It's Vegas, Betches!!!

So this weekend I went to Vegas. I go to school in Los Angeles and since I'm graduating in a matter of months (weeks sounds too intense here) I thought it was high time that I see what all the hype was about. My experience was unique because it was for a friend's birthday and her dad got us two suites at the Cosmopolitan, so I was definitely a little spoiled. But here's the good, the bad, and the ugly:

The Good:
Damn. There be some good food. It's expensive and disorientingly large in quantity, but hands down, the best part of my weekend (besides indulgent day drinking) was the food. I had some of the best chicken pot pie that I've ever had the pleasure of consuming, accompanied by a Mambo Italiano, which is a delightfully spiced Bloody Mary. Boom. I had $5 Margs on national margarita day. I indulged in the $50 buffet (line jump and bottomless mimosas included) which gave me a southern comfort course, a breakfast plate, an asian italian fusion (or so I have dubbed the combined plating of garlic bread and cucumber-avacado sushi rolls), and desert tasting. Juicy Fried Chicken. Creamy Mashed Potatoes. Perfectly Flavored Green Beans. Succulent Stuffed french toast. Fresh fruit. Rich Gelatto. Mini pockets of perfect Tiramisu. Mini Pecan Pies. Later on we got street tacos and finished the weekend with some delectable sandwiches. Leave it at this: Gluttony is my favorite of all the sins of sin city.
I should also give a shout out to dancing. Which was incredibly fun, especially at Surrender.

The Bad:
The best advice I could give you about going to Vegas is keeping the group small. I think, depending on your level of closeness, 3 or 4 is perfect. You'll all fit in one room. You can easily break into pairs. You can be really honest about what you want, do that thing, and easily stay in communication with all members of your party. I was there with 8, which is approximately double my recommendation. Keep it small. Keep it easy. Keep it fun. I whole heartedly believe in the "go big or go home" philosophy, but not when it comes to Vegas group size. May you avoid the anger, frustration, and passive aggression that plagued my Vegas adventures.

The Ugly:
People are SOOO mean. I think that everyone has spent a lot of money. To get there. To stay there. To gamble there. To drink there. To eat there. And because humans are apparently incapable of understanding what other people experience, particularly when they're shwasted on 64 oz of margaritas, they act obscenely towards others. I got cut off, pushed, spilled on, yelled at, and called out in just one night more than I have in the rest of my life combined. And it didn't end when I left! There was a white lexus SUV full of girls coming from Vegas (complete with "Party On Board" stickers. vomit.) who were literally ALL texting at a red light. When they looked up to notice that I had started to pull into their lane the driver honked, pursed her lips, and shook her head at me like I was an infant trying to lick a live outlet. Fuck You. Another girl, at the casino, trying to pull her friend away from my friend, shouted, "Come on! Leave the fucking grenades, let's go!" (for those of you who are as unfamiliar with MTV's television stylings as I am, a "grenade is a terrible term pulled from the set of Jersey Shore which means a girl who you would hook up with only to wake up sober and realize that she's hideous and a terrible human being). Great. Really killing it Vegas.

The whole experience raised one of the not-at-all-timeless conundrums of the twenty something's life style: At what expense am I forcing myself to be young, wild, and free? Because really, at the end of the day, wouldn't I have been happier hitting up an awesome club in LA (a probable small downgrade from Surrender and Marquee) and spending a night watching Arrested Development with my friends? I return to a valuable mantra: You do YOU. Don't try to be someone else. Don't go on trips or do things just because you're supposed to. Because guess what. The worst way to waste your twenties is by being miserable, waiting to do do things you want to do, or waiting for something better to come along. Get the giant margarita, but only if it's what you want. Do things on your terms. Try new things, because there's usually an implicit level of fun in the novelty, but don't force yourself to repeat frustrating things just because there supposed to be fun. If Vegas exists to teach us a lesson it is not a warning against over indulgence, it's a warning against indulging in what we're supposed to want. You do you. The rest will follow.

Peace Out Betches (More posts in the coming days, I promise.)

You Can't Buy Happiness, But You CAN Buy Ice Cream

Today I had a bit of a crisis. (we're getting meta here, a crisis within the prolonged crisis).

Basically one thing goes wrong (for me it was many small things to do with an event that I'm planning in April) and then everything goes wrong and my mind goes on dangerous tangents that are neither healthy nor productive and all of a sudden I'm sitting under a desk at my day job in the fetal position wondering "What the what. How is this me right now. How is this my life."

"How" is a great place to start. HOW did I allow myself to fall into this ditch (perhaps canyon is more apt?) of self pity and misery. And HOW did a missed phone call somehow devolve in to me freaking out over whether or not I can move back into my childhood home which coexists in the shadow of Manhattan and and the shadow of my parents' acutely un-self aware oppressive criticism. GAHHHH. How. How I ask you?!?

And yet, the how of it doesn't really matter. Because despite my certainty that the twisted staircase that brought me from a missed call back to square one on my what-to-do-next version of candyland  was completely illogical, it doesn't change the fact that it happened. And while I adore the lean-into-it strategy on the day to day, it did not seem logical to lean further into my emotional self destruction. And yet...

Maybe we just need to get it out of our systems. I'm entitled to freak out every few weeks, aren't I? Everything can never go right all of the time. It rarely goes right part of the time. SO maybe the old lean into it method is just what we need to do. Embrace the misery. The uncertainty. The desire to drown in a bathtub of Ben and Jerry's pints. Or beer pints. Or both...
Explore the depths of those doubts and frustrations only to discover that, as you originally suspected, you may in fact be cray. And the only solution to that is to keep on trucking.

This would have been a very different set of conclusions if I had written it during my fit of futuristic anxiety (named for its content, not the coolness of its methods), but I write it afterwards, in a moment of, for lack of a better word, clarity.

So here's to hoping that just as we make it through the smaller break downs, with ice cream and the help of our friends, we make it through the bigger ones. That's really all I have to go on right now so if you know better and it's bad news do me a favor and keep it to yourself.

Happy Anna Howard Shaw Day

So I know you were probably expecting a vindictive single feminist rant against the commercialization of an imaginary holiday, which, for the record, I could offer you in my sleep. But instead of harping on the implicit exclusion and terrible clashing that are woven into the fabric of Valentine's Day, I'd like to try and give the festivities a bit of their dignity back. (thank me later)

I don't normally need a reason to eat chocolate, or buy flowers, but if you're just throwing reasons at me...
You want more reasons to enjoy this day? Valentine's Day is a reminder to share the love. Love your family. Love your friend. Love yourself. And I know that in this modern state of awareness and relationship building you think that we don't need a day particularly designated for telling people you love them, but we have reminders for so many other mundane things. When my light butter popcorn is done in the microwave it's a solid minute before it stops beeping. I set three alarms to wake up on the daily. So you think a reminder won't come in handy?

Share the love! Don't hate today. Enjoy it. Lean into it. Treat yourself to some appreciation and make sure everyone in your life knows how much they mean to you.

Excuse me while I get down from my pedestal. Off to go enjoy some free candy.

Is This as Good as it Gets?

Short Answer:

God, I hope not.

Long Answer:

Four years ago I thought, College is going to be the shit.

And, in the most abbreviation summation of the past four years, it hasn't been.

College did not compensate for almost two decades of feelings of social inadequacy or exclusion. College has not made me cool or particularly interesting. And I don't want you to think that I haven't taken advantage of opportunities. I have a fully stocked resumes and more accolades than I feel I need...or deserve for that matter. And how terrible it is to constantly be trying to living up to the expectations of an insatiable monster. And how terrible is it to realize that the girl I can never make happy, the wicked witch of the east moved west, is merely an inhabitant of my mirror.

The unfortunate clarity of this realization raises the question, am I ever going to be happy with the objectively delicious meal set in front of me? Or am i destined to be dissatisfied for the rest of my days...

It's truly absurd to think that the best has already happened. I can look at it logically a million different ways and day, "no, I have oodles to look forward to. I'm going to graduate. I am going to have a real apartment with matching dishware. Only 70% of my furniture will be from IKEA." But as soon as I've allowed any logic to spare me from my own cynicism, I feel it. Like a black cat walking across my consciousness. And i think "yea, all that could happen. Or I could end up a destitute dog lady (there's literally no way I will own cats) living in my parents' basement." And somehow the faintest glimmer of fear burns all the beautiful possibilities that I could entertain.

This really has to stop. Because the obvious answer to my title question is "obviously not." The obvious answers are "it's as good as you make it," "the best is yet to come," "the best will always be the very moment you choose to live fully, and that moment should always be right now." But somehow my brain skirts around those obvious answers and instead decided to get lost in alley ways without street signs where even the locals can't really figure out escape routes.

And at these times, when I feel like I'm drowning and the surface of the water is flaming oil, there is a certain comfort in dwelling in the misery I'm certain I'll encounter in the near future. Perhaps because misery is something that I can easily will into existance. But the problem is that whether that reality with the the dogs and the basement comes to life or not, I know it's not what I want. And if I know that, I know that I can choose to be happy. Even if it's simply by avoiding the worst possible fate I've drafted in my mind.

Choosing to be happy. It's really that easy.

And that doesn't mean that I'll never freak out about the inevitability of my failure again. But it does mean that I have to believe that one day it will all be enough. That something will shift, probably within me, and I'll look out on my beautiful life more than three days in a row and feel like yea, this is right. I can make this work. Because if I don't believe that all of that is possible one day, then what's the point?

Confidence, Cohen. Confidence.

These wise words, spoken by Anna to Seth "founder of Geek Chic" Cohen, embody the OC's habit of projecting 20-something social issues onto the generally unbelievable teenagers of Orange County. (I rewatched this entire series over the course of several years, partially by accident, because my younger sister, who had command of the TV at all times that were not Gilmore Girls and 30 Rock, had a habit of falling in love with high school based 40 minute dramas only after they went off air). But my point, dear readers, is that Anna had a point. Not only was she an admirable bicoastal (and in my opinion very potentially bi-sexual), jet-setter, fashionista, high school sophomore, but she knew how to keep her cool.

Anna's independence makes her a believable 20-something, but her level-headed quippiness makes her an admirable one. So I'd like to dedicate this post to reiterating her message: Confidence.

I found this gem on Pinterest:

You Don't Have to Have it All Figured Out to Move Forward

This was the most life affirming piece of advice I have encountered in a long time. But I would like to amend this sage wisdom with the fact that you should keep moving forward, regardless of your knowledge (or lack thereof) of where you'll end up. As it is with a bicycle, moving forward is the only way to keep your balance.

Unfortunately, it's not that easy. Roadblocks on roadblocks on roadblocks exist between you and the huge blank canvas that is your next step. The first and most obvious would be that the canvas is blank. Not a whole lot of motivation...or so you thought! The fact that the canvas is blank should be ALL of your motivation! These are the most exciting years of your life. You have the most resources (that money in the bank, that hot bod, a biological ability to resist hangovers, those parents...) with the fewest things tying you down (I don't see no ring on that finger.) So go on an adventure!

Until you hit road block number 2.  Your Parents. Now here your pesky parents can represent friends, siblings, extended family, your parents' friends, or they can just represent your parents. But this is the roadblock that I'm really committed to committing arson on.

They will tell you that your ideas are dumb. That the printed book industry is going the way of grammar or that mermaids do not merit a field within marine biology.
They'll tell you that you need a plan. Moving back home isn't an option, pops? You're withdrawing money from my bank account to repay you for my graduation trip? You want me to find a paid internship in nonprofits? Y'know, that's so funny, I actually always suspected that you were INSANE.
They'll tell you that you haven't thought things through. They'll enumerate the dangers of urban city scapes and international backpacking and offer fraudulent wisdom on everything from tap water  to the mating habits of hostel dwelling New Zealanders in Germany. And they'll pretend that they're somehow helping you with their friendly advice (excuse me a moment, I just have to go grab a towel, the sarcasm was dripping SO heavily that it started puddling under my computer, and since the next upgrade is on me...). And maybe in some sort of latent rebellion way they actually are helping, but if so its quite indirect.

For the time being all the inquisition is doing is instilling in you a fearful and paralyzing sense of self doubt. The most vital reaction for you to have is to ignore them. Because despite that terrifyingly high horse from which they condescend to you, they were no better off when they graduated from CMU (Cave Man U) in 1400 BCE with a degree in heavy lifting just as that new fangled wheel was flooding the cart market. Seriously. It's going to be OK.

But here's the twist. It's not enough to just know that they're wrong. You have to say it. Like out loud. And while I'll give you a free pass on confronting the doubtful d-bags of the world face-to-face, you have to at least say it to your friends. Write it. Text it. Tattoo it. Owl it. But most importantly, BELIEVE that it's ok that you don't know where you're going, and have faith that the decisions that you're making in the name of your happiness are leading you closer to doors that you can unlock, and enter, and thrive behind.

Basically, to all the people who want to ask what my plan is, here's a preview:

Argo fuck yourself. Now excuse me, I'm going to drink lots of wine.

In It to Win It

I suppose it's true that every crop of adolescents-turned-adults commiserate similarly, swimming in their own self-important exceptionalism until the next group comes along and pushes them into adulthood. But I will make the self-awarely ironic (and admittedly incorrect) claim that we, las hermanas de generation Y, or Z, or AA or whatever initial we're at now, are a truly unique breed.

And it's more than our philanthropic tendencies, our technological aptitude, and our self-awareness (read: stylish humanitarianism, collective addiction to all things electronic, and our self indulgent analytics of the minutia of our lives). We are unique in our mixedness. Our layers. Our ancestry of teen angst. No other generation before us had the benefit of so many oscillations of pop culture. And now not only can we indulge in the cinematic genius of John Hughes while wearing high wasted jeans, but we can do both while ironically carrying a tin wonder woman lunch box and using a Polaroid camera. Go us!

But the real reason that we are a superbly particular generation of 20-somethings? Apart from the fact that we are supported by a highly individualized society, we actually have our 20-somethings to ourselves. Joan from Mona Lisa Smile proved that even the brightest young minds of the '50s were in it win it. And here "it" means "college" and "a husband" respectively. Skeeter from The Help was an Ole Miss Old Maid for graduating with a degree instead of a husband. The examples go on, but even up to contemporary pop culture we have the lingering sense that we were already supposed to have found our future hubby. In  How I Met Your Mother, Lily and Marshall, dating since the first week of college, are the relationship ideal while Ted's failure of a love life is a convenient expository device to tell us more about the gang's past and Barney's antics. And Robin's inability to nail down a man is conveniently written off by her decision to put herself and her career first and not have kids. How interesting. And by interesting, I mean rude.

It hasn't been all that long since we were allowed to enjoy our twenty-something years, at least the first few, guilt free. And there's a solid spectrum of indulgence with New Girl on one end and Sex and the City on the other. But regardless of the extent to which we let our freak flags fly, how wonderful that we have a flag pole to hang 'em on.

So tonight, raise a sinfully indulgent effeminate cocktail to the fact that we have these years to cultivate resumes and bachelorette pads before entering that sacred bond of marriage. Lots will be sacrificed on that altar (the ladder half of your nominal identity comes to mind, as does the financial independence won for you by the women of the 19th century). One day there will probably be grocery lists where juice boxes are for kids, not chasers, and dinner partys that aren't thrown ironically or as an homage to Mad Men. So before we get there, toast the fact that we're enjoying the most exciting of all life stages thus far. We're in it to win it.

And here "it" means "our 20s" and "life" respectively.

And by "Crisis" I mean...

OK. So maybe crisis is a little strong. Let's be honest, being a twenty something is nice tall glass of lemonade a solid 85% of the time. But for that 15% of the time when it's a sour sack of rotting lemons, I'm here. So when I say QLC (my fun new acronym for 1/4 life crisis), you can substitute the definition that is most useful to you:

1. Uncertainty

What overwhelms me and gives that fun and interesting new feeling somewhere between an asthma attack and a stroke is the complete blankness of all potential future landscapes. I have no idea what continent, much less what city, I'll  be living in in 12 months. I could be in the peace corps, I could be in a publishing house, I could be in grad school. Or I could be in my childhood bedroom trolling monster.com.
The point is not knowing the where means I don't know who i'll be spending time with, what I'll be doing, when I'll be doing it, or why (why I've ended up there, why they've gone against their better judgement and hired me...the why is a big one). And that degree of uncertainty is terrifying. Not butterflies in your stomach nervousness or loss of appetite anxiety but genuine, paralyzing terror that you have no idea what is coming next. It's like we're being forced to put our faces in a cannon barrel during a civil war reenactment training. Terror.

2. Confusion

So when you say "unpaid internship," could you please explain how that's different from slave labor? And when you say "well we never decided it was an open relationship," could you explain how that's not cheating? What do you mean books are no longer printed?
The world is an ever-changing, multi-layered metaphor of organizations and individuals designed to throw you off your A-game.
It's ok. It's at times like these that I repeat my mantra:

Be at one with the chaos of the universe

Trust that it will all work out. But, before you get to this point of clarity, you will obviously find yourself crying in a target aisle because you can't choose the right fabric softener scent. Just pretend that it's all part of the process.

3. Self Doubt

Confusion's partner in crime. If your parents tell you a million times that you should go to law school, and your teachers tell you, and friends tell you, and even strangers share their opinion every once in a while, you will at one point or another have a  moment of weakness when you start to believe them. Even though you know you don't want to be a lawyer. Even though you KNOW that you'll hate law school. You'll stop and wonder one day...are they right?

No. You're just experiencing one of the cornerstones of maturity: panic. Gravitating towards things that get referenced a lot in books and movies and that people tell you you'd be good at isn't the same as pursuing something safe or reasonable. It's just pursuing something that you don't want.

4. Fear

Fear. Fear of the unknown. Of commitment. Of actually going for your big dreams and falling short. Fear that all the good things have already happened? The sources are endless. The manifestations are rapidly multiplying. It's like rabbits. Now I bite my nails? Cool.

This completely false yet intense inclination that our pursuit of gainful employment slash financial independence slash sex and the city status social lives slash having-it-all-ness will either result in euphoria or homelessness is absurd. Accepting reality is not the same as settling.


I hope you found some of these alternate definitions useful, or at least I hope that they made you feel a little less alone. Now raise your box of Franzia to being one step closer to the rest of our lives. At least you made it through today.

A Penny Doesn't Get You as Far as it Used To

I, the modernist, am a young twenty something on the verge of one of the handful of terrifying precipices that face us young twenty somethings in this glorious decade that bridges teendom and genuine adulthood (which I'm defining here as the final rejection of Target furniture and mismatched dishware). Anyway, the dangerous ledge to which I refer is college graduation. Cue the cheesy but effectively eerie Vampire movie:

Bum bum BUUUM.

So, as any responsible young lass would do, I've started a blog. Job search? Study for the GRE? Two words: Yea. Right. In some ways this blog is a creative release from all of the academic work I have 13 weeks left to complete. In some ways it's a scrapbook of the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning, or the first days of the rest of my life blah blah blah. Whatever this era is, I want some documentation. But most overtly this is an outlet for the quarter life crisis that I suspect more than one of my readers has dealt with in one form or another over the past few years.

The quarter life crisis. An admittedly fictional social and psychological malady that manifests itself as anxiety, binge-drinking, and over sharing as a response to the mysterious and threatening future. Sometimes it leads you to exciting new places, like Morocco. And sometimes it leads you to the worst possible scenario, like a layover at an airport chili's in Ohio. But the crisis over the future is not the same as the future. The future will inevitably work out. Probably for the best. But Pt A to Pt B is a winding and dangerous road, filled with wild things (Maurice Sendak status) and pot holes and probably some pot. The journey is dangerous, made more so by our irreconcilable anxiety about what is coming next. But in reality it's like the field test in Men in Black. The things that look the most suspicious are the most reliable, and the things that seem the most innocent are pure evil.

Before I delve into this journey I should mention that I did not seek a degree or any alternative certification in psychology, sociology, anthropology, or feminist theory. I'm an English major, history minor. I love literature, world history, museums, and old music and my only qualifications to speak on the quarter life crisis is that I live my life in an intensely observant way and I'm experiencing the QLC on the daily. On both counts, I can only hope that something I share might help you, if not at least entertain or distract you for a while.

So whether you're joining this blogging adventure because you take pity on me, or you like what I have to say, or you like how I say it, or you find this to be a useful outlet for your newly risen angst against societal expectations, you are equally welcome. (though, full disclosure: anyone who is here primarily because they like my writing is my new favorite). I'm excited to get through this together. See what this year becomes. What this blog becomes. Because, after all, "I just want to bake a cake out of rainbows and smiles and all eat it and be happy. I have a lot of feelings." Indulge me.

XOXO Gossip Squirrel