Sometimes I Wish I Smoked Cigarettes

Sometimes I wish I smoked cigarettes. Sort of. Maybe. Not really.

I'm not exactly in the market for a new expensive habit, and certainly not one that turns my teeth brown, makes my whole life smell, or, you know, causes lung cancer. But there's still something slightly intriguing about the thought of being a smoker.

Smoking in the media seems to fall into 2 categories: smoking out of stress and smoking just to be cool. So often in movies and TV we see someone with a high-power job, or with some insane amount of interpersonal drama, smoking a cigarette at some key moment where it legitimately makes me think, "Wait, that's all I need to do to calm down? When work or whatever is stressful I can just...go smoke a cigarette?" As a non-smoker, I don't have this option. When things blow up at work the only tool I have at my disposal is going into a coworker's office and gesticulating wildly like a crazy person. Only venting to coworkers doesn't calm me down, it just fuels the fire. The crazy, wildly-gesticulating fire. But what if I could smoke a cigarette and then come back all relaxed? Is that a thing? It sounds tempting.

As far as the coolness thing goes, I can't help but think of my sophomore year of college. One of my friends would buy these fancy Nat Sherman cigarettes, with a black body and gold filter, and she would call me over to sit outside her dorm and smoke them. We called it "stoopin' it." One time when we were stoopin' it she said, "You know it sounds stupid, but I really feel like I look cooler when I smoke." And I had to agree - somehow we're sort of trained to think that people who smoke are more badass. I guess the marketing department at Philip Morris can pat themselves on the back for that one. But apparently I don't care that much about looking cool, because aside from a few cloves sprinkled throughout college (what girl didn't go through a clove phase in college? Come on now), I definitely haven't had a cigarette since those stoopin' it times when I was 19.

(Was that 10 years ago? Barf)

Another thing about cigarettes is that there's this very romanticized ideal of being a writer and sitting at a desk, typing - and puffing - away. The specific image that comes to mind is Carrie Bradshaw, in her pajamas, hair in a sloppy bun, smoking a cigarette and narrating to us her latest piece of relationship wisdom. Despite the fact that I always hated the character of Carrie Bradshaw and it's not by any means something I want to aspire to, there's something about that image that makes me almost think that I would feel like an actual "real" writer, and not just a girl with a not-widely-read blog, if I had a cigarette here. After all, I'm already all over the pajamas and sloppy bun thing, and I can even add some glasses to look even more writerly!

Why yes, since you ask, it is totally normal to stay in on probably one of the last nice days for awhile so you can write a blog post and watch TV and generally not make yourself look presentable during the daylight hours.

All of this being said, I think I will continue to not smoke cigarettes because of the whole not-getting-lung-cancer thing. But what if I tried just having a candy cigarette in my mouth? One of the ones that even produces a teeny bit of fake smoke. They might not relieve stress or make me feel like a fancy writer (note: candy in general is probably not a good way to make yourself feel like a grown-up), but I think they would make me look super cool. Because those things are awesome. The end.

Somewhere Between Bullshit and Settling

Everyone wants a perfect life. At least I do. Perfect friends perfect significant other perfect job perfect apartment? Sign me up.

Obviously, perfect is pretty hard to come by. So in any aspect of your life - friends jobs whatever - you have to accept some negatives. Sometimes these negatives aren't so bad, and these are just the bullshit things we have to put up with in order to have a semi-decent life. Other times they are flat out, deal-breaker awful. If these things are in your life, you're settling. Since my upcoming birthday has clearly had me doing a lot of thinking, I've been spending a lot of time contemplating the line between bullshit and settling.

If you're dating someone who has a habit of stealing blankets in the middle of the night, that's silly bullshit.
If you're dating someone who constantly lies to you, you're settling.

If you work at a job where the dress code isn't as casual as you'd like, that's bullshit.
If you work at a job where your boss berates you for no reason, that's settling.

The distinction, though, isn't always that clear. And even if it is, sometimes you can't walk away from something just because you know you're settling and could in theory do better.

As ridiculous as it sounds, this is something that keeps me up at night (that, along with fantasizing about getting a puppy or wondering how someone can possibly be smart enough to write a show as nuanced as Breaking Bad). I wonder about every aspect of my life and whether I should be striving for something better. All the articles and blog posts I've read about turning 30 (my Facebook feed has been rife with them all year) talk about how your 30s are a great time in your life because you know what you want and demand it. No more dating assholes! No more stupid jobs where all you do is fetch coffee! No more toxic friendships! AKA, no more settling.

The people who write these things are either looking at their 30s with rose-colored glasses or just have their shit way more together than I do. Because they just make it seem so obvious, like it's a really clear distinction between something being worth your time or not. And it doesn't matter if you're 30 or 22 or 100, it's going to be a constant battle between how you allot your time, energy, money and love to these things.

Most of the people I know hate their jobs, at least occasionally. And sometimes it's hard to determine whether, on the days you hate your job, if it's just a little bump on the way to an awesome career or a soul-crushingly bad match that will cause you to hate not just your job, but your life. It's even harder with interpersonal relationships. Do I love each and every one of my friends 100% of the time? Of course not. But there's a difference between someone who has a tendency to run 10 minutes late to everything and someone who talks shit about you behind your back. It's even harder with romantic relationships because people can get so desperate for those that they'll settle for anyone, no matter how unworthy, over having no one at all.

I sort of go back and forth between where I think I fall on the bullshit-settling spectrum. I don't think I have any supremely caustic components to my life, but I'm sure there are some where I could hold myself to some higher standards. As I approach 30 (and I promise, this is the last time I'm going to write an introspective blog post that has to do with this birthday), I'm going to try and figure out how I can improve, making sure my life is only full of blanket stealers, and not liars.

After writing this blog post, I'm also going to try and get this song out of my head.

The Thing About Thirty (part 2)

Back in July I wrote a post about how while turning 30 doesn't bother me, the fact that it doesn't bother me...bothers me. I wondered if I lacked strategic direction in my life, and that maybe my friends were all freaking out about turning 30 because they hadn't accomplished the goals they had set out for themselves. Whereas I'm totally cool with this upcoming birthday because I never had those big, must-do-by-the-big-3-0 dreams in the first place. So while my personal freakout isn't about entering a new decade of life, it's about the fact that maybe I'm not putting any effort into figuring out where I want my life to go.

Thinking about the future opens a whole other can of freakout worms, because when I actually try to think about what I want in life, I seem to be in this sort of pattern of arrested development, like my brain stopped maturing at around age 25.

As a general rule, my waking non-work hours are spent trying to do every possible fun thing I can find in New York. Bars, restaurants, concerts, events, you name it. This part of me that prioritizes fun over everything else has been relatively consistent since I was 22 years old and first moved to the city. And while I certainly have a lot of friends who feel the same way - or who will at least indulge me and join in on a few of the myriad things I invite people to do - it's definitely getting a little harder to find people willing to accompany me to stuff. Because, this pains me to say, I think I'm getting too old to do some of the things I want to do.

At 29 I'm hardly over the hill, but those around me are trying to settle down, and when you're trying to steer your life towards a spouse, a house in the suburbs and a family, you're naturally going to stop being quite as interested in going to random events, particularly when those events are late, or on a weeknight, or involve copious alcohol consumption, or otherwise interrupt your life as a real, responsible adult. Furthermore, because the 30 year-olds are...doing whatever it is that 30 year-olds who don't go out do with their time, I'm pretty much older than everyone. A lot of the time. In a lot of places. I would guess with a pretty high confidence level that the average age at each of the 5 festivals I went to this summer was well below 29.

So this is another thing that worries me. I'm turning 30 in less than 2 months but I am no more interested in having children or buying real estate than I was last year or the year before or any year before that. Even in New York City, where seemingly everyone gets started on this path to being a "real" person much later than they do everywhere else in the country, right about now is the time that my natural interests are supposed to shift from the irresponsible to the responsible. But...they aren't shifting. This is upsetting because a) what's wrong with me? and b) I realistically only have a few more years at most before I will officially be too old to live the life I'm leading now. I can hold on as long as humanly possible to this Peter Pan-esque dream of being in my 20s forever (or at least acting like I am), but at some point, the jig is going to be up.

And then what? Will I be stuck in this weird purgatory somewhere between being young and settling down? What exactly happens if, in 5 or 10 years, I am still without a family or a house but then I'm also without any friends in the same boat? Do I have to become one of those people who lives for her career and that's it? (Please say no).

Perhaps the most important question is, am I being melodramatic? I'm not trying to sound like the world is going to end on that hopefully-gorgeously-crisp October day when I leave my 20s forever, but I can't ignore the fact that everything and everyone around me is changing. And I don't know yet what my place is in all of this.

For the moment, though, I'm far from alone in being 30 and unsettled. So I guess I'll embrace 29 as long as it lasts, and just see where it goes from there.

The Thing About Thirty (part 1)

It seems that 2013 has become the year of whining, despair, panic, and other sorts of general negativity.

Why, you ask? Because this year my friends and I are all turning 30.

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN

This is the year where we bitch about entering a new decade. Where we pretend that we're actually just turning 29 again. Where we realistically consider that now is the moment when we begin to lie about our age FOR THE REST OF OUR GOD FORSAKEN LIVES.

As we celebrate each new 30th birthday, hidden amongst the celebrations, the drinks and the dinners, are the sinister comments of those who have already hit that 3-0 milestone.

"Welcome to the club!" they cackle gleefully in a way that should be reserved only for fairy tale witches. "So glad to have company here in the DEPTHS OF THIRTY YEAR OLD HELL," they're clearly thinking. They may give you a birthday card, but what they really wanted to give you was an AARP card.

To these people I say: RELAX. Kill the dramatics for a hot second and let's stop freaking out about something that's not actually all that bad.

I say this, of course, from the comfort of 29. Those of you who have already hit the 30 mark may be thinking how unqualified I am to pontificate on what it means (or doesn't mean) to officially enter into your 4th decade of life. You may feel that I'm no more able to genuinely describe what it's like to turn 30 than I would be able to describe what it was like to fight in World War II.

The thing is, though, I don't care about turning 30. I'm not dreading it or freaking out about it, probably because I realize that nothing really changes. When I turn 30 in October of this year I will still be the same person as I am now, who is essentially the same person as I was last year and the year before. In fact, the only difference between Arielle at 30 and Arielle at 22 and is that only one of those people has a Master's degree. And this is kind of a blip on the radar because if you learn one thing in your 20s it's that no one is impressed by anyone else's graduate degrees.

While I'm not worried about turning 30, I'm a little worried about the fact that I'm not worried about turning 30. And therein lies the problem.

I can't help but wonder if something is wrong with me. What is it about turning 30 that puts THE FEAR into all my friends? Is it because they all set some lofty goals for themselves (Run a company! Have 16 babies! Own a vacation home! Write the Great American Novel!) that they didn't reach? I think maybe my problem here is that I never really set lofty goals for myself. Sure, there are things I would like to maybe accomplish one day (Write even a subpar book of personal essays! Meet at least 1 dude in NYC who is not the worst fucking person ever! Buy another jar of that bloody mary mix I really like even though I never drink at home!), but never in my past did I look forward to 30 and envision what my life would be like at that time.

It concerns me that I'm not much of a forward-thinker.  Because even though it means I'm approaching 30 much more happily than those around me, I don't think it bodes well for my life in the long-term. How am I supposed to ever accomplish anything (Own a pair of shoes that aren't from Payless and some jewelry that doesn't turn my skin green!) if I don't think about what I'd like to accomplish? Am I so immature that I don't mind growing older because I'm failing to take an active interest in my own personal growth?

Possibly. But until I figure that out, I'm just going to continue to do what I do. And not care.

I am weird

Sometimes when I'm waiting for a text message, I mean REALLY waiting, like dying for someone to respond to something I've said, I turn my phone on silent and flip it over so I can't see the screen.

On the surface, this appears to make no sense. But in actuality, it gives me the illusion of control. Because if I left the ringer on, I would anxiously be waiting for my phone to make a noise and it would completely distract me from whatever other important thing I'm trying to do (like watch TV, obviously). But when I turn my sound off, it's up to ME to decide when I feel like checking my phone to see if the text has come through.

I can't decide if this is completely neurotic or absolute genius.

Let's be real. It's neurotic.

I'm kind of digging this short blog post. I should do this more often.

Arielle Shrugged

Alternative title for this post: Talking About Stuff I'm Clearly Not Smart Enough to Understand Nor Knowledgeable Enough About to Write a Blog Post On It But That Hasn't Stopped Me Before So If I Sound Like a Moron...Sorry. Just Pat Me on the Head and Carry On Your Merry Way.

If you read this blog post or are my friend on Goodreads, you know that I've been reading some Ayn Rand lately. I wanted to read some of her work not because I have a thirst for conservative literature, but because she's like, famous and stuff? And I feel like as a general rule it's good to read books by well-known authors.

It took me 13 days to power through the the 1200-page tome that is Atlas Shrugged, which I was pretty happy about because I was one day shy of the 14-day library loan deadline and you guys already know about how sometimes trying to read all my library books before they're due is a delicate balancing act where my overzealousness occasionally comes crashing down around my head.

I knew that Rand was something of a Republican icon, but I didn't actually know what specific values her books espouse and I had no idea what any of her books were even about, plot-wise. But after reading Atlas Shrugged, I have some questions about the alignment of her ideology with the ideologies of various and sundry American political parties (well no, really just the main two, but I just enjoy saying "various and sundry"). So, here goes.

For anyone who hasn't read it, here is a really REALLY general summary of what goes on in this book. It centers around the railroad industry. There are railroad company people and copper company people and steel company people. Some of these people are better at their jobs than others. Then there's lots of government regulation that tries to give equal opportunities to everyone in the industry even though some companies are clearly superior to others. It royally fucks everyone over and shit kind of implodes.

So here's the thing. I see why conservatives rally around this book, because conservatives typically hate regulation even though SIDEBAR while I'm liberal mostly for social reasons I still think some good ol' fashioned regulating could have prevented some of our own catastrophes (what up ENRON, LEHMAN BROTHERS, ETCETERAAAAA) but that is not what this post is about anyway.

Right. So Republicans hate regulation and there's lots of regulating in this book and that's why they love it. Check. Moving on.

One of the main points that I got out of this book is that Rand really wants people to earn their keep. Even more than she hates regulation, she hates freeloaders. You don't get something for nothing. If you do well, you get rewarded. If you mess everything up, you don't deserve shit.

This commentary might be coming a few years too late, but throughout this entire book I could think of nothing but, "I wonder what Rand would say about huge Wall Street bonuses. Especially when the economy is in the crapper. DOUBLE ESPECIALLY for the companies that paid out big bonuses even when they were receiving bailout funds." Talk about people messing shit up and not deserving something. I can't imagine she'd be down with that.

Rand also seems to care a lot about blue collar workers - sure, most of the "good guys" in Atlas Shrugged are management types, but it's evident that she respects manual labor and those who work hard at it. I think if this book were written about a white collar industry (like, hey, the financial services sector), her tone would be completely different. Or maybe the book just wouldn't even exist like that. Again, the thing that surprises me here is what seems to me like a disconnect between Rand's beliefs and Republican values which, in this day and age, really seem to be all about pushing the wealth upward (you know, that whole 1% biz-nass). And by "upward" clearly I mean, away from the working class.

The point is, to make another broad generalization (sorry), blue collar + Republicans don't seem to mix, yet Rand + blue collar kind of do. Though I am admittedly a bit confused about her stance on unions. Fortunately, a lot of the internet seems to be in the same camp.

On another kind of side note, there is some really interesting literature out there about why so many working-class people vote Republican despite the fact that it seems to go against their best interests. I didn't collect links while I was researching this but rest assured, if you google it, it's out there.

Okay. So a lot of Republicans are all, "Yay Atlas Shrugged is an awesome book and is a great guide to how capitalism is supposed to work (I've read some stuff about how Paul Ryan is a lover of Ayn Rand, though this post wasn't brought on by any current event aside from the fact that I just happened to read this book recently). My problem here is that this book is sort of realistic but also completely NOT realistic. Like, is there a word that means "extended hyperbole"? Because if so, that's it. Some of the ish that happens here is totally ridiculous and I have a hard time thinking people are taking it 100% seriously.

So after all of this, I'm sitting here kind of like..."What am I not getting?" I couldn't really find anything that talks about these points of disconnect between Rand and the Republican party and while I would love to think that I'm the first person to have this breakthrough thought of "Hey guys Ayn Rand is pretty conservative but maybe not AS conservative as you think she is," the more realistic thing is that there is something here that I'm totally misinterpreting or straight up not understanding because even though I'm sort of intelligent sometimes, other times I'm the kind of person who frantically looks for her cell phone while she's holding it. It seems to me that Rand, if she saw what the Republican party was doing today, might be appalled by a lot of it. But maybe I'm wrong.

End blog post of confusion. Shrug.

Leadership vs. Management

When I was in business school, my specialization was "Leadership and Management," which sometimes prompts people to poke fun at me and ask me how my MBA taught me to lead and manage people, as if that can't possibly be taught (I believe it can, but that's not the point).

Earlier this year I read Good to Great, a book that I'm pretty sure they should never let you out of business school without having read it first, but whatever. It's all about what differentiates good companies from great ones.

One of the things the book talks about is the difference between leadership and management, something that I don't think any of my MBA classes ever really touched on. The difference, to put it far less eloquently than the book does, is that management is about strategic direction, and leadership is about accomplishing tasks that fulfill that direction. The problem with a lot of companies is that they get so bogged down in DOING that they never take a step back to wonder if they're even doing the right things.

This resonated with me not in a business sense, but in a LIFE sense. And I have a stupid yet perfect example of it.

In early 2009 I was going through a rough patch, and so in order to distract myself from the things that were bothering me I started watching a lot more TV. I found television to be a convenient way to put my thoughts on hold for 30 to 60 minutes. During this period I became a fan of American Idol.

In 2010, having been so into American Idol the prior year, I added it to my spring TV rotation. I kept watching every week, only this time, things were different. I wasn't riveted to the screen. I would fast forward certain parts, or get distracted by Facebook during performances. I didn't even bother watching the results shows, opting to just find out later who got kicked off.

Yet I kept watching. Because I HAD to. I'm a fan of American Idol now! I watch this show! Must check this off the weekly TV to-do list!

One day, I had a realization.

I FUCKING HATE AMERICAN IDOL.

And so, just like that, I stopped watching. I have no idea what happened for the rest of that season or any season since then.

When it came to my television habits, I was leading my life, but I wasn't managing it. I got so caught up in the shows I thought I liked and stressing myself out about whether or not I had actually seen that week's episode that I was completely ignoring the fact that I wasn't even getting enjoyment out of it anymore.

TV is unfortunately not the only area of my life where I feel like I'm going through the motions but not actually thinking critically about whether what I'm doing even makes any sense. So I'm going to try to be more cognizant of the things I do, particularly the routine ones, and think about whether I'm doing them because I've always done them or because they're really helping me achieve some sort of goal or purpose. Results TBD! Or you know, not.

And in an unrelated (or possibly related, if I gave it some more thought) note, I'm quitting drinking for a month. Extra extra, read all about it.

Friends are cool

Yep. I've returned from an unintentional blogging hiatus to tell you all something you already knew.

Friends are great. They send you links to funny things to make you laugh, accompany you to places like bars and movies and even musicals called Jersey Shoresical. They help you celebrate your birthday and make fun of you when you do stupid shit just so that you stay grounded.

But here's another reason why friends are great.

Sometimes, if you're going through a crisis, friends are there to help you maintain your sanity.

Recently, a friend sent me a completely innocuous text message, but I was drunk and happened to be upset about something and so her phone ended up chock full of crazy texts from me. Those texts, over the last number of days, have moved into gchatting and emailing and more texting and more of me being like WAH WAH I HATE EVERYTHING SOMEBODY CALL THE WAHMBULANCE and not once has this friend said, "Arielle, I didn't sign up for this." Instead, she keeps asking, "Are you okay?"

At happy hour 2 days ago, a different friend who I hadn't seen in awhile asked me a harmless question about something which, yet again, triggered a whole lot of nonsense spewing from my mouth about how I was upset (same issue as last paragraph). And she, like a champ, talked me through it. When we were done, I apologized. Profusely.

"Sorry about this, I didn't mean to unload all that crap on you it just sort of came out and seriously, thank you for listening and REALLY I AM VERY SORRY."

She looked at me like I had 3 heads and told me to shut up with the apologies.

It's not like this news to me, that friends will listen to you vent about things or will give you feedback as to whether or not your thoughts or feelings are crazy. I guess I just needed a reminder that complaining to someone doesn't automatically make you a burden. It makes you a friend, who is normal and vulnerable and who, if the opportunity arose, would absolutely return the favor.

Friends are good peoples. Remember that.

Why I love TV

I know I don't watch nearly as much TV as some of you, and most of what I DO watch is nearly universally seen as complete crap, but I still get really into the shows that I watch.

Let's be clear, here. I don't vote during reality shows. Ever. Gotta draw the line somewhere. But I get upset when people I like get kicked off shows (Carla from Top Chef, love you!), get ecstatically happy when good things happen (most things on Glee!), and sometimes even shed a tear (remember when Mondo on Project Runway started talking about having the HIV? SNIFFLES).

The real reason, my friends, that I get so emotionally invested in TV shows is because I don't get emotionally invested in much else.

Initially, that statement said "the reason people like me get so emotionally invested," but to be honest I haven't met anyone else like me (if you're out there though, call me, let's start a support group).

Seriously, though. I do experience emotions, but I don't seem to go through the same highs and lows that other people do. When I'm happy it's more of a "yay!" then a jump up and down and scream and shout kind of reaction. I have one of those big full blown out cries maybe once a year. I'm honestly not even sure I've had one since 2009.

I realize that this is more about the fact that I don't SHOW my emotions than the fact that I don't actually FEEL them, but sometimes I think the two are related. Yes, I keep most things inside, but how much can you internalize sadness before it bursts out of you and turns into crying? The answer is, not THAT much. And I know this because I'm an excellent internalizer and even I have been through super rough periods where I've cried every day.

THE POINT IS, most of the time I just kind of breeze through life, taking it all in and never having extremely strong reactions to anything. Television, in a weird kind of way, allows me to experience emotions from the safe distance of not-anything-to-do-with-my-life. So I'm not personally invested in it. It's like practice, or playing pretend. I can get into my show, react all I want, and then move on.

This is possibly not healthy but if I'm not going to super emotional in my own life, I think it's better to express things as a reaction to TV than it is to not have an outlet for them at all. Right? Right.

"It just takes some time, little girl you're in the middle of the ride"

I am in a constant state of WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?

I spend way too much time and way too much money commuting into New York to go to a temp job that I'm pretty sure a 14 year-old could do. I don't read because I don't have time to go to the library, I don't go to the gym because my gym membership is in New York where I don't even freaking live, I don't devote the kind of attention to either of my blogs as I would like because the only writing time I have is during the day when I'm doing this receptionist thing and every train of thought gets interrupted by a Constantly. Ringing. Phone. I can't even make it to half the networking meetings I sign up for (remember that whole job search?) because I'm desperately trying to fit in the few remnants of normal life that I have right now - a rushed dinner with friends, a dodgeball game, catching up on TV shows - and I can't fully commit to anything so instead I end up half-assing everything. I feel like I'm always running for a train, and then when I get to where I'm going I turn right back around because it's time to go somewhere else and I end up not spending any quality time in either place.

There isn't much that's more hurtful to one's self esteem than looking for a job. Every day that goes by without so much as a prospect of an interview makes me feel that much more inadequate, that much more annoyed that many of my classmates are out using their brains and making 4 times what I'm making at this temp job. I'm missing the constant intellectual challenge of business school, and while I started my business blog as a way of keeping myself interested in business issues, there's really no match for being in a classroom and having a free exchange of ideas between professor and students. I know somewhere out there is a job opportunity that will challenge me and make me feel like a real, intelligent person again, but how to find it and how to convince someone that I'm worth taking a chance on is beyond me.

Because I live at home it's hard for me to make last minute plans. While I'm never opposed to planning in advance, I pride myself on being someone who will pick up and go to drinks/dinner/whatever NYC has to offer with almost no notice. Knowing that I can't stay anywhere too late because I have to go home in New Jersey puts a damper on being able to do things that I didn't know about at least a day in advance. Because even while I have many couches to crash on even at the last minute, it's always, "oh, I don't have a toothbrush/pajamas/clothes to wear to work tomorrow, but thanks anyway."

Forget about personal relationships. Many of my friendships have been relegated to some quick emails or gchats during the day. Meaningful conversation is limited and while I relish my weekends, which have somehow turned into a weekly episode of getting drunk before 3, it's just not enough. I don't get enough social time yet I also don't get enough personal time and how is that even possible?

Yesterday my friend asked me if I would play volleyball with her because her friend's team needed more women for a game that night. I already had gym clothes with me because of a dodgeball game so I thought, "HELL YES," because playing volleyball makes me feel like a real live person who has interests and who is good at something (I am not good at dodgeball, not even a little bit). And so I ran out at the end of my temp job to catch the train uptown, only to find that more than one subway line was completely f'ed up. 45 minutes later I was still wandering around the financial district, soaked due to a broken umbrella, trying to get uptown. I barely made it on time to my dodgeball game, which was an hour after volleyball was supposed to happen. Though it wasn't a big deal that I missed out, I had had this tiny morsel of being a fun, normal person dangling in front of me and the subway messed it up for me and I was crushed.

Right now I'm annoyed at myself for whining and annoyed at myself for this post which did not come out even remotely close to the eloquent thing I had planned in my head. I am not by any means miserable even though it might seem this way. I just want something to be FIGURED OUT. I want a job on the horizon, an apartment that maybe isn't mine yet but I know I'll be moving in soon, or a day where I can sit with my computer and write all the blog posts in my head with no interruptions, then watch all the TV I haven't caught up on and read a book. I'd also accept getting drinks with my friends without worrying about when the next train is or really any kind of activity that makes me feel like I am a smart, fun person who is in control of her time. Because right now I'm in the middle of all these places but I'm not fully anywhere, and somewhere on one of my many NJ Transit trips between states, I lost myself.

My irrational fear

Friends, I have a fear.

You know those people who, despite the clear use of headphones, still somehow manage to broadcast their music to everyone around them?

I'm afraid I'm one of them.

Now, I have no real reason to believe that I'm one of those people. I don't listen to my music at a particularly high volume, and no one has ever told me that they can hear what is supposed to be my own personal life soundtrack. But still, I worry. Especially when I hear others' music. Doubly especially now that I just bought new headphones (RIP white earbuds that came with my iTouch). Are these new headphones the kind that fail to keep the music confined to just MY ears? I have no idea.

The thing is, while I love my music and am not ashamed to admit to the wonderful people in my life about all the wealth of embarrassing material on my iPod, this isn't something I necessarily want random strangers to know.

99% of the time I listen to my music on shuffle. For whatever reason I never seemed to be able to get into playlists, mostly because I'd get bored of them too quickly. This means that at any given moment during my daily subway commute, I could be rocking out to more commonly accepted tunes like Paul Simon, Lady Gaga, or Green Day.

However, I could also be listening to "Uncle Fucker" from the South Park movie, the opening number from Bring It On (We cheer and we lead! We act like we're on speed! Hate us 'cause we're beautiful well we don't like you either!), Sandstorm by Darude (if you don't know what this is off the top of your head, Youtube it and have your subsequent "Oh yeaaah this song from high school" moment), or "Seize the Day" from Newsies.

Okay, I can't even pretend to be ashamed about that last one. That song is so uplifting! And..Newsies! Adorable.

This fear of my music being overheard is probably irrational. But I still worry. And will continue to do so.

I hate stuff

There, I said it. I'll say it again: I hate stuff. Not the generic "stuff" that can mean anything, I mean, "stuff," a large amount of crap that seems to accumulate over a lifetime. The collective belongings that come with you when you move, fill up your closets and overwhelm your life.

I hate it all.

In an ideal world, I would own 5 dresses and a pair of flip flops and be able to have an outfit for any and all occasions. I would also own a computer and a toothbrush and maybe that's it.

The thing about all of my belongings is that I love them. I know that makes no sense, but hear me out. I love having the option of choosing a completely different outfit every day. I love the tiny model QANTAS plane that my sorority little sister gave me, the massive photo album from my Israel trip in high school, and the battery operated card shuffler that I got for my 26th birthday and have yet to use but seriously, one day we're playing Blackjack at my house, people.

I love all of that and more. I just don't love the amount of space it takes up.

I moved home yesterday (wah) and for the first time in 9 years, everything I own is under one roof. As I unpacked and tried to merge the stuff I brought back with the stuff that was already at home, I was totally overrun with conflicting emotions. There was a mix of

"Oh my gosh, funky party tops I bought in Australia! I miss it!"

with

"Some things are worth the wait, others are worth the RUSH? We Tufts sorority girls were so clever with our rush t-shirts!"

with

"Hey, my old discman! I'm going to use this for....nothing."

with

"WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO PUT ALL OF THIS CRAP?"

And so on and so forth. Relative to other people my age, I think I have less stuff than most, mostly because I'm not the shoes/bags/jewelry fanatic that a lot of women are. Not only that, but I'm a compulsive thrower-outer which means that I regularly get fed up with things and chuck them even if a normal person wouldn't do so. Which leads me to wonder where all of you non thrower outers put everything.

The thing that really bothers me about is not so much that I don't have anywhere to put my belongings, because I have now resumed living in a 4 bedroom house and there is certainly plenty of space, technically. The fact that my stuff is not ORGANIZED is what makes me want to break out in hives.

I have a fear of overstuffed drawers and closets. Not being able to close drawers because there's too much shoved in there, or opening up a closet and not being able to grab one dress or sweater because you can't push the other dresses and sweaters aside gives me an irrational level of anxiety.

I also like all my things to be easily accessible and for me to know exactly where they are. If someone asked, "Arielle, where are your Pumas?" I would probably cry because there are a ton of boxes in the basement containing everything I didn't need for a summer in New York City and I wouldn't even know where to begin in trying to locate those damn shoes.

Furthermore, I don't like not being able to see everything. My bedroom closet at home is supremely narrow, but deep enough that there was, at some point in time, room to put a bunch of shelves and boxes and other nonsense on the floor. Now it's gotten to the point where I don't even know what all is in there and it's not really a task I feel like tackling so instead when I open my closet I just want to scream WHAT IS BEHIND ALL THOSE CLOTHES AND WHAT ARE IN THESE BOXES AND WHY CAN I NOT HAVE A HUGE CLOSET LIKE IN THE SEX AND THE CITY MOVIE WHERE I CAN JUST PUT EVERYTHING AND HAVE THERE BE SIX INCHES OF SPACE IN BETWEEN EVERY BOOK OR PAIR OF SHOES OR SWEATER OR RANDOM TCHOTCHKE FROM MY YOUTH?

My last apartment in Boston had TWO closets. I had a place to put all my shoes without stacking any of them, there was never a hanger with more than one article of clothing on it, and in general I was at peace with the state of my life. Eventually I will learn to live with the fact that I don't have a closet big enough to spread out my belongings in the organized, easily visible and accessible way I would like. And then the winter will come and I'll have to unpack all the aforementioned bags and boxes of summer-inappropriate stuff that are sitting in the basement from when I moved home from Boston, and the process will begin all over again.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

What keeps me up at night

One of my favorite things to do is to have conversations that are either a) hypothetical or b) probe into the nitty gritty details of some of life's enigmas (AKA, what most people would deem as "stupid").

This past weekend was an excellent example of this. On Friday night, I went to a fabulous Weezer concert with my good friend Devika. The concert was at the Williamsburg Waterfront, and as we waited for the show to start, we stood by the water looking at the Manhattan skyline. And then it started.

"How long do you think it would take to swim across to Manhattan?"

Now, most people would say "I don't know," or take a lame guess, and that would be the end. However, Devika is awesome in many of the same ways I am, and so she indulged me in a discussion about the perceived distance from hipster Brooklyn to Manhattan, the upstream current, the water temperature, and a number of other factors that might impact how long it would take one to swim across. Our conversation was clearly so fascinating that the guy standing next to us joined in and added his input as a surfer and swimmer. However, his analysis was that you would die before getting across, and I'm pretty sure that is..not true. In the end, we decided that while Devika would accept $5,000 for swimming across the East River with full information and advance notice, I would have taken that same $5,000 to jump in the water at that moment in my clothes and head over.

The next day, I joined some friends at the Connecticut marvel known as Foxwoods Casino. Foxwoods is a wonderful place because it has everything a girl like me needs in life: a swimming pool, a ten dollar Blackjack table, and booze aplenty.

At night, we went to one of the many Foxwoods bars for some drankin' and a pretty decent cover band. Luckily for everyone, they also had some of those scantily glad girls who dance on an elevated platform for all to see. I say this is lucky for everyone and not just for the men in our party because, frankly, us ladies enjoyed watching hot girls dance just as much as the guys did, and everyone picked out their favorite (everyone chose the same girl as the favorite because she was way better than the others).

The thing is, it did not suffice to just stand there and rock out to Journey and watch the girls dance. I got all Alice in Wonderland up in there and became curiouser and curiouser. The questions kept popping up.

How much money does the bar pay them?
How much money do you think they get per night in "tips" (AKA men leaving dollars on the ground next to them).
Do their parents know they do this?
Are they ex-strippers?
Are they future strippers?
Do they have a gogo dancing resume?
What's the job application like? Does the boss just put on some music and they dance around?
Don't they get sweaty dancing with their hair down?
Since the 2 girls dancing now are far inferior to the 2 girls who just left, does that make these girls the second string?
Are they drunk when they do this?
Are they not allowed to drink when they do this?
Do they have dancer names?
Do they always wear this same outfit (some kind of bra type thing, boy shorts, and a denim ensemble that involves a g-string that connects via a small strip going down the outside of their legs to some normal jeans bottoms. There are also knee socks that go under the jeans. And PUMAS)?
How much do they LOVE that they get to dance in Pumas, seriously?
Why do they bother picking their wedgies? Do they really care about covering that tiny bit of asscheek that we can't see already? Also, what happened to showmanship?

And on. And on.

Thankfully, there were enough people there that I could ask my questions of different people and (I think) no one got tired of me.

But seriously. Inquiring minds want to know these things.

Pedicures for men: yay or nay?

I was getting a pedicure today, and was jolted out of my foot-massage-induced relaxing coma by a hot guy sitting down 2 chairs over. I snapped to attention because a) hello, hot guy, and b) hot guy getting a pedicure.

Of course, my first thought was that he was possibly gay. He wasn't flamboyant as stereotypical gay men are, and sadly his brief conversations with his pedicurist didn't mention anything about dating men. Or women. Or anyone. So I'll never know.

Then I wondered if he was metrosexual, but he was too poorly dressed. Which isn't to say he was dressed badly, he was just dressed...normally. Like every other white 20-something non-hipster New York guy walking down the street.

Over the course of my pedicure, I kept trying to sneak glances over at him to see what his deal was. And also, because he was hot, in case I needed to remind you. But I couldn't tell what book he was reading or really anything else significant about him.

This led me to thinking that what if, just maybe, he was a regular non-metrosexual straight guy who wanted his feet cleaned up?

And then I realized something.

I could never date a guy who gets pedicures. It seems silly to say this because pedicures are pretty insignificant, and boy feet are nasty. There's no reason to make my already ridiculous standards even more stringent, plus, imagine dating someone who had feet that weren't gross or stinky? How nice that would be.

But no. Pedicures? No. They are for me. Not my boyfriend. I want guys I date to like beer, meat, and boobs. To stop listening to me when there's football on TV. And to...not get pedicures.

Is this normal? Are pedicures a turnoff for anyone else?

Moving on, literally and figuratively

There's something really eerie about returning to a familiar spot after the passage of a significant amount of time. While I think most people find comfort in revisiting a place they know, I find a pit in my stomach.

Tonight, I went out to dinner with my parents at a Thai restaurant around the corner from my apartment. I laughed and remarked that I hadn't been to that restaurant since August 2008, when my parents and I ate there after moving me in. I ate at the same restaurant with the same people on my move-in day and my move-out day (technically move-out day is tomorrow, but the U-Haul is packed up and there's nothing in my room but an air mattress, so it's close enough). While this didn't suddenly make me upset about leaving, it did suddenly make me think, "Wait..did that really just happen?" "That," meaning "living in Boston and going to business school." I mean, for a second I might have believed that we were still sitting there, my parents about to head back to New Jersey, while I was about to go back to my apartment and start unpacking my boxes and wondering what was ahead of me in graduate school.

I've had this sensation many times before. The time that sticks out most in my head was the first time I walked around the Tufts campus after studying abroad. It felt like I had never left, and that I had just woken up from this weird dream where I took in an opera at the Sydney Opera House, obsessed over Australian Idol with my housemates and then went bungee jumping in New Zealand. And then I had to remind myself, "No, that wasn't a dream. That study abroad thing? You really did that. It's over now. Time to resume life as normal."

The thing that I don't like about this sensation is that it forces me to reflect and to acknowledge that it's the end of an era, or at least some kind of adventure, before I'm necessarily ready to do that. If I didn't have a weird flashback to 2 summers ago while sitting at this Thai place, I would have just gone about my move and eventually, slowly, come to terms with the end of this phase of my life. It's not that I have a problem with reminiscing - in fact, it's one of my favorite things. But there's a safety in doing it when the memory in question is solidly behind you, as opposed to when you're still in the process of mentally moving on. It's like getting over a past relationship. Finding things your ex gave you is hardly pleasant when the breakup is fresh. But when you stumble upon something when all is said and done, you can smile to yourself and say, "Aw, that was a fun time," and then put it back or throw it away without a care in the world.

Maybe I just don't adjust well to change. Maybe it's a good thing to be shocked into reality every so often. Maybe it's necessary to stop and think about things even when you'd rather just keep pressing forward.

Either way, I am totally, completely, unequivocally looking forward to what comes next, whatever that may be. Onwards!

I can get my own toilet paper, thankyouverymuch

I hate bathroom attendants. And I need to talk about it.

Look, I am all about creating jobs, particularly in a recessionary environment. But I support the creation of real, meaningful jobs. Not stupid and flat out useless ones.

Bathroom attendants make me uncomfortable. They are people who sit in a room that is essentially designated for people to do gross things. Would YOU want to spend several hours at a time in a bathroom? No, you wouldn't. The only benefit to working in a bathroom is that the bathroom is never far away. But you can't take snack breaks (unless you eat in the bathroom, in which case, don't touch me) and you have to just sit or stand there while girls pee and vomit and partake in inane chatter around you. Have you ever heard a group of drunk girls of which you had no part talking in a bathroom? 9 times out of 10 it makes you want to jam a pencil in your ear.

The real reason I hate bathroom attendants, though, is because they are trying to get me to pay them to do a job that not only am I capable of doing by myself, but that parents worldwide spend a lot of time trying to TRAIN and ENCOURAGE children to do by themselves. My parents potty trained me so that I can use the bathroom, wash my hands, and dry them. Alone. Without help. I've been successfully going to the bathroom by myself for most of my 26 years, why are you trying to help me out now? I mean, how dare you think I'm about to give you a dollar for handing me a paper towel. If I can drive a car, I'm pretty sure I can reach for my own damn towel.

Now, don't go all jumpy jumping down my back about not tipping. I tip everyone else who normally receives tips. In fact, I usually tip well. Now, I understand that I am perfectly capable of jumping behind a bar and making myself an excellent vodka soda. Yet I still tip the bartenders who make them for me. Why? Because a) alcohol is how bars make money and they need people to regulate its distribution, b) alcohol comes with legal liability if distributed and thus consumed improperly, and c) society has never taught me that it's okay to hurl myself over a bar, shove the bartender out of the way and do it myself. Do bars make or lose significant money off paper towels? No. Can I overdose on paper towels and then sue the bar when I get hurt? No. Has society taught me that it's okay for other people to assist me in peeing? No. If you told me you couldn't go to the bathroom by yourself, I would tell you to stop talking to me. Because you would be gross and weird.

When I was in New Orleans, we stopped at Pat O'Briens for some legendary hurricanes. When I went to use the bathroom, I found that there was an attendant inside distributing toilet paper. TOILET PAPER. As in, they purposely removed all the TP from the stalls and if you did not get some from this woman, you did not get toilet paper. I was appalled. I paid the bar $8 for a delicious beverage, and along with that beverage there are some perks. Namely, I get to sit in one of your chairs and use your bathroom. It's how the hospitality industry works. If you think Starbucks drinks are overpriced solely because of higher quality ingredients, you're wrong. It's a way of charging you (in a palatable way) for taking up their comfy chairs for 4 hours.

The business-y thing that bothers me about this is that bathroom attendants are essentially a completely random middleman (ahem, middlewoman) inserted into the supply chain. People generally like to minimize the number of hands that any product has to pass through before reaching the end consumer. That's why there's a huge push to buy locally sourced goods - the closer it starts to you, the easier and cheaper and greener it is for it to get to you. I realize that bathroom attendants are not exactly harming the environment, but they are harming my sense of comfort and, quite honestly, provide no value except annoyance. If you want to pay extra to have a valet park your car because you're too lazy to do it yourself, that's all fine and well because they're adding a convenience to your life. Bathroom attendants do not add convenience - they only add an extra hoop to jump through to get what is rightfully yours - some motherf'ing toilet paper.

Undoing the damage

The 3 years I spent working in the big bad world of financial services changed my life. There are some small changes, like the fact that I'm way better at Access now, or that I never used to send acknowledgement emails that simply said "Thanks" and now I feel like I have to. Then there are the larger things, such as switching from being a borderline extrovert to a borderline introvert (at least in MBTI terms, and yes I totally think this is due to my job).

Another way in which the corporate world changed my life is that I am now an obsessive list-maker.

After 3 years of having to record nearly every action, I find it difficult to function without writing EVERYTHING down. Which is ridiculous because I don't need to. My memory is awesome. Let me explain.

I have a planner. An old school, paper planner where I write down meetings, appointments, my work schedule, and so on. Every time I make plans, I put it in the planner. But you know what? I hardly ever look at it, because it's all in my head. I know where and when my team meeting is tomorrow. I know where and when the random club meeting that I'm going to before my team meeting strictly so I can snag some free pizza is. I know the details of my dinner reservations, my blood donation appointment on Friday and my eyebrow waxing appointment on Saturday. I really don't need a planner, aside from the fact that NOT writing things down makes me anxious.

When I started business school and had a million assignments to keep track of, I kept a list next to my computer of what was due and when. It helped me immensely. I have kept this tradition up through graduate school, except now that I'm only in 3 classes and they pretty much have the same stuff due every week, it is completely ridiculous for me to keep repeating the following over and over again:

- Negotiations journal entry: Saturday
- Negotiations reading, case prep: Tuesday
- MP4 reading: Wednesday
- Corporate Governance reading, paper: Wednesday

That's it. But it gets worse.

Sometime probably just under a year ago, I was overwhelmed with the amount of TV shows whose new seasons were all starting at the same time. I wanted to keep track of them all so that when they all started up I wouldn't forget to watch one of them. So I started an Excel spreadsheet with the days of the week, which TV shows were on what days, and I had a row for each calendar week where I would check off whether or not I had watched the show.

PEOPLE, NO ONE SHOULD HAVE AN EXCEL DOC FOR THEIR TELEVISION SCHEDULE. Especially me, because while I felt the need to record my TV watching in the spreadsheet, I knew when all my shows were on and whether or not I had seen that week's episodes WITHOUT writing it down. Because I AM NOT RETARDED. My brain, it works. Thankfully.

The point of all of this is that I am making a concerted effort to be less reliant on writing things down. About a week ago I tore up my assignments list and deleted my TV spreadsheet. And so far I have not died, had a meltdown, or missed any due dates or shows.

There are some things I refuse to back down on, such as my packing list for my upcoming trip to New Orleans/NYC. I'll be gone for 9 days and there's a lot of random crap I need between the celebrating of Mardi Gras and the celebrating of Lacey's bridal shower and bachelorette party, and if I forget something, I will kick myself. So while I'm not quite ready to plan a trip without a packing list yet, I'm making progress.

One small step for mankind, one giant step for a recovering corporate tool. Just in time for me to rejoin the working world. Joy.

Proud to be a mutt

I am a mutt. Not in the genetic sense, seeing as my parents are both white-as-the-part-of-the-Israeli-flag-that-isn't-blue Jews, but in the sense that I am half Uber Responsible and On Top of Her Shit Goody Two Shoes, and half It's Five O'clock Somewhere Get Me a Ketel One Dirty Martini Extra Dirty Please Party Animal.

Look at the facts: I've always gotten good grades. I wore a suit every day to work for 3 years. I pay my credit card bill in full every month and have been doing my own taxes for years. I don't have a tattoo and don't want one. I don't even have second holes pierced in my ears. On the other hand, I can think of only 2 people in the world who are less likely to turn down a night of boozing than I am. I like to go out, meet new people, and make the occasional bad decision (my responsible half ensures the "occasional" part). This side of me is to blame for doing things like funneling beers at 5 AM the night before Thanksgiving or dancing on bars in Cancun.

Finding a balance between the two is delicate art. Because more often than not, partying comes at a price. Literally. And it pains me to the depths of my soul when my responsible half makes me turn down trips to Vegas (June 09) or the Dominican (August 09) or spring break (ALL FOUR YEARS OF COLLEGE) because it knows I can't pay for it. It sucked this past semester knowing that my classmates were all out partying and I was stuck passing hors d'oeuvres (I just double checked my spelling of that and for the first time ever I GOT IT RIGHT. BOOYAH) at some fancy function making way too little per hour because yo, I need that cash money.

Sometimes, even my responsible side acknowledges that there is going to come a day when my party side has to be put away. When it will no longer be socially acceptable to act the drunken fool in public. And though I'm only 26 and thus that time is NOWHERE NEAR, I can't deny that it's approaching. I need to get it all out of my system so that when the time comes for my better but less fun half to take over full-time, I can hold a proper funeral for the vodka-guzzling half, knowing that it led a full life and that I can always remember it with pictures and stories.

And so I had an internal debate today.
Smart half: "You may have some leftover cash from working last semester, but you'll soon have to start paying back your student loans. DUN DUN DUUUUUN!"
Crazy half: "But...but...vacations! Fun ones!"
Smart half: "But nothing!"
Crazy half: "Come on, I can't do this without you. Even YOU like to have a little fun."
Smart half: "Oh, you're right. I'll pack the patron and the low-cut shirts."

And that, my friends, is how and why I booked my plane tickets to go to NEW ORLEANS FOR MARDI GRAS. THE MECCA OF RIDICULOUSNESS AND FUN.

For 4 days I will do nothing but drink hand grenades and hurricanes while stuffing my face with beignets and po'boys and pralines. And then some more hand grenades.

DID I MENTION THAT I'M GOING TO NEW ORLEANS FOR MARDI GRAS?

I can feel my liver gearing itself up already. This is one excited mutt.

Year in Review

Oh, 2009. Where do I begin with you? I remember getting a holiday card from one of my good friends shortly after New Year's, and it said something to the effect of "I have a feeling that 2009 holds good things for you." 2008 ended pretty badly for me, and I have no doubt that this card was less of a generic sentiment and more meant to convey the message of, "Arielle, you are awesome. You deserve awesome things, and they're going to happen for you." It was the very note of hope that I needed to hear at the time.

Here I am, just days before the start of another year, and I'm a little scared. 2009, while dotted with the occasional wonderful and amazing moment, was overall a year that rivals 2007 in complete shittiness. What I need to do right now is remind myself that just because the year changes doesn't mean anything ELSE changes. Life is not going to automatically get better or worse when January 1st hits, and it's best not to set any expectations, let alone set high ones. But since the end of the year is typically a time for reflection, let's review 2009 in all its glory.

THE GOOD
- I went to Russia, Finland, Sweden and Denmark on an awesome whirlwind vacation and educational experience.
- My bestest buddy of 21 years got engaged and I'm the co-Maid of Honor in her wedding which is in less than 3 months (!!).
- I had an amazing summer in New York where I stayed in my friend's pimp ass studio and had a blast taking a 2 week bartending course.
- I watched a number of friends get married, including a sorority sister who was one of the pledges I used to push around when I was pledgemaster. Most of her bridesmaids were also my pledges. I felt like a proud mom.
- With a GPA close to 3.7, I am kicking ass and taking names in business school, which I LOVE.

THE BAD
- I feel like I lost 2 of my best friends this year. 2 of the people I thought I'd always be close to are now pretty much strangers. I know friendships change often so this isn't necessarily permanent, but it's a bummer to not feel like you trust someone who you used to think you could trust with your life.
- My dad has been out of work for pretty much this entire year. The reason this goes here and not in the "THE UGLY" section is because it, very thankfully, doesn't seem to have impacted my family as much as it could have, but I still really hope the situation turns around soon.
- I realized that when I leave school, I will probably keep in touch with 4 people, max. None of whom I even consider to be close friends. In a class of 105, not a single person really knows me.

THE UGLY
- As most of you know, I got into trouble for blogging about school. I had a disciplinary hearing where I sat in a room and defended myself in front of 6 or 7 people for doing something that I still believe is completely within my right to do. It ended up fine but I pretty much didn't sleep or eat or have my heart NOT RACING LIKE CRAZY for 3 weeks.
- For the first 3 months of this year, my mental health was in the worst place its ever been. I've always viewed myself as an extremely stable person, and being in a state where heavy drinking and HOURS UPON HOURS of nightly reality TV were the only things that could stop me from crying, and getting off the phone with university counseling services and having no idea how I was going to survive the 8 miserable days between then and my therapy appointment, was absolutely fucking frightening.

WHAT I LEARNED
No year of ups and downs can be without some kind of growth and understanding. So here are the lessons 2009 has left me with:

- Sometimes, people suck. It's a fact of life. The ones you love are hardly infallible. They will disappoint you, but you will move on.
- While some people hurt you, others won't. Some friends will listen to you complain about the same things over and over again, and will be there for you however and whenever you need them. Some people who you haven't even spoken to in months will get word of your misery and offer to beat people up on your behalf. These friends are amazing.
- I am not, as I previously suspected, impervious to the bullshit that gets everyone else down but that never seemed to affect me. I am far more vulnerable than I ever thought possible. At first I thought I was weak. Now I know I'm human.
- I am also, interestingly enough, stronger than I thought. Living in a city I don't care for without many good friends nearby has given me the ability to take care of my own life and not live for anyone else. Not only that, but I'm strong enough to look back upon the really bleak part of this year and find the light amongst the dark. Like when I was in Vegas, walking alone from the Bellagio to the Luxor at 5:30 AM, still dressed in my slutty party dress and bawling my face off for the entire 45 minute walk. As miserable as I was at the time, I now wonder how many people saw me and thought I was a sad hooker. It makes me chuckle.

2010 has a lot of potential. While I'm trying to only focus on the good, I won't sit here thinking, "2010 is MY year," because being disappointed pretty much sucks. So whatever comes my way, be it good, bad, or horribly worse, I'll take it like a (wo)man, deal with it, reflect upon it, and bring the lessons I learn into 2011. That's really the best I can ask for.

The Sing Off

Okay. I saw a Facebook update earlier today that the Beelzebubs, the all male a cappella group at Tufts that had that campus-wide level of popularity that the football team probably has at a normal school, were going to be on some show. And because I LOVE MY ALMA MATER TO DEATH, I wanted to support.

I turn on the show and find it's an a cappella reality show competition. Fine. I frankly haven't thought about a cappella at all since graduating because I didn't think anyone cared about a cappella outside of Northeast liberal arts colleges, but I will support my Jumbos in whatever they choose to do.

Now that the show is over, I have some opinions (shocking) and I NEED TO SHARE THEM.

Nota, the Puerto Rican dudes
- I had a problem with them but I don't remember what it was. So I guess it couldn't have been that bad.

The old dudes
- I hated HATED their version of Bon Jovi. It was high-pitched and peppy and totally not as rough and dirty as my Jersey man JBJ needs to be.
- I particularly hated this because their little bio clip was all about how rock and roll they are and how they're not even a cappella, they're a "vocal rock band" and blahdeeblah and then they cheesed it out more than anybody. Shameful.

The Jesus Freaks
- I don't even care what their real name is. All I need to hear is ChristiansJesusGod and I'm over it.
- I already forgot what song they sang (thanks, brain cells, for sticking with me) but I remember thinking that the soloist sounded like she was uncomfortable in the low register at the beginning.

The Mormons
- Again, they probably have a real name and I don't even care what it is.
- They sang Aretha. They didn't have the soul to pull it off. I mean, A for effort, but...no.
- Also, I can't get down with people who a) use the word "cuss" and b) are anti-cursing (sorry, "cussing"). I mean, no need to drop F bombs left and right, but, come on. Cursing is awesome when well-placed. SHIT. See? Awesome.

The Bubs
- GO TUFTS!
- Their theatrics were ca-razzy, but all the judges called them pitchy and I agree. But still, super adorable.
- JUMBOS 4LYFE

The Moms
- Seriously? An old lady group? They're even dressed like a bunch of nerds.
- The Moms redeemed themselves when they showed that they're going to be singing Rehab tomorrow. They have a sense of humor. Love it. Well, like it, at least.

The Socal Vocal Shmocals
- I think they were called the SoCals? Whatever.
- This group was the most talented in my opinion. However, in the clip before their performance, their requisite sob story was that some girl has acid reflux that sometimes affects her singing. Really? Who cares? Sometimes I get acid reflux from drinking too much vodka and it affects my ability to keep drinking. SOMEBODY CALL THE WAH-MBULANCE. (PS, you know who didn't need a sob story? THE BUBS).
- Also, don't compare yourself to Glee and then not compare yourself to Glee and then come out singing a Glee song that Glee sings infinitely better. GLEE OWNS YOU, SOCAL VOCAL.

The Crappy Ones
- The last group just sounded like garbage. How did they make it on this show?

I was going to talk about the judges, but...I need to stop. Big heart for Ben Folds, though.

Update: Thanks to Anna for this lovely comment via email: "I didn't like the acid reflux situation. And I love how she was like "this might be my last chance." What do you mean?? Can't you buy pepto at duane reade for 5 dolla?"

HAHA.

I'm going to like this show.