A Place Called Home

I moved out of my parents house at 17.

Like most of my classmates, we all moved off to college and into our new dormitories bright eyed and excited for the next four years of our almost-adult lives. We could throw parties whenever we wanted. Sleep with whomever we wanted. Eat pizza for dinner and candy for breakfast. Life was sweet.

However, maybe unlike most of my classmates, I knew I was never going back.

I vividly remember being in the car with my parents when they said something along the lines of "enjoy it now, someday you'll have to come home". I told them I wasn't.

"How are you going to afford that?" They laughed.

"Watch me."

I got my first job second semester of my freshman year working after school and on weekends as I jump started my future apartment fund. I had fallen deliriously in love with New York City and as far as I was concerned you would have to drag me out by my fervently kicking feet if you wanted to see me out of it.

After freshman year I went off to be a resident advisor in a different dormitory, moving from 55th & 3rd to 92nd and Lex, summers I couch surfed or moved into friends rooms splitting the cost of rent so it was cheeper for everyone. I spent a summer on 79th and York and another in the financial district. My senior year was spent on 81st & 3rd. Post college I moved all the way up to Washington Heights.

I got around.

Last year I moved to 207th and Broadway but rent being what it is JUMPED FOURHUNDREDFUCKINGDOLLARS so we had to get out.

Short of funds and in desperate need to save money, I spent the last month homeless. But not without a home.

My good friend let me crash on the couch of her brand new HOUSE in New Jersey, my boyfriend gave me keys, as did my other partner in crime who had recently moved to the very fun (and super convenient) Hells Kitchen neighborhood.

I wasn't living anywhere. I was living everywhere.

That's the thing about New York though isn't it? When you live here, you get to call the whole thing home. No one cares about where you sleep, they care about where you LIVE, Williamsburg, Midtown, UWS, LES, SOHO, NOHO, FINI.

Your home is your post work watering holes, and your friends restaurant that you've shut down almost as much as the one where you actually work. That friend in trendy Brooklyn who lets you crash on their couch after Chardonnay induced girl talk and back to back episodes of Say Yes to the Dress. That place you met that OKCupid date and then took all future OKC dates to because it was decently priced and made for an easy escape.

I haven't really had a specific place to call home.

I've had a whole Island.

Then again, "home" for me has never really consisted of the same set of four walls.

Home has been falling asleep next to my friends watching Pitch Perfect for the thousandth time.

It's reading a good book on the hot marble of the Columbus Circle fountain.

I'm at home holding my boyfriend's hand.

As long as I am surrounded by the people I love, the things I love, in the city I love, I am home.

This past weekend I moved into a new apartment smack in the middle of Manhattan. It's a dream location and sure, it's small and I'm sleeping on an Ikea daybed in a corner of the living room. But after two days and nights it's already my new favorite place.

I have a nook to sleep in. I can take a shower with shampoo that's not travel size. I can put milk in my new refrigerator.

I might not live here for long, but that's not important. I'm living with my "ride or die" best friend. I'm ten blocks from where my boyfriend works and in the middles of a bunch of my other friend's places.

I'm sure my next year here will bring a slew of new memories both good and bad and all that's in between.


It's my new place called home.


Love Always,

Your no longer homeless .... Broken Record.

Rasin Bran and Whiskey

I had Rasin Bran for dinner tonight.

And the night before.

Actually I've had cereal for dinner most nights this week...the nights I ate dinner.

It's not that I have a particular affinity for Rasin Bran, in fact I consider myself more a Peanut Butter Capt'n Crunch gal.  It's just that's all I have to eat in the apartment. My funds have dropped to such a critical state that I can barely afford anything, and dinner these days seems an unnecessary expense. When there's Rasin Bran in the cabinet and all.

The whiskey's to take the edge off.

And so makes for the perfect pairing to reflect my state of affairs.

The struggle my dears, is real.

When I was younger I had a dream. I wanted to perform for as long as I possibly could. I wanted to live in my favorite place on the planet, and I would make lots of cash money waiting tables at a fancy overpriced New York Restaurant, living life and making it rain all the rest of my days.

No corporate bullshit for me. F the man!

And all my dreams came true. Every. Last. One.

Which takes us to me in my apartment in northern nowhere NYC, drinking whiskey from a water glass, empty bowl of flakes sitting tragically on my window sill.

It seems I took a wrong turn somewhere, I just can't figure out where.

What I can say for myself, despite the self declared failings, is I have always lived true to myself. I have lived a very exciting early half of my twenties and don't regret a single day of it. Not even that day I discovered LOST and didn't get off of my couch for twelve hours not even to take a piss. Especially not that day.

But as 24 races through like a haphazard bullet, fast and directionless, I begin to wonder how the next half of the most uncertain decade ever will proceed.

I am better than this. I am better than Rasin Bran.

But not yet. What I feel like they forgot to teach us, or perhaps tried to teach us while we were busy trying to figure out which Backstreet Boy was our favorite (mine was AJ, duh), is that it takes a long, gruling period of hard WORK to actually make a nice life. No matter what you choose to do. It's all a balance. There's no cheating the system.

I thought that by following my passion I was avoiding the 9-5 corporate monster that I loathed so greatly. These days my friends with corporate jobs seem to be living quite comfortably. Meanwhile all those auditions, and headshots, and waiting rooms made me feel anything BUT authentic.

My restaurant job sucked more of my soul than I can ever hope to recover. I swear, everyone should wait table once in there lives. I don't know if I believe in a hell after you die, but I certainly believe in one right here on earth. And that's it.

So now what? What on earth am I supposed to do? Do people actually know these things?

24 feels so unsure.

And I know I'm a baby. And I know I'm privileged. And I realize these are first world problems.

I count my blessings daily from my extremely supportive family, to my loving boyfriend, to all of my incredible inspiring friends. It's because of them that I find myself to be such a disappointment. I want to be so much better than I am.

 I'm so hungry for more.

And not just because I had Rasin Bran for dinner.


Because I refuse to keep repeating the same

Broken

Record.

March is for Madness

Last week my boyfriend uttered one fatal phrase that shattered my world as I knew it.

"Why don't you make a bracket?"

Now if you're like me, the only appealing thing about sports is getting to watch built, sweaty men in tight pants grunt at each other in all their masculine glory.

So imma esplain....

March Madness refers to the NCAA tournament, basically the Super Bowl of Basketball. People get the chance to fill out a bracket, or multiple brackets, and compete with their friend's to see who can better predict which of the 64 top college teams you think will make it to the next round of 32, then what they call the "sweet" 16, the "elite" 8, "final" four, ultimately choosing a champion.

Again, keep in mind up until last week I knew as much about college basketball as I did about quantum physics. In fact, I hadn't even watched a single basketball game until January when my boyfriend brought me to a Nets game.

I'm not fooling anyone. He's well aware of my ignorance involving basketball, the tournament, and basically all things sports related, but encouraged me to make a bracket and play anyway.

It'll be fun, he said.

The more the merrier, he said.

Since the only thing I previously knew about any of these team's overall merit within the league is DIDLY SQUAT, I picked the teams to advance based on factors I deemed important. For instance I have an uncle from Wisconsin, ergo my pick. Harvard kids got into Harvard right? They don't allow failure at HARVARD.

Honestly for the most part I just looked at who had the better costume.

The best part is, you don't really have to know that much about statistics to pick winners. And once the teams I picked started winning, I went basket-ball-istic.

My roommate found me the night of the first day of games crouched over my iPad, clutching the screen with desperate fingers, crazy eyed, shouting "TEXAS DON'T FUCK THIS UP!" while checking my bracket stats on my iPhone and trying to get my computer to live stream the game so I could watch it on a bigger screen.

This weekend, a Saturday night in Manhattan mind you, I was found alone at a bar two Jack on the rocks deep erratically scanning five giant plasma screened TV's to keep track of the score of three separate games.

I wish I could tell you I was trying to impress my boyfriend but I'm pretty sure he's just frightened.

Leave it to me to take something to an ultimately unreal level. It's been a re-occurring theme in my life. I become madly obsessed with the things and LOVE THEM beyond logic or reasoning including but not limited to my flannel collection, my obsession with pirates, and my love for Jack Daniels.

It brings my attention back to my personal realization that I am nothing if not an overly passionate person and once hooked on something, I am unstoppable. My madness has previously carried me through my love for theatre, dragged my butt out of bed at 5 sometimes 4 A-fucking-M in order to out my name on a silly piece of paper that may or may not even be recognized. It has taken me on audition after audition, rejection after rejection. I worked multiple jobs in college trying to save money so I could get my own place in this big, delicious, rotten, apple as soon as I could manage.

Perhaps that's why it's so maddening to see the things I worked so hard for then, not turn out the way I expected.

I picked Wichita State to win it all. They were the #1 team in what is said to be a pretty weak conference. People didn't think they really had what it takes to beat out teams coming from the other, stronger conferences. I thought I had made a fair pick given their to this point undefeated title, but they were certainly not a popular pick and definitely not a wise wise one.

And wouldn't you know, Sunday I watched as they lost by seconds to Kentucky.

I actually almost cried.

With their loss came the dismantling of my bracket and basically any chance I had to win in my pool.

That's life though isn't it? Sometimes you pick the loosing team. Sometimes you loose.

I haven't been able to write for a while. Not because I haven't tried, but my words were leaving something to be desired and it was driving me mad.

I had to start over. Change topics. Try again because I needed to get words out and focus on what felt poignant and relevant to me and my life at this very moment.

Which appears to currently be basketball. Who knew?

Certainly not me.

I have to keep pushing myself to explore things in my life that may at first seem foreign. I never thought I'd write, or consider myself a writer. That wasn't the plan. I never thought I'd be someone's girlfriend or be part of a happy, healthy relationship. I never in a million years thought I'd get so damn invested in basketball.

Life seems to be one big upset after another. And even when I think I'm winning, all of a sudden I find myself posterized with life's sweaty balls in my face.

And it's all good. A little unsettling at times perhaps, to feel like things can change at any second and to know the way things are now are not the way they will remain.

That's really where the fun of March Madness lies. These games get unbelievably close. Your team could be ahead the whole damn time, and in the last fucking SECOND loose it all with the swoosh of a single basket.

All is fair in life and sports.

SO my team lost. Basically I lost. BUT it doesn't mean I'm going to stop playing along. There's more games to come and I plan to keep rooting for teams based on stupid things. Like who has the cooler mascot.



I'm having too much fun to stop the madness now.





Your one and only



...perhaps gone slightly mad...



Broken Record.

Girlfriended

"Someone needs to find you a boyfriend", my bartender said to me behind genuinely concerned eyes as he passed some terrible tap beer across the service bar.

"What the fuck would I do with a boyfriend?" I snapped back with a laugh drenched in cynicism as I snatched my beer, rolled my eyes, and continued to power walk the foamy substance to a customer who probably didn't speak any english.

I always said I wouldn't know a relationship if it smacked me in the face with it's ball sack. The last GOOD relationship I had with a member of the opposite sex, our parents were still driving us to our dates at the local Friday's.

The thing is when you are single, and I mean SINGLE like the last person to have touched your sexy bits in the past two years was your gynecologist and a 60 year old Indian wax specialist named Parul, you go through what I'd like to call "Single Lady" stages.

There's the "I-Am-Fabulous-And-Free" stage.

The "I'm-Going-To-Flirt-With-Everyone-Because-I-Have-No-Fucks-To-Give" stage.

The "Why-Do-I-Think-of-Ben & Jerry's-When-I-Hear-This-Love-Song?" stage.

AND of course the "I'm-Going-To-Be-Forever-Alone" stage.

When I started this blog I thought it was going to be the tales of a single 'twenty-something' and I would tell you about all my escapades and weird OKCupid dates and be witty and funny and cynical. I was getting to a point in my seven year single stint where I actually was starting to think I might be alone forever. And I started accepting it as who I was. I was single. I was the single friend who would always be available on a Friday night to help you meet the man of your dreams (or at least keep the men of your nightmares away). I had mastered the art of being single.

Life doesn't work that way though does it? Just when I thought I was going to be forever alone and had built my walls nice and sturdy and high, someone came along and ruined all my hard work.

Now I've been doing this mystery man dance on here for a minute but it's time to come out and say the words I never thought I'd say, I have a boyfriend. Or rather, I am officially someones girlfriend.

To the shock and awe of myself, and mostly my mother who swore no one was going to make a decent woman out of her "sailor mouth" daughter, someone has decided what I've known all along. I'm actually pretty awesome.

And it is better than I could have ever imagined.

But you know what? As incredible as I think he is, and as thoroughly happy as I am, it has occurred to me that while talking to my still single friends I feel as though I have crossed over some bridge, away from them.

I was the mayor of the single ladies village. And I feel like I am abandoning them all.

But what the hell does it even matter?

I think we all do two terrible things at the same time.

1.) I think we don't give our relationships enough credit for being truly wonderful, special things and

2.) We revere relationships to be the key to solving all our problems.

Look, the things I don't know about relationships could fill the seven seas two times over, but I DO know how to treat others and when I care about someone I don't do it half-ass because I know how special it is to find someone that is not only there for you through the good, bad, and painfully mundane, but also gives you butterflies and sexy times. IT IS SO RARE.

Please, I am only 24 but hear me when I say MOST PEOPLE SUCK. Most people are not cool and they are self obsessed and unavailable and are not any good in bed and I know this because I have dated/met/rendezvoused with more of them than I even care to remember.

Meeting someone who you care about that cares about you is a precious gift of gold that should NEVER be taken advantage of and should only be treasured and fed love and joy and goodness.

On the flip side, if you are single there is NOTHING wrong with you. Your life isn't any better or worse for being single. You are just single.  Maybe you haven't met the right person, maybe you just got out of a bad relationship or maybe JUST MAYBE you WANT to be single. Hooray! Good for you! Single it up. Single is fun. Sure it can feel incredibly lonely sometimes. When that happens I recommend you grab a pint of Ben and Jerry's and watch "The Notebook" and feel sorry for yourself and then on the weekends go out and wear a sexy dress and drink a poorly made cocktail with cheep vodka to convince you that semi-attractive stranger is more attractive than they are and it would be one of your better ideas to make out with them.

Or....maybe don't.

The point is there's life to be lived whether you're flying solo or trying to share it with another (hopefully well deserving) human.

To be honest the way I was living my "single" life last year, I probably did need someone. Someone who made me give a damn. Someone who made me stop looking at my life like it was something to be wasted on getting wasted.

It's cheesy to say but I think in a lot of ways he saved me from myself.

But I'm not SAVED. I have more to do and I have to do it myself. MY LIFE is still MINE. Sure, I'm sharing it in a bigger way with another human which is a beautiful thing but the day to day bullshit, my anxieties, what I want to do with my life, it's all still my puzzle to solve. The work is still left up to me.

I'm still alone in that.

And that's okay. That's life. What does saved mean anyway? Are any of us ever really "SAVED?" Are we ever really finished products? As far as I'm concerned we're all just humans dealing with our lives and our psyches and our strengths and weaknesses.

I never wanted to be saved. I never wanted a boyfriend. I wanted a partner. A partner to hold my hand as I tried ever so desperately to "save" myself.


So even though no one technically "found me a boyfriend".....


I can't say I'm not glad he's mine.






(A slightly less)

Broken Record

Love, Actually.

I took a drive in my hometown while visiting family for the holidays this afternoon and what to my wandering ears did play, but a succession of songs I noticed were all about love. Not just a few. Every song that played through the damn radio machine during my half hour drive was a love song. Not just some. 

Every.Damn.One. 

It reminded me of this critique I had gotten over the content of my last post. You see, I write things in my blog like "love is great blah blah blah" and a friend of mine critiqued me and my love lies with the simple argument,

"...love doesn't exist and it's stupid."

Well, I don't have to be a pre-pubescent teenage girl who's listened to too much Taylor Swift to know love is not just something I made up in my overly emotional feminine mind.

It's FACT.

Like a scientifically proven FACT. Studies show when a person 'falls in love" dopamine and nor epinephrine go shitting through your brain like a good solid dose of coke up the nasal passage. Hence why people (mainly Ke$ha) say things like "your love is my drug". And why people LOVE cocaine. They literally fall IN LOVE with it.

Not only has it been scientifically proven that your coke habit and blind addiction to your new boyfriend are totally connected, but when love is lost there are physical withdrawal symptoms. Anyone who has suffered the pangs of a broken heart can attest. You can't eat, you can't sleep, you burst into tears on the subway and in the middle of the street. No? Just me?

But beyond the science (which let's face it, this isn't that kind of blog, I'm not that kind of person, and this wasn't supposed to be a dissertation I just have opinions) the signs and symptoms of a person in love are very clear. I firmly believe that in this case feeling is believing and anyone who claims that "love doesn't exist" has either never actually fallen in love, or has fallen in love and then been so badly burned they suffer from what I like to call PTLD (Post Traumatic Love Disorder). Now they are trying to convince themselves and others as a means of survival to believe love isn't actually real, feelings in general are a figment of everyone's imagination, and we can and should just train ourselves to not have feelings because having the feels means you feel pain so NO MORE FEELS.

And I have so been there.

I had come out a loser in the game of love too many consecutive times over the years and I was benching myself. If you don't play the game, you have nothing to lose right?

Wrong.

I was wrong and it didn't work anyway because a stupid boy came into my life no stupider than any other boy and next thing you know, after almost a whole year of single emotional 'freedom' and being able to separate my emotional being from my logical being I found myself prancing around my room listening to Jo Jo, YES JO JO, in my underwear and I'm smiling randomly like a schizophrenic during my shifts at work.  I'm writing blog posts about how "nice" men are and I can suddenly listen to Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is You" without vomiting. 

It's disgusting. 

Now, I know what you may be thinking. "Lauren, you have been the most single of all the people for years and years, what the fuck do you really know about love?"

Well, Ladies and Gentleman....I don't really know all that much because even those scientists who have researched and made solid conclusions about how love affects us mentally and even physically come up short with explanations for how and why it comes. Just that it does. And it really is the best and worst of all the things.

I may not be the most religious person. But I truly believe love is the closest thing we have to experiencing God.

And it's all around us.  I just don't think people look in the right places. Or think that just because it doesn't pan out the way it does in the movies it's not the real thing. 

Like where's my John Cussack in adorable 80's garb with a boombox over his head outside my window? WHERE IS HE? 

Love isn't always so dramatic.  Love doesn't always come in the form of a dozen roses. Love isn't always romantic. My whole life I was so focused on gaining the affections of a member of the opposite sex and failing terribly that I thought I wasn't worthy of it or maybe it just wasn't in the cards for me. OR maybe, just maybe it really didn't exist. Until I opened my eyes and realized I am shown love daily by my family and friends who would do anything for me and love me just the way I am. And have the whole time. 

The second I opened my eyes and my heart to it I wanted to focus more on them and the love they were giving me. They taught me everything I know about what love is, how to give it, how to accept it, and how to maintain it. More importantly they taught me how to love myself. They helped me find love in myself so not only did I no longer find the need to chase after it, but it was always around.

Even then, our relationships haven't always been perfect. We have had huge fall outs, we disagree on a million points, sometimes they drive me crazy. Mostly I drive them crazy.  It is because I love them I am willing to take the time to work through these problems which in turn only makes our love for each other stronger.  

Love isn't perfect. It's not supposed to be. If it looks perfect from the outside you need to take a better look. People are flawed. Love is flawed. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It is very real and is found in both trying situations and in the most mundane.

Love is holding your friend while they sob uncontrollably into your arms over the loss of a loved one.

Love is your mother trying to pick the lock of your bedroom door because you've tried to shut her out after a fight.

Love is helping them heat garlic oil up in a spoon like a back alley crack addict to then pour into their ear for their infection and then Web MDing it to make sure they're not just listening to someones terrible home remedy recipe which you know they're totally capable of doing.

Love is compromise, love is picking up on their smell even when they're not around, love is knowing they eat ranch with their french fries.

Love is giving people the key to your weaknesses and praying they don't turn the lock.

Love is a million things and comes in all different forms be it family love, friend love, lover love, one night stand love, and most importantly self love so don't fucking tell me it doesn't exist, because I'll tell you you're irrelevant.

And to turn on the radio. 

I'm not the only

Broken Record

In Defense of the "Nice Guy"

This past Sunday, I was standing at the service bar at the restaurant I work at, pouring what was probably someones umpteenth diet coke refill staring out into what I define as my soul sucking abyss when this shrill, two Pinot Grigio deep voice slurred it's way into my ear canal,

"There's no such thing as nice guys"

I immediately snapped out of whatever twilight zone I had drifted off to and without thinking replied, as if it were any of my business,

"That's not true."

My bartender laughed. She looked like I had just slapped her in the face. 

But someone was in need of their not-so-diet coke and I ran off. 

The statement, however, stuck with me as I continued to take another table's order and I found myself formulating a argument against her rude, blanket generalization about half of the world's inhabitants and on the defense for men. A gender that has been a former source of a lot of personal pain and which I have developed an arsenal of arguments against for.... let's see.....the entirety of my life. 

Back at the service bar I approached the friend who was being given this small minded excuse for whatever was wrong with men in her life and asked what the deal was.  She explained the 'meanie' in this scenario (a coworker) and her had recently started hooking up outside of their place of business, but refused to take things to the bedroom.

"Maybe he's just trying to be a nice guy," she said.

"He won't sleep with you? That doesn't sound very nice to me."

I continued to explain to her, and her friend who was returning from her visit to the bathroom, that a statement like "there's no such thing as nice guys" is as silly and untrue as saying "there's no such thing as mean girls" which we all know is super untrue because there is an entire movie dedicated to that topic alone thanks to the birth of Tina Fey's comedic genius baby.

Blanket generalizations like this are so small minded it makes me want to punch girls like our shrill voiced, platinum blonde, bitch in the ovaries because she gives woman a bad name. If the timbre of her voice spitting terrible wisdom unto this planet wasn't enough to give me a distaste for this individual I  found out from a friend that when I walked away 'dis bitch had rolled her eyes at me saying that I was obviously just too young to know any better. 

Now, what McCunterson didn't know, is while I may be just a baby fetus of the adult population, I have had more 'bad' guys in my life than I wish on even her and it was swiftly accumulated by the ripe, young age of 24. I have certainly excused and accused the male population for a number of my problems including but not limited to my low self-esteem, the 20 pounds I gained sophomore year of college, my almost 2 year celibacy stint, the 15 pounds I lost a year out of college, and my mind numbing depression the winter of 2012. 

A fucking douche-cake-with-a-dick named Matt Forney wrote an entire "Case Against Female Self-Esteem" and at another time I will not so kindly rip his pea sized brain to shreds with my classy wordage at some point in the near future. (And then I'm coming for your balls Matt. You can start trembling now.)

But somehow even though I have a million examples of just how mean the male population can be, personal and ...oh, I don't know, just by pulling thousands of examples of female abuse throughout the entire history of the world as we know it.... there is something called hope inside me for all humanity as I refuse to believe all men are bad.

People are people. There are "good" people and "bad" people but mostly people are just humans trying to make it through this world alive for as long as possible, with as much happiness as they can. We all bear the same potential inside to be "good" and "bad" depending on the day or whether or not mercury is in retrograde. 

I consider myself to be a GOOD person, but I have definitely done some things that were not very nice. I have put my foot in my mouth and offended those I love. I've gossiped. I've been hypocritical and judgmental and I'm only halfway through this post. I have lied (not very well) cheated (how do you think I passed honors physics?) and even stolen (red bra, high school, bad ass). 

I'm not proud, but I'd like whichever one of my readers has not at some point done one of those bad things in some way to shout me out on the book of face and say "ME! I AM THE PERFECT HUMAN SPECIMEN!" I'll buy you a nice, big cookie.

Guy's have the POTENTIAL within them to be very mean, yes. But so do woman and men, I'm sorry, but whatever mean tricks you think you have up your sleeve fall very short to the well-trained mind manipulation gifted to your female counterpart.

Men are mean, woman are mean, I used to have a pretty mean cat, didn't really like her that much. If you are complaining about this big ol' meanie in your life than get him the fuck out of there ASAP. But who am I to tell anyone who or what to waste their time with? I have certainly wasted my fair share of minutes to undeserving folks. At the end of the day though, the faster they're out and I mean OUT OUT OUT LIKE NO TEXTS CALLS DON'T SEE THEM IN PERSON OR STALK THEIR FACEBOOK GOOD GOD STOP IT NOW the better.

We are all, every one of us deserving of having our lives filled to the brim with the best of everyone, but there's a second part here that this ice queen wasn't acknowledging that is worth bringing up. Maybe the reason this woman had stumbled upon so much meanness, brining her to the conclusion "mean are big ol' mean daddy's" was that she in fact wasn't being very nice. 

A lot about relationships these days is "what is this person giving me?" but what can you give them? Love is the only thing that brings love. Love for yourself. Love for your life. A love and and openness to others. And yes, it is this sort of vulnerability that gets people hurt in the first place but there's no way around it. To get love you must give love. 

Look, I have given my blood, sweat, and tears to men who have trampled over me like unnoticed toilet paper stuck to their hush puppies. It wasn't love. It was desperation. It was insecurity. It was a need for validation. It wasn't me being too 'nice' it was me being mean. Mean to myself.

I've been the first person in the room to smoke on my cigarette of cynicism and blow toxic smoke into your lungs about how men are terrible humans who are only out to get their dick wet.  

While I have held this opinion, making me no better than the cunt queen I am now arguing against, it is a recognizably small, narrow minded, callous opinion that is just not true. Men are not mean. They have the ability to be the knights in shinning armor. There are woman out there who have stories of good men. My Grandmother is one of them. She continually sits me down and tells me how my Grandfather was the BEST man. They were married for 60 years. They had problems I'm sure but he was a good man. My father is a good man. I have watched him and my mother butt heads countless times. I have yelled at my father and said things no daughter should ever under any circumstances say to her father's face but I've done it. Despite the fact I am a self-proclaimed "daddy's girl" and always have been.

My point here is NO ONE is ONE THING. We are all the make-up of our past, present, and wants for the future. We are all layered. Like Ogres. And I really hate these articles clouding the inter web with their misguided conclusions and closed mindedness. Men are not mean. Men are not "nice". Girls are NOT UNICORNS. Although sometimes I definitely feel magical so okay, maybe we're unicorns but we're not always majestic. Sometimes we're smelly. Sometime's we're cranky. WE DEFINITELY POOP. (It's serious. Can we please stop pretending this doesn't happen because it's caused me bouts of serious and painful constipation my whole life).

Ladies; stop saying men are evil. Men; stop thinking you're all such "nice guys" and don't know why you can't find a great girl out there because the flip side to this argument is as nice as you may be, no one owes you their undying love and affection just because you've bought them a drink and have avoided staring at their tits, pretending to listen to what they have to say for over an hour with the secret hope of scoring at a decent BJ. 

Relationships regardless of gender, regardless of sexuality, regardless of even whether or not the relationship is platonic happens when one human is enjoying the company of a second human. Or a third human. Silly Mormons ammiright? 

And maybe the only reason I can sit here perched on my pedestal of hope and good will towards man is one of them made their way into my life recently and it's really all I can manage to have the feels about these days. Because after having what seems like a billion terrible experiences with the opposite sex, having one good makes me forget that it was ever really that bad. 

Because men, woman really do love your stupid, charming, penis bearing selves. That's why they bitch about it so much. If we didn't give a shit it wouldn't even be a topic of conversation and it's seriously THE topic of conversation like maybe 90% of the time. But woman are beautiful, majestic beings too and y'all need to get it in your thick skulls that if you have a lady you like and she has graced you with permission into her world DO NOT TAKE FUCKING ADVANTAGE. Because she was living before you and she'll live after you and she's handed dick on the daily so she definitely doesn't need you for that.

The point is, in my humble, perhaps aggressive opinion, can we all stop pigeon holing everyone to one thing? Be open to meeting people and cast your initial protective judgments like "hey something about that dude seems creepy" but be open to those judgements falling away and revealing your next boyfriend, or girlfriend, or best friend, or fuck buddy. Whatever you want. 

Let's just drop our expectations that everyone is supposed to love us and instead refocus our energies to loving ourselves. And maybe, just maybe, if everyone works on being a better fucking human, the planet will slowly rid itself of what seems like a race full of ass wipes and cunt faces.

I'm getting off my soap box now.....

Broken Record OUT

The Importance of Being Honest

I have had writer's block for the past two weeks with this thing. I started this little project about a month ago and have figured out a few things such as when I can factor time in to write, places I like to write at, and my longer than necessary editing process.  

Lately, when I sit down during my designated "writing" time, I can't seem to put words to the page. Last week I literally stared at my blank screen into the wee hours of the morning.  And it's not that I have nothing to write about. I have had idea after idea, the words spinning in my head as I stare into space on the A train, walk down the city streets, or during a lull at work. They are there. But they won't come out.

I had a conversation with my mother last week, conversations I try to put off as long as possible, about how I should really watch what I say because I don't know who's reading and no one in their right mind would ever want to be with a girl like me if I keep strewing my scandalous thoughts and adventures all over the internet. 

I told her they can suck my dick. 

But it doesn't mean her words didn't stick. They have been the sticky glue that has bound my hands together and prevented me from writing what I really want to say because I am now worried about judgements. But that sort of fear is what got me here in the first place. Judgement is artistic kryptonite and The Rolling Stones didn't get where they got because they were worried about what their mothers would say.

I'm tired of being so afraid of everything. I am tired of people saying I am too intense like it's a bad thing. 

I have been the girl who has kept her mouth shut. Who didn't want to stir the pot or say or do anything out of line. That girl kept me in a bad relationship ten months too long. That girl got me into all those bad relationships after . That girl has hindered me in my career. She was afraid speak up. Afraid of being too much. Afraid of rejection.

I have kept my lips silenced, my actions agreeable, jumped up, turned left, run right and gone down on cue.

I don't want to be afraid anymore. There are things that I need to say, that someone needs to say, while everybody else sits in silence nodding their heads making idle conversations about the weather. 

I don't care about the weather. I don't care what you do for a living or where your apartment is located or how much money you have. I want to know who you are. I want to know what makes you laugh, what makes you cry, what turns you on. 

These are questions I am begging to ask strangers in the street. Strangers I see on the train. We all have a story to tell and we shouldn't be made to feel embarrassed or ashamed because we are brave enough to admit our faults and tell the whole story. 

Life is not a ladder to climb. It is a coaster to ride. There are ups and downs and sharp turns and all of a sudden it takes you for a loop. Sometimes you feel like you just might vomit and then you go soaring over a hill and you are suddenly filled with a joy that courses through your body with all the vigor of an orgasm. 

I am an extremist. I love and hate life in extremes. I love and hate others in extremes. I love and hate myself in extremes. I have the capacity to feel intense happiness and earth shattering sadness and I know I couldn't have one without the other and for that I feel blessed.

I know that I cannot sit hear and listen when people tell me I am too much or not enough because as hard as I try to meet peoples expectations I have been both. I have been too much. I have not been enough. I've been loved and left and none of it has been because I say "dick" too much.

I am worthy of love and love for who I am. Not for some copy of an idea of what a 'good' girl should be. I have done 'bad' things but I have mostly done 'good' things and I think if you asked those who knew me they would say I am a good person. A great friend. A loyal, trustworthy, hard worker and these are the things I would like factored in at the end of the day. There are people in my life who see this and I only want those people in my life who appreciate me for all my good, all my bad, and all my insanity. 

Because I refuse to be less. In fact, I'd like to be more.

I want to strive for more, work for more, help others, and try to make any sort of sense out of this crazy life we're all supposed to live and what living even means. With the occasional obscenity thrown in.  

Perfection is a fallacy. 

I am shattered. I am made of a billion, broken shards of glass, but like a mosaic I am all these pieces brought together by my crazy glue. And it's a beautiful thing. 

So, god damn it,  once again. Either you want to hear what I have to say or you get off my blog.

Round and round and round the words go, where they stop, hell if I know.

Broken Record