Ginger Ambition

What I Found in my Spanx this Morning

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:59:03 -0400

I get to my usual handicap stall about 3 minutes before I actually have to pee. That’s just enough time to take off my spanx and my hot pants (these wetsuit like shorts that are supposed to burn your off your ass dimples but in reality make you sweat so much you think, and smell, like you peed yourself) and get in a round of Fruit Ninja. So I am sitting there, emptying my bladder to make more room for diet coke and refreshing my Instagram feed when I spot a black speck on the inside of my Spanx. It was a dead spider. I thought, holy shit, it probably laid eggs inside of me, they are going to get fertilized, and I am going to produce some sort of creepy offspring that is half insect, half Harry Styles look-a-like. (I like to think my boyfriend looks like a 23-year-old version of the One Direction front man)

How the hell did a spider get in my pants. I don’t remember witty banter that avoided the topics of politics and religion over steaks, then asking to come upstairs for an adult sleepover. There is a chance it fell from my ceiling fan and landed on my clothes, but I thought spiders pooped web thread that would have served as a bungee cord. Maybe the spider jumped because it was tired of looking at my “Newsies” poster and listening to me practice Ice, Ice, Baby for karaoke nights. Chances are the spider was just chilling in my underwear drawer and died once coming into direct contact with my thighs, if not from just looking at them. I don’t have a thigh gap like 99% of girls pictured on Pintrest, and I was trying to wobble in the car, so there is no chance the spider would have survived my morning commute. On second thought, if I am not alert enough to notice a spider in my pants at 8 AM, I probably should not be operating a vehicle.

Why Everyone A Year Older Finds You Annoying This Month

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:19:32 -0400

In about a month a fresh slew of twenty-something’s will be spit out of college and into whatever Midwest fringe city they are hired as “ office / research / account / sales + assistants.” Now that March has come to an end, my world of 1,274 internet friends have shifted the center of their universe toward graduation and I quote, “senioring the fuck up.”

At first I thought their anxious statuses “What am I doing with my lyfeeeee?!?!?!?” were just newsfeed advertisements for anti-depressants or Daily’s. Like the question, “what’s actually in a long island?” we have to accept these are questions to which the universe has no answer. College graduations are a lot like the New Year. Everyone makes these grand speeches about the future and losing five pounds. For that day everyone just loves each other and has these super deep conversations about their moon signs. Newsflash dumbasses, the only reason you feel so indestructible on New Year’s and graduation is because you are being served a shitton of champagne. In reality we are just reminded of all the stuff we said we were going to lose or figure out by these societal self-inflicted deadlines. Every day I could make my status, “What the hell am I doing with my life,” and it would genuinely be how I feel 99% of the time. That other 1% of the time I am so hungover that looking at my computer screen would be like having a staring contest with a lunar eclipse.

This is what I would like to do with my life. I would like be paid to eat lunch at Olive Garden and drink Bellini’s with girlfriends who all wear one jean size larger than me. I would like to have the kind of closet where strangers take pictures of my outfits for their street fashion blogs, and I pose with one bent leg crossed over the other without my thighs touching, all while drinking a latte and browsing my iPhone calendar I figured out how to sync with my Outlook calendar. But no, apparently all of that is impossible and completely unattainable at 22. Instead I spend 40 hours a week showing old people how to wirelessly connect to a printer.

All you seniors freaking out, who, I don’t know if you just put it together that undergrad is only 4 years and you’ve finally sobered up long enough to realize it’s spring, but calm the fuck down and stop posting “what should we call me” gifs about realizing graduation is in a month, and you’re the only one in your group of friends that doesn’t have an unpaid internship. It’s not entirely your fault though. You saw my class do it, and we saw the class before us do it, and so on. So let’s do the one thing we are good at and just blame our parents.

Spring Break at the Mall

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:36:00 -0400

PINK by Victoria’s Secret is the reason I do not want daughters. I’m not saying that to be relevant to the whole dads fighting undies that read “wild” on the ass or padded bathing suits for their moldable minded daughters. I am saying that because girls that shop at PINK are annoying as shit. They are literally the worst specimen of unprotected sex babies. If you knew that your egg was going to help create that thirteen-year-old girl dragging her Hollister thermal clad Facebook official boyfriend around, you would have wrapped it up. You would have wrapped it up like that one relative that tapes every corner of your Christmas present.

I can say this because my mom never dropped me off at the mall with my friends for an afternoon so she could drink with her friends at California Pizza Kitchen.

I don’t know about you, but I for one cannot resist a good 4 for $26.50 thong sale, so we went to the mall on Saturday. Unbeknownst to us, it was the first day of Spring break for the kids in my area. I was looking forward to a nice afternoon of avoiding the hair straightener kiosk, and wishing I had the balls to get my makeup done by a woman old enough to be my grandma at Lord and Taylor. Instead I was welcomed by a swarm of push up bras, oversized high school soccer sweatshirts, and liquid eyeliner, whose only mode of transportation was walking in rows of 5 at pace slow enough for them to take selfies.

Naturally my reaction was, if I can’t walk around with a 40oz then someone better get me a damn coffee. Apparently, every girl that wasn’t trying on yoga pants was in the Starbucks line to get a Frappuccino. Walking around the mall with your Coach wristlet sipping a chocolate chip Frappuccino does not make you look older, or cooler, or whatever it is you are going for, you failed. While we are on the topic of walking around the mall, I don’t know if the whipped cream from your stupid coffee drink is going right to your fat feat, but you are dragging your Ugg boots around like Shrek. I don’t know what JV basketball player you are trying to get the attention of but clearly it’s not working, because if it was, the two of you would be in PINK.

According to my recently turned twenty sister, I don’t belong in PINK either. I was looking at a pair of rhinestone shorts where she looked at me and told me they are too young for me. I was going to say she made a face, but her face always looks like she is giving a somehow offended look, so basically we just made eye contact. In my defense I was looking at them because I have been doing this Pintrest wall workout for my thighs that I think is actually working, and my goal is to wear shorts this summer without having to get drunk enough to forget I am wearing shorts. Regardless of my waist down situation, I really want a bathing suit top from PINK. Unlike the shorts, this is an acceptable purchase because my boobs will forever be small enough to fit into a child’s XL. Hopefully this horizontal growth stunt is temporary until my boyfriend coughs up the cash to buy me a boob job, or until there is a Groupon for plastic surgery, whichever comes first. His only request being they are filled with squeaker toys, which I was open to, until I saw my dog’s vicious reaction to a toy with a squeaker in it. My boobs concaved in fear.

In other news the mall I frequent is getting a Cheese Cake Factory, I expect the entire building to spontaneously combust. Surrounding neighborhoods will be finding green straw shrapnel and surprisingly hard bra padding in their yards for years.

Can you talk more about anything but being a post-grad, please... You're losing your humor..

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 16:35:03 -0400

I would love to! Funny thing is, and it’s not really funny, it just so happens I am a post-grad. So it’s going to be kind of difficult to blog about finals and frat boys when I am doing neither.

A Brief Exploration of Dream Jobs

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:11:00 -0400

I have this future version of me, in my head, and it’s not about the kind of career I want, but more the way I want to look “working.” I imagine myself as one of those girls who wears broaches without looking matronly, has time to eat salad seated in iron cast patio furniture, and drinks Starbucks all day without getting caffeine shakes or pooping every hour. I feel like I am good at alot of things, but not great at one thing.

TMZ Reporter – In case you never wrote a book report, or your parents wrote them for you ( I see you Annette), and therefore you have no concept of what an “overarching theme” is, a repeating trend of my writing is, more or less, stalking. Whether it be my friend’s Tinder match whose back is featured in a UPS commercial, or those Gap skimmer jeans I need on my body more than a whale needs blubber (also known as Christina Aguilera), I am good at finding shit. If anything I am overqualified to harass B-listers in airports after many winters of accusing strangers of having herpes in outdoor bar lines.

Kate Spade Print Designer – How hard can it be to draw some polka dots? Trace a fucking quarter. If an 11-year-old with a YouTube channel and a front row seat at NY Fashion Week decides polka dots are not in this season, pick something else children enjoy and make a print of that, like bows or ice cream cones. If it’s a job that sounds like I can do drunk, it’s a job I want.

Columnist/ Author/ Writer- Is it possible to get paid to write anymore? At one end of the spectrum we have writing for the Times, and at the opposite end we have the girl that writes the “What’s in Her Bag” for US Weekly; neither of which interest me. I don’t think I could ever write a book. I’d be too tempted to kill off every character I create and therefore unable to complete a series. Series are all that sells, i.e. Twilight, Gossip Girl, those murder mysteries my mom reads where each book starts with a letter of the alphabet… You should probably stop being an author when you have to make commercials to sell your books.

Movie Critic – Attending a private Catholic school for 12 years, and a single sex school for 4 of those years, I believe I possess the ability to backhanded compliment and make passive aggressive insults necessary to review any movie. For example, “While Alfred Hitchcock’s film ‘Birds’ is a psychological masterpiece, the only thing flighty about the otherwise visually stunning effects, was flaunting Tippi Hedren’s prematurely receding hairline.”

Executive Assistant- I could be the Anne Hathaway to your Meryl Streep. I already look better with bangs, and although my mouth to face ratio is also slightly off, it will never be a deciding factor if I deserve an Oscar (which I never will). There are only two problems with applying for executive assistant positions; they all require 5-7 years of prior executive assistant experience, and they all sound like they will either result in crippling substance abuse from years of taking daily pulls of your boss’s liquor stash, or an affair. The only person I would consider assisting executively would be Chelsea Handler. I believe she would at least encourage both end results, if not already making them job requirements.

Personal Trainer –Lol I have no idea how this got on here.

Basically my Big Fucking Asshole (BFA) is good for nothing. When my parents framed my diploma for Christmas I asked if they could return it for a Kate Spade wallet. Still waiting on that wallet. I now understand why so many girls have kids at 22. After dissecting the career boards for hours, well like fifteen minutes- but it felt like hours, getting knocked up sounds more appealing than lying to CEOs that look like my friends’ dads and telling them my greatest weakness is a well written piece of literature and anything I can super-size. Both of which are not true.

Where Have I Been All Your Life

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:19:00 -0400

I am having one of those days where I keep tucking my shirt into my thong instead of my jeans. I don’t know if that’s like, a common thing you can relate to, or if that’s one of those things I think happens to everyone, but in reality just happens to me.

I know you have been sans Ginger Ambitions since Thanksgiving, and it really was my New Year’s Resolution to start writing again. Well that’s a lie, my New Year’s Resolution was to do the splits by the end of the year, the last time I did them was in 8th grade when I got my period at a basketball game. I feel like I can be honest here, because I trust you guys. I will trust you until the day one of you asks me for my IP address, like one time when a fellow Slytherin, aka a middle aged man, asked me for it on a Hogwarts Online School message board when I was in 7th grade.

Real girl talk, I have been seeing a therapist for a few months now for anxiety and some OCD shit. I don’t count things or have hygiene rituals that turn my hands into elderly ball sacks. I’ve seen “Silver Linings Playbook” and my therapist is nothing like that. But I like her well enough because she has a bottomless dish of York Peppermint Patties and a beautiful engagement ring. She keeps trying to find out what triggered my retrospective self-deprecation, and I am like, “Well maybe it’s because I am basically a receptionist with a BFA who lives at home a year after graduation, when I always pictured myself waking up in a rich man’s apartment in Chicago about to catch a flight to Spain instead.” Apparently that only happens if you go to the kind of clubs that are featured in episodes of CSI: Miami or graduated from NYU. Both of which I have not done.

I shop online a lot. I like to stalk what I order. It fills the void that trying to find restaurant servers on Facebook via their name tags left. I also like to pretend my room at my parents’ house is actually an apartment, and the house is a co-op with no other residents besides my parents. I have nightmares about having a job with bad benefits where I have no vision plan. I genuinely enjoy Good Moring America, it inspires me. Worst case career scenario I end up on that show, since apparently anyone can do it.

I have been asked to make a series of short videos for my 5 year High School reunion. I don’t know who began the stereotype that all the hot girls from High School get fat because the ones I know just got prettier. In the meantime I still play Sims and basically reinvent every menu item I order because I have maintained the taste buds of a toddler who only eats three things. Instead of peas, carrots and squash, I eat bacon, grilled cheese and vegetable spring rolls.

I have completely lost the ability to day drink, and glout at my twenty-year-old sister who takes shots without chasing and falls off tables, only to announce, “Don’t worry everyone, I am a gymnast.” Most people I see on TV that I want to grow-up and be like is actually younger than me. So that’s pretty much off the table.

On the plus side, things are still going strong with my main man. We plan on moving in together in the fall where neither of us will cook and we will have a pet hedgehog named Taters. I also learned brunch is more fun when you arrive sober and get drunk, instead of arriving still drunk and trying to sober up. Basically the highlight of my current existence is having a song about my age written by Taylor Swift and following all of The Bachelor chicks on Instagram.

15 Things I Am Thankful For

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:53:20 -0500

There will never be another Twilight movie made ever again
Myboyfriend doesn’t have LinkedIn, so I have one less social profile to check on a daily basis to make sure he is not friends with skanky girls) aka any girl that isn’t me) that just leaves Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Spotify, and Instagram
Sims 3
Kanye West shutter shades are no longer in style ever since the cast of Jersey Shore started wearing them; and a human population that needed the cast of Jersey Shore to do something to realize it was never in style in the first place
I don’t have menopause
The restaurant employees who didn’t walk into the bathroom while I was throwing up pineapple pizza, I didn’t know I ate the night before, during Sunday morning brunch
Remembering to delete all of the dick pics I have on my phone before my cousins accidently find them when trying to play angry birds
Taylor Swift is still single and still writing songs about men either five years older or five years younger than her
Remebering the boy I had a crush on freshman year of high school, whose AIM screenname was my MySpace password, so I could delete it
Michael’s Arts and Craft coupons for “40% off one regular price item” applying to Martha Stewart’s 12 packs of glitter so I can feel like Ke$ha while still wearing pants
Hersey Kiss Christmas commercials
An iPhone case that prevents my phone from shattering on impact when dropped. Oh wait, it still shattered. Nevermind.
The opportunity to reject an ex’s friend request on Facebook
Text message, so I never have to talk to my parents on the phone
Strong female role models, like the casts of the Real Housewives. I mean physically strong- I have never seen anyone flip a table, or throw a drink, with such muscle definition achieved solely through Pilates.

My 9-5 routine. “Till I slowly drift off” still...

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 13:11:00 -0500

My 9-5 routine. “Till I slowly drift off” still applicable.

Shopping at Target

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 10:50:00 -0500

I was bored on Sunday, so I went to Target. Like 99% of Target shoppers I went to get one or two things I needed, and left with the entire Kardashian nail polish collection. Target is my reason to get out of the house; it gives me a sense of purpose. Afterwards I feel like I accomplished more in that hour of shopping than I did my entire senior year, which is also probably true.

I have always enjoyed my afternoons spent at Target, besides the rare occasion when I grow irrationally angry that the Target on my way home from work is not organized exactly the same as “my” Target by my parents’ house. Opting to peruse with a coke slushie over a chai tea latte, I stay true to my Target roots, recalling with deep nostalgia the days when they used to have a Taco Bell Express. Rejecting a cart or basket because I can carry the sole dress I intend to purchase in my iPhone free hand. Half hour into wandering the white tiled floors, I give in to a forearm toting basket filled with Middle Sister Wine, fake eye lashes, and a rose gold colored watch that looks just like the one Michael Kors instragrammed. The basket has left parallel pink lines engraved above my right wrist, like the engraved Christmas card set I didn’t know I needed until just this second, and it’s not crazy at all because if nine months is long enough to make another human life, then eight months is perfectly long enough to send a Christmas card with my boyfriend and I holding our stuffed animal children. In that moment it doesn’t feel crazy at all, the only thing that feels crazy is why didn’t I think of this in the first place and scour the website for an hour at work looking at them before I arrived?

Being the alcohol aficionado you think I am, one would assume I love that Target now sells vodka. I hate it. It dumbs Target down to Walmart, and I hate Walmart. Does Walmart have collabs with designers? Mary Kate and Ashley’s line of pastel preteen handkerchief inspired crop tops does not count. Target is the only store of its type where I walk in and think, “hey, I wonder what they are going to do with that large pencil suspended from the ceiling, what are the chances they would let me have once back to school shopping ends?” What the hell am I going to do with a giant fucking pencil? Nothing. It will sit in my parents’ basement, with all my high school art projects, and every time my mom tries to throw it away I will say I am saving it for something. Which we all know is a lie. But that’s not what I am thinking about at that moment, all I know is I have to have that massive cardboard pencil. Nobody wants the roll back signs at Walmart. Smiley faces stopped being cute when Joe Boxer exploited them. I do not think any item of clothing has been more obviously designed by a man than boxers with a massive hip wide smiley face complete with tongue sticking out, right over the junk. What Joe should have done is made the smiley face really small, so everything else appears larger by comparison.

The only thing I hate about Target is everyone loves it. Let me rephrase, that sounded too hipster and I came dangerously close to saying “mainstream” and sipping a Pabst Blue Ribbon on a stranger’s porch, I hate everyone. Shopping carts encourage the presence of children. Children should only be allowed in Target around Halloween to try on small person costumes because that’s adorable. Most costumes also constrict children’s movements so that also prevents them from running in front of my cart of door hanging mirrors, where my nostrils momentarily flare at my instinct to push faster, but then I swerve at the last second because I probably can’t bring my Kardashian nail polish collection to jail.

Popped My Bikram Yoga Cherry

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:53:00 -0500

I participated in my first 90 minute hot yoga class last night. I thought that meant it was the yoga equivalent of flirty girl fitness, like it was yoga for hot people. I’m not hot, but I thought hey, if people begin to look like their spouse over an extended period of time, maybe I can look like the attractive people in my hot yoga class. The only thing hot about it is the hundred something degree room.

I got a Groupon for 10 Bikram yoga classes while I was briefly hypnotized after hearing Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” on my morning drive and thinking, “That’s right MJ, I do need to make a change. I need to work out,” and then I grabbed my crotch and said eeee. Later at work I opened my confirmation e-mail and thought WHAT EVIL HAVE I COMMITED. To add to my dilemma my boyfriend said that every time I went to yoga he would take me out to a non-fast food dinner (score), but for every class I did not go to I must perform a sexual favor (boo). To him I replied, “I am going to get so in shape and eat so many different kinds of fancy chicken nuggets.” But was outsmarted by the lesser sex when he said, “I don’t see how you’re going to get in shape from one yoga class and nine blow jobs.”

Last summer it tried spin class and the cabbage soup diet, briefly followed by the master cleanse. Perhaps you recall my post about spin class, where my vag was so numb I couldn’t tell when I was or was not peeing myself. (Kind of like when my friend blacks out) I don’t know if my instructor had been cheated on or just really liked Alanis Morisette, because we basically listened to “You Oughta Know” on repeat. Maybe that’s why I always have to pee when I listen to my 90’s Pandora station. Bikram had a similar effect. You’re supposed to drink double the daily recommended water intake before class, so you’re sweating all over, and you can’t tell if it’s your knees sweating or if it’s dripping down your legs, and its all clear.

Bikram makes me do the two things I hate most: drinking water and showering. Vodka is my preferred clear liquid carried around in water bottles and why shower if you’re just going to do yoga again the next day? I don’t see how it’s any different from the make your bed vs. why, you’re just sleeping in it later, debate.

Let me walk you through my class. I got there early, had my cheap version of Lululemon yoga outfit on, the lights in the room are off so you just look for a spot on the floor. It looks like the morning after of a frat house. It’s a bunch of half-naked people laying there with their eyes closed, other people are just stepping over them to get out of the room, bitches aren’t wearing shoes and it smells like sweat.

I roll out my mat, tag still on it in case I hate yoga and need the six bucks, lay my towel on top, then myself, only thinking ”shit now I have to buy a second towel since I never do laundry.” I got bored jus laying there so I looked to my left and realized I was perfectly aligned with this guy’s junk. Like straight up, I turn my head to look in the hallway and there is this little hill on the horizon. At that exact moment the male instructor with a woman’s name walks in, turns on the lights, and here I am staring at this dudes black spedo wrapped package. Once the lights were on I realized I had managed to wedge myself in the man corner. The only three men in the class were forming a wall of back hair around me. I felt like Psy in the Gangum Style music video when he’s singing every English speaking person’s favorite line, “Ey, sexy lady” with an ass in his face. The only difference is I am the chick and the butt in my face is that of a middle aged man. I saw crack.

On the bright side I am very proud of myself for completing the class solo. I am also proud of myself for not farting because God knows that shit would linger until they cleaned the carpet.

What I Drink and Why

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 17:45:00 -0400

Let’s start off with my personal favorite, a beverage I found a connection with from the very start, whose time on the overpriced campus liquor store shelf was cut off far too early…

Four Loko. To those of you who are total douchebags I am referring to cuatro crazy. Nothing made me feel more alive on a football Saturday than chugging a beverage that could go up in flames as quickly as my favorite pair of polyester pajama pants my parents had to closet grab in the night because they turned into Capri pants, and I had a constant a camel toe. Oh the sweet, sweet, days of childhood. A neon cameo can my drunk friends can crush against their heads while white girl dougieing? Sign me up! Classic American flavors like lemonade and watermelon? Put that on a t-shirt with a Bald Eagle and a flag and that right there is America.

Daily’s, the adult juice box. You thought sticking a straw in your Capri-Sun was rough, try drunk stabbing a Daily. Now there’s a hole that’s hard to find. I think there is a flaw in Daily’s marketing. They are always showing the drinks poured into fancy glasses, like the ones you get at Red Robin. They are missing their targeted audience on this, recently turned 21-year-olds who no longer have to disperse when their friends with the fake IDs buy alcohol at Meijer, do not own martini glasses. Hell, they don’t own any glass dishware, just stole dining hall or restaurant cups. Maybe they own the paper umbrellas or stirs, but that’s only because they are totes cute and their priorities are completely fucked. If you’re lucky they will pour on into a solo cup, maybe a bowl if someone ran the dishwasher. (I like saying “they” when that was me two years ago, okay, last night.)

Andre. Mimosas are a snack, like an entire bag salt and vinegar potato chips or a red velvet cake. Drinking champagne makes me feel better about my post-grad Irish alcohol tolerance (yeah I said post-grad, sorry but I am so deal) because I can drink it for days and not get drunk. I am back to being invincible! (Until I have a shot) Champagne makes things fun. Drinking a beer and going around the room saying what you hate about your ex’s? Not fun, just sad. Drinking a bottle of Peach Andre and realize all of you and your friends’ exs’ are balding? Suddenly the game fun again, and a little less depressing. Why? Because it has bubbles! Because we all believe we are Carries with a secret hint of Samantha! But nobody wants to be a Miranda.

Franzia. Maybe it’s just me but those boxes seem to last for hours, unlike most handles that have been in my vicinity. Unlike the celebratory champagne, think girls laughing while eating salad pictures, Franzia has a calmer, “meet the parents,” light a Yankee candle kind of vibe. Unless you play slap the bag, then everyone turns into sorority woo girls. Boys included. Franzia also serves as a great chaser when everyone at a pre-game is too cheap to cross the street and get a two dollar, two liter of Coke.

So-Co lime shots. No matter where you go this is the one shot you will always find on special. I am still trying to figure out why, but I have never paid full price for a So-Co lime shot. Then again I have never remembered anything that happens after a So-Co lime shot either. So there’s that.

Test Tube Shots. I did one at a bowling alley and I felt exactly like Sandra Bullock in Miss. Congeniality. Only of course I wasn’t an FBI agent in a beauty pageant, I was still drunk from the morning and more closely resembled one of those chicken cutlet sticky boobs boys freak out about when they see them stuck to their floor in the morning. But in that moment I felt like I could eat some really good looking pizza, bang on a drum with glow in the dark paint, and make a really bad sequels.

G&Ts. Aka gin and tonics. We’ve all been there. You know, the My Fitness Pal calorie counter for your iPhone, punching in 3 Gin and Tonics for the night, thinking it will be around 100 calories each, then realizing tonic water has calories, then being like, “I’ll have an order of potato skins with extra bacon” because at this point you’re like fuck it, fuck calories, I am already over because of water. Then suddenly you’re on spring break and you’re the only girl wearing running shorts because that damn tonic water went right to that weird side of your thigh you’re not quite sure if it’s your butt. Then you realize you’re using a run-on sentence, and you are craving a gin and tonic but you’re still at work, but they drink them at work on Mad Men, and it’s fall so you can wear layers, and you won’t go on spring break again, but shit, Halloween is tonight and that’s worse and you’re dressed up as a slutty hot dog, and soda water instead tastes like shit. Just like diet Pepsi.

2 Songs That Take Me Back

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 11:27:15 -0400

1. “Just Dance” / any early Lady Gaga noise. When I hear that questionably masculine voice crooning over the radio I am transported to my plywood platform dancing days of freshman year in fraternity basements. It was as bad as it sounds, and I tried really hard to put a positive twist on that.

One of my costumes freshamn year was a “walk of shame girl.” Looking back now people probably thought we were anticipating the morning. We wore large plaid button down shirts, spandex shorts and heels. Problem is that’s not even a realistic walk of shame girl. We should have worn sequined tank tops, large basketball shorts, and large flip flops. If you are sleeping with a guy who gives you a large plaid shirt to walk home in chances are you woke up in log house in the middle of the woods, he’s a serial killer, and you have no cell phone reception. Or worse, he has a beard.

Back to the party. When I hear “da da doo-doo-mmm” I can taste the Krystal Palace and Hawaiian Punch as if it were ten pm just yesterday, because we made the mistake of arriving uncomfortably early. I can see the condensation on windows, blocked by mattresses, from mono-infested undergrads grinding with the same partner for three songs because they can’t move their feet from the sticky, I still don’t know what that was, floors.

I can feel the splinter I got from holding onto the not-actually-attached-to-the-wall banister walking a drunk girl, I didn’t even know, downstairs to the bathroom to pee in a toilet filled with empty natty light cans. She told me we were best friends. I am pretty sure we took a picture together too.

When we used to pass each other on campus she would avoid eye contact and I would pretend to text my mom. Not to be confused with avoiding eye contact with the boy whose lap I basically had to sit on freshman year on the vomit comet. Fitting 76 drunk, technically still children, collegees on a bus is definitely a fire hazard.

2. “A Moment Like This,” Kelly Clarkson. Eighth grade, gym, where dancing slutty was holding your wrist around the boy’s neck when you slow-danced (instead of your index finger), and not fully understanding the word “slutty” to begin with. I can feel the sweaty palms unsure of where my wasit actually was now. There was something magical about looking anywhere exept the poor boy’s face because you felt like it was inches away, when realistically it was about a foot and a half. Just enough room for the holy spirit. The song would end, the girls would go back to dancing with each other shaking their polaroid pictures, and the boys would sit in the cafeteria and play pencil hockey.

Somewhere between the eighth grade graduation dance and freshman year homecoming, I managed to be the only girl that didn’t watch Christina Aguilera’s “Dirty” music video or Jessica Alba in “Honey.” I wasn’t allowed to see Titanic until I was 13, needless to say I was a little behind. When I saw the group of barefoot girls in Jessica McClintock dresses wearing their dates’ ties, and the guys smartly wearing black they were sweating so much, in the middle of my high school’s gym I couldn’t help but think how closely it resembled a group of six-year-olds playing soccer. A giant swarming, swaying cluster, whose primiary focus was a ball. Or in the girls cases, two balls. Over the pants. On a party bus with pump hair spray bottles full of vodka.

At my first high school dance I wore a sand colored corduroy skirt, a teal Abercrombie shirt I purchased just for the dance so it retained it’s signature store odor, and Target brand Ugg boots.

It was August.

A haunted house playing “Do you have a Beaumont doctor?” advertisements on a loop would...

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 10:19:28 -0400

A haunted house playing “Do you have a Beaumont doctor?” advertisements on a loop would be terrifying.

Things That Don't Change After College

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:40:01 -0400

In light of the trees matching my hair color I have chosen to take a hiatus from my eeyore like state and point out the few things that don’t change when you graduate college. I think my writing is having a similar effect on your dreams as watching Criminal Minds while I fall asleep does on mine. For like a split second you think you’re going to have a sex dream about Doctor Reid, but then everyone dies.

As American R&B and neo soul singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer Anthony J. D’Angelo once said, “Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, there will always be a pasta bar.” You could say my most difficult transition from High School to College would be having classes with the opposite sex, or having to pick out my own clothes. You would be wrong, but you could say that. It would in fact be that I whole-heartedly believed my days of create your own pasta were over. I would wake up in the middle of the night at eleven PM (I went to bed early in High School), sweating, like I just had a dream about Doctor Reid (are you sensing a theme yet?), I was so afraid to lose my beloved pasta bar. My stomach would knot up and a dull appetite-less ache, I could feel my heart beat so fast it felt slow and warm, and I didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. Some of you may know this feeling from being dumped, I mean if you ask any current boyfriend or girlfriend we all ended our last relationships. But I managed to move on, enjoy my freedom with other noncommittal foods, like the fleeting mac n’ cheese nights or chicken broccoli bake. Meals I would just hit and quit. Not a single drunken college night went by where I didn’t miss pasta bar, and that nauseous stomach feeling came back (not because I had jungle juice composed primarily of Crystal Palace with a K).

Before my tale of finding pasta bar again too closely mirrors my love life, I will tell you how it ends… in a fake pregnancy. I’m just kidding… obviously. The days of create your own pastas and pizzas and whatever gross things you people eat (like that one fat kid everyone had in elementary school that put chips on his pizza) never end. My high school had it, it my sorority had it, and my current occupational facility offers it for lunch every Friday. Let me tell you, it is the longest effing line too. Because eating a food traditionally reserved for evening hours is acceptable to consume before noon in the real world! Although alfredo is the only sauce in the family of carbohydrate dressings that varies ever so slightly from location to location, to the point you’re not quite sure if it is good different or bad different, like when the Harry Potter franchise changed Dumbledores.

Which brings me to my second point, your parents will still want you to write thank you cards. There is no correlation between these two topics for me to logically say, “Which brings me to my second point,” but it’s (master) debate season so I can. And I do what I want. I received a tip in the mail at my previous job as a thank you for your help, and my mom wanted me to write them a thank you card. The couple was thanking me so I need to thank them for thanking me. I imagine the whole thing turning into an AOL chain letter where I start anonymously threatening that if they don’t send another thank you card to me, and three friends, by midnight, that their wishes won’t come true and their puppy will be murdered by the ghost of their previous house broken pets. Then I would add a bunch of asterisks that make a vertical wave that you scroll through really fast because glitter graphics aren’t around yet. *B@b! D011~<3~~*** I say thank you cards stop when my birthday parties stop. Which was nine years ago. The exception being High School graduation gifts. I am anxiously awaiting the day future generations don’t have actual graduation parties, just Facebook events everyone RSVPs “maybs” to (because at this point in the demise of English langauge everything will have an abbrev), and they can make a blanket status saying, “Thanks for the checks that all came in the same three cards, I am so lucky to have such wonderful family and friends! hearts hearts hearts.”

Older women / girls/ gay men will always think you’re “cute.” I didn’t even try to transition smoothly to my next point. Remember when you were a freshman (or maybs you’re going through this now) and there were always those two seniors that always managed to look down to you, even though you’re taller and all like wtf how did they do that, and say, “aww you’re just adorable,” or “you’re just too cute” or say they love you after you compliment them? Those girls graduate and turn into the women that wear heels to work, even on casual Friday which just looks stupid with hooded sweatshirts. For the record I did not just add this one to the list because it literally just happened to me. If I compliment your Kate Spade shoes I obviously have some level of style and am therefore not adorable. That voice is used for children and the only child that would possibly be able to identify Kate Spade pumps is Suri Cruise in which case yes, it is adorable. But that kid looks pissed off all the time, so she would probably kick you with her presumably higher heels.

Last, but certainly most (threw you for a curve ball there); your urge to drink during a week night will be just as strong as it was when your liver was intact. Only now, and this is an improvement, you will have a reason to drink besides the first letters of Tequila and Tuesday being the same. For example, ”Call Me Maybe” is still on the radio, or you didn’t reach quota, or you don’t think you should be paying a city of Detroit tax from your paycheck because you have no representation in Detroit- just to name a few broad, really general, non-specific examples of office strife.

Advice to College Kids from a Recent Grad

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 16:01:00 -0400

I will continue to refer to myself as a recent grad, gripping the remains of college like a seventy-six-year-old woman’s wonder bra- ever combating the weights of change, until the day I am no longer carded.

Use your free student gym membership. This is not me calling you fat. This is me saying you will get fat. You hear all about the Freshman 15 but no one tells you about the post-grad-job-hunt-grad-school-app-twenty-five. The whole taking down Facebook body shot pictures in your twenties has nothing to do with potential employment and everything to do with buying a larger pair of spanx.

Get your parents to buy you as many back to school clothes and shoes as possible. Think your parents won’t fall for that? Play on their emotions, pull the whole, “this is the last time I am going back to school, remember my first day of kindergarten when I wore a navy blue and pink striped dress… J. Crew has one just like it!” You never realize how inappropriate your wardrobe is until you have to dress business casual every day for a week. Those little black spandex skirts do not count as pencil skirts. Even if you’re wearing black tights under it. Don’t argue with me, you’re still a whore.

Stop complaining about walking places to get food. Holy cow I would love to be able to walk across the street to get a slice. Now I have to cross a freeway, a bum with a questionably full Vitamin Water bottle, and two crosswalks no one stops for. (including myself) I have to fill up my tank twice a week and I have yet to encounter one normal person at a gas station. I could write an entire post about types at the gas station. But it would solely consist of me avoiding eye contact because they are all serial killers, yeah I see you soccer mom. Van of bodies is what that is. Shit.

You can’t drink like you used to once you graduate. It’s like waking up on your thirteenth birthday. Yesterday at twelve you could wake up at seven AM and watch MTV music videos in the living room while your parent’s slept in, and wonder what was ever wrong with a little bump and grind in the first place? Instead you wake up like a freaking vampire, something about sunlight before noon burns your eyes so much you realize you need glasses- and not in the cute trendy way you once wanted. My point is, that stupid gene that makes you hate waking up early is the same one that gets you drunk off two glasses of wine, which is really cool at first, until it’s the worst hangover of your life. And you’re driving to work like, how did that happen and why is there a five dollar bill in my bra?

It is physically impossible for me to do shots anymore. Hearing the word “shot” alone makes me throw up my chicken Caesar salad a little. Because that’s all I know how to make. Fucking salads.

It is also physically impossible for me to stay alert past midnight. I go to bed at eleven. The time I used to start my homework at. I actually wash my face, and brush my teeth, and almost flipped a table like a Real Housewife when I realized I was out of astringent. On the rare occasion I do attend a bar gathering I forget everything at the stroke of midnight. Like an elderly Cinderella. It’s not that I blackout, I just turn into a sleepwalker.

So here’s the advice part of the post. Don’t graduate. But if you have to then do it from the University of Michigan. Nothing says “I’m ready for the real world” quite like cutting someone off as you merge onto the highway (even though *apparently* they have the right of way) like a “Michigan Alumni” license plate case.

Where I've Been

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 10:40:06 -0400

The feeling of owing just under 1,000 strangers an explanation of my actives lately is a weird one- like the time I was tipsy off $5 dollar glasses of wine at the Lego store in Chicago. Lots of changes over the summer, which I hate. New apartment, new job, new glasses prescription, no more Lean Cuisines. I hate change. If I could wear the overall shorts I wore almost every day when I was six, I totally would- and I could, if I were comfortable looking like a socially awkward whore. Some things haven’t changed though: same boyfriend, still not saving any money, still getting told I look like Anne Hathaway- still not sure if that’s a compliment.

I must admit though, I have been a little daredevil as of late. Dappling on the experimental side. For example, I have changed my steak order from well done to medium well. I have also gotten particularly good at spotting police cars during my fifty minute commute. Last year at this time I had three cats and a dog. Now I just have a different dog. That’s not supposed to be funny; it’s just something that happened.

Since I haven’t had the desire to do drunken embarrassing things lately it has given me a large chunk of time to reflect and consider what I want to do with my life. I have 17 drafts right now of blog posts that all started comical and such, but turned out like Romeo + Juliet; where it sounds like a really good idea in theory, but ends up getting sad in a super uncomfortable way where the only good part was that one Radiohead song.

This is the best way I can explain where those drafts went. Like this one time my babysitter told me should could make my little sister disappear, like really disappear, and never come back. Then she made some angsty, passive aggressive, teenager comment to my eight-year-old self about how everyone has to die someday. If I submitted you to reading those drafts I would be that babysitter and you would be adorable, innocent, self-dressed me dancing to Frank Sinatra in your living room, taking it way too seriously, and then you would hate magic shows for the rest of your life. I don’t want you to hate magic shows so I didn’t post them.

Once my life is in a happier place, also known as financial security, I will transition back to my old mindset. I used to complain about breaking a heel off my Target boots, hello they are Target boots what the hell do you expect, and how one word texts are the 21st century devil. Now I complain about gas prices going up five cents during the week, and how difficult it is to stay awake until 9:30 to watch Parks & Rec. I am, without a doubt, turning into my parents. The only thing barring me from a full transition to the fictional realm of adulthood is getting excited when I see deer along the road. The kind that is still alive.

Whatever, I still think newborn babies look like aliens so it’s comforting to know some microscopic speck of my mediocre existence hasn’t altered. That will probably change in my late twenties or early thirties, pending marital status. Just kidding I’m a young woman in 2012 in America; I don’t need a man to have a baby! I just need a man to buy me Chinese food, and set up my cable, and twist open really tight nail polish bottles that still don’t work after the rubber band trick- you know, the important stuff in life.

are you done blogging? :(

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:32:57 -0400

I’m not going to say I was wrong in temporarily abandoning this blog, like a drunk in the dollar pizza line who sees a dweeb passing out free Jimmy John’s outside the bar, but I wasn’t right. I owe you a dollar. I have dabbled in some draft posts aboutwhowhat to take advantage of during college, and how to transition between grades and jobs and boys with the grace of a girl who can cross the street in Forever 21 pink pumps without falling, but I’m not that girl. I don’t think I will ever be that girl, and for the first time in a long time I’m okay with that. Because I can wear flats, or wedges during the summer. (For the record nothing annoys me more than a chick workin some peep toe when it’s snowing)

So I’m back. I hope you missed me. I pinkie promise the first thing I do when I get home is post. Okay I lied, the first thing I will do is pour a box of wine into a Lily Pulitzer mug, but I swear the second thing I will do is write. And quickly, because I haven’t been drinking like a laid off forty-year-old, so a glass of wine hits me like Honey Boo-Boo on go-go juice.

Lunch

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:50:00 -0400

When my boyfriend texts me asking what he should get for lunch I’m all about it. It is exciting to me. It turns into twenty questions. I’m all like, “OoOh well what did you have yesterday? What are you in the mood for? What’s close to work? How much do you want to spend?” I like genuinely care what the fuck he is eating. That’s weird. If my friend was like “Whatshould I get for lunch?” I’d be like, “Eff off, I don’t care. Stop texting me, you’re annoying.”

HOW WEIRD IS THAT.

The worst part is I suddenly assume all my friends love my boyfriend as much as I do. “Guys, he got a Wendy’s hamburger for lunch! How weird is that? They are square burgers! Square! He cuts the edges off so they are round and I’m all like babe, why don’t you just go to McDonald’s! Isn’t that so funny?” NO IT’S NOT FUNNY. Even I know it’s not funny. Yet I care. I spend a good hour a day thinking about what he should eat. Then, if he doesn’t pick my option, I’m offended. I get passive aggressive over a fast food establishment.

In relationships we trick ourselves into thinking we care about how often the other one takes a shit.

Which, if you’re a girl, is never.

Stop Planning

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 18:49:00 -0400

I graduated in a class of 160 from an all girls private Catholic high school, and went on to a University of 24,000+ smartasses. Needless to say my transition didn’t quite mirror the pictures of Pottery Barn teens moving into their dorms; but I have only myself, and my wholehearted belief that everyone waited until marriage to have sex, to blame for that.

In high school I complained when a class was an hour instead of forty-five minutes, when I was threatened with a JUG (justice under God aka detention) for rolling my skirt, and when pasta bar was out of my favorite bow tie. We drank our parents’ vodka out of water bottles and changed our AIM screen names atleast twice. (SimplyK311yx3, the x3 was a broken heart) If I was awake you bet I was complaining about something, sitting on my bedroom floor cramming formulas onto the front of a single note card for a final exam, wishing I were somewhere else.

Now I am in that somewhere else, and while that whole complaining thing hasn’t stopped, and I would give anything to be little again. I don’t fit under my desk anymore, I genuinely forgot what grass feels like under and on the sides of my bare feet, and have long since lost the urge to carve my initials and Prince Williams’ into everything. A scribbled letter “F” in front of the “Art” isn’t funny anymore and neither is writing Pen 15 on your friend’s hand.

Lately I have found myself more anxious about the future than my usual control freakness deems normal. I have realized we don’t grow up, we just get better at making more decisions and sometimes, if we’re really lucky, the right ones.

If I have learned one major lesson, one thing to take away from college, it’s that people twice your age who ask your plans for the future are assholes. I graduated high school thinking I would study art and design and history of art for four years, graduate hottest girl ever, then earn my museum certificate somewhere along the east coast, all while being wooed by a boy who still likes to read books. Like actual paperback books, maybe he even had a library card. Talk about incredibly unrealistic.

It’s not the end of the world, whatever it is that keeps you up at night, or holding you knees tight to your chest on the bathroom floor, with stomach knots so deep and intricate you wonder when you became old enough to hurt so much. I am seriously struggling not to sound like a bumper sticker, or one of those pixelated black and white pictures of a couple on the beach where the girl is being picked up and hes wearing a button down shirt that’s completely unbuttoned, so it’s like what’s the point, and then over it is some Nicholas Sparks quote in comic sans a middle school girl made in Microsoft paint wearing a “I’m a Belieber” shirt from Meijer.

I can’t really say much, only being twenty-two and all, and I’m not really sure what my point is, but just, effing, feel everything and stop wishing you were somewhere or someone else.

One final note, if you create spawn don’t freaking give them cell phones in third grade, and don’t wear your high school varsity jacket in college. That’s probably the best advice I will ever give.

What Am I Doing With My Life?

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 20:39:00 -0400

Two words for you “trapped” college kids that count down the days to graduation on your iPhones. Graduating sucks. Also, you won’t be on your parent’s family plan much longer. There are no good reasons to leave college. I know that because I’ve been searching for reasons to justify passing all my classes.

You thought the Common App was a bitch? Try making a list of proficiencies past beer pong and having a really good fake. Some have you upload that exaggerated piece of Times New Roman BS that is your first resume, in addition to filling out your entire job history in little cell blocks that don’t save if you accidentally click X. Flight attendant job apps ask where you have been and what you have been doing for the past ten years. Ten years ago I thought blue eye shadow was makeup and refused to wear jeans, the extra fabric bulged in a way as to suggest lady wood. I actually opted to wear a pair of Limited Too sweatshirt material pants that looked like jeans. (That’s right hoes, I wore jeggings before it was cool. Not that it’s cool now, just socially acceptable… kind of.)

At 12 I hated my parents because they made me return the plastic birthstone necklace my first “boyfriend” gifted me from our school’s “Santa’s Workshop.” So what am I supposed to say? I was in recess drawing curved “V” shaped birds all over the parking lot that boys throught were mini butts? The only thing making me more un-hired than that is when potential employers Google me and a Sirius Playboy Radio station interview abou the Walk of Shame Shuttle pops up.

If you thought “where are you going to college?” or “what’s your major?” got annoying, try “what are you doing with your life?” That shit is heavy. I would like to be happy, maybe make a couple other people happy too- but that’s not what people want to hear. They want goals, a timeline, a plan. Where do I see myself in five years? Running away from everyone that asks me what I plan on doing with the five years after that, that’s for damn sure.

Also, after graduation all of my guy friends went to Europe and all of my girl friends started drinking more. I don’t know if that’s the result of seeing “Taken” one too many times, or the unfathomable idea of carrying around a month’s worth of clothing in a backpack.

My point is, you can’t skip work and have your friend sign you in because you were too hungover from eighty cent drink night, or The Hills episode with Justin Bobby was on, or your just didn’t feel like going. There are no “personal days” after graduation. So take as many no attendance classes as you can, and relish the sound of kicking wood chips to get off a swing; because the only sounds you’ll be hearing after graduation are “what is your greatest weakness in the workplace?” A question, like all questions after twenty-one, you cannot answer honestly.

Now if reading that depressed you as much as typing it depressed me, grab a box of wine and start Googling “how to write a cover letter.” Or ask your dad, who, if he is anything like mine, still won’t tell you directly how to spell words, but makes you sound them out.