I have a carrier pigeon and a box of pencils. Well the pigeon isn't technically mine but my friend said I could borrow it whenever.

I feel like my brain is taking this week off from caring about stuff. I don't even feel that ever-present nervous feeling under my ribcage, the absence of which is actually making me a little nervous but besides that - totally fine. My sights are laser-focused on this weekend, which is Christmas Tree Weekend in Connecticut, and yes, t-shirts are available for sale. And anything else is just... like, when birds fly really fast into a window and fall down. I'm the window. And everything else is a bird. If you're a bird... I'm a window, this week.

thankful for (before november is over and everyone moves on to the feast of alvis)

- Mexi-Pilgrim fusion picnic dinners cooked for me by someone whose ancestral land was pillaged by my forefathers
- Wine and chocolate sauce

- Pajamas masquerading as work clothes

- Red lipstick, for tricking people into thinking that I have fucks to give

- Cloudy, cool days
- Dry shampoo

- My naturally athletic body

- Hopeful graffiti 

- Coffee

- Lazy date nights (aka, our favorite gyro place followed by the bar across the street from where we do laundry) (aka, best)

Thankful that if either one of us loses our job, the rent will still get paid. We will possibly starve to death, but at least we'll do it under a roof. Thankful that my mom is around for me to love and irritate. Thankful that I can afford the Christmas shopping I'm able to do. Thankful that Diego's nephews are of fun ages to pick out toys for. Thankful for health, for mine and for my family's (Arwen's especially) (100% not being sarcastic.) Thankful for coworkers who make bleak bearable. Thankful for how many times a day I have a reason to laugh.

Okay that's enough, blech. But I am honestly so thankful to be where I am and to have what I have for another holiday season. And to have who I have. Blog friends included. Let's swap addresses and do cards, yeah? Yeah.

I confess that the most adult I ever feel is when I get my eyebrows done on the way home from the gym. My nails are disgusting and my apartment is a mess and I haven't gotten a haircut since March and I'm terrible at taxes but for an hour once a week I am CRUSHING IT.

I confess that I went Christmas shopping on Black Friday even though I am against it on principle. (Wishy washy and half-baked, these principles are, but I stand by them nonetheless. Except that this confession is about me not standing by my principles. Mmm. It's just, standing makes me so tired.) I didn't do it on purpose; we were in Brooklyn saying goodbye to Diego's dad for a while, and Target happens to be on our way home. I thought buying presents for family might be a nice distraction, and I was right. Nothing is more distracting from anything than Target in Brooklyn on Black Friday. Nothing. Plus we got a big fat chunk of our shopping out of the way and came in way under budget, which feels great, so. Thanks for forcing people to work mandatory overtime for basically no pay, corporate America!

I confess that I feel real betrayal every time I look at shapewear in any store. How much happier would we all be if we just agreed to let our soft parts be soft!? Come on, people. Come. On.

I've been very seriously considering getting a handheld voice recorder. As of two seconds ago, I mean, when I sat down to write this and could physically feel the words leaking out of me and into the parts of the room I can't reach. My brain spends all day long making observations and pinning words to the observations it makes instead of doing whatever it's supposed to be doing, and if I could whisper those strung-together words into a tiny box that would remember them for me then maybe this stupid blog would have more content. And maybe I'd have journals filled with thoughts instead of lots of blank books laying around as reminders of how poorly managed my financial expenditures are. I understand that even the most basic of cell phones has this capability now, but I think I need it to feel old-timey. I think it will help with the process. The other thing I think will help with the process is to remember that it is a process, and that I don't necessarily have control over when it happens. What I do have control over is capturing it when it does happen. I'm so sorry, I lost myself at "whisper words into a tiny box." 

"In fact, it seems to me that most of the mistakes I make in personal relationships, most of the times in which I fail to be of help to other individuals, can be accounted for in terms of the fact that I have, for some defensive reason, behaved in one way at a surface level, while in reality my feelings run in a contrary direction." 

Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person 

The universe is smart. Also it has night vision and IT SEES YOU. IT SEES WHAT YOU ARE DOING. And no matter how much you nod and smile and go along with things that don't actually feel good to you, that actually are slowly eating away at all your favorite inside parts, the universe knows the truth. I confess that I'm tired of feeling guilty and/or worried about faceless, made-up things and so have turned to women on the internet with soothing voices and elaborate background music to talk me through vibrational matching while I wash dishes. 

I've also started actually using the worksheet my friend gave me while they were getting their millionth degree in Making People Feel Better, the one about deconstructing anxious thoughts and negative self-talk. You know, the one that an actual smart person in real life suggested might be beneficial that I promptly shoved into a book and forgot about for months and months and months until a strange lady streaming footage of her face to the tune of Enigma reminded me of it? That one. Of course by "actually started using" I mean I dug it out and smoothed out most of the wrinkles and thought vaguely about using my boss's toner to make copies of it. And then congratulated myself for utilizing a source of stress as an instrument in managing stress. And then had a fantasy about the book deal I'll probably be offered pretty soon re: my thoughts on how life works.  

My Christmas tree cost $9.99 and I feel like I overpaid. I also feel smart and thrifty, because I decorated it with ribbons we had from the Mexico-Jamaica game in Philly this summer and the flowers I wore in my hair on Halloween. 

Another thing I feel really smart about is sneaking Chapstick into places where unsealed Chapstick isn't allowed. In fact, I'm considering becoming a professional Chapstick mule since I'm so good at it. If only this skill could be applied to something more lucrative. OH WELL.

I wasn't kidding about the handheld recorder, folks. Starting tomorrow I am a tiny box whisperer, and then maybe Sunday Confessions will be less rambly and nonsensical/not be the only posts I write ever. MAYBE. 

Generally my clothes come from the bins at the Goodwill outlet on Van Dam, but for the past few weeks I've been dying to go to the mall. Now, I don't get why people take trips into the city just to shop. Like, they have special express shopper trains into Manhattan during the holidays. WHY are you paying for a train ticket to come spend more money here on stuff you don't need than you would anywhere else? Haven't you heard of Amazon, where you don't have to squeeze through walls of people to make it to a space big enough to crouch and hyperventilate into a shopping bag? I feel the same way about malls. But. I sort of love a mall at Christmas. And right now I think is prime Christmas mall time because the decorations are up and the music is playing but December is still far enough away that most people haven't started panic buying last minute landfill fodder yet. I'm wearing leggings and a plaid shirt to go with my topknot and as soon as Diego gets back from his aunt's house I'm going straight to the mall to spend money I don't have on Starbucks and sweaters and deeply inhale that Christmasy mall smell. 

I bought a gym membership last week. I picked Planet Fitness because there's one close to where I live and I can't afford NYSC. I can't really afford PF, TBH. LOL. It's clean and the people who work there are nice without being too chatty and there's always a treadmill open and that's about all I care about. However, there are a ton of people just walking around taking selfies of themselves in the different mirrors, which doesn't directly impact my "workout" but is still confusing. Another thing I find confusing is that there's a giant tub of free candy at the reception desk. Also I've heard they have pizza/bagel days. Also also they're having some sort of social media contest where the prize is New Year's Eve in Times Square, aka The Worst Thing Ever. Going to the gym is yet another life thing that I find incredibly disorienting. 

I need to buy a birthday present for a one-year-old and I have zero clue. Well, not zero exactly. I know they like breasts and their moms and looking at stuff. I'm just going to walk into a baby store, hand an employee some dollars and ask them to turn that into a present. But what I'd really like to do is pick out a present for an older child and give it to the baby with a card that says, "For when you're more interesting." Not in a mean way, but in an encouraging sort of way. You know? 

I opened my mouth and pulled out a scrap of paper. On it were words warning She Who Loves Roses not to cry about thorns, but Sappho didn't actually say that and it's not like you to be sloppy. You are precise, like a collarbone. Or a blade.

(Touching either one of them means a bloody finger. Maybe that's what you meant to tell me when you lowered this scroll down my throat.)

The room is bright and filled with pianos. They are very close together. Suggestions of walls recede in proportion to my distance from them, which adds to the difficulty of navigating the sea of wood and ivory.

but my heart knows the walls and thinks my eyes are foolish anyhow
and the Brain, it writes off as impractical

i've done it before and i'll do it again

Where are we at with the PSL? I feel like for a while pumpkin spice lattes were this thing everybody made fun of, because for a while before that there were all those pictures of girls standing in orange leaves wearing lacy knitted boot socks and holding #PSLs, no? Am I making that up? I can't tell if they've now become something that people are ironically ordering or not. And irony is not generally lost on me. Just can somebody please tell me if the barista is rolling her eyes at me when I order a pumpkin spice latte. I JUST WANT TO BE COOL. Honestly though the Christmas flavors are where it's really at, so I'm saving the rest of my fancy coffee dollars for all of the peppermint things that anyone on the chain coffee marketing teams can come up with. 

I never exercise on purpose, although I do usually move around just enough to keep my body from total open revolt. Usually. Last weekend I suddenly noticed that months of pork buns and empanadas and taking the bus to work more often than walking were beginning to appear in less than flattering ways on my various bits and pieces, so I naturally proceeded to house tupperware containers of kale and carrots for the entirety of this past week. Now, I have no idea how much I actually weigh because my checking account balance is the only number I'm interested in obsessing over ("0" is such an interesting number, don't you think?) but to be honest I know I'm about ten pounds over what my personal happy place is. I'd like to be able to say that if I'm going to give up foie gras it'll be because of cruelty to ducks and not just to starve myself back into those size 4 J.Crew shorts from two summers ago (I SWEAR I WORE THEM ONCE, I AM NOT MAKING IT UP) but that will just never be true for me. Anyway, I confess that these thoughts are inside my brain.

You want to know what I did on yesterday? Woke up at 7AM, spent an hour and forty-five minutes in the bathroom waxing my upper lip and bikini line and shaving the top parts of my legs for the first time in eight months. Then I got back in bed and turned on Audible and slept for three more hours before waking up to go spend my entire paycheck on butternut squash dumplings and drinks with maple grenadine. If I had a child right now, his or her memoir would be the kind where the family moves from one dusty trailer town to the next because the parents have to skip town whenever the law catches up to them.

"Write 31 Days" was changed to "Write 3 1/2 Days," in case you didn't know. I absolutely did not get bored and quit.

Beauty Dare: Sunless Tanner, PLUS 5 Tips and Tricks

This post was originally intended to be a part of a writing challenge. It remains as a testament to my inability to complete writing challenges. There was going to be a punch line here but I can't be bothered to think of one. 

So, Project: Pretend To Be Tan this summer was a partial success. It's not that my skin doesn't get brown by itself, but now wrinkles are a thing that are on my radar and also I don't like laying down in the hot sun for a long time. I get bored and sweaty, and it's hard to read in direct sunlight. I bought one bottle of the spray kind and only ended up using half of it, because I'm lazy and also only really care about things like that in spurts. So for the same reasons that my eyebrows/bangs will get progressively more out of control for months before I suddenly can't think about anything else until I get them done, I spent the last few months alternating between brown and glow in the dark. It got really interesting when I actually did spend a long time in the sun; then there was sort of an ombre skin thing going on, which I really think will catch on so keep your eyes out and remember I started that trend when you see it at Coachella next year. 

TIP 1: Make your own exfoliator. Store-bought ones cost money, and that's stupid. Instead, mix some stuff together in one of the tiny mason jars you still have from when your mom sent you that box of cupcakes-in-a-jar. Briefly google "exfoliator diy" to get a general idea of what ingredients you're supposed to use. Say out loud, "Okay okay I got it" and the proceed to use whatever is already in your house because going outside is for people who want real tans. Somebody on Pinterest mentioned something about using essential oils for scent, so, perfect opportunity to use that vanilla oil that Bath & Body Works sent you by accident. It's probably for an oil burner but it's from Bath & BODY Works so don't worry it's probably fine. You don't have sugar, so dump a few Splenda packets in there. SAME THING. Salt is scrubby, right? When your boyfriend asks you where all the salt went just pretend like he's crazy. Just say whatever you said when he asked you where all the chili mango went. And if extra virgin olive oil is good enough for that thing that tears while women give birth, it's good enough for you. Make sure you have dish detergent to wash your legs/the entire bathroom with because you'll want to do something about the sticky film that develops. Again, nothing to worry about. It's all part of the process.

TIP 2: Shave your legs immediately before applying fake tan. This will ensure that every drop of pigment is absorbed into the enormous pores on your legs. That's right, friends. It's not just your ankles that are oversized. Anyway, this look just screams skin disease. It's like heroin chic, only with melanoma. 

TIP 3: Eventually you'll get tired of orange leg freckles and want to switch it up a little. You go, girl! "Keep serving the same milkshake and you'll clear your yard of boys." Susan B. Anthony Take Tip 2 in the opposite direction by not shaving for three to six days prior to rubbing that liquid sunshine into your stems. The hair blocks up your pores so that instead of your shins being covered with orange dots, small children will rub them to self soothe.

TIP 4: When applying to your face, spray/squeeze the tiniest amount possible onto your hand/mitt. Then wave your hand/mitt frantically back and forth through the air for approximately eight minutes, or until the product is 99% dry. Pat it lightly onto your face, moving in nervous circular motions. Finally, freak out and scrub it all off. 

TIP 5: Stand in the shower while using fake tan. This has nothing to do with "easy cleanup" and everything to do with DIYing your white shower curtain with a fun brown pattern. This is also an important tip to keep in mind if you want to keep your look all-natural - standing in a puddle of self tanner is a really great way to ensure that the entire bottom of your feet look like they just walked away from Burning Man. And don't worry, this is a look that lasts! No amount of scrubbing will ever take it away. Not ever!

Next up on the beauty dare docket, I'll be giving myself ombre highlights and a teardrop tattoo. 

Writing, Christmas, and Bukowski Walk into a Bar

This post was originally intended to be a part of a writing challenge. It remains as a testament to my inability to complete writing challenges. There was going to be a punch line here but I can't be bothered to think of one. 

The way I write for myself - like on this blog, or in my journal, or on the twenty-six dirty scribbled-on napkins currently populating my purse - is different from the way I'd write, say, a paper. Or an email explaining to a client why the company I work for has yet to provide whatever it is that got paid for in full up front two months ago. ("Thank you for the donation! Sincerely, Lindsay.") For that kind of writing, yeah, I'll probably consult Purdue OWL for the most up to date information on what the fashionable placing of periods is. But if it's just for me, or for you (I LOVE LETTERS. Be my pen pal, I am absolutely not joking), I'm less concerned with form than I am with where we end up.

“…having read a bit here and there, I generally come out ok, 

but technically I don’t know what’s happening, nor do I care.” 

Charles Bukowski, in a letter to Anthony Linick (1959)

The destination is usually a secret until we get there.

Sometimes that's frustrating, or even scary depending on the subject matter. (If you've ever tried writing for catharsis you know what I mean. Ooh, that's a good example of something I'd google if this was getting graded. Is it "for catharsis" or "as catharsis"? "Was getting graded" or "were getting graded"? ARE THOSE QUESTION MARKS IN THE RIGHT PLACE? I MUST DOUBLE CHECK IF I WANT TO GET ANY SLEEP TONIGHT. Etc.) Sometimes I don't like where something is going, or I can't get it to go anywhere at all. Sometimes it just wasn't meant to go anywhere. Sometimes, things get deleted or thrown out and I move on to the next thing.

But usually it's nice. And I like it, the element of the unknown. It's exciting, it keeps me from gouging my fucking eyes out from sheer boredom of myself, it's addictive.

At this point, regular readers (HI MOM) have probably realized that this is yet another one of my sloppily applied metaphors for life. Stay with me, friends. One of these days I'll come up with a good one.

Anyway, here's how my brain calendar goes: School starts, and then the next day Christmas happens. I like the stuff that happens in between, and I love me some Christmas. Everything smells good and is sparkly and there are bells. I'm so down. However with the holidays also comes a constant low-grade anxiety that starts right after Halloween and gradually builds until just before Christmas Eve, when I have my annual fight with my mom over whether or not I have to go to a family function. (Don't tell Diego, but the main reason I want to marry him is that he was born on December 24th and is my official ticket out.)

I don't have contact with my extended biological family, for a lot of reasons that I lack the mental and emotional energy to deal with. If "deer in headlights" can be a feeling, then that is what I feel. I'm thinking about this a lot now because it recently occurred to me that I can't use work as a "get out of holiday functions free" card anymore. I've always felt stress about these end of year gatherings, whether it be from actually having to attend or from having to come up with elaborate ruses to get out of going. Which is stupid, and self-inflicted, because the people inviting me are kind and lovely creatures and I ought to be flattered that I'm included in anything and not left alone to count my dusty coins while Tiny Tim's dad sneaks out the back door. But that's what happens when you don't deal with stuff, guys. It manifests in inconvenient and often ridiculous ways. IT WILL NOT BE IGNORED.

Oh my god, I'm so far off topic and you guys don't even know it because I haven't even gotten to the point I intended to make when I started this fifteen minutes ago. You poor sweet things.

What I meant to get it is that a large part of my unwillingness to go to a thing with a group of people who are family-like is that there is almost nothing I like less than a bunch of people I don't regularly see or speak to asking me what I'm doing with my life. I don't love when people I do see all the time ask me about those things. STOP ASKING ME, I'M GETTING HOT.

When I was a little younger I thought those kinds of questions made me sweaty and want to cry because I wasn't doing life right. In other words, I wasn't doing what the other people my age in the room were doing. Then I got a little older and a little more okay with doing whatever I wanted, but it still made me want to throw up when people asked me about whatever I was doing. THEN I realized, hey, these people are asking you lots of questions because they're interested in what you're doing because what you are doing is kind of interesting. (We transitioned into me talking to myself there, did you catch that? I told you I wasn't worried about things like quotation marks.) But then I just got more nervous about describing whatever thing I was doing in a way that did that thing justice, because it actually was usually a kind of a cool and interesting thing. Finally, and this is the thing that still makes me wish the floor had a throat into which my body could disappear into, there were/are the follow-up questions: "What are you doing next," or "What's your plan after that," or "When are you going to be finished?"

GAH I DON'T KNOW. And when you ask me that I automatically think I should know, which makes me very frantic because I have not the faintest idea. This is the real reason people eat so many Christmas cookies, you know that, right? So that there's something in your mouth and you don't have to answer when someone asks you terrifying questions.

My goal this year is to speak as confidently as I feel, and not get weird while talking to people unless it's in a fun way. I like my life, I'm proud of the things I've accomplished, and I have enough of an idea of what my next steps are to feel good about where I'm headed. I get scared and I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm not scared and I know what I'm doing. I don't always know what's going on, but I don't care - generally, I come out okay.

On Serving Breakfast at Boyfriends, and Vice Versa (I encourage you to experiment with prepositions as you read this title)

This post was originally intended to be a part of a writing challenge. It remains as a testament to my inability to complete writing challenges. There was going to be a punch line here but I can't be bothered to think of one. 

This is not breakfast.

1. Breakfast is easy. Oatmeal takes approximately four minutes to make, and that's including toppings (always raisins, usually a banana, and sometimes cinnamon sugar if I'm feeling frisky.) Pancakes are reserved for weekends only because I usually need to go back to sleep after eating them, but omelettes? Easy. Eggs + whatever happens to be next to the eggs in the refrigerator + cheese if Diego bought any. Which leads me to the next thing.

2. Diego buys most of our food. If I had to guess - which, um, I do, because no matter how sternly Suze Orman tells me anything I do not feel like keeping track of grocery receipts - I'd say we split it about 60/40. Usually. Also, he goes to the store way more often than I do and is more patient with picking out good beets and things and also also he carries the heavy things home. His breakfasts are earned. Which brings me to the NEXT thing (boy this is well written, when does my Pulitzer get here?)

3. He makes every single one of our other meals, the quality of which are far superior to anything I concoct in that room that has the stove in it. He also plates them so nicely that even if we're eating something simple, which we usually are, it still feels fancy. He also doesn't watch Teen Mom 2 while he's cooking, which means he screws things up way less often.

4. He makes every single one of our other meals. You might think this is the same thing as number three, but I assure you, it is not. Well it is. But. There are other meals. Before we moved in together I regularly ate jelly beans for dinner. (Side note: Probably this is only me because I have weird food and/or/also control issues, but once in a while I feel real anger at the fact that I can no longer eat candy as a meal. Or a spoonful of peanut butter. Or two yogurts and a popsicle. I don't always feel like having DINNER dinner, you know? Meals are healthier, though, than candy, I GUESS. And I do like that we're sketching out what our family life will look like once the idea of having a baby doesn't turn my internal organs into cold, hard steel. Also once we have somewhere to put a baby. #ILIVEINATINYBOXOFPAINTS)

5. Breakfast duty naturally falls to me because I'm the one who's awake. I've always gotten up early, and after waking up at 3:30AM for two years sleeping in until 5:30 will never stop feeling straight up luxurious. Getting up early is not a hardship, for me. I want, nay, I need that hour by myself; ten minutes to put on my makeup in peace, fifty to stare into the pre-dawn abyss. And yes, it does in fact stare back. Anyway morning is the time when I like to do things, and dinner is the time I like to... not do things. I'm tired. I GOT UP EARLY. (ETA: He wakes up a little earlier than he has to so that we have time to eat the breakfast I make together. Just saying.)

~

I think we're very lucky in the sense that the division of responsibilities happened pretty naturally for us. Honestly I think we moved in together pretty fast - we hadn't even been together for a full year when I convinced him to pay for a mover because it was hot out and I didn't feel like making more than one trip. OH, LOVE. Honestly though, if we didn't live in this city I think we both would have waited a little bit longer before plunging into cohabitation. It's a side effect of living in any big, expensive city, probably, the earlier-than-usual combining of the kitchen appliances. But again - I got lucky. Most of the big chores (laundry, major grocery shopping) we do together which makes them more like very productive dates than chores. As for the rest of it (I clean the bathroom ALWAYS, he uses that weird stick with the sponge on the end of it to keep our floors from being sticky) we pretty much just both do the things we don't mind doing and everything somehow gets done.

Because we're in love with each other and because I associate positively with the word and the act of "service" (hi, most of my adult life has centered around opportunities to serve others and I couldn't be more grateful), I feel fine about saying that we serve each other when we do these things. And we do - for example, I don't always want to eat dinner but he does and it's important to him that I'm healthy and meals are one of the ways that we consciously spend time with each other. I eat what he cooks, he cooks what I'll eat. He cooks and I clean up the mess he makes doing it.

I have no more food pictures, make up your own caption. 
SERVE YOURSELF, in other words. 

On the other hand, it's not like either one of us was living in squalor before. Our individual dread of or willingness to perform certain household tasks just happens to complement the other person's. And we're not perfect, by which I mean HE'S not perfect, because he leaves the sponge in the sink sometimes when he's done washing the dishes and I CANNOT ABIDE a stinky sponge.

I obviously am perfect.

You know what's fun? The way I keep petering out by the end of writing these. Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm bored of this and I want to go watch more Teen Mom 2.

It Happened To Me: I Was Fat Slut Shamed by a Gyno in Alabama

This post was originally intended to be a part of a writing challenge. It remains as a testament to my inability to complete writing challenges. There was going to be a punch line here but I can't be bothered to think of one. 

If your mother ever grounded you for coming home "high as a kite" even though you were actually stone sober [that day], then you may have also experienced a feeling similar to the one I felt on the day I am about to tell you about.

Let's start a club, kay? I get to be the president because it was my idea.

Today's photo theme: Selfies from three years ago. Also, cats.

One time the government gave me some health insurance in exchange for a year of indentured servitude. So I cashed in some of those benefits at the local gyno in Alabama, where we were living while we served at a group home that I am afraid to link to here because they are wonderful and might not appreciate being associated with blog posts that have "slut" in the title.

Two of my friends had made appointments, and since I was young and impressionable I followed along. What a blessing that the peer pressure I experienced was "Come on, make sure you get your annual pap! Don't you wanna be cooooool? Do it! Do it! You won't!" (Although, those same people did once light some grain alcohol on fire and try to convince me that that's what a fireball was. So.) (Don't worry, they stopped me RIGHT before I actually tried to drink it.)

While I was there I figured I'd ask to be screened for STDs. For the record (and I know I'm getting ahead of myself here because I haven't even told you the story yet but this is my blog and I do what I want when I want to) (coincidentally, same rule applies to my body), you don't need to wait until you think you have an STD to ask to be tested. You shouldn't wait, actually. Not to try to scare you into abstinence, young readers (of which I believe there are exactly none here), but if you've had any kind of sexual contact with anyone at any point you may have contracted something. Your body is something that you have every right to be informed about, and if anybody tries to make you feel bad about that then that person sucks and you should, um. Put them on your list of "MEAN PEOPLE" in your diary and then forget about them. Or something. God, I already told you to get tested for STDs, you want me to deal with your bullies for you too? YOUNG PEOPLE, HONESTLY.

Christmas cats

The place was weird before I even got my feet into the stirrups, actually. You know the person who isn't the doctor that brings you to the exam room and takes your blood pressure with that arm band/balloon contraption? Well, on that day for me that person was two ladies and one of them didn't do anything besides smile too big and nod too fast at everything the other one said. I guess that was the first weird thing, that a person had been assigned to smile and nod. I just thought maybe they assigned a professional smiler to make people feel comfortable, made a mental note to write "NOT WORKING" on a comment card if I could find one, and tried to focus on the lady that was doing all the talking.

Except that what she said was the second weird thing. We got past the "What's your name, why are you in Alabama, you're making HOW much money, are your parents very disappointed in your life choices" portion and moved on to the part where she was supposed to weigh me. But instead of having me step on the scale she just asked me what I thought I weighed. Honestly, I didn't know - I hadn't been weighed myself in a long time, my diet had completely changed over the course of several months and I was doing ten hours of manual labor every day. So I said, "I don't know" and kind of just glanced at the scale. To which she replied, "Oh, what's your best guess?"

I wondered if it was a game. Maybe another relaxation technique misfiring. If they didn't have comment cards I was going to make my own. "FIRE THE PERSON COMING UP WITH THESE IDEAS," I'd write. "JUST PAY FOR SATELLITE RADIO." I told her I should probably just hop on the scale. And then she said, "We know a girl's weight is very personal, so we'll just write down whatever you tell us to." At which point she winked at me.

I was about to take my underwear off in front of a stranger and let that stranger poke around as they saw fit, and my weight was the delicate personal matter at hand? I was too put off to think about that at the time, though, and also too distracted searching for comment cards. (I mean, restaurants usually have them. Get it together, medical professionals.)

I feel like I might've used this one before. Oh well. Copy Cat.

So I guessed, "Probably around 150." And the lady immediately said, "Oh no, you don't look nearly that big." (!?) I told her I'd weighed around that the last time I'd been on a scale, during my initial training for the job I was doing. And she said, "Well you carry all that weight very nicely" and I said (in my head) WHY HASN'T ANYONE LOOKED AT MY VAGINA YET.

When the gynecologist finally came in to examine me I asked her about the testing and she agreed without much comment. Like, without much anything. We barely talked the entire time. Which is how I prefer it when I'm getting my hair cut, but when someone's looking inside me I'd like them to describe at least a few of the funny bumps. I mean. That's better than a palm reading.

Before I left, she handed me a paper lunch sack literally stuffed full of condoms. The sheer amount of them surprised me - also the fact that she shoved them at me before I even had my pants back on - and it must have shown on my face (curse these soulful, expressive eyes of mine) because she snapped, "Well, you DID just get tested for STDs," faster than [insert relevant pop culture reference here because all I can think of right now are the broads on The View and I've only ever watched that on YouTube] snaps at [go ahead, finish the reference, this is a collaborative effort].

I miss that shower curtain. And my hair. And being that skinny.
Except not really because if you asked me then I'd have told you I really missed food and sleeping.

Anyway, that's it. I gave the condoms to my brother that Christmas.

WORST ROOMMATE EVER: Except Not Really

This post was originally intended to be a part of a writing challenge. It remains as a testament to my inability to complete writing challenges. There was going to be a punch line here but I can't be bothered to think of one. 

I rented a duplex in Midwood, Brooklyn with four other people who were in the same program I was in. We never met our landlord, who was totally cool with renting to five twenty-somethings with a combined income of HAHAHA TEARS. Also, because we were all on separate coasts before moving to New York, I forged everyone's signature on the lease. But I digress.

The apartment was a big one, especially to us because we'd all been prepared to live on mattresses in a tenement with fifteen other people. It was kind of far from everywhere; three of us commuted to the South Bronx, one to Harlem, and the other to even deeper Brooklyn. But it was a cute neighborhood, and quiet and safe. We were literally surrounded by Hasidic and Orthodox Jews. Practically everyone on our street was chosen except for us, our downstairs neighbors (musicians, borderline cute but also: musicians) and the Tong family on the other side of our duplex whose internet we "borrowed." (We also did not turn the heat on once that year.) Everyone had their own bedroom except for myself and the girl I shared with, but we had our own bathroom (which meant we didn't have to share with the one male creature) and the entire floor to ourselves. My bedroommate had her sorority sisters - four or five girls - come visit on more than one occasion, and all of us had family come to stay. When other people from our program came for parties or to hang, they'd always always always comment on our relative palace of an apartment.

All of this is to say two things: ONE we were not high maintenance people, and TWO it was a big apartment. Even with some uncomfortable roommate dynamic, even with visiting significant others and even with sometimes huge groups of people - it was big enough to accommodate. We were cool. It never felt small.

Until.

My bedroommate, let's call her Alice, asked me one day if it was okay that one of her teammates crashed for a few nights. Evidently she'd had to leave our program for a few weeks because of some family stuff, and now she was back in the city and needed a place to stay. Of course I didn't even blink an eye. We regularly hosted hordes of travelers and - as I've said ad nauseum - we had the room to spare. I also assumed (FORESHADOWING, you know what happens when one assumes!) that anyone else in our program would at the very least not go through my shit. Third, I was probably (definitely) the most anal retentive of all the roommates despite the fact that I smoked out of the upstairs window and I was actively trying to go with proverbial flows.

So she came.

So. She. Came.

She really was just awful in a way that you have to experience to understand. I'm trying to write this quickly right before bed and Diego is doing that thing to my back with his feet that he does when he wants attention, so I apologize for this in advance: It's really more like "ten minutes of furious typing of nonsense before I pass the fuck out on this keyboard" than it is anything like an xoJane article. Although.

The quick version, so I can write something today and not have to add this challenge to my list of utter failures: One day Alice and I were hanging out in the room next to our bedroom, the other one we had to ourselves. Alice was putting laundry away and listening to The Office, which I was watching on my tiny pink laptop while I sat on the floor and smoked out the window. We weren't, like, actively hanging out. You know? Just existing in the same space, laughing at Dwight. Like people do.

The other girl, a fake name for whom I cannot think because I can't come up with one weird enough so I'll just continue to call her The Other Girl, came in from wherever she was before. Probably not looking for her own apartment or taking a shower, though. Probably definitely not either one of those things. She immediately opened up Alice's laptop and began playing songs for us and discussing those songs in earnest. Then she started showing us all the things in her Amazon cart, and wanted to know our delivery address for THE THINGS SHE WAS BUYING INSTEAD OF A PLACE TO LIVE. Also, I could see her entire vagina because she was sitting cross-legged on our couch with no underwear on.

Alice and I glanced at each other, Alice probably trying to gauge my level of irritation because I was an established antisocial curmudgeon but also because we both needed to confirm the spectacle that was happening in front of us.

A few days later was my twenty-third birthday and I spent the night imbibing in fancy cocktails and hookahs and other birthday delights. In the morning I dragged my bloated deadweight past the nice churchgoing ladies in West Harlem toward the train, and the only thing that kept me from stabbing myself in the heart with one of my high heels on the way home was the thought of my giant bed and more episodes of the Office lulling me into a sweet, hungover sleep.

Only when I got home, The Other Girl was in my bed. Not on the sofa bed that we'd generously offered her, and not on Alice's futon. My bed. My big comfy Queen-sized princess bed that the angels personally delivered from heaven and that I didn't even like people to look at for too long.

That's not really true, I only said that for dramatic emphasis. Actually I had friends sleep with me a lot, and I offered it to Alice & family whenever I went home for the weekend. But generally those people all showered, and also, I invited them.

I'm really tired right now. It's only 9:38PM. It's all these antihistamines - are anyone else's allergies a nightmare this year? I swear to Aslan I have never had allergies before in my life and now all of a sudden I'm a person who buys boxes of tissues. I feel the same way about boxes of tissues as I feel about concealer - it's toilet paper/foundation in different packaging, guys. Come on. COME ON.

Anyway, to wrap this up: When I walked into my bedroom and asked her politely if I might sleep in my own bed, she said, "I just need ten more minutes to really wake up." Obviously I was in too delicate a state to deal with her, so I set up camp on the couch in the next room. At which point she finally did get out of my bed, and into my roommate's, where she proceeded to have a two-hour long conversation at the top of her lungs about something violent and horrible that I've blacked out the details of.

And then she ordered Indian food and fell asleep again while the smell of leftover curry made me reconsider stabbing myself to death with my shoes.

Um, oh yeah. The reason she finally left was not that we slowly lost the ability to pretend we could stand her even a little bit. It was because we never turned on the heat. One night she asked if she could sleep with one of us in one of our beds, and we both said no (still politely, our goddamn mothers having raised us and all.) Alice weakly offered her another blanket, but by then The Other Girl was already huffily gathering up her belongings (none of which were underwear) and storming off to some other sucker's apartment.

So this is actually a story about how being frugal can save your life, or at least the upholstery on your sofa.

If you don't answer the phone enough times, people might resort to messages in sidewalk chalk on your street.
That won't work either, because you'll see it on your way to brunch and forget all about it until you find the picture six months later.

I had some confessions in mind about being sad to say goodbye to maxi dresses as the summer winds down because they're wearable blankets and we all know it, but it all sounded Buzzfeed-y and I got angry and deleted everything and pouted for a while about being bad at everything. 

You know, sometimes deleting things feels really fucking good. A big part of strength is understanding your weaknesses rather than pretending you don't have any. Another part is protein shakes and also, lifting weights. This train of thought has led exactly nowhere, everyone please watch the gap.

I took two Claritin yesterday and found out why you're not supposed to do that. We finally, finally finally went to donate the bags of clothes I kon-maried out of my drawers however long ago. Which meant a trip to Goodwill, which meant buying more things, because that's the circle of life. I only made it about twenty minutes, possibly my shortest GW voyage ever, because I couldn't stop sneezing. When we came home we vacuumed dust off of surfaces I hadn't even known to be capable of collecting dust and then I sat around being high for a long time. Since I was too stoned to deal with doing laundry, we ordered in Vietnamese and then later went out to buy ice cream in the middle of the night. So, if you're ever thinking to yourself, "This first Claritin isn't working, should I take another one?" just know that while you probably won't die, you probably will not get anything done and also you might eat an entire pint of rocky road ice cream because you've conditioned yourself to believe that an altered state of mind = eating all of the things. 

It took me almost forty minutes to make one shitty button for this blog thing I'm thinking about participating in. Only, I'm already late to start it. Also I'm always afraid that I'm accidentally joining some sort of internet prayer circle. Nothing against those, I'm just not interested and I'm sure that those people are not interested in hearing me talk about how itchy my right boob was the other day. Seriously! Outrageously itchy. I just kept thinking, "We really need to hire another girl here so that I don't have to bear the weight of these kinds of burdens alone." 

It's not bangs, it's me. For years, I thought of bangs as the terrible boyfriend some of us have before our frontal lobes have fully developed: You keep getting rid of them only to want them back. You know. When they're good, you're good - everything is perfect. But mostly it's a constant battle and you spend a lot of time screaming at them to behave the way you want them to. Then you miss them when they're gone, you cry into your diary while listening to Brand New or Dashboard Confessional or similar and all your friends want to slap you because you can't talk about anything else. You spend hours staring at yourself in the mirror thinking maudlin thoughts. It's BANGS' fault, you think. If only bangs would change, then everything would be better. Over the years you probably think this about all different types of bangs - tall ones, short ones; blunt ones, side-swept ones. Emo ones.

But then you grow up and realize that maybe bangs aren't entirely to blame; maybe some of it is you. And the fact that you keep picking the wrong ones. And the fact that YOU ARE NOT A HAIRDRESSER, LINDSAY LINEBERRY. STOP CUTTING YOUR OWN HAIR.  It has taken me twenty-six years to learn that if I want to be happy with bangs, what I need to do is really think about what it is I actually want. And then put in some effort. And also pay the nice Hispanic man by the N six dollars to cut them for me.

Only now that I found someone I trust, I'm having anxiety about how often to get them cut. How often is too often? I don't want to seem needy, but I also don't want little hairs poking my eyeballs. And there's always the chance he'll mess them up, nobody's perfect, not even you, Juan! Or Derek, whatever your name is. Francisco I think.

I'm doing so good at posting here every day. See, I can accomplish goals no problemo as long as they're essentially meaningless and helpful to no one. I can also accomplish the ones on the opposite end of the spectrum, like, seeking food and shelter? Got it. If someone might die if it doesn't get done, I will definitely get it done. Anything in between is kind of a crapshoot, though. Unless I'm getting paid to do it, obviously. I'm great at jobs. As of today I'm getting paid a little more to do the job I've been going to every day, which means that the suffocating weight on my chest as I fall asleep every night will lessen slightly. Hopefully. AND THAT'S GOOD.

The other thing I'm good at is selfies. Obviously. Diego bought me an iPhone and I said, Thank you for this selfie machine. I will put it to good use. And I have been. If I take some every single day, I can chart the movement of zits around my chin. And then I'll read everybody's horoscope based on their movement. (FYI, I was sending that first picture to Diego when my boss called me into his office to tell me about the more dollars. WELL EARNED, LINDS.)

It'll be awesome. 

It'll all be awesome.

I made that bigger so you'd notice it and apply it to yourself in case you're having a bad day.

It's true I promise.

"I just have a question about this picture I'm looking at."

"No problem, what would you like to know?"

"Can you tell me what it looks like?"

PAUSE. "It's... ah."

"I'm looking at the one you labeled 'bronze.' What color is it?"

"Well, it's um. Bronze. Like in the picture? I'm holding the sample to the screen and the color is true, at least on mine."

"Hm. Okay. But what does it look like? What color is it?"

PAUSE. "If you'd like I can mail you a sample, or you can come pick it up if that's easier?"

"Oh no that's not necessary, you can just tell me what it looks like." 

A chapter of my memoir will be called, "Things I Collect: Grocery Lists and Weirdos." 

"...Also, Dresses From Thrift Stores. Also Pictures of Myself. This is Going to be a Long Chapter."

my sun, my moon, and all my stars

Saturday was free museum day, so naturally we stayed in bed until two o'clock and got to the Morgan Library half an hour before closing. I pretended to be Belle for an entire thirty minutes, which, yes, IS what I do every day anyway instead of exercise. But. Sometimes it's nice to do it in an actual library.

In all seriousness - thirty minutes in a place like that without being allowed to touch anything is about all I can take without breaking. I maybe almost cried, which is not unusual.

I've said this before and stuck to it like anything sticks to something that isn't sticky, but I want to document more of this season of my life. I've made such very deliberate choices in order to wind up where I am, and I'm so very grateful for what I get to do and where I get to be. Even when it's shitty. Which it is sometimes. But more often, it's lovely and weird and mine.

I'm going to try to post something here once a day, small or silly or otherwise. Because I'm so happy to be here, now, to be alive in the place where I'm living with the people I'm living alongside. Allow me to indulge in one Rumi quote and then you can enjoy pictures of this weekend, some of which have been impressively taken from the most unflattering angles in the history of photography, DIEGO MARTINEZ.

I am an image you stitch with gold thread

on a tapestry, the least figure,

a playful addition.

But nothing you work on is dull.

I am part of the beauty.

RUMI