Till the Fat Lady Sings.

For most of my high school career, I maintained a respectable weight of 108 pounds. I would listen to passive-aggressive comments from other girls around my size such as, "OMG I HATE YOU! YOU'RE SO SKINNY." Truth be told, I thought those girls were annoying. I thought their insecurities were annoying. I thought that their bagged lunches containing a ziploc full of almonds and salad drizzled in transparent dressing was stupid. If I ever had the displeasure of coming face to face with my food Nemesis, the salad, I'd disguise it beneath bleu cheese or ranch. Anything thick enough to hide the fact that I was eating a bowl of glorified grass and leaves would do. Eating salad made me feel vulnerable, like a deer. A real herbivore.

I laughed at the idea of the freshman fifteen. And inside the cruel and underdeveloped part of my brain, I laughed even louder at those who had gained it. But now, sitting here on the couch watching The Colbert Report, things don't seem so funny. My weight now fluctuates between the hideous numbers of 124 and 127. I am living, breathing proof that willpower is not something people are necessarily born with.

Like an honest man using the insanity plea, I murdered a small part of my body with no recollection of the event ever having taken place. During an out of body experience, I must have boiled pasta, made Alfredo sauce, cut up a block of cheese and baked a lemon cake. 
After eating, I looked down and panicked slightly. I was pregnant, pregnant with the masticated slop of any and every food containing cheese or carbohydrates. I looked like a girl 5 months pregnant at her junior prom trying to hide her baby bump from peers and parents and priests. Or was it more severe than that? Did I look like a starving child who's stomach was expanded with the bloat of bacteria? Probably not. There's no mistaking me for a skinny adult anymore, let alone a starving African child.

Members of Alcoholics Anonymous use a term called rock bottom to describe the moment they hit their absolute lowest point. The other day I went to take a shower and a Ruffles potato chip fell of of my bra. There was another one stuck to my boob. I prayed that this was my rock bottom.
Ignoring all of my natural instincts, I put on my $12 canvas sneakers from Urban Outfitters and went for a run on a nearby bike path. 'Went for a run' is kind of a misleading term for me to use. It might make you think that I actually ran. I came to the shocking realization that I could run for no longer than 3 minutes at a time. Any longer and I experienced shortness of breath, tightness in my chest and nausea. I assumed that the chest tightness was a result of my sports bra. Like a Las Vegas showgirl in need of a quick change, I ducked behind a bush, stripped off the evil bra and continued to run in a tank top with a built in bra that I can only assume came from a Limited Too. The tightness was gone but that didn't change the fact that I was still very out of shape.
I started to run only when people were watching so that they wouldn't think I was weak or unworthy of the bike trail. Once out of my element (the couch) and onto the running trail, it surprised me to see how much I cared what people thought of my physical (in)ability.

While staggering towards the end of this hellish run, I noticed a used up band-aid that had been stampeded into the ground. I had immediate sympathy for it. The band-aid was just another permanent fixture in the concrete, something for runners and bikers to ride over or look past. It didn't belong on the trail. It belonged on someones pussing knee.
I half-ran, half-walked back to the opening of the bike trail. The whole time I was very careful not to step on any band-aids. It's important that you don't step on your equals.

The importance of digestion.

Rushing the stage in a pink spandex body suit in 7th grade for a dance recital was embarrassing. Having my dad ask the orthodontist if my Herbst appliance was pronounced Herpes was embarrassing. Having too much wine and audibly farting on a stranger was embarrassing, (and classy.) Oddly, none of these things embarrassed me as much as they should have. 
I've always felt that my immediate family fit the term, "Black Sheep." We're weird. We don't go to church. I don't own a polo from American Eagle. Everything is a dramatic event worthy of tears and screaming followed by, "I didn't mean it's" and "let's start over's."
Needless to say, it's kind of hard to embarrass a girl who's father used to practice his nun-chuck skills in the front yard every Sunday wearing nothing but neon yellow daisy dukes. However, something happened last weekend that was so utterly shocking and disturbing, that I could only really make out one very foreign emotion. That feeling brewing and stewing and boiling like hot shit soup inside of me was none other than: embarrassment.  

Like any other 19 year-old girl or boy, I believe the drinking age should be lowered so that it'll be easier for me to get into bars and buy alcohol, plus, alcohol really brings out the best in me.... Sometimes I talk with other 19 year-olds about how stupid the current drinking age is and how we should all be allowed to drink. I was probably on one of these douchey rants when I went to visit my older sister in Brooklyn last weekend with my friend Jenn. My sister, her friends, Jenn and myself went out for a late dinner around 11 or 12. I demolished what looked like an entire cow packed into one dense piece of burger meat smothered with bleu cheese, mayonnaise, ketchup and french fries that I'd stuffed in there for safekeeping. Growing up with that whole, "There are starving kids in Africa" mentality, I finished every last bite. 
After giving myself about six minutes to digest, we all walked over to a bar. I think all underaged kids trying to get into a bar worry about that terrible possibility of getting turned away. You can try to appear confident in your slutty bandage dress and forever 21 heels and pale pink hooker lipstick and the "my friend blew the bouncer, were getting in for sure" speech, but there's no fooling anyone, you're just as scared as the rest of us average-looking non-whores. 

I was staring at my thick plastic Maryland I.D trying to remember my new birthday when I became aware that there was no bouncer and I could just walk right in. Me and Jenn walked into the bar looking like two young girls who got lost on their way to a candy store or a late-night high school class. My sister asked me what I wanted a shot of. Trying (and failing) to sound casual, I told her to surprise me. She brought me and her friends each a shot of Jameson. It was safe to say I was scared immediately. I can barely stomach cherry flavored cough syrup. And for the first time, there was no chaser. No stupid girl telling me what chaser works best and why and how she found out. No cranberry vodka or rum and coke. No cliche college asshole drink that I was so used to. 

The shot of Jameson in my hand looked like a double shot, or a triple, or a quadruple. In reality it was probably just a single. And in one casual motion, everyone around me raised their glasses and threw the shot back like it was a glass of Hawaiian punch. 
4 seconds after I took the shot, I realized I was doing the exact same motions/sounds that my dog does in the moments before he's about to puke. However, the one thing my dog didn't have was hands, and I intended to use mine. Quickly, I threw my hands over my mouth to form a puke seal and turned to look for an escape plan. But as most plans seem to do, they fell through. I was face to face with a group of 6 or more of my sisters friends. They stared at my panicked face in confusion and in one quick lurch, I projectile vomited all over them, the floor and myself. My puke seal backfired on me. The gaps left between my fingers forced the puke to shoot out even more violently. It looked how a hose would look if you strapped a bunch of rubber bands over its opening and then turned it on full pressure. 
Confused, drunk and possibly tripping on mushrooms, they stood there for a second half-smiling, half-computing and half-disbelieving the previous event that now left them covered in a strangers vomit. With puke covered hands, I tapped my sister on the shoulder and casually told her that I puked on the floor. Before she could register what I had just told her, I ran to the bathroom to clean up and then outside to a corner store with Jenn. Neither of us really smoke, so I guess it's a mystery as to why we both chipped in to buy a pack of Winston Reds for $12.50. Like two wannabe cowboys, we stood on some street corner in Brooklyn smoking Winston Reds and laughing about the first time that I was ever really embarrassed. 

Love is Blind; and Annoying

Dating has a tendency to bring out the worst in people. My feelings on relationships are similar to my feelings on religion; I don't hate it, I just hate peoples (mis)interpretations of it. Obsession is confused with love. Possessiveness is confused with caring. Doggie-style is confused with passion. Everyone is very confused. 
Love really is kind of like a drug, but not in any of the fun ways. Being in love/in a relationship has the ability to make people appear psychotic, paranoid and out of control. Instead of scrounging around for bits of leftover crack rock, people in relationships are scrounging for suspicious text messages, "i love you too's" and bouquets of flowers, (just because.) 
The first step to not embarrassing yourself is knowing what not to do in a relationship.
My own personal pet peeves of the average couple:
The back pocket hold: The female puts her hand into the males back pocket. The male puts his hand into the females back pocket. This forms an ass-based body lock and can usually be witnessed in Crossgates Mall. 
The pinky hold: For some people, holding hands is just too tiring. To save energy, some couples just hold onto each other by loosely intertwining their pinkies. This too can be witnessed in Crossgates Mall. For a guaranteed sighting, go to the food court. 
Letting the boy drive your car: Unless YOU ASK HIM to drive your car, this is the first sign that you've become someones bitch. If he knew how to drive at all, he wouldn't need to drive your car because he would have a license/his own car to drive. 
PDA: It's not cute, everyone hates it and it doesn't make people think you're irresistible to one another. If anything, it makes me wonder if you're boyfriend has erectile dysfunction/is gay or your girlfriend has some sort of dry vagina disorder. If you're confident with yourself/sex life you don't need to put it on display by trying to prove something. It makes you look stupid and it makes me wonder if the only action you're getting is in front of a group of strangers.
Liking something because they like it. If your boyfriend likes to eat turkey sandwiches and watch anime porn, you don't have to follow in his footsteps. He gets to date himself for the fifteen minutes a day that he's masturbating. The other minutes of the day are dedicated to dating a real live girl who isn't trying to be his clone. 
Facebook relationship status': Not understanding why so many people are pretending to be husband and wife. Liking someone a whole lot isn't the equivalent to being married. 
Bragging: Telling me how hot your mans body is or how he loves it when you stick a couple fingers in his ass is not something I particularly care about. 

Laps seats: Don't sit on your lover's lap when there are chairs available. It's weird and cuts off circulation to the legs.
Housing: It's not uncommon for couples dabble in the real estate of each others assholes. They sometimes build small homes in there. Good luck trying to hang out with a friend who's got a new boyfriend. You'll have to wade through a lot of literal shit to see her.
TMI: I don't want to know what songs you listen to while you're having mediocre sex in his parents house. It really ruins the song for me. 
Pure and unadulterated dysfunction: If you're on again off again, do us all a favor and just stay off again. 
If you're confused about any of these annoying relationship characteristics, just go to crossgates food court, sit nearest to the taco bell, and observe.