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. 

In(vincible)

alcohol is dangerous

and maybe not in the way

that you're thinking

i'm not talking about liver damage or 

dead brain cells

or the depression of your nervous system 

or that time you cheated on someone

you liked a lot

or loved a lot

and blamed it on being drunk. 

alcohol's most dangerous side-effect
is delusional thinking. 

thinking you're cooler or tougher

than you really are.

so when i went to college in the bronx
and rode the subways late at night

drunk with friends

i felt slightly

invincible

an alcohol-induced complex 

of superhuman strength.

of course in the morning

i would be sober and realize

i was not cool or strong.

and i am always caught between being thankful

and disappointed

when hitting that after morning

reality check. 

but one night i found myself alone

underneath 168th street

at 2 am on a monday.

having separated from 

the others to head back to school

sober,

i felt encompassed by the fear

that alcohol so efficiently

numbs. 

finally feeling as scared

as i should have felt 

all those other times
at 168th street station.

and it's a good thing

a really good thing

that it happened. 

Cables of the empty elevator 

jolted me forward with a lurch 

sank from floor 2 to floor 1

and brought me deeper into earth

so i walked across

the concrete bridge

got to my platform

stood far from the edge

reluctantly looked up 

to find i wasn't alone

and saw i was the only one

who had ever had a home

I shrank into my clothes

started to count 1..2..3..

found i was outnumbered

nineteen bums to little old me

the old woman to my left

made a bench into a bed

draped in a white hospital gown

i prayed she wasn't dead

and the man to my right

his foot had an infection

swollen gray and pussing

pin-prick holes of past injections

and the boy opposite my platform

fell down onto his knees

screamed out in his anguish 

and clawed at the floor in need

and the three men grinning rotten grins at me

with hats pulled down low to hide their eyes

laughed at me and rubbed their palms together

so i zipped up my coat to hide my size

and the man running down the stairs

screamed at me in tongues

and banged his fists against tile walls

his face was old but he was young

but then i saw a man reading a book

and felt a pang of hope inside me deep  

but then i saw it was just a ripped up bible

and a man cant read when he's asleep

pigeons cooed in the mist over head

suddenly my horrors started to worsen

was it the station that was beginning to groan

or were those noises from a suffering person

forty minutes later it finally happened

my train came down the tracks screaming 

it halted at my feet and for the first time

its dirty metal seemed to be gleaming 

i ran like i was being chased

but no one was behind

i was no bums first priority

they had nothing to lose and nothing to find

stop chiefing on that.....poop?

Last month, I was really rooting for the end of the world. 
A renewal is in need.
The spring cleaning of our planet will be it's extinction.
For those of you who think that things are going good, just reminisce.   
-Bush was elected president...TWICE
-Snooki probably makes more money in one year than your entire family makes in a lifetime. But let's face it, she probably works harder than your family too. Snooki's vagina is in a hell of a lot worse shape than your fathers calloused hands.
Maybe your fathers permanently dirty hands are living timelines of hard work and years gone past, but Snooki's face is a walking charade of gullibility. She believed all of those tanning salons that mentioned the term "natural glow" in passing. 

-Justin Beiber is living proof that you can be a sex symbol/millionaire before your balls or voice has dropped. 
-WOMEN like chris brown even though he beat up a WOMAN. 
-Iowa has accepted gay marriage before New York
-Fish swim in oil oceans. 
But I think what most indicates this world's desperate need for renewal is its contemporary drug use. 
I think the term "if it ain't broke, don't fix," it applies to this situation. 
Heroin, weed, crack, cocaine, meth, prescription pills, acid, mushrooms, ecstasy and PCP are great classics. They're easy enough to find so that your unsuspecting suburbanite neighbor can discreetly  smoke/snort/swallow/eat/shoot drugs after the children are tucked in and it's cheap enough so that the homeless bum on the sidewalk can live the "high" life.  
But somewhere in-between paying for water, the creation of dub-step and fighting a war for a million reasons misunderstood by the general public, things started to get weird. Shooting up heroin in bathroom stalls and running from the "CIA" high on meth wasn't hitting the spot anymore. 
Desperate kids and adults are looking for new ways to get high/resorting to old ways that have previously been discarded by smarter druggies. 
New and unimproved ways to get high. 
1) Licking toad venom.
2) Smelling really hot poop
3) Eating rotten cheese
4) Drinking rubbing alcohol
5) Drinking the pee from people who had previously eaten hallucinogenic mushrooms. Why not just skip the pee step and eat the mushrooms first-hand? I wonder.
6) snorting bath salts. 
7) choking yourself.  
8) huffing moth balls
Sniffing poop to get high should act as a silent alarm/automatic world reset button. The second someone voluntarily stuffs their nose into a pile of feces and breathes in the scent, the world should explode, wait a couple of months, and then start over. 
So if you find your son hunched over with his face buried into a pair of his grandmothers soiled depends underwear, Don't yell at him. Don't hit him. Don't send him to the fmaily therapist. Don't even try and stop him. Just sit back, take a few deeps breaths and relax as you wait for the world to end.  

Groundhogs Day.

(original summary)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day_(film) 

Self-centered and sour TV meteorologist Phil Connors (Bill Murray), news producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliot) from fictional Pittsburgh television station WPBH-TV9 travel to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to cover the annual Groundhog Day festivities with Punxsutawney Phil. Having grown tired of this assignment, Phil grudgingly gives his report and attempts to return to Pittsburgh when a blizzard shuts down the roads. Phil and his team are forced to return to Punxsutawney and stay in town overnight.

Phil wakes up to find that he is reliving February 2. The day plays out exactly as it did before, with no one else aware of the time loop, and only Phil aware of past events. At first he is confused, but, when the phenomenon continues on subsequent days, he decides to take advantage of the situation with no fear of long-term consequences: he learns secrets from the town's residents, seduces women, steals money, drives recklessly, and gets thrown in jail. However, his attempts to get closer to Rita repeatedly fail.

Eventually, Phil becomes despondent and tries more and more drastically to end the time loop; he gives ridiculous and offensive reports on the festival, abuses residents, and eventually kidnaps Punxsutawney Phil and, after a police chase, drives into a quarry, evidently killing both himself and the groundhog. However, Phil wakes up and finds that nothing has changed; further attempts at suicide are just as fruitless as he continues to find himself awaking at 6:00 A.M. on the morning of February 2 with the clock-radio on his bedstand playing I Got You Babe, by Sunny and Cher. 

When Phil explains the situation to Rita, she suggests that he should take advantage of it to improve himself. Inspired, Phil endeavors to try to learn more about Rita, building upon his knowledge of her and the town each day. He begins to use his by-now vast experience of the day to help as many people around town as possible. He uses the time to learn, among other things, to play piano, ice sculpt and speak French.

Eventually, Phil is able to befriend almost everyone he meets during the day, using his experiences to save lives, help townspeople, and to get closer to Rita. He crafts a report on the Groundhog Day celebration so eloquent that all the other stations turn their microphones to him. After the evening dance, Rita and Phil retire together to Phil's room. He wakes the next morning and finds the time loop is broken; it is now February 3 and Rita is still with him. After going outside, Phil talks about living in Punxsutawney with Rita.

(My summary)

Negative and bitter college freshman, Dominique Turek, is sent from the Bronx to travel to Guilderland, New York to engage in the annual summer break festivities starting on May 18th 2011. Dominique grudgingly relocates back to Guilderland and then attempts to escape to just about anywhere else in the United States. Unfortunately, she has no job, no cash and five failed road tests trailing behind her. Dominique is forced to stay in Guilderland for the summer due to her laziness and inability to get her act together.  

Dominique wakes up to find that she is reliving May 18th 2011 day after day after day after day. The day plays out exactly as it did before. No one else seems to be aware of the time-loop. At first she is confused, but, when the phenomenon continues, she decides to take advantage of the situation with no fear of long-term consequences: she learns that her neighbor doesn't like it when cars park too close to his house. She earns money by pulling weeds for her father dressed like a lesbian in front of Route 7. She cannot drive anywhere because she does not have a license and would be thrown in jail if she sat anywhere in a car besides the passenger seat or the trunk. Her attempts to get closer to having an eventful summer repeatedly fail because of her proximity to the worlds most average capital in the world, Albany.

Eventually, Dominique becomes despondent and tries more and more drastically to end the time loop; she gives ridiculous and offensive criticisms of Albany and its residents. She decides to plan an escape route that will land her anywhere over 50 miles outside of Guilderland. She sees herself behind the wheel of a car gunning it towards Vermont or Colorado or Georgia. Police chase her until she drives into a quarry, evidently killing both herself and her small dog she brought along. However, Dominique wakes up to find that nothing has changed; Dreams about escaping persist but her plans to run off are just as fruitless as she continues to find herself awaking at 1:30 PM every afternoon with her t.v blaring episodes of Roseanne. 

When Dominique explains the situation to fellow Albany residents, they suggests that she is a bitch who needs to stop complaining about her hometown. Curious why people are so defensive of this place, Dominique endeavors to try to learn more about Guilderland, building upon her knowledge of the town each day. The experience has taught her close to nothing. She has re-learned that Albany/Guilderland is as shitty as a place as she previously believed it to be. She uses her negative attitude to piss off as many people as possible. She also spends her time eating, going to the bathroom and reading horoscopes.

Eventually, Dominique is able to de-friend almost everyone she meets during the day, using her experiences to make passionate Albanites even more defensive of their hometown. She crafts a blog on the summer vacation festivities, or lack thereof. People become so irritated by her constant complaining that most readers close out of her blog and suddenly turn into Guilderland patriots.

After dominique's 5th grilled cheese, she retires to her room, the spot in her bed still warm and sunken in from having laid in it right before the cheese melting began. She wakes up the next morning to find that the time loop is still in action; it is still May 18th and everything is still the same. After going outside, Dominique talks to herself because she is slowly losing her mind. She then goes back inside because it's too hot out.