Uncategorized

It’s Time For A MAKEOVER!

What?  Something’s weird.

So by now, you may have realized things look a little different around here. But it’s just like when you lose weight.  It’s the same body, just a new look.

I realized when I first started this blog back in December, I was very hasty — much like with everything else I do — and didn’t think everything through before making decisions about the site.  So now, I have to correct those mistakes.

After spending some time writing this, being introduced to communities, and learning what successful blogs look like, I realized I needed to make some changes.  I needed a new name, one that reflected the theme of my blog, and that’s something I didn’t have with Twenty-Four Problems.

There are a slew of twenty-something blogs out there, and they pretty much kill it.  While I do fit into that age range, I want to distinguish myself from them, and to do that I have changed the name of my blog to something I feel is way more fitting, unique, and applicable to the stuff I actually write about.

So, without further adieu, welcome to Half Wit, Half Wisdom, or in other words, Half and Half.

I hope that the name change doesn’t send you into a metaphorical tailspin.  I hope you will all still be my friend. I am looking forward to the future with this name, and truly feel I can grow as a writer in this community far better with this, and hope you all join me on the road to… wherever I go.

The new URL will be: thehalfandhalfblog.com – save it, like a lifeguard. 

halfhalf

you can tell by the header, this is going to be a serious change.

Leave a comment below letting me know what you think!

 

It’s Friday… CHILL OUT.

It’s Friday. Here’s a list of all the things you can do tonight to unwind from that bitch of a work week.

  • Drink a glass bottle of wine
  • Go on a Netflix binge
  • Read an entire book
  • Take a long nap that actually ends up being an entire night’s sleep so you wake up at 6am on Saturday
  • Reorganize your closet
  • Watch Dateline NBC so you can fall asleep until tomorrow
  • Have a dance party in your apartment
  • Have a dance party at a bar
  • Have a dance party in the street
  • Put a $20 bill in a random pair of pants so when you go to wash them in three months you’ll get a present from yourself
  • Do your laundry
  • Eat your weight in Chinese food
  • Take a pregnancy test (this is only a good idea if you know there’s not a chance in hell you can be pregnant, otherwise this will just ADD to the stress)
  • Play the games on the back of a cereal box
  • Talk to another human being – scientists have done studies proving that talking about your problems sometimes results in relief of stressmash-21
  • Go for a run… not really though.
  • Drink another bottle of wine
  • Talk to a stranger(make sure he/she’s harmless first)
  • Try to adopt telekinesis with your television remote
  • Organize your closet by color
  • Drink a margarita
  • Drink a martini
  • Drink a vodka soda
  • Drink anything in your apartment
  • Stretch
  • Q-Tip your ears
  • Talk about your feelings on social media
  • Take your temperature
  • Paint your nails
  • Count the rats outside your apartment window (just me?)
  • Make a list of all the things you hate then light your gas stovetop and burn it responsibly
  • Make a fortune teller like you did when you were in third grade and have only good fortunes on it
  • Play MASH with all the hotties in your life
  • Think of a new way to insult someone
  • Don’t listen to any of these suggestions because they’re coming from a girl who was blacklisted by Chipotle and has already eaten her weight in Chinese food before 4pm

It happened again!

Elite Daily has smiled upon me and has deemed me worthy of being published for a second time.

Clearly my Masters degree in secondary education is being put to good use.

Please check out the link below to see what I have to say about being perpetually single, and why it doesn’t suck.

Me, Myself, and Holy Crap, I’m Still Single

Untitled

What’s Up With That Wednesday?

FEATURING: This Asshole On His Cell Phone

AnnoyingCellPhoneGuy

What is up with people talking on their cellphones on public transportation?

Yes, I see you’re wearing a suit today, Mr. Chats-A-Lot. I know this makes you seem very important.  I am sure you have a lot of meetings on your calendar, and a bunch of tasks your need to cross off your “To-Do List.”

You know what else is important?  My sanity. My ears. My morning commute I planned to have in solitude.

But you, Mr. Cellphone Chats McGee, seem to think that everyone in the world around you wants to hear about the latest conflict with your interior designer, how your dishwasher detergent just doesn’t clean everything that well, or that your job is “ruining your social life.”

Oh, poor you.

You know who else has fallen victim to their jobs? EVERYONE ON THIS TRAIN.  You know how many times I have to rerun my dishwasher everyday? THREE, AND IT SUCKS.  You know what I think about my interior designer? I DON’T HAVE ONE BECAUSE I’M POOR.

But you have a suit.  You have the power to do whatever you want, to disregard the civilians on the same train, bus, or subway.  You, my friend, are the most important person in the room.

So please, go on, you have the floor.  We can all accommodate you and text about our problems like the polite, normal human beings we are at 7am.

By the way, your pants look stupid and your shoes are ugly. I kind of hate you.

And I want to talk to my mom on the phone about it.  But I can’t because I don’t want to be you.  So I’m going to text her and passive aggressively shoot death glares in your direction and hope you can feel my mean gaze on the back of your head.

Had A Crappy Week? Here’s How to Feel Better.

#mylife

#mylife

Everyone has those days that result in a volcanic eruption because you’ve spent the better half of the week or month suppressing your emotions.  It all just happens to unravel at that very inopportune moment when you go to grab that KitKat you’ve wanted all day, but your hand comes back with nothing because no one wanted to throw the empty bag in the trash.

It may look like you’re just really upset that you can’t have your post-lunch treat you’ve dreamed about all morning, but in reality, it was just the last in a long line of emotional floodgates that had to open sometime or another.

If you’re like me, you don’t display your emotions.  I pride myself on being able to mask a lot of what I’m feeling through the work day, and once I cross the threshold of my basement apartment, I go full blown dramatic actress in a death scene on Broadway.

Tears are streaming from places I didn’t know tears could stream, I’m thinking that curling up in the fetal position on the entryway floor is both comfortable and reasonable even though my bed is three feet away.

I’m a hot goddamn mess.

Other people can wear their emotions on their sleeve, with integrity.  I can immediately tell when someone is an emotionally balanced human because he or she is able to accept mood swings as a natural part of living and know that people aren’t happy 100% of the time.

I guess I grew up differently.

My mother would argue that I am dramatic.  But realistically, I have outbursts full of emotion because most of the time I suppress what I’m actually feeling.  I don’t ever speak out about things until they have built up, boiled over, and reared their ugly head inside my mind to the point where I need to bitch, complain, yell, or freak out about it until someone listens and validates my emotional state.

I realize this is unhealthy, but when it’s been a certain way for twenty years, it’s hard to consciously make changes.  I’m working on it.  Maybe.

I have triggers for when I know I’m getting close to an emotional explosion.  It allows me to assess what I’m feeling and then take the appropriate measures to immediately store it in my feeling chest until I can’t possibly squish another one in there.

And then I accept the emotional overload.

For starters, I always assume it’s because I’m due for a cry.  I take out my personal calendar, go back page by page, and try and remember the last time I shed a tear.  If it’s a sizeable amount of time, I take it as my cue to stay in on a Friday, pop in Marley and Me or A Walk to Remember, ball my eyeballs out, and be good to go for Saturday night.

Never underestimate the power of using a q-tip.  If you’re feeling crappy, take a shower, get a q-tip for each ear and go to town.  Cleaning the wax build up out of your ears after a hot shower will not only make you feel better, it will make you realize you’ve been listening to your television on a concert-level decibel which will also make your roommates happy they don’t have to listen to the George Lopez show with you until 2am anymore.

If your car has any gas in its tank, take it for a good ole mindless drive.  Make sure you have a playlist on deck that transports you back to the happiest time of your life, which for me was the Medieval Times field trip in 7th grade when we played truth or dare in the back of the bus and I got to kiss my crush in the coach bus bathroom (BIG DREAMS, WHATUP?!).

Though unpopular, exercising is an awesome way to reduce stress and deal with problems.  You never realize how much crap is weighing on your mind until you set out for a three mile jog and you end up running for six miles and then finish your workout at a boxing class.  Just kidding, only crazy people do that (What? Who am I?).  But seriously, go for a run, a walk, or a hike and just think.  It’s amazing what some exercise and fresh air will do for your mind.

On the complete opposite side of the health and fitness spectrum, I have found that dabbling in gluttony soothes the soul like a stick of butter on a pancake.  When having a bad day, there are few things more relaxing than sitting in your bed, sweatpants up to your boobs (allowing room for expansion, of course) holding a tub of Ben and Jerrys in your right hand and a bottle of Cabernet in your left.  Wine and dairy don’t seem to go together, but after the fourth glass, you can’t really tell what anything tastes like anyways, so eat up, boozebag.

We all have weeks where we want to tear our hair out and poke other people in the eyeballs so they can feel our pain.  My advice to you is to not do that, because a hefty lawsuit and being fired from your job are far worse than admitting you enjoy crying when you watch Bambi or you thought about punching Kristen Stewart during your boxing class.

Trust me, these things work.

What’s Up With That Wednesday?

Featuring: Silverware in the dishwasher!

 

I feel you, bro!

I feel you, bro! #deathbydishwasher

 

What’s up with people sticking forks and knives pointy side up in the silverware cleaner?  Really though.  Do you want me to get stabbed?

Maybe I was raised in a forks down household, I don’t know.  But the idea of someone purposefully putting a fork prongs up really grinds my gears.  What do you do with scissors?  Do those just go blades up, too?

No. They don’t. Because it’s dangerous.

You wouldn’t put a capless pen ball point to the sky in your collection, so why treat your silverware differently?  No one wants to empty the dishwasher and get stabbed, just like no one wants to go for a writing implement and get ink daggered.

I’d really love to find out why people do prongs up.  If anyone has any intel into the cerebral cortex of an upforker, please let me know.  

It’s very important.  Maybe even more important than meeting Leo DeCaps, I’m just not sure yet.

No, nevermind, nothing is more important than Leo DeCaps.

Now excuse me while I go manually flip over all the utensil shanks in my dishwasher. I swear people are trying to kill me, they’re just not being subtle enough.  I see you, people.  You’re not going to get rid of me that fast.

 

 

March Madness: How to Stay Sane for the Next Month

If you don’t know anything about basketball, that sucks for you because you’re going to surrounded by it for the next couple of weeks.  It will haunt your dreams, your social life will revolve around it, and you will see normally sane people spiral into a complete and utter mental state to the point where you may actually have to commit them to an asylum.

But there’s good news!  You don’t have to sit and be miserable for the next three weeks, because even you, non-sports liking human, can have fun with March Madness.  Because like it or not, basketball is going to be broadcasted nationwide on every television in every restaurant and apartment, so you may as well get used to it.

Here are some survival tips for anyone who doesn’t want to actually go mad this March:

(yes, I know, my puns are some next level stuff, BACK OFF)

  1. Even if you know nothing about basketball, fill out a bracket.  It will give you someone to root for each game, and you’ll get the satisfaction of picking a winning team and rubbing it in that kid’s face who tracks college players from birth til graduation when his bracket sucks more than yours does.
  2. Use this as an excuse to hang out with a kid you have a crush on.  Have that hot kid you like help you fill out a bracket, maybe meet up with him at a bar for some beers.  All you have to do is cheer when lots of people cheer, and boo when people boo.  Look excited. Take a shot.  Ask a question. Wait refrain from asking questions, boys hate explaining things to girls. Actually, just show up and have a good time, it’s not that difficult.
  3. Make up a drinking game.  Shot for shot, literally.
  4. Use this to determine whether or not your potential life-long partner is insane.  The great news about March Madness is that you get to see people in their primal state.  Winning and losing brackets reduce human beings to their cores.  There is no better time than now to rule out potential crazies.  If he knocks over a lamp, kicks through a door, or threatens to punch a baby due to a loss, there’s a good chance he won’t do the dishes or take out the trash after a tiff later in life. 
  5. Read a book. If you don’t like sports, that is not a problem.  How about expanding your vocabulary with a good book?  Think about all the new words and phrases you’ll pick up because your significant other is hogging the television.  You’re pretty much guaranteed to surpass him or her in intelligence, so why not start now?  You’ll be the most sophisticated insulter this side of the Mississippi.  Or that side.  Depending where you live. 
  6. Go work out.  If you’re stressed out because you’re missing this week’s episode of Pretty Little Liars, have no fear, the gym has televisions and treadmills.  Kill two birds with one stone by running out your aggression and simultaneously still wondering why in the hell these four girls are still getting tormented and no one is doing anything about it.  It is shocking. Really.
  7. Suck it up.  If you’re a problem solver, or a generally easy going human being, you’ll realize that this is a time of the year that isn’t going away.  Much like football season, baseball season, and hockey season, the playoffs create a cutthroat atmosphere and you can either adapt or die.  If you’re going to get pissed off and mope because you can’t watch the finale of Cupcake Wars, you have bigger fish to fry.  Invest in DVR, sit down with a drink, and make a sacrifice like guys do when you make them go shopping or eat vegetarian options for a week.

Cheers to you, to me, to you, and back to me again, and then you, and then me.

Irish or not, you know about St. Patrick’s Day.

Seeing as Monday is one of the most glorified drinking holidays on the planet, I figured I’d give you a little something to think about going into the weekend.  There’s going to be beer, there’s going to be drinking, there’s going to be parades, and most of all, there are going to be, “CHEERS!”

Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard them all, “To good friends! – To good times!” yadda, yadda, yadda.  BOOOORING.

If you stick with the run of the mill drink clinks, you’ll quickly run out of things to say and simultaneously raise your glass.  That’s why I’m here to help you.

The following is a list of things you can, “Cheers!” to this weekend in honor of Saint Patrick:

  • To money
  • To your bank account
  • To your parents, because without them you would not be alive and drinking today
  • To not falling down
  • To the Pilgrims and Indians getting along splendidly
  • To the military and the USA
  • To falling down and getting back up
  • To that kid not wearing green because “he isn’t Irish”
  • To that kid peeing on the sidewalk
  • To your friends because, “OH MY GAHHH I LOVE YOU SO MUCH”
  • To not using public restrooms
  • To finally getting to use the public restroom
  • To airplanes and automobiles that will bring you home
  • To candy hearts that express emotions so you don’t have to
  • To being single and not running into your ex
  • To not being single and running into your ex
  • To Tinder when there’s a surplus of hot drunk individuals in one concentrated area
  • To seeing eye dogs – because they’re the shit
  • To Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski (he did not have sexual relations with that woman)
  • To not wearing heels
  • To bacon, eggs, and cheese, and bread.  So much bread.
  • To live music and uncomfortably swaying and calling it ‘dancing’
  • To Outkast reuniting
  • To free alcohol
  • To stealing alcohol
  • To making fast friends on the streets that you have absolutely no intention of ever talking to again
  • To sleep number beds for always knowing what you want
  • To McDonald’s for giving us the Happy Meal when you’re ordering over 18 years of age
  • To wearing sunglasses when it’s not sunny because you’re too hungover to be in public
  • To the one time of the year wear corn beef and cabbage is a fun thing to eat
  • To castles and royalty
  • TO POTATOES!
  • To infinity and beyond
  • To street meat
  • To Janet Jackson’s nip slip
  • To Leo DeCaps and Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”
  • To finding out all your socks matching up after laundry
  • To cooking something that isn’t poisonous
  • To haircuts and looking so fresh and so clean, clean
  • To creating resolutions and breaking them
  • To giving up beer for Lent…… then taking it back because St. Patrick’s day is during Lent
  • To the world’s largest ball of yarn
  • TO POTATOES!
  • To tear-away Adidas sweats and white high top sneakers
  • To snap bracelets and snap backs and Snap, Crackle, Pop
  • To Ramen noodles and drinking like you’re in college again
  • To day drinking and passing out before 9pm
  • To having an excuse to drunk dial your mom and dad just to , “Say hey.”
  • To Ireland and the people from it who immigrated here because there were no potatoes, without whom we would not be the population of drunk people we are today, and we have to salute you the only way we know how, by getting drunk

Go forth, my sons, into the land of inebriation. 

Why Girls Buy Other Girls Drinks

  • Because they’re bored
  • Because it’s 5pm
  • Because it’s 9pm
  • Because it’s last call
  • Because it’s happy hour
  • Because there are jello shots
  • Because there is Fireball
  • Because, “You’re just, like, my best friend and I love you, so much. Like really.  To the moon and back, girlfran.”
  • Because it’s my turn
  • Because it’s their turn
  • Because she’s new to the group
  • Because she’s not in the group
  • Because she’s a better wingwoman when she’s drunk
  • Because she took one for the team
  • Because she needs it
  • Because I need it
  • Because it will make us dance
  • Because I’m an enabler
  • Because we’re easily persuaded
  • Because you know she won’t say no
  • Because she got promoted
  • Because we got fired
  • Because we’re single
  • Because her boyfriend is gone
  • Because we got dumped
  • Because we dumped someone
  • Because it’s a holiday
  • Because we’re on vacation
  • Because tropical drinks will make you think you’re on vacation
  • Because she’s not pregnant
  • Because there’s a snowstorm
  • Because we’re hungover
  • Because it’s cold outside and drinks make us warm
  • Because it’s pay day
  • Because we’re the only people at the bar
  • Because my job sucks
  • Because our feet hurt
  • Because, “You look like you need a drink.”
  • Because we look good
  • Because we feel like shit
  • Because when we don’t eat dinner we get drunk faster
  • Because wine is good for our heart
  • Because, “WE NEED TO CHEERS!”
  • Because we need to toast to random events
  • Because we need to look interesting
  • Because I showered today
  • Because I need to ask you something important and/or horrible
  • Because I’m going to guilt you into doing something you don’t want to do but will do it anyways cause I bought you that drink in your hand
  • Because you got a haircut
  • Because it’s Sunday Funday
  • Because it’s brunch
  • Because it’s an open bar and I’m not really buying it
  • Because it’s relaxing
  • Because I had a bad day at work
  • Because you had a great day at work
  • Because you got laid
  • Because we’re trying to get laid
  • Because it’s a weekday
  • Because it’s the weekend
  • Because I need to unwind
  • Because any excuse to buy a drink is a good excuse to buy a drink
Image

Dance Dance Revolution

The first time I can remember being confused by dancing was when my my dad would play Elvis Presley records and jived around my living room in a bathrobe to ‘Hound Dog.”

The second time was I witnessed my mother grooving to the tunes of her youth at a Bruce Springsteen concert.  It wasn’t really dancing, but more of a feet firmly planted, upper body twisting while simultaneously moving arms in a ‘choo-choo train’ motion to the beat of “Born To Run.”

I’m absolutely forty-percent positive my parents were once big-whigs on the dance floor. But after the poor display over the course of my youth, I felt certain that I was destined for mockery when it came to cutting a rug.

It only recently dawned on me that not only do we enter different stages of life as people, but of dancing as well.  Do you ever see an eighty-year old woman dropping into a worm?  No.  Can you picture a four-year-old busting out jazz hands like he or she is the main event at a cheerleading competition?  Not intentionally, that is.

We enter a phase of dance that follows us through specific years of our lives.  From birth to death, there are certain dances that are inherently acceptable and they are as follows:

Toddler

This is when you’re a baby and dancing means grasping firmly onto any surface that will withstand your baby grip and repeatedly trying to sit down whilst not letting go.  It’s like you’re doing wall sits, but there happens to be music going on and your mother claps in approval while filming your half-sits and appropriately titling it “JOSH’S FIRST DANCE!” when she posts it on her Facebook wall.

Elementary School

If you are a girl, you had your friends over your house while you made a choreographed dance to the best hits of the decade.  The amount of times I had my mother sit and film my friends and I doing dance routines that consisted of high fives and somersaults is almost unmanageable.  But it’s a just right of passage to the better years.

Middle School

Middle School dancing is all about the Bat and Bar Mitzvahs. If there was ever an age-inappropriate event it would be these shindigs.  Sure, I had fun, but attending a party that cost ten grand at twenty-two would have been a way better use of my Saturday afternoon. The cutest boys were there, there were cheap, carnivalesque prizes, and a DJ spinning on the ones and twos.  Everyone who was anyone was invited.  There were parental chaperones, so the closest dance you got with a boy was a slow dance to Brian McKnight’s “Start Back At One” and you always had to dance forming the shape of an A to leave room for Jesus.

High School

Prommy, prom, prom.  Is he going to ask?  Am I going to have to shell out two-hundred dollars for a faux satin dress with gaudy embellishments that I will wear only once? The first taste of adulthood comes with a hairdo that never turns out the way you want it, and a first come, first serve atmosphere when it comes to dresses.  You do NOT want to have the same dress.  Also, make sure to get one with forgiving and flowing fabric; you’re going to need it when you’re grinding dirty all up on the overly hormonal boys in your class.  Feet planted, legs alternating, as close as possible, hands around the neck, then move back and forth in sync.  That’s it.  You’ve mastered the art of the high school grind. NEVER MAKE EYE CONTACT.  So awkward.

College

Go to the bar. Get a drink, dance alone.  Dance with a guy.  Dance with a girl.  Dance against a wall.  All acceptable.  As long as when you’re dancing, the drink you’re holding is swaying back and forth uncontrollably and spilling everywhere. You’re a hot mess and it’s okay.  Nothing is expected of you.

Wedding

Suddenly, all the songs that were the hot beats at middle school dances are all the rage again at your wedding.  It’s like you instinctively remember that you are leaving your youth to enter holy matrimony, so the final event on your first day of marital bliss will be to take a trip down memory lane and Cha-Cha Slide and YMCA all over the reception hall.

Parenthood

Is there anything more embarrassing than Dad Dancing?  Showing up with your parents at an event and after the meal looking over to find you dad flailing his arms in the air like he’s sending SOS signals to the DJ. Look over to your right and you see your mother simulating a choo-choo train and everything comes full circle in your life.  You’ve seen the pinnacle of bustin a move, and your future with gyrating does not look pretty.  But hey, at least you can make it look good, right?