Dear Lindsay Lohan

(Vanity Fair)

I really am not sure why, but I really am holding out hope for Lindsay Lohan. I just have to take a moment to share my thoughts.

I have talked to several people who are about my age, and tried to figure out why Lindsay kind of means a lot to us. It's more or less the older crowd, or the men who say, "I just wish that mess would go away." Most young women I have spoken to recently about her feel very much the same way that I do, we want her to make a comeback, we like her, she intrigues us, we just want to see her act right for once and stop fucking up. I am one of those who would really like to see her prove her naysayers wrong, go to rehab, get out, and come out being some sort of success a la Robert Downey Jr. Ever since she broke on the scene in the Parent Trap, I could identify with her. She would be my really cool friend in school or something. She just seemed so normal. I think the fact that she grew up on Long Island helped, she was relatively local.
As she grew up in our generation, she was just exposed to everything that we all would probably have been exposed to at the same time if we were in her situation. I feel like Lindsay is really who most of us would have ended up being if we were exposed to such things, if we were the ones in Hollywood doing that at that time. It at least makes me wonder if, faced with all of the same circumstances, how I would have turned out. She also always played a character that we could all see ourselves being, we could identify with all of her movies. It was kind of intriguing to see her go out and party with Paris and Nicole, and get skinny and super fashionable. Then the whole crime thing started, the upskirt/no panty flashing, and she started getting to be a hot mess. The whole Samantha Ronson thing too...random.

We are now at the point where we have seen she just blatantly understand our system of justice, and cries in court when really, she could be getting a worse sentence. And everyone seems to know as well as she does that we will not serve the whole time. I just want to see her, this time, being less of a hot mess. Like go chill at Betty Ford, get your life together. Ignore your dad, he's terrible. I really would like to see either a full force comeback, or her to fall into civilian life and mysteriously show up as a soccer mom somewhere in a few years.

You do you Lindsay, and get back in the game.

@23.5

A few days ago was my half birthday. I was thinking how much my life has changed since my birthday.

When I turned 23, I was completely at my wits end with my job. I didn't know what I would do at all. Right after my birthday, I started looking into going back to school. Within a week or two, I applied, and pretty much hitched onto the idea that I was quitting my job and going back to school. I knew about school in June, and had to stick it out until August to quit. In that time, I got in trouble at work for what I had written on an evaluation, and looking generally "mean" or "upset" all the time. I have actually gotten the "you look unhappy" a lot lately. I am not sure why, but I think my face might just look that way. I am a happy person. Maybe I am just thinking.

Either way, I look at then, and I look at now. My whole life has completely changed. I am getting a new job, I am waist deep into school. I am going to be making more money just by completing part of the training I am taking right now. By May I will have earning power, and a career I can take anywhere, which I may think about. I had probably one of the most amazing summers ever. I just feel like now I have it together, and I am going places, and it only took 6 months.

I also got 100 hits on my blog in one day yesterday, so I think I am kind of freaked out. And in celebration of my new job, I bought a few items. Mostly essentials. I think I will wait for my first check to get some more decadent things.

Well, I'm done waving my own flag for now. Y'all have a good weekend.

Fail?

I was reading emails when I parked at my apartment and saw that RueLaLa was having a Ray Ban boutique today. I all but sprinted into my house to get to my computer. They did not have anything worthwhile, and even some printed wayfarers (that I would have considered at that discount) were sold out already. Fail.



This is what I am looking for. I like the shape, and I need something different for a change. And it will add to my rotation of glasses. I will probably purchase these within the next few days because 1, I am a sucker for Ray Ban, and 2, I have a job now. More on that later too.

I kind of love this

"That’s why I pick and choose, I don’t get shit confused
I got a small circle, I’m not with different crews
We walk the same path, but got on different shoes
Live in the same building, but we got different views"

- "Right Above It" Weezy and Drake

My apartment.

I have lived, over the past three years, in two very student-ish, very typical living arrangements. For junior and senior year of college, I lived in a huge complex of townhomes devoted to students. If you can picture this, it had dirt and filth all over the complex. Parties of all sorts, trash all over the place. Beer being poured down stairwells for hours. I mean, not really, but it's nowhere that anyone who wasn't in college would choose to reside. Theoretically, it would be a cesspool.

Last year I lived in a wonderful house. It was a split level in a somewhat sketchy neighborhood near to my alma mater, it had partied hard in its time, and we inherited it in kind of bad shape. The landlord made several repairs, we kept it up and on point, and it really was the best place I have lived so far. Minus the weird part about the downstairs always being cold. But it could have been too hot all the time...so I will take it. You can always put more clothes on.

Anyways, this year we had trouble finding a house, it was stressful. I think I have somewhat addressed that in here. We settled on an apartment complex which is the most expensive place I have personally ever had to pay for, and also had great hearsay recommendations from several people I knew at work. My roomates know residents as well who seem to love it.

Somehow maybe we got the short end of the stick on this place. We have had every maintenance issue imaginable, bug issues. I found a roach in my bed. I have killed more insects in this one apartment than the two other properties described above, which isn't really what I expected to have to be doing. The maintenance staff is rude and always treats issues like the dishwasher not working as something that is your fault. Because obviously my roomates and I are a bunch of dishwasher and AC saboteurs. It's just kind of ridiculous.

Having worked in customer service in an arena people find aggravating, their bank accounts, I don't understand how these people handle their situations. Banks, houses, and cell phone customer service are probably the hardest and most essential. And car insurance. You have to take a certain degree of care with people, because they are mad, it's always super important, and most likely the customer doesn't always get it like the employee does.

At some point, the people who clean compulsively are not responsible for their bug problem. They probably didn't cause buildup in the dishwasher because of dish soap (really, has anyone else heard of that). I think the horrible thing is that it has gotten to be a situation where I don't want to deal with it anymore. I have had so many bad experiences it's like I just have to give up. Maintenance people come in and shrug their shoulders, I have even gotten attitude from the Orkin man at this complex. You're the Orkin man, you kill insects. As a woman who is age 23 and into clean things, you should understand your job is very important. I want my bugs killed now. What do people pay you for? I don't want an attitude.

I am just kind of fed up. Can't wait to move out of this place eventually. And yes, if any of you can believe it, University Suites was one of the cleanest and most cooperative places I have ever lived. Who ever thought that place would be one of my better experiences.

VOW - Bed Intruder Song

This is the one viral I will ever make VOW. But this song has been in my head for a week or more now. I also have talked to some people this week who hadn't heard it. So yeah, feel my pain. He also performed this last night on the BET awards, so I guess that makes it relevant in music as well.

The Bed Intruder Song - Antoine Dodson and the Gregory Brothers



hide ya kids, hide ya wife.

A deep thought, followed by other shallow ones.

I don't expect many deep things to go up on my blog, ever. Or come out of my mouth for that matter in real life conversation. In the past few years, as at least EC has attested to, I have turned from one of those people who is just plain uncomfortable with emotions, into one of those people who actually feels things once in awhile. A closer degree of normal. Along with my stone cold exterior, I had an interior to match that never quite went away. I had boyfriends and dated and talked to people that I didn't care about, they were boring, they annoyed me, but I felt like I needed some name to fit a role and fill in a blank once in awhile. These were people I got bored of, pushed away, straight up ignored, and was kind of my own little single at the same time. It has taken a lot of thought over the past week into what I wanted to say in this entry, whether I wanted to write it and get all...personal. But I decided to go there. A majority of it was like, the last post made it look like I was over someone because they knew other people. Let's just say, I am not (that) retarded. Shocked, I was, red flag, maybe; but it wasn't the end-all be-all.

This all started on my birthday, my 23rd birthday, which was on a Tuesday. I celebrated the weekend before with friends at the beach, and a 23rd birthday on a Tuesday felt really old and not exciting. I was planning pretty much on doing nothing. I took the day off so that people wouldn't put me in a bad mood at work on my birthday. I had work tests that Monday and had studied. That night this guy texted me and asked if I wanted to hang out, or if I was doing anything for my birthday that night. I'd talked to him that weekend when I was at the beach for the first time in a really long while. This was a person I had known since the first week of freshman year of college. He lived with my first serious boyfriend (aka my "married" stage) and randomly contacted me at the beginning of senior year. He always tried to take me out or whatever, but I always had something else going on. Over the years our friendship manifested as "that guy" I would talk to about like "what is my bf thinking" or "why is this girl so gay to me at social functions." When we were 21, he started buying me drinks at functions instead of his dates. So then I had like, a date buying me stuff, and him buying it. Looking back on it, such is my life, epic. When I was a senior and got in a big fight with friends and bf at the same time, he took me to Bojangles and promised to still be my friend, even if I had no others. Last year when I was out with a guy from work, Best, her future stalker, EC, and various fratstars I had known for the duration of my undergrad, he showed up with them and called me after to make sure I was okay and told me it was good to see me. It was like, I was at Cookout, my phone rang, and in my confusion as to why he was calling I probably almost got hit by a car and like left by my traveling party, not to mention burned my tongue on a french fry.

Anyways on the night of that Monday, we made plans to hang out. Drank a couple beers on my back deck at my old house (house reminiscent entry coming soon), and wound up talking for a long time. Subsequently since I was a wreck about turning 23 and moving into being "old" (I understand this was dumb) he was like "well I will stick around till at least midnight so that nothing happens."

This birthday turned into dating. Which turned into the ups and downs of another relationship I was not looking for, but I fell into. The month before I think I literally said to someone, "It would have to fall into my lap for me to want to date anyone right now." This whole picture was different though, it was the first one where I didn't see myself getting bored. I don't think I saw it not working out, and I think he kind of felt the same way. We brought up futures, places to live, jobs to have, trips to take. We had a break, bumps in the road, a crazy ex girlfriend situation, all of that. It wasn't until last weekend that I really realized it wouldn't work. I have thought all week since, what would have happened if I had just kept him as a friend.

It all started with a random comment he made at dinner about how "you and your friends were always too cool for me" which like, yeah in college I think I had deemed myself and my friends really cool at some point, but I didn't think that translated. I felt bad that I had made this friend think I was too cool at any point. It was a weird feeling. Beyond that, we had fun. Then circa late o'clock we were eating somewhere else before going home, and he got into these self-depreciative things. It pretty much started with "You're too pretty for me" and ended with "Well I forgot to tell you I am never getting married, so I'm sorry you've been wasting your time." I think my facial expression was something like that really confused face Kelly K. Bensimon had on RHONYC when Bethenny said something was seriously wrong with her (see image at top of entry). That was not the point. Ever. It was then really over when the waitress commented on my lack of eating my food/appetite and he says, "yeah, she never has an appetite." What. Blow me.

This whole thing goes back to that thing my mom and one of my best friends, CCF, always says, "If you're not happy with yourself, you can't try to be happy with someone else." Clearly, there is a missing link here. A growing up thing, experiences I have had in my one year working, and he is only starting now. It really hit me. There was speculation, but at that point it just was there. The elephant in the room sat down next to me and put it's arm on my shoulder. It's really sad to realize that this won't, and cannot work. I'm older, looking for other things, and apparently have done some sort of irreparable damage to this person's ego over several years. Or something that I was not aware of. And he really isn't the cocky bastard I always thought he was, and that's kind of what I look for. Someone's weird confidence to match mine. It's just a matter of getting along.

But I think the bottom line is that I miss my friend. The real "stupid girl" type shit I was doing was because this is a person I have known longer than most of my best friends, someone I could turn to with a problem or duck off with and have an epic two way conversation at a mundane event we were attending. Someone who bought me Bojangles one time for no reason and gave up their Saturday night to go to a movie and watch tv with me when I had the dreaded Mono. I am kind of hoping we can be friends. I don't know what friendly activities we can participate in, but hey, if he wants to acknowledge my presence in a room or group of people, that would be a start. Baby steps.

Anyways that's deep thoughts for you now. More shallow ones are on tap to follow.

no more Circle.

"The Circle" started at the beginning of senior year of college, by my good friend BKE and I. The concept is fairly simple, we attended a large state university with an undergraduate population of 24,741, according to Forbes Magazine in 2010. So like, everyone should not know eachother. You pass numerous nameless faces on campus each day, and you do not know them. You will never know them.

So how exactly did everyone we dated, knew, met, etc. know everyone else. It all started when I met a seemingly random guy one Thursday at Free Fun, you KNOW what I am talking about, and it turned out not only did he know a friend of a friend (who I am now friends with) from his high school, he also lived with four brothers of a frat in a house I was at every weekend sophomore year. The more and more we met people, we realized everyone was "in the circle." How did we get out of this circle?

Well the feeling of "circle" had subsided since graduating. I met people at work that I did not know from State, met people from other universities, they may have known people, but not to that creepy degree of roomatedom. Unfortunately for me, the Circle resurfaced this weekend. I have been dating someone who has, without a doubt, always been in "The Circle." We've known eachother since the first week of freshman year, our Greek chapters did everything together (I kind of started that...) and at this point it's one of those things where I've never not known him. I have to say though, I apparently didn't know everything about him. So we got to talking this weekend about college, and he mentioned that a couple years of his career were spent on the rugby team. (Some of you will not need an explanation) Basically he knew an ex boyfriend of mine, and his friends, fairly well from being on the team with them. In five seconds I realized my world was entirely too small, and I kind of (really, legitimately) wanted to vomit.

So here it is, my solution to this problem. I will date people exclusively that did not go to NC State. I cannot, because apparently we all know everyone. The nameless, faceless people on campus are clearly all mirages, and do not exist. I will not date people who, even nationally, were in the same organizations that exes were in. They all probably know each other. The nation is too small. I will also date nobody younger than 25. That's mostly a maturity thing, but also that is breaking the previous age range of people I know. If there are older people, it decreases the chance of them being in the Circle. Maybe also if I seek out people from the north.

I guess relocation is also an option.

Being a sorostitute.

I had a conversation with someone the other day, and somehow greek life and the fact that I was a part of it in college wound up coming up. I have a certain opinion on it, and I understand other people have different opinions on the whole system. The whole conversation lead me to google the word "sorostitute" because I have always found it funny. I think I have referred to myself as one on occasion as a joke. I mean if you're talking about yourself, you can use derogatory terms like that. At any rate, I found these couple of things to share...
The first is The Sorostitute Manifesto, which is clearly from a long time ago, or some state that's not really in the South or something. They have really odd things about wardrobe that did not reflect anyone I knew at all. Or maybe my undergrad was far classier. (I really find that unlikely)
The second one was In Defense of Sorostitutes, which is actually written by a girl at UGA who is actually in a sorority. Its mostly making fun of how the girls on her campus dress, but I really think that is more of how I view myself, sisters, and the Greek experience I had. And actually if you read her blog, she seems cool enough.

What I am trying to say here is, as in the first link, some people have the strongest, most negative opinions and emotions about Greek life. I understand being very negatively passionate about something that is a pivotal political issue, a belief, something a tad more important than a group of people that you were not a part of. I start to wonder if it's jealousy, or what exactly happened to make people hate it so much.

I actually dated someone who hated sororities, frats, would always tell me that I probably fit the stereotypes of those groups, called a friend a fratty douchebag within earshot. The first question I ask myself is "why did I waste my life with this person" and the second is "why DID he hate Greek life so much?" I would always try and explain all that Greek life taught me, like how to work with other people who have different opinions, how to leave politics aside and be friends with people regardless, along with the fact that some of my best friends were my sisters in college. It was an experience I wouldn't trade for anything. I perfectly understand people who didn't choose this path, and I am friends with plenty of them, but I am just not able to grasp this bitterness towards it. My only explanation? Jealousy. Why be so passionate otherwise? I don't hate people who aren't Greek, I don't get that mad about that. Why be so mad about people who are closed minded, when it's kind of closed minded to consider stereotype a reality?

I guess I just don't get it. I think I will continue to embrace my image and move on.

On my future.

Yesterday when I was blogging, I got a text soon after my last post from one of my best friends in CT who asked me what moisturizer I used.
I told her which I used for day and also added that I use Olay Regenerist Night Recovery Cream, and a Lancome product as well.
She texts me "you're going to be an anti-aging obsessed housewife haha"
I seriously love this. She is probably 75% correct, but I am starting early. I won't be Kim Kardashianing botox before age 30.

Hey, I could do worse, right?

Miracle product - No more dark circles.

Behold, with shitty picture quality, the Garnier Nutritioniste Skin Renew Anti-Dark-Circle Roller. A miracle product.

I had something like this in high school and early years of college that was essential. For some reason, probably because I deemed it old and useless, I threw it away at some point cleaning out my makeup bag. It was a Clean and Clear product, and I think I just never used it, or settled into me looking tired and ridiculous like everyone else in college. I am not sure. Sometime last year at work, riding to lunch in my stoner friends Mercedes, I noticed he had the same thing. I don't know why he had womanly cosmetics in his car, but hell, if it makes your dark circles less evident...
I realized with the hellish job I was doing and weird hours I kept, I could really use some of that stuff too. I searched high and low, Target, Walmart, drug stores, etc. This Clean and Clear product still existed, according to the internet. Just not in Raleigh metro apparently. All I could find was old lady cream for undereyes. I just wanted something with the caffiene and cooling sensation. I already have solid eye cream, olay regenerist, and moisturizers (preventative measures y'all). I did not need like, Hydrolyze or Hydroxatone, or the drugstore equivalent.

Enter, the Garnier roller thing. Had to get it. I used it this morning, exactly what I wanted and needed. It does have a bit of makeup tone in it, but the ball on the top is cold metal, and caffiene is one of the listed ingredients. With me possibly getting less rest sometime soon, this will be a staple. Thank you, Garnier for making my life easier. You have my seal of approval.

When you feel like you're watching your life on TV.

This past weekend I went to Boone/Blowing Rock to attend a Life Celebration service for the brother of one of my best friends. It was really an amazing ceremony and gathering, the perfect way for family and friends to remember a person. In such a beautiful place as well.
Growing up in Connecticut, I lived in a place surrounded by landforms. Everywhere you looked on the horizon was a taller hill or mountain. (Yet I was about an hour or a little more from NYC) I believe it is technically the foothills of the Berkshire ranges, but I could be very wrong. Anyways, driving on the highway, I noticed an increased presence of mountains and was just really taken aback. I really haven't seen more than flat land in about 4 years. I think the overall feeling of the week had me very detached, and when I saw something familiar I was very moved by it.


(via BlackBerry)

After the ceremony, I met some of my friend's high school friends. I always like meeting people's friends from high school if I only knew them from college, and hearing like names of the people who were hot or thought they were soooooo cool back in the day. I hope someday to introduce the couple of remaining northerners I keep in touch with to my southern friends. I think we would all get along.

The whole feeling of watching my life on tv really occurred when a local friend took us to the party of one of his friends in a house near downtown. I feel like we all walked in and were totally puzzled, confused, detached from that situation. It really reminded me of this one time in Greenville where I went to a similar party with LWJ and it was like that Stealer's Wheel song, "clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you." You're there, but you're separate from the situation. There were Marine and German flags all over the house, which really took me back to another part of my life as well, one that I don't like visiting. Overall it was just strange. We were all there, but at the same time, really just observers.

Back in Raleigh now, the weekend made me really want to go home again. I also was talking to one of my friends from home that I have known since preschool. She was saying there was a bar with my last name that they all frequent. I think that is a sign more than any that I should probably take some time soon to head back home. I don't think I could do cold weather again, living in a place where you have to start your car 30 mins before you leave home, but I could use a trip up there. I need my fill of landforms and elevation for the next few years.