On To The Next...

I don't even know how to begin processing the last 365 days.  Coming off of 2011, a period of time that I consider a lost year, I didn't even know myself.  I was so numb that year, locked in what I can only describe as an emotional coma.  To be honest, I have very little memory of that time.  It was probably one of the most difficult periods of my life.

Then, eight days into 2012, I met someone who brought me back to life.  I don't want to delve too much into that relationship, but all you need to know is that I would not change one second of it, good or bad. At the end of the day, it made me realize that after what I went through in the past, I was stronger than I thought.  And the other person was equally as strong, if not more so.

I moved into my apartment, claiming true independence for the first time in my life.  After 26 years, I had a home.

I accepted the loss of old friends, welcomed the presence of new ones, and appreciated those that have always stuck by me.  I also said goodbye to someone who was taken away too soon, but left a lasting imprint on everyone that was lucky enough to know her.

Then, after a chance sighting, I reconnected with the man who I had built a family with four years ago. A lot of people didn't understand or approve, but I had no doubts that this was what was supposed to happen.

On the same page, the bookstore where this man and I had met, on my 22nd birthday next to the cookbooks, closed its doors.  Today, in fact.  For many people there it was a loss of their jobs, their coworkers and friends, their home away from home.  For me, it was the loss of the place where I met the person who changed everything.

This year has brought a lot of pain and a lot of happiness.  It has brought uncertainty and regret and acceptance.  But to be honest, I'm ready for it to be over.  I feel like it was the stepping stone between the lost year and the rest of my life, my happiness.

So I'm not sad to see this year go.  I'm ready for 2013 and I know that I have to take control in order for it to become what I want.

50 Shades of What the Fuck Did I Just Read

[Author's Note:  This post may contain spoilers of the worst book ever written]

You guys.  I finally finished the most painful literary experience of my life.  Like, worse than Beowulf. WORSE THAN BEOWULF.  Ok, I know I'm way behind on the 50 Shades train, I get that.  But here's the thing:  I started reading this book like, 6 or 7 months ago.  I wasn't even going to read it.  I heard all the hype, I of course was curious if the sex scenes were really as extreme as everyone was saying, but in all honesty this book was not on my agenda.  Then my friend told me I should read it.  I wasn't sure.  But she lent me her copy and I proceeded to struggle through 514 pages of an English major's nightmare.  Let me just quickly add something about my reading technique- If I like a book, I can usually whiz through it pretty quickly.  If I love a book, it's done in a day or two.  Never has it taken me almost a full year to read a book.  I kept stopping for a couple of weeks here and there and then picking it back up and making myself read a few pages.  The longest period of time that I consistently read it was the week I was down the shore back in July, where I thought if there was any appropriate place to read a book that had quickly become known as socially acceptable porn, it was on a family oriented beach as little innocent children giggled and skipped past me as I read about some girl who is ok with getting whipped raw, but had to be convinced by her roommate to shave her armpits for a date.

Needless to say, before I even started reading the book, I told myself that I would write a blog about it once I finished, no matter what.  So, reluctantly, here I go.

First thing's first.  If this Ana chick ever actually existed, there is no way in hell that she would have any friends, let alone all these guys falling all over her.  Homegirl is whiny and stuffy and hairy (seriously dude, why did I have to read about your inner struggle on whether or not to shave your legs?) and needs to realize that she does not live in the 19th century British tragedy that she's constantly referencing; she lives in Seattle.  Which I guess is kind of the same thing.

And the only reason her hot roommate sticks around is because Ana makes her look even better than she already is.  Try and dispute that, present day female society.

Second, if E. L. James really wanted to write a book set in America, maybe she should have studied up a little more on our current trends and slang.  No one really cares about Kings of Leon anymore, and never, ever, ever has any current 22 year old said "Oh my".  Ever.  Never ever ever.  Not even once.  Especially during sex.  But then again, according to this book, a girl can have an earth shattering orgasm, her very first orgasm no less, just by having a billionaire poke around her nipples for a couple of minutes.  So what do I know.

Also, sentence structure.  It's an actual thing.  Look into it.

Ok, sex scenes.  The first one was fine.  Not as explicit as I was expecting, but not bad.  But then, it's just, they didn't get better.  It was like the author got lazy with them.  They became shorter and shorter each time, and always ended with an "Oh my" and an "Oh Ana".  Everyone collapses, he won't let her touch him, she's just been slapped around enough that she has to get lotion rubbed on her ass afterwards...cool bro, sounds like a really healthy relationship.

Even I would break up with him, and I literally have the worst judgement in guys ever.

Now, Jose on the other hand...si, por favor.

When I finally got to the end of the book, I was a little surprised that the entire story had only taken place over a span of a few weeks and still nothing had really happened.  But I supposed that's semi-appropriate for the first book of a trilogy.  Luckily, my mom's friend saw me reading the book over the summer (I was literally 5 pages in), and decided to tell me the ending of the series which normally would have made me angry, but we all knew I wasn't reading the other two books.

Ok, so as much as I hated this book, there was one paragraph that I actually found very real.  And I only had to wait until the 5th to last page to find it!  Seriously though, it's a passage describing those moments after you end a relationship, when you suddenly realize that the world is still turning and you have to somehow find a way to turn with it.

"My worst fears have been realized.  And strangely, it's liberating.
The pain is such that I refuse to acknowledge it.  I feel numb.  I have somehow escaped from my body and am now a casual observer to this unfolding tragedy.  I shower quickly and methodically, thinking only of each second in front of me.  Now squeeze body wash bottle.  Put body wash bottle back in rack.  Rub cloth on face, on shoulders...on and on, all simple, mechanical actions, requiring simple, mechanical thoughts."

We have all been in that same exact place.  And if you haven't, count yourself lucky.  It's that moment where you are completely outside of your own self, and you literally have to narrate in your head every action you take, just to keep the reality of your heart out.  'I'm turning the doorknob, I'm opening the door, I'm walking to the mailbox.  There are three envelopes in here, all white.  That is my name, that is my address...'  

It's that feeling where you can't move a muscle in your face.  You can't smile or frown or blink.  Tears are plummeting out of your eyes and you don't even notice until they fall off your chin and hit your hand or chest or the plate of food in front of you that you have no intention of eating.

Still, aside from that one particular bundle of sentences, I just couldn't get on board with the whole phenomenon of 50 Shades.  

Good news though!  I just spelled "phenomenon" right on the first try!

For Janet

I have started, stopped, edited, and rewrote this entry many times.  For some reason it just never felt right, the words I was using to describe this wonderful person.  Then, a handful of Thursdays ago, I had one of those magical days where everything was right.  And I know it was because of you.

They say that one of the best ways to honor someone who is no longer with us is to celebrate and appreciate life.  On that Thursday, your 40th birthday, I have no doubt that it was you who made the sun beat down, the waves roll in, and two normally gloomy people feel like there was no way that in those moments, life could be any more perfect.

I also know you were at peace somewhere that day, shaking your head and laughing at the irony of who I was with.  There were multiple times when I imagined you in your green sweater, smiling and telling me, "Oh mama, you're crazy".

So I guess I just want to say thank you.  Thank you for that day.  Thank you for having my back from the moment I met you.  Thank you for sending me a mix of supportive, uplifting, and hilarious texts when my heart was breaking.  Thank you for keeping in touch with me after I left Barnes & Noble, and thank you for always asking how Kirby was doing.  Thank you for hugging me like you meant it every single time.

Thank you for being the most caring, thoughtful, selfless person I have ever met.  But most of all, thank you for allowing me to realize that life is delicate - it is not a guarantee and not something to be taken advantage of.  Because of you, I have found my way back to a place that I had been missing desperately.  I know you know exactly what I'm talking about, and I can't help but feel you had something to do with it.

I miss you - we all do.  It sound so trivial to say because just the word "miss" doesn't cover it.  When we laid you to rest, it was amazing to see the amount of people one individual had an impact on.  Barnes & Noble practically filled up half the seats, you would have been proud :)

So rest easy mama.  I think about you all the time and feel so lucky and honored to be able to call you my friend.

I Miss You. There, I Said It.

It's amazing under what circumstances people come and go from your life.  It can be a family member, a friend, a significant other; you could have had a fight resulting in a huge falling out, you could have simply lost touch, or- sorry for being morbid- the person could have passed away.  Nothing hurts more than losing someone, regardless of in what capacity.  On the flip side, nothing feels better than getting that person back.  Unfortunately, the latter doesn't happen nearly as often as the former.

I don't know if it's because I have more time on my hands as of late to rummage through old stories and pictures and memories of mine, but I've been taking a pretty serious ride down Nostalgia Lane these past couple of weeks.  And let's just get this out of the way now:  the existence of Facebook is ruining the whole concept of "ignorance is bliss".  Private lives are a thing of the past and now it is far too easy to spend a good chunk of your day stalking and crying.  Oh, don't pretend like you haven't done that.  We all have and we will all continue to.  Mark Zuckerberg has us by the balls and he's not letting go until he retires in his mansion full of "Look, I'm Just Like You!" zip-up hoodies from TJ Maxx.  (I just assume that Marky Z is a Maxxinista).

What's strange to me is that it doesn't matter how long you know a person, loss is loss.  I was best friends with M and C for TWENTY YEARS, and then one day a misunderstanding of something that was intended to be a good deed completely blew up in our faces and wrecked one of the most epic friendships of all time.  And C, I did see you in Dunkin Donuts the other day, I just pretended not to because I couldn't emotionally deal with saying hello and you maybe not saying it back.  I found that story I had started to write a few years ago about our future selves, I guess you could say it was a followup to MACC Sisterhood.  You know, the one where each of our parts were written in a different color, and I used to email it to you in installments.  Needless to say, it made me miss you both so much.  Sometimes I wonder how different everything would be if we were still the best part of each others' lives.

More often I think about how I couldn't have imagined, not in a million lifetimes, that we would not be at each other's weddings; that we would not hold each other's babies...that we would not live out our last remaining senile years together at the retirement home, just like we said we always would.

M and C don't even know this blog exists but who knows, maybe it will get back around to them.  The Internet is a funny thing.

B- You saved me and you know it.  And then you called me and said you couldn't do it anymore.  After all of the promises and music notes and realizations that very few people were lucky enough to have what we had, you backed out.  And I will never, ever believe that she had no part in it.

J-  What we did to deserve what we were put through, I'll never know.  I'm honestly dreading the day when we both realize the mistake we made and run back to each other, only to find it's too late.

D-  You're back.  And that is the one bright light peeking through this big cloud of what if's and why's.

I'm sorry if this entry was boring for most of you.  But sometimes a girls just gotta write out loud.

And The Award For Greatest Writer Of All Time Goes To...

I'm starting to wonder how realistic it is to consider writing as a career.

I realize this is a bit of a defeatist attitude, especially when it's all I've ever wanted and I busted my ass in college to get a writing degree.  I also know that there is a plethora of options out there for me; copywriter, editor, proofreader, transcriber, grant writer...but what I'm interested in - where my passion truly lies - is creative writing.

In my fantasy world, a newspaper would call me and be all, "Hey!  It's me!  The newspaper!"  And then I'd be all, "Oh hey the newspaper!  I was wondering when you'd call.  How's it hanging?"

"Oh, you know," the newspaper would respond, "Black, white, and read all over."

"Ha ha ha," I would laugh.  "I feel you newspaper, I feel you."

Then the newspaper and I would shoot the shit for awhile.  I'd ask it how its family was, and the newspaper would tell me that the kids were great, but he thought that his wife was cheating on him with some freelance online magazine.

"Bummer!" I'd say.

"Yeah, it really rips my pages." the newspaper would say.

Then we would have a moment of silence as we both reflected on the injustice of lovers scorned.

"Anyway," the newspaper would sigh as I imagined it shaking its head and wiping away a single, silent tear that had rolled down its sports section and smudged the final score of last night's game, "the reason I was calling was to offer you a job."

"A job you say..." I would respond, as I held the phone between my chin and shoulder and gave myself a high-five.

"Yes, I stumbled upon the online archives of your column from your college paper and-"

"Newspaper, wait." I would cut him off. "What were you doing on the Internet?  Doesn't that go against everything you stand for?"

"I was trying to find that electronic rat bastard that's been flipping through my wife's classified section." the newspaper would mumble, anger seeping out of his every page.

"Oh...",  'Well this is awkward...' I would think to myself.  "So!  Uh - a job!  Jeepers, that's great!"

"Yes yes, a job!" the newspaper would exclaim, thankful to be back on topic. "As I was saying, I found your articles and I would like to offer you your own weekly column, writing about anything you want!"

"Really?!" I would exclaim. "Anything I want?  Relationships, heartbreak, sex?"

"Yes, yes, and yes.  Especially that last one."

"Oh newspaper," I'd chortle, "you sly dog, you."

"What do you say?" the newspaper would ask. "You'll get paid a buttload of money, get full benefits, and I'll never fire you!"

"Newspaper, you've got yourself a deal!"

"Jenga!" The newspaper would shout with excitement. "I look forward to working with you, you young yet brilliant writing prodigy that is bound to revolutionize the literary world as we know it!"

"I look forward to working with you as well!  I'll get to work immediately!"

"Fantastic." the newspaper would say. "Toodles!"

I would then hang up with the newspaper only to have my phone immediately ring again.

"Hello?"

"Good afternoon, this is the Nobel Prize of Literature," they would say, "and after reading your blog, I'd like to offer you-"

Just kidding about that last part.  That wouldn't be believable at all.

100

This is my 100th entry.  I had started to write this whole ridiculous spiel akin to an awards ceremony acceptance speech thanking this person and that person, but due to recent events in my personal life, I decided to change my tune.  Instead I want to write about the culmination of these past 99 entries:  My not-so-subconscious quest to find The One.

The fact of the matter is, we don't know who we're going to end up with.  When you begin dating someone, especially once you hit a certain age, our impulse is to wonder and/or hope that this could be "The One".  But really, you could be with someone for years - maybe you even make them your husband or wife - and they still may not be the right person for you.

I have had two men look me straight in my eyes and say, "I'm going to marry you".  Am I married to either one of them?  Nope.  Not even a little bit.  Did I really want to marry either one of them?  The first guy- No.  The second guy?  With every single micro-fiber of my being.

Even so, we all know it didn't work out that way.  Life went on- because it had to.

My most recent boyfriend had every quality I could have hoped for in a husband.  The way he treated me was off the charts.  Granted, compared to how I had been treated in the past, the simple fact that he acknowledged my existence was a monumental step up.  But all of that aside, this guy is a spectacular person and whoever is lucky enough to end up with him better count her lucky stars every single day.  Maybe even twice a day.

Sometimes it's frustrating to feel like you've gone through relationship after relationship, just to constantly find yourself back at square one.  There have been times when I've almost felt embarrassed that I've fallen in true love twice; been so close to marriage twice.  Started planning a future with someone, twice.

But then I think, I shouldn't feel embarrassed.  I should feel lucky.  An acquaintance (and yes, ex-boyfriend) of mine is currently going through a divorce.  I saw him a few months ago and he expressed his obviously less than great feelings towards the whole situation.  I thought about it and this is what I told him,

"Don't ever regret your time together.  True, it didn't work out and that's awful.  But you got to love someone with all your heart for three years.  You had a chance to truly be with the woman of your dreams, even if it was only for a short while.  Just because she's not the person you were meant to end up with doesn't mean she wasn't the person you were supposed to be with at that moment."

If only I had told myself that after each of my own personal heartbreaks, I would have saved myself a lot of pain.  I got to be IN LOVE more than once.  I got to feel that, and that's amazing.  When my first love and I ended, I never thought I would be able to experience that again.  But I did, and even stronger than before.  And when that ended, I felt hopeless again.  But then, an extremely painful year and a half later, I met someone amazing and although I didn't fall IN love, I loved him very, very much.  I still do. And even though the timing wasn't right for us, our short but beautiful relationship restored our faith in a lot of things.

So fall in love as many times as you're meant to.  There's nothing more natural in the world.

You never know who you're going to end up with in the end.  Maybe it's someone you already know but never looked at in "that way".  Maybe it's someone you've already dated and one day you'll find each other again.  Or maybe it's someone you've never met, someone you could find tomorrow, or next month, or next year.  But they're out there and they're heading towards you as fast as they can.

Don't Move, There's A Butterfly On Your Head! Oh, That's On Purpose? That's Awkward.

As a teenager I was deeply unappealing.

My tiny frame, which spent the better part of my junior high and high school years in a constant tug of war with puberty, was filled to the pimply brim with anger and bitterness towards most living, breathing, unassuming human beings who dared look at me, completely ignore me, or simply exist within twenty feet of me.  My tall but lanky body didn't fit into clothes correctly so my pants were constantly sliding off of me while still being a full six inches too short (I showed more ankle than a 19th century whore), while my shirts, which were all hand-me-downs anyway- either from a family friend who was 3 years older and a good foot taller than me, my mother, or, yes, even my brother- just hung there.  That's the only way to describe it; they just hung.  Sadly.  Like these shirts were more depressed than the average second-hand garment.
I also had this thing about my hair.  I pulled it back so tightly that it looked like I was bald- although this was helped greatly by my large forehead (thanks for the DNA, Dad!).  If there was one little micro-bump in my hair, I covered it up with a clip.  Now, if you remember the late '90s - early '00s, you'll recall a little gem of fashion culture known as the butterfly clip.  Some were small clasps with a delicate fabric butterfly glued to the end.  Others were giant jumper cables with a mutant sized 3-D butterfly made out of beads and glitter and estrogen.  And they had spring loaded wings so they literally flapped their wings with each self-loathing step we, ok I, took.  While most girls adorned their heads with one simple butterfly clip for decoration, I loaded my skull with 10-15 of these majestic little fuckers, to the point where you couldn't even see a solid square inch of my hair.  Which, albeit, was probably for the best because I'm going to throw myself under the bus here and admit that I probably didn't wash my hair as often as I should have.  I do now, just to be clear.  But back then?  Eeehhhh, not so much.  Granted, people tried to help me.  I had one friend who, on the RARE occasion that I wore my hair down to school, would come up to me and say, "Alexis!  You look so pretty with your hair down!  You should wear it like that more often!  Seriously...wear your hair down.  I'm begging you.  We all are.  Here's the signed petition we passed around."
Let's not forget the astronomical amount of awkward that I possessed.  And my shyness only made it worse.  If someone came up and asked me a question, I'm pretty sure my eyes just started rolling around in my head as a steady stream of drool began pouring out of my mouth while I frantically searched for the ability to speak.  But I can never really be sure.  I think I blacked out whenever someone acknowledged my existence.

So yes, from the ages of 12 to, let's say somewhere between 15 and 17, I was a physical, social, and emotional jigsaw puzzle with all the corner pieces missing.

This was all very confusing to me because I'm fairly certain that I was a delightful child.  I went from being a round little melon of a baby to a sass-charged youngster who could hang with the boys and had a thick, syrupy Northeast Philly accent that made me seem much tougher than I actually was.  Unfortunately, I made a conscious effort to get rid of my apparent accent (which I honestly was not even aware I had) in college when a friend of mine FLIPPED over the way I said "phone" when his cell started ringing one day while he was hanging out in my dorm room.

"What did you just say???" he gasped as I oh-so-nicely pointed out to him that he was receiving a call.

"I said your phone's ringing..." I answered, confused.  Had I slipped into another language during our conversation?  Did those six years of Spanish and one semester of college Italian really pay off?  Was I trilingual and I didn't even realize it?!


"Say 'phone' again," my friend begged, leaning forward with a gleam in his eyes that I thought was saved for five-year-olds on Christmas morning or crack addicts who just found twenty bucks on the street after running out of, well, crack. "Just say it one more time.  Say 'phone'."

"Phooone?"  I said, drawing out the word with utter uncertainty as to what was happening.

"Oh my god you say it so weird!!!" My friend threw is head back and laughed, then straightened back up and looked me in the face again.  "Say other words," he pleaded.  "Say 'water'!  Bagel!  Boat!  Towel!  OH MY GOD SAY TOWEL!!!"

And that was the day I say goodbye to my accent.  It still comes back every once in awhile, if I'm angry or talking really fast, or just kind of shooting the shit without thinking.  A year after I finished college, I was picking up a friend so we could go see our old a cappella group perform.  On the car ride to the concert, she asked me something and I responded with "Yeah".  Apparently I had temporarily slipped back into the Northeast when I said this, because my friend paused and then asked,

"Where did that come from?"

"Where did what come from?"  I asked back.

"That 'yeah'.  Where did that accent come from?"

The truth is, I miss my accent and I wish I had just stuck it to all those Allentownies and stayed true to my vernacular.  But let's not waste the moral of the story on this silly little tangent.

I just think it's interesting how people change.  Right now I'm dating a guy who I went to junior high and high school with.  We grew up in the same town our whole lives, went to school together for 6 years, and still had no idea that the other person existed until our senior year when we sat at the same lunch table together.  And that was only because he was dating a girl that I ate with.

Now, you would think that after being 3 feet away from each other every day for an entire year, he and I would know something about each other, maybe have had a few casual conversations, at the very least we must have said hello to each other.  Wrong.  Not once.  I don't think we ever even made eye contact.  In fact, HE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW MY NAME.  All he knew me as was the skinny, quiet, bitchy (please refer back to my Bitch Face blog for further explanation) nerd who apparently had brown hair, was very short, and wore the same hoodie every day.  Meanwhile, I have blonde hair, am actually slightly taller than the average girl, and didn't even own a hoodie until the very end of senior year.  The kicker is though, he didn't have me confused with someone else.  That's literally just how little we cared about the other person's existence.  To me, he was my lunch friend's boyfriend, who always wore black and thought he was cooler than everyone else and who I actually knew a little too much about thanks to girl talk.  And he and his girlfriend were always fighting. Or making out.  Sometimes both simultaneously.  So yeah, he just seemed like a barrel full of fucking monkeys.

After high school, I forgot he was even a person on this planet until one day about two years ago when I saw him at Wing Night. Wing Night is every Monday at one of the local dive bars, and on this magical night, wings are just 25 cents each.  The thing is though, I would pay 25 DOLLARS for these wings.  Taking a bite of them is like having heaven take a vacation in your mouth while Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers waltz across your taste buds.
My friend Cristin and I began going to Wing Night every week around the time that my last relationship ended.  Weekly doses of alcohol and drunk men hitting on me really helped me pull through that difficult time.  Also, Cristin and I befriended the waitress who worked on Monday nights, so the whole thing became a bit of a ritual.  As the weeks rolled on, I realized that every week I would see Lunch Table Kid walk in with this other kid that I also recognized from high school.  Cristin and I sat at the same table most of the time, so every week these two guys would walk by and sometimes I would look at them and sometimes I wouldn't.  And by 'look' I don't mean wink and giggle and twirl my hair, I mean 'Oh look, I attended my place of education with those two members of the opposite sex, one of whom was and still may be courting a maiden I once consumed a midday meal with'.

So basically, six or so years after spending every day at the same lunch table together, this kid and I were now spending every Monday night in the same bar.  Still not talking.

This continued over the course of a year and a half/ two years.  Then, this past January, I was at Wing Night with another girlfriend of mine.  We were sitting at the usual table, and again these two guys walked in, and actually sat right behind us.  Lunch Table Kid and I were back to back, literally inches apart.  Next thing I know, my friend goes to the bathroom and on her way back catches the eye of Lunch Kid's friend.  They start talking, a week later my friend and I are at another bar and she calls and invites him to join us.  He says he's going to bring a friend.  In my head I think, "Please let it not be Lunch Table Kid.  He sucks."

Thirty minutes later, Other Kid walks into the bar, followed by Lunch Table Kid.

"Balls." I say to myself.

Thirty minutes after that, Lunch Table Kid and I are immersed in conversation, cracking each other up, and I come to realize that he in fact does not suck at all.  Actually, he was turning out to be one of the most enjoyable people I had met in awhile.  I then took a quick inventory of the thoughts going through my head, which appeared in the following sequence:

* Hey, he's nice and easy to talk to.
* Wow, we have a lot in common.
* He thinks I'm hilarious!  And why wouldn't he?  I'm a hoot!
* These beers are delicious and I'm fairly certain I don't want to stop talking to this kid anytime soon.
* Do I like this kid?
* Do I want to KISS this kid?
* HOLY CRAP I WANT TO TOUCH TONGUES WITH LUNCH TABLE KID.


That night we had our first kiss and almost five months later he and I are all relationshipped-up with each other.  And you know what?  We were totally wrong about the other person in high school.  In every possible way.  Well, I was quiet and he did wear a lot of black, but other than that it turned out to be a classic case of Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover.  Granted, people change over a span of eight years, but you understand what I'm getting at.  I guess what I'm saying is that it's funny how things work out and who you end up with once you start to further mold into the person you're meant to be.  That, plus it's going to be a very interesting 10 year high school reunion :)

Don't Judge A Girl By Her Bitch Face

I was born with a disorder. A disorder that, while more common than you think, is only spoken in hushed tones. It is misunderstood and incurable, it does not discriminate, affecting young and old alike.

I have Bitch Face.

"What?!" you might gasp.

"Say it isn't so! She's so young!" some will cry, crumbling to a heap on the ground while others hide their faces and pound their fists against the wall in agony.

Alas, it is true. I, Alexis, your in-house charming and witty blogger, have been afflicted with this socially crippling ailment for well over two decades.

Luckily, as a young lass, I had an adorably chubby face to match my adorably chubby body. (And by "adorably chubby", I mean the room shook when I dragged my three-year old self through the house). My cheeks, which were partially pudgy by nature and partially pudgy because I constantly had large quantities of food in my mouth, masked my adolescent Bitch Face fairly well. No one can look at a child that's younger than ten years old and think, "Christ, that second grader looks like a twat...". No no, you look at a child and think, "Heavens to Betsy, I want to squeeze those juicy little arms and pinch those puffy little cheeks!" (Hopefully you're saying this about a child you know...no white vans with 'Free Candy' spray painted on the side are welcome near my bloggy blog).

No, I skated through years of potential judgement purely due to the fact that massive, angry looking babies will always be adorable.

Please refer to two of my quasi-embarrassing baby pictures below, as a visual of Baby Bitch Face:

But then Junior High happened. Ooooh, did it happen. As I grew taller, my weight decided to play a fun little trick on me and stay the same. This resulted in me spending my teenage years as an impossibly scrawny, pissed-off string bean. A devastatingly misshapen legume, if you will.

Unfortunately for me, as with many kids struggling with puberty that took its good ol' damn time to arrive, all of my schoolmates who had the fortune of growing boobs and hips and/or enjoying said body parts, chose me as a target for ridicule. This made me less inclined to smile or talk, let alone look people in the eye. Therefore, my bitch face came out swinging.

Let's pause for a moment so I can properly explain Bitch Face. It means, in case you haven't caught on, that your mug's natural state looks absolutely fuckin' miserable. And angry. And borderline violent. The key thing to remember is that just because a person may look shockingly miserable does not mean that they are. It simply means that a temporary absence of visible emotion results in facial features that are lacking any degree of pep in their step.

Ok, back to the good stuff. The first time my Bitch Face was pointed out to me was by my very own brother- my blood, my hero, my childhood tormentor. The person who was so loved that for years, teachers referred to me not as Alexis, but as 'Mike's Sister'.

Anywho, dear old Mikey was two grades ahead of me so when I was in 7th and 10th grade, we went to school in the same building.

One afternoon, little 12-year old me was trying to make it from my orchestra class to my math class. This may not seem like a giant feat, but please factor in the following ingredients:

* It was the very end of the day so I naturally was a little tired.

*My backpack weighed roughly 3x's my body weight.

*I had most likely just endured a full day of being teased.

*We only had 4 minutes to get from one class to the other.

*Orchestra was on the ground floor on the right side of the building, while math was up three floors and the last classroom on the left. This distance was roughly the equivalent to the diameter of Montana.

So there I was, schlepping my 4,000 pound schoolbag down the hall in my jeans that were too big yet still too short, and my training bra that I honestly didn't even need for another five years. The hallways of the Junior High were located on the outer edges of the school, and I distinctly remember oppressive amounts of heat and sun pouring in through the windows that day. I had given up trying to make it to class within the four minutes allotted and I was slumped against the wall of the now empty corridor, dragging my feet.

Suddenly, a dark shadow appeared in front of me, quickly approaching. As the figure and I moved closer, sunlight beamed down upon him and revealed the shadow to be my brother.

We both looked at each other and kept walking. Suddenly my brother turned and let out an exasperated, "Oh my god, as least pretend not to be miserable. Just smile or something!"

No thanks, bro.

That night at dinner, my brother threw me under the bus.

"She looks like she's gonna kill someone!" he told our mom, waving his fork around in the air. "People are gonna be afraid of her." Mike then turned to me.

"You look like a bitch is what it is."

Ouch.

I turned to Mommy Dearest and laid out my defense.

"I was tired!" I yelled. "I don't mean to look angry, that's just how my face is! Am I supposed to skip down the halls grinning like an idiot??"

"People have said stuff to me, you know." my brother stated matter-of-factly. "They say you look scary."

I opened my mouth to respond but our mom told us to drop it and eat our food. So we did.

From that fateful day forward, I was acutely aware of my Bitch Face. Sometimes I would try to hide it by turning the corners of my mouth up ever so slightly (rumor has it this is some kind of fad referred to as 'smile'), but most of the time it was easier to just let my face be the way it was.

Nowadays, I expect to be asked, "Are you ok? What's wrong?" roughly thirty times a day. I've been told that when I do smile it actually looks quite nice, but who has the time for that really?

I do have one new rule though that I try to stick to as often as possible. When I first walk into a bar or party or restaurant, any room full of people actually, I walk in grinning. That way, people's first impression of me has a higher chance of being, "Look how thrilled that girl is to walk through a doorway!", as opposed to, "Holy shit, that bitch is gonna kill us all."

So there you have it. To be That Guy and quote my own Facebook profile- I'm not sad, mad, or a bitch. That's just my face.

“There's Nothing To Writing. All You Do Is Sit Down At A Typewriter And Open A Vein.” ~Red Smith

Once upon a time there was a little girl who wrote and wrote and wrote, all the time time time. And when she wasn't writing writing writing, she would read read read, hiding under her covers at night with a flashlight, savagely digesting every fat, juicy word printed onto the pages that she gripped with such tenacity, it was as if the book would up and fly away if not for her small-handed security.

Eventually the little girl would hear her father's voice coming from her doorway.

"It's late," he would say as the girl poked just her eyes above the covers, glaring at this unwanted yet completely expected interruption.

"Your mother would want you to go to sleep."

The little girl's mother was always already asleep because it was always, in fact, quite late. Always.

The father would leave and the girl would return to reading. Whenever she heard footsteps she would click off her flashlight and pretend to sleep. She wasn't always quick enough, and so her father would poke his head in and, while still whispering, bark, "Bed! Now!"

So the flashlight went out for good but the book stayed safely under the covers.

Two counts of ten for good measure and the book resurfaced. Straining her eyes until they refocused and became used to the blackness, the little girl read in the dark until she blinked and didn't un-blink till morning.

But back back back to when she wrote wrote wrote. She produced stories like a first grade one-woman assembly line. She never knew what her stories were going to be about when she picked up her pencil- she still doesn't-, little movies just played out in her head and she wrote down what happened. She had very little control. This became problematic years later, when the girl's college professors would try to get her to tweak a storyline and she flat out refused.

"But that's not what happens." she would protest, confused as to why her doctorate-weilding teachers did not grasp this.

Professor So-And-So and Dr. What's-Her-Face never seemed to take this as a valid excuse so the girl would snatch the paper back, go to her dorm, and bitterly change a few words here and there, take out a couple of sentences- but just a couple- and maybe add a slight change to a storyline, depending on how critical the paper was towards her final grade. Then she would stubbornly write three more pages that returned the story back to its original plot, just for passive-aggresive funsies.

In time, her teachers finally caught on that the girl, who was seemingly shy and introverted, turned into a no-holds-barred beast when it came to her writing- fiercely protective of every letter, word, and phrase.

The bottom line was, the girl cared more about what she thought of her writing than what other people thought of it. Prose before hoes.

She wrote her first story when she was five, and finished her first book (that's right suckers, I- er- she wrote a book. A BOOK.) when she was in high school.

In elementary school she wrote about animals, in junior high and high school she wrote depressing poetry, and in college she wrote about sex and boys.

Now she writes about writing. And boys. And sex. Not so much about animals anymore.

One thing has remained the same, though. When the girl writes, she goes deaf. Her sight is limited to the paper or screen in front of her. She feels wave after wave of happiness, anger, inconsolable sadness, frustration, and hope- all while experiencing the most comforting and serene calm you could ever imagine. When the girl writes, you don't matter, and you don't matter, and neither do you. And you? All the way over there? You don't matter either.

So that's that. A little anecdote about a little girl who wrote wrote wrote and read read read. And always will will will.

Movin' On Up, To The East...I Mean North...Siiiiiiide

For the first time in my life I am living completely alone. No parents, no roommates, no boyfriend. Just me and my dog. (I don't consider him a legitimate source of cohabitation because he has no opposable thumbs to help wash the dishes and he sucks as a guard dog because he's a bigger pussy than I am).

I thought I would be freaked out to be by myself, but it's actually not so bad. I don't jump at little bumps or creaks in the floorboards and I don't fear that there will be an axe murderer standing on the other side of the shower curtain when I pull it back all nekkid and vulnerable. And luckily, two years of sleep deprivation has allowed me to fall into an immediate REM sleep, as opposed to laying (lying? That's the only part of the English language that still eludes me...) awake, worrying that the clown from Are You Afraid of the Dark? is going to come mess. my. day. up. No, instead I plummet into a deep sleep that doesn't end until the next morning when I awake to find that I have not only slept through all four of my alarms, but have in fact managed to turn them all off in my golden slumber, leaving me only twenty minutes until my train comes a choo-choo'ing into the station.

This is not to say there aren't times when I wish I had someone to rock me gently while I softly weep into their shoulder with anxiety. For example, last night I was sitting on my couch, enjoying my dinner of grilled cheese and wine. Suddenly, I hear 'Pow Pow Pow Pow Pow!', then a brief pause, then another round of pows.

"GUNSHOTS!!!" I yelled to no one, while Kirby briefly lifted his head up from his nap and gave me a look of 'What the fuck do you want me to do about it?', before licking himself and falling back into his puppy dream of, well, licking himself probably. Just then I heard yet another string of shots that were surely heading right for my living room window, followed by lots of angry, murderous shouting.

My panicked inner yells of gunshots (exclamation point) were soon replaced with, 'Shit, I wanted to go to Wawa. But I can't. Because I'll die.'

While I sat and pondered whether a candy bar and pack of Camel Lights were worth my precious, pessimistic life, my phone rang. Surely it was the police checking to make sure I was okay and not sprawled out in a puddle of my own blood while my darling, soulless dog stepped over my cold, lifeless body to chow down on some kibble. Alas (that's right, I said alas), it was my courageous older brother. He must have tapped into our as-of-yet unused sibling ESP and realized that his baby sister was not only in distress, but in grave suburban danger as well.

"Mike!" I yelled, hoping he would hear the panic in my voice and realize the SHEER TERROR of the situation. "How can you tell if you're hearing gunshots or fireworks???"

Luckily, my brother is both a physics and gun enthusiast (in a perfectly safe way, so calm down all you anti-NRA hippies). He proceeded to ask me specific questions about the sounds I had heard, like did I hear five or six shots and were they evenly spaced apart? After receiving a lesson a how they must have been fireworks because in order for a gunman to reload that fast he would need something or other and yadda yadda yadda, my mind felt roughly 30% more at ease and I thanked my white knight of a brother.

"So if I go to Wawa I won't get shot?" I asked.

"No," my brother laughed. Then, he suddenly got quite serious. "But Alexis, if that ever does happen, if you get held at gunpoint or something, try not to piss off the guy mugging you, ok? Like, don't scream and curse and be all annoying. You know how you get. Like when you failed your driver's test the first time. Just give him your money. Or else he will probably shoot you."

"WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING?!?!?!?!?!?!?" I roared, throwing my wine glass against the wall and standing up as my enormous green muscles burst through the seams of my clothes.

...Ok, in reality I just laughed and told him to have a good night. But the other version is totally better, right?

Here's the bottom line: I live above two guys (Yay!) who already don't seem to like me very much (What?! Boooo). I don't have a TV so Hulu has become my computerized lover. I sleep on an air mattress on the floor because I can't afford a real bed yet, and my diet consists of beer and cupcakes. All in all, I think I'm doing pretty fucking well.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words. Except When Those Are Lies Too.

This article is about bullshit. About the boys who sell it and the girls who buy it. Or, even worse, the girls who know it's complete hogwash but eat it up anyway because they want it to be true that badly.

Here's a little anecdote for you. And I'm telling you this partly because it applies, and partly because I like being able to use the word 'anecdote'. There's this guy who I met over the summer. He doesn't remember the first time we met because he was drinking and also it was a very brief encounter. However, we have a couple of mutual friends so just a few days later we again wound up in the same place at the same time. He mentioned to his friend that he was interested in me, we exchanged numbers, texted a little bit, and that was it. Since then, we bump into each other all the time. Sometimes we flirt, sometimes we kiss, sometimes (but very rarely) we ignore each other except for a quick "Hey, how are ya". Here's the thing though: The ball is always in his court.

I always act the same around him. I'm friendly, but not all over him even though he knows I'm intrigued. He, however, is the kind of guy who will come up to you, tell you you're gorgeous and he wants you to meet his mom, then before you have a chance to respond he has darted out the door, not to be heard from again until the next time you bump into each other in the same little dive bar that you both frequent. This next meeting is a bit of a wildcard. Either he steers clear of you with the exception of a quick nod hello from the across the room, or he comes up and whispers in your ear "Let's go outside", where he proceeds to grab you and pull you towards him, kissing you like you've never been kissed before.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that in the same breath, this guy has told me that he's not interested in a relationship and he wouldn't want to hurt me... but he wants to introduce me to his family and that I would make a great girlfriend. He even went so far as to say,

"I just want to lie next to you and hold you...tell you all the things you want to hear." (insert pause and look of panic and realization on his face here) "But, you know, not bullshit you."

Uh huh. Sure. Nice try cowboy.

Here's where this ties in though. Everything that he was saying to me, everything that he always says to me, are all things a girl wants to hear. And we want to believe it. But nowadays, we just don't. A couple years ago? Sure. I would have eaten up every word and smiled as each spoken promise tumbled down into a warm little spot in my belly. But the fact of the matter is, in at least the past year, every single guy that has ever said anything to me, no matter how sincere, I haven't bought it. Literally, every single guy. If you have a penis and you've talked to me in the past 12 months, no matter how much I smiled and nodded at everything you said, in my head all I heard was "bullshit bullshit bullshit".

And that kinda sucks, doesn't it?

Sometimes I wish I was one of the girls that can just let herself give someone the benefit of the doubt. And I know a lot of my friends feel the same way. But when guy after guy after guy turns out to do the same exact thing- promise you A, B, and C, and then just up and run- you can't blame us for our mindset.

It reminds me of something my friend Cristin said to me the other day. It was actually in reference to a conversation we were having about fidelity, but it applies here too. She said,

"As a society, we're in love with love and we're in love with work. But no one's in love with working at love."

Whether you're a guy, girl, gay, straight, or a little bit of A, a little bit of B, there's a part of all of us that wants to be in love. This is just a fact. But something has happened that we feel like we need to say and believe certain things in order to easily and quickly convince someone that we could love one day. Even if that day is ten years from now. Even if you're just stringing together vowels and consonants so someone will like you enough to climb in your bed for a couple hours.

God I sound cynical. Here I am, bashing the entire idea of love when I myself have felt true love fiercely and wholeheartedly. Twice for christs sakes. But right now I'm bitter and tired of dating and it's my blog so I'm gonna keep going. However, if you are in love and have found someone who doesn't string you along and is honest with you, mazel tov :)

I suppose my bottom line is this: Just be honest. If you don't want a relationship, that's fine. If you tell someone you want to wake up next to them because you truly do want to wake up next to them, that's amazing. Let's just cut out all of this bullshit that makes guys look like dogs and girls look like airheads. It's getting old.

2011 Highlights: Photo Edition Part 2

The Ladies were my favorite birthday present :)

Recording studio = Dream come true

The VU remembering LehChew

Beautiful 'Berg wedding

LLP got engaged!

2011 Highlights: Photo Edition Part 1

Cali '11 with the greatest traveling buddies ever

Rommy moment at Tip's wedding

The most sober girls you'll find during Erin Express

Exhibit A of why country tailgating is the best kind

Finally dragging our old asses out to dance like we did when we were 17