women

In A Nutshell, This Is Why I Am Single.

377838_2231746724329_619540547_nIt’s hard to believe really.  I’m walking around this world without a hand to hold.

(Sorry, Mom. I’m too old for your sweaty palms!)

Maybe I’m not “the total package,” maybe I can get too comfortable around boys and forget to get “out of the friendzone.”

Really though, I’m sorry I burped in front of you. I thought it was okay.  My brothers don’t mind, but I guess that’s because they’re forced to have me in their immediate circle for the rest of my life. Where as you, unknown boyfriend of the future, you do not.

I mean like who wouldn’t want to date someone that does the following:

Disclaimer: Some of these have been embellished for entertainment. Either that or I’m just trying to have you not think I’m a total wack job.  But I guess that has been thrown out the window by now. 

  • Unbuckle my belt before I get into a stall in the bathroom
  • Constantly listen to female power ballads by Celine Dion in my car
  • Burp in front of the opposite sex and still expect them to think of me like a dainty, polished lady
  • Avoid showering for a couple days
  • Forget to shower for a couple days
  • Forget to shower for a week (I haven’t done this… in a long time)
  • Actively avoid eating vegetables
  • Lock myself out of my car and/or apartment
  • Drunk dial people on a Tuesday night
  • Barely shave my legs in the winter
  • Internally accept that “winter weight” is an epidemic and can’t do anything about it
  • Use the poop emoji more often than necessary
  • Talk about sexcapades in front of people I have a crush on and expect them to think I’m a pure, polished, non-hussy
  • Wake up on Saturday morning with ketchup stains on my elbow from the bar the night before
  • Argue with other humans that wine is just adult grapes, so I’m getting my fruit intake for the week
  • Irrationally hate other women for having good hair and a nice figure
  • Can’t civilly discuss politics or religion without going on a tangent about either (I know nothing about either, either.)
  • Attempt to talk to boys at the bar and the first thing out of my mouth is how rarely I do laundry
  • Utilize the same vocabulary as a filthy sailor man
  • Have daddy issues
  • Get too drunk and cry about all the feelings I internalize during the workweek
  • Think that twinkies and club soda is an acceptable dinner for a working professional female
  • Live in a closet
  • Sleep in a twin bed… with one set of sheets
  • Talk about my electronic devices as if they are humans
  • Throw a tizzy fit if I miss happy hour by 10 minutes

So boys, LINE UP!

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

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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.

The Girls’ Guide to Packing for a Trip

We the people women, in order to enjoy the most perfect excursion, establish justice, make good fashion choices, ensure domestic tranquility, peace of mind, and provide sanity of our peers, must follow the following set of rules when determining which outfits to bring forth on said trip:

Article 1: Overpack

Are you going away for a night, two days, tops?  You should most definitely put enough outfits for a week long excursion through Europe. A general rule of thumb: if you have too many outfits in your suitcase, you don’t have enough outfits in your suitcase.

Article 2: Bring Things You Never Intend To Wear

For example, if you plan on going skiing, it’s a good idea to pack a Hula skirt.  As women, we tend to fantasize that our decorative costume attire will somehow serve a purpose on our future vacation trips.  That, or we like to think that our drunk purchase of a $88 genuine, handcrafted, bamboo hula skirt freshly made by a nice Caribbean man named Peter during Spring Break ’09 wasn’t a complete and total waste of money.

Article 3: Always Pack A Bathing Suit

Point blank, you just never know when there will be a hot tub or an indoor pool.  You do not want to be that girl who has to wear some boy’s boxers and the sports bra you brought for sleeping because you were too lazy to stuff two small pieces of fabric into your underwear pocket.

Article 4: Forget Something Important

Toothbrush.  Tampons.  Make Up. Anything that requires an annoying, necessary, extra trip after an extensive journey is encouraged.  You will spend so much time planning your attire for the exterior of your body, you’ll completely forget that you need to adhere to that mondo pimple conveniently located on your forehead, or making sure you’ve supplied yourself with an instrument to ensure your breath doesn’t smell like taquitos and Cabernet each morning.

Article 5: Rely On Friends For Outfit Adjustments

You’ve packed an entire suitcase, but the second everyone does the, “3, 2, 1, UNZIP!” suitcase challenge, it’s a mad dash wardrobe buffet.  You brought your favorite outfits, heels that make your legs look awesome, and the dress that makes you look so hot even on a fat day.  Yet, you are going to throw all that into the wind and contemplate thoroughly about the kind of lubricant involved in order to fit into your best friend’s size two pants even though you haven’t been that small since sixth grade.

Article 6: Don’t Skimp on Hair Products

If there is one thing that is certain, that is that you don’t know how your hair will react outside its element.  You may have a shower sent straight from Jesus himself, but that means nothing when it comes to your hair being outside its natural habitat.  Go to CVS, stock up on all the travel bottles and sprays you can fit into that annoying clear plastic bag, and be prepared.  There will always be pictures, and frizz looks good on nobody, not even Beyonce.

Article 7: Conveniently Avoid Looking at the Weather

You could be attending your best friends wedding in South Carolina in May.  Instinctively, you will equate below the Mason Dixon line with warmth, you will pack accordingly, and get off the plan with shorts and tshirt and a slap in the face from 45 degrees.   Please refer to Article 4 where you will forget something important, ie: a jacket, sweatshirt, or your general ability to use a computer and navigate the internet to determine the temperature of your destination.

On March 19, 2014, The Coalition of Women in the World hereby decree that said rules constitute the process of packing for a trip.  Failure to comply with the above stated rules and regulations will result in the fact that you are either a male, a mother, or a generally organized human being.

Think Before You… Oh Wait, Too Late.

It’s Friday! I’m extremely impulsive.  So it’s about time to make a list of all the things I do before I think about the repercussions.

  • Buy five new books before I’ve even finished the one I’m currently reading
  • Decide to purchase flights across the country when I don’t know if I have time off from work
  • Eat an entire cheeseburger that weighs the same amount as a newborn baby
  • Drink an entire bottle of wine, and then another one
  • Make a crock pot meal and double the ingredients because I think I’m Martha Stewart
  • See how far I can go on empty before filling up my gas tank
  • Get all the supplies to do a Pinterested “DIY” craft and never attempt to do it
  • Sign up for the gym with no intentions of ever going
  • Sign up for a marathon with no intentions of actually running
  • Eat an entire can of BBQ Pringles hoping I won’t feel like a lardo
  • Consuming copious amounts of cheese, ice cream, milk, and yogurt knowing full well that I am lactose intolerant
  • Making drastic lifestyle changes because I had one bad day
  • Giving up drinking on the weekdays for Lent — WHY?
  • Swipe my credit card and “worry about it later”
  • Go on a blind date with a guy that turns out to be three feet tall and extremely clingy
  • Try to win a burrito contest from Chipotle only to be blacklisted because of sheer dedication
  • Avoid wearing a bra out in public only to realize I’d be out of the house for an entire eight hours
  • Drink wine for dinner because it’s healthier than going spoons deep in chunky peanut butter
  • Go out in public without make up only to bump into the only person you don’t want to see in public without make up
  • Drink beer for breakfast
  • Signing receipts with my twitter handle before realizing I’m a jackass
  • Not exercise
  • Watch an entire day’s marathon of Gangland only to be scared to walk outside my house for fear for my life
  • Watch an entire day’s marathon of CSI only to be even more terrified to walk outside my house for fear of my life
  • Choose to watch Titanic refusing to watch past the iceberg scene in respect to Leo DeCaps and in disdain of fat Rose taking up the entire goddamn floating double door
  • Knowing I’m due for a good cry and choosing to watch A Walk To Remember on a Saturday night before I go out
  • Pretending I know what I’m talking about then unintentionally getting wrapped up in a conversation full of lies and deceit
  • Going to the doctor to get my ears checked out and having it turn into a full fledged interrogation of my medical history — it’s just an ear lady, LAY OFF ME.
  • Deciding that after a week of drinking, it seems like a good time to check how much I weigh — IT’S NOT
  • Going outside without a jacket on because it’s not that cold out — when the only way I tell the temperature is by looking out my windows into the alley with no sunlight
  • Not checking the weather before I walk to work because I think I am an amature meteorologist
  • Looking at pictures of myself from middle school knowing that I thought I honestly looked really fly in my tearaway Addias sweat pants, Aeropostale polo shirt, a curly bun, and my grandmother’s dangly earrings
  • Starting this list and then realizing it’s dumb

The Common White Girl’s Idea of Struggling

Life is an uphill battle, but why toil with the stairs when you can take the elevator to the top?

I’m a common white girl from Connecticut and my idea of a struggle is figuring out how close I need to get to the drive-thru window in order to reach my food without unbuckling my seatbelt.

People tell you from day one to prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.  So that’s what I do.  But it’s a constant battle with the weather these days.  I can’t get anything to go my way.  I mean how am I supposed to channel corporate chic when I live in a metaphorical snowglobe and can’t wear heels to work?

Most days I wake up and hope against all odds that my hair picks a side between curly and straight and sticks to it.  A lot of times that doesn’t happen, and it makes me really upset.  If I knew it was going to be a bad hair day, I would have worn it in a bun initially, instead of wasting all it’s promise on the morning where I slapped myself every time I went to move one perfectly formed tendrel away from my face.

I moved out of my parents house almost two years ago, during that time I attempted to move my dresser up three flights of stairs.  Eventually, I just asked my three younger brothers to help me out.  I’m a huge advocate of outsourcing labor.  Especially when it involves me delegating and not participating.

One time I was so hungover that I called out of work.  The struggle was so real.   I persevered by taking an inordinate amount of naps on a Wednesday.

There are a lot of aspects of my life that I find particularly difficult.  For one, I can never decide which restaurant I want to try first, so I often make a decision based on the wine selections.  If they don’t have pinot noir, they are obviously a bootleg establishment, and don’t deserve my parents’ my money.

In attempt to not sound completely superficial and unaware of other human beings on this planet, I want to let everyone know that I have read multiple books — well, I sparknoted them — and understand the plight that other races and cultures have experienced through the written word.  And boy, does that suck.

But the thing is, I’m not minimizing any of that stuff.  I have feelings, thoughts, and values.  I am a real person who empathizes with others.

I value shopping and what it does to support the economy.  I am absolutely aware that my hard-earned dollars are contributing – in some way that I don’t actually understand – to this country’s health and well-being.   I think voting is scary, so I don’t do it because politicians use big words and research is a lot of effort.

I feel like all the problems in the world would be solved if we were all tan and from Florida. You know why you never hear about unrest in Florida?  Because everyone is actually resting and enjoying the sun.  There’s no time for fighting when you’re living in a perpetual fantasy land.  You’re welcome, world.

But growing up privileged does not mean I am immune to adversity.  I posted a Facebook update on my whereabouts during my European vacation, and only seven people liked it.  I took that as a cue to make a better effort at posting more interesting updates.  By the end of my trip, I had almost forty people like my post about, “Putting the ‘Bar’ in Barcelona!”  Success.

I do my best to shatter the rich white girl stereotype.  Whenever there isn’t an attendant on duty, I’ll wait five minutes before reluctantly pumping my own gas.  I also make a point to throw my spare change into the tip donation jars, you know, because every penny counts and I don’t use them anyways.

It’s not all glitz and glamour.  I face just as many strifes each week as another person.  After a hard day of pretending to work (but going on Pinterest instead), all I need to relax is a goblet of wine and a good television show.  It’s times like these that I realize the Gods are smiting me because last week I had no wine on a Tuesday and my Netflix crashed so I was forced to watch the news.  I was asleep in my clothes before 8pm.  Thanks a lot, technology.

People say it’s a dog eat dog world, but I’ve never witnessed it.  I can’t understand why a dog would want to eat another dog, and I don’t really understand why that phrase applies to human nature in the slightest.  I’ve never been denied a job opportunity, and constantly look for ways to slide under the radar while still being labeled as “efficient” within my workplace.

I’m just trying to do my best to survive on a reasonable salary while maintaining an active social life and not buying store-brand groceries.

I’m a common white girl and my idea of a struggle is understanding what it means to struggle.

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