself in a campy way to a new group of people? You're probably familiar with this icebreaker.

Essentially, you circle up and each person creates a creative little ditty about their name (adjective + name + verb). Mine was always "Jumping Jill" and I'd jump. Super lame, I know. I super did not care. So you'd have to declare your silly name and action, then repeat all of those before you. Naturally, I went first so as to avoid an embarrassing attempt at recalling others' names and, two years in a row, forced my partner to go last.

Despite putting them on the spot, games like this went over well with most of the Fresh Tots (one of the nicer nicknames we dubbed the kids). Mainly because they were too new and nervous to question anything. Your average Freshie would giggle nervously, make a vague chopping motion with one hand, and murmur, "I'm.... Karate Kelly....hee hee." Precious. Then there were people like "Klepto Katie" who pretended to pocket something. (My turn to laugh nervously.) And "Psycho Sam" which forced us to jot down the Counseling Services and Public Safety speed dials just in case.

Then there was the campus favorite: Huggy Bear. At first glance, this was a silly, harmless game of competitive hugging. An hour later, there'd be a broken ankle and some seriously hurt feelings. To briefly explain, any number of people could play. One person was the caller. He/she would yell out a number and everyone had to quickly create a group hug involving that number of people. If you were left out or couldn't find a group fast enough, you were out. Still doesn't sound too intense? Here's the breakdown of a typical round of Huggy Bear:

Caller: FIVE!
(Five people quickly come together in a group hug. A new best friendship has immediately formed as they laugh victoriously and celebrate their advancement to the next round.)
Caller: SEVEN!
(The five new besties need two more to join their LoveFest or they're all out. They are stressed for a few seconds, but two floaters appear out like mirages of the fog and cling onto the five-some with a collective sigh of relief. They've all survived another round! This near-death experience has solidified them as seven BFFs. Unbreakable. Together 'til the end!)
Caller: SIX!
("Sorry, Lauren." This once-inseparable group has taken all of one second to determine their weakest link and kick her off the island. Lauren's out. They have to accept their new destiny as a group of six moving forward.)
Caller: TWO!
(Aaaaand that's how the cookie crumbles. "What the !*$%, MATT?!" "I thought we were in this TOGETHER, STEPHANIE!" "Go HUG yourself, Patty!")

Rule Breakers

Somewhere amongst the morning icebreakers, we had to read our kids The Rules. As you might imagine, a group of recent high school graduates do not enjoy being sat down like first graders and warned against misbehaving. I get that. Except at this stage of the game, the rules were less like "Don't run with scissors" and more along the lines of "If you brought a flask, hide it."

And if these rules weren't broken at least once every cycle, they could absolutely be rendered unnecessary. But as it is, some of these kids hadn't gotten the memo that they were no longer the Big Man on Campus. They had reached the bottom of a new pecking order and didn't always adjust very well.

For starters, lots of kids complained about walking from place to place. On a college campus. As if we had purposely made lots of new buildings and scattered them around like Lego pieces to get these kids' heart rates up. Get used to the cardio, chillins. Then there were the delinquents. These were the ones who would skip all the sessions, wander around, then come back with a Slurpie and expect a warm welcome. We dropped your fall schedule. Naturally. (One kid in my group actually went AWOL and forced my partner and I to make a quick escape to a hidden parking lot via Batmobile. Okay, '03 Volvo.) The worst offenders reeked up their hallways with pot smoke and/or booze and angry parents had to come drag them out by the scruff of their necks. Should've hid the flask, dude.

Monotony at Its Finest

Most of the time, we facilitators were having the time of our lives. But that didn't mean the daily grind didn't eventually drive us crazy. Each of the nine cycles were identical, and we had as many as three back-to-back. Tedious is an understatement.

Most notably were the Academic Sessions. The kids ("Don't call us kids!") were broken up by major. Having never had to focus academically on anything, they were a bit lost. So we were forced to sit and watch the same professors - born around the Jurassic period - ramble through the same two-hour spiel at a glacial pace. This usually included a riveting PowerPoint, lots of awesome notes and plenty of spell-binding academic guidance. No, I'm kidding.... it was awful. The only benefit to enduring these mind-numbing sessions was the time it provided to master our impressions. We'd watch the professors so we could imitate them later to the rest of the staff. Most famous were Mr. Limited Vocab, who found ways to insert the self-assuring term "Right?" into every sentence he spoke, and Dr. Crescendo, who had no control over the volume of her voice. "Youuuu MUST withdraw from a class BY the coRECT date or yOU will recieve A DOUBLE-u on your tranSCRipt."

Nothing tested our patience more than these academic torture chambers, but I'd have to give a close second to the incessant questions. The freshmen were like a firing squad, taking turns pelting us with their latest inquiries. Now I'm completely genuine when I say I loved being there to help them. I used to be a confused and curious freshmen too, so I went out of my way a lot of the time to help them feel at ease. However, I'm only human. I can only handle the same question a few hundred times before I have to take a breath and count to 10. Especially if the question was ridiculously stupid to begin with.

"Excuse me, can you tell me where the Student Union is?" We're currently standing in it. Imagine the self-control necessary to swallow a sarcastic answer and patiently find them a map of the building. As much as I enjoy being a mentor, it would have been equally satisfying to say, "Sure, absolutely. Just take three steps to the left, then double back to where you were standing and it'll be right there. Can't miss it."

Some Things Are Just For Us

We really were there to be supportive mentors to the incoming freshmen. Honest. But when you're given full reign over a college campus with your best friends, there are going to be times when inside jokes and staff perks trump other less-awesome responsibilities. Meals were a time to unwind and relay funny stories. So we often passed on the opportunity to sit amongst the Freshlings so we could all eat together at conjoined tables that stretched the length of the room. Wearing exactly the same outfit day in and day out (polo, khakis, monogrammed backpack) created one giant maroon monster. We couldn't help it; the camaraderie was awesome. And it continued right into the evening. On the first night of every cycle, the basement of the dorm hall was transformed into a "dance club". In other words, the lights were turned off, the same six songs were blasted from someone's laptop, and everyone lost ten pounds. I say that because the cumulative heat of 100 gyrating teenagers pre-shower was enough to make that room a sauna. As well as "an incubus of viral plague". (If you're counting, that's two Miranda Priestly quotes in one post. And what an absurdly long post it was, too. Congratulations if you made it all the way through. You deserve a medal.)

I Don't Understand What You Just Said

2012-06-12T12:32:00.001-07:00

Everyone has the right to be who they are. Differences make life interesting. It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round. So on and so forth.

We've all heard 'em. And they're true, of course. To each his own! But personally, these little kitschy fortune cookie pearls of wisdom don't always cut it. Sometimes, I still find it difficult to see things from other perspectives. I just straight up do not understand where they're coming from.

"I've been rollin' on dubs in my 2013 Lexus GT 5000 X... gettin' new rims right after I get it back from the shop. I'm gettin' new interiors and that V-8 engine souped up."

I'm sorry?! Now, first of all, my lack of understanding about cars stems from a complete lack of interest. Couldn't care less. So the above statement is probably 85-90% nonsense.... I just want you to know that I know. With that said, I don't know where the rom-com cliches all came from. Usually something involving the girl-next-door being stood up on prom night and crying into the tulle of her dress. Then the sexy first-string quarterback drives up in some kind of two-door hot rod and breaks the social mold by sweeping Plain Jane off her feet and to the prom as his date. Okay, so that wasn't a cliche so much as something I made up just now. But it is a cliche that guys are somehow more attractive if they own some shiny sports convertible. And if cliches are born from truth, then it must just be me that's out of the loop. I'm so unimpressed by it all. I wouldn't think twice about getting into your '97 Honda Civic and helping you smack the dashboard a few times to get the radio working.

"Pick me up four more packs of Marlboros."

I know that smoking is a physiological addiction. I've known this since middle school when they played a VHS tape about a guy with a robot voice-box and one lung. But I just don't understand it. Habits are hard to break and I, like everyone else, have experienced a few stubborn ones. But if someone came up to me years ago and went, "Honey, don't suck your thumb. It'll give you cancer"? Well, shit. Consider me cured. Cold turkey. And I know a habit like that isn't the same kind of addiction, but what's so yummy about sucking black tar into your chest out of a flaming carcinogenic stick?

“Can’t decide who’s got a better sound: Nine Inch Nails or Korn.”

I can help you out, brotha; the answer is neither. I'm a fan of most types of music. I always feel like a good song is a good song, with the exception of two genres. I've been swayed by the likes of Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift to get on board with the Top 40 country pop, but no thank you to the hardcore Nashville tractor-lovin' rocking-chairs-on-the-porch anthems. Not a fan. More significantly, though - and here's where Korn with a "K" comes in - the genre that's been crossed off my list forever is anything loud and abrasive enough to make one's head bang and ears bleed. I don't know why anyone even bothers defending it because it's not even music. No melody, no vocal talent.... just black eyeliner, dreads, screaming, and mosh pit concussions.

"Poor guy, he's six over par."

This is not to say that I don't understand the rules of golf. The basics of the game are pretty straightforward if you ignore the lingo and/or pick up a club at random with no regard for the distance or difficulty of your next shot. Golf has gotten more popular over the last several years and while I myself don't have a Tiger Woods bumper sticker on my car (I would've removed that by now anyway), I respect that others love it. I can get behind the idea of a relaxing Sunday afternoon on the green with your buddies, but on TELEVISION?! I draw the line. The whispering announcer, the hushed crowd, the argyle sweater vests and polos.... come on. Miss Congeniality in on TBS again. There's a rerun of Family Matters on Nick at Nite. Anything is less sleep-inducing than this.

“Johnny Depp is hot."

I don't get it. There's Ryan Gosling, Zac Efron, David Beckham, Channing Tatum...... and then there's this guy. I think he's a great actor and I'm sure a stand-up guy, but he's not my cup of tea. If he kept his hair cut and his face clean-shaven and his Crocodile Dundee hats in the attic and his bracelets in a jewelry box somewhere, then absolutely. But I think it's really saying something if I think he's most attractive when playing a sarcastic, swash-buckling pirate. Speaking of which, what's a swash and how does one buckle it?

“You know what would look so cute with this top? Spandex.”

I don't know when it became okay to wear sheer tights as pants, but I can't wait for that trend to see its way out. The whole point of tights to begin with was to wear them under dresses to be more demure and lady-like. Then some community of people - probably one that frequents Wal Mart - thought they'd save themselves the trouble and ditch the bottoms altogether. Here's my Day-of-the-Week underwear! Yay, it's Saturday!

“You suck. Bieber sucks. Everyone sucks but me.”

Ever since teenagers got a hold of the Internet, the world has been completely swallowed up by rampant negativity. Doesn't matter what I'm looking at. It can be a YouTube clip of Elmo tap dancing, and I can rest assured, when I stroll down there will be 250-300 comments to the tune of "You call that dancing? F*** you, muppet. Oh and I hate gays." Just the most ridiculous, irrelevant, ignorant comments being spewed out by insecure pre-teens hiding behind the anonymity of their computers. What did Elmo ever do to you?

"I have to find those blue pumps. They'd go so well with my blue bedazzled sweatpants, blue halter-top, blue sunglasses and blue lipstick."

I get confused when I see people out in public resembling Violet Bouregarde as a blueberry or a pawn from the game CandyLand. They must think that looks awesome. For me, monochromatic outfits are not the way to go. Like Stacy and Clinton say, "It doesn't have to match; it has to goooo." So all I'm saying is maybe spice up that look with a little pop of color and a neutral. Just an idea. Oh, and throw away the blue lipstick and anything bedazzled.

Cookies, Cakes and Bread... Oh My!

2012-06-10T20:46:00.003-07:00

My first job was in a bakery. But not a real bakery. More like the hub of a farmer's market. But not a real farmer's market.

It was this sketchy underground operation masquerading as a family-friendly food warehouse in the middle of white suburbia. There were all kinds of stands - meats, breads, cheeses, flowers, you name it. And while this place did produce delicious products, there was a whole other level of illegality going on. Firstly, and most mildly, every employee there was being paid under the table. The IRS must've turned a blind eye, but I wasn't complaining. Every Saturday, there'd be a wad of twenties taped to the fridge with my name on it. Secondly, there was absolutely drug trafficking going on. Some of the stand owners would take breaks throughout the day to go settle deals and smoke up in the basement. For the full effect, I want you to picture this basement. The place hadn't been cleaned ever. Not ever. It smelled of stale pee, leaky pipes, roaches, and new strains of bacteria that hadn't yet been studied. I was sure I'd contract smallpox just from exposing myself to that air.

But despite its obvious shadiness, it was the perfect place for my first job. (I even got used to coming home smelling like a foot. Apparently, that's what it smells like when every food in existence coalesces into one funky mix.) So now's the part where I describe the job and why they should never have hired us.

Part I: I Need My Baked Goods

This may have been a tiny "bakery" but it had every kind of confection you could want. Mature middle-aged adults suddenly went into a frenzy when our treats came into view. They would turn into Augustus Gloop scooping handfuls of chocolate from Wonka's river. Unable to stop themselves. They'd start at the cakes and pies, then hit up the candies and muffins, and finish out buying enough rolls and bread to feed Uganda for a month. This sounds harmless enough; who wouldn't want to share the joy of baked goods with these fine American consumers? Well, I wouldnt. Not after five hours of requests like these:

"Hello? Oh, hi. Yes. I would love to get sixteen of these rolls, twenty-five of these, twelve - no, thirteen of these, my husband loves these - and nine of those. Then I want three of these loaves sliced. And if you could slice them really thin, that would be great. And if you could triple bag each of those loaves? Thanks. Okay, then I want a pound and a half of the lemon squares and three pounds - no, four - of the chocolate pretzels. You know what? Make it five. Five pounds, yeah. My son Jimmy loves his pretzels. Oh, and when you box them, alternate dark chocolate with the milk chocolate. Ya' know... milk, dark, milk, dark, milk. Jimmy hates when they're all touching. When you're finished with that, I want that cookie, that cookie, that cookie, that cookie aaaaaaand...... that cookie. No, not that one... the sprinkles look weird. I wanted the one two cookies over. Yes. And then I want one of those cakes with the chocolate. Ya know the one I mean? With the chocolate? I'm gonna need you to cut that into ninths, then box it, bag it, box it again. Thanks... I'll meet you at the register."

Exhausted having read that? Well, I'm dumber having written it and angrier having lived it. I want to point out a few things here that made this one-sided conversation even ~~more infuriating~~ better. First of all, almost all of the items she requested were not by name. Instead, she'd make a vague pointing gesture in the direction of everything we sell. It was then up to me to tap into her thoughts and guess correctly. Secondly, I shouldn't be able to recite the branches of your family tree by the time I ring you out. The fact that your daughter is a Gemini and your husband is allergic to kiwi is irrelevant. Lastly, forget the petty details. I'm going to put the cake - chocolate, was it? - directly into a box with everything else you bought 'cause you just ordered for a half hour straight and the market's closing now.

Quickly, I learned how adamant people can be about their baked goods. But the woman I just described was nothing compared to the Saturday stampede. The market would close for the week every Saturday at 5:30, so in a sort-of last ditch effort of "everything must go", every item would go on sale. It became a source of impending doom for every employee on duty. We'd bite our nails as we watched the hands of the clock wind down. Then, like clockwork, 3:30 would arrive and a swarm of township residents with donuts for pupils would descend upon the market like locusts. People would stop by after a long stressful work week and take their frustration out on the high school kids with the muffins. If only we'd told them our products were fraudulent and frozen, that we didn't even own an oven, maybe they would've stayed home.

Part II: Worst Employees Ever

Besides the owner, the staff of the bakery consisted of almost exclusively high school students. I don't know what our boss expected of us at that age. We would generally only get through the first ten customers of the day before getting ornery and copping a stifled attitude with everyone that stopped by. We would be laughing with our co-workers, doodling with markers, and playing basketball with bread loaves. So of course we started to view customers as nuisances; how dare they interrupt our hang-out time to request a scone? Here it is... now go away.

And when we weren't leeching professionalism out of the place with our juvenile methods of customer service, we were leeching money out of the place. It's not like we would go into the register and steal twenties. But we were literally kids being given full reign of a candy store. We spent hours "testing the products to make well-rounded, accurate recommendations to customers". In other words, we would stuff our faces. For free. We'd eat a few rolls, a few muffins, a cookie, a donut, split a fruit tart, then slice up a baguette and pair it with turkey from the deli next door. Then we'd stick a few ones in the register and leave fatter and happier than when we arrived. Seriously.... probably shouldn't have hired us.

I also have to confess a certain lack of honesty with the customers. For example, one time, I was using the slicer to cut a loaf of bread for someone. Now, there's a rhythm and a sequence that's required to bag a sliced loaf perfectly and for whatever reason, this one just fell apart. So instead of letting the customer know that the gorgeous Five-Grain she was planning on serving at her dinner party now looks like I backed over it with my car, I dropped the evidence into a non-transparent bag, tied it up tight and sent her on her way. She did end up coming back to yell and lecture me on the importance of integrity, but I ended up just smothering my guilt with another creme donut and a pumpkin muffin.

Remember to Forget

2012-06-09T21:53:00.001-07:00

Everyone knows a college degree is a good thing. It earns you thousands more per year. It brings you to a new level of esteem and respect. It helps your resume sparkle so a potential boss can fish it out from the pool of general applicants. (Which, in an economy like today's, usually includes everyone you've ever met and everyone each of them has ever met. Not great chances.) Lastly, and more importantly, a college degree boosts your overall intelligence and provides you with the interdisciplinary, well-rounded education every hard-working citizen deserves.

Or so they would have you believe.

A few days ago, I decided to do some spring cleaning. Having perfected the art of denial years ago, I easily turned a blind eye to the clothes covering every inch of my bedroom floor. I went instead for the desk drawers. For whatever reason, I'd held onto an astonishing amount of paperwork since graduating college. I figured now was as good a time as any to get rid of this junk.

Two hours later, I was cross-legged on my carpet, staring in disbelief at the piles of paper surrounding me. It wasn't the amount of papers that overwhelmed me; it was what was written on them.

Biology labs, Art History notes, World History study guides. At one point in the not-so-distant past, I had actually understood this information and excelled every time I was tested on it. Looking at them now, I could have sworn they were written in Portuguese. I might as well have just stumbled upon the Dead Sea Scrolls or a series of hieroglyphics. Think I'm exaggerating? Take a look at an actual question on one of my Geology exams from junior year:

Sure, absolutely. As I have so clearly articulated in my diagram here, the volcanic continental arc is in a constant state of conversion as the oceanic plate subducts down from atop the Benioff - No, wait. WHAT?! If my hand drew this, which it appears to have done, I must've been possessed. Or more likely, just doing exactly what college taught me to do.

In order to succeed as a college student, I had to accept the challenge of faking understanding long enough to get an A. I would show up to class, take immaculate notes, then go home and stuff the information into my brain by any means necessary. Rote memorization and repetition were familiar processes. Pneumonic devices were my best friends. Then once I had it, I'd hold it hold it hold it until test day when I could spit it all back out, releasing it forever.

I get it. All things considered, there really is no other way to teach to a lecture hall of 300 students. What are the professors gonna do? Take each kid out and present a tailored lesson to them over brunch at Panera Bread? No, they're gonna read off PowerPoints, flash transparencies, then give a few Scantron tests and a final exam so the students can pass the class and the teachers can cover their ass.

It's amazing what your brain can retain for a few days at a time. I once correctly labeled every country in the world. EVERY country.... in the WORLD. Now I'd be lucky if I could find North America on a globe.

And yet, those four years were far from a waste. I still have the pride of knowing I worked hard to achieve success. Even if I've lost 90% of what I learned, the A's on my transcript are proof that at one point in time I wasn't a complete idiot.

Recent Revelations

2012-05-29T15:11:00.003-07:00

So I thought I'd share some thoughts that have made their way through my head recently. None of which are important, relevant to anything or .... let's face it, worth sharing with anyone. Excited yet? Great, here we go.

1.) Self check outs suck. They really should have never been invented. In theory, once you get past the fact that jobs are being outsourced to machines, it's a pretty nifty idea. Let's say you only have a carton of eggs and a Kiwi-Strawberry Snapple. First off, should've gone with Peach. Secondly, it does make sense to just scan those suckers yourself and be on your way. Unfortunately, these computers have all been programmed with the temperament of Veruca Salt.

If you don't swipe the item perfectly, it won't scan. If you swipe it too quickly, it scans twice. And heaven forbid you're buying produce. I could plant an apple tree in the time it takes to look up a Granny Smith on one of these things. One time, I scanned a potato as a pear and got a nasty side glance from the woman behind me. (Like this was some crime wave - kids masquerading one fruit as another and embezzling the ten-cent difference.) Then I scanned a cucumber and it charged me 9 bucks. So as I'm standing there contemplating how to get my money back, the computer starts yelling at me for not putting the $9 cucumber on the belt fast enough. On cue, the woman behind me starts clearing her throat, as if I was standing there peeling my fruit before deciding to pay. I'm trying, woman, but I'm fairly certain that the Greek yogurt I'm scanning has a higher IQ than this God-forsaken machine.

2.) When I say I like driving, I mean sometimes. Only when there is no traffic whatsoever and I can glide effortlessly to my destination in less than 40 minutes. Any more than 40 and I start yelling at the other cars for being in my way.

3.) If I had three wishes, after fixing world hunger and poverty, I would genuinely wish to never have to blow dry my hair ever again.

4.) Comfort trumps almost anything for me, with the exception of convenience. I'd rather carry seven shopping bags per arm and endure one painful, circulation-pinching trip into the house than take three or four easy breezy trips to and from the car.

5.) A handful of my favorite male singer/songwriters have recently found ways to make themselves as unattractive as possible. Jason Mraz started smoking even more weed, grew his hair out, and stopped washing it. Even worse is John Mayer! He took some time out of the spotlight to cook up a new kind of crazy. This year's model comes complete with jean jackets, suede boots, long ass ugly hair, and that DAMN hat. I've never seen a more ridiculous thing perched on top of anyone's head. Except maybe this.

6.) My favorite shoe in the whole world is the flip flop. According to people who care about feet, it beats high heels and Crocs for #1 on the list of "Don't Put These Things On Your Feet", but I'm a loyal fan. And once they've graced my feet for the first time in a season, that's it. If there's a freak blizzard in the middle of July, I refuse to go back to a closed-toe shoe.

7.) I may or may not be mildly allergic to cats. All I know is I can breathe quite a bit better ever since my cats died.

8.) Cake > Brownies.
Ice cream > Cake.
Ice cream cake > All three.

9.) They sprinkle crack cocaine in French Onion Sun Chips bags. This isn't a revelation as it is a strong suspicion. How else would such an addiction take hold after just one chip? Come to think of it.... peanut butter M&Ms might be part of this drug conspiracy, as well.

10.) Having not even the prospect of a wedding in sight, I still feel confident in saying I will be a thrifty ass bride when the day does come. To each her own, but I personally refuse to spend all the money I'll ever see in my lifetime in a matter of hours. For example, my dress? I will choose the prettiest ivory gown within arm's reach (with a nice low price tag) and call it a day.

Dating Roulette

2012-05-26T17:12:00.004-07:00

The Internet has expanded our lives in countless ways. Most of them are undoubtedly positive: greater communication, larger & quicker access to information, so on and so forth. Then there's the world of dating. It only took a decade for "meeting up with a perfect stranger" to evolve from a death wish to a romantic outing.

Granted, things have definitely changed. Chat rooms and dating sites used to be reserved exclusively for creepers, stalkers, and anti-social hermits. Now people from all walks of life are giving the Internet a try in the hopes of finding that perfect someone. I've been dabbling in it for a year or so.... with minimal success.

The problem is that while more and more people are joining these networks, there are still a ridiculous number of crazies abound. I would equate it to taking a trip to a thrift store. You don't necessarily know what you're looking for.... or maybe you have an exact item in mind! Either way, you have to accept the fact that the perfect product will not be right there as you walk in, surrounded by a bejeweled glass case and perched atop a decorative throw pillow. No, that's not how this works. You're gonna elbow your way into a vaguely labeled aisle and search for hours through hundreds and hundreds of crappy, low-quality items. And you say "Why do I keep coming back here? There's so much junk to sift through." Well, my friend, because for every thirty grandma sweaters, you will always stumble upon one cute tank top or a eye-catching blazer. Intermittent positive reinforcement keeps you coming back.

The hilarious thing is how guys choose to portray themselves. I'll get random messages spanning the full spectrum of social ability and awareness of basic grammar. They generally range from long, drawn-out monologues professing their undying love to the ever-popular "hey what up". And of course, what I'm looking for is a nice balance of good looks and a Prince Charming personality. Unfortunately, in my experience, this is the conclusion I've reached:

Then there's their profiles. These guys only have a quick summary and a few pictures to represent who they are and attract the opposite gender. And the vast majority of the images they pick fall into one or more of these ridiculous categories:

Shirtless in the Mirror

We get it. We're all very impressed with your eight-pack and pelvic V. Are you really standing in front of your bathroom mirror, posing with your iPhone and shooting us your best Blue Steel look? If you need to overcompensate for a lackluster personality by flexing..... well, that sucks.

No Smile Whatsoever

Not even a hint of a smirk. Really? I'm looking for an easy-going guy to go gallivanting with me through a meadow and all that crap. I want a date, not an escaped convict. You might impress your bros with that tough guy look, but if you want to be wifed up anytime soon... say "cheese".

Covered in Girls

Of all the pictures ever taken of you, you chose to upload all the ones with a gaggle of girls. My immediate assumption is that you're either: a) a cocky player, b) still seeing someone and shopping around behind her back, or c) you have some sort of repellent quality that has kept all of the females you know in "the friend zone".

Picture of His Car

I want to make this perfectly clear. I don't care AT ALL about your car. I don't care even a little bit. No girl I know cares about any car. The more you obsess about it, the less I'm attracted to you. So if you're like most other guys, hanging a portrait of your re-upholstered baby over the mantle, at least keep it on the DL until we get a few dates under our belts and I'm obligated to accept your flaws.

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

2012-05-25T14:11:00.003-07:00

I've been watching scary movies for years. Depending on the quality, each can be a very different experience. With most of the earlier films seemingly shot with your Dad's old camera and spliced together on iMovie, everything was too ridiculous to take seriously. My friends and I would laugh through the whole thing. The stupid plot, the middle school acting, the ketchup on the knife.... Might as well have been a comedy.

Then there were the good ones. My pulse would be jumping, blood pressure through the roof. Why do we do this to ourselves? I'm not sure. It's fun, but I can't articulate why. Especially when, by all accounts, I should still be in therapy after viewing Roald Dahl's The Witches as a kid. What possessed my parents to allow their 8-year-old to watch this horrifying freak show on VHS? I can only imagine what kind of illegal substances the MPAA executives were on when they gave this thing a PG rating. The conspiracy continues today with such whimsical summaries as: A young boy stumbles upon a witch convention and must stop them before it's too late. Thanks, IMDB, but you forgot to mention that part about the women pulling their faces off, turning children into mice and cooking them. PG my ass.

But, against all odds, I rose above that one. Definitely seen a few great horror classics since then, but none rival the experience of seeing Paranormal Activity for the first time in theaters. As a preface, I have to say I knew nothing about this little underground indie movie and had never seen anything like it, therefore assumed it was 100% real footage. So by the last scene, I had my knees curled up to my face, my white knuckles had an iron grip on my friend's sleeve, and I hadn't taken a breath in at least 60 seconds. When the movie ended, we sat for an extra five minutes just staring straight ahead and trembling. Now that's awesome.

For many movies, suspension of disbelief is necessary to really enjoy them. But I think this practice is only effective to a point. When a killer is breaking down the front door and the main character runs past the back door to escape upstairs, you can't help but call her an idiot and throw popcorn at her face. (Under the bed? Groundbreaking! He'll never find you there!) I can't watch one more group of friends decide to "split up and look around". And if you're a blonde teenager in a nightie and you just heard someone scream in the next room, by all means... go investigate and call out loudly to make your presence known. No, you're right... that probably was your quarterback boyfriend who made that noise. ("Bobby? Bobby, is that you?")

I'm not gonna' lie, though. After years of horror flicks, there is a degree of residual fear that follows me around in dark rooms and empty houses. I don't sleep with a night light and I don't leave all the TVs on when I'm home alone to simulate a busy household. But there are a handful of childhood fears that have stood the test of time and maturation. Most nights, I can dismiss them as irrational, but every once in a while they rear their ugly head:

Rules to Live By in Scary Situations

If you're home alone and you run upstairs, you'll be safe. If you hit the ground running, you will always be just out of arm’s reach if a scary guy is hiding and decides to strike just as you reach the staircase.

If you’re covered entirely by a blanket from the neck down, nothing bad can happen to you. It makes an impenetrable force field.

If your feet dangle off the end of the bed, that’s the cue for whatever is under your bed to grab your feet. Keep your feet safely atop the mattress if you want to avoid a confrontation with those little buggers.

If you get into your locked car, there is a definite possibility that there’s someone hiding in the backseat. Check.

When possible, do not sleep with your back to the bedroom door. You're 10x more vulnerable to an attack. And if someone were to come in, they could easily kill you ... thanks to the extra 2 seconds it would take to roll over and defend yourself.

A Night On The Town

2012-05-22T22:34:00.001-07:00

What a crazy night! Went shopping on Sunset, then grabbed some dinner with Jennifer Aniston at Madeo. The paparazzi were insane! We practically had to run them over just to get out onto the Boulevard. Then we went back to the Chateau Marmont to get ready and ended up bumping into Chelsea Handler and Jenny McCarthy. So we shared a taxi downtown to dance the night away at the Supper Club. I got eight phone numbers, eleven free drinks, and the girls and I have reservations at the V.I.P. lounge tomorrow night.

Ennnnd.... scene. In reality, last night, I ate chicken parm with friends and fell asleep under a dinosaur comforter watching Season Five of Grey's Anatomy. As you have maybe deduced by this series of events, I'm not exactly a party animal. You won't find me out on the town bar hopping 'til the sun comes up. I actually am a total night owl, but I'd rather eat midnight snacks and host a movie marathon than throw on heels and hit the clubs.

Of course, adventures have their place too. And getting out of the house sometimes is a must. But I have to say, any future I may have had as a club promoter ended on one particular night last year:

It was a dark and stormy night. Actually, the air was rather clear and warm, but I digress. I was attending a bachelorette party in Atlantic City. I had never been to this strange, mystical land of casinos and fancy hotels, and I had definitely never been to a real nightclub before. But at this point, I'm excited to be with my girls and totally up for a good time. So we all get ready in the hotel, cab it over to Caesar's and walk right over up to the club like we own the place.

I hand the girl at the door a $10 and she gives me a look. Now, a look like this would only have been inappropriate if I had just insulted her leopard print mini-dress or grabbed her boob without warning. So after we stand there together for a few more seconds, she switches from "bitchy" to "patronizingly sweet". She holds out a hand and goes, "So sorry, honey, the cover charge is actually $20." Of course it is. Anyone would find that to be an appropriate amount. Whatever. I hand over my life savings and we're in.

Right off the bat, I'm aware of two things: a pit of blackness has just swallowed me whole and loud techno beats are bouncing off the walls. I wouldn't describe myself as a grandma in many contexts, but this is one of them. I might as well be Bea Arthur walking in there thinking, "How do these kids do it?" Between the vibrating bass and the blaring speakers, my ears physically hurt. I am 100% sure I will never hear the same ever again.

The girls and I force our way through the crowd and onto the dance floor. We're trying to stay together, but it's like driving a caravan of ten cars through rush hour traffic. By the third traffic light, you've already lost half your group. Not to mention, with as many people as there were, each of us has roughly one square foot to ourselves. And even that space isn't sacred; anyone can invade it by walking right up and grinding against you.

So after about five minutes, my focus switches from dancing to self defense. I'm constantly swiveling, keeping creepers in my periph at all times. Most of these crazies are just roaming by themselves, on the prowl for girls drunk or easy enough to respond to their weird mating rituals.

So imagine my surprise when, after playing one-on-one defense with these weirdos for hours, a cute guy comes up and actually introduces himself. My initial reaction was to blink at him. I felt like I was living in the Stone Age surrounded by primitive cavemen and a 21st-century gentleman just appeared out of nowhere to compliment my bearskin dress. I was rendered speechless and completely awkward. He made several noble attempts at a conversation, but I just mumbled like a spaz until he gave up and left.

Before you judge my social ineptitude, let me paint this picture in more detail. Creatures of the night are attempting to creep up on me from behind. Synth-tastic bass-heavy remixes of Jay Z and J Lo are not only causing permanent hearing loss, but are making me vibrate like a bobblehead. The only things visible in the darkness are multi-colored lasers flying around and piercing my retinas. So now I'm deaf and blind. And if that weren't enough, machines are stationed around the ceiling to blow cold, heavy smoke at random intervals. So even if the lasers are positioned perfectly so I can see my friends around me and we're close enough in proximity to scream over the thumping bass, we are still being interrupted for 10 to 15 seconds at a time by cold, unwelcome blasts of air.

Still wondering why I spent last night having a chicken parm picnic on my friend's living room floor?

Great Expectations

2012-05-16T20:33:00.000-07:00

I grew up, like every other girl, watching Disney movies. We looked to these hand-drawn princesses for everything. Assumedly, these two-dimensional worlds were like ours, thus we could expect such divine perfection as we grew older. It felt entirely plausible that I would grow up to have Ariel's perfectly flowing hair, Jasmine's size zero waist, and big doe eyes that took up half my face (a la any Disney princess in history).

The largest expectation set forth for young girls was, of course, the Prince. The plots of these movies were irrelevant. It didn't matter if the girl in question was an absent-minded mute mermaid, a narcoleptic teenager, a prom queen with a curfew and one shoe, or a helium-voiced cleaning woman with an affinity for dwarves. Some guy, some beautiful specimen of a being, would always come swooping in and save the day. Then all the conflicts would resolve of their own volition while Whats-Her-Face and Prince Amazing rode off into the sunset.

Bravo, Disney. But what young Walt obviously failed to consider was the generation of disappointed women who would have to reconcile these wild expectations with their real lives. No man actually has a castle, a noble steed or shiny, coifed hair. They have 1997 Honda Civics, commitment issues, and subscriptions to Comcast SportsNet.

Of course, Disney films are still cherished by families around the world. But when Walt passed away, that could've been it. We could have been in the clear, shutting the door on the "Great Expectations" era forever. But, as luck would have it, there was another man waiting in the wings to deliver new delusions of grandeur: Nicholas Sparks.

In case you've forgotten or you're not familiar with this guy, let's take a little tour through some of his best work:

Nights in Rodanthe

Woman's marriage sucks. She runs away from her problems, meets a random man and survives one night of extreme weather down the shore.

Outcome: Eternal love with attractive stranger.

The Last Song

Teenaged girl goes down the shore. Fixes relationship with her father. Random guy mends her broken heart.

Outcome: Eternal love with attractive stranger.

The Lucky One

Sexy soldier returns home from war. Walks across the country to find a girl he saw in a picture this one time. Gets rid of her asshole ex-husband for her.

Outcome: Eternal love with ~~attractive stranger~~ Zac Efron

And if you haven't had your fill of unattainable dreams yet, you haven't seen nothin' yet. This film is the mother of everything that is wonderfully unrealistic. In theaters, it made tears spontaneously fall out of people's eyes and I'm pretty sure they've started swearing in legal witnesses using a copy of this book.

The Notebook

Essentially, Ryan Gosling's hanging out in the 1940's and decides to woo this small-town girl. For whatever reason, it takes him longer than twelve seconds to do so. Thanks to the events that follow, even girls with the highest level of common sense can't help but be disappointed when their boyfriends don't do any of the following:

climb a ferris wheel to get to them
write them letters every day for a year
ask them to dance when there's no music playing
take them on a romantic twilight boat ride through a sea of swans
build a house for them
write their entire lives down in a notebook
be Ryan Gosling

So thanks, Nick Sparks. The little girls with big dreams circa the Disney era are now grown women riding a wave of even higher expectations. With that said, The Little Mermaid and The Notebook are two of my favorite movies. So good. Can't wait til my handsome stranger emerges from the fog, sweeps me off my feet, builds us a house (no, a castle!) and we live happily ever after.