Things we do, and know we shouldn't.

There are two voicemails on my phone that have been there since last July.
I can't get rid of them.
And its not even like I'm pretending to ignore that they're still there, either. I'm actually listening to them somewhat frequently and pressing the 9 button, "save", keeping them in existance for at least another 21 days.

Why do I do this to myself? And I know I'm not the only one, either. We all know its bad for us, but we keep letting our hearts override our heads...we keep reading those letters over and over, looking at those photos, listening to those voicemails till we have internalized every image and memorized every word.



While I think that it's good to keep pleasant memories close, I think I hold them so tightly to myself that they suffocate my present.

Classy poise or classless partying?

I miss beer. I miss local concerts with screechy guitars, dancing dirty with total strangers, eating pizza at 2 am, and drinking coffee on squishy couches...all the joys of college life that being at home has deprived me of.

None of that's glamorous or classy, but its hella fun. That seems to be one of my most pressing personal issues lately, deciding between classy poise or classless partying. Part of me longs to be that mature young lady with the fashionably classic clothing, holding elegant conversation at dinner parties. The other part of me wants to go barefoot, get shitty, protest environmental damage and smoke hookah afterwards.

I guess a lot of people around my age are going through this. We've all been immature teenagers for so many years and now we're in the awkward transition into adulthood. There's such a desire to be taken seriously by adults, but at the same time we want to be totally stupid and silly with our friends. Is there a happy medium?

Honestly, I don't know, but despite my awkward situation I'd say I'm pretty happy. You could call it the best of both worlds. There may be a time when I'll have to grow up for good, but that time isn't now.

Purse Wisdom

Over the past few years, and especially over the past few weeks, I've come to an understanding of what items are absolutely essential in any girl's (or guy's?) bag. They are as follows:


1.) A LITTLE UMBRELLA

On a Friday Night: Rain, it's raining!? OH NO my HAIR!....(arrive at party looking like a frizzball). Should've brought an umbrella.

Any given day in the Winter in NE America: Is...is it icing? Or snowing? Or raining?....Ow...OW that's ice. FUCK.


2.) A PLASTIC BAG

New Years Eve: Oh shit, Leah's gonna puke on the train....good thing I have this plastic bag handy!

On a trip to the city: Well it's a good thing I remembered my umbrella, it was pouring! Oh...wait, now what do I do with this wet umbrella? Can't put it back in my bag...man I wish there was something I could put it in!...like a plastic bag!....

3.) A MIRROR

With a friend: Hey do you have a mirror?

By yourself, anywhere: I hope my mascara/eyeliner/lipstick didn't smudge.

On a date: (thinks to self) I'll just casually look in my bag while simultaneously checking my mirror for poppy seeds in my teeth. Smooth.

4.) HAND SANITIZER

After riding the subway: I feel dirty. *Whips out hand sanitizer* Much better.

After using the bathroom while on a date: It'll take too long to wash my hands now that I spent all this time taking a shit, better just use hand sanitizer...I don't want him knowing girls actually poop.

Before eating: There's no fucking chance I'm gonna get swine flu.

5.) TISSUES

In the Fall/Winter: Gotta blow my nose.

After spilling coffee in your car: DAMMIT where are those tissues....

After doing naughty things: well...you know.




Seriously, folks. Don't leave home without them.

Closet Cougar

Friday night was a good night. My friend Harry had a margarita party to celebrate his 23rd birthday, and I had a grand ole' time getting shitfaced and flirting with cute guys. There was one in particular, a brown-eyed hottie that immediately caught my eye. He said he was 20 and went to SUNY Fredonia, and that he'd see me again at Harry's future parties at my college.

That was a lie. I found out later he was 17.

I confess: there's a cougar streak in me. Not that I want it to be there or anything, but too often I find myself checking out and/or flirting with younger guys.

Looking back at my dating history, my first cougar experience was with my first boyfriend. I was in 8th grade, he was in 7th, and we played a teen couple in our middle school's production of "The Music Man." Back then, dating a guy that was a year younger than you was somewhat of a big deal, but I didn't care. He was amazing: outgoing, totally funny, very cute and Italian (I had a thing for Italians.) He asked me out in front of the entire cast and everyone cheered. We were together for a blissful, sloppy, awkward two weeks, and then it was over. He dumped me! Apparently he missed being single. I guess the moral of that story is to never trust a twelve-year-old boy who has kissed over 30 girls.

After him, I dated mostly older guys. High school was somewhat of a dating spree for me...I dated a guy for about a month, convinced myself I was in love, then changed my mind and dumped him. However, the tables turned when I was 17. Karma decided to be its bitchy self and put me in the position of "dumped" rather than "dumpee". By the end of senior year I was heartbroken, bitter, and in no mood to have another boyfriend. Besides, I was going to college and there was no way in HELL I was going with strings attached.

Despite my anti-boy attitude, senior year was when I made my biggest and most scandalous cougar move.

He was a freshman-yes, freshman- boy. We'll call him Andrew.

Andrew wasn't just any freshman boy, though. He was extremely good-looking, completely hilarious, and dubbed 'honorary senior' by the senior guys in my class. I was always attracted to him but the idea of having a crush on any guy more than a year younger than me was absolutely repulsive. That was until my friend Alison brought him up when a bunch of us were out at a diner.

"Guys, I have a confession....I kinda have a huge crush on Andrew."

As soon as she said that, the entire table of senior girls exploded with "Me too!"s. So I felt a little better about my closet crush.

One night, I was having a very rough time dealing with my recent heartbreak from an older guy that was playing games with me (see my first post). I was in the corner crying when Andrew came up to me, wrapped his arms around me and told me to stop crying, because I was "the most amazing person in the world" and I didn't deserve to cry. That did it. My feelings for him totally exploded.

Andrew and I got closer, pushing the boundary between friends and more-than-friends further and further. I asked him to prom, he was psyched. However, while we were somewhat dating he kept asking if we were boyfriend and girlfriend yet. I had no plans on getting in a relationship with him, but I forgot that freshmen tend to view romantic situations as either friends or relationship without anything in-between. I kinda dug myself into a hole, so eventually I caved and said he could call me his girlfriend. THAT was a mistake.

I very quickly realized how immature he was, and how he was on a totally different level from me. Soon enough, he was annoying the shit outta me (but he was so damn cute!) and I didn't know what to do. So, I broke up with him after prom. I felt awful, but I learned a valuable lesson about dating younger men- DON'T.

Although I prefer to date older men, it doesn't change the fact that I'm attracted to younger guys. Hopefully this is something I will grow out of; my planned future doesn't exactly consist of me hitting on my son's friends when I'm 50. Ew.

Anticipating a week of Vicodin and yogurt.

Today is January the fifth. Last year, I was spending this day preparing for a relaxing 10-day cruise to the Caribbean. This year, the only thing I have to anticipate in my near future is the removal of my wisdom teeth. Honestly, I have no idea what to expect. I'm a total pussy when it comes to pain, so I'm hoping they'll drug me up nice n' good. It will be my first experience with Vicodin...and I'm extremely curious to see how that will go.

It's too bad that I was too miserable last year to fully enjoy that cruise to the Caribbean (See my last post about my annual January misery). The cruise itself was awesome: I went cave tubing in Belize, hung out on the beach in Mexico, and had a baby monkey crawl on my head in Roatan. But despite all that I still had a sulky air the entire time, due to an incident that had happened the week prior.

Yep, it was a boy incident. With me, it's ALWAYS because of a damn boy. This time, it was a boy I had been friends with for a while- we'll call him Steve. Steve and I had been flirting for the past two years, yet neither of us was willing to admit our feelings to the other. There was all this tension built up that crossing the friendship line would put us in this awkward situation of "what are we now?" I had driven myself crazy the past two years, wondering why Steve wouldn't make a move, especially since it was completely obvious we had feelings for each other. FINALLY, last Christmas Eve he asked me out to dinner. We finally kissed. I was on cloud nine. However, my ecstasy was short lived. A week later at a party, he tried very persistently to get me to have sex with him. Despite my drunken state, I was able to refuse (I had a strict no-sex policy unless I was in a relationship). After that he ignored my calls and three days later he was with a new girl. WHAT THE FUCK, right? I didn't understand why Steve was "using" me if he knew me so well. Have a freakin' one-night stand with some club whore, not with a girl from church that you've known for years.

Thankfully there aren't any situations like that this January. I kind of wish there was some sort of boy situation, but I am grateful for the lack of stress. Now the only thing I have to stress out about is this damn wisdom teeth removal...

Pretentious with a side of restless.

I knew it. I knew as soon as January would start, my life would go to shit.

Okay, maybe I'm being melodramatic, but melodrama makes things interesting. Now that I'm rotting away at home doing nothing but watching old Sex and the City episodes on illegal Japanese websites, anything is worth making interesting at whatever cost.

In this case, I decided to delve into my hipster side and create a blog. It's not so much about showing off how intellectual I am (PFFFT.) but more about giving me a chance to WRITE! and THINK! ....but not in that order. The thinking comes naturally, too naturally, as a matter of fact. It seems like the less I have to do, the more I think about. And the more I think, the more I dig myself into an unmotivated depressed hole, hence the life-going-to shit-thing.

Ever been in that situation where you find yourself finally free from your normal 9-5 chaos, only to realize that the chaos was your distraction from some closeted, massive feeling of depression and confusion? It happens to me every time I come home from college. There's no time to be miserable or lost at college, you're too busy writing intense essays and drinking yourself stupid on 50 cent beer night. It's not that those feelings of misery don't exist while you're at school, but rather that there's a large variety of distractions to choose from. I remember feeling particularly awful last March after my best guy friend decided to abandon college (and me) with not so much as a goodbye. Did I wallow in my misery? Yes...for a good 5 minutes. Then my friends from across the hall came in to show me the hilarious new boots that Lisa bought. Which was right before I remembered that I had to finish reading chapter 7 of Wuthering Heights. My ugly feelings were as good as gone.

However, there aren't distractions like that here. I live in a small suburb of New York City where there's nothing to do. I mean, we don't even have sidewalks (what's there to walk to?). And while that's a situation I'm sure many of you share, I'm sure you can also sympathize. Especially if you're a college student like me, whose friends are scattered all over the country and whose wallet is growing cobwebs. Even if my friends only live 20 minutes away, who has the money for gas? And more importantly, who has the motivation? We're all sitting here depressed, unmotivated, getting fat on leftover holiday treats.

The only thing I've been motivated thus far to do is to create this blog. I have this lovely idea that I will gain millions of devoted blog readers, who will hang on every dumb word I say and give my boring life meaning. And of course this will all happen over night!!

I always thought people who blogged were pretentious douchebags. And who knows, maybe that's exactly what I am, and maybe that's why I like bashing hipsters so much. I mean, I refer to myself as THAT short blonde girl. Not "a" short blonde girl, or "some" short blonde girl. No, I am identified....and maybe feelin' a bit precocious.


So in serious need of some sleep, I now melodramatically conclude my first pointless pretentious post, and I hope all you millions of readers have enjoyed it. Au revoir, bon nuit, kiss kiss.


-that short blonde