The ultimate question(s)

My apologizes ahead of time to anyone who basically has felt like a normal part of the fabric of society.  I would suggest that a) I am not your friend and b) you will not find what I have to write very interesting.

When you are single you spend a lot of time alone.  And the more time you spend in your aloneness the more time that you have to ponder the ultimate question:

What the fuck is wrong with me?

And I don't mean this in the suicidal rock star kind of way but more in the ... am I a complete freak show kind of way?

And these thoughts are not all consuming and overwhelming.  It's just that one day, on the way to work you're at a red light and it suddenly occurs to you that deep down inside you may be a complete psychopath.  And then you spend your entire day at work staring at the humans around you, dissecting inside and out how you can walk talk and speak just like them but deep down inside you know you belong on the fringes of society.  Some random engineer chats you up about their kid's soccer game over the weekend and you realize that you spent some of the weekend wondering why professional sports even matter when we're all essentially molecules floating through space.

Side note: Have you ever caught yourself in the mirror and stood there freaking out that the thing staring back at you is ACTUALLY YOU???

And I assume that these scary introspective single thoughts are why everyone around you wants to find you a significant other.  Because once you've entered into the relationship zone you become focused on an entirely different question.  And that question being:

What the fuck is wrong with my boyfriend?

Where before you could spend time wondering who controls the thoughts in your head, you can now devote hours to wondering why your boyfriend can't muster up the energy to buy full price toilet paper.  These are probably more healthy productive thoughts that lead to showing said boyfriend the way towards normalcy  .... all the while keeping your mind off the fact that you may in fact be living in your own personal truman show .....

Things that make life better

I am at the admirals club in LAX sipping on a glass of wine that I did not have to pay for. 

There is a nice older man sitting next to me talking shop about betting on college football.

LIFE IS GOOD.

Packing = a necessary evil

Packing is unofficially my least favorite thing in the world to do.  And since I a) chose to live far away from home and b) love to travel I am forced to undergo this process quite often.

In order to make the experience more enjoyable I decided a long time ago that the only way to truly live up the packing experience is to DRINK while PACKING.

A typical packing night looks like this:

6pm

The night starts out great – you open that first bottle of wine.  Put on your iTunes playlist and start making dinner.  At this point you are not actually packing, you’re just prepping your mind and stomach for the packing experience.

7pm

You see the wine bottle is half empty.  You decide that you cannot leave the rest of the bottle to waste, sitting in your refrigerator while you are miles away from your apartment. 

8pm

Oh hell, why not drink ALL THE WINE left in the apartment?

9pm

You have a strong urge to listen to some Elton John and sing at the top of your lungs.  And high kick in your living room.

Packing seems like the last thing in the world that you want to do.

2am

You start texting your friends because THEY NEED TO KNOW HOW AWESOME YOU ARE.

Your voice is a mythical sound that all neighbors everywhere need to hear.  YOU SING THE TRUTH. 

5am

Wake up bleary eyed, throw underwear and tooth brush into luggage and hope for the best.  Jump into cab. 

Arrive at Chicago.  Rush to open up front door and realize you’ve left your parents house keys in Los Angeles.  Cry tears of failure. 

Your guide to visiting LA

As someone who has hosted friends from all over the world in my humble apartment in the South Bay, I present to you some items you should consider before landing on our beautiful Southern California soil.

Just like your visa – jeans/flip flops/tshirt is a dress code that’s accepted everywhere.  Somehow everyone outside of LA has the idea that you have to be dressed for a club in Vegas to live out here.  Yes, you should if you’re being followed around by the paparazzi.  For the rest of us – ain’t no shame in the flip flop game.

If you arrive at LAX in February in shorts and a tank top we will laugh at you.  And you will be shivering. 

Yes, we do have a winter.  And no we don’t care that our winter temperature would be considered summer in Michigan.  That just makes us pity you.  We bundle up when it’s 60 degrees.  Get over it.

There is traffic on the 405 and we don’t have a public transportation system that rivals Boston/Chicago/NYC.  You’re going to have to be in a car while you’re out here.  Luckily unlike a train car, it will not be full of crackheads or businessmen looking for an excuse to “accidentally bump” their boner into you.  It will be full of your friends.  And if you are lucky your friends have a convertible.

On a clear day you can see the Hollywood sign from anywhere north of the 10.  Also, (drum roll please) it’s just a freaking sign.  Please don’t torture us by making us drive in extremely congested parts of LA so you can get even CLOSER to it.  (There is an exception if you’re willing to hike to it). 

Venice is not dangerous. I don’t know where this all started but a lot of out of towners are nervous about going there.  If you spend some time on Abbott Kinney you will get street cred with us.  If you complain that muscle beach is grimy then we will judge you because you are the a-hole that made us go there in the first place. 

We don’t have any desire to take you to whatever club that Lauren from “The Hills” frequents. 

It’s socially acceptable to start drinking at 9am.  Mimosa breakfast can easily turn into an all day drinking binge.  We’re ok with that.

If at the end of the trip you have a burning desire to move out here – you are not alone.  We all had “the first trip” and decided we’d do anything to stay out here.  Good luck on your mission to make that happen!

How prom ruined our lives

Prom, whether you like it or not, happens to everyone who lives in the United States during high school. Try as you may - you really couldn't escape prom fever at that age.    

Here are my basic issues with PROM:

Someone came up with the brilliant idea to stick a bunch of socially awkward teenagers in fancy clothes, without booze and force them to dance in front of their peers.  You literally can't get away with this in adult hood.  Even company Christmas parties involve copious amounts of alcohol because in general, Americans cannot be around each other sober.



You are expected to look like a guido/guidette for one night.  Tanning? Check.  Fake nails? Check.  Too much gel in your hair?  Check.  Too much cologne?  Check.

Smuggling booze into prom requires engineered solutions (for which most high schoolers are not capable of).  Most high schoolers are idiots.  The math league is brilliant.  There is no intersection between the kids who could easily figure out a way to smuggle in the booze and the kids who want to be drinking and fornicating.

Prom involves dating in a fish bowl.  Let's say you're interested in Girl A and you think she's kind of cute.  You share a math class together.  She wears purple bracelets.  At any other point in the year you could conceivably get to know her, ask her out and get rejected with a hand full of eyes on the situation.  In prom season, all fumbled attempts at hooking up are tracked and watched by every member of your student body (and teachers).

A total of 12 people at any given prom are having a good time.  Everyone else is watching the love of their life get groped by someone else.

Your family will keep photos of you, your acne, your braces/backbrace, your hideous dress or tux. your loser date and friends you don't talk to anymore FOREVER.  Be warned.  Corsages die.  Prom photos live forever.

75% of the female student body will cry at some point during prom.  


You will be poked by many boners (intentionally or unintentionally).  Want to mix half clothed girls in a room with hormonal boys?  And add dance music and the expectation that everyone is going to get laid???  Try walking the dance floor without getting the business by 2-12 boys.

It will give you a horrible complex about the opposite sex well into adulthood.  Got rejected by your crush?  Broke up on prom?  Watched your best friend go down on a teacher?  Yep.  These images will stick with you into your 20s and give you a warped view of life.

I'm sure some of you are reading this - thinking of how wonderful prom was and what a warm memory you have in your heart from that blessed event.  To that I say - eff you!

My pathetic attempt at stalking boys in high school

As a preface to all of you who know me in real life: I am a legit brunette.  Said hair was not dyed until college.  All pre-college depictions will show me with my natural hair color.  And also for reasons unfathomable to me, I had a huge "thing" for pothead boys in high school.


In high school I loved GIANT STONER.  He and I worked at the pool together over the summer.  And although he was two years younger than me and had failed English twice, I was convinced that we were meant to be together.  His uniform was a dirty phish tshirt and a facial expression that read "I'm a future college dropout."

At the same time my good friend Susan got her license and a new smoking hot car - a used white Jeep Wrangler with hot pink and blue stripes on the side.  However, Susan lacked the skills necessary in order to drive this stick shift vehicle.

On many occasions Susan and I would drive around after cheerleading practice, making sure to drive by the homes of our crushes.  I literally have no idea what we hoped to gain from this as literally nothing good came out of this venture.

One time Susan and I were driving by GIANT STONER'S house.  Her car stalled OUTSIDE HIS FRONT DOOR.  And then Susan couldn't figure out how to get the car started for an HOUR.  I started to panic that he was going to see us and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were stalking him. Susan calmed me down by saying "what are the odds he was even home?" and I lulled myself to sleep with that belief.

The next day at school the incident had gone unnoticed.  It was as if I had never engaged in multiple acts of stalker drive bys all year round.


And then the last period bell rang and GIANT STONER came up to me and asked me if I was outside of his house the other night.  I tried to lie but then he proceeded to rattle of the defining features of said vehicle.  THE UNMISTAKEABLE PINK AND BLUE STRIPES.

Then I just stared at the ground and mumbled something about how we were going to ring the door bell and ask his brother a question.  GIANT STONER just stared back at me with his giant blood shot eyes. I tried to twirl around my cheerleading skirt to distract him but that did not work.  I remained powerless against the discerning skills of a near imbecile who was high as a kite.  HE KNEW.

/end of pathetic geek story