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. 

Unless I were to actually be on the MTV Reality TV show “Real World,” (HAPPY BRYAN”.,!?<!) in which case I have neither the tits nor the fondness for men in tank tops to be ready for that either. So I have been thinking about my future a lot, nautral right? Having just graduated and all, and not knowing where the hell I will be in August when both my lease and event coordinating internship end, is a constant source of drunk crying as of late. If I could just pull a sleeping beauty, get a boxed wine IV and PTFO until some hot dude in leggings wakes me up that would be great. Besides my great admiration for a good icing, there are a few choice reasons why I shouldn’t be allowed out of Ann Arbor.

1. I still feel weird bringing wine to my boyfriend’s parents. My mom’s answer? Wine and flowers. I ask my mom because boyfriends ALWAYS say “baby, you don’t have to bring anything, and it doesn’t matter what you wear either. You could wear sweats and they would love you.” I am calling bullshit. If I were a parent, you all better pray that day never comes, and my child brought home a significant other in sweats I would judge the shit out of them, and probably let them take the leftovers home to their cardboard box. Anyway, point is I feel super awk bein like hayyy p-unit here’s some booze, I have no idea what it tastes like because I have only ever had it out of a box. Luckily they had beer. 
2. I can only get my haircut when I go home. The same lady has cut my hair since I was four. I trust no one else with my gingery mane. On that note I still go to the same dentist and doctor as well. Oh, and the same mall. I take my malls seriously. I am not ready to find all that shit on my own. Knowing me I’ll see one of those commericals for a free consultation and be like bam, that’s my guy.
3. I think cash is free money. I use my debit card for everything, so when I get cash from people who feel bad for me, it’s like oh it was never in my account so I can spend it and there’s no proof I ever had it in the first place. Plus I don’t want to carry around cash in my bra, it’s bad enough I look like a stripper, I don’t want to feel like one too.
4. I blame my parents when I get lost. I came home for the weekend and hit traffic. My first thought was, why didn’t my mom call me and tell me it was down to two lanes? My first thought should have been, let’s listen to the AM station traffic updates. But then I remembered I don’t know any AM stations.
5. I seriously contemplate making a Shoe Dazzel account on a daily basis. Instead I just take the quizzes to see what catergory my style fits into, but I kid you not there is a good sixty seconds where I want to buy the shoes personally selected for me. Unfortunately studded black mary jane pumps do not go with my daily uniform of yoga pants and sweathshirts, sans bra.

Girls have three jobs when it comes to the opposite sex: being crazy, the “I am slowly reaching for my wallet but you better pay” for thisdate drink, and being clingy. Guys have one, to contradict themselves in literally everything they say. But there is nothing worse than a little Freaky Friday role reversal. 

Now I am just writing this to kill time before my family goes to bed and I can pour myself a glass of white wine and play Just Dance 3 for Wii until I burn off the Thin Mint girl scout cookies I found in the back of the freezer / a couple of gal pals are experiencing the not-as-rare-as-you-think clingy hook up male type.

Do you know a guy like this? Theres a mutual attraction, you hang out a couple times, start texting while the sun is still out, you drunkenly sleepover one night and the next morning after he drives you home you get a “we need to talk” text. Aka he thinks you want to date, be exclusive, hop on the fast track for Facebook official. NEWSFLASH COLLEGE MEN, most girls don’t want to be exclusive and chances are she’s texting a couple of guys at once. Key word there being TEXTING not fucking, so calm down. When she starts acting “coupley” that usually just means she’s comfortable being sober around you and doesn’t need to chug her roomate’s Sminoff Ice before she comes over. 

Guys pull this whole “I am not looking for a relationship, but I have fun hanging out with you” card. So girls take this card, let go of the dream Friday night photobooth photoshoot with you, and continue to accept free diet cokes and whatever / boner back massages on the dance floor. That works out fine for a month or so, a semester if you are lucky.

Sooner or later one of you is going to find out the other hooked up with someone. The girl response is ask all her friends if she’s cuter than the other chick, get really drunk, lose some shit, and continue to hook up with you. She will ignore her friends calling you (the dude) “such an asshole” who is “using you” because after all, you were friends first, she knows you. She will put up with you because, well, someone is better than no one and there are only so many nights you can order chinese and watch The Notebook by yourself.

The guy response is to flip a shit. Chances are he will call the girl a whore / ask her to get tested / refer to her going out clothes as a “costume”. Maybe he will even tell his mom everything you have said to him. He will text some non-specific insults like, I thought I knew you / you’re not the girl I thought you were / I was beginning to change my mind about relationships / I can’t believe I trusted you.  Because if you’re upset, if his knocks at your self-esteem worked, then you won’t go out and guys don’t like competition.

Remember what he fails to. He was the one that didn’t want a relationship, he is the one that ended things before you even thought about it (okay that’s a lie, because I have planned my life with literally every man over the age of eighteen I pass on the street). I don’t think guys understand that “we’re note exclusive” means girls can “see” multiple guys.

If you’re not together, he has no right to flip a shit. But it’s a two way street; girls, you can’t flip a shit either- guys that don’t want relationships don’t change their minds, so stop asking him to come over and watch a movie before you get too attached. 

The only upside to this drama is your girlfriends will feel bad for you and buy you Red Bull Vodkas, and defending yourself against the novel length texts from him tends to kill one’s appetite. What I really want to know is where were those grammatically correct messages two months ago when I was just getting “k” ?

I haven’t angry ginger blogged in awhile, since my parents (hey mom) and men of relationshits past (though you will never admit it, will you?) have started to read this blog “not all the time…I haven’t in awhile actually”. Okay, yeah right. So I was like, yeah- let’s go ahead and bring back the sass. I doth dub 2012 the year of me disregarding men and acquiring currency. 

A particular sentiment has been weighing heavily on me for quite some time now, and I am not talking about all the post break weight I have gained that has decided to move in around my hips. I am really hoping I am not the only one who thinks this, because then I am just a horrible friend. But I have a hard time believing the following phrases when courting a gentleman heads south: 

• It’s his loss.
• I’ve always thought he was an asshole.
• You can do so much better than him.
• You’re too good for him.
• He will never do better than you.
• He didn’t deserve a great girl like you.

So then here is what I think, um hello, why didn’t you tell me this in the first place. Oh, you did and I just ignored you because I was too busy planning an ultimately disappointing life on Pintrest because my future will never measure up to my boards? Sounds about right. Us women are a delusional species we are. 

Chances are though, his friends are telling him exactly the same thing, or more likely minor variations of the following, depending on their emotional depth and maturity level:

• She was a bitch.
• You ex is crazy… lets blackout.
• Want to try and get our friend’s younger sister’s friends to ask us to prom?
• She wasn’t right for you.
• She was too controlling. 
• Now you can be fun again.

In both scenarios each side of the failed (duh) duo are hearing the same things. But they both can’t be right, can they? Can both sides actually do better? Is he really an asshole and is she really a crazy bitch? Then maybe they belong together.

Makes that feel like a total waste of time. I have never thought anyone I have had real, sober, feelings for to be an asshole. Except for one… you know who you are. So when my friends tell me such things, it makes my heart cramp up like I tried to run home after eating an entire Taco Bell 12 taco box. And if I was so great, why does every relationship end like a scene from Final Destination? If I thought you were great, how could I possibly do better? But heres the thing, we do (usually) do better. Except for those few in between when we decide that this time “best way to get over someone is to get under someone else” will work, which it never does.

Sometimes I think I rather here supportive things like “better luck next time” or “one man down closer to finding the right one” maybe even an overly cheesy “you can’t hurry love”. But then I think about it and it’s like, who the fuck wants to hear that? We much rather blame it on the person, insisting we are right, they are wrong- classic battle of the sexes. To which I say, “hey besties, you’re right. He was a dick. Let’s blackout.”

Deep down I know though, you see the signs after, then it all makes sense. Neither of you were wrong, things just don’t always work. We can’t all be compatible with each other, if we were, the planet would be a giant (and literal) clusterfuck. And who wins with that? Only the companies selling STD meds, thats who.

Semi-season, the reason girls can’t yet enter the hibernation phase that is a Michigan winter, but still border on futile diet attempts to have the bodies of prepubescent twelve-year-olds. A senior fraternity gentleman and seasoned semi veteran, joins me to write a she said / he said (ladies first) expose on the mass hysteria that is preparing for a semi-formal.

 She Said:

            Senior year and you are still getting set up on blind dates, totally fine with that. Barely there self-esteem still in check; you’d say you have your dignity, but you might have to vacuum that out of the carpet, then again I don’t think you can lose something you never had.

            By the time you wake up day of, thanking Thursday night for helping you sleep through your early afternoon discussion, you have seven hours to get ready. You will now spend the next six hours watching mediocre straight to DVD Romantic Comedies while eating your weight in cheese pizza with extra pineapple. You will not tell anyone this, instead you will lie to all your girlfriends that you haven’t eaten anything all day except ice cubes and a couple sticks of gum. Update your Facebook status about how excited / sad / unrealistically emotional you are about your last semi. Use lots of hearts.

            No night of getting ready is complete without an emotional meltdown or two, prompted by a faulty high straightener, followed by the realization that half of your sorority will be wearing the exact same Forever 21 dress. You should have bought the silver dress made of what looks (and felt) like tin foil. You looked like a baked potato. But that’s okay, because your date is dressed entirely in pastels, looking more like a kindergartener whose mother dressed him up as an adult for his first class picture, than a man who as already procured a post-graduation job. 

            Take a couple awkward homecoming inspired pictures on the staircase. Be sure to take more pictures with your girlfriends so your stranger of a date has to stand around the perimeter of the room, wishing he were already onto the hour long bus ride portion of the evening. Ask him to hold all of your things. Feel passive agressive when he takes horizontal pictures of you with your friends that crop out your shoes. 

Complain about your feet hurting a lot and swear to yourself that you are never wearing heels again. Compliment girls that compliment you- but only mean about half of them. Feel like a mom when you whisper to your date about the length of some girls’ dresses. Feel like a college girl again when you make a face about girls wearing flats. Realize you’re getting too old for this, but save your over twenty-one wristband for the scrapbook you will never make.

He Said:

You got the clothes, the looks, and the swag ready, now you just need to take a quick peak in the mirror; what exactly is going on in the mind when he looks in the mirror?  Once a mystery to all members of the female sex, I now offer a glimpse into the mind of one very attractive male:

Wow, look at that bone structure in your face, was your father a model?  And your face is so smooth…I think I should start publically endorsing Schick, that Quattro is tight, although I’m a not a big fan of the Spanish.  …Is that a zit?  I better Noxima that ‘ish before this perfectly sculpted face is put into play.  Let’s tense those cheek muscles for a hot second.  Wow, if these were the Myspace days this would totally be my profile picture. It’s really my eyes that are dangerous.  It’s getting pretty embarrassing watching girls stare me down when I walk down the street, just relax ladies.

  You think this Brooks Brothers jacket was cheap?  Sorry babe, this isn’t your typical 346 from Birch Run, this is the real deal. Oh? You like my tie?  Vineyard Vines, I know what you’re thinking: those tiny bulldogs are quite adorable.  Listen, I know I smell like a hot steamy pile of man right now, but there is no need to get so close, it’s only Polo Black. Rocking my new Tommy Hilfiger boxers; I’m telling you they’re coming back in style. I couldn’t place that better if I tried.  Baby powder? Check.  I’m not looking to visit the swamp tonight. I could probably hit the gym and slim down the backside a little bit, but you know want to give it a grab.

  I am literally just stunning right now.  Look at that smile; it has some hints of Tom Cruise in there…except I’m better looking than even him right now. Aright stallion, your work here is done, it’s game time.

Halloween is the one weekend a year we band together, slut up, and celebrate fear. However, there exists one fear that trumps any scary movie / haunted house/ looking at yourself in the mirror in head to toe spandex after a failed pre-Halloween diet… and that fear is experienced soley by fathers. Dads thought it was difficult letting their little angels go trick-or-treat with her friends in another neighborhood was bad, now “little angel” is used to describe the amount of fabric that goes into her costume. 

We may grow up, but our costumes stay the same size. 

Something about the prospect of wearing a children’s costume makes me hungry, and distracts me from my goal of having the body of a 12-year-old by the end of the month. Although I am effortlessly able to maintain the chest of a prepubescent boy. 

My favorite part of Halloween is watching the dance floor hook-ups. Not saying I am that creepy costumeless old man sitting in the corner of the bar (how did you get in here?) scanning the whoreiffing gang bangs, there is just something honestly hilarious about watching Lady Gaga hook up with Batman, or a catholic school girl all up on Ernie’s d. Just kidding my favorite part of Halloweekend is the unparalleled walks of shame in the wee hours of the morning. The lucky ones get driven home, but that’s just cheating. 

Nothing screams desperate quite like throwing on that high school uniform. Needless to say, I was a catholic school girl- the one truly great thing I took away from my four years of male deprivation. When in doubt, just buy a pair of ears. I wish it was that easy for guys- I am so sick of seeing Ghost Busters and Top Gun costumes. If you’re gonna be Top Gun at least do it by way of the jeans and dog tag volleyball scene. Couples costumes also disgust me, but mostly because I am anti-relationshits, not anti-boyfriend getting pissed because other dudes are checking out his girlfriend. If I was a dude I’d make my girl wear snowpants, that’s all I’m sayin. I was in one last year at this time and I was a garden gnome, people kept thinking I was a dunce, it was not fun. 

Remember- she may look like a princess at night, but she sure as hell will turn back to a pumpkin in the morning. Halloween regret looks like the bottom of some kids bunk bed (far too old to still sleep in bunk beds), text message alerts from your bank account saying you spent too much money on feta bread, and your whisker makeup all over your white comforter. Don’t be that girl- I already called dibs on being her. Sorry I’m not sorry. 

This year for Halloween I am going to be emotionally stable. Just kidding.

Girls don’t have to know other girls to hate them. To sum up how girls interact with other girls follows as such: I don’t know you, I have never met you, I will never meet you- but the mere idea of you stresses me out and makes me crave sangria at eleven am.

The targets of obsessive Facebook stalking / asking everyone you have ever met “is she cuter than me?” / dissecting every picture they have together and wall interaction they have makes us hate them. He could be dating Mother Theresa now and you would still wish she didn’t exist / gained fifty pounds over the summer. I like to think I have been on both ends of this, and not just the drunk (fine, sober) stalking end.

Maybe there is some chick out there that I snagged her man from and she went through my profile pictures. Luckily my personality has granted me the advantage to never have another girl hate me, because I am ridiculous and attending an all girls private high school made it impossible to hide my crazy. Think about it, if you went to school with 799 other girls it would be really hard not to give men code names after vegetables / talk about how you cried in UP / want to lose fifteen pounds. If a girl stalks my profile she will discover that I sleep outside from time to time, ride segways with a helmet, like to photoshop myself with Draco Malfoy, and have the most terrifying child model headshot rivaling that of Chucky. How can you hate that? If anything you will evaluate your relationship with whoever I hooked up with before you did and think what the fuck was he thinking? If he put up with that shit for so long, what the hell does he see in me? Then you should thank me for making you look normal, when I bet deep down you are just as bat shit crazy as me. By thank me I mean buy me a drink at the bar so couples stop sending me mixed threesome signals with their rum and diet cokes.

Its the worst feeling in the world when he moves on before you do and she’s some super cute, super involved, super super chick that makes you fucking hate the word super. Then your friends blatantly lie to your face, as girlfriends often do, about how you’re skinnier or maybe she doesn’t go out a lot or your friend has heard from her cousin’s friend’s twin that she is a bitch. In reality you knowng her personality is just as super as her size 0 J.Crew jean wearing ass. How I wish I could afford those genes, I mean jeans. 

We all want to be the one that got away, that girl he regretted dumping, the hottest girl he has ever banged whose family, friends, and roommates though was “the one.” Or if you’re not a stage five clinger like I am, maybe you just want him to think of you sometimes and be like damn, we had some fun ass times together and maybe, just maybe, be missed for like a split second before he goes back to being so in love with his super new girlfriend who can eat a cheeseburger and not have to run five miles the next day because she has the metabolism of a newborn infant. Truth is, you probably meant as much to him as he meant to you. Just a phase, a fling, a slampiece,  and it sucks. The whole meaningless cycle of dating / hooking up / avoiding eye contact in the library sucks more than a drunk girl during that time of the month. 

If anything we should band together as the past, present or future, bed buddies of some asshole. We shouldn’t hate each other because we are all fucking special and super and beautiful on the inside and out blah blah motivational speech. Chances are the girl before you, and even the girl after you, are not “the one.” Chances are that one guy we all have in common will end up being a garbage man married to a waitress with like, I don’t know, seven illegid kids of every age, race, and sex imaginable. (JK he will probably be the next Brad Pitt and you will mourn his absence for five pounds worth of ice cream and mashed potatoes before snapping out of it like Avril’s Sk8ter girl). Instead, us gal pals should be getting drunk together and have pillows fights telling hilarious / inappropriate stories about said asshole denominator instead of hating each other. But being girls, having estrogen pumping through our bodies and looking forward to winter only because we don’t have to shave our legs, makes us incapable of sharing boys. It is impossible for us not to compare and contrast and evaluate the shit out of his relationship with her vs. his relationship with us. Because we are crazy. I mean, only girls could convince themselves that painted on black pants made of pajama material (aka leggings) is a socially acceptable look with outdoor slippers whose name even suggests that they are aesthetically unappealing. Bat. Shit. Cray. Cray. 

And that’s why we should have a woman president. 

PS

This whole ripping on my own sex was really difficult to post, one pos hating some aspect of the dick owning population coming sooner than your ex boyfriend’s / fuck buddy’s / one night stand’s new girl, because he really was that bad in bed. 

Just because it’s been said that a woman’s place is in the kitchen, doesn’t mean it applies to gingers.

Besides the kitchen snafu, which I will mention later in this post, I have had a fantastic week. I am writing for two papers on campus and I am taking twenty credits, plus my sorority position designing shit. But no one wants to hear about me going all Ke$ha on them and talking about throwing glitter and going insane and making it rain (which Michigan seems to be doing enough of on its own). Honestly, I think it would be pretty hard to throw glitter. I feel like it’s would follow a similar pattern to the paper airplanes I made in middle school gym, I would throw it really hard, then it would fly straight up, only to come back and hit me in the face. No one wants glitter in their mouth, even if it is from a poorly applied vajazzle. 

Why do I plan on killing myself this semester with academics this semester, one may wonder? The best advice I received, from the same girl both times I was dumped, was to stay busy. Here is my logic, I am beating the male species to the punch. I am dumping all men, because I like to think it’s my choice I go to bed alone, in my own sweatshirt, and wake up to texts from my mom. Not to say that I am trying to date women now. I am simply putting myself on the disable list and am out for the season, my therapy being writing- but I am still on the roster. 

At one naive phase in my life, lets call that a fortnight ago, I believed that it was only fraternity gentlemen in the wrong; however, I have recently come to the stark realization that it’s all college men. Just because I am the common denominator doesn’t put me in the wrong. I am saying that more to convince myself, and less to convince you. I mean, I am a senior. I should have something serious to focus on since I am no where close to having enough credits for my Mrs. degree, nor am I seeing someone I could fake a pregnancy with and trap in a relationship. I really have it hard here, guys. 

I am also removing myself from making moves because frankly, it’s getting rather expensive for me to have a closet full of spandex and get drunk enough for you to be interesting. A male cheerleader friend of mine asked why it was costing so much for me to go the bar. Unknown to me having a vagina apparently means there are always guys who want to bone you, and know the way to your heart spanx is through an open window we hopeless romantics call eighty cent drink night. Much to the dismay of my self-esteem, but at the ever increasing joys of my alcoholism, I have taken this to heart. Well, the place where my heart should be. 

Now, about the kitchen. I have struggled with domesticity for years, in the same fashion my depressed cat struggles with peeing in a kitty litter and not every chair planted on white carpet. I try to hold it, but I never quite seem to make it. For once in my life I was trying to do a good thing, make some red velvet cupcakes for a friend who is bumming. But no, the gods of marriage refuse to give me any redeeming qualities a parent would find that compensate for my inevitable drunkenness the first time I meet those future parents-in-law. I added medium eggs, not large, did two cups of water instead of one and one fourth, and I burned my hand- all while the fire alarm is going off, and I am screaming curse words in such an eloquent string of patterning that the unassuming maintenance man in the parking lot below though it was a rap song. 

In conclusion, I am replacing romantic exploits with writing. Not baking. Already I am getting more than all of my years as a college girl combined, and whomp goes the ginger.