Choose Joy.

Hi.

We've never met, 

But I'm hoping I look at least a little bit familiar.

Because I'm you. 

In ten years.

Just checkin' in. 

Be Poor. Look Rich.

I know you wouldn't guess by looking at me in my usual uniform of saggy-butt jeggings and man sweaters, but I've actually been hugely into fashion since I was like, 13 years old. Reading fashion magazines, stalking style blogs, and putting together outfits from the crap in my closet clears my head and brings me immense joy. There's only one problem: I'm the cheapest cheap-ass in the history of cheap-assery. If it can't be found at Goodwill or on the sale rack at Marshall's, I'm not finna buy it. I have thus had to devise a few strategies to look like I have money to spend on clothes when I am actually struggling to afford a diet that isn't composed solely of condiments. I am here to share those tips with you. 

The Plebeian Guide to Dressing Like a Patrician

1. Geometry

--> Eleonora Carisi, http://www.joujouvilleroy.com/
Sharp lines are....sharp. A lot of high-end designers colorblock their pieces with clean, contrasting lines like Eleanora's dress, or play around with shapes. A full, A-frame skirt? YAS. A boxy blouse? OMG GIMME MORE. A structured bag? TALK DIRTY TO ME. A blazer with crisp, defined edges? BRB, FASHION BONER. 


2. Soft, Delicate Fabrics and/or Details

--> Jenny, http://www.goodbadandfab.com/   
Since the beginning of society, the aristocrats have sat around on their chaise lounges drinking fine wine and wearing silk, chiffon, and lace while the working class have labored on in heavy cotton and polyester coveralls. Before you buy something, close your eyes and stroke it sensually. Ignore the other shoppers who are looking at you funny. Does it feel like something you want to wrap yourself up naked in? Then you should probably buy it. Delicate, feminine details also give an item a pseudo-bourgeois appearance. The thin, criss-cross straps on Jenny's satin dress are soooo prettttyyy. And that pearly blush color with her olive skin and shiny black hair...want to tooooucchh. Part of looking rich is people wanting to touch you all the time. Get used to it. 


3. Monochrome

--> Veronica Popoiacu http://www.bittersweetcolours.com/ Wearing all one hue looks fresh and streamlined. It gives you more freedom to experiment with fun shapes and accessories without being too busy or breaking up your body. If you're a n00b you can start with wearing all black or all white, which is always super fly. Advanced level: wear different shades of the same color like Veronica. 

Bonus: matching separates. Because it gives the impression that you could afford to buy a whole outfit at once. #obsessed #goddess #wantthisoutfit #gimmedat

Shea Marie http://peaceloveshea.com/

4. Mixin' Prints

--> Nancy W, http://www.adoretoadorn.com/  Ever opened a high-end fashion magazine and it just kind of looks like the editor barfed a bunch of random prints onto the page but it looks good anyway? You can barf prints too! You're kind of allowed to go off-book on this one, just use your intuition. I usually follow two rules when mixing prints to avoid looking like a wacky-ass kindergartner:
a) Stick to a general color scheme. The two prints you mix should have at least one color in common. Nancy is going with black, and it pulls together the heavy paisley and the whimsical dots perfectly. 
b) If you are going bold with one print, be conservative with the other(s), e.g. If you're doing big florals do small stripes and vice versa. 






5. Statement Bling 

--> Aileen Belmonte http://aileenclarisse.blogspot.com/ Statement jewelry is a mind trick. It basically says "because I am bold and ostentatious and contain a lot of material, I must be expensive." Wrong. No one is going to get close enough to your statement necklace to see that it was actually made in China and is turning your neck green, so march into Forever 21, buy that $14 oversize bauble that has a couple rhinestones missing (negligible), and let it do the talking. 


 6. Cover Up
 

--> Viktoriya Sener http://www.tiebow-tie.com/ Been puttin' in the squats at the gym and want to show off your lean legs? Do it! Do you have flat, toned abs that you want to share with the world? First of all, supes jelly, second of all, go for it! Are you proud of your shapely boobies? Push dem girls up! But do it tastefully. In fashion, the focus should be on the clothes, not the body underneath them. Unless you're at the beach or a sorority house, there is no need for every square inch of your skin to be exposed. If your titties are about to escape from their assigned seats, it just makes everyone nervous. I love a cute pair of shorts, but FTLOG, can be PLEASE be done with shorts that show your thutcrack (the crease where your thigh ends and your butt begins)? I'm not saying you can't be flirtatious; showing an inch-wide strip of your tummy can be cute. I love it when you can see the edge of a pretty bra peeking out. And if you ask me, I think the full midi-skirts that cinch at the waist like Viktoriya's are pretty much the sexiest item of clothing on the market right now. 
7. Break Rules

It's a dead giveaway that you don't know how to dress yourself if you rigidly adhere to outdated fashion rules. Yeah, it's kind of hit or miss (I've had a LOT of misses), but you never know when you could stumble upon an amazing trend! Yes, you CAN mix colors that are close to each other on the color wheel like fuchsia and red or navy blue and black. Yes, you CAN wear black shoes with a brown belt. And if you still think you can't wear white in the winter, get back to the Depression Era where you belong. 

Happy shopping pleebs! You might even have some money left for ramen! 

Girls Should Fight.

.....


I had every intention of writing a funny post tonight, but unfortunately my humor has taken a very dark twist lately and usually offends more people than it entertains. Also I'm just not that funny. So I'm defaulting to my regularly scheduled feminist diatribe, which is sure to evoke equal parts eye-rolls and fist pumps, depending on what your personal stance on feminism is. At the end of the day, I honestly don't have two rat's asses to rub together about what anyone else thinks about feminism, I know where I stand on it. And I have some heavy artillery stored up.

People have a lot to say about what women "should" do. I think there are only two things a woman should absolutely do:
1. Know how to do a fierce smokey eye
2. Know how to fight

And I don't mean in the figurative sense, I mean they should literally learn how to throw punches. Let me explain. 

I started taking Thai boxing lessons about four months ago. I grew up watching my mom fight and had never really had any particular interest in martial arts, but I was in the market for a new hobby and it sounded awesome so I jumped in. Enthusiastically and kind of recklessly. 

The best decisions I have made in my life have been on a whim, and this was no exception. Fighting for four short months changed me in a way I wasn't even cognizant of until a couple of weeks ago when I had one of the most bizarre experiences I've ever had.

I was sparring. With a guy. It was only my second time ever sparring and he was much more experienced than me. In short, he beat the crap out of me. I wanted to see it as a positive experience, because I believe that training with more experienced athletes is how you improve, but I honestly just felt totally powerless. All I could do was stand there with my gloves in front of my face and take blow after blow after blow.



My poor sparring partner was obviously unaware that he was accidentally blowing right through some kind of MASSIVE emotional barrier. After a few minutes of taking hits, an unearthly revelation went through my entire body from sweaty ponytail to dirty sticky toes like I had been struck by lightning. 



Hot diggity damn. I can hit back. 

So I did. And it was amazing. And terrifying. I unleashed every blow that I had ever absorbed, buried and hidden on this dude. All the pain, rage, and torment I had been saving up over the course of forever was just spilling out all over the mat and it wanted to drown. F**king. Everyone. For a second, I was some kind of creature. I was a phoenix.

When the bell rang and the round ended, I broke down. I cried like a little girl. In front of everyone. I was totally inconsolable. And I had no idea if what I was feeling was positive or negative. A couple people asked me if I was okay and I didn't even know how to answer. One phrase just kept repeating in my mind: I can hit back. I can hit back. I can hit back. 

My brother used to beat the shit out of me, and that was supposed to be normal. Big brothers are supposed to beat up their little sisters. It's just a thing that happens. When he would come after after me, I would just cover my eyes and hope that if I couldn't see him then he would go away. That didn't really ever work. I distinctly remember the only time I ever thought to hit him back, I chickened out at the last second and just kind of tapped my fist on his eye socket. He laughed like a maniac. He could hit me, but for whatever reason, I felt I wasn't "allowed" to hit him. I just had to cover my eyes and wait for it to be over and then run to my room so he couldn't see me cry. Because responding with emotion was just an invitation for further torment.

Girls. You can hit back.  

You have spent your whole life absorbing blow after blow after blow from men who often don't even realize they are hitting you. When you try to fortify yourself against these blows, your male boss reprimands you for "trying to be too much of a hardass." Yes, that actually happened to me like, four days ago. How do you even possibly begin to describe to a man what it is like to constantly be in a state of submission, powerlessness, silence, and apology? And now he thinks he can tell you that it's unbecoming of you to defend yourself? DAFUQUE. ACTUALLY.  

Girls. Let's stop "defending." 

You don't need "self-defense." When you call it self-defense, you are sending a signal to yourself and to everyone that you are fundamentally the object of attack. Be the attacker. Show the world that if it hits you once, you will hit it back two, three, four times. 

Girls. Learn to fight.

It can rewire you like it is rewiring me. Throw punches and kicks for a few hours a week and you will realize that it feels natural. It feels right to fight. Nowhere has it been proven that just because you aren't a slave to testosterone like your male counterparts that it's unnatural for you to be the aggressor for once. Become a fighter in the gym and you will become a fighter in your life. 

I honestly feel bad for the dudes in my co-ed classes. It must be really awkward to spar with a chick and not know whether you should hit her or take it easy. I'm saying, go ahead and hit her. In addition to having a higher pain threshold in general (science, bitch), she's most likely been a human punching bag for most of her life and can take a hit a helluva lot better than you can. 

Just don't be surprised when she socks you two for every one.

The Thing and I

One out of every ten people has it, so why why WHY can we still not talk about it?

The Thing stirred I was 14. I think the first stage was just becoming really aware of the seasons. Something about the passing of time. Days getting shorter or the air getting colder or something. That and the amount of time I spent alone. They were prime conditions for its evolution. 

"What's the matter? You look sad."
 I...don't think anything's the matter.  Sad? I do? Why do people keep asking me this? Is The Thing showing? How did it get outside? No, no one's hurting me. No, no I'm doing this to myself. I think that makes it okay.

I always shrugged when I said that. I've always had a knack for minimizing problems. It makes me look like I'm stronger than I am. Probably because if I can convince someone else, I can convince myself.

"I should have been a dancer."
"I always thought I would have been good at that too." 
It was just a statement I made as she was leaving and I was facedown on the rug drowning in a puddle of tears and snot. In retrospect, it was probably a cry for help. Not sure. 

The night The Thing almost won, she held me and sobbed hysterically. Saying that she should have known, she was my mother. How did she not know.

And I just laid there, staring up at the winter moon and feeling The Thing pressing into my chest. No, momma, you shouldn't have known. I didn't even know. 

"It's getting bad again. Might hurt myself. I think I need help."
Text to mom. She understood by now. She had always had some kind of a Thing too.
 
But I never wanted to hurt myself. Not my body at least,  the body was innocent...and besides, I've done enough hurting already. I just wanted to put The Thing down, and if the rest of me had to go with it...collateral damage is collateral damage.

The point is not to make yourself hurt. No one wants to hurt. The point is to rest, finally.

"Do you have anxious thoughts that keep you up at night?"
 Well God knows I'm having anxious thoughts right now, Doc. White coat hypertension. I hate that cuff squeezing my arm. 
But no, not when I'm trying to sleep. I'm very good at sleeping. Too good at sleeping. Not because it's restful, kind of the opposite. I love the dreams. I don't remember any of the images but I remember the feelings. Burning, white hot anger. Release. Elation. Joy. Ebb and flow. Light and darkness. Fire and purple soup. Imploding and rebuilding.

In my dreams, I'm a phoenix. Then I roll out of bed and I'm so very tired. And I'm not a phoenix anymore, I'm like, a rubber chicken. A rubber chicken with some seriously anxious thoughts.

What are these things I diligently swallow? They tie up The Thing, but they tie me up too. They make the bad feelings stop, but I can handle bad feelings. I've had a lot of practice. I don't want to not feel bad things, I just want to be able to feel good things too. I just want to be a fucking phoenix, okay? 

"Just go take care of it."
The Thing requires a lot of maintenance. Three weeks into a new job and I was lying on the bathroom floor, pulling my sweatshirt hood over my eyes, trying to wrangle The Thing so I could get back to work. You don't get sick days for this kind of thing. If you ask for a sick day because you're too "sad" to work, you get fired for not being "mentally tough." 

That day, I lost against The Thing. My boss let me "go take care of it." 

"I mean, I don't know what's going on, but maybe you should take care of it."
As if I was voluntarily letting The Thing run rampant. These are not the words of a concerned friend. More patronizing than anything.

Do I really deserve to wonder why he chose her over me? She's the TEMPLATE for a basic bitch and I'm awesome, but she doesn't have a Thing hanging around her neck. And three's company.

Please, sir, if The Thing was really everything, why did it take you four years to mention it? You knew. I knew. Everybody knew. Everybody sees and some comment on "that dark thing you have about you." Why did we talk about everything else, but not that? 
 
For the record, I AM "taking care of it." I have been singlehandedly taking down The Thing in private silence, because no one wants to talk about it. No one wants to see. And I have granted you all that privilege.
 
But if you have made it to the end of this, congratulations. You have now come face-to-face with someone else's dark, dirty Thing and you're still alive. That wasn't so bad, was it? No?

So why are we still not talking about it?  

Welcome to The Grind: 12 things that happen when you start working full time

Welcome to The Grind. 

On The Grind, you have two options:
1) Work
2) Die

Should you choose work, the transformation into a wage slave is rapid. Before you know it, the boring, passionless, slightly neurotic, "responsible" adult inside of you stirs from its deep slumber, rubs its eyes, and rolls out of bed to greet another weekday with perfect apathy.

Things that happen when you start working full time:

1. You find common ground with people who are in a different walk of life. You most likely work with people who are not all your age.  And you never thought you would be sitting in a swivel chair having a conversation with your boss about maternity clothes. But it's happening, and you're shocked to find that somewhere deep, deep down, you actually have opinions about maternity clothes. Go figure. 

2. You hit the coffee shop at peak hours. You and the rest of the nine-to-fivers check your watches and shift anxiously from foot to foot, peeking ahead to the front of the line where a bunch of youths cutting class are ordering impossibly complicated frappucinos. Tensions are running high and everyone needs caffeine.

3. People assume that because you have a job, you can afford fun things. That's a funny joke. After rent and bills and groceries and parking tickets (f*** you, LA Parking Enforcement) and locksmith fees from that one time you got locked out of your apartment, you have about -$40 of disposable income a month. That is a negative number. Which means you will be calling Dad this month. So no, I can't go to Magic Mountain this weekend. Sorry. I guess I'll just stay home and vacuum immaculate lines into my carpet. 

4. You get rid of all your crop tops and jorts and sundresses. You pretty much alternate between work clothes and comfy pants with drawstrings, so you really have no occasion for all those cute digs. Unless you want to look super fly when you go to the laundry room.  

5. You have no idea how to meet people. You basically only ever interact with your coworkers, your clients/patients/customers, Ruben at Ruben's tacos, and your neighbor who walks his dog at the same time every day right when you're getting home from work. Meeting new people just seems like more work on top of the 8 hours a day you already do. 

6. The more you work, the more you get asked to work. 
"Hey, can you come in on Saturday for a few hours? You came in last Saturday, so you obviously don't have any standing commitments."
"I--"
"Great. See you Saturday."
"...ok."

You hardly ever put up a fight because money. And also because...

7. You have no idea what to do on weekends. You have so little free time during the week that getting suddenly flooded with 48 hours of uninterrupted freedom totally wigs you out. By midday on Sunday you can be found lying on the floor in the middle of your apartment thinking about how weird knees are and debating on whether or not you should go for a third bowl of cereal. You always go for that third bowl. 

8. Seasons mean nothing, but Wednesday means so, so much more than it used to. Especially living in LA, where there is very little seasonal variation, you have no means of measuring time. Every day is essentially identical to the one before it. Is it March or is it October? Does it matter? All that matters is that it's Wednesday, and I am 3 hours and 17 minutes from being exactly halfway done with this week. 

9. You look forward to things that the unemployed version of you would have found to be pretty insignificant. Mid-morning snack! Getting mail! Painting my nails! Talking to Mom! Going to the gym! The office Christmas party in 6 months! YAY! 

10. Lunch is sacred. *Phone rings* *Makes aggressive eye contact with coworker while slowly chewing sandwich* 
"...You gonna get that?"

HAH. HAH. 

11. You appreciate your parents soooooo much. My father did this all-day-every-day monotonous bullshit for 25 years so I could go to college so I could get a monotonous bullshit job and do the same thing for my children that he did for me. Like, wow. A real American hero. I guess when you commit to The Grind, it's not really The Grind that you commit to. You commit to the people you love. 

12. You let yourself consider, for a moment, that maybe being a receptionist is not what you want to do for the rest of your life, and that's okay. Maybe you're just dipping your toes in The Grind but you're not ready to dive in just yet. Maybe you still have passions and ambitions and dreams that The Grind can't even begin to understand let alone snuff out. You're taking it slow. You've chosen to just be where you are for the moment, grinding away, but grinding with purpose. You go Glen Coco. Grind up, Glen Coco.

 

 

"Booze it or lose it," they told me

"Aren't you bored?"

If I had a dollar for every time I got asked this at a social gathering, I'd have like, at least enough to buy a large pizza. Which I would probably eat all of. Because pizza.

I don't let the fact that I choose not to imbibe keep me from situations where I might actually have fun despite *wut* being stone cold sober. And I do have fun, almost always, until someone asks me what I'm drinking and I'm like "I'm not" and I get this face:

That's kind of not fun.

And the uncomfortable sideways glances, the lingering tension, the feeling that I'm somehow unwelcome, that's not fun. 

 And the inevitable "why" questions, those are actually a huge fun-crusher.

 "Is it like a religious thing? Are you in remission or something?" Ugh. NO.

"Do you not drink because you're Mormon?" UGH. NO. LABELS. ASSUMPTIONS. NO PLZ.

"Do you care if I drink?"

UGH. NO. FTLOG. Where would I get off judging someone for partaking in an activity that has been a staple of human existence since one Bronze Age bro called over his other Bronze Age bro and was like, "Bro, we left these grapes out too long and now my head feels totally weird. Try it."? 

But just because I skip that part of existence, should I have to explain myself? Does it have to be a big deal? Does it have to be a "deal" at all? 

I'll say this once (and maybe paraphrase it in the future. I haven't decided yet): My reason for not drinking is completely my own. And it's because I want to keep it 100% authentic, all the time. I want to see it all and feel it all through my own unadulterated faculties. I want to experience this moment in the same state of mind that I will remember it, fondly, in another moment. 

I don't drink because I so desperately want it all to be real.  
....
....
....

"Aren't you bored?"

My response: "Aren't you sad?"

Aren't you sad that when you want to let loose and say screw it all and dance like a total weirdo, you need a bottle in your hand to make that an acceptable thing to do? Like, aren't you sad that you can't...just...dance?

Aren't you sad that when you aren't okay you have to alter your brain chemistry to make it okay, instead of just sittin around with your best and brightest homies and accepting the fact that sometimes it's okay to not be okay? 

Aren't you sad that in order to tell someone how you really feel, you need to feel...a little bit less...like yourself? 

I don't know. I guess you can't knock it till you try it. I just want it to be real. 

Purple Soup

You watched me and smiled. You told me I had such beautiful things inside of me. 
My fingers slithered listlessly over the piano keys and back again, moved by invisible forces. 
You called them doodles. They felt like they belonged to someone else. 


You said you loved me. Intensely. 


And you followed me to the end of a narrow, twisting path into an enchanted womb of perpetual twilight. Stars blinked through the layered purple haze, the air was warm and heavy. 
Moonflowers bloomed from the mud on the banks of murky water, where luminescent creatures floated weightlessly, whispering promises of drowning in inconceivable depths. 


Beautiful things are dark. They are cumbersome. They are always starving and always aching and always leaning.


You left me alone in that thick, purple place, that world that no one can find unless they already know where it is. 


I believe you will wander back here. 
You will get tired of the world above ground. The memory of that place will come back to you in pieces, making you drunk and nauseated with sheer wanting. 
Wanting for the weight that you don't wholly understand. Wanting to disintegrate into eternal soup.
Wanting for me.