Metaphorically Sleeping My Way To The Top

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

2012-02-06T14:05:00.001-08:00

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.

2012-01-03T16:04:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-03T15:29:00.001-08:00

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

2012-01-03T15:13:00.001-08:00

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

Half and Half

2011-12-28T13:59:00.000-08:00

A couple of nights ago, I was out having drinks with someone who I haven't seen since I was a painfully shy, awkward fourteen year old who had the confidence of the Cowardly Lion and the body of a pre-pubescent boy. In the eleven years that have passed, I've grown exponentially. While still shy, I have reached a level of comfort with myself that is light years above what it used to be, and I'm now proud to say that I have settled into the body of at least a seventeen year old boy. I know, it's almost too hot to handle. Try to calm down, take a couple deep breaths...Good? Ok, moving on.

So this person I was out with, we started talking about relationships. Which, if ya'll haven't figured out by now, is right up my alley when it comes to conversation topics. I was saying how I like being part of a couple and how I sometimes feel like something's missing when I'm not. He then started to respond with what has become one of my biggest pet peeves:

"Well, you have to be happy with yourself before you can-"

"Stop." I cut him off. "I hate that answer."

I then proceeded to explain that for me personally, being half of a whole is what makes me feel whole. Having a partner in crime, someone to share you accomplishments and defeats with, a person who knows when you need a hug and when you just need to be left the fuck alone. You can be as happy as you want with yourself, but it is human nature to want a companion to share that happiness with.

My drinking buddy nodded and said ok, but I could tell he wasn't completely buying it. The subject was soon changed.

Later on that night, we were saying our goodbyes when he looked at me and said what I have come to realize is one of the most comforting things anyone has ever told me. He said,

"Don't be half of a whole. Because you're already whole."

It was such a simple two sentences but it really struck me. All of a sudden the whole idea of being in a relationship started to make more sense. It's not two halves making a whole- it's two already complete people teaming up to make two wholes. Because why give something 100% when everyone has the chance to bump it up to 200%?

It's funny how a few words strung together can provide just the right amount of calming clarity. And to the person who told me those words, Thanks.

Here's A Shirt, There's The Door

2011-12-21T16:24:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'm sorry, but when the hell did clothing become a parting gift? I remember when a guy would give you something from him drawer as an unspoken sign that he wanted you around. You know, maybe you've only been seeing each other for a month and you've slept at his place just a few times. Then one night he asks you to stay over and as he does so, he reaches into his dresser, pulls out a t-shirt, and says "Here, you can wear this. You can just keep it if you want".

This meant you were in.

Same goes for sweatpants while the two of you are lounging around on a Sunday, or a hoodie when it's freezing outside but you still are trying to impress him so you wear tiny cute little shirts that are completely inappropriate for the weather. You would take these items and bring them home and wear them to bed every night. You would breath in his scent that was left on them; cologne, fabric softener. You would go as long as possible without washing them because that would rid the clothes of any traces of him. And, if the relationship ended, you would either keep them as a reminder of him, stashing the shirt and sweatpants in the very back of your closet, or you would throw them at his face in rage, telling him never to call you again.

But now. NOW it's a whole different story. T-shirts have become a consolation prize. A hey-you're-cool-and-all-but-I'm-going-to-give-you-this-shirt-and-then-never-call-you-again.

What.

The.

Hell .

The following story may wind up being embarrassing for me, especially if everyone reading this ends up thinking, "Uh, Lex? This doesn't happen to everyone. It's just you. Better luck next time slugger".

Here it goes anyway: The last two guys I have dated (and I use to term 'dated' loosely because they were really just casual, semi-exclusive type deals) have followed the same exact pattern. We meet, things go great, yadda yadda yadda, then one day they give me a shirt. Example A literally gave me the shirt off his back while we were out on his deck one night. He was in the military (shocker, right?) and he was wearing his PT shirt which I happen to think is one of the sexiest things a guy can have on his body. And he knew this. He noticed I was shivering because even though it was the middle of summer, my body temperature betrays me on a regular basis. He asks if I want his shirt, I ask if he'll be cold, he says no and takes it off, handing it to me. But not before doing a douchy little flex and checking out his so-so muscles. Then he asks me if I want to see a movie that weekend, to which I agree. The shirt smells like him and I wear it to bed that night and I never hear from him again. Movie shmovie.

Now, Example B is a bit of a different story. I was over his apartment, sitting on his bed while he emptied out his drawers, looking for clothes to give away. I was surrounded by piles of clothing that could best be described as 'bro-wear'. This should have been my first clue to never date this guy to begin with, but there were a couple things that kept me around regardless. Anyway, he threw one shirt over his shoulder and it landed in front of me. I picked it up, it was just a regular grey t-shirt with the words Venice Beach printed on the front, and it looked just about my size. I mentioned that I liked it and he said, "Consider it yours". No muss, no fuss, he was getting rid of it anyway. I talked to him one more time after that before he disappeared into the abyss of ex-boyfriends/hookups/best friends.

So my question is, why the hell do you think I want your shirt if you're just going to turn around and dart in the opposite direction? Keep your shirt, keep your hoodie, keep your unimpressive attempt at a six-pack.

And if ya'll could just pretend that I'm not the only person this has happened to, that would be swell :)

If You Don't Know What "I'm The Baby, Gotta Love Me!" Means, Then I Can't Know You.

2011-11-25T10:40:00.001-08:00

There's a cute guy in my neighborhood, right up the street from me. We always see each other when we're outside walking our dogs. We sneak quick glances and try to act like we're not providing our pets exercise simply so we can bump into each other. We've never spoken a word to one another and, in fact, have never even walked on the same side of the street. But that's part of the fun.

At least, it was part of the fun. One fateful afternoon not so long ago, I was walking Kirby up the street and saw my oh-so-attractive neighbor walking into his house. With a backpack on.

Because he was

coming

home

from

school.

I tried desperately to think of alternate reasoning for this situation. Maybe he's one of those guys who brings a backpack to work. Maybe his high-level executive job with a corner office allows him to wear hoodies and basketball shorts to work. Maybe I should accept the fact that it is 2:50 pm, the exact time the high school bus has been pulling into our neighborhood for as long as I can remember.

Insert a split second of sympathy for Mary Kay Letourneau here.

Insert two split seconds of astonishment at the insane spelling of "Letourneau".

Insert feelings of nausea and premature cougardom as memories come flooding back of this past summer when I blatantly stopped and checked him out as he was doing yard work for a neighbor.

And THIS is why I always like to go for guys who are blatantly 10 years older than me. Wrinkles, grey hair, indications of male pattern baldness- these are all just beautiful little reminders that I won't go to jail for dating them.

A little while back I was talking to a guy in a bar and for whatever reason mentioned Fraggle Rock. His response?

'What's Fraggle Rock?'

I shook his hand, told him it was very nice meeting him, and moved to the other side of the bar.

It is quickly becoming apparent that my friends and I are at the age where people just a couple of years younger than us may as well have been born in an entirely different century. You know how there's Generation X, Generation Y, etc? Well I feel like one of them was capped off after 1986. Maybe 1987 for a select few advanced individuals. And I'm not trying to be a snotty bitch here. I wouldn't even be making this argument if it weren't for the fact that I keep noticing solid evidence on multiple occasions.

Now here's the kicker:

It seems weird for a 25 year old woman (that's right, I just referred to us as women, not girls. How bout that?) to date a 21 year old guy. But it's no big deal for a 35 year old woman to be dating a 31 year old man. I know these are our 20's and we're all less than a decade out of college and we're just discovering who we really are and yadda yadda yadda, but it is a weird little hypocrisy we've got going on here.

Maybe it all comes down to a theory that my friends and I have been mulling around for awhile:

At this point in our lives, guys aren't worth dating unless they're at least 26.

At 26, they (hopefully) have the whole college mentality out of their system, they (hopefully) have a steady job, they (hopefully) have moved out of their parents' basement. And since it's a scientific fact - and who are we to mess with science - that women mature more quickly than men, at age 26 a man is almost as awesome as we ladies were at 23.

Just to be clear, my intentions in this entry are not to bash guys. I'm just, let's say, giving a field report of some social data that I, as well as many other women I know, have collected over the years.

And besides,

I'm the blogger, gotta love me :)

(Not the mama!)

...god I hope you all got that...

How About YOU Cook Dinner And I'LL Cheer You On From The Sidelines

2011-11-09T07:28:00.001-08:00

I will never be the kind of girl who cooks, cleans, and loves being around kids.

And I'm not saying this because I believe in all that feminism crap, where suddenly everyone is making a big hoopla about how the women should work and the men should stay home and be Mr. Mom. No, I'm saying this because I suck at the three aforementioned tasks. Like, really suck. To the point where if I ever do have kids, they will most likely not only be living in squalor, but will also be living off a diet of toast and mediocre instant oatmeal. And if they cry or poop or vomit, chances are I'll run in the other direction screaming.

'This can't be true,' you may be saying. 'Give yourself a little more credit, Alexis.'

Well, luckily for you, I have examples. Because who doesn't love an entry packed full of solid evidence that I'm destined to be the worst adult ever.

Let's start with the cleaning. Now, if you knew me from college, you saw first hand that I actually kept my room quite tidy. Immaculate even, on some days at least. Everything on my desk and shelves was carefully arranged and there was never a rogue shirt on the floor. In fact, if you opened up my closet, you would see that my clothes were arranged in size order; from tank tops to sweaters. What you didn't see was what was under my bed, hidden in the drawers, stashed in plastic bins. And that, my friends, was clutter. Piles of papers that I put to the side with the intentions of sorting through one day and then forgot about. Tangles of wires from various electrical equipment collecting clumps of dust because I had no idea what wire went to what plug. And so on and so forth, you get the idea.

These little hidden gems of crap were nothing compared to my bedroom back at home that I had slept in since I was 2. Walking through those doors was like walking into an episode of Hoarders. Well, borderline Hoarders. I didn't have bugs and mice crawling around, I just had a very, very, very messy room. It essentially was a dumping ground, especially in recent years when I was spending 99% of my nights sleeping at other people's houses.

You know how when some people are stressed or upset, they clean? I'm the opposite. I equate the mess in my head to the mess on my floor.

All I can hope for is that when I finally get my own big-girl place without roommates, or parents, or whatever, I can use it as a fresh start in my cleaning life. But probably not. Have you ever tried to successfully vacuum with a dog that practically jumps on the hose and goes 'Wheeeeeee!' all around the house until you're done? It takes awhile.

Ok, now on to cooking. The best example for this would probably be the time I tried and failed to make pasta. And by "time", I mean "times". Because it took me three tries.

D and I were at the apartment and I decided to be a doll and cook him dinner in a weak attempt to get his attention off of Xbox and onto me. So I opened the cabinet, got a giant bag of egg noodles, and placed it on the counter next to the stove. Then I took a little saucepan and filled it 3/4 of the way with water. Now, let me explain a little something in my defense. The stove in that apartment was crap. All the coils were lopsided so you had to constantly move the pan around if you hoped to even get close to heating the contents evenly. That is, if you didn't first spill everything in the pan because it slipped to one side or the other. But I guess none of that really affects what I did next.

So like I said, I put the water in the pan and then, in my mind, did the next logical step. I poured in all the pasta and cranked the light up to high. Throwing in a pinch of salt (because growing up I always saw my mom doing it), I capped the pan off with a lid and walked away in satisfaction.

After about 5 minutes of half-reading, half-restraining myself from throwing D's Call of Duty out the window and telling him that he was about to experience his own Modern Warfare if he didn't start paying more attention to his girlfriend (and family and friends and pets and life in general), I went to check on what was sure to be a fabulous meal. I lifted the lid off the pasta and was disappointed to see that nothing had happened. There was just a pile of semi-crunchy pasta sitting in the bottom of some lukewarm water.

Miracles of miracles, I hear D put his game on pause and come up behind me.

"This isn't working." I said, frowning at the pot of fail sitting in front of me.

D looked over my shoulder and then looked at me.

"Tell me you put the water and noodles in at the same time." he said, half grinning half judging.

"Yeah, why?"

D shook his head and tried not to laugh. "Sweetie, you need to wait for the water to boil first."

"It can't all just happen at once?"

Needless to say, a minute later I was pouring semi-unraw noodles into a bowl off to the side, and putting new water in the pan to boil. First. Cause that's how you do it.

This still didn't stop me from completely and utterly losing at the making-pasta-game two more times. Apparently, a boil and a rolling boil are two different things. And just because some of the pasta seems to be cooked all the way doesn't mean it all is. Especially on a crooked stove. You should really check all the noodles before you serve them. But, you know, they're also scalding hot when you pull them out of boiling water. But really, who needs full feeling on their tongue anyway?

Last, let us explore that roller coaster of a relationship between Alexis and children.

I know they say even if you don't love kids in general, you'll love your own. And I really hope that's true because up to this point, I don't care for younger people much. I just feel like I have nothing to say to them. Every time I have to talk to a kid, I feel like I'm on a terrible first date and have lost all communication skills. I'm essentially the opposite of my brother who within 2 minutes can have kids looking up at him with glazed eyes of awe and worship.

When it comes to babies, they're cute and soft and look adorable in tiny little sneakers. But they also cry. Loudly. And they have stuff shooting out of every hole all the time. When my nephew Josh was a baby, my sister was over and we were in my backyard. I was holding Josh in front of me, so his back was to my stomach. He then proceeded to vomit all over my arms and hands. Granted, it was just milk and formula but at the time that was besides the point. I remember closing my eyes and yelling "Oh my god, oh my god!", all the while reminding myself that this was an actual human I was holding, and it wouldn't be politically correct to just drop him and run.

My mom took Josh and walked away while my sister came up to me, laughing and holding out the bottom of her shirt.

"Here," she said, "wipe your hands on here."

I then vaguely remember dramatically spraying down half my body with a hose.

There was also the time I babysat my other nephew TJ when he was a baby. The older boys were downstairs watching TV and playing video games, so it was just me and Teej. I assumed that since he was only 8 or so months old at the time, he would be perfectly content to just sit. No. He crawled around faster than seemed humanly possible. I was only there for the afternoon but I was exhausted after about 20 minutes.

There's also the whole fact that babies and toddlers seem to burst into tears the second I try to talk to them or hold them. I think they can sense the fear.

So that's that. Hope any future husband and baby daddy is prepared.

"Without Music, Life Would Be A Mistake" -Nietzsche

2011-10-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

SARA BAREILLES

BASKET CASE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmS6gJ8hGp0

The first time I heard this song, I was in a serious relationship and very much in love. I also knew that very relationship was falling apart at the seams and no matter how much I was killing myself trying to save it, it was slipping through my fingers even though they were clutched as tightly as humanly possible.

I'm a big fan of buying CDs as opposed to just downloading music, so as I was on my way back from Best Buy, I slipped the disc into my car and pressed play. When this particular song started, it grabbed me immediately and as Sara Bareilles began to sing, I found myself instantly tuned into the lyrics. And the very first thing that came to my mind was, "God I hope this song never applies to me."

I was surprised at how insistent this feeling was, and listening to the song became almost painfully addictive. I loved the song so much but every time I heard it, I had this looming feeling of things to come.

Two months later, the relationship was over and I haven't been able to listen to the song since. Which sucks. It's a great song.

I know music affects people in different ways, but if you're anything like me, almost every significant event in your life has a soundtrack. I mean, I could write an entire list of songs that you could listen to if you're happy, broken-hearted, hopeful, devastated, terrified. But who am I to tell you how certain songs should make you feel?

The point I'm trying to get to is that I really do think it's amazing that musicians in any capacity (vocalist, guitarist, lyricist, etc) are able to evoke legitimate, powerful, sometimes life-altering emotions in people. When I was 15, I was battling some pretty bad depression because of reasons that don't really matter at this point. But there was one song, John Mayer's 3x5, that literally saved my life. I don't know what it was, but something about how he sang and what he sang and how the instruments blended in with it all struck me. And that's when I realized the power of music.

I've made friendships over a mutual love for a certain artist. At weddings, couples have their first dance to a 3 minute jumble of beats and melodies that encompass their entire relationship. Songs have made people cry, made them angry, made them unable to stop smiling. And, if we're riding the honesty train, that's pretty fuckin incredible.

I think that's part of what is so appealing to me about this whole music thing I'm doing. It means there's a possibility that I can touch someone's gut the way that other songs have touched mine.

I dunno, just something to think about.

My Most Pointless, Self-Indulgent Blog Yet

2011-10-08T08:23:00.000-07:00

The other day at work, a few of us were talking about what kind of guys we like. Two of the older women half-jokingly said they would find a group of guys to screen so they could find the best one to set my friend and me up with. I also half-jokingly said I would make a list of my ideal man and bring it in the next day for them to use as a template. But then I got to thinking, hey, what's the harm in making a disgustingly detailed list and throwing it out into the blogosphere for someone to stumble upon? Maybe one of you fantastically faithful readers knows someone that fits my fancy.

So, without further ado, here it is; Alexis' idea of a perfect man:

Let's start with physical features because, let's face it, that's what you notice first and what usually supplies the initial attraction:

* I like my men tall. 6' and up. I myself am 5'7", so I want to have to stand on my tippy toes to kiss him, or be able to bury my head in his chest if he's hugging me while I cry for absolutely no reason. Also, on the rare occasion that I wear heels, that boosts me up to 5'10"-5'11", so I need my man to still be taller than me. Because yes, I have thought about my wedding, and no, I don't want to have to bend down to kiss my groom.

* As for age, I like them old. Not geriatric, but at least 30. I'm not and never have been into the whole 'Let's go out and party every night and then go home and play video games' mindset. I suppose I could go as low as 27 if the guy was really spectacular.

* While we're on the topic of video games, if you own an Xbox, you absolutely, positively, will never get in MY box.

* Ok, let's see... body shape. I like lean guys, the kind that have just the right amount of natural muscles. I don't care if you have a six-pack because you go to the gym 6 days a week. I'm not interested in your protein powder or how much you can bench. I would actually take a guy with some meat on his bones over a jacked up body builder any day.

* I love glasses. They're sexy as hell. And if you do have glasses, I will steal them and walk around the house in them because I've always wanted a pair of my own.

* Eye color doesn't matter too much, but if I had to choose, I would prefer blue or green.

* I don't trust blonde guys. There's just something about them. The very few times that I have gone against my instincts and dated one, they have just proven my point that they kinda suck. I like super dark hair, either practically black or dark brown. Or light brown. I guess anything but blonde. I also, for whatever reason, think it's weird to see two blondes dating each other. It's kinda like when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie got together (I know they're not blonde, but just go with me), everyone was like, "Holy shit, they're kids will be gorgeous." Have you seen their kids? I'm not impressed.

...ok, that example worked a lot better in my head than it came across here...

* Facial hair facial hair facial hair. If you're a dude, never ask my opinion on whether or not you should shave your beard. The answer is no. Never, ever shave your beard. Ever.

*I've got a thing for left-handed fellas.

* I know this is going to make me sound like a teenager, but I think tattoos are hot. No face tattoos though. And I'm not a fan of leg tattoos. But if you're covered from your neck to your waist, call me.

* Earrings are fine as long as you have at least two. Not a fan of the single earring.

* No me gusta jacked up teeth.

Ok, now that the shallow part is out of the way, I'm just gonna throw a bunch of random things out there:

* I would prefer you went to college. It doesn't make you a bad person if you didn't, it's just that if two very similar guys were standing in front of me and one went to college and the other didn't, I would pick the one with the degree.

* Please have a job and subsequently know how to handle your money. Not because I want you to spend any of it on me, that's not my style. I make my own money, I'm good. But because I'll be damned if I have to spend another weekend in the dark because someone chose to spend their money on beer instead of bills.

* Parents love me. So it'd be cool if you have a good relationship with them so I can then swoop in and charm their pants off.

* When you find out I was an English major, do not ever ask me if I want to be a teacher and who my favorite author is. The answer is, I would sooner die and I don't have one.

* I'm sarcastic and have a filthy mind and I think burps and farts are hilarious. So if you can't take a joke, don't want to hear "That's what she said" after everything, and want a girl who drinks martinis instead of beer and eats salads with low-fat dressing instead of massive amounts of chocolate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I'm not your gal. I also don't exercise so don't waste your time asking me to go to the gym with you. I've got important tv to watch instead.

* If you don't love my dog, I don't love you.

* Super nice, polite guys make me nervous. Find a happy medium and we'll be good. If I look pretty, tell me. If I'm being a giant twat, tell me.

* You have to be willing to hang out with my friends just as much as I hang out with your friends.

* I'm 100% done with being the one that drives to the guy. You can come pick me up.

* I hope you don't still live with your parents. Especially since I like guys in their 30's.

* I'm not at all religious and I don't know if I could date someone who was.

* Wouldn't it be swell if we could carry on a conversation? Like, every time we talked, not just the first few dates?

* I snort when I laugh and I sometimes break into song and dance for no reason. Hope that's ok.

* Please, please, please use proper English. Seriously. Please.

*Don't think that just because I write about sex means I'm down for the rodeo. I'm actually super modest and traditional when it comes to all that stuff. So yeah, sorry to disappoint.

So, of course I'll never find someone that fits that whole list. The whole idea of a list is pretty silly, actually. I'm feeling kind of shallow right about now... But the whole point was to write down all of my unrealistic expectations and then hope that I can find someone who possesses at least a few of them. Because if you're awesome, I'm not going to run the other way just because you have brown eyes or didn't go to school. The only thing that's a deal breaker is the Xbox. Homegirl wasn't fucking around about that.

Moist. That's Right, I Said It.

2011-09-25T16:26:00.000-07:00

"You know what word I hate? 'Moist'. And 'Panties'! And if you put them together? Moist panties? Oh my god! I could throw up!"

I DESPISE listening to this conversation. And I hear it ALL THE TIME. Look, people are entitled to have a slight adverse reaction to a word, but is the term "moist panties" really going to ruin your life that much? If you don't like the word moist, use damp. If you can't stand panties, then put on underwear every morning. They're just words that happen to make different sounds. There are much worse things in life to worry about, like "murder" or "bankruptcy", or "a sudden trip to planned parenthood".

Despite my sour feelings towards the whole idea of hating aspects of the English language (which if you think about it, is an amazing thing and should be greatly appreciated. We have been provided with letters which make up words which allow us to have actual conversations. We have the ability to say things like "I love you", "Thank you", and "If you don't leave right now I'm going to slash your tires", instead of simply making sounds like "Uuuuhhh", "Errrrr", and "Nrrrmph"), there is one word that turns my stomach a little bit:

Naughty.

This word makes me cringe in any situation, but obviously it disturbs me the most in an intimate setting. The following phrases should never, ever, EVER be said out loud to another person:

- "Mmm, aren't you a naughty boy/girl..."

- "You're naughty, huh? You like that?"

- "Wha-"

...wait. I can't even finish the examples. It grosses me out too much. Does anyone have any moist panties they can throw my way to ease my stomach?

Here's the thing that gets me. The word naughty was originally reserved for children who were misbehaving. Therefore, it's strange to talk to the naked chick next to you the same way you talk to your 2 year old kid. But now, the word has almost developed a bigger association with sex, which makes it even more awkward to hear a mother calling her kid in a stroller a naughty boy. I just- I just don't get it.

I know that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and me hating the word naughty is really no different than someone hating the word panties, but it's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go close my window. The humidity outside is making the room feel a little moist.

Remember That Time The Most Self-Deprecating Human Being Alive Crushed My Last Remaining Shred Of Confidence?

2011-09-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

The other night I had a dream that Louis C.K. told me I was bad in bed.

For those of you who don't know who this particular comedian is, please Google him before you read any further so you can grasp the exact severity of this situation.

Fortunately, I know where the basis of this dream came from. Actually, the whole thing is kinda my fault. Before going to sleep, I had been catching up on the latest couple episodes of Louie. While doing so, I had the same thought that crossed my mind every time I watched his show: "You know what? I would totally sleep with him."

Now before you judge me, let's get a few things straight. First, my sporadically occurring crush on Louie C.K. is not so much based on looks as it is on our mutual outlook on life, which is roughly somewhere along the lines of, "I'm sorry, what?!"

The second factor of my attraction has to do with the fact that anyone who knows me knows that if a guy was born in the 70's and has a face overgrown with facial hair, I automatically dig him. In fact, I nearly gave a friend of mine a heart attack when I told him that I had been hanging out with a guy who was under the age of 30.

But all of this still doesn't give Louie the right to gallop into my dream and tell me I'm bad in bed. Let me just lay the whole scene out for you:

I was sitting on a chair in, no bullshit, a dark room with the exception of a single hanging light bulb, and to my left was this guy that I had apparently just slept with. I recognized the kid as someone I knew, but I couldn't for the life of me tell you who it was. He's sitting there and, I assumed, talking to me, but as he said "Yeah, you're not that great.", I noticed he was looking somewhere past me. So I turn to my right and there he is, in all his red-headed glory and that damn brown suede jacket that he wears in every episode of his show, sitting on a chair to my right, nodding in agreement.

"Yeah, she's pretty bad, huh?" Louie the Traitor said while nodding emphatically.

"What??" I interjected, shocked at the blasphemy that was being force fed to me via my own subconscious.

Louie then turned to me and spoke, half towards me, half towards the other kid that had apparently just had the awful, terrible misfortune of adding me to their list.

"Yeah," he said, "I've been meaning to tell you actually. Like, I knew you were going to be bad before anything even happened, I just didn't know how bad."

As I sat there, glancing back and forth between the two men with a look of total shock and 'what the fuck' on my face, I woke up. And I then had to go through an entire day with Louie C.K.'s matter-of-fact face pounding in my head all day.

So here's my question that arose after this whole debacle: How do we honestly know if we're good or bad in bed if no one tells us?

I mean, I've been in some situations where I would have loved to just stand up and scream, "What is wrong with you?? Please don't ever put another human being through what you just made me endure! For the love of god, what you see in porn is not what girls want in real life!!!"

But of course, it's simple sex-etiquette (sexiquette?) to keep your mouth shut and try and rectify the situation by taking control and making sure your moves overpower the culprit's moves. On the other hand, I wonder just how satisfying or soul-crushing it would be if after two people slept with each other, they sat there and gave a verbal report card. I mean, you know you're lying if you don't lay there sometimes and wish you knew what other people thought of your talents (or lack thereof). Are you exciting? Boring? Sensual? A dead fish? Is it better if we never know and just wait until we find our soulmate who has been waiting their whole life for a partner to act like a deceased underwater sea creature in bed?

Perhaps this is just one of those situations where no news is good news. Or not. Actually, probably not. Let's all just assume that if they come back for seconds, you're in good shape.

And just to save any hope for me getting a date in the future, Louie C.K. doesn't know what he's talking about.

Taking Control

2011-08-22T08:55:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to forget the way things smelled.

The way we would walk into the house with the dogs running ahead of us, straight up the stairs to fight over toys as you and I were hit with a wall of sauerkraut and kielbasa, wafting from the crock pot that was always waiting for us. The way the shampoo smelled in the outdoor shower, mixed with saltwater and the aroma of the garden. The way my room smelled of suntan lotion and laundry detergent rising off of the bed sheets. The smell of the car mixed with ocean and sand and wet dog.

I hate that these memories are becoming less tangible to my senses.

The other day, I found something I had written, about you. I remember sitting in the glow of a single lamp, feeling numb with happiness. I wrote:

He has this poster hanging on the wall of his dining room in a glass frame that reflects the light coming from the kitchen. I like to sit in the far corner of his couch and watch his tall, thin silhouette moving from the fridge to the sink. There's something comforting about it.

I find it interesting the different ways that people thumb their cigarettes. He taps his so that just the right amount of small red sparks float delicately to the bottom of the ashtray. I flick. I flick and ashes go flying everywhere, no matter how hard I try to hit the tray. I flick and black specks hit his perfect white sheets while we're lying in his bed.

"Shit, I'm sorry." I say as I anxiously try to clean around me without rubbing black into the fibers of the bedding.

"It's ok, I have to wash these anyway." he says, even though I know he has just cleaned them the day before.

My favorite thing is when we're next to each other in his bed, a pillow each propped messily behind our backs, in the dark. You can't see anything until one of us takes a drag and a small tip of fire illuminates the room and, if we're lucky, a split second of our eyes.

That was one of the last times I remember feeling truly happy about us. Those first 6 months when I couldn't even believe that you had chosen me.

Jil says never to let anyone compromise the way I deal with things. While I know people understand why these past nine months have been hard for me, I don't expect anyone to fully grasp the reasoning behind the fact that it's still as agonizing today as it was on that night in November. If not more so. So I'm just going to keep feeling what I'm feeling and let this run its course, even if it takes nine more months or nine more years.

I've dated people since our ending, but their best and worst flaw are always one in the same: They're not you.

I will never be happy for you, because what you did resulted in everything I have lost. But I will be happy for me. Happy that I left that horrifying situation in order to take the time to find something real.

"What'd You Do Last Night?" "Uhhh, I, Um, Crocheted. All Night."

2011-08-19T06:55:00.001-07:00

"I have an idea for a bar. It will be brightly lit and it will be called 'Doggy Bag', so everyone knows what they're going home with."

This is the little burst of genius that spilled out of my friend's mouth the other night. Like most things in life, it took me a second to catch on, but once I did I was totally on board. I mean, think about it: the rate of beer-goggle-induced one night stands would plummet dramatically. There would be a shockingly wonderful drop in the feeling of "Oh my god, I hate myself right now" after you wake up in the morning and roll over and see the monster you're lying next to. We would no longer have to lie about what we did last night.

Here's my question though- are beer goggles a legitimate free pass, or are they just the last shred of an excuse that we're desperately clinging to, in hopes that this can be the time that doesn't count?

If you think about it, the whole idea of being ashamed after sleeping with someone that isn't exactly attractive by social standards kind of makes us all dicks. I mean, who are we to think that we're that fuckin hot and spectacular that we're actually too good for someone that might have a little extra chub on them, or jacked up teeth, or wasn't exactly popular in high school? Here's a little secret: Everyone who was considered a "loser" in high school is now approximately 10 times hotter and more accomplished than the "cool" kids. It's called karma and it's the greatest thing in the whole wide world.

I guess this is another one of those entries that I'm torn about. On one hand, I don't want to judge someone just by their looks, but on the other hand, that's unfortunately the nature of the beast. We all want to end up in bed with a person we're attracted to. If it's just a one night thing, who cares if they're a total asshole. Although 9 times out of 10, the more attractive a guy is, the worse he is in bed because he's never had to work for it. The same goes for the size of their pogo stick. The smaller they are, the more they aim to please. Ask any girl who has experienced all sizes of the scale, I guarantee you she'll agree.

Well I've gotten so off track that I don't even know how to get back to the original concept of this entry. So let's just sum this all up: If you get wasted, you might end up going home with someone that you wouldn't have if you were totally sober. But next time this happens, when you wake up and roll over to the big, hairy man snoring in your ear and drooling on your pillow, replace your initial thought of, "Wha- oh. Ohhhh no....no no no. Shit shit shit" with, "Hmm. Maybe he rescues puppies in his spare time. That's sweet".

Cause what's cuter than a puppy?

Why Are You Freaking Out? All I Did Was Call You Pretty.

2011-08-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

Don't call me cute. Don't call me cute, don't call me pretty, don't call me hot.

Cute is what you call a baby, a puppy. Basically anything that is under 15 pounds and can't wipe its own ass. Hot is what high school girls with self-proclaimed social superiority and closeted self-esteem problems strive to be called every time they squeeze their underaged beer gut into an eighty dollar tube top bought with daddy's credit card. And pretty can best be described in the following conversation:

Girl: "Hi! My friend Suzy thinks you're so hot! What do you think about her???"

Boy: "Uhhh...yeah. She's, um, pretty I guess."

Translation: Suzy's a fuckin wildebeest.

So what should you call a gal? Call us beautiful, call us gorgeous, call us breath-taking, stunning, perfect. And when the mood is right, call us sexy.

But fellas, please mean it when you say it. That's the difference between calling a girl "cute" and calling her "beautiful". Calling us cute means you don't really mean it. It's just something you're throwing out there the same way people tack "lol" onto the end of every text. It's basically an insult as this point. Now, if you call us beautiful, chances are you mean it. Cause even guys are smart enough to know that calling a girl beautiful is going to reel her in for the real deal. When we're called gorgeous or stunning or any of the other words I mentioned as desirable adjective for a lady, we're assuming you see us as something more than just the average girl on the street. And we like that. A lot.

I guess there's not a whole lot more to say on the subject...oh, except that we girls can also tell when you're calling us beautiful just cause you think it's what we want to hear and you can get in our pants that way. In fact, just assume we know everything :)

"I Feel Like Making Love.." "Oh. Ew. I Have To Go."

2011-07-26T16:01:00.000-07:00

Much like my last entry where I attempted to decode the 3 different types of relationships, this week I'll once again pretend to know what I'm talking about and discuss the 3 different kinds of getting it on. Cause everyone loves a good analytical look into P's in V's.

Ok, so we have- from softest to roughest (is roughest a word? most rough?)- making love, having sex, and fucking. In other words, your appetizer, dinner, and dessert.

Making love is a term that a lot of people feel uncomfortable with. I mean, you really have to be in l-o-v-e with someone to be able to look into their eyes and whisper, "Darling, let's make love tonight". Try doing that without laughing. Seriously, I dare you. Making love is the thing you see in movies where the music comes on in the background (depending on the decade you were born, you have your pick of Barry White, Maxwell, or Robin Thicke) and everything is slow motion and kisses and quick little gasps of breaths when the dude slides in for the first time like it's the most euphoric fuckin feeling the chick has ever felt in her life. Just wait till the end sweetheart, it gets better.

There's a thin line between making love and just having slow, gentle sex. The key word? Love. You really can't "make love" unless you're in love (yikes, I've never typed the word love so much in my life. This is depressing). All of us have had sweet sex with someone, but it doesn't mean that we're expecting a diamond ring afterwards. It's usually just happens when A) the girl is tired of getting rammed against a wall, B) someone has a cramp, or C) the guy is trying to hold in his man juices cause if he gets off one more time without letting the girl get off she's going to punch him in the fuckin nuts.

On that note, there's sex, the most generic type of, well, sex. There's really not a whole lot to be said about it. It's the middle of the road, can do it with anybody regardless of relationship status, putting together of the two puzzle pieces. It feels good, no one gets extraordinarily sore afterwards, and you don't run the risk of feeling either too emotionally mushy or like you have just been used like a human chunk of meat (Mmm, tasty).

Now the grand finale, the don't-try-this-at-home-kids, the 'send in the lube and the handcuffs'. Fucking. One of my favorite words when used as an adjective.

Fucking is something you can do with a one night stand or a long term partner every once in awhile when your Robin Thicke CD starts skipping. It's rough and dirty and sweaty and fast and you feel like you've run a marathon afterwards. Unlike making love which is usually confined to a bed, or having sex which can be on a bed, sofa, shower- all the usual places- fucking can be anywhere. A wall, a floor, a counter, a bed, inside, outside, upside down, right side up, diagonally, top, bottom, side to side, dry, wet, rain, sun, snow, leaves, etc etc etc. It's what you do when you're drunk and it's what you do after you've just had a huge fight and you cannot stand the other person. It's what you see in porns and on Sex & the City whenever Samantha has a scene. It's also a bit of an acquired taste. For the most part, you either like it or you don't.

So that's my take on things. I know my personal favorite of the 3 choices, but a good sex columnist doesn't screw and tell :)

...Was anyone convinced by that? No? Didn't think so.

Sound It Out Now- D-Da-Daaaaaaate.

2011-07-19T11:20:00.000-07:00

Remember dating? Yeah, me neither.

Now, as a girl who doesn't really like going to restaurants and can't sit still for the life of me in a movie theater, I'm not crushed that the whole "dinner and a movie" thing isn't standard protocol anymore. However, I do miss the whole concept of being taken out somewhere by someone you just met, resulting in a few hours of nervous conversation and flirtatious looks and shaky, clammy hand holding. It's nice to realize you like someone and not kiss and rub all up on each other right away. It's nice to feel that the object of your affection is actually working towards impressing you and proving that they're a nice guy/girl. I don't want to say this proves that a person is respectful, because I know plenty of great guys who turned into great boyfriends even though they didn't do the whole date thing right away. Maybe what I miss most about literally going out to a physical date-like location with someone is the fact that it helps put a label of sorts on "what you are".

I've had this talk with a friend of mine numerous times; the difference between hooking up, dating/seeing someone, and being boyfriend/girlfriend or boyfriend/boyfriend or girlfriend/girlfriend (I guess the easiest way to categorize that last one would just be to say "relationship". Ooooh, scary word).

Here's my personal description of each different phase of, let's say, togetherness:

Hooking up is pretty self explanatory. You meet someone and there's an attraction there so you guys make out and touch each others' naughty bits and have sex and all that kind of stuff. Sometimes that's the only thing you do when you see each other, and sometimes you can actually build a friendship too where the two of you hang out and have sleepovers and meet each others' friends and all that stuff. However, since the actual act of going on dates has disappeared into the dark abyss that I can only assume Pluto went on permanent vacation to when they kicked it out of the solar system, when you're just hooking up with someone it is hard to tell if it can actually result in an eventual relationship or not. Because what if the other person just wants to hook up and nothing else? When one of their friends asks you if you and his buddy are dating and you say "No, we're just hooking up", does that mean there is no chance of you two ever changing the dreaded relationship status on Facebook? (Which is a curse, by the way. The second you change it to "In A Relationship With.." and have your friends start friending your significant other, you might as well kiss the whole thing goodbye). Also, if you're just hooking up with someone, it most likely is no strings attached so you both can be hooking up with other people at the same time. Usually this isn't a big deal but we all know that girls are crazy and and hypocritical so even though we may be kissing someone on the side, if we find out you are too, well...we're gonna cry. Cause we're nuts.

I guess dating/seeing each other is kinda just a hop, skip, and a jump away from hooking up. Once you're dating it doesn't mean you're in an exclusive relationship. But it sure as hell means that the chance for one is that much stronger. Just like hooking up, you can date multiple people at one time, unless you make it an exclusive dating type deal. In that case, you're both just basically scared of putting the boyfriend/girlfriend title on it which is understandable. That shit is stressful. But if you're dating and someone's birthday rolls around or Christmas pops up on you like an obnoxiously cheery yuletide bandit, you better get each other a gift. Even if it's just taking the other person out for drinks and sliding a card across the table, it has to be recognized somehow.

This brings us to the big guns, the playoffs, the how-the-hell-did-I-get-myself-roped-into-this-one. The Relationship. Bah Bah Baaaaaaah. (I hope those bah's sounded to you guys the same way they did in my head. You know, less-sheeplike and more dooming). Sure, being in a relationship is great and realizing that the person you love is also your best friend is great and being able to walk around saying "I'm just so glad I'm out of the dating scene and found me a real man" is great as long as you're not saying it to a single gal cause we WILL hit you in the back of the knees with a 2x4. But it's also scary. You're in a committed relationship. You're locked in. You're either going to get married or suffer months of depression and self-deprecation after you guys break up because one of you fucked up. And as a girl, it's tough because we often feel that you're just being our boyfriend because we want you to be. It's that whole stereotype of guys being commitment-phobes and never really wanting to be serious. Or there are the guys that are so sickly sweet and in loooooove with you that you just want to punch them in the face and tell them to grow some balls and take their pants off cause momma's feeling frisky.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is this: In getting back to my initial point of "the date" being roadkill, I think that it should pry itself off the asphalt and make a comeback. Dates make people feel special. They're also fun, let's not forget that. And if they're not fun, they make great stories to tell your friends when you're all sitting around drunk and eternally single. Plus, dates force you to actually talk to each other which is the only way you're going to be able to tell if you're better off just as friends or if you should go back to being complete strangers. But speaking from a technical view, dates also help you realize if you're just a booty call, or a potential for something more. You know, like a future baby momma. Cause I don't know about you guys, but I have Maury on speed dial. It's a little something I like to call planning for the future.

And Which Head Will You Be Thinking With Today, Sir?

2011-07-06T17:12:00.000-07:00

I recently read something that shook me to my very core, something that made every hair on my body stand up in protest; something that made me want to believe in god just so I could then question those very beliefs. I read something that created a terrible trifecta of a mental hurricane, an emotional tsunami, and a physical earthquake within my poor little body. Something that made me, as a sex writer, want to stand atop a soap box and yell "WHAT HAS THIS ALL BEEN FOR?!"

It started innocently enough. One morning I came downstairs and saw one of my mom's magazines on the couch. You know, the kind where women write article after article in hopes that they can join forces to convince themselves that turning 50 is the best thing to ever happen to them. One of my favorite actresses was on the front so I poured my coffee and settled in for the stereotypical cover story where the author starts off by saying how normal the celebrity is, showing up for the interview in just yoga pants and a sweater. Yeah lady, ask your "normal celebrity" how much those yoga pants of hers cost and then try and make me relate to her.

Anyway, I was flipping through the pages when I caught a headline about sex, so of course I stopped. You know, research purposes and such. So I'm reading through this article about how to get yourself in the mood and blah blah blah, and then all of a sudden, I had to stop. There it was, this blasphemous paragraph, leaping out from the page, flushing everything anyone has ever thought about sex down the drain. According to this article (and this particular paragraph was not strictly about sex in your 50's, it was presented as a general fact), there is a much bigger disconnect between mind and body in women than there is in men. In other words, women can get physically aroused without any mental or emotional stimulation, while men apparently need us to HOLD THEIR FRICKEN HAND FOR THEM TO GET A HARD ON. What kind of hysterical post-menopausal bullshit artist wrote this??? Has a hot flash completely wiped all common sense from her supposedly wise and experienced brain? IS EVERYTHING I EVER THOUGHT WRONG???

I set down my coffee and frantically began skimming the rest of the article for some further explanation, some rebuttal or footnote that stated "Haha, just kidding." There was none to be found. Afraid that I would have a complete nervous breakdown if I invested any more time in this debacle, I threw the magazine down and began racking my mental rolodex of sex facts, myths, and assumptions. While everything can be left up to circumstance, I pretty sure everyone- EVER- can agree that 99.99999% of the time, women need to feel some sort of emotional connection with someone in order to have really great, mind-blowing sex or other sexual activity, resulting in an equally eye-popping orgasm. Meanwhile, men are the first to admit that mushy feelings make their sail go down and all a girl really needs to be eligible for sex is a vagina and the ability to never, ever give a rake job.

I'm not crazy for thinking this article is bullhonky, right? I've talked about it with a few people since reading it, and they all seem to agree with me. I mean, this is like saying that the graham cracker is the best part of a s'more, or that the second Becky on Roseanne was far superior to the original. Lies and fabrications!

All I know is this: the day that I turn 50- in 25 years, 1 month, and 8 days- I am submitting my own article to this very magazine. An article about how since the moment I kissed my very first boy, my brain, heart, and cooch have been linking arms and crossing that finish line together.

Do You Kiss Your Mama With That Mouth??

2011-06-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I know that when it comes to sex, everything has to do with preference. What one person loves is what another person despises. I also realize that you can like something occasionally, but not all the time. Example?

Dirty Talk.

Now, I understand that if you're having low-down, rough, sweaty sex with someone, dirty talk makes total sense. Call us a stupid bitch, a filthy slut, a nasty whore. Ask us what we want yet do what you like anyway. Tell us you're going to [insert preferred demeaning word for sex here] us until we [again, fill in your favorite ejaculation slang]. Pull our hair, smack our ass, blah blah blah. You know how Halloween is the one night a year that a girl can walk around dressed like a prostitute/doctor hybrid and it's totally ok? Well that certain kind of slam-me-against-a-wall-and-rip-off-my-clothes sex is the Halloween of dirty talk.

9 times out of 10 (and again, I'm just going off the majority of girls I know), if we're just having regular old sex, talking dirty to us is uncomfortable. We tend to just smile and nod, let out a little "yeah", "uh-huh", or "uhhh, sure". Secretly, we're trying not to laugh. Seriously, what are we supposed to do when out of nowhere we hear, "Yeah, you like that baby? You like that? Right there? Do you? Huh? Do you?!" What are we supposed to say? "Actually, I suppose I can tolerate what you're doing for the time being, but if we're being honest, I would prefer it if you would kindly move slightly to the left and shut the hell up."

Let me allow all you men in on a little secret. When girls have sex, they have to concentrate in order to get off. We don't have the luxury of having a magical skin wand that feels amazing as soon as it simply touches a lady bit. There's a lot going on down there for us and if you want us to actually have an orgasm and not fake it then maybe you should pay attention and realize that right before we're about to have fireworks go off in our heads, we get very, very quiet. That's us trying not to lose it ("It" being the orgasm). So please don't ruin perfectly good sex by asking us if it "feels so good" and if we like your P in our V. We're busy imagining our favorite celebrity girl crush so we can reach our happy place.

Now, I feel like I end up giving the same disclaimer in all my blog entries about how this is just my opinion and it's not always the case and even I disagree with myself sometimes. In this case, this still applies. All I'm saying is, for the most part, talking dirty to a girl is not the everyday, run-of-the-mill way to get her off. However- and this is where me disagreeing with myself kicks in- it can be pretty fuckin hot and actually help in the process. So I guess I just kinda bashed my whole theory... Crap, now I've gone and lost my literary boner. Bummer.

Give Me An S! Give Me An L! Give Me A U! Give Me A T! What Does That Spell???

2011-06-09T16:53:00.000-07:00

Here's a question for you: Just how many people does a girl have to sleep with for her to be considered a slut? And is it the number, or is it the way she carries herself?

Let's say a girl has only slept with 2 dudes in her life, but she has blown the entire tri-state area. I would consider her more of a trampy tramp than some chick who has slept with 10 people over the course of many years, but all of those 10 people have been steady boyfriends and the aforementioned girl doesn't just hand out bj's like it's National Suck Off A Stranger Day.

I'm not going to go into the whole double standard issue where feminists that don't shave their armpits and probably never get laid anyway bitch about how when guys have a lot of sex they're praised and when girls do it they're looked down on. Frankly, I don't give a shit. In my opinion, people can do whatever they want as long as they're not spreading around STD's and making more whiny, sticky, little kids.

I was once dating a guy for awhile, and we made a point to never tell each other our "numbers". Then, one night, over a year into our relationship, we revealed our numbers for some stupid, terrible, awful reason. Once he found out that I was more, let's say, "worldly" than him, he didn't look at me the same and our sex life changed. We broke up shortly thereafter. Now, I've been with guys who have known their exact number, and guys who have tried counting and then given up and said "I don't know. A lot." Neither of these situations bother me. Because here's the thing. I think that once you reach the age my friends and I are at now, sex becomes pretty straightforward. We'll let you know if we're exclusively sleeping with you or if we're just using you for sex, just like you're using us. Either way, it doesn't fucking matter what your number is. I straight out ask guys if they have anything they could give me and my nether regions, and (this is assuming they're not lying cause that would just be messed up and terrible) the way I feel about the whole thing is that as long as we're all cleared in that area, I don't care how many other people you've slept with, cause guess what? I'm not exactly a nun.

Here's my bottom line. Guys and girls can sleep with as many people they want. It doesn't make you a bad person if you have slept with a hundred people, and it doesn't make you an angel if you've only slept with one. It's how you carry yourself and, as much as I hate to sound like a health class, it's about being smart and not being shocked if you get knocked up after letting some guy shoot his load in you the week before your period when you're not on the pill.

Sex feels good and chicks like it just as much as the fellas. Actually, you know what? I shouldn't be trying to defend girls towards guys. I should be defending girls towards other girls. Ladies, if I want to get laid, I'm gonna get laid. So don't judge sweetheart, you know you're doing the same exact thing as soon as no one's looking :)

The Four Seasons Of Doing The Dirty

2011-06-01T13:01:00.000-07:00

Fucking In The Fall:

Weather-wise, this is probably the best season to get it on. It's not freezing yet, so you can keep the windows open and get an awesome breeze while you and your partner make your own body heat. Plus, there's something undeniably romantic about fall colors. As soon as those leaves start fading to brilliant reds and golds, you have to admit that all you want to do is throw on a sweater and cuddle up with someone under a blanket. There's no rain to make you miserable and no snow to make you angry, it's the perfect temperature outside to get close inside.

Wanking In The Winter:

Once you graduate high school and snow days are a thing of the past, there is absolutely nothing good about those inconvenient little white flakes intruding all over the place. They dump down on our cars and walkways and make traveling a nightmare. Therefore there is nothing else to do but stay in and try and keep you and your special buddy both busy and warm. So you put down your hot chocolate and turn down the fire. You grab your luva by the hand and lead them into the bedroom. You start kissing and fall into bed and start taking off each other's clothes. This is where things go downhill. The second your shirt comes off, you realize that it's 30 freakin degrees outside. Then your pants come off and, for girls, you get the unsexy experience of feeling every single one of your freshly shaved leg hairs poke back out through your skin, creating a type of jagged weapon against your guy's unsuspecting legs. You search for warmth under the blanket, but then the guy starts complaining because he can't breath when he's going down on you with a comforter over his head. Then whoever is on top is either freezing cause the blanket slipped off, or sweating their ass off because they're doing all the work and they need some air god dammit! So yeah, everything about the winter is a big old cock block.

Spanking In The Spring:

Spring is similar to Fall, in where it's between the two extreme seasons. After suffering through the long, cold winter, everyone is ecstatic that it is finally getting warm again and suddenly, everyone becomes attractive. So you and whoever is closest start to kiss and make the necessary steps towards putting some P in some V. Everything is going great until someone sneezes. Then the other person realizes that their eyes are watering. Then you both start wheezing and itching every inch of your body. Allergies have officially ruined your hard-on.

Sexing In The Summer:

It's hot. It's sticky. It's muggy and buggy. It's perfect. Well, this is just my personal opinion. I happen to be someone who enjoys summer sex, but for the sake of argument I will look at both the pros and the cons. One pro is that this is the season that people are wearing the least amount of clothes. Girls are wearing tiny little dresses and guys are sweating through their t-shirts. Everyone is in string bikinis and board shorts, soaking wet from the pool and ocean. Another pro is that if we're already sweaty, why not get more sweaty? Of course, this could be a con for some people. There are definitely times when you're in the middle of having sex and you realize it's just too damn hot and if your boyfriend even comes close to touching you, you swear to god you will ball tap him so hard his head will spin. But I still maintain that summer is the best season to have sex. It's just, well, sexy.

Oh, You're Married? Well Didn't YOU Just Get More Attractive!

2011-05-24T16:19:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday night I was down in the city having dinner with an old college friend (I like/hate that I'm old enough to say "old college friend") who married her long-term boyfriend back in October. She was telling me a story about how ever since their wedding, whenever they are out at a bar, girls won't stop hitting on her husband.

"Why is that, do you think?" She asked me.

I thought for a moment and then presented a question.

"Does he wear a wedding ring?"

My friend nodded and this led us into the hypocrisy of married men versus married women. Here is what we concluded:

Girls become more attracted to men who are obviously in a relationship. This is because what we ultimately want is a man who can commit. Therefore, if we see a guy with a wedding ring on or standing with a girl who is obviously his significant other, our hormones go wild and our biological clock starts spinning like mad. Here is someone who isn't out at a bar just to pick up chicks to go home and bang, it's someone who is out with his wife or girlfriend who he cares about and is (presumably) faithful to.

"But why don't guys approach me when they see me with my wedding ring on?" my friend then asked.

"Because," I said, "it shows that you're committed which, while this is what we want, is the exact opposite of what guys want."

Once again my friend nodded.

"Makes sense." she said.

So then we began dissecting the other side of the spectrum. If a guy sees a girl that he is attracted to, and as he approaches her he sees some sign of her obviously wanting a commitment, this will scare him off. The boner goes down and he turns to go search for some girl with her tits spilling out of her shirt and drunk eyes.

Think of it this way:

Girls- Do we not find celebrity men more attractive when we see them being affectionate and caring towards a woman?

And Guys- Do you not completely want to vomit when you see a female celebrity with a new baby in one arm and a breast pump in the other?

Boooobs Part 2: The Experiment

2011-05-17T16:29:00.000-07:00

A month or two ago, my friend and I were at Target, once again spending way too much money. At one point we were in the bra section because I had recently realized that all of my undergarments were about as unsexy as they come. So as I was picking out a nice little lacy number, my friend points out a rack (pun totally intended) of bras next to us.

"Dude, have you seen these before? They increase you two cup sizes." she said, sifting through the different color options.

"So, wait, I would be a C?" I asked, unable to grasp that concept.

"Yeah, what size are you? I'll find it."

I told her my bra size and we picked one out with a borderline trampy purple and black leopard pattern. The padding in each cup was roughly as thick as a couch cushion.

We went back into the dressing rooms and crammed into one stall because we obviously needed each other's opinions on everything we had to try on, and could not be bothered with the concept of opening the door and stepping out in front of the communal mirror. When it was time to strap on my bra-on-steroids, I already had the idea in my mind that it was going to be a complete disaster and there was no way I would end up walking out of the store with that thing in a plastic bag.

Neverless, to amuse my friend, I slipped the bra on and scooped my boobs into the cups (you girls know exactly what I'm talking about with the boob-scooping...at least all you girls with slightly smaller chests). As I turned around to face the mirror, I started laughing at what was sure to be a completely ridiculous sight. However, once I faced my reflection, my laughter died down.

"Huh." I mumbled, turning to the side. My friend looked up and gave me a once over.

"Whoa."

What we saw in the mirror was plain old Alexis with a huge freakin' rack. Like, my cup runneth over. It was a spectacular sight.

"You have to get that." my friend said, nodding in approval.

"Yeah, but I would never wear it," I argued, continuing to turn from side to side, simultaneously creeped out and strangely attracted to myself. "Unless.."

"Unless.."

"Unless I wore it out one night, just to, you know, see if people's reactions were any different."

"DO IT."

So I did. I bought the bra with the idea in my head that I would wear it out to a bar one night and then write a blog about it the next day. You see how I'm always thinking of you guys, my lovely followers?

Despite this plan of mine, the bra remained in the Target bag, underneath my desk, for a full month. It was as if I was afraid to let it out of the bag, like it would come to life and attack me like some terrible 80's horror movie. What exactly was it about this bra that terrified me, you may ask? It was the possibility of the following scenario happening:

I wear the bra and go to the bar. Some guy sees my giant headlights from the other side of the room and approaches me, eyes on my retail store produced goods the entire time. We start talking and he asks me and my girls out on another date. I show up in my regular bra, and have to explain to him that I was doing a little experiment and in reality, he and I have the same size chest. He then tells me I'm crazy and peaces out.

Basically I was afraid of pretending to be someone that I'm physically not.

So I decided to scale it down a notch. During a day of errands with the same friend who I had gone to Target with the day of the big purchase, I wore the bra underneath a simple tank top. I looked down and for the first time ever, the first thing I saw were boobs. When I got into my friend's car, she looked at me and went "Good lord!". I felt extremely uncomfortable but I was going to ride this thing out. After all, it was just a bra. There are a bajillion girls out there with a giant rack, what made me any different on that particular day?

So I held my head high as we walked through the mall, not so secretly catching a glimpse of myself in each store window that we passed. I also made sure to be alert towards any potential attention that I received from the people we walked by. You know, see if guys noticed me more with a bigger chest.

Well, I can honestly say that not one guy looked at me. Now, the girls I passed on the other hand, they were very open to glance down at my boobs and sneer. And people wonder why I'm not a giant fan of chicks.

All was not lost on my bra though, fear not. Later that night, I went over to my special gentleman friend's house and he certainly noticed my enhanced ladies. As we sat watching a movie I would occasionally feel his hand reach over and poke one. As I was leaving that night, he walked me to my car, gave me a kiss, and as he was walking back towards his house, he turned and yelled out "Wear it again next week!"

So, I guess the bra had some degree of success.

All I know is, by the end of the day when I finally got home and into my own bed, my back was killing me.

A Literary Slow Dance

2011-05-10T12:08:00.000-07:00

I know I said that I would write about dressing up like a ho-ho this week, but there's been a change of plans. Something about all of these recent break-ups of long-term celebrity marriages has got me thinking about the whole "happily ever after" concept, and the fact that I just watched one of the more dramatic episodes of Sex & the City (the one where Harry proposes to Charlotte and Carrie knocks the vase of carnations off her coffee table after Burger breaks up with her on a post-it) made me decide to write a somewhat serious entry.

Now, it's no secret that I would love nothing more than to be a redneck Carrie Bradshaw, basking in one of the Carolina's, writing my very own newspaper column on sex and relationships. I have also recently purchased a pair of shoes (from Target, of course), that I believe would make Carrie herself very proud. However, a big fear of mine is to find myself at 35 years old, with a long list of ex-relationships but no husband. And a bigger fear of mine is to settle into a comfortable, long-lasting marriage, only to realize after 25 years that I have committed to the wrong person.

I grew up surrounded by terrible marriages, so I have absolutely no clue what a healthy relationship is supposed to look like. I have an idea in my head of what I hope to someday achieve with a significant other, but in my own personal experiences of both my past relationships and the relationships around me, I just don't trust anyone anymore. Even if I meet someone who completely knocks my socks off, someone who is absolutely everything I ever wanted and more, how do I know that after a couple of years things won't completely fall apart? And do I have it in me to once again give myself completely to someone- mentally, emotionally, and physically- just for it to be thrown back in my face eventually?

I'm thinking no.

And this is a sad thought. It's really sad, actually. I know I'm still young and I have my whole life ahead of me and blah blah blah, but the fact of the matter is, I'm ready to find that person. And I think that a lot of my single friends would say they feel the same way. Especially with this sudden boom of college and high school friends getting married and having kids, it's really discouraging to show up at these celebrations either A) completely single, or B) fresh out of yet another relationship. I have come shockingly close to marriage twice in my life, and if this whole third-time's-a-charm thing isn't true, well, I'm screwed.

I was recently at the wedding of my old college roommate's, serving as a bridesmaid. Also in attendance was my first love and his new fiancee. Now, me and this former love, we broke up 4 years ago and while it was extremely, heart-breakingly traumatic for me at the time, I've obviously been over it for quite awhile now. In fact, it was great to see him and even more great to realize that I was genuinely happy for him and his fiancee (she's stuuuunning, he really hit the jackpot with this one). It wasn't until the very last song, when everyone was circled around the bride and groom as they danced, all of the guests linking arms and swaying in what was actually quite a beautiful moment, that I looked across the giant loop of people and saw that I was directly across from my ex, his fiancee nowhere to be seen. For a brief standstill in time, he and I locked eyes and the look we gave each other almost seemed to say, "This was supposed to be us."

Of course, it wasn't supposed to be us because if it was we would have already been married. A more honest depiction of reality was, "This COULD have been us." It's just strange to think about how there have been relationships in the past where you could have sworn with every fiber of your being that it would result in Forever.

In the span of time and experience between the end of my first love and the complete and utter destruction of my last love, I have built a thick, heavy, unbreakable walls of cynicism and distrust and just a general feeling of 'what's the point'. But then I would look at the few couples that I know that genuinely are happy, like all of my aunts and uncles or some of my friends' parents. I know that it's possible to have the happily ever after that every young girl dreams of, but there's still this impracticable desire of mine that I can someday find someone to be with that doesn't involve constant work and compromise and doubt. I would love to find someone who just fits. I know there's no such thing, but it's nice to think about.

One of my friends and I have been talking a lot recently about how all we want is a crush. Just to see someone and get those butterflies and the daydreams and good kind of what-ifs. It's extremely frustrating when you realize that you haven't felt that way in years and you are no closer to feeling it today.

Because the absolute worst feeling in existence is knowing that you have all the love in the world to give, and no one seems to want it.

So I guess we all just have to keep waiting. I don't want to believe the old adage of love comes when you least expect it, because I never want to give up on the idea of love. At any given moment, I want to be able to reach down into the most guarded and beautiful parts of my emotional insides and pull out my heart, hoping there is someone standing in front of me with their hands outreached, waiting to hold it forever.

Booo(.)(.)ooobs

2011-05-03T08:01:00.000-07:00

The greatest news I ever heard was when guys started saying that they preferred a great booty over a great rack. "Thank god," I thought to myself, as I looked down and saw straight to my bellybutton.

Now, as a girl who is almost 25 years old and barely a 34A cup, I reached puberty in a time when everything was about the boob. I thought that the way to be cool was to have your tits pushed up so far they reached your ears, and I had convinced myself that when I was old enough I would get a boob job (of course, this would all be after I got my giant Russian nose cut down to a normal human size). However, I was only 12 years old at the time and after realizing that I was the only 7th grader who wasn't wearing a bra yet, I decided it would be a great and TOTALLY INCONSPICUOUS idea if I showed up one day wearing a padded bra that made me roughly a C-cup. So I did. All through junior high and high school I wore padded bras that made me look ridiculous because the rest of my body was built like an 8 year old boy, with the exception of, like my nose, my giant Russian ass and lovely size 10 feet that I had been forced to rock since I was 9 years old. Basically, if I stood sideways, I looked like a Picasso that Pablo himself looked at and was like, "What the hell?", before throwing it out.

When I got my first boyfriend the summer after 11th grade, my mom looked at me and said, "Alexis, if you keep wearing those padded bras, boys are going to be in for quite the shock if they ever try to stick their hand up there."

It was the only piece of advice that my mother has ever given me that has actually had a positive impact on my life.

The next day I stashed my padded bra in the back of my drawer and nervously clasped on one with nothing more than a cup thick enough to hide any slight nipplage. That night, a boy felt my boobs for the first time and there were no screams of shock or looks of confusion.

Success.

Now, it still took me awhile to fall in love with my little girls. A lot of my closest friends have large, fabulous, amazing boobs, and I always felt completely un-sexy when I was around them. But over the years I have realized that for me personally, my fun bags are freakin amazing. Seriously, I love my boobs. I love that I can lay on my stomach or cross my arms without them getting in the way. When I go bathing suit shopping, there is always a ton of bikini tops in my size because the majority of girls with my chest size are still shopping at Gap Kids. Don't get me wrong, on certain days I wish I could get some awesome cleavage or if I'm feeling bloated I sure could use bigger boobs to make my waist and stomach look smaller in comparison. But this is the body I was given and I'm cool with that. (I never did end up getting the boob and nose job).

Ok, so we've got the T down, let's move onto the A. Like I said before, when I heard that asses were catching up and possibly even surpassing boobs on the popularity scale, I was ecstatic. This is going to sound really weird, but I inherited my father's backside. My mother and I have absolutely nothing in common when it comes to physical traits; I am 100% built like the paternal side of my family. This has both its advantages and disadvantages because, like I said before, we basically go straight down with the exception of our nose, butts, and feet.

It used to be annoying when I realized that on the rare occasion that I wore a dress or a skirt, I always had to wear flat shoes or very short heels because my ass was so big that it would push out the back of the dress so much that it was about 4 inches shorter than the front. It wasn't a good look. But then, one magical night in June, a week after I graduated high school, I was spending some time with a guy that would soon become my second-ever boyfriend. We were going bowling and as I walked up to the lane, fully intending on accepting what was sure to be a gutter ball, I heard him say, "You have a great ass."

And that was the beginning of realizing that if I wasn't blessed with junk in the front, I could sure as hell work my junk in the trunk.

When I first started writing this entry, my intention was to explain the pros and cons of dressing slutty while out trolling for boys. But, (Butt! Haha?) I somehow ended up going on a long tangent about my own personal body issues, so I apologize if this was one of my more boring posts. I promise next week I'll write about the whole dressing-like-a-tramp thing. In the meantime, I encourage everyone to go out and grab a boob or a handful of ass today, whether it's your own or someone else's :)

T9 Gets Dirty

2011-05-02T14:57:00.000-07:00

Back in college when I wrote my sex column, one of my articles was about Flirt Cheating. Flirt Cheating was a term that I put to the act of flirting with someone while you have a significant other. (Some friends actually had me add it to UrbanDictionary.com, so if you look it up you can get the whole definition). However, in this fancy little technological world that we live in, most of us end up hitting on each other via text.

Enter Sexting.

I'm sure you all know what sexting is, but part of my duty as a blogger is to explain any crazy terms I throw out there. So, sexting is when you suggestively text with someone, often telling them what acts you would do if/when you see each other.

So my question is, is sexting cheating?

My answer, which may completely sell me out not only as a girl but also as someone who has both cheated (back in my younger, incredibly stupid, self-conscious days) and been cheated on, is: Only if you get caught.

Let's lay out some situations featuring my two favorite fake characters from my old columnist days- Jack and Jill.

Situation #1: Jack and Jill have just started dating. It's been about a month and a half, so they're still in their honeymoon stage but are also nowhere near being in love yet and are still nervous around each other. If we're being honest, when you start a relationship with someone (unless you have known each other for years prior), the two of you are still essentially strangers to each other. So Jack is still picking up Jill for all of their dates and they're still asking questions about each other over dinner and while curled up on the couch watching a movie. This is an exciting time, but it's also a time where your head and heart aren't 100% in it. You might still think about your ex, or notice a good-looking guy or gal while you're out and about.

Jack has an ex-girlfriend named Mary. (And yes, she had a little lamb). They dated for 3 years and broke up about a year ago. This has given them enough time to get over any bad feelings towards each other and about 3 months ago they bumped into each other at Wawa and began talking again, just catching up as old friends. They continued to occasionally text each other and even met up for coffee a couple times just to shoot the shit. And sometimes, if they were out with their respective group of friends drinking, they would text each other a suggestive message because they knew every part of each other so well and it just came naturally. Now, Jack told Mary when he started dating Jill, and Mary herself was on the dating scene. In no way did Jack and Mary ever intend on rekindling their relationship, but still, sometimes late at night while lying in bed, Jack's phone would beep and there would be a text from Mary, laying out a hypothetically enticing scenario for him. Jack responds, and this steamy banter continues for a bit until Mary says she is tired and is going to sleep.

Jack never tells Jill about these sporadic texts because he knows that he never, ever plans on actually carrying out the contexts of his sex-texts with Mary. No ones feelings are hurt and Jack and Jill's relationship flourishes.

Situation #2: Jill has been seeing Jack for 6 months and she believes she is falling in love with him. They have a stable relationship and everything is hunky dory. Recently, an old college crush facebook messaged her, saying he saw something that reminded him of her and he hoped she was doing well. His name was Hansel, and Jill had been friends with his sister Gretel. They begin a short and harmless correspondence and one night Hansel texts Jill confessing that he had always wanted to ask her out but he knew she had a boyfriend and it was a shame he had lost his chance. Jill can't help but be flattered and also feels the old twang of attraction towards her former crush. However, she was firmly in her relationship with Jack and had no intention of compromising it. Plus, Hansel had moved to Texas after college to become a professional bull rider.

One night Jack was out of town visiting his aunt, and Jill found herself home alone and bored. So she texts Hansel and before she knows it, they are deep in one of those "if only" conversations. But, you know, all sexy-like. Much like Jack's past texts with Mary, the sexting between Jill and Hansel is not a daily thing. Also like Jack and Mary, Jill never tells her boyfriend about Hansel and the final result is no harm no foul.

Situation #3: Jack and Jill are celebrating their two year anniversary. They recently moved into an apartment above a pizza shop and have talked about marriage in the future. They are deeply in love but also have found themselves in a bit of a slump. This usually happens after a year of dating because you have become so comfortable with each other and have fallen into such a routine that things can become, quite frankly, boring. You're not having as much sex as you used to and you're no longer dressing up for each other or even closing the door when you go to the bathroom.

On nights where Jack and Jill go out with separate social groups, they sometimes find themselves sexting Mary and Hansel, just to feel a little bit of the excitement that was currently lacking in their own relationship. They delete these texts on the car ride home and happily climb into bed together at the end of the night, giving each other a kiss goodnight and saying 'I love you'.

Situations # 4 & 5: Jack is taking a shower on a Friday night in when his phone beeps. Jill sits up on the couch and reads the text. It's Mary and she is drunk and tingly. Jill hears the shower turn off and quickly closes Jack's phone, replacing it on the coffee table and he walks into the living room in his boxers. Jill says that someone texted him and admits that she read it. Obviously upset (but also knowing that she has done the same exact thing), she storms past him and goes to bed, telling him to sleep on the couch that night. The next morning she makes him promise that he will cut off all ties with Mary. She makes Jack tell her if anything physical has happened between Mary and him, and when he honestly tells her no, she decides to forgive him, but obviously keeps her eyes and ears out for any other suspicious behavior. Jack and Jill move past this bump in their relationship and continue on happily.

Or, Jack finds a text from Hansel in Jill's phone. She had forgotten to delete if from the night before. He is furious and feels that he can no longer trust her. He doesn't want any guy sexting his girlfriend, hell, he doesn't like it when a guy just texts his girlfriend. He tell her that she disgusts him and they break up.

Jill moves back in with her parents but not before keying Jack's car.

So while sexting may not be considered 100% moral while you're in a relationship, the fact of the matter is that people have needs and sometimes you need a little harmless electronic contact to truly appreciate the person you're with. I should also add that if this sexting ever does get literally physical or you realize that you have formed an emotional attachment with this person, do your significant other a favor and end things with them. Nothing in the world hurts more than being cheated on and nothing makes you feel more guilty than cheating. Well, at least it should make you feel guilty. And if it doesn't, well, you suck.

Also, I must end this with saying that if you are single, sext it up homie. SEXT IT UP.

Hey Guess What? Guys DON'T Always Like It When A Girl Gives Them Their Number!

2011-04-27T16:44:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this post a day later than my usual Tuesday update due to the fact that I was far too busy making a COMPLETE ASS of myself last night. Since I know my readers' future happiness hangs in the balance of whether or not they hear this sad, sad story, I will elaborate. (By the way, that was sarcasm. Just in case for some reason you didn't pick up on that...)

So as you all know, as of a few months ago, I have become single. But what you may not all know is that this is the first time I have been single in over 3 years. And this is certainly the longest amount of time I have been consecutively single. And I apologize for saying the word "single" in every sentence of this paragraph.

Since it's been awhile since I've been on "the scene", as the kids say, I have no fuckin clue how to flirt anymore. What I have realized is that since becoming unattached, I have turned into a significantly meaner person. Well, maybe not mean, but I no longer go out of my way to be polite if I don't like what a person is saying. Needless to say, of the very few people that have actually approached me since my breakup, I'm pretty sure I've scared them off by truly not giving a shit about what they were saying. I don't fall for lines anymore, I don't want to talk to you if you're wasted, and if I ask you what you do for a living and you say you're "still figuring that out", I'm not going to spend one more second wasting either of our time.

Let me also point out that when I do actually find a guy I like, I become paralyzingly shy, so that doesn't help much either. Fortunately, in the past few months I have not found a single guy who has peaked my interest in the romance department, so no shyness here! Whoo! (That was sarcasm as well...)

As a final bit of Alexis Trivia before I get to the actual story, I have never just walked up to a guy and given him my number.

Ok, that all being said, let's get down to business. My friends and I have our favorite little hole-in-the-wall dive bar that we frequent quite often throughout the week and weekend. I mean, we're not there every night by any means, but we definitely go through phases where we are ThisClose to being the creepy regulars that may as well come with the bar. Let's just say this place is our Cheers. We have our favorite table, we know all the bartenders, and if the jukebox isn't playing enough country and "Come On Eileen" for our liking, we make magic happen.

So anyway, for some reason we all decided that I was going to give one of the bartenders my phone number. He's known as "the hot bartender", but if we're riding the honesty train here, I've never really found him to be as mind-numbingly gorgeous as everyone else does. Regardless, I was somehow convinced by my friends that he was flirting with me so I jumped on board just for funsies.

Last night I decided it was time to make my move. I picked up one of my girls and we drove over, quickly realizing that the bar was packed because the Flyers game was on. So we found a table inside even though Hot Bartender was working at the outside bar on the deck. As the game ends, we inch our way over to his bar and sit down and he sees us and gives us a "Hey ladies." We make small talk throughout the next half hour or so (and by "we" I mean mostly him and my friend because I suck), and then I finally just ask him for a piece of paper and a pen. Which he gives me. I write down my name and number and because the universe has proven that it is constantly against me on both a large and small scale, the top of the bar wasn't completely smooth so the name and number ended up looking like Helen Keller had written it with her un-dominant hand during an earthquake.

I look up and hot bartender has walked away. Meanwhile, one of the other bartenders keeps coming up and blatantly flirting with him and shooting us looks like "Step off bitches", even though she was the one that told us he was "very single" just a few days before. So eventually she leaves and Hot Bartender comes back and this is the conversation that follows:

"Hey, come here for a sec."

"What's up."

"So, I know we've never really talked, but I'm going to give this to you cause, well, I want to."

"Ok."

"It's my number."

"Uh, yeah, I know."

"Oh."

Ok, this isn't going so well. I turn to my friend for support and SHE'S GONE. So I turn back to Hot Bartender and the awkward conversation follows with us bantering (and by bantering I mean one sentence each) about how word around town is that I'm awesome. Then he starts to say something like "We could probably do something..." before he is cut off by the flirting bartender who returns with a PRESENT SHE MADE FOR HIM THAT DAY. So Hot Bartender turns and puts my number on the pile of receipts next to the cash register, the pile that is just asking to be blown away in the wind, and walks away. Meanwhile, I found myself searching frantically for a sharp object to gouge my eyes out.

Then my friend and I ended up staying at the bar for about 3 more hours, sitting right there in front of the first guy I had ever given my number to. During this time, there was a water gun fight, and a group of drunk guys asking which girl in the bar was going to get naked. Now, nothing pisses me off more than being surrounded by extremely drunk people when I'm not drunk enough. And unfortunately for one of these guys, he wasn't able to realize this. So he would not leave me alone until I turned to him and yelled,

"I'M NOT INTO YOU, NO WE ARE NOT FRIENDS, AND NO I DON'T FIND YOU FUNNY. NOW STOP TALKING TO ME CAUSE YOU'RE PISSING ME OFF."

I turn to my friend and tell her we have to leave before I "punch that guy in the face, I swear to god". So she gets her stuff and I lean over and call Hot Bartender over one more time.

"Listen," I say, "if you don't use the number that's totally cool, just make sure you rip it up and throw it out though cause I don't want it floating around the bar."

His response was, "No, I put it with my tips, I got it."

Apparently the receipts were the tips from people's tabs. So I ended the night with a nice little blonde moment.

Summary? I went from shy girl that might have been intriguing to Hot Bartender, to awkward girl that gave him her number and was pretty much rejected as nicely as possible, to loud angry bitch that surely drove the nail all the way in by completely terrifying Hot Bartender.

By the way, he hasn't called. Shocking, right?

I'm Gonna Need Another Shot If You Want Me To Bat My Eyelashes

2011-04-19T18:20:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that flirting is a completely subjective concept. Everyone has their own way of doing it and receiving it (insert sex joke here...). But here's my question:

When did flirting get so stressful?

When we were younger and just realizing that looking at a person who peaked our interest made our faces all hot and our doo-dads go haywire, we thought that flirting was as simple as the following:

Girl: "Hiiiii, hee hee, you tooootally look like Jonathan Taylor Thomas!"

Boy: "Hey, uhh, I just got a Turbo Super Soaker."

Girl: "So cool!"

HOW AWESOME WOULD IT BE IF IT WAS ACTUALLY LIKE THAT?!

But nooo; we have to deal with intentional flirting and unintentional flirting and crossing the line flirting and oh-shit-he-has-a-girlfriend-but-I-didn't-find-out-till-mid-flirt flirting. Should we explore all of these options a bit more? You know I love a good list followed by some all over the place explanation.

Ok, so first we have the intentional flirting. This is when you meet someone and there's that instant attraction, so you break out the best, most interesting facts about yourself, embellish the living hell out of them, and then pretend to be interested in what the other person is saying. Eventually the dominant participant in the flirtation will reach over and make some sort of physical contact with the other participant, and that's when you get the goosebumps and suddenly it's hard to spit out the next 7-10 words. So you look down and see their hand on your leg and then you mumble words that don't exist in the English language, or any other language for that matter, and this all leads to either exchanging numbers or making out in the parking lot before one of you runs away before being roped into giving your digits.

Unintentional flirting is when you're at, let's say, a bar, and you meet someone and aren't really blown away by them, but they seem nice enough. So you engage in what you think is harmless conversation, until the person walks away and your friends turn to you and squeal "Oh my god, you guys were tooootally flirting!!!!" You act incredulous, look around, and down your beer in 5 seconds flat.

Crossing the line flirting is exactly that- crossing the line. I'll give you this example from just last night:

A friend and I were at our local dirty little dive bar, and due to the marathon of Philly sports being broadcast, it was filled with drunk, middle-aged men desperately trying to escape their wives. Or should I say, their wives kicked them out to the bar because they didn't feel like dealing with their hairy, sweaty, drunk asses. So at one point, this guy in a Flyers jersey and matching hat comes up to us and simultaneously started line dancing and sneaking into our conversation. Within the next ten minutes, he asks us if we throw up in the bathroom after we eat and if we live in cardboard boxes under a bridge, and then throws a dollar bill at us. Then he tells us about his "place down the shore" which started as a condo, then went to a regular beach house, then turned into a halfway house, before he finally admitted that he was lying. As if we couldn't figure it out. He ended the night by coming up to us again and asking when "we" were going back to his box, to which I asked, "Uhh, what do you mean we?" To which HE answered, "You're right, I want to visit your girls' box."

Aaaannnddd, this is crossing the line flirting. Simple.

The last type of flirting, the one where you find out you're hitting on someone who is not in fact single, is just awkward. Sometimes you get all the way through the flirtation before someone pulls you aside and lets you in on the secret. Other times you're mid-flirt before the other person is like, "Oh yeah, I heard that movie was great! Me and my girlfriend have been meaning to go see it!" To which you answer, "Oh, cool! Yeah, me and my very serious, long-term, live-in boyfriend that totally exists want to see it too. Can I have a shot? A double perhaps?"

Whatever way you cut it, I miss the days when flirting was harmless fun, instead of a do-or-die situation that could change the outcome of a potential relationship. I know this isn't always the case, but we're going to pretend it is in order to give this whole entry a purpose :)

Platonic Friend? What's a Platonic Friend?

2011-04-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was sitting outside with a friend, enjoying a mid-afternoon cocktail to celebrate the insanely beautiful weather that lasted a whopping 15 or so hours. We got on the topic of friends that went a little something like this:

-It's great to have a main group of friends, but you also need a couple sub-groups in order to appreciate that main group.

-It's equally great when individuals from these various groups get along, but let's be honest, the two should never become each other's besties (I'm so so so sorry for using that word...)

-It's harder to meet new friends at this age, unless it's at work or school. I'm not expecting to walk into a bar and leave later that night with a new girl friend.

-Most of my "outside" friends are guys.

-Most of these guys started as either boyfriends or friends with benefits.

-Holy shit, I have no platonic guy friends.

-Cut to me frantically scrolling through the contacts in my phone, desperately searching for a guy whose naughty bits I haven't seen, all the while muttering, "No...no...no...god dammit."

Now, don't misinterpret this as me being some Loosey Lucy. This rolodex of friends spans over almost a decade, and if we're being honest with ourselves, guys and girls don't approach each other at this age to simply be friends. When I see a guy in an insert-social-setting-here, I don't think "Gee, what a nice looking fellow. I bet he and I could be great friends with no undertone of attraction towards each other. I wonder if he wants to go roller skating next weekend and we can use the couple's skate as a time to sit off to the side and eat our separately bought soft pretzels..."

Also, let me just point out that my lack of platonic friends excludes guys that are dating/engaged/married to girls I know. It also excludes any friends of whoever I'm dating at the time. These two types of guys are obviously as platonic as can be.

So I guess my question is this: Is it pretty much the norm at this point to maintain friendships out of something that originally started as a hook-up? Personally I don't see the problem with this. One of the people that I enjoy hanging out with the most is my ex-boyfriend from when I was 17. When we get together there is no pressure, no jealousy, just comfort and a good time. We talk about our current relationships and trade advice and stories. There is no topic off limits for us and we have a lot of the same values and cynicism when it comes to dating. And, whenever we both happen to be single at the same time, we hook up (I know people have different ideas about what "hook up" means, so just take it however you want to in this and any future blog posts). We've been doing this for 7 years and never once has there been a problem.

So I guess that would go under the category "Friends Who Sometimes Hook Up". But what about "Hook Ups Who Are Sometimes Friends"?

Well fear not, cause I have one of those too :)

This is a guy whom I've written about a thousand times in the past so I'm sure those of you that know me personally can figure out his identity. He started as a rebound after my Big College Break-Up, and it didn't take long for us to become completely enthralled with each other. When it came to defining our relationship and slapping a title on it, the details were so fuzzy that it just was what it was. As the years passed and we maintained a friendship, it became apparent that the days of us talking on the phone for hours and hours were over. Now, we couldn't hold a full conversation with each other unless we were drunk or were looking for a little sumthin' sumthin'. So that's what we are. Hook-up buddies who are completely bored with each other every time we're both fully clothed. Now, there are other aspects to the two of us; we've been through a lot and have respect for each other and there are lots of different angles that, again, if you know me well you're already aware of, but the bottom line is that our most successful hang-outs include a trip to the liquor store and an empty apartment.

Just to cover all, well most, bases, there's also the guy friend that you happened to hook up with a couple of times and then go back to just being buddies without anything changing; or the guy who you gave a pity kiss to cause it turned out that he liked you but you didn't like him, but he was a nice enough guy that you just went with it and hoped it would just be a one time thing.

Last but not least, there is the "Uhhh...I Have Nooooo Idea" guy friend. These are the best, and this is what I'm dealing with right now. Much like one of the aforementioned guys, this one started as a rebound. Here's the simple formula of my own situation, but I would say 99% of it can be applied to the overall general rules of an "Uhhh...I Have Nooooo Idea" guy:

We see each other at a bar, get to talking which leads to flirting which leads to making out inside the bar, outside the bar, inside his car, outside his car...and so on and so forth. The next day he takes me out on a date and I realize that even though he is THE MOST DROP DEAD GORGEOUS LIVING CREATURE ON EARTH, he doesn't give me butterflies and this will probably be our last date. He asks me out on a second date and I think to myself "Eh, why the hell not", but this date still does not leave me with the tingly little feeling in the pit of my stomach that says "I like this guy". But then I realize that he is extremely polite and opens car doors and drives to my house to pick me up instead of me always having to go to him, and he plays with my dog even though he is ungodly allergic and practically has to be carted away to the emergency room every time he's over. I realize that he is completely outgoing which makes me outgoing, and he gets along with my friends, hell, he gets along with everyone. And he calls me or texts me every day, and he might be the best kisser I've ever kissed, and he's definitely the best sexer I've ever sexed, and there was that one week when I swore that I actually did like him...

But bottom line? I have no clue how he feels about me and he has no clue how I feel about him. We've simply never talked about it. We've been doing our thing for quite awhile now and I still have no clue if we're dating, or if we're just friends, or if we're even friends at all. I don't know if I'm the only girl he's seeing, and he would have no way of knowing if I was doing the same exact thing with somebody else. Yes we talk everyday but we only see each other a couple of times a week. There is so much uncertainty, and you know what? IT'S FUCKIN AWESOME.

There is absolutely no pressure which is exactly what I need right now. I'm telling you, next time you get out of a really serious relationship, get yourself one of these guys. I'm not ready for a serious boyfriend but I do miss the companionship of a steady guy. And now I have that. I want someone that I know will be there for me when I need him, whether it's just to talk or to jump, and I have that. I don't feel tied down to anyone so if I meet someone and they want to take me out, I feel no guilt in saying yes. This type of guy alone knocks all other types of non-platonic friends out of the ballpark.

Now, all of these examples aren't to say that having a purely, non-sexual guy friend is a bad thing. Guy friends are what keep us sane in comparison to our girl friends. All I'm saying is that they're harder to come by these days.

I'm so tempted to make a that's-what-she-said joke out of that last sentence...

2011-04-10T11:39:00.000-07:00

2011-04-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

He Was...

2010-07-22T03:10:00.000-07:00

...the kind of person who laughed with his entire body- the kind of laugh that made everyone around him sublimely happy.

...the sophomore who walked into my little freshman dorm and changed everything.

...my first friend there, subsequently formatting my entire college path.

...the oh-so-memorable first college kiss; the one you never, ever wanted to-or could-forget.

...the one whose bed was always made perfectly, each blue and white plaid stripe straight as an arrow.

...the boy who would prop open the back door with a rock or his shoe so I could run through the scary tunnel outside ML at night and sneak into the dorm to see him.

...an old soul trapped in a frat boy's body.

...the boy who would get so mad at me when he knew I wasn't living up to my potential and what I deserved.

...brilliant, motivated, compassionate- all the makings of an utterly amazing person.

...the one who was never too far away, from that first night to the last night, four years later.

...beautiful, inside and out.

...the one who left more people than he could ever imagine crying and screaming and praying that this wasn't real.

...the one whose funeral I couldn't bring myself to go to because my last image of you is so perfect.

...the one who had everything to live for. The one who would give so much to this world. The one that was taken too soon.

I don't know what I believe happens to people when they die, but if there is a heaven, I know you're there. And if you see a stunning lady sitting at a bar on a cloud drinking a martini, that's my grandmom. Say hi, I think you'd get a kick out of her ;)

I will always remember you and be thankful for everything you have given me and every second that we spent together. You will always be one of the best people I have ever known.

RIP MRZ 12/5/1984 - 7/2/2010

Untitled: 3

2010-05-02T12:02:00.000-07:00

Jane followed Darryl to the center of The Square, the benches and people growing larger with each step towards them. It was still raining, although it had recently slowed down to a consistent drizzle. Either way, Jane wished she had an umbrella.

As if reading her mind, Darryl reached into a large pocket barely attached to his coat and pulled out a small black umbrella.

"Here, I'm used to the rain," he said, offering her the compact refuge from the weather. "You can hold onto this as long as you want, I've got another one back in the alley."

Jane gratefully took the umbrella, mumbling 'Thanks'. Opening it up, she noticed that one neat corner of the fabric was missing. Darryl chuckled.

"Forgot to tell you, that umbrella comes with a sunroof. Just stay under the right side and you'll be A-Ok. People 'round here really don't care what you look like, but the newcomer's tend to want to keep up their appearance."

Jane found herself slightly embarrassed at this slight judgement of vanity, but chose to smile and huddle under the functioning three-quarters of the umbrella. It was then she realized how unbelievably tired she was.

As they reached the The Square, everyone immediately stopped their conversation and looked at the old pro and the rookie approaching them.

"'Ey Darryl, looks like you picked up another poor soul without them askin', huh?" The man speaking had a Scottish accent and looked roughly like a red-headed Santa Claus. Darryl laughed and pointed to Jane with his thumb.

"This here's Jane. First time out here, but I have a feeling she'll fit in just fine. Isn't that right Jane?" Darryl smiled and nudged Jane with his elbow.

Jane smiled tightly and looked across the group of people in front of her; men, women, her age, old, older. She held up her hand then quickly dropped it back to her side.

"Hi."

A woman with gray hair, curled around her face in severe little corkscrews, laughed and slapped her knee.

"Ah, we got a talker here, huh?"

Jane looked to Darryl for some sort of moral support, but all she got was a toothy grin from him.

"You hungry, dear?" the same woman asked. "We got some food on the grill." She nodded off to the side, towards the grill which stood in front of the largest man Jane had ever seen, flipping some sort of white-ish looking meat product. Exhaustion was sweeping over Jane at an alarming rate, and all she really wanted to do was close her eyes. She looked back to Darryl and spoke, somewhere between a whisper and a plea.

"Darryl? I'm really tired..."

Darryl nodded and turned to the woman.

"No food tonight Darlene. Our newest resident needs her sleep."

Darlene's expression turned to sympathy as she tipped her head in understanding. Darryl said goodbye to the group and turned around, Jane following closely behind.

"You can sleep in my spot tonight, until you get your own area situated tomorrow. I'll just grab one of those benches."

"But it's raining." Jane said, not wanting to put Darryl out while at the same time dreading the idea of spending the night in a homeless stranger's makeshift bed.

"Nah, a little rain is good for a person. Cleanses the mind." Darryl laughed and led Jane into the YBR.

They walked halfway down the alley until Darryl stopped and pointed to their left.

"Home sweet home."

Darryl's home sweet home was a small lean-to made of plywood. Underneath was a cot covered in a red and black plaid sleeping bag, and on either side of the cot were cardboard boxes and milk crates; turned on their sides and stacked on top of one another. Jane was surprised at how the bed and makeshift dressers were, well, cozy.

"Casa a la Darryl." he said, spreading his arms wide and grinning from ear to ear. "Make yourself at home, and if you need anything, I'll be right on one of those benches we were just at. And if you want, I'll bring you some food in case you decide in a bit you're hungry after all."

Jane was in fact starving but the weight of her eyelids overturned her stomach's pleas to be filled.

"I'm ok, thanks."

Darryl clasped his hands together before sticking them in his coat pockets, now free of umbrellas. "Alright, you're all set then. Have a pleasant evening my dear."

With the tip of an imaginary hat, Darryl retreated back towards the entrance to the alley and soon was lost from sight. Jane slumped down on the cot and looked around her. Before she could even process the night that had just occurred, she was deep in a dreamless sleep and wouldn't wake up until morning.

Untitled: 2

2009-10-26T15:53:00.000-07:00

It wasn't like the movies portrayed it. There wasn't a group of haggard old men huddled around a fire in a trash can, surrounded by shopping carts. There weren't people wearing shoes that were too small for them with the tops cut off so their toes poked through. No one had a blanket made of newspaper. It was simply a group of people that were, for lack of a better word, camping indefinitely.

"We call this The Square," Darryl explained, extending his arm and waving his hand with a flourish. "It's kinda like our version of a community center; where we all come to hang out and try to have some fun."

After their introductions on the street earlier, Jane had allowed herself to follow Darryl back to where he stayed. Almost a half hour later, she found herself walking into what looked like a run-down neighborhood. The Square was an old soccer field behind a high school that had closed down years before but was never built into anything else. Behind the field were a series of alleys leading into different wings of the school which itself was shaped like the letter E. Darryl led Jane past The Square, which was equipped with benches and an old barbeque grill. There was a handful of people lounging on the benches, talking and laughing. Continuing on, Darryl pointed to each alley as they passed them.

"These alleys are where we sleep. Their kind of like streets in a neighborhood to us. This first one is called Ned's Alley. Named after a man named Ned, surprise surprise, who was one of the first people to set up this place. The second one is Brick Lane cause the wall on one side is crumbling and bricks tend to fall out- just be careful if you ever go down there. And this," Darryl stopped in front of the third alley and once again held out his arm, "this is where I reside. Welcome to The Yellow Brick Road, or the YBR. It used to be called Third Street but once I got here I changed the name immediately. My daughter's favorite movie was The Wizard of Oz, so it just seemed appropriate to me."

"You have a daughter?" Jane asked, looking at Darryl. His eyes quickly fell and he scratched at his beard.

"Yeah." he paused then quickly stood up straight. "Alright, let's go meet everyone, shall we?"

Jane nodded. She would make sure to find out more later.

Untitled: 1

2009-10-18T10:26:00.001-07:00

Jane didn't know her real name. Each day as she wandered the streets, she would keep her ears open for interesting names she heard along the way; Pearl, Daisy, Autumn, wondering if any of them could maybe be hers. Darryl told her that Jane was a perfectly suitable name.

"It's a hell of a name, kid," he would say, running his fingers through his beard, trying to comb out the knots. "It's sturdy, personable, classic."

"It's boring Darryl." Jane would sigh, slouching down and picking at her nails.

"Nothing's boring unless you make it so."

Darryl was the closest thing to a parent that Jane ever had. The first day she found herself out on the streets, it was raining and miserable, just like the middle of November always seemed to be. Jane found herself cringing between the weather and the homeless stereotype she was rapidly living up to.

Darryl approached Jane, not the other way around. She was walking close to a row of stores, trying to remain under the narrow awning above the windows. She didn't know quite what she was looking for; a pair of steps, a bridge, an empty porch.

"There's not much around here in terms of shelter."

Jane looked around, searching for the voice. She found its source in a man walking slightly behind her; close enough to hear but far enough to outweigh any sort of creepiness factor. Not sure whether to approach the man or quickly cross the street, Jane kept a steady pace as if to let the man decide the next move of action.

"You're new out here, huh?" the voice returned, the man continuing to keep an accommodating distance. "I can always spot 'em right away. I am a seasoned pro out here after all. Hell, I've been here since you were merely an item on God's To-Do list. Unless you don't believe in God. Either way is fine by me. In fact, I don't really believe in him either. But if you pretend that you do, you always get an extra scoop of crappy food from the church during Christmas time."

The man paused, most likely waiting for a response from Jane. She considered giving one, only to find she couldn't think of a single thing to say back.

They walked in silence for a moment.

"Ah, the silent type, I see. That's fine. If you ain't got nothin to say, why bother wasting the air? That's what I always say. Although, I'm a bit too much of a chatter-box myself to follow my own advice. But like I said, I'm a vet out here. I've earned it I like to think."

Jane stopped and turned around. The man stopped too, remaining slightly back. Jane stared at the man and opened her mouth, although it took a second for any sound to come out.

"Is this one of those deals where you act all nice and friendly and then get me back to your place and it turns out you're some crazy maniac who preys on young girls alone out in the rain?"

A slight yet thoughtful smile spread across the man's face.

"Ma'am, that can't possibly be true on account of the fact that I don't even have a place to be a crazy maniac in."

Jane looked away and then shifted her eyes back to look at the man. She screwed up her mouth in uncertainty and scratched her nose. Taking a few steps forward, she held out her hand.

"I'm Jane."

"Darryl," the man said, stepping forward himself and extending his own hand, "Damn pleased to meet you."

Sessions: 8

2009-08-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, I've always been a sucker for epilogues. I love when, at the end of a story, the narration jumps to ten years in the future and everyone is happily married, or having babies, or dead. Well, the happily married happened; my brother and his fiancee are now Mr. and Mrs. Snowball and, on my suggestion via my therapist's suggestion, found a great time share in St. Thomas for their honeymoon where my brother immediately proceeded to knock up his new bride. On a drastically less happy note, my dad had a heart attack about a month after the wedding. I took all of my vacation and sick days that had been piling up at work and took a month off to go home and help take care of him. That's where I am now. Dad's been in the hospital for a while; he had to have the whole bypass surgery deal. During this time I've been staying with my mom, helping her get her mind off the whole ordeal. She's even attempted to teach me how to cook. I am proud to say that I have now regained my talent for orchestrating the perfect bowl of instant oatmeal. And I can almost make a meatball. Almost.

While Dad's in the hospital recovering, I've been going there every day to sit with him. We watch Family Feud on the tiny TV hanging from the ceiling, or he continuously kicks my ass in Gin Rummy. I always find a way to get some of the nurses to play which Dad gets a kick out of. Tonight as I was leaving, he said he had something to tell me.

"What's that, Dad." I say, sticking one arm into my coat sleeve.

"You're good at what you do, you know that?" he says, shifting in his hospital bed.

"Well thanks, I try my best I suppose." I answer, stepping forward to fix the pillow that had slipped behind his head. "Here, sit up for a sec."

He leans forward as I pile the pillows behind his back and smooth down the sheets around it.

"I'm serious," he says, "You're good at what you do. But, I think you should try something else."

"Try something else? Like what?"

Dad leans back and settles into his bed. "You've always had so much going on in that head of yours. Let it out. You used to write poetry and stories all the time in college. Go back to that."

I sigh and begin buttoning up my coat.

"Dad, there's not really a rich lucrative career behind writing. I make good money now. I can pay the rent. I'm good."

He shakes his head. "No, no. You can do better."

I kiss him on the forehead and tell him I'll be back tomorrow. Driving home I made every single green light. Maybe I'll stick around here a little longer than I planned. Find some tree to sit under and write a poem or something. I dunno, we'll see.

The End.

(for now)

Sessions: 6 & 7

2009-08-03T12:11:00.000-07:00

My brother called me the other night and told me he was getting married. His girlfriend- or fiancee now I guess- immediately grabbed the phone from him and started shrieking about how I just had to be her maid of honor because it would mean so much to her and my brother and she never had a sister but always wanted one and even though she knows she never told me before I'm like a sister to her and I just have to be in the wedding and won't I please please please please please?

I told her ok.

She told me Snowball was going to be the ring bearer.

I immediately regretted my decision.

"My brother's getting married."

"Really? Well congratulations to him. How does that make you feel?"

I thought about it.

"I want to stop coming here."

"Stop your therapy sessions?"

"Yeah. I think I'm done."

"Sunny, I don't know if that's such a good idea."

I stretched my arms out in front of me and stood up.

"Yeah, well, we'll see how it goes I guess. Now, are you the kind of doctor that can prescribe me stuff? I need to make nice with a cat and I'm gonna need some allergy medicine."

Sessions: 5

2009-07-31T06:34:00.000-07:00

"I'm going to become a cat lady."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm going to become one of those cat ladies, I know it. I'm going to die in my apartment at thirty-five, surrounded by cats and ad campaigns."

My therapist shifted in her seat. I noticed she shifted a lot. Or maybe it was just me that made her do that.

"The only way that you're going to become a cat lady is if you let yourself become a cat lady."

I looked past her and noticed a bug on the wall, crawling across the top of one of her diplomas that was framed so pretentiously on the wall. It was one of those stink bugs; the brown kind that seems to infest every wall of the city once spring hits.

"Have you thought more about my suggestion to take a vacation?"

The bug got to the corner of the frame and slipped, dangling for a moment before composing itself and continuing carefully down one side of the diploma.

"There are some great time shares this time of year that you could look into. Just the other day my cousin found a fantastic deal to St. Thomas."

Around the bottom, up the other side...

"Would you be open to a singles cruise?"

...now clear across the wall to the window...

"I think I know someone that met their husband on one of those cruises actually."

...then disappeared into a crack along the base of the window pane.

I focused my attention back to the lady with the clipboard and squinted my eyes at her.

"I don't get it. Why are you so obsessed with finding me some guy to date? I'm perfectly fine on my own."

"I just thought it might help your boredom and also help you lighten up a little."

I scrunched back into the couch and crossed one leg over the other.

"You're awfully blunt for a therapist."

Sessions: 4

2009-07-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't say that I'm a workaholic. I would just say that it takes up a lot of my time which is good because that leaves less time for me to spend with myself. I get home form work every day (except for Wednesdays, of course) at around 6:30 and go straight to the phone to order dinner. I don't cook- not even a little bit. I used to know how to make instant oatmeal but somewhere over the years I lost my knack for that too. So takeout has become my best friend. Well, actually delivery men have become my best friend. I order my food and then while I'm waiting I flip on the TV- it doesn't matter what channel because I never actually watch it once I turn it on- and continue working on whatever project I brought home from work that day. I realize this may be some peoples' definition of a workaholic, but I do draw the line somewhere. I don't work on weekends. Well, Sundays. Most of the time.

I once dated this guy that lost his job pretty late into our relationship. We were together for about seven months and come to think of it, I think it was my longest relationship ever. Regardless, around month six, his company was on the verge of going bankrupt and he was one of the unlucky employees they let go. He quickly ran out of rent money and asked if he could move in with me. Now I have since come to realize that having a fairly serious boyfriend move in after so many months is quite normal. But at the time I was appalled at the idea. Having to share a bed- let alone a bathroom- with another person day in and day out put me on the same anxiety level as spending a weekend alone with my mother. Or my therapist. So I told him no, he could not move in with me. I was shocked at how upset and offended this made him. So we stuck it out for a couple more weeks and then just kind of stopped calling each other. He ended up moving back in with his parents. I'm pretty sure he's still there.

Sessions: 3

2009-07-29T12:03:00.000-07:00

Coming home from that therapy session, I cannot for the life of me get a cab. Usually I'm pretty good at it; I've learned how to work my built-in abilities as a natural blonde. I'm hot and smart, hah!

But today, no today it just isn't happening for me. I must have been standing on this sidewalk for fifteen minutes, one foot in the street, the other balancing on my tiptoe in an effort to make myself look an inch taller as if that would help. I finally find some guy in a business suit carrying a brief case to step in the street and hail a taxi for me. I don't know what it is about those briefcases, but cab drivers flock to them like they're filled with bricks of hundred dollar bills wrapped up in rubber bands.

So I get in the cab and tell the driver my address. About three blocks down I lean forward and tap him on the shoulder.

"Hey, do you know who sings that Fourth of July song? Is it Boston or Chicago?"

The driver looks back at me with a blank expression.

"Ok." I lean back in my seat and turn my attention out the window. There is a smear of bird shit on the glass, right at eye level. The white glob had run down the length of the window and settled at the bottom.

"Must have had some of my mom's lasagna." I mutter to myself.

The cab drops me off in front of my apartment and I stuff my money into the grimy plastic bin attached to the back of his seat.

"Have a nice day." I tell him, grabbing my purse and stepping onto the street.

When you move to New York, you always have the same image: living in a big beautiful apartment building with a doorman and bright red carpet leading up to the front doors. A blue awning with the name of your place sprawled across it in gold cursive hides the entrance from the vagabond sun because god forbid any daylight enters the fluorescently-impaled lobby. What you really get is a six-story walk up that's placed between a band of dumpsters and a place that collects and disposes of dead pigeons found on the sidewalk. I don't open my windows very often.

I live on the fourth floor so I get the pleasure of being sandwiched between two pretty horrendous living situations. The lady below me in about ninety years old and is practically deaf. She therefore feels the need to turn her TV up to its highest potential; especially during those paid programming shows where a group of old ladies in hoop skirts sing about losing their dear Johnny when they were young and in love. Above me are two teenagers who I'm assuming thought they were too cool to live with their parents so they somehow found a way to rent the apartment above mine where they have loud, animalistic sex about three times a day. I'm tempted to offer them a job at my company just to get them out of that damn apartment for a few hours a week.

Wait, earlier I was saying how I'm a joyful little pessimist, blah blah blah. Somewhere in between getting a great job and obtaining a pretty steady rotation of Wall Street yuppies in and out of my bed, I decided I was unhappy. I don't know what it was, I just couldn't get rid of this ugly lonely feeling that seemed to constantly be punching me in the face. I mean, I would never really consider myself an overtly spunky little creature, but I was never that kid in high school loading on the black eyeliner, scratching away angrily at a journal full of newspaper clippings and punk rock song lyrics. Like I said before, I was kind of just that self-inflicted quiet kid. You don't bother me, I don't bother you.

I guess it was about a year after I moved to the city that I decided to jump on the therapist band-wagon. I was fairly against it at first; I'm not a huge fan of someone telling me my faults, especially a stranger who I'm paying. It was actually this woman at work that convinced me to do it. She and her husband had just gotten divorced and now she was stuck with a three year old who apparently was quite the little terror. Anyway, she was telling me about this woman whose office was about three blocks down from where we worked. She had all these degrees and awards and was supposed to be actually pretty good. So I set up an appointment and gave it a shot.

This poor woman has now been putting up with me for four years and god help her, she's sticking in there. The first couple years of our sessions consisted of me letting up very little information. I would give her specifics, like a boyfriend that had done me wrong or how to deal with the Sex Olympics that were happening above my apartment every day. She was pretty good with these kinds of things; she could offer up solutions to the centralized problems. But as I grew accustomed to having this woman peer inside my head, our session quickly turned into me rambling on and on about how unsatisfied I was, although with what I wasn't sure.

"I'm just so bored." I told her one day.

"Bored with what?"

"I don't know. Everything. Everything is so monotonous. I need some variety."

"Why don't you take a trip?"

"With who? I'm not exactly overflowing with friends here."

She sighed and gave me one of her smiles. I could never tell if they were out of sympathy or pity.

"Sunny, have you even tried to make a long-lasting relationship out here? You've been in the city for five years; eventually you're going to need to find something else to do with your time than go to bars."

I felt myself getting defensive.

"I know people; I just don't enjoy any of them enough to go on vacation with. Besides, I don't have time to take off from work."

Sessions: 2

2009-07-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

Growing up my mom told me that I was just like my father. Just like my brother, I was just like my father. I think she was upset that no one in our family resembled her, physically or emotionally. She's Italian, with olive skin and jet black hair, and those eyes that I assume people describe as almond. Now, my dad and my brother and I, we're Ukrainian. We're fair-skinned with blond hair and blue eyes. Mom's even tempered and cheery, always whipping up some kind of dinner that sits in your stomach for the next two days like a pound of bricks. My dad, brother, and I? We're moody. Moody and closed in on ourselves and, being the girl, I took it upon myself to spend the majority of my teenage years trying to be anorexic. It never really worked out the way I planned.

We used to have a dog that had brown hair and she was always jumping around wanting someone to pet her or feed her. Whenever my mom would start complaining about no one in the family being like her, we would point to the dog and continue on our mopey way. I didn't grow up in a bad household. My parents never got divorced (although sometimes I think they should have), no one ever hit me or even grounded me for that matter. We always had food on the table and every summer we were able to save enough money to spend a week on the Jersey shore; beachfront house and all. It was a typical childhood; all that was missing was a white picket fence and saddle shoes. All things considered, I should have turned out normal like my brother; my physics professor brother who teaches at a university downtown and lives with his girlfriend of god knows how many years. They just bought a cat because she loves cats. I'm allergic to cats so I have yet to visit their apartment since Snowball entered the picture. Who the hell names their cat Snowball?

So yeah, word on the street is that I'm pessimistic with the possibility of self-destruction. My parents had the misguided foresight to name me Sunny. Fortunately, they spared me the torture of it being a nickname for Sunshine. Apparently my grandmother on my mother's side, her nickname was Sunny because she was just the jolliest woman around.

When I was eighteen I went to school in the Boston area; just a small, little liberal arts college that didn't do much good for me. I took a lot of art and poetry classes, and one of my professors told us one day that if you want to be a poet, go into advertising. It's simply industrial poetry that actually makes you money. So that's what I did. The afternoon I graduated, I packed up the tiny two bedroom apartment I shared with three girls and moved to New York City. Cliche, I know, but money motivates me and I wanted to get right in the action. Somehow I managed to get an internship at this place that handled a lot of those infomercials you see at three AM on channels you didn't even know existed. The head boss of the place was a heinous bitch which worked out fantastically for me. We got along great.

So that's where I am now. I've been here for five years and logistically speaking, I've set up quite a nice little life for myself. I have a decent sized apartment which I live in by myself with the exception of a fish tank a friend pawned off to me a year or so ago. I keep my extra rolls of toilet paper in it. I'm still doing the advertising thing. I don't mind my job. Waking up at the crack of dawn doesn't exactly make me dance around with happiness but I manage to drag my ass out of bed every morning at five-thirty.

Since I live by myself and have surely come off as sufficiently bitter about life in general, a question I'm sure you're dying to ask is, Hey Sunny, do you have any friends? Well, it depends on how you define 'friends'. I have acquaintances, most of whom I met at the bar I frequent down the street or at work, and I do have a pretty close relationship with some cousins back home. You know, I guess they're my girlfriends who, if I was thirteen, I would paint their toenails and than have a pillow fight with. Now as for boyfriends, the situation's not any more interesting. I'm not opposed to getting drunk enough that I bring home a random guy to sleep with and then kick out the next morning. I'm not looking for a relationship right now and I have a whole freakin drawer full of condoms so I don't necessarily see anything wrong with this. I've had a handful of flings since I've been in the city, usually lasting no longer than a few months. And have I ever been in love? Well, I never really took the time to think about it.

This is boring, right? It has to be, I'm getting bored and it's about me.

Sessions: 1

2009-07-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

Wednesday at six. Every Wednesday night at six o'clock I am here for two hours to listen to her tell me what I've done wrong and why I've done wrong and who I've done wrong. But of course, the ultimate person I've done wrong is myself because according to her, if you can't make yourself happy than can you really make those around you happy? If this is true then everyone must be fuckin' miserable because I've been around a lot of people and I'm still coming here very week to sit on this sticky leather couch, telling some certified stranger all about my sticky little life.

"What do you think you can do to better yourself?" she asks me, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees, a look of I-work-on-emotional-commission concern spreading throughout her face.

What can I do to better myself? I could take the three hundred dollars an hour I'm paying you and go buy some shoes and a handle of vodka.

She starts going off on some lucid rant about the steps I can take toward a more enjoyable future. One filled with independence and commitment and lollipops and rainbows. I try to listen but I just can't get this damn song out of my head. What makes it even worse is that I can't for the life of me think of the title.

'Saturday, in the park, I think it was the Fourth of July...'

"-So you see, if you can just write down one thing you want to accomplish every day, and then steadily work toward that goal, I think you'll find your days much more fulfilling, I really do."

She seems to be done talking, or at least is offering a delayed pause which implies it's my turn to speak.

I focus my gaze on her and frown.

"Who sings that Fourth of July in the park song; Boston or Chicago?"

"Excuse me?"

"I always get the two of them confused. You know, 'Saturday, in the park..."

"Sunny-"

"...I think it was the Fourth of July..."

She gently places her clipboard on the end table next to her cushy velvet armchair and leans back, crossing her legs.

"Sunny, I'm really concerned about your progress. You don't even seem to pay attention to our sessions. Why do you even bother to come?"

I lean back as well, crossing my legs just like hers.

"Now there's a question to analyze."

The Tale Of The Most Depressing Bar In Georgia

2009-06-02T09:36:00.001-07:00

It's called The Bayou Cafe. Located on the riverfront in Savannah, Georgia, it's located smack dab in the middle of a strip of shops that can only be described as a tourist's wet dream. Sitting on the stoop that leads up the black metal staircase into the Bayou is a townie, his white tshirt sticking to his skin from sweat. He's crouched over and looks like he should be playing a harmonica but his hands are empty.

We had just driven in from Charleston a few hours before where we had laid on a beach that displayed a shocking resemblance to New Jersey. Now two hours south in Savannah, we walked through the city, our bodies covered in sand from the knees down. Into the Bayou we go, bar music ahead of us, an old man singing to a crowd of five behind us.

Here's the thing about The Bayou Cafe. From the outside, it doesn't have any excitingly attractive features, but you figure since it's in Savannah it has to have some kind of coolness factor to it. And it sounded like there was a fairly good blues band in there too. It was muggy enough outside to already feel like a bayou, so I was feeling pretty good about this place. Besides, I have a inexplicable crush on dive bars. Call me low-maintenance.

So we walk into the bar. And we stop. There's not a band, there's a pre-bypass John Popper sitting on a stool with an electric guitar and laptop in front of him. He's playing sound effects off the computer, mostly trying to wake up the patron (who, as it turned out, worked there) who was passed out cold on the bar, an empty pitcher of beer next to his head. Chickens clucked, men snored, dogs barked, slutty girls moaned- this guy had a veritable circus of sounds on his laptop. Meanwhile, the seven of eight people in the bar, bartender included, were hysterical with laughter. Them and their twelve teeth had apparently never before in their life experienced such an unbelievable act of talent and hilarity. On the other hand, John Popper seemed to hate his life a little more with each cow moo.

We order our drinks and get a table in the back corner, away from everyone. The chairs wobbled and the table top was covered in rice. A la post-wedding.

Guitar man asks the audience for song requests. They all seem to be in agreement about the song "Cocaine". "Cocaine" quickly turns into "Rogain", and once again, the crowd goes wild. The guy has a pretty good voice, I'll give him that. But he barely touched his guitar. The majority of music was pre-programmed into his laptop and he was visibly reading the words off the screen. One of the people I was with leans over to me and whispers, "This guy loathes himself." I frowned sadly and nodded. After each song, we were treated to a story of all the high class celebrities that have passed through this very bar while this guy was playing. Had we been there a few years earlier, we would have been in the presence of the incomprable Tom and Roseanne Arnold, not to mention the epic Rosie O'Donnell who proceeded to get food poisening at a Wendy's down the street. And again, whoops of elation from the crowd.

At one point the guy asked where everyone was from. There was a couple from Virginia, a guy from Tennessee, and then us, from Philly. I almost felt embarrassed admitting that had driven through eight states to sit in the corner, rice up to our ankles, listening to a guy press play on his iTunes.

We made it through one drink. The whole scene was almost too much to take.

As we walked out of the Bayou Cafe, the guy in the white shirt was gone from the bottom of the steps, but the old man across the street was still singing, although this time no one was watching.

All My Clothes Have Mocha Stains

2009-05-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

"Ventisoychaitwoandthreequartesinchesoffoamwithtwoeightsofacentimeterofcaramelsauceanda

turkeysandwichwithonlyahalfpieceofturkeyandineeditallinthenextminuteandahalfcauseihavea

traintocatch."

I've been working here long enough that I now have the coffee language down, but would it hurt for people to breath in between their words?

I look at the sixteen year old girl in front of me, decked out in Tiffany's and Bloomingdales, and then at the line of 25 people behind her also waiting for their drinks. There is no way that her order will be ready in 90 seconds.

"Our sandwiches are pre-made."

She rolls her eyes. "Whatever. This is bad business. Just give me the drink. Now I only have 72 seconds until my train comes.

I mark her cup and call someone to ring up the rest of the customers so princess can get her replenishment via mommy's credit card. I steam the milk, pump the chai, and top it off with caramel. I try to meet her measurement requirements but I'm not about to whip out a ruler to get exactly two and three quarter inches of foam and two eights of a centimeter of caramel sauce. I finish her drink in record time and pass her the cup. She takes off the lid and peers inside, a look of disgust on her face which she then transfers to me.

"It's not filled to the top."

"I'm sorry, if I fill it anymore it will overflow and then that would be a full three inches of foam."

"Show me what's left in the container."

I take the pitcher which I steamed the milk in and show her the five or six drops left on the bottom.

"Techincally, I paid for that."

'No, technically your parents paid for that.' I want to say.

I sigh and take her cup, pouring the rest of the milk in which, as promised, causes the cup to overflow.

The girl glares at me from underneath her false eyelashes and swoopy bangs and grimaces.

"You need to make me another one. I'm not taking that, I'll get chai on my hands."

I sigh again, my frustration becoming increasingly difficult to contain and pour the drink into the sink. A little bit of my pride rushes down the drain with it.

I make her next drink while a pile of other orders crowd the counter space around me. The girls whips out her bedazzled cell phone, a la Paris Hilton, and begins to bitch to a phantom friend on the other end.

New drink finished, I slide it to her and immediately turn to the next order before she can complain about anything else. As she walks away she turns back and sneers.

"I'm going to Starbucks from now on."

"For the love of god, please do!" I call out after her, watching her mini skirt ride up her ass with each step.

Why Books Can Lead To Drinking

2009-05-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

Here is what I have learned in the past nine months: people who shop at book stores are disturbingly unappreciative and rude human beings.

I have experienced a range of behavior from customers that starts at holier-than-thou thirteen year old girls and ends at sexually frustrated forty three year old men. Mix in gold digging "housewives" and bitter old men, and you've got yourself my place of employment.

Once upon a time, not too long ago, I was a motivated and jolly little college student working my ass off to become a writer. I went to see an accomplished author speak at Drexel University one day where I was told that if I wanted to ever follow my dreams of seeing my name on a shelf, I should "absolutely, positively, without a doubt work at a bookstore." So I did. I now find myself standing behind a register, ringing up other authors' books, and constantly steaming milk for lattes in the cafe. My $42,000 a year education is in the back of my brain, kicking and screaming.

It's really quite amazing how retail employees are treated by the very people they are simply trying to help. I've had people scream at me, telling me how stupid I am just because we no longer carry the book they want from 1949. Apparently the term out-of-print means very little to them. Additionally, I don't know what it is about Sunday morning, but the time span between 10AM and noon brings in a hoard of wonderful men who desperately need either a bit more attention from their wives or a new collection of porn. I don't know why they think that it is appropriate to tell me to reach into their pocket and pull out their money myself but apparently this is a completely acceptable way to pay for their copy of the new James Patterson novel.

The one saving grace is the fact that almost everyone I work with seems to share these frustrations with me. We have accepted that our social lives must take a backseat to our heavy weekend schedules and our bills must take an even further backseat to our barely three digit paychecks.

There are common situations that happen to every bookstore/cafe employee. One of my favorites is the Short-Term-Memory-Loss. Example:

"Hi, how are you today?" I smile as I greet the customer.

Customer slams his book on the counter.

"Are you a member with us?"

Customer looks at me like I just asked him to cut open his stomach and hand over his kidney. I take this as a no, he is certainly not a member with us.

"Well just so you're aware, with our membership you can save 40% off of bestsellers, 20% off adult hardcovers, and 10% off everything else in the store." I keep the smile on. You can never ever let the smile fade away.

"My wife might be a member."

"Ok, great! Do you have the card on you or should I look up your phone number?"

Customer, keeping his death stare on me, reaches into his pocket and slams his wallet down on the table. He blindly goes through a seven inch thick wad of credit cards: Black and Gold American Express, Visa, Mastercard, the deed to his Mercedes Benz and Jaguar. No membership card.

"Ok, why don't I just look up-"

"215-555-4382." Customer mumbles in half a second flat, before I even get a chance to go to the lookup screen on my monitor.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" Smile smile smile. Just keep freakin smiling.

"TWO. ONE. FIVE. FIVE. FIVE. FIVE. FOUR. THREE. EIGHT. TWO." Customer is now borderline yelling and talking to me like I'm just learning my numbers.

I look up the number and see that yes, his wife is in fact a member. However that membership expired in 1992.

"I'm sorry your membership has expired. Would you like to renew it? It is a $25 renewal fee."

"Yeah, whatever, fine."

"Ok, and would you like a gift receipt with that?"

"A what?"

"A gift receipt."

"Of course I want a receipt. What, you guys gonna charge me for a receipt? Borders always gives receipts."

"No sir, you'll get a regular receipt, but I asked if you wanted a gift receipt. Are you giving the book as a gift?"

"No, it's for me! What the hell is a gift receipt? I just want a receipt!"

"Ok." Smile.

I ring up and the book and renew his membership.

"That will be $48.25."

"FORTY EIGHT DOLLARS! THE BOOK IS ONLY TWENTY THREE!"

"Right sir, but you renewed your membership, remember? I told you it costs $25 and you said you wanted to renew it."

"I NEVER SAID THAT! DO YOU REALLY THINK I WOULD DO THAT IF YOU HAD TOLD ME IT WAS $25?!?!?" Meanwhile, I can see a wad of hundred dollar bills stuffed into his wallet. Pocket change, really.

I now have to call up a manager to cancel the transaction so I can start over. I then hear the manager paging another manager and so on and so forth until someone is finally nice enough to come help me. Oh so pleasant Customer has now been plotting my death for a full ten to twelve minutes. As is the line of customers behind him who are whispering among themselves about how ridiculous this is and how they are missing their manicure appointments. Side question: why aren't all these people at work at one in the afternoon on a Tuesday?

A manager finally comes up and cancels the transaction. I ring up the book and nothing else, and tell him his total. Customer reaches into his pocket, not into his wallet that runneth-over, and pulls out a roll of quarters. He breaks it open on the counter, and proceeds to count out $23 in quarters.

It's barely past noon and I already need a drink.

Dear...

2009-05-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Pumpkin Patch,

I can't promise this won't be a sappy, gooey, mushy letter. But I can promise that it's all true. You know that.

Here's the thing about you. When all girls are little and imagining their perfect guy, there are certain traits that they desperately hope they can find in someone, but secretly know don't actually exist. The thing about you is, you have those traits. Every single one. You're everything I realistically and unrealistically ever wanted. And then there are parts of you that I didn't even know a person could have. Amazing things that just make me think, 'Wow'. You have all of that, and you picked me. That's what is going on in my head when you look at me and ask, "What are you thinking?"

I've gone through so much in just the past couple years alone, so much shitty, awful stuff. But I would do it all again if that meant I would ultimately get to you. I still can't believe I get to fall asleep every night and wake up every morning with you next to me. I've told you before and I'll tell you again; you are absolutely stunning, inside and out.

There aren't many people that can put up with the absolute ridiculousness that is my personality. My singing in an awkward voice and dancing in an awkward way around the apartment, I'm pretty sure that at least 80% of the time you're laughing with me and not at me. And that's pretty cool.

Thanks for surprising me with peanut M&M's with a list of reasons why you love me written on the bag. Thanks for not liking it when I forget to leave a paper towel note on your mirror for you to come home to after work. Thanks for telling me every night that I'm beautiful and that you love me. Thanks for proving me wrong about my first impression of you and thanks for letting me prove you wrong about your impression of me. And thanks for being hot. Seriously, it's unreal.

I love you a whole bunch of bananas and I will for the next hundred and one years.

Love,

Dogface

Dear...

2009-05-07T09:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Sean,

I decided to write my first blog letter after my unintentional hiatus to you because I think you should know how amazing a person you are.

There are very few people that have come into my life that have been nothing but a positive influence. Although, and I've told you this, I wish we had become friends sooner than the last few days of my final year at Berg, getting to have such good memories near the end made me actually sad about graduating as opposed to the "get me the hell out of here" attitude that I had taken on before then. And the fact that you live so close to my house is a nice little added bonus.

Thanks for always making me feel good about myself. Thanks for dealing with my embarrassingly girly screams over those vicious white water rapids during our canoe trip. Thanks for going to see an equally embarrassingly girly movie with me, and thanks for encouraging me to write every day, at least for ten minutes. Thank you for being on the other end of the phone minutes after I lost yet another boyfriend and thanks for giving me the tough love that convinced me to finally break up with the douchebag. You're probably one of two people in this entire world that can truly calm me down and one of the people that I feel most supported by. That one day over a year ago when you saw me crying in the CA- at that point still basically a stranger to you- you gave me a hug and promised that you would always be there to give me a hug when I needed it. Well you haven't disappointed me on that promise and I can't thank you enough.

Plus you're brilliant and funny as hell and always keep me laughing. That's always a plus.

So Sean, I guess I just wanted to thank you for being not only the kind of friend, but also the kind of person that always has an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on. You're the best and I adore you to a bajillion little pieces.

Love,

Alexis

Dear...

2009-01-05T07:07:00.000-08:00

BEFORE:

Dear Messy Room,

You know, I think you're the problem. A messy room is a messy life, right? Or something like that...whatever. Anyway, I'm kinda sick of you and now that I'm not sleeping at His house every night, it looks like I'm gonna have to clean you up and make friends with my own bed again. It's way past time anyway, I moved home from Allentown almost 8 months ago and have yet to fully unpack. Actually, all I've unpacked at all is my clothes and they're currently all over every surface of this room that could be big and beautiful. So, I'm going to swallow my pride and show the world just what a mess you are, you cute little pink box (that's what she said). Next post I write, I promise on everything I have that it will involve an After picture.

Sincerely,

Messy Messy Messy Me

Dear...

2009-01-02T23:15:00.001-08:00

Dear 2009,

So let's face it, you started out kinda sucky. I know we're only a couple days in, but I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and say that, especially compared to 2008, you're gonna rock. Breaking up with Douchebag, as much as it kills me and I break into involuntary tears approximately every 10-12 minutes, was the right thing, I know that. It's a shame that it happened like it did and when it did and that it's still without closure, but I suppose that's to be expected from any break-up. But today was good, and I know that, well I hope that- no, I know that, it will only get better from here. I know I always set these goals for myself saying I'm gonna do this and that to better myself, but the night I broke up with Him, I did the best thing for myself that I could possibly do so I think that I'm finally on the right track. So, 2009, here are the things I'm hoping you can help me with.

I hope that all the people I know who are having health issues either get better or are able to pass in peace. I hope that Leese and Heather and Melissa have healthy, beautiful babies. I hope that I can get over my weight issues and just be happy with who I am. I hope that my friends, whatever they may do and wherever they may go, are happy and satisfied. Selfishly, I hope that He realizes what he lost and that he can't blame this on me. I hope that I am able to get a job I'm happy with and move out and regain the independence I fell in love with in college. I hope that my mom is happy because she deserves it, and doesn't deserve all the things she has had to deal with in her life; even though she is the craziest person I have ever met in my life. It's a good kind of crazy. A safe, comforting crazy. I hope that my brother is happy and I hope that my dad can figure himself out.

But mostly I hope that I can be happy without trying. I mean, to be honest, compared to last year, things can only go up. I know I can be a good, happy person, so let's make this happen 2009, ok? Oh, and I hope that they cancel The Tyra Banks Show. I can't stand that bitch.

The first day of you was rough, really really rough. In fact, the first MINUTES of you were probably some of the hardest I've ever had to encounter. But I've gotten through this before and I know I can do it again. No more military boys, that's for sure.

Anyway, I think we're gonna get along, 2009. You seem like a pretty chill number, I'm officially out of the year in which I graduated college and officially out of the year that has brought so many freakin tears I couldn't stand it. Let's make this year the year of Alexis-is-a-little-less-crazy. Because we all know, I may seem shy and timid, but I can dish it out in a bad way.

So this is my electronical truce. You're gonna be my new boyfriend, 2009. And I'm a damn good kisser so prepare yourself.

Sincerely,

Dear...

2008-12-25T05:41:00.000-08:00

Dear Virginity,

Remember me? It's been awhile, I know. Anyway, just thought I'd drop in to see how you were doing, check what you've been up to these past five or six years. How's the love life? Kidding ;)

I know I've written about you before, both in my blog and in my school paper, but I've never really written to you, which I guess is the point of this whole letter-writing thing. Anyway, it must be nice, or at least make you feel damn important, to be such a milestone in people's lives. You can really make or break a person. Depending on how long we hold onto you is the deciding factor on what makes us conservative or slutty or, how do I say this, a contestant on Beauty and the Geek or The Pick-up Artist.

I don't think there are two losing-your-virginity stories that are exactly the same, which is quite a testament to your versatility. You're like a hormonally-charged snowflake. I guess I should take a second to thank you for allowing me to lose you in the way I did, when I did, and to who I did. It helps that he's still one of my most trusted friends. And still a good kisser. And still gives me a back rub every time we hang out. Yep, thanks for picking me a good one.

Now, I don't know if you're like Santa and there's just one of you that goes around to all the kiddies of the world, or if there's a bajillion of you assigned to each individual person on earth. But in case there is just one of you, or in case you all hang out together and have poker nights on Wednesdays after hitting the Old Country Buffet, try to hang on to kid's today a tiny bit longer. I hate the fact that there are fourteen and fifteen year olds out there dry humping the shit out of each other. You may put the Maury show out of business but whatever.

Alright, I know I had more questions for you but it's kinda Christmas morning and I kinda have to go open some presents. Merry Christmas Virginity, miss you. Actually, no, no I don't.

Sincerely,

Dear...

2008-12-19T17:43:00.001-08:00

Dear Rommy, Rommster, Rommhead,

I've said it before and I'll say it again; you were college for me. Never in my life did I think I would be lucky enough to meet someone in the beginning of my freshman year at Muhlenberg, this curly-haired, hysterical, heart-warming girl that lived just a few doors down, that would be one of the most important friends and people in my life. And in true form of our relationship, I'm trying not to cry as I write this. And I'm watching a reality show on TV. And I'm sure you are too. LHF.

Honestly though, there are the people you physically grow up with all your life, and then there are the people you mentally grow with throughout the four years of college that change every aspect of your being and make you who you are. You were there for every tear, every laugh, every paper, concert, heartbreak, Dunkin trip, every mango rum and coke. Every moment we thought we were falling in love with someone and the rare moments when we realized we actually were in love.

You can read me just like I can read you. Even during the extremely sparse moments when we were angry with each other, there was no way we wouldn't get through it because you only get one true rommy in this life. Recap of the last four year anyone? Yes please.

Freshman year: Apple juice, Carlton dance, "Drives", El-Lo, You walking into my room without knocking and climbing straight into my bed, Skipping class to sit under Victor, Tip/Babs.

Sophomore year: T-Geigs, Topless Tuesday/Pantsfree Friday/Naked Nights, Bar in the bottom of our closet on the last night of school, Naps instead of going to Sistare's class, Olive GARden and Ian/Ethan/his friend was much hotter than him/he had bad tattoos and moobs.

Junior year: LEHCHEW LEHCHEW LEHCHEW.

Senior year: LehChew, Dunkin, Delaware, MTV and VH1 reality shows for hours and hours and hours, G-child (XOXOXOXOX), The VU, Manhatten, Paycheck/Farmer's Market/GQ and his millions of kids/Hot meat guy and his son/Hotter vacuum guy/Cornbread.

Obviously it's hard to classify the past four years because so much has happened and it has all blended together between the school year and our summers and everything in between. I love how we laugh so hard we can't breath; how you know it's funny when we laugh without making a noise and then all of a sudden gasp and start smacking whatever piece of furniture is around us. Thank you for putting up with my craziness and coming to all of my Chai concerts and cooking me dinner since we both know I can't cook for shit but secretly love doing dishes.

If it wasn't for you, I might be the only person alive who thinks that Kevin James is attractive (I mean...), and the only person left still doing A-Okkkkk.

You're an unbelievable person, unbelievable friend, and will always be my rommster.

81 you! ,

Rommy, Rommster, Rommhead

Dear...

2008-12-10T14:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Loves Of My Life,

I've had a lot of people come and go in my life. Some of them I knew wouldn't be lifelong friends, some of them cut me to the core when they disappeared. But you four, you're for real. You've been there through everything so far and I know you'll be there for everything else to come. Thank you for laughing with me, crying with me, telling me I'm being crazy, and telling me everything will be okay. Thank you for judging me when I needed to be judged, and not judging me when everyone else was.

Carol: First off, happy birthday you gorgeous piece of love. I always find it funny when people's first impression of you is a hard, cut-to-the-core chick. Don't get me wrong, you're tough as hell and you have been through things that no one else I know has. You are one of the strongest people I know, but you are also one of the softest and sweetest people I know. Underneath your studded belts and blue eyeshadow is a pink, lacey girly girl with, let's face it, one of the most smokin' bodies I've ever seen. You and I always say that there is a connection between us that no one will ever understand because we have a very similar outlook on so many situations. I will never ever leave you hanging and I know that feeling is reciprocated.

Cristin: My god you're stunning. You're the only person I know that can buy all of her clothes off eBay and still make them look amazing. You know how to do little things to make me feel better when I'm down and out, whether it be making me a handful of mix CD's, or breaking out your Gilmore Girls dvds. You're an incredible artist and I truly don't think you give yourself enough credit for that. Also the things that come out of your mouth are funny enough to make anyone pee their pants, juuuust a little bit.

Jil: What can I say, you're my LLP to the very end. When Blake and I broke up, you were one of the main reasons I was able to get through it. Whether it was our trip to New York (where we were Internet Adults on our NBC tour tickets), or the time I couldn't stand to be at school one second longer and you drove all the way up to Allentown to take me home for the night, I could never have gotten through those following weeks without you. You're the kind of friend where I don't have to tell you what I'm thinking, you just know. And James Dean probably knows too ;) But the bottom line is, there are no words to describe how much I appreciate you and care for you.

Claud: This may sound cheesy, but so many aspects of who I've been and who I am are because of you. In high school I was in awe of how confident and self-sufficient you were. I still am. You're the only person I know that constantly has 800 jobs at one time and rocks them all. My love of tattoos, country music, and orgasm cake all came about because of you. So did my ability to stick up for myself and actually believe that I deserve the things that I do. In all the years I've known you, there has never been one second where I have been with you and not had a hysterical time. Remember that letter I wrote to you the night before you left for college a couple weeks after high school? Well every word still holds. I love you.

So my lovely ladies, you are absolutely everything to me and always will be. I know you've made me proud and I hope I've done the same for you. You can always always always count on me. Cause trust me, I'm not going anywhere.

Sincerely,

AleXXXis/Dirty Dislexo/LLP

Dear...

2008-12-07T16:58:00.000-08:00

Dear Mom~Mom,

Three years ago today we lost you. But it wasn't just us that lost you, it was the world. The world lost the most stunning, kind, vulgar woman it would ever know. I look back now and regret not taking advantage of every day you were alive, because it wasn't until you were gone that I realized how vital you were to the amazing group of people that I'm lucky enough to call my cousins, aunts, and uncles. I wouldn't say you were the glue that held us together, because we're closer and stronger than most families I know. Instead, I would say that we were like a present. And you were the delicate yet slightly crude bow wrapped around us that made the gift that much better.

You were the one that was always there. You were at every school play, every birthday, every violin concert. You would sit there with your eyes closed and a smile on your face, soaking in every note, every pull of the bow. I wish that you were still around to have heard me sing at my a cappella performances.

You called me your little debutante. It felt good to know that you always saw something special in me, even when I was the angry, messy cousin that hated the world and everything in it. The best advice you ever told me, that anyone will ever tell me, was to grab the world by the ass and give it a good spin. I've been grabbing ever since.

I still have all of the cards you gave me over the 19 years I knew you. The cards that were really just the front of old cards that you had collected over the years and ripped the cover off of to reuse. You would draw dozens of smiley faces around every edge and corner of the paper, and underline any word that you felt needed emphasis, even if it was just the word "happy" or "day". I remember when you were so excited to buy your bright red walking shoes, and I remember when you spent an entire Christmas telling all of the cousins about your adventures necking with mafioso down by the lake.

I remember the little white lies you used to tell because you didn't want anybody to be inconvenienced or hurt, even though those little white lies usually caused more trouble than they were worth.

I remember that you used to babysit me and my brother and play Monopoly with us for hours. You used to cook with Len and Chris and go walking with Kelsey and Rachael. You would watch the Price is Right with Heather, Kelly, and Alyssa, and every time you laughed, you would kick your legs out in front of you and wiggle your feet.

There were so many times that you bothered me, that I resented the fact that you were constantly throwing out our soda cans before we even took two sips, or cleaning up our rooms while we were at school so when we came home we had no idea where anything was. Sorry.

I was never one to believe in God and heaven, and I still don't. But you once said that when you die, you want to forever be 21 years old, wearing a little black dress and drinking a martini. So that's how I imagine you. Sitting on a barstool on a cloud, with your legs crossed and a drink in your hand.

I know you're not physically here anymore, but at the same time, you're everywhere. You were at Heather's wedding, you were at my college graduation, you're watching me write this right now. Probably with Cocoa and Pop-Pop Charles. Or so I like to think.

So Mom~Mom, I guess I just want to say I miss you and I love you, because I know I didn't say it nearly enough when you were alive. But I do. I love you and we're all who we are because of you. So thank you. And I hope that martini is damn good.

Love forever and ever,

Your Little Debutante

Dear...

2008-12-04T11:22:00.001-08:00

Dear Eating Disorder,

You're a whore. You're a whore and I hate you for making me want to die if I gain even half a pound. I hate you for making me constantly suck in my stomach and pinch the side of my waist to make sure I can still fit the entire palm of my hand around my front and back. I hate you for making all of my pants slip off my body because they're so loose even a belt doesn't hold them up anymore. And I hate you for, in the past couple months alone, having me sent home from work numerous times because I had actually allowed myself to eat something that morning and felt like I was going to throw up.

I'm not sure when you started. I don't remember you coming around much in high school, which would explain why when I look back now of pictures of me then, I think, "What a fat ass". I don't even think you bothered me that much my freshman year of college when I gained a nice freshman 25. I vaguely remember being conscious of you the next year, but it wasn't until February of my junior year, when everything was happening, everything that will surely be discussed in another letter, that I spent a solid two weeks eating nothing but half a diet bar a day. And even then, I would eat it at night so any weight it put on my body would be gone by morning. Eating Disorder, you made me so tired, so weak, so miserable. To the point where I went to two of the girls I lived with and asked them to make sure I eat. Which they did. So fuck you Eating Disorder.

The next time you came around was that following summer. When I became obsessed with running, for hours at a time. I would run in the morning, come home, do a zillion crunches, and then go for another run each time I ate something. Even if I just had a handful of chips, out came the iPod and sneakers. I used to get secretly angry with John when he told me I was too skinny and needed to gain some weight. Looking back, it was probably the nicest and most genuine thing he'd ever said to me.

Senior year was saved by the fact that big, flowy shirts were in style.

This past summer I lost the charger for my iPod so I stopped running. Exercising was replaced with cigarettes (which I don't want to quit purely for the fear of gaining weight) and Adderall. One little pill, provided by a friend who I'm sure would stop providing it if she knew what I was really using it for, that instantly quenched my hunger. It came to the point where I couldn't go a day without it, causing me to lose a good fifteen pounds in about two weeks. I realized what was happening, along with numerous people asking me if I had lost weight. My old roommate from college would beg me to eat every time she saw me. So I stopped taking the Adderall. Or at the very least, I stopped taking it every single day. I allowed myself to eat a full meal. I gained back a couple of pounds and have never felt more disgusting with myself.

During one of the days where I was leaning up against the counter at work trying not to vomit, a guy I work with hesitantly asked me if I was anorexic. I thought about it and for the first time admitted that maybe I was. I think what I said was, "I've had problems with it in the past". I didn't want to admit that it was still a problem for me, now more so than ever. He asked if I wanted a hug but I said no. That hug would seal the deal. It would make me a victim and I didn't want that. I just wanted my secret eating disorder back.

So Eating Disorder, you've been thrown under the bus. The cat's out of the bag and I hope that I can get rid of you because honestly, I'm starving.

Fuck you,

Dear...

2008-12-02T21:02:00.000-08:00

Dear Former Love Of Mine,

I used to regret so many things about you and I, but I've finally come to the point where I don't regret, I appreciate. Because of you, I know who I want to be and who I don't want to be; what I want in a relationship and what I don't want in a relationship. You made me weaker and stronger all at the same time. But most importantly, you made me realize that someone can love me. You loved me with all your heart and soul and that is a feeling that I will never ever forget and never ever be able to thank you enough for.

The other day I found the ring you gave me. The gorgeous ring with the white gold and the diamonds and the hearts. Just out of curiosity I slipped it onto my left ring finger; the finger it used to never leave. It fit perfectly. While all my other rings now slip off my fingers, this one fit perfectly. It made me feel good. After we broke up, this ring used to make me so sad, but now it just brings back the good memories.

I love that we're at the point now where I can truly call you my friend. We can tell each other we love each other and know exactly what we mean. I don't tell people how often we talk and how often we hang out because I don't feel like hearing the lectures and seeing the eye rolls, because the truth is, no one can understand a relationship between two people except for those two people. Although, I don't even think that you and I completely understood the time that we spent enthralled with each other.

I could go on forever about the good and the bad with you, Former Love Of Mine. Like the time you had my friend trick me into meeting him in the student union so you could run up and surprise me with a dozen roses. Like the time you blindfolded me on Christmas Eve and led me through the city to give me the ring in front of the Christmas tree and LOVE sign in Love Park. Like the time you walked into my room on Valentine's Day, where I stood getting ready to go to dinner, and told me you didn't want to be with me anymore; told me that we were over. I have cried amazing and excruciating tears over you. Too many to count really. But in the end, thank you for spending the past three years making sure I'm ok and making sure I'm loved, whether it be by you or someone else.

Sincerely Love,

Dear...

2008-12-02T12:11:00.000-08:00

Dear Hot Guy At Work,

First off, thank you for being hot. Without you having such a good thing going on with your face, there's a strong probability that I would not have shown up for work nearly as much as I did. Second, thank you for flirting with me just enough to get my hopes up, but not enough to make me think you were a sure thing. It made things interesting. Fun. A nice little business casual chase.

The best thing that came out of you being the hot guy at work came once I got to know you. And realized you're kind of a douche bag. Therefore making me come to the conclusion, and for the first time ever actually believing, that looks aren't everything. Now when I see a smoking hot guy with tattoos and a tight ass, I hear a little voice say, 'He's probably every tool in the toolbox'. This saves me the time of prematurely imagining our future wedding and kids and retirement plan.

So Hot Guy At Work, this letter may have been short and sweet but so was my crush on you. You keep being hot and rock on buddy. Rock on.

Sincerely,

Don't Let Me Down December

2008-12-01T06:11:00.000-08:00

So November kinda stunk. This being December 1st, I'm hoping that things will get better, or at the very least things will be better by January 1st. The other day, a friend asked me if I still write. And I thought about it and realized that I don't. Even most of the things I post on here are things I'd previously written over the past couples years. Anyway, he told me I should start writing again and I realized that maybe this is why I haven't been happy with how my life is going. I've had no outlet to get rid of all the annoying, messy things. When I was in college, I used any writing assignment I would get as a chance to put my thoughts down, but (un)fortunately, I don't get homework anymore.

A couple days ago in work I was standing behind the computer, supposed to be looking up some book for someone on the phone. Instead I started writing down a list of all the people and things I wanted to write a letter to. Why I suddenly had an impulse to write a letter to every person place or thing I'd ever known is beyond me, but it happened so I went with it. So I made a pretty extensive list and decided that every couple days I would post one of those letters on here, and maybe if I got enough of them I could compile a nifty little book. Of course, on the way home from work that day I suddenly remembered seeing Don Rickles of all people appearing on Regis and Kelly the previous week, promoting his new book: a book of letters to every person, place, and thing he'd ever known. So apparently my sudden genius idea wasn't as original as I had thought but then I realized I didn't care. I'm doing it. And who knows, maybe you'll find a letter to you on here.

"We met in the parking lot, a 40 in your hand. I liked to sing out loud, you played guitar in a band..."

2008-11-18T13:42:00.000-08:00

So things change and that's all well and good, but it still sucks when you feel like you're losing a friend. We spent 2 years putting my words to your music and I miss it. So here's the first serious song we made, a song I wrote about you, and it short and simple but when we played it it meant something.

Broken

How did you know where I'd be

Just when I was looking for me

No rush but afraid to go slow

Be patient, I just want you to know

I'm broken, but that's how the light gets in

Uneasy, not quite ready for this to begin

Do I jump in, or do I do this alone

Caught between running and the safety of my home

I'm still young, so why is this on my mind

I feel like I'm running out of time

I'm broken, but that's how the light gets in

Uneasy, not quite ready for this to begin

Been kept down without the hope for air

There's got to be something better out there

Am I good enough

Can I be strong enough for you

Will you take me as I am

Or will this too fall through

I'm broken, but that's how the light gets in

Uneasy, not quite ready for this to begin

Been kept down without the hope for air

There's got to be something better out there

You've got to be the something out there

Miss you.

Sprinkles Story...Part 3

2008-10-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

Sex is weird.

Yeah it feels good and all that, but seriously, who thought of it? Was it like some guy a bajillion years ago went up to some girl and was like, "Hey, what's that you got down there? Is that a- is that a hole? Like, just a hole, nothing else? Hmm. Strange. See this thing I got? Right there? No, not those, on top of them, right- yeah, yeah that thing right there. Well it kinda looks like what I got could fit in what you've got. Wanna try it? No? Come on, we got nothing else to do. Seriously, what's the worse that could happen. If it doesn't fit I'll take it out, we'll go kill some wooly mammoths or something. Ok? Yeah? Sweet."

And civilization was born.

Seriously though, losing one's virginity has got to be one of the most awkward things ever. I don't know a single person who had one of those first times you see in the movies, with rose petals and candles and music and a guy whose waited a full month before jumping in the sack. I remember when my entire group of friends started losing our virginity, one by one. It was like an epidemic of thrust thrust done.

Carol told me about her first time when we were sitting in the basement of a friend's house during a party. Carol and I were just becoming super close as friends, so that would make it around 9th grade. So we were sitting on this couch, being kind of socially awkward because even though we knew a bunch of people there, we didn't necessarily like any of them. A guy we knew that would spend the entire next year making out with his girlfriend up against Carol's locker, had just given us an unnecessary drunken lap dance. When we didn't give him the let's-have-a-threesome-right-now reaction he was looking for, he stormed away, muttering "Dude, fuck this" under his breath. For whatever reason, this turned the conversation between Carol and I to sex, which would become a main staple in our conversations, even to this day.

Carol was explaining to me the latest hook up she had had and I was explaining how annoying it was that I hadn't even kissed a guy yet and I was already 14 years old (even though when I hear about 14 year olds now hooking up with each other I automatically think 'What the hell? You're so young!'), when a certain tall, dark, and not even remotely handsome guy walked into the room and right by Carol.

"Oh god, I can't believe he's here." She said as we watched him walk out the basement door.

I knew that Carol and the guy had dated on and off, and I also knew that he was a complete douchebag. To put it lightly.

Carol then turned to me and explained that not only was that guy her first kiss, but also the person she had lost her virginity to.

"He wanted to do it right away," she said, "but I told him I wasn't ready. So we waited awhile and then we did it and it was just like, oh, that was it?"

Claudia's loss of virginity had a much more exciting build up to it. You know how everyone has that person, that one guy or girl that has put them through such an emotional roller coaster over the years, yet you can't seem to ever get away from them? Well this guy Bill was Claudia's person. Everyone and their dog knew that Claud was going to lose her V-card to Bill, it was just a matter of when and where. Well, not so much where, but definitely when. In the last two or three months of our senior year of high school, the tension of Claud's remaining virginity was becoming unbearable, until one day she caught up with me at lunch while I was in line to buy one of those disgusting Cosmic Brownies, the kind that have those multicolored candies on top and are the consistency of rubber cement.

"Friday. It's happening Friday."

"What's happening Friday?"

"Me and Bill. Sex. Penis in vagina."

Claud and I then had some sort of awkward girl jump up and down and scream thing go on, as if we were eleven and just got backstage tickets to a Hanson concert.

"You have to let me know how it goes, like as soon as possible."

"Oh honey," Claud said as she turned to walk away. "I'll call you during the cigarette."

I got the call the following Saturday morning while I was across the street at my neighbors house.

"I'm not a virgiiinnn." Claud sang as I picked up and said hello.

I then got the details on size, duration, and positions. But I'll keep that between Claud and me. And, well, Bill I guess, since he was there and all.

My own first time was interesting. I had been dating this guy Brian for a couple weeks, and I was really really into him. He was an all around good guy and quite good looking. So we had been seeing each other for a little bit (this was about a month after the Claudia and Bill occurrence) , and one night after a bowling date, we found ourselves on my back couch making out. That couch was our spot, where we ended every night spooning and kissing and being all lovey dovey. A few years ago my parents got rid of the couches and even to this day whenever Brian comes over, he sighs and goes, "I miss our couch."

So anyway, we're on the couch and there's some heavy petting and moving and whatnot. At one point I began to feel something start to creep around my insert-slang-word-of-choice-for-vagina-here. A little tingly something I'd never felt before. Of course, it never reached it's potential, but in my head, this almost-orgasm was obviously a sign that Brian and I should have sex the next day and not a moment later. So the next day poor little un-suspecting Brian picked me up and we went to his apartment. At the time, Brian worked the night shift at a tow truck company so he had the house to himself during the days. So it was about 11:30 in the morning when we went up to his room and got into bed. Brian's intentions were just to lay there and watch "Along Came Polly". I had something else on my naive, unexperienced mind.

I'm obviously not going to share the details here, but let's just say Brian was taken by surprised, as was I when I realized that first time sex isn't as easy as you would think it would be. But regardless of details, I would say that in no way do I regret my personal loss of little miss virginity.

An hour later, he was driving me home, neither of us talking. Finally, as he was about to turn onto my street, he looked over and rubbed my leg.

"You ok?"

I smiled and nodded. "Yep, I'm good."

"Ok, see you tomorrow." He gave me a kiss and I got out of the car.

Walking into my house, I immediately ran upstairs and called Claudia.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Hey. Um, I think I just had sex."

Oh Potti...

2008-10-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

My mom is now participating in her morning talk shows. As in, this morning Kelly Ripa asked a question of the audience, and my mom raised her hand and said, "Oh I know, me too!". This is in addition to her talking to the TV as if Elisabeth Hasselback can hear her and cares. And the nodding and laughing and "Yes yes, it's so true!!!".

I love my mommy.

"Baby, You Still Drive Me Crazy..."

2008-10-08T12:04:00.000-07:00

he's home :)

How Much Wood Could A Woodchuck Chuck If A Woodchuck Could Chuck Booty Calls

2008-10-06T10:08:00.000-07:00

The Booty Call. If done right, one of life's greatest talents. And it is a talent. A booty call can get messy (and I mean it literally in this case although if the guy is a little too anxious a clean up on aisle 6 can occur), so you have to keep a few things in mind. It's best to leave most, not all but most, emotion out of it. The best thing to work off of is the physical attraction since chances are the guy or girl is not going to call you the next day, let alone let you sleep over and make you breakfast in the morning. But what happens when a certain booty call becomes a re-occuring thing, and what exactly is the time period in which one can last?

I seem to have these lingering hook-ups which come and go over a period of a couple years, some more frequent than others. For sake of anonymity, we'll use code-names for the people I'm going to talk about, even though most of you are well aware of the real identities. B-22 and I dated for about a year when I was 17 going on 18, and still to this day continue to hook up. That's 5 years. True, with B-22 there is a solid friendship and attraction, not to mention ::gasp:: respect grounding us, but still, 5 years is a long time. We both know that eventually the hook up is going to stop, maybe next week, maybe not until one of us finally gets married. But B-22 is an extreme case. Then there's people like Butthead and Douchebag and Eeyore, or Manayunk and Hot English Kid. All of these have been going on between 1 and 2 years, and some of them actually have some emotion and ex-dating behind them. But lately I've started to notice that every time I hang out with one of these guys, it is more routine than anything else. Even Butthead and Douchebag both of whom in the recent past I swore I was falling for, are starting to lose their appeal. So with these elongated booty calls, does it eventually just turn into something we do because we're bored and just don't have anything to do that night?

For those of us who seem to prefer the over and over's instead of the one night acquaintances (which I wouldn't necessarily classify as a one night stand), at what point do we say, ok I'm done. Time to find a real boyfriend.

Sometimes a booty call just ends on its own. Eventually you stop texting each other asking what you're doing that night. Others entail the "Listen, I kinda started seeing someone" call, even though that someone is usually out of the picture in a few months in which case you DO get the what are you doing tonight text. I guess the best thing to do is keep it to a 1-2 booty call maximum. But what the hell do I know- the last serious relationship I had consisted of me going to school and working during the day and my boyfriend working all night.

Either way, random hook ups with a not-so stranger can be fun, it just gets a little tiring after a few years I guess. Just like me trying to figure out the meaning behind something where the whole point is that there is no meaning at all.

We're JUST Pretty Enough To Be This Stupid: Vol. 5

2008-10-03T21:00:00.000-07:00

"You know what they say- if you can't do it with your hips, do it with your lips." - 'Therapist' Jim

"Are you eating Nerds?" -Bobby

"You are what you eat." -Alexis

(Shakes head) "You're an idiot. Do they have anything over there called Dumbass?" -Bobby

"What word do guys use more- cock or dick?" -A certain unnamed family member

"Oh my god. I knew when you started that sentence it couldn't go anywhere good but I had no idea how bad it would be." -Alexis

"I wonder if actual swimmers have better swimmers..." -Kiel after the Olympics

"Congratulations. You've just become blacker than me." -Jacqui

"Yes. Score one for Claudia." -Claudia

"I can't believe I just drank a Pabst's Blue Ribbon. Oh my god I need to meet someone." -Jacqui

(While lying in bed watching a movie)

"Whose crying?" -Kiel

"Jean-Claude Van Damme." -Alexis

"So...I got bent in a way I don't bend." -Jil

"He's a fox. And when he's fighting, he's a fox. Especially when he's covered in other people's blood." -Claudia (on UFC's St. Pierre)

" 'What did you learn in school today?' 'How to give myself an orgasm just by sitting and moving.' " -Claudia

"Oh god, it's like a chicken cutlet getting breaded." -Patti (when sand got on her boobs in a bathing suit)

(Superfreak comes on the radio)

"Oh my god, can you please change it?" -Alexis

"Hey, I want a little funk in my life!" -Dad

"Salt? Salt anyone? No?" -awful band at Vintage while singing Margaritaville

"The ghetto white chick got knocked up. Big surprise!" -Claudia

"Does anyone from Abington amount to anything?" -Carol

"Bob Saget!" -Alexis

"In case you haven't noticed by now, I wear a bra that can carry midgets." -Claudia

Please Come Home So I Can Stop Writing Stories About You

2008-10-02T12:02:00.000-07:00

So this past year in my non-fiction workshop, we spent the majority of the semester writing and re-working a story on loss. This was one of my drafts and even though I don't use his real name, it's pretty obvious to those of you who know me who this is about.

---

I was in love just once before. Me and this guy, we were together for awhile- like, really together. We used to drive around in his car and pick out houses we liked and he would say, "that driveway is big enough for all my cars" and I would say, "that porch would be a great place to sit and read". Then he would say, "tell me you love me" and I would say, "I love you".

I think I was in love just because he told me I was. I haven't really figured that out yet.

But this one, this new guy. He's something else. I have to take deep breaths when I'm around him; big gaping gasps that catch in my throat and make my chest rise. He looks at me like I'm crazy.

"Why do you still get nervous around me?" he says, and I answer "Cause I have a crush on you."

I strongly believe that crushes are a lost art. Not enough people have crushes anymore. They have infatuations; they're enamored. I like crushes, they feel weird. Fuzzy or something.

So this new boy. Let's call him Jack. In one of my college English classes I had to read this essay by this guy named Nims and he went on and on about the importance of vowels and consonants and how they create the meaning of a word. It's all about sound, this guy Nims kept stressing. Sound sound sound. So if i were to try and find the meaning of Jack, I would have to realize that he begins with a fricative and ends with a plosive. Ja-ack. Nims says this means he is drastic and cuts off airflow to the lungs. I guess I buy the drastic part, but I may be biased. I do have a drastic crush on him after all.

The thing about liking someone enough to think about them constantly, but not yet liking them enough to be driving around picking out houses, is that you tend to let them walk all over you a little. I certainly have my share of footprints on my back. Big, drastic, airflow-cutting footprints. Like that time he was supposed to come home for my 21st birthday and see me before I went out to dinner with my girlfriends. He came home alright, but went straight to the tattoo place to get his rib piece colored in, conveniently calling me to hang out just as I was driving into the city to make my reservation time.

"Sorry, the guy took longer than I thought he would. It looks cool as shit though."

I'm jealous of that tattoo.

But of course, when he got in a car accident last summer, I stayed with him for two days straight, shaking him awake every three hours so his concussion didn't get the best of him. His whole family was down the shore that weekend so once Jack was feeling better I drove us down to meet them. When we got there, his dad grabbed me and hugged me and thanked me.

"You better keep this one around Jacky." He said.

I looked at Jack and nodded. "You hear that?"

Jack laughed and popped open a beer.

I once read this quote that said, "Crushes are supposed to hurt- that's why they're called crushes." I don't know how I feel about this quote.

My old boyfriend, he used to tell me I couldn't break up with him because no one would ever love me like he did. He told me it didn't matter that I had lost touch with my friends.

"Look at my parents, at your parents," he would say as I sat crying because once again my roommates had gone out on a Friday night without me. "They only have like, what, two, three friends?"

I wasn't so convinced so I would just keep crying. That's what most of that relationship was: me crying, him telling me how much we loved each other. So you can imagine my surprise when he began emptying his drawer on Valentine's Day.

"You're cheating on me."

"Um, no I'm not."

"Well...I have to go."

So that was that. Moving on.

Jack and I had known each other for a year before we started dating. Well, I guess in our case the term "dating" deserves a bit of explanation. He isn't my boyfriend and I am not his girlfriend. Actually, I'm not even sure if we're allowed to see other people. But when we're together, everything is lollipops and butterflies and deep kisses and that works for us. So we're "dating".

I remember the first time we spent the whole weekend together; it was only a couple of weeks into our pseudo-relationship. He came to visit me at school and we spent the whole two days in my bed, watching movies and switching between being the big spoon and the little spoon, only getting up to go to the bathroom and open the door for the Chinese food delivery guy. By the time he left that Sunday, my sheets smelled like orange chicken and his cologne. I didn't change them for a week.

Jack is the first guy I've been with that I've actually been attracted to. This is an unnatural concept, even to me. See, when you go through junior high and high school being the awkward tomboy, only to arrive at college to a Polo-clad roommate whose new goal in life is to girl you up, you tend to still maintain your original mindset of being the "cute" girl. Never pretty, never beautiful, certainly never hot. So as someone who had gone her whole life settling for anyone who would give her attention, I was shocked that this boy, with the tattoos and freckles, the blue eyes and muscles that twitched seductively every time he banged on the drums in his band, actually liked me back. Not only that, he calls me hot and says I could stand to gain five pounds. The kid encourages me to eat...he is my Brad Pitt.

My friends, that is, the ones that returned after the infamous Valentine's Day Dumping, are wary of Jack. They think he's unreliable. Which he is. They think I'm getting in over my head. Which I am. They think I'm crazy for putting myself in this situation, especially considering the circumstances. I do not disagree. But, as I tell my friends, it's about settling.

"I've spent my whole life settling. I'm sick of settling."

"We know," they tell me, "but we don't want to see you get hurt."

"I've been hurt. It's not so bad."

Jack's in the Air Force. A few weeks ago he left for Africa; his very first deployment.

I have the message he sent me tacked up to the bulletin board in my room- right next to my grocery list and the picture of my cousin and I from two Thanksgivings ago. I printed it out as soon as it popped up on my computer that one morning, as I was packing my bag full of books on John Donne and Adrienne Rich and William Blake. Being an English major came with an extra thirty pounds of dead and cynical poets. It jumped onto my screen in bright red letters: New Messages!

I clicked on my New Messages (!) and saw it was from him; I guess he somehow found a way onto the Internet over there? I opened it up and printed out the promise of just one to two more weeks.

After four weeks of hanging on that bulletin board, that stupid bulletin board with that stupid grocery list and that picture of my cousin from that stupid Thanksgiving, the reflection from the sun through my window had begun to fade the ink on my New Message...!.

---

A lot's changed since I wrote that, mainly the fact that he did come back, but then went to Iraq...and then came back and now he's there again. Patti's trying to get me to enter this writing contest where you submit a true story, and I'm thinking of sending in either this one or the little thing I wrote about graduating college (a bunch of posts back). So Jil and Cristin and whoever else, if you could just go ahead and give me some feedback, that'd be greeaaatttttt :)

Sprinkles Story...Part 2

2008-09-12T19:34:00.000-07:00

Being young is synonymous with three things: being adventurous, being stupid, and being invincible. Our group of friends had been through our share of shitty experiences. Some of us had scars on our arms from where we had cut when we didn't know what else to do. Some of us spent our days doing anything to avoid being in the house with our wretched, useless fathers. Some of us would spend hours sitting alone and crying, not sure why we were feeling so devastatingly sad. Despite all of this, we had never been hit with something that was completely beyond our control; something that wasn't supposed to happen to a group of high school kids who didn't drink, didn't do drugs, didn't sleep around (at least not yet). We all looked forward to winter break, when for seven miraculous days we were free from school and Abercrombie doused whores and just stress in general. It was our senior year and after this break, we would be in the home stretch. Only a few more months of this miserable old building with its fluorescent lit cafeterias and un-air-conditioned classrooms that made you so hot and sweaty you wanted to pass clear out on your calc book. But it was also our home stretch of all going to school together. In a few months we would all be heading off in different directions to our respective colleges and we were determined to make this last Abington winter break a good one.

Everything started around the beginning of December, right before her birthday, when Carol started mentioning that she wasn't feeling good.

"Carol, you need to eat. I haven't seen you take a bite of anything in three days." I said to her one morning while we were waiting in the cafeteria for the first bell to ring.

"I know, I'm just not hungry. I don't feel right. I'm nauseous. Tired." she crossed her arms on the table and slumped her head down on top of them. "I think I'm pregnant."

The bell rang and we abandoned the situation.

For the next week it was more of the same. Carol got more and more thin and all of her energy was visibly drained out of her already tiny frame. It was decided that if need be, she would take a pregnancy test so we could at least rule out, or take care of, that option.

The following weekend I was asleep in bed- I forget if it was a Saturday or Sunday morning. I felt a nudge on my arm and heard someone whisper, "Alexis, wake up." I forced one eye open to see my mom standing over me, the phone in her hand.

"It's Claudia," she said as I struggled to roll over and open the other eye. "She says it's important." There was a look on my mom's face that I hadn't seen before. At the time, she wasn't thrilled with my choice of friends, but there was some kind of concern and worry pulsing through her gaze that made me reach out and take the phone from her.

"Mmm, hello?" I mumbled, slouching my face back into my pillow. All that followed were hysterical sobs from Claudia and words sliding together that I couldn't understand. I sat up straight and switched the phone to my other ear.

"Claud, what's wrong, what happened."

There were a few gasps and then, "Carol has cancer."

I sat there like a rock as she explained that Carol's mom had taken her to the doctor for some tests, which came back positive for Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Claudia then told me she needed to go throw up, and disconnected. I pushed END on my own phone, and sat for a second, staring at it. I then leaned forward and threw it across my room in a fit of rage. It bounced off the opposite wall and slid back across the floor where it spun in circles. I watched it until it finally slowed down and came to a stop just as I began to feel heaving waves of tears come screaming out of my eyes.

My mom had been waiting outside. She walked towards me slowly and stood next to the phone on the floor.

"What happened?" she asked, even though I was sure she already knew. She always already knew.

"Carol has cancer. We thought she was pregnant but she has cancer."

The following Monday I didn't say a word in school to anybody. Claudia and I watched as three thousand students and faculty went about their day, laughing and joking and breathing and not having cancer.

Carol's operation was on Wednesday. Her chemo and radiation started on Thursday. On Friday, Claudia and I skipped out of our last period gym class early and drove in the truck to the hospital down the street. On the way we talked about anything but what we were doing. We talked about how much we hated the snow. We talked about how even though it was ridiculously cliche, we wanted to lose our virginity to our boyfriends on prom night. We talked about how fucking ridiculous it was that you couldn't find fucking parking within three blocks of the fucking hospital that as we spoke was pumping bags of fucking poison into our best friend.

It took us awhile to find the cancer ward because neither of us had really been in the hospital before, let alone by ourselves. Everything was white and linoleum and spelled like that purple goo your mom always shoved down your throat every time you were sick as a kid. Carol's room was three floors up, down the hall, to the right. The corner room with the most windows and biggest bathroom and the comfiest chairs. We could hear the voices of her mom and aunt as we approached the door and knocked softly.

"Come in."

Claudia reached for the doorknob as I reached forward and grabbed her other hand, not able to let go even if I wanted to. We walked inside.

The shades to the windows were drawn. The door to the bathroom was closed. The chairs were all pushed together in one corner. Lying in the bed in the middle of the room was Carol, tubes coming out of every inch of her body and bandages covering the spots on her neck where they had removed the cancerous lymph nodes. Her hair, which she had just dyed red a few weeks ago, was matted with sweat to her forehead. I looked down at her wrists which for as long as I could remember were always surrounded by black rubber bracelets that she never took off. In our history class I used to reach over and grab her arm, placing in on my desk. I would count her bracelets over and over again, amazed that she could fit so many on there. She always had fifteen on her right arm, seventeen on her left. Now for the first time I saw her bare, pale wrists, tinier than any wrist should ever be. They were bruised from all the needles that had been poked into her in the past couple days.

"Hey Carol." Claudia whispered while I continued to look on in silence. I could feel the tears coming back and I didn't want Carol to see.

Carol made a noise and squinted her eyes, moving her head towards us. Her mom and aunt left the room so we could be alone.

To be honest, I don't remember anything that was ever said during our visits to see her. I remember around New Years we brought her a hat covered in green glitter and some of those noise makers that you blow into. There is only one picture of Carol that I know of while she was in the hospital, and it is of her wearing that hat, looking exhausted but smiling. I remember Claudia and I used to sit on the window ledge and make sarcastic flirting eyes at all the young male doctors that walked past the open door. I think we may have brought Carol balloons. I remember Carol saying how much this sucked.

Carol didn't return to school until the end of January, maybe even the beginning of February- again, I'm not quite sure. She had lost all of her hair because of the chemo, and when she was just around us she would wear only a bandana. But once she got back to school she had a wig. It was a lot shorter than her old hair, so everyone thought that she had just gotten it cut. It was like they didn't even realize she had been gone for two months or that her skin was yellow or that her clothes hung off of her like she was a three year old dressing up in her mommy's dresses.

I do remember asking Carol what the worst part about all of this was.

She smiled and sniffed. "Losing your nose hair," she told me at lunch one day as I watched her eat for the first time in months, "you never realize how fucking cold your nostrils get until there's nothing there."

I laughed and reached forward to grab her arm, counting her bracelets to make sure there were fifteen on the right arm, seventeen on the left.

Embarrassment. Emphasis On Ass.

2008-09-12T13:02:00.001-07:00

So as most of you know, my lazy ass has had the ability to take a simple task such as cleaning my room, and stretch it out over a span of, let's see, we're going on 4 months now. Well today while I was stuffing my closets with clothes I haven't worn in ten years but am convinced I will someday need, I came across some "books" that I wrote in elementary school, courtesy of McKinley's ultra-professional Publishing Center. One of these books was a collection of poems that I wrote in 3rd grade, and I vividly remember carrying around a pad of paper with me for weeks, writing down poems whenever I got the inspiration. At the time, I was sure that these were works of art that no other 8 year old could possibly think of- although reading through them now I suddenly remembered my mom at the time looking through a couple and saying, "Um, Alexis? Just cause it rhymes doesn't mean you have to make a poem out of it". I'm pretty confident that she was talking about the following world-stopping classic, entitled "Couches and Houses":

Houses have couches

Couches come in houses

Together they make couches in houses

I know.

Another winner that I found was about a little girl named Mackie who befriended a leprechaun after finding him at the end of the rainbow (he was trying to take the pot of gold that Mackie needed to prove to the bullies at school that her beliefs in vampires and leprechauns were real...you know, standard 7 year old stuff). After this whole story about Mackie's quest for this gold and her newfound friendship with this little green guy, the climactic last page reads:

"So they split the gold and became friends until the leprechaun died. Mackie cried for three nights and two days. But she got over it and lived happily ever after."

Apparently Mackie got a bit of an ego and became quite the wretched bitch. On this last page I have a pretty rad drawing of a bright green coffin with a giant pink RIP on the side. Lying on top is a bouquet of what I think are supposed to be flowers, but actually look like a cluster of meatballs shooting spaghetti out the sides.

Why I haven't already won the Pulitzer is beyond me. And I wonder why I don't have a writing job yet.

AMOS LEE: Vocal Man Of My Dreams. And The Whole Face Body Thing Doesn't Hurt Either

2008-09-11T10:26:00.000-07:00

Fact: I am dangerously obsessed with Amos Lee.

Fact: Bill took me to see him in July and I sat there like a 5 year old on Christmas.

Fact: Amos Lee is coming to the Keswick Theater in October.

Fact: Alex and I are going to see him.

Fact: I'm so excited I could burst into a puddle of little psycho groupies.

We're JUST Pretty Enough To Be This Stupid: Vol. 4

2008-09-10T11:49:00.000-07:00

"I'm really hungry...that seagull's looking pretty good..." - Megan

"The way the Internet works, it needs to come in the box." -Skip

"That's what she said." - Alexis

"So you made it through college without having an affair with a professor?" -Mom

"Yep, everyone's shocked." - Alexis

"That's my angel." - Mom

"I have a small nipple so you probably won't find it." - Zach

"Found it!" - Cristin

"There it is!" -Zach

"Come on ladies, I don't want to hit you. That would be a hate crime." -Jil in the Vintage parking lot

"Oh, my box is full, that's why it wasn't coming." -Alexis

"Why aren't you in the theater department?" -Mom

"Cause I'm shy." -Alexis

"You're an awfully loud pain in the ass for being shy." -Mom

"I don't know what that was. It was like a sad, Jersey, virgin situation." -Ali

"Mike chewed my gum the second day I knew him." -Elyse

"Was Oliver hot?" -Elyse

"Oliver was six." -Alexis

"We keep getting all his...love stains." -Bill

"I'm closing my tab...as soon as the gay redneck gets out of my way." -Claud

"Sex is like a Chinese dinner. It's not over till you both get your cookies." -'Therapist' Jim

How Am I Supposed To Disappoint My Parents Now?

2008-09-05T19:44:00.000-07:00

So they're making all the bars around here non-smoking. I, for one, am extremely saddened by this news. Why should I be punished just because I like my beer with a side of lung cancer? (It's a personal choice, really). Now, I understand that all you non-smokers don't like the smell of our cigarette and blah blah blah. Well I don't like snow, but I still have to put up with it every winter- it comes with the territory. Here's what I think. I think they should have a teeeeny tiny little no-smoking section in the way back of bars and leave the rest for us to fill up with our smoke and cynicism.

Sprinkles Story..Part 1

2008-09-04T10:46:00.000-07:00

I wish you knew us. I wish you knew these amazing, raw, unapologetic, stunning people that I am lucky enough to call my friends. These people that I have known since I was a little kid with chubby cheeks and heavy bangs. People that have been there through elementary school birthday parties and junior high zits and high school awkwardness. People that have been there through college papers and exams and heartaches. People that are a little off-color, a little rough around the edges, but people that are so fantastically wonderful that if they weren't around the earth would certainly be flat. I wish you knew us.

2004. Senior year of high school. Just old enough to think we're the shit, just young enough to realize that we have to work our asses off to make other people believe it. Our last months of Abington Senior High School were drawing to a close and we were all hopped up on Clove cigarettes and gas money from our part time jobs. It was time to take advantage of the fact that we lived on the border of Philadelphia. It was time to whore ourselves up and go clubbing.

Enter Operation Shampoo Night Club.

"What the hell do you wear to a club?" I asked Claudia, cradling the phone between my shoulder and chin (which was slightly plumped up thanks to my first experience with birth control pills because I was determined that THIS was the year to lose my virginity). I slid the hangers in my closet from left to right, pulling out all my discount shirts from Old Navy and Aeropastle and throwing them on the floor in disgust.

"Shit, I don't know, a skirt I guess?" Claud answered and I could hear the faint sounds of her going through her own closet.

"I'm fairly positive I don't have a damn thing that would work." What is it about being seventeen that makes you feel the need to insert a curse word in every sentence?

"Shopping trip?"

I sighed. "I guess." I hated shopping. Going in a poorly lit dressing room full of mirrors only resulted in tears and self-deprecation and plans for your next crash diet.

"I'll pick you up in an hour."

As we drove to the mall in Claud's noisy red pickup truck, we created a game plan. Skirts and a tank top, nothing too spectacular but we would be sure to get everything in one size too small. She had the boobs and I had the ass so we had to show them off accordingly.

"Ready?" Claud called from the next dressing room over.

"Ready."

We swung our doors open and stepped out to show each other our final outfit choices. We were both wearing identical black skirts and pink spaghetti strap shirts.

We looked each other up and down.

"Crap." Claudia sighed.

I looked at my watch. "Whatever, we don't have time. We gotta go home and shower up for tonight."

A couple hours later I was putting the final touches on my make-up and hair.

Clubbing Rule #1: Always wear your hair down and always douse yourself in sparkly eye shadow.

I heard a knock on my door and shouted "Come in!"

I heard Claud walk in and up the stairs. She was dressed in heavy sweatpants and a hoodie.

"I had to wear this over my outfit so my mom wouldn't flip." she explained.

I nodded and clipped on my little horseshoe necklace I had just bought.

"Ready. Let's go."

I threw on the same coverup outfit as Claud and we walked past my mom and out of the house before Mommy Dearest could ask any questions.

Once outside, I saw our friends Ali and Carol climb out of the truck with the same get up as us. Together, we all stripped from our sweats and stood there looking at each other, everyone one of us in a black skirt and pink top.

"Well at least we won't be hard to lose." Ali pointed out.

We headed down I-95, the Philly skyline directing us in the direction of 7th and Callowhill where our destination waited for us. We laughed nervously on the way there, all of us not admitting that we were slightly apprehensive for what was in store.

Once there and once we found a spot on the street big enough to fit the truck, we piled out and hiked up our skirts and pulled down our tops. We got our ID's ready and strolled into Shampoo like we had done this a thousand times.

Shampoo looked like an old factory building turned into a mecca of cheap drinks and house music. Walking up you could feel the concrete vibrating beneath your feet as techno versions of Nelly and Britney Spears pulsed through the walls. Once inside and once through the frisking for drugs and weapons line, we were hit with strobe lights and sweaty South Philadelphians pressed up against each other like a can of drunk sardines.

Clubbing Rule #2: Always stick together and dance in a circle facing each other. That way, if a creepy guy comes up behind you, your friends can give you the appropriate eye signal to push him away. Or to act like your friend is your lesbian lover.

We danced, we grinded, we flirted with the cute guys and rejected the questionable ones. We left the club at 2 AM, sweaty and thrilled.

One by one Claud dropped us off at our houses. As she pulled up to mine I flicked my Clove out the window and grabbed my purse.

"Not bad." I said, putting up the window and reaching for the door.

Claud shook her head. "Not bad at all."

I climbed out of the truck and strolled into my house, feeling accomplished. I walked up the stairs, stripping off my clothes with each step and heading for the bathroom.

Clubbing Rule #3: Once home, shower immediately.

Goodbye Summer '08

2008-08-30T23:35:00.000-07:00

So Summer '08 is officially over. It was kind of a weird feeling this summer because we all knew that this was the end of a lot of things and the start of even more new things. It was terrifying and exciting all at once. Following with tradition, we ended the summer at our booth at Vintage, and it was as amazing as ever. But for me, this summer made me realize so many things.

I'm done with school. It sucks, but I need to accept it and move on. I realized that I can't rely on the safety net of class and work study and LehChew anymore, I can only rely on myself and my safety net of EP Ladies. And trust me, that alone is a really sturdy safety net. I'm really lucky. But still, we're all going to move on and in the next couple of years we'll be moving all over the country, maybe even the world, and we'll be starting careers and getting married and having babies. But as Jil and I were talking tonight, we both agreed that we were scared of ever having to work at keeping up our friendships. The thing is though, I really don't think we'll ever have to. Certain people in our group have come and gone but there is always the core of us that will never be torn apart. Even if someday we go a year without talking, I know I can call Claudia or Jil of Carol and they will always be there. Always.

So here are the things I have learned this summer. I have learned that even though I tell people I don't want a boyfriend, I really do. But I want the RIGHT boyfriend. I want to be with someone who loves me the way I deserved to be loved and someone who I love the way THEY deserved to be loved. Knowing me, the latter is more important and infinitely more challenging. I want to not settle for anything less than I know I want or deserve- in anything. I want a job that I will rock, I want a place of my own that I can feel at home in, I want to be surrounded by people that make me feel lucky to know them.

I know I talk about it a lot, but this is such a transition time for me and it's really scary. They don't teach you this stuff in school and they don't have "A Talk" that your parents sit you down and discuss with you. In a time like this, no matter who is around you, you are truly on your own. It's scary but it's real and you have to find what works for you and what will make you happy. Because in the end, as selfish as it may seem, you need to do what's right for you and in some ways only care about yourself in order to set a life out for you that is satisfying and rewarding. I have gotten so much inspiration and life lessons from the people that I have loved and been friends with since we were in first grade, chosen to carry the sign in first grade for Mrs. Maybaum's class in the Halloween parade. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start posting, bit by bit, The Sprinkles Story. I'm going to let you in on the people and events that have made me, us, who we are today.

Even though it went by intensely fast, this summer let me in on things that I know I deserve. I went on one of the best vacations of my life with a group of people from the 'Berg that are amazing and funny and beautiful. I got my heart stepped on once again while simultaneously slowly letting in someone that can either save me or break me. I opened myself up to new possibilities by meeting people on my own without the backbone of friends. I went out and got a job that I knew I wouldn't love but I also knew could teach me a whole mess of things. I became closer to people that have only semi been in my life for, well, my whole life. Specifically my sister. At times I regret not getting close to her all these years but the timing just wasn't right. But now, I can honestly say that not only is she my blood, she's my friend. Someone that I can call at 4 in the morning and cry to or jump up and down ecstatically with. My whole life I wanted a sister that was more than just someone who happened to share the same father as me and now I have it. I have a piece of me that was missing for 22 years.

So now it's on to the next step. I really have no clue what it is but I know what I WANT it to be and I am going to do whatever I can to make it happen.

Independence is the name of the game folks. A cheering section would be greatly appreciated. With signs. And pom-poms. And hot dogs and beer. Feel free to tailgate.

The Experiment: Better To Have Loved And Lost Than Never To Have Loved At All

2008-08-22T15:51:00.000-07:00

20 Days

So I'm kind of doing this thing that involves me temporarily quitting something that I've spent the majority of the past five years depending on. By stopping this certain action, I'm hoping to get a few things out of it, two of which being respect for myself and respect from another person ("person" to be determined). I've tried stopping this before but it never worked out, in fact, I don't think there is one thing like this that I have ever followed through with. So I decided to give myself an incentive, a rewards system. Every 20 days that I steer clear of this certain thing, I will both buy myself a present and forgive myself for one thing that I have done or thought in the past that I regret. Well, today is my first 20 days. I have no money so the present will have to wait, but I DO have something that I am ready to forgive myself for:

I forgive myself for beating myself up over the fact that I loved him for so long after he stopped loving me.

I Mean, I COULD Date You...Or I Could Go Mack It Out With That Asshole Over There.

2008-08-18T21:28:00.001-07:00

Every girl wants to find a nice, sweet, caring guy to be with, right? They want flowers and kisses on their forehead and their parents to absolutely adore the guy they bring home. Well, I feel like I missed this day of Relationship School. After many dates, and many attempts, I have found that I am completely and utterly unable to feel any kind of spark with a nice, clean-cut, "normal" guy. I am totally that girl who is horrifically turned on by guys who treat me like crap. Not that I'm saying I would ever put up with a guy who hit me or talked down to me, I'm talking about those guys that lead you on and, let's face it, are totally banging other girls on the side. And of course, the more tattoos the better. Piercings I could give or take. But aesthetically-wise, I'm just not into the whole polo shirt and brown leather belt look. And I want either a shaved head that I can incessantly rub or long curly hair that I twirl my fingers around.

Now, I realize that this love of douchebags is a habit I should probably break because ultimately, I'm not really trying to end up with a guy who "works" late at the office every night. But for some reason, I just can't bring myself to get any kind of butterflies around a guy that I know would treat me amazing. It's like I don't trust them. Just like for the longest time I didn't trust guys with blonde hair. Don't ask me why. They just creeped me out.

So here's my question.

What is it about jerky guys that us girls find so appealing? Why do we get a rush out of sitting by the phone, feeling absolutely miserable yet drastically hopeful, waiting for you stupid boys to call us? And when you DO call us, it's most likely to cancel plans last minute. There must be some kind of hormonal drive that makes us girls go from 0 to 60 every time we're lucky enough to receive a brief moment of attention from you. When we're with you, all we do is bitch to our friends about how we wish you were nicer, but then when we find someone nicer, all of a sudden they're boring. It's almost like a non-sexual version of never wanting to actually date the hoe at the frat party that everyone knows puts out after 3 Jack and cokes.

For example, tonight I went on this date (our second) with a really truly nice awesome guy. But besides the fact that he's just too clean-cut for me, he's just TOO nice. But THEN I think about how this is all so stereotypical of me because if this guy just had an arm sleeve and a buzz cut, yet still was as nice as he is now, I would probably be totally into him. And at what age is it time to be like, you know what? We are far too old to be playing this high school game of will-he-or-won't-he-call.

I think what I need is a guy who, underneath his business suit, has my name tattooed across his ass.

Well Kids, It's Official.

2008-08-17T22:39:00.000-07:00

In 10 or so hours (but whose counting), about 2,200 lucky bastards will start moving all of their Yaffa blocks and mini-fridges and skanky clothes back into the Berg. Hopefully the freshman and sophomores were smart enough to load up on their class schedules now so they can have an easy breezy senior year, and hopefully the juniors and seniors realize that they have to soak in every damn minute of their last days at college. I won't miss the classes or finals or papers, but I will miss WOW sticks and bagel bombs and Sandellas (big shock, I immediately think about food). And skipping class to sit under Victor's Lament (which you have to admit you loved by the end of the 4 years) the second Allentown decided to let in a sliver of sunshine through the rain and snow. And I'll miss being a freshman and thinking I was so cool because I knew a bunch of people at the Sig Ep parties. And I'll miss being a senior and going to Woody's even though it is quite possibly the smallest bar in existence and you have to stand perfectly straight with your arms at your side if you want any chance of your beer not getting spilled. And Woody's pizza...well, it speaks for itself. Seriously though, how good does that sound right now...ugh, if you only knew.

So basically, to all you current undergrads, take advantage of the thrill that is back to school shopping and GQ and Garden Room chicken nuggets and tripping on those damn uneven bricks that someone thought would be a good idea to cover the floor of the CA with. Unless that was just me, which is quite possible. I have big feet.

In case you're looking for the class of '08, we'll all be slumming away at our part-time jobs that pay less than a Berg work study job. But I'm not bitter. I'm experienced. Or something.

Reasons Why This Will Be The Best Year Of My Life

2008-08-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

1) I am going to live life for me and be happy for me, not for anyone else.

2) I am going to wait for a guy who treats me the way that I know I deserve to be treated...and he treats me this way because he wants to, without any effort.

3) I am going to saturate myself in the fact that I am surrounded by the most wonderful group of friends anyone could ever ask for. A group of people that I am so enamored with that even when the world is crumbling down around us, we are there holding each other together.

4) I am going to throw away any bad feelings towards my family. I should realize how lucky I am that they are all alive and healthy and even though we don't always get along, I know they love me and will always always always be there for me.

5) I am going to listen to my mother when she tells me that something, or someone, is bad for me, because as much as I hate to admit it, she is always right. Always. And when she's not, she admits it and apologizes for it, even if it's 7 years later.

6) I am going to stop worrying that I may have some dimples in my butt, or somedays my jeans may feel a little too tight. I am going to believe that I am beautiful inside and out.

7) I am going to be more selfless, and realize that ::gasp:: the world doesn't revolve around me.

8) I am going to stick with a job even if I don't like it. I am going to put my all into everything that I do because I know eventually it will pay off.

9) I am going to get rid of all the toxic people in my life. As much as I may have loved them or still secretly do, no one is worth the amount of tears they have caused me.

10) I am going to embrace my mistakes and use them as building stones for this amazing year I have planned for me.

Oh God, He's Wearing....He's Wearing SHPANTS!!!!!

2008-08-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was my 22nd birthday, or, as my dad pointed out, "yet another palindrome year". Me and the ladies, including a special appearance by Bill, went up to Reeds which was well equipped with a ridiculously amazing cover band with a ridiculously amazing singer chick and a ridiculously sexy keyboardist who got Claud and I all hot and bothered when he started grabbing at his belt and singing some baby making music.

However, as much as I love my girls and gorgeous chocolate keyboardists and bars on my birthday, the highlight of the night, and quite possibly my entire upcoming year as a 22 year old, was seeing real life shpants.

Shpants are exactly what they sound like: a little combo of shorts and pants. Too long to be shorts, too short to be pants. When we got to the bar, Jil immediately pointed out a delicious little nugget of a man sitting behind us. He was just my type; tall, dark hair, facial hair, not too preppy but not too blahhh. He kind of had a rugged Matt Nathanson thing going on. We were very excited about our newly discovered Hot Kid, and made sure to blatantly look over at him as often as possible. That is until we spotted him walking back to his seat from the bathroom. From the waist up he was all lollipops and rainbows, but then, to our horror, below the equator he was wearing shpants. Big, flapping in the wind, JEAN shpants. Jil and I instantly turned toward each other and let out a horrified "OH MY GOD NO!" I'm pretty sure the guy heard us. But seriously, he shouldn't have been let out of the house like that. But at least he wasn't wearing shoodles. Or a coajack. Both of which can be explained by you-tubing "Arj & Poopy". Trust me on this one.

So there it is. A shpantsy birthday. I see it as good luck.

Dear Passive-Aggressive Diary, Today I Found Out Boys Really Do Have Cooties

2008-08-13T09:12:00.001-07:00

I am taking full on responsibility for the drama-girl tone that this following entry will surely exude. I never intended for this whole blog thing to be a "Dear Diary Wah Wah Wah" type deal, but every once in awhile a girls gotta make an exception. Especially when said girl won't be able to fully get over a certain someone if she keeps two things in particular to herself and she has a perfectly good public forum to get it off her chest. So bear with me, I promise this won't happen again, and here we go:

Dear Douchebag,

I was hoping I would be able to tell you this in person, but it looks like I will most likely never see you again. And I would have said these things during our original conversation, but I was a little caught off guard by what you said as I sat crying in a puddle of pool water fully clothed. So here are the two points that I need to tell you before I completely erase you from my archive of people I care deeply for.

You thought I was just in it for the octagoning. The truth is, I liked octagoning because it was WITH YOU, not just for the sake of it. And second, after all was said and done, you told me you had wanted me to be your girlfriend. Well sweetheart, if at any point during the past year you had actually just ASKED me to be your girlfriend, I would have said yes before the question was even over.

So there you go. I know this is all after-the-fact, but it's all I got. Oh, that and you wear your shirts just a little too tight.

Maybe-one-day-could-have-been-Love,

Alexis

Take THAT Bin Laden!!!!

2008-08-12T12:40:00.001-07:00

Thank god for satellite phones, that's all I gotta say.

What's In A Name? A Steady Income And 401K.

2008-08-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, so as you've probably come to realize, Alexis wants to be a writer. I really can't imagine doing anything else, and for me, a fun thing to do with my free time is writing a story. It's my little literary induced sport. Some people kick around a soccer ball, I kick around adjectives and nouns. I was driving somewhere with my mom the other day and out of nowhere she turns to me and goes, "I think you should change your name."

Obviously I was quite surprised considering she was the one who GAVE me my name. But then she followed up with the reasoning that my last name is just a bit too Russian and that some people might have an aversion to buying a book written by someone with such a vodka induced moniker. I told her I thought this was ridiculous, but then when I mentioned it to my sister she agreed. The bottom line is that my name is too long and confusing and I guess some people with a giant stick up their ass might be intimidated by my fabulous russian self that could kick said ass any day of the week. When I was having this conversation with my mom, I said sarcastically, "Well what the hell do you want me to be called, Alexis Elizabeth?" (this being my first and middle name). Well dear sweet Patti just flipped for this and as she went on ranting and raving it occurred to me for the first time ever that there is a strong possibility that I will never be able to walk into a book store and see a book with my real first and last name on the shelves, just like I've always wanted.

So then when I was continuing this conversation with my sister and brother the other night, my sister told me that Alexis Elizabeth was only good if I were writing some big medical journal.

"You need a name like Mary Higgins Clark," she told me, "that name alone is the only reason I started reading her books."

Apparently my sister liked the soft femininity of Mary and the tough masculine sound of Higgins Clark. All of this started making a lot of sense to me. After all, what's more creative that coming up with your own name?

So Mike, Lisa, and I started coming up with possible names for me. There was the idea (although really just a joke, but you'll get the point), of calling myself H.G. Wels (one L, not two), and writing a book called "The Slightly Translucent Man", instead of "The Invisible Man". The drinks we were consuming at the time made this far more amusing than it is right now I'm sure.

So when I went home that night I started thinking about writing in general, and how most authors always seem to be quirky and eccentric and want to keep to themselves. To this I say bullshit. Writers are probably the most narcissistic breed out there. We put ourselves into every single thing we write; fiction, non-fiction, whatever. We want people to read it and we want people to ask questions and wonder if this is based on truth, and we want to seem like the most interesting, original, heart-breaking, wonderful person on earth. Writers are simply actors who don't think they have a face pretty enough to be on camera. I mean, when's the last time you've opened up to the back flap of the book where the authors always have that little picture of themselves and thought "Shiiiiiiit son, I'd tap that through Thursday." Not to completely sell myself out as a girl, but you know that episode of Sex & the City where Carrie's shooting her book cover? I think we should all take a page from that and start doing full on photo shoots for that little back-flap black and white picture. Lay down on a bearskin rug, pose in a bubble bath, run through a field of daises, jump up and down on a trampoline, whatever. Let's bring the sex appeal back into stories, shall we?

Dear Perez Hilton, Please Release My Daddy From Your Fabulous Clutches. Thank You. Love, Alexis

2008-08-07T22:41:00.000-07:00

My father is on a celebrity gossip kick. Everywhere I turn, he's there ready to hound me with the latest pop culture grab bag of useless information. This morning he cornered me in the living room to have an in depth discussion on the Olsen twins.

All Dr. Phil Books Are 80% Off. In Fact, Here's Ten Bucks. Take Them.

2008-08-06T21:39:00.000-07:00

There is one thing that every recent post-grad English major knows he or she will have to endure at some point in their life. It is something that is demeaning and humiliating and goes against every motivated writer cell in their body. It is on the same page as graduating from the Culinary Institute of America and then becoming the head chef at Denny's. It is, of course, working at Barnes & Noble.

Now, I for one am a huge fan of Barnes & Noble. Bookstores make me happy and ever since I was in elementary school all I wanted was to one day walk into this bookstore and see my name on the shelves. My last boyfriend and I used to go and hang out at the Barnes & Noble near the mall, and we would get coffee and I would read trashy novels while he read metaphorical psychosis type books that made him look super smart and me look super girly. Those times were hands down my favorite of our whole relationship.

But still, when all you want in life if for your books to be sold at a certain place, it's a little hard to get yourself to work at one; especially one that is running thick with the entire population of your graduating high school class who four years later are equally as clueless about the real world as you are.

Any time I have gone to see a writer talk or gone to some speech about getting published, the first thing they always say is, "If you want to be a writer, work at a book store." All of us English and writing majors know that this is an inevitability. It's just that, well, we don't want to. We don't want to be stocking shelves and dealing with miserable old men who can't find Reagan's autobiography, when we know that we have the potential to be squatting in front of the same run down laptop that chugged along during our four years of college, writing something that would knock the literary world on its ass. I remember a week or two ago my friend Kristina (what up yang!) who has been in every single writing class with me since day one of freshman year, im'ed me and said, "I just applied to Barnes & Noble AND Borders." It was tough to hear, but I knew that we would have to break eventually.

My closing statement? This morning I applied to two different Barnes & Nobles and I wouldn't be surprised if I went out looking for a third one tomorrow.

We're JUST Pretty Enough To Be This Stupid: Vol. 3 (Beach Week '08 Edition)

2008-08-05T11:55:00.001-07:00

"In Atlantic City, every night is Saturday night." -Cailen

"Except for Tye Dye Tuesday. Then it's just Tuesday." -Alexis

"I HAVE AN IDEA!!!" -Ashley, while in the bathroom

"Oh boys. Boys and their silly parts." -Amy

"You can't do that to me!" -Cailen

"Why not?" -Craig

"Cause your nipples don't matter!" -Cailen

"I'm full of glee you crazy bitch." -Amy to Ashley

(clapping) "Let's fuck Amy!" -Cailen, while playing fuck the dealer

"I'm gonna pee on all of you." -Amy

"I'm not friends with ugly people, let's face it!" -Ashley

"Where should I put my beans..." -Ashley

"I've never worn concealer a day in my life." -Ashley

"Well aren't you just too perfect for words. Get out of my mirror you fuckin douche!" -Amy

"Aw look, two big people attached to each other." -Amy

"You only live once..." -Amy

"You might as well have butt sex." -Alexis

"Um, the prince is taking a very long time to pee." -Amy

(In the 50 degree ocean after seeing a bathing suit on the AC boardwalk the night before with an intensely long crotch)

"I wish I had a long vagina." -Alexis

"No that would be worse. I wish I had an exceptionally short vagina." -Amy

"I'm drinking high school. High school in a can." -Ali, drinking a Bud Light

"Amy I can hear it! Can you hear it?! The pee?!" -Alexis, peeing on the beach while someone was puking in the bathroom

"You know what? I'm just so happy and content right now." -Amy

"There's a dead bird. Are you still happy?" -Ashley

"Hey Ashley, remember when I was happy and you showed me dead things?" -Amy

Once Upon A Time The Princess Woke Up And Realized Things Were All Wrong

2008-08-01T17:12:00.000-07:00

There comes a point in everyone's life where you have to figure out what you want to work hard to keep, and what you want to leave behind. I think I'm at that point.

The Don'ts And Really Really Don'ts Of Breaking Up With Someone

2008-07-27T07:54:00.001-07:00

* Don't end things while drunk at 1:30 in the morning the night before the dumpee is leaving for a weeklong vacation. The two hour drive down the shore is far too much time to be left alone with the thoughts of how much of a douchebag you are.

* Really don't break up with someone via text message, especially using such heart pinching phrases as "We can't talk anymore", "I just can't feel it", and "I'm done with you". The wrong-ness of this is especially true after the dumpee has just texted you saying she would miss you while on vacation. Not only this, but only days before you were saying how much you missed her while you were away for a couple of weeks.

* Really really don't show up at a party at her best friend's house a week later and expect the dumpee to talk to you. And don't wait until the very end of the party when she has a stunningly muscular guy macking on her to finally call the dumpee over to "talk". Continuing with the "don't" theme, don't have this conversation in the middle of the party where everyone can see and hear (not that they don't already know what has happened because the dumpee was sure to spread your douchebag status around like wildfire immediately), and then continue to say things that not only make the dumpee cry in front of her new musculey friend, but also insinuate that your sudden loss of "emotional feeling" was in any way her fault.

And finally, don't think that you'll ever be able to do any better than the dumpee. Have a nice day.

"Too Young For Him They Told Her, Waitin For The Love Of A Travelin' Soldier"...

2008-07-18T12:18:00.000-07:00

For some reason in the past couple of years I have accumulated an immense amount of friends in the military, two of which I've had some degree of a relationship with. And in the past six months, one in particular has been sent back and forth to Iraq and a bunch of other places. I used to swear I was falling for this kid but now we're just friends and I am 100% ok with that, but I still care a great deal for him. So now he's going away for quite a bit and, quite frankly, it sucks. We went to lunch today and I knew that it would be the last time I would see him before he leaves in a couple days. When we were getting back into his car he asked me if I was ok. "You're mood just changed." he told me.

The truth is, every time he leaves, I cry. I cry and I worry and I think about what a good person he is and how even though there were times where he didn't exactly treat me like gold, he is the kind of person who only wants to help people. And then I think about all the people who have friends or family members over there fighting, military people who are gone for years on end, and I can't think of any other way to describe it except that it sucks. It sucks so bad and I know that this is their job, but I just- I don't know. It just kills me that these guys I know that are so carefree and wonderful hanging out on the weekends could potentially one day go away and never come back.

Just come home safe, ok?

Real Life Gives Me Cramps

2008-07-13T19:36:00.000-07:00

So this right here is the only 2 minute block of time where I was sublimely happy about graduating college (I'm sensing an I-miss-college strand throughout these blogs of mine). It was right after the ceremony ended and all the graduates walked a little procession type deal past all our families. It was raining and miserable and everything that could have gone wrong that weekend did. But this picture was taken right after I ran towards Rach and grabbed her in a hug and said something completely stereotypical like "We did it!" or "We graduated!" We then walked down the procession holding hands in a glee induced haze. Then we got to the end and realized we were soaking wet and never going to live on a campus with all our friends again. So we cried. Or I cried. Someone cried.

So here I am, halfway through summer and still without a job. A couple prospects, but it is actually pathetic the lack of effort I have put forth in finding any sense of employment. Rach and I wanted to be moved out into an apartment by August. I'll be surprised if we get there by December. I'm about to turn 22 and on one hand I still feel like a baby, but slapping me in the face with the other hand is this persistent idea of "Grow up Alexis. Just grow up."

So what exactly are the boundaries of age 22? Am I still allowed to go out and get drunk and (carefully) slut myself out? Am I allowed to have old dorm-room posters on my bedroom walls and am I still allowed to buy every single ounce of my clothing at Target?

Or do I have to buy a business suit and only stop by bars for happy hour on my way home from work? Do I have to find a serious boyfriend and buy a fish together and spend Christmas at his parents' house in Connecticut with their little white fluffball of a dog that has never peed on the carpet....ever?

I'm caught between feeling too old to play beer pong but too young to settle down and buy a nice 4 door sedan.

In that picture, I was both terrified and excited that I had my whole life ahead of me. So why does it feel like my life has all of a sudden flown past in a big, maturity-drive whooooosh?

How To Be A Yuppie In 21 Years Or Less

2008-07-10T17:45:00.000-07:00

It's getting to the point where I get a migraine if I don't have a cup of coffee in the morning and I'm starting to crave cigarettes. I think this means I'm finally becoming a real writer.

La La La Love Me Some Music

2008-07-09T17:25:00.000-07:00

My friend Bill and I make music. (Not like, 'we make beautiful music together', but actual chords and words and music. I can already tell he's going to kill me for writing this entry...). He comes up with the part on the guitar and then I write the lyrics. The whole thing started as kind of a joke when we first met and I found out he played every instrument known to man and he found out I sang. We were at his apartment downtown and just on the spot wrote this song called "Brown" (brown's my favorite color and I always thought it got a bad rep so I just started rhyming any word I could with 'brown'. The result was a 5 minute homage to the color and if I can say so myself, it's startlingly fabulous). It was at this point that we realized we could actually go somewhere with this. So we started having our little "jams", which for me was a big deal because I had barely even sung in front of anyone before, let alone wrote personal lyrics. I'm pretty sure Bill believes in me more than I believe in myself when it comes to the whole music thing. But that's why he's the best person I know. Bill is as musically talented as he is attractive- the answer to both being unbelievably. I have never met anyone who could just pick up an instrument and on the spot create such a beautiful sound. It drives me crazy that he's not famous.

Music numbs me. It is why I have notes permanently tattooed on my back. It is why I cannot get into my car or get dressed or put on make up or clean my room without turning on a song. The feeling I get when I listen to music is the same feeling you get when you, I dunno, pop an Adderol for the first time, or when you drink three beers and then chain smoke half a pack of cigarettes. Music to me is the same feeling I get when I fall into a deep kiss with someone- something warm and tingly shoots through every pore of my body and I melt.

Bill gets very calm and still when he writes music. I get very fidgety. Bill gets this serious look right across his eyebrows and looks up, then bows down his head. I scratch my knees and bite my nails and switch positions on the floor or couch every fifteen seconds. Watching Bill play is what calms me down. It's so easy to get lost concentrating on how his fingers pluck through the strings, and he comes up with a beautiful, heart-wrenching song and then I feel like a jerk for ruining it with my I-hate-boys lyrics. But I guess thats just my way of dealing. Like every time I have to drive that road that leads past The Ex's house. I get really quiet and my body physically reacts. I get angry and sad and regretful and fuzzy.

So I try to write a song. But I can't because it feels too vulnerable. Even though Bill knows everything about me and everything about The Ex, I can't bring myself to allow me or anyone else inside my head. And then all of a sudden He calls and wants to see me and while he's explaining to me why he and his girlfriend didn't work out, he says to me, "See Lex, the only reason you and I didn't work is because we didn't work." And then I feel stupid for spending the last year and a half agonizing over my broken heart when apparently it was as simple as "we didn't work".

So again, I try to write a song. And I do. But I'll never show it to Bill because I know that when we try to put it to music, much like that screwy little relationship of mine, it just won't work.

We're JUST Pretty Enough To Be This Stupid: Vol. 2

2008-07-07T16:34:00.001-07:00

"You can touch my ovaries." -Rach

"When I'm drunk I'm like 'Cunt this! Cunt that!'" -Claud

"Hookers are idiots." -Rach

"Any cute Abington alum you can set me up with?" -Bill

"Nope, they're all bitches and hoes." -Alexis

"Show me to the hoes!" - Bill

"I'm so sick of sex, it's the same thing. A lot of in, a lot of out..." -Rach

"Tonsil hockey's my favorite sport. I play goalie." -Hiss

"That was a tasty shot." -Elyse

"What was it?" -Jil

"I don't know. It's burning though." -Elyse

LehChew...a big old house where a big old mess of things happened

2008-07-06T11:29:00.000-07:00

This was my house at school. I lived there my last two years of college and it was more of a home then my parent's place ever was. Now here's the kicker- they're tearing it down. Well, that's the rumor, but at the very least they are for sure adding on to it. Bottom line is that it won't look like this for long.

They say that home is where the heart is, but this house is not only where I keep my heart, but where I keep all the memories that have made me, well, me. I was in love in this house. I was heartbroken in this house. I was frustrated and hopeful and determined in this house. I was also lazy and spent hours upon hours sitting on the couch with my roommates watching TV. This house got a lot of ass and a lot of booze. And a LOT of Dunkin Donuts.

We call the house LehChew because it's on the corner of Leh St. and Chew St. But it's also down the street from Ott St. So in our dirty little minds, we say I Ott to Leh Chew. Like, I ought to lay you. It's disturbingly cheesy, I'm aware. But it's us.

It's sad to know that a place that you care so much about, a place that has so much sentiment that it's overwhelming, will soon be gone. My three roommates and I, we grew up in that house. Not to mention that it is without a doubt the biggest and most stunning place any of us will ever live in. I used to climb out the upstairs hallway window onto the roof out back. There was an amazing view of the mountains and I would just sit and read or do homework or lay out in the sun. Rach and I would go out and watch people play tennis on the courts behind our house, and then run down to yard if there was a hot shirtless guy playing. It was the perfect house and the perfect two years, and I'm going to miss it.