Everything is awesome.

Happy day number whateverthefuck of whatever the fuck is going on this world. Just a simple time filled with compounding anxiety for not getting enough excercise or not getting all the things we’ve ever had on our bucket list done, even though we (me) still might be working the same number of hours as before, just now in sweats… what a delightful time. And good that we’re stressing out about being unproductive, in the middle of a global pandemic and economic collapse. Concerns of productivity seem like the smart and insightful response to a full on disaster.

So naturally with things I procrastinate looming heavier than normal, a blog update has been top of mind. That and also a few of you have pressed for one, like I just shit out rainbows of words that together form amusing entertainment easily and without hassle. I’m obviously the Keebler Elf of blog post writing. Well ok I mean, sometimes it’s hard but usually once I get into a rhythm it isn’t thaaat difficult. Except now any time I’ve wanted to do anything productive, creative or outside the bounds of my couch in quarantine, I’ve become instantly exhausted. I can’t even mentally fathom the idea of exertion, and its manifesting itself in keeping me on my couch, or allowing me to make my way to my bed. My therapist would say it’s the way we’re experiencing trauma and/or depression, but she also didn’t like that I said sarcasm was my love language, so I’m not sure I trust what she says.

So what have I been up to since quarantine started? I’m sure it’s probably your most pressing question of all things quarantine related and is exactly what you want to read about? Cool, that’s what I thought. It is as follows:

I’m eating amazing, like I am basically mother gaya herself taking her fruits and creating culinary masterpieces beyond eggo waffles.

Then conversely I’m eating like a raccoon; I am a walking trash bag of jello.

My mustache, despite being literally attacked by a laser, has made a full comeback. She is resilient, confident and strong. She’s Voldemort and Harry Potter combined, in that they both just won’t fucking die but like in a cool way I guess since it’s my face. For now, we’re in a safe space of just us and my computer camera isn’t good enough for people I video chat to see (I think) so I’m kind of just letting her hang before I try to murder her again once the world re-opens.

Watching Netflix’s entire catalog, along with Hulu, HBO and a free 7 day trial of Starz that I will inevitably forget to cancel and then basically spend 14.99 to have watched one episode of Outlander.

I’ve continuously attempted to read all the unread books in my house which consists of picking them up, reading two pages, and setting them back down to focus on continuing my 26^th run of watching The Office.

Avoiding the news. Somehow I don’t think I’m missing out on anything drastically important. And if I do, well it seems every zoom chat, houseparty, email/text thread and Instagram story is filled with verified sources of what’s to come. Because your coworker, knows someone, who knows someone who’s the assistant of someone at the CDC and Jerry’s best friends, friend has a cousin who happens to work with the head Teletubby of America. And to me, that’s all the credibility I need.

Also avoiding everyone who tells me to stay home via instagram. I very much believe in staying home and I already do so, thanks to… the state of the world. And anyone that’s not, is definitely not watching your stories and then saying, oh man I had no idea! Ok! Let’s get back to seeing your pets and that bread you’re inevitably baking, please.

Having a lot of very deep and complex conversations with my cat, other cat and dog. Last night’s entailed me petting my dog and meaningfully asking her if she was sure, absolutely sure, she could not pet me back.

A lot of constant reminders to myself that wearing a bra is still necessary if we want to get out of here with any chance of showing cleavage without the means of some super strength push up contraption. Whatever though, I honestly don’t even really fuck with cleavage when the world is normal. It’s all turtlenecks and flannels in my closet of dating. I am truly a seductive treasure. I know.

Maybe, possibly spending an hour here or there trying to catch my decorative funko pop figurines Toy Storying me.

I floss now. Daily. And what started as a minty blood bath, is now just minty. So yes, I am better than all of you.

Taking all the zoom calls for work. And getting on the chat first, then having someone else hop on, then having NO ONE else hop on the meeting for like a solid 5 minutes and it’s just the two of you stuck there staring at each other with nothing to catch up on and you’re like GOD WHY? But also check out my neat Zoom background! Oh you’re on a lake? You’re in space? I’m on the set of a cartoon restaurant? OMG GLEN WE’RE SO WACKY.

Crying, like all the time. That kind where you’re about to start your period and you don’t realize it, then you have a full meltdown, wonder why you’re feeling so insane then it starts the next day and feel relieved that it really was just hormones and not your brain. Except now in these circumstances the relief of starting my period doesn’t come and then I’m like, fuckkkkk it’s my brain, I broke my brain. So then I maybe bought a bunch of vitamins a la Chris Traeger from NBC’s hit sitcom Parks and Rec with the hopes that it will do something but really the likelihood is that I will soon be consulting Dr. Richard Nygard on how to proceed from here. Basically I’m straddling an emotional roller coaster going back and forth between Martha Stewart pre-jail and Martha Stewart post-jail.

I planted sunflower seeds in my entry way. AND THEY’VE SPROUTED. They’re about half an inch tall and I will likely murder them by the time they reach an inch and I don’t even care because I brought forth green life and am basically a god of my front porch.

But my greatest achievement, as is all of ours, I’m now a hobbyist.…

I made a loaf of bread. From scratch. Then made another one. And thus was my adventure into bread. There’s not really a lot to say about that one, it’s bread. We’re all doing it and it’s not that entertaining.

I made some candles and in two weeks they’ll be ready to burn. You actually have to wait two weeks to burn them if you want to achieve maximum scent throw. Which is how wide the scent in a candle can reach in a room when it burns. That’s some free candle knowledge for you. If you’d like more, feel free to venmo me and I’ll read you the instructions on the bag of wax I purchased. Also not sure this most recent round is going to get burned since it smells like a lake of axe body spray and a cumulonimbus cloud of patchouli came together to cause ecological destruction. Basically my kitchen now smells similar to what I equate the Serenity By Jan’s candle room smelling like.

I’m on the cusp of adding tie dye to my crafting repertoire but still waiting on some essential supplies, like bleach. Which I just need to go buy. But leaving my couch seems like a lot of effort.

Last but not least, the dating aps. Ahhh the glorious apps. I’ve been riding the real high and low train of convincing myself I’ll be forever alone and quarantine will never end, to thanking whatever religious God you believe in that I’m not stuck for an undetermined amount of time with someone that would inevitably annoy me to the point of murder. I’m actually shocked there haven’t been any massive headlines of spousal destruction. I’m very proud of all my friends. Shout out to my friends.

So that said, I’ve really just been doing a heavy switch back and forth between Hinge and Bumble as they feel like the most respectable path… But has mostly lead to the equivalent of waving across the street to someone’s grandma and commencing with my day. Which then brought me to the ultimate decision to return to the OG, Tinder. I haven’t graced it’s pages in quite some time and when I signed on the app it actually welcomed me back like some smug little asshole who knew I wouldn’t fair out in the real world. Well you really don’t need to remind me of what quarantine desperation looks like because duh, I’m living it, thanks Tinder. And right on cue it was then that I promptly matched with a tattoo’ed 26 year old who’s bio line only consisted of “5’1”” which I at first took as a joke. He threw the nicknames ‘beautiful’ and ‘love’ down right off the bat, likely because he couldn’t be bothered to read the top of the screen where it says ‘Megan,’ and then wanted to meet up immediately. Then promoted his OnlyFans account. Which I think is like porn for youths? I’m not sure, it was a moment that made me feel like an 89 year old who had just gotten on a handle on sending an email. Then I was like how about maybe a couple of more sentences to indicate our personalities are a good fit before we meet up and then he unmatched me. So who cares? Except I care because now I’m just really wondering if he was really 5’1” or did he actually have enough of a personality to make a joke? Because that just seemed highly unlikely. Maybe I should sign up for his OnlyFans account and then hope that there’s some semblance of ability to determine his height based on relativity to a doorway or maybe his mom will walk in accidentally during some sort of live stream, pending they have those. He seems like a guy who definitely still lives with his mom so I could put that high on the probability list. Or it just might remain one of the biggest mysteries of my lifetime. WHO KNOWS.

In continuing to peruse the app I’ve also seen a handful of people from high school and college. Didn’t know Tinder is where they had been hiding, also because I wasn’t really looking for them. But it’s fun because who doesn’t love reminiscing on the hot mess you used to be and inherently still are in the minds of everyone that only knows you from trying to navigate life with new puberty boobs or from that one frat foam party. Regardless, I almost always still swipe right, just to see if they’ve swiped on me because I’m a narcissist and I want to know if I’ve held up enough, since the glory days of my metabolism being on autopilot, for a right swipe. Also so I can be the Linda of the dating apps and say “So what have you been up to… for the last decade?” And then send like a really aggressive hahahaha to follow. Because I have lost all sense of normal joy and this is all I have left.

I have also gone on one social distanced date. It was a walking date. In the park. On a gorgeous mid 70’s day. Where I wore black jeans and a dark top and was discretely sweating the entire time. And then he took me to a bbq food cart and I ordered potato salad and a chocolate cookie. The sexiest of date foods and food combinations.

Annnnd rounding it out because all other options seemed lost.. I sent an “I’m bored” text to what I thought might be an available and normal flirt option, only to get shut down. In quarantine. With a text that equated to: ‘Hi I’m back with my girlfriend, you’re going to need to find somewhere else to shoot your shot.’ To be fair, the last time we hung out was over the holidays and after making it back to mine and putting on a movie, not even five minutes in my cat casually made his way directly between my date and the tv and proceeded to throw up, then casually sauntered away. At which point my dates allergies conveniently flared up allowing him to politely exit. Rightfully so, and I was left alone with two vodka sodas, a mound of cat vomit and about 96 minutes left of Booksmart to finish. So you know, I get it. If I had decided to take a detour from my relationship and see what else was out there, only to get cock blocked by cat vomit and a woman who seemed like she’d had a few too many convos with non humans lately, I’d likely return to a safer space as well.

So that’s what’s up with me. Crafts, cats and a roller coaster of immense loneliness and extreme delight. Hope you’re all staying safe, doing well and looking out for the important ones in your life. And if all you can do is get out of bed and worry about yourself enough to make it back to bed. You’re good. We’re all just doing what we can to thrive, and sometimes that means being necessarily selfish and sometimes that means baking 20 loaves of bread without any thought into what to do with all of them.

Hope to see you in the real world someday soon.

Otto.

I Mustache You A Question.

My sweet, sweet angels.  As I sit here bringing you these very well composed words, I am wearing my new Costco-Puma compression socks (Costco and/or Puma sponsor me plz), listening to Apple music’s “Songs of the Summer 2015 Playlist” which you KNOW has some bangers, and am drinking an expired PBR from my 30th birthday, in December. It’s only like 3 months expired but if someone could please let me know if an expired PBR has any serious ramifications, that’d be tight, thanks.

I think we can all agree that it’s been a while since I’ve alerted you to anything in my life not related to dating. Literal years actually, since I only post twice a year and while my life is general absurdity you mostly get everything related to peen. And honestly, I guess this post could relate to dating as it regards my ability to stay attractive, so don’t worry we’re not veering that far off.

So today I’d like to invite you into my experience of laser hair removal.  Now if you don’t already know this about me, (and how could you not?) I have the hair of a thick jewess combined with a gorilla. Both of which I am neither. The sex appeal is unreal and the shedding… unmatched. I’ve clogged more drains than a pet groomer and dulled razors faster than your mom could take tequila shots before banging your dad.

So naturally, laser hair removal has been an idea I’ve flirted with for years. The money I’ve spent alone between razors, waxes and dermatology appointments from the aftermath of shaving/waxing is enough to warrant a permanent solution. It was on a fateful fall afternoon in New York when I actually had a dermatologist tell me it was medically necessary.  Let that sink in for a second. When’s the last time a medical professional told you your body hair was so thickly aggressive it was impacting your health? Cool cool cool never? YEAH ME NEITHER.

So rather than dive into the weeds of the mess that is a full top to bottom, let’s focus on one very special friend. My mustache.

Puberty hit towards the end of seventh grade and that’s when she made her graceful arrival. She was everything I wasn’t. Cool, smooth, silky and flew under the radar in just the right way. She became the distraction to my fidgety hands, petting her for hours while I watched episodes of the Real World in secret in the basement while my mom thought I was just playing Yoshi’s Island on the Super Nintendo. We had something good, something special, just between us. And it stayed that way for a blissful year and a half. Just me and my mustache, conquering the world one mom approved GAP sweater at a time.

Then, high school started and at some point freshman year, our secret was spoiled.  We were outed.  

I had my first high school crush on a boy who was a year older. And spoiler alert, he liked me back. A concept that up until that point was completely foreign to me. Not only that, but let’s be honest, a high school year is basically an adult decade, so back then dating up a year was essentially Michael Jordaning the dating game. Whatever that actually means, I was killing it.

Suddenly I was cute and breaking boundaries. I was in a new element, I had never been cool up to this point and this kid, oh man. He had ALL the friends, he was definitely considered cool AND HE WANTED TO MAKE OUT WITH US. “Us” of course being me and my mustache. And it made sense. I was in a new school, I’d lost my glasses, bangs, mushroom-bowl cut hair, braces and general harry potter vibes. I wore tight clothes from Abercrombie with a solid almost A cup and yet had the innocence of someone who still wasn’t sure what a labia was and if I was supposed to have one. Catholic school taught me tons about sexual health. So by all accounts I had been cool forever basically.

Somehow I fooled this young naïve man into thinking I had the juice to go the dating distance. We’d get married on a beach and have kids in 2 year increments so they’d be close friends when they grew up. Or at least that’s the conversation I had with myself in my head. He walked me home from school and we made out at the end of the Terwilliger bridge. It was everything I’d ever imagined. Wet, gross, cars of moms zooming past definitely judging these pre-teens shoving each others faces down their throats. I was basically in a fucking ROM COM u guyz. And then a week later it crashed and burned as all great love stories do. Probably because I insulted his locker art or told him I wasn’t planning on seeing 8 Mile.

In the hate fire of insults and embarrassment that we bestowed to each other during our… “breakup” he told me to “go shave my mustache.” A blow so harsh I’m not sure I’ve felt anything quite like it since, and am also not sure how my tiny little emotionally erratic brain survived it. And while she may not have known the specifics of this freshman year encounter, my mother may argue that I in fact didn’t survive it, due to my ongoing insanity for those 4 years of ‘self discovery.’

I felt betrayed. Shocked. Flabbergasted honestly. Not by him, not by myself, but by my cool, quiet and I thought anonymous companion.  I’d never let anyone get that close to my face. I honestly thought we were exclusive and that only I could see her in a mirror, and that she wouldn’t reveal herself to anyone else but me. It was improbable and impossible that anyone else could possibly notice her thick luxurious glimmer gracing my upper lip. But I learned I was wrong. She was not my sorcerers stone, she was a mustache. That, my friends, was the first time I shaved her.

From then on out, we were aware.  She’s been shaved, bleached, tweezed, self waxed, professionally waxed.. It’s a mystery I haven’t fucked my face up in the long term. And yet, it didn’t stop me from copious makeouts with a full stache. Long into adulthood. And as we’ve gotten older she’s grown too. Thicker, rougher, burlier, like a prostitute who stayed in the game one penis too long. In fact, let me make a formal apology right here, right now. If we have ever made out, you’re probably due a very heartfelt sorry. If you ever felt a tickle or unfamiliar brush, no it wasn’t a ghost, or a feeling of magic or the breeze whispering to you telling you to fall in love with me…it was my mustache. I either forgot to shave and/or didn’t think you were worth grooming for. You can decide which category you fell into.

Even after all that, as an adult, I still think that at times I’m the only one that can see her. So as a woman who has newly entered into her 30s, single, with 2 cats and probably more on the horizon, a mustache is doing literally nothing to help my game. In fact, it does quite the opposite while I seem for some reason to give zero shits that she’s out. And while I get an uncomfortable amount of satisfaction from tweezing one of the big guys, feeling like I’ve conquered my own face, her destruction one by one, year over year isn’t the way to send my pubescent friend into her fateful end. No, she’s more dignified than that.

So I’ve started laser treatment and let me just tell you, it’s more glorious than I could have ever imagined. Her rough and tumble vibe is retreating back to it’s hey day of slender locks and silky vibes. After a few more sessions, she’ll disappear completely. Yes, to be clear I’m literally Benjamin Buttoning my mustache, don’t @ me. Then, one day in old age when my hormones break down, we can meet again and I can tell her about the full and hearty life I lived thanks to her absence and my ability eventually learn how to flirt properly with a man.

The big Q of the day… does it hurt? Well it’s a fucking laser to the face where large groups of nerve endings exist, so yes. It hurts. But you know what, it’s manageable, like someone taking a tiny tiny pin and pricking you a bunch of times, over the course of barely one minute. Literally 60 seconds. It might even be the shock of it that gets you more, like when a guy tells you he only takes baths or tries to stick a finger up your butt and you had only pegged him as a boob guy.

You also get to wear some sweet dad shades, squeeze a stress ball that’s been in numerous hands and make awkward small talk with a laser technician who has likely shaved 2-3 assholes during previous appointments before lasering your face. And which I only know because I totally definitely have not had my asshole shaved due to lack of dexterity pre-appointment. But this post is about mustaches, not assholes so let’s not linger on that.

So four more lovely sessions and she’s gone. Should I have a going away party for her? I don’t have birthday parties for my pets and rarely make an occasion out of celebrating my own birthday, no marriage plans on the horizon and no baby showers to force on my beloved human companions, so you know what… yes. A party in her honor may be just the thing she deserves and something I could likely get away with. Maybe I could get Nelly or Genuine to play at the party, they seem like guys who might have a lot of free time these days. But would inviting Tom Selleck as a guest be amazing, or completely distasteful given that I’m murdering my mustache while his thrives. Or at least I still think is thriving. And yes it’s exhausting being inside my brain all day.

So cheers to my mustache. She signaled the arrival of my womanhood and one day she’ll signal the end of it too, for that I’ll be forever grateful.

Is It Bath Time?

YES. It’s happening. Can you even believe? Because I can. And you’re welcome. I’ll be honest, the effort it took to accomplish a SECOND post in one year was exhausting. I don’t know how people have the creative capability to spew words at the internet let alone type anything daily. But somehow I made it through, and what you’re about to read may be complete garbage, similar to my body after a night of drinking and eating my backup taco bell burritos I purchased the night before for breakfast in the morning. Or it might be entertaining, in which case, yes that’s totally what I think too, of course. Absolutely. In all reality I just thought it would be too mean to promise two date stories and only give you one. So here it is.

Sober January continued and so did my optimism for sober dating. If I could survive a date with a potentially racist and homeless murderer and not have the worst time in the world, that’s a for sure sign to forge ahead right? So that’s what I did.

I had recently hopped back on Hinge, another dating app, which promises to be the last app you’ll ever need. It even has a tag line that reads: ‘designed to be deleted’. To which I say, I deleted your mom last night. Yes, we all know that’s a sick burn, but come on you just want us all to believe your number one goal is true love and not user retention for financial growth? (Did I sound smart saying that? Because that was the POINT dummies). But honestly, it doesn’t matter which app you’re on because everyone’s on everything so really you’re just swiping on the same people in a different app. Every once in a while you match with the same person you matched with two months ago on a different app and give them the awkward, hey funny running into you here. When it’s not funny. Not funny at all that you have different pictures on here than you did on that other one and I can now officially confirm you are balding or this one app is where you finally revealed your height to be a casual 5’5″. Or that you’re actually married seeking a casual plus one. Casual.

Where Hinge has Bumble beat though, is that the ladies don’t have to be the first one to start the conversation. On Bumble, the only way a conversation can begin if you’ve matched with someone is if the woman messages first. Otherwise, the match disappears in 24 hours. As much as I appreciate the integration of feminism into my online dating life, (because let’s make it more complex than it already is) it gets exhausting to have to always be the one to come up with the witty one liners. Yes, I am hilarious and sometimes good at writing words, but you’re setting me up for failure. A simple ‘hey’ is apparently to pithy and lackluster to respond to, but asking how your mom’s been since her car accident that I saw you posted about on your instagram when I internet stalked you and learned everything I could about your life is too intrusive. So now I have to come up with an in between for each person I match with, hope the conversation goes somewhere, enough so that you want to go on a date and then pray you actually make it to that date.

So why put the burden on us when the bar has already been set so low for dudes to win that if they hold the door open and pay me a compliment I start thinking about how we’re going to combine our retirement plans. If I’m with Fidelity and he’s with Ameritas, should we stay separate? Does he keep a high risk index portfolio or is he more of a bonds guy? Is he going to want to retire into a “community” because if we’re moving to Florida I really hope sunscreen technology has advanced by then. Oh god, I hope the other old people we live with are cool and don’t smell weird. I wonder what dentures will be like in 50 years… So anyways, to take away the fact that I now also have to initiate a conversation… is daunting. I already swiped right, hence I like you so who cares who talks first?

Has anyone ever noticed I take forever to get to the meat of the story I’m trying to tell? Yeah, me neither.

So I matched with a gentleman on there who I took notice of due to his height and his v cool skater vibes and my inner fan girl blossomed. I began to mentally run through the scenario of fulfilling my high school fantasies of hanging near the skate park with dudes who were grungy with an ‘I don’t care attitude’ but deep down were just shy and extremely sensitive just wishing they had a dad who was around more… too scared to share all of it with the world but with me by their side our love could give them the courage to open up and embrace their sensitivity. Or at least I think that’s what I thought, I can’t really remember the specifics.

Tom was super nice and complimentary and was maybe the most unoffensive human I’d ever encountered on the internet. It was like his internet spirit was a bag of dad jokes you find on the laffy taffy wrappers and I in comparison would compare myself to more of a lighter ready to burn all the wrappers to the ground. I mean you’re reading this so you already know my steeze. But soon we had been messaging for over a full calendar month entering what I like to call, pen pal territory. Sometimes you wonder if they even exist and you’re actually being catfished by your mom because your dating life is floundering and she wants to help you with your self esteem. Or maybe they do exist but have internet stalked you and decided you’re good pocket validation when they need attention but not actually worthy of dates in the real world. Honestly, you really start questioning your shit, your sanity and your own need for attention, taking stock of your own pen pals you have stored away for necessary attention boosts. Which I clearly don’t have because I’m a well adjusted human with two cats who think the world of me. But it doesn’t matter because then it happened. We finally IRL’ed.

Date: Tom
App: Hinge
I Geek Out On: Horror Movies, Chess, Skateboarding
Height: 6’5”
Might murder me on a scale of 1-10: 2.5

Now before I dive in on Tom, I will preface this with saying that his profile mentioned that his personality type was INTP (I think it was that one), so I take the below experience with a grain of salt. Which I’ll be honest I didn’t do any research on before we met up, but the general gist is more logical than emotional and very introverted. I’m not going to explain it all here but if you want to better understand this stranger I’m telling you about that you have no actual connection to, feel free to read about it here.

Tom hit me up on a random Wednesday to hang. Obviously this was my chance; if I said no he may disappear into the universe forever and then where was I supposed to wear my new vans if not to the skatepark to watch him shred???

Tom: U down for a chess game at basement pub in an hour? im game

Me: Sure why not (kewl shrug emoji)

Once again, my ability for an impromptu school night hang had me feeling like I was the baddest bitch on my block. And that includes the old woman next door who I share my bedroom wall with and who practices her yodeling every Saturday. I kissed my cats goodbye and drove off into the night to meet my sk8er boi, and maybe their future dad.

If you haven’t been to Basement Pub it’s a great little spot for first dates. It’s not obnoxiously packed, it’s small enough to be cozy and they have a shelf of board games they encourage you to utilize which was great as Tom and I had plans to teach me chess. I ordered my very sober soda water and sat down to wait for him to ride in on his skateboard.

Tom arrived looking a little older than his photos but still within reason and also, I don’t think that’s something I have any room to judge on until I update my photos so whatever. The height was real and I felt like we were off to a strong start. He ordered himself a beer, grabbed a chess set and joined me in the corner.

But it was evident pretty quickly that Tom was either very uncomfortable on dates or was already a few deep and wildly high. Let’s definitely go with the latter.

As he tried to explain the game of chess to me, he struggled with spacial awareness knocking pieces on the floor and across the bar. He asked your standard date questions like where are you from? And where are you from? And where are you from? Oh that’s right I already asked you that sorry haha. Eye contact was scarce, along with keeping his eyes open in general while he spoke. But he was not insulting. He had empathy. He was kind. And he had height. So like, ok let’s see how this goes.

I reciprocated in general pleasantries while simultaneously becoming a chess master. I learned that Tom does marketing for a developer three days a week but it’s tough to say if that’s actually what it was he was explaining as his career because it was a tough line of thought to follow. His clear career passion was what he described as his second job. Purchasing horror vhs tapes on eBay in bulk and then selling them back on eBay as individual movies. He showed me his stacked eBay bank account of $1200.00 about 3 different times letting me know he’d accumulated his fortune over the course of 6 months. But hey, for a side hobby, sorry I mean ‘second job’, of selling outdated electronics I’m kind of impressed. Maybe he could be the Beeper King to my Liz Lemon.

We played a few rounds of chess and he took a few smoke breaks, both of which took the edge off of needing to converse and worked in my favor as he continued to order more beers and became increasingly more difficult to understand. As the night progressed we got to a point where I made him repeat his statement three times before understanding that he was telling me how pretty I was. I then subsequently felt like a douche for making him go through the social/high discomfort of throwing out a compliment and also wondering if he thought I just needed to hear a compliment badly enough to make it him repeat it again and again. And to be fair this was not a creepy cheese curdled compliment. It was a genuine, kind and simple compliment that asked for nothing in return. Maybe it’s that most of those usually expect a BJ in return, or maybe my daddy issues have made my need for male approval reach an all time high, but in terrible female form… with one compliment I was immediately fully back in it, judging myself for judging him. Clearly if he’s giving me his approval, I need to rethink the whole evening. Should we just go get married tonight? Should we get matching tattoos to tell the world we’re in love? I’m pretty sure I can look past the fact that he’ll never give me eye contact and that our retirement will literally take the form of VHS tapes waiting to be sold on eBay. Dear Jesus, I know we haven’t talked since like 7th grade religion class but this is about to be forever so please let his dick be big.

As I sat there and went through the mental pep talk that was me mapping out the rest of my life with with someone who will seemingly never manage to open his eyes, the deal breaker came. We had continued to make casual conversation and I brought up that through our text conversation it seemed like he was really into baths as he referenced it a few times during our pen pal-ship. I asked how he managed a bath since he was so tall and most of the homes I’ve lived in have bathtubs that are functional only for children under 2 and/or small chihuahuas. It was then that Tom revealed to me that not only did he have a deep claw foot tub, but he actually exclusively only takes baths. Showering was not in his daily routine.

Or any routine. Just baths.

Now don’t get me wrong. With the right tub, a bath is heaven. But I think we all know that ultimately if you’re ending the day with a bath, you’re sitting in your own filth that you should absolutely shower off when you’re done with your stress soak. But Tom assured me that as a bath taker, he still managed to clean all the important parts. In fact, that’s why he needed an hour before meeting up, because he needed to hop in the bath before meeting me. I imagined us getting ready to go out to meet friends for dinner and being late because Tom needed a bath before we left and he couldn’t find his rubber ducky. Our wedding day where his groomsman would be getting ready and behind them, Tom would be sitting in the bath with a tall boy in hand talking about how it all started.

As I sat in bewilderment, I mentally wept for the nights at the skate park that would never be, our tall, tall babies we would never have and the vans I would have return to Zumiez the following day.

I left that night and returned home to have a bath in Tom’s honor. JK I definitely did not do that you nut jobs. I went home and took a hard look in the mirror at my sobriety and wondered if sober January was really worth it while clutching a sealed bottle of wine trying to see if I could just smell the wine through the bottle. Somehow, in the end I still managed to finish strong.

So we did it! Two posts as promised. As for the next one, you’ll get it when you get it. Now who’s super proud of me? Mom?

Otto.

Everything’s The Same.

Hi there. Should we skip the niceties and just dive into the life update? You’ve been patient and it’s been a while so there’s a lot to cover; I’ll likely spread this out over a couple of posts. Or if history tells us anything I’ll say that and then I actually won’t post again until summer of 2020.  I guess we’ll find out how committed I am in 2019 to giving up my Sunday’s to write so that my grandma and mom can tell me how fun my latest post was. Or that it was a gross overshare of vulgarities and that I need to learn how to be more appropriate on the internet. I think it all depends on how many times the word penis comes up? Well guess what? It’s only coming up twice.

Penis.

Ok, now that the vulgarities are more or less out of the way…

Let’s start with sober January.  This year, I partook in the famed tradition of debunking all our worst self fears: That we are in fact alcoholics pretending like we could stop drinking whenever we want but in actuality if we tried we’re not 100% sure we have the complete willpower to get through life without a glass of wine, whiskey or rubbing alcohol. Especially true if we’re talking about the life events that encompass the holidays, large family gatherings in general, stressful deadlines at work, the entirety of my dating life, when my cat willingly ignores me, when my amazon prime package gets delayed and is delivered outside of the 2-day window, when I’m waiting for my uber driver and I see them take a wrong turn on their way to pick me up, when my sink runs out of water.  You know, just those few and infrequent occasions come to mind when thinking of examples.

So this year I decided it was time for a self check in to make sure I’m not in the boat of an unknowing alcoholic who was simply lubing up my introverted desires to stay home and watch Netflix in order to actually make it outside of my home. It actually turned out to be a success. I confirmed I am not an alcoholic and may even prefer sobriety to going out and drinking. I lost a little weight and I saved a ton of money. That said, it’s not like it came easy; I did in fact want all the cocktails and all the bottles of wine and quite often despised those around me who drank with ease and non-guilt. I’m also just a sucker for a well made old fashioned and the confidence that comes with it. But I persevered and made it through. So if you could be so kind as to please take a moment in your home or work or wherever you’re at reading this and give me a small golf clap round of applause, I earned it. Thank you.

Okay, now that we’ve celebrated my sobriety, let’s assess. I mean, it’s not like I just went smooth sailing through sober January by hiding at home and avoiding all social temptation to drink.  Your girl got social. Perhaps more so than if I had been drinking, just for the sake of making sure I truly made an effort to not disappear off the face of the earth and then have all my friends forget about me.  And let’s be honest I know you’re not here to read about the generality of how my sober month was and went; you’re here because I am nothing if not consistent in the atrocities that are my dating life.

Which means yes, I went on dates. 

Sober dates.

Sober first dates. 

And if you’ve ever wanted a reminder about how nice of a social lubricant alcohol is, I encourage you to go to the internet and procure yourself a first date with a complete stranger, that you didn’t even have time to internet stalk.

So here you go. I went on two sober dates with two strangers in January, both due to my strong ability to swipe right and produce moderate banter enough to get someone to agree to want to meet me in person. 

I should probably start off by saying that these days, I have no idea if my profile is an accurate representation of what I look like. The span of photos ranges over like a 6 year time frame, includes some pre-blonde, blonde, and post blonde pics.  I think my strategy is to give the user a full view of what I look like now, look like blonde and what I used to look like/if you’re lucky and I do enough Orange Theory, will eventually look like again? The one thing I absolutely make sure to hide from all men on the internet…my mullet. If you know me IRL or follow me on Instagram, then chances are you know that I’ve been struggling with a mullet ever since I’ve returned back to brunette after a year of bleaching my hair. You see, once my beautiful blonde started to tumble and break off, I resorted to multiple hair cuts and two different stylists who jointly “fixed” my hair into what ended up being my first and hopefully the only mullet of my life. Really, I just like to think of my hair as having bangs, all the way around. 

We’re getting off topic though.  All you need to know is that during these dates, I throw my hair up in a half bun and I just look like I’ve been hitting pinterest for cute(?) hair trendz.

So two sober dates, i’ll indulge you in one and save the second for a potential non-existent future blog post.

Date: Lee
App: Bumble
About Me: “More live music please, Lee is my middle name”
Height: 6’4”
Might murder me on a scale of 1-10: 9.5

Lee and I matched on bumble and I won’t lie, the biggest draw was his mustache. Maybe it’s that the early 90s are making a come back or I’m feeling robbed of being too young to enjoy Tom Selleck in his prime, but lately a full mustache is a hard yes in my book. Also the height was nice too.  What can I say, as a tall woman I appreciate it when I can feel like I’m a soft 5’5”.

My opening line: “What’s the current status of your mustache?”

It was a Sunday night and Lee did not have the capacity or patience for banter. He was direct and his goal was for us to hang out immediately. He didn’t need to know about my cats, or really even, my personality. After confirming that his mustache was currently large and in charge, his second line was saying he’d prefer it if we were hanging out right now and then proceeded to ask me to a concert at the Hawthorne theater, happening in 3 hours. Cleary his motive wasn’t that he was trying to find someone to bang quick at all. At. All.

As luck would have it an hour earlier I had just gone on a textcapade encouraging one of my girlfriends not to bail on her own scheduled app date and put herself out there, because if you don’t say yes you don’t know what you might be missing out on! Universe stuff! Karma! Whatever the fuck I said, I don’t know, I just know that the text speech I gave her was literally coming back around and staring me in the face, challenging me to say no. 

So I took my own advice and said yes to Lee. Upon agreeing to see a rapper named Young Dolph, plans were set in motion. Lee immediately asked if he could leave his belongings in my car before the show. When I said that I would be walking or ubering to the show as I was located near the venue, he then asked if he could leave his bags in my home. Which obviously prompted the discussion of why he had bags he needed to leave in my house in the first place. Lee explained that he was in town for work, would be here frequently in the future and was here to close on a house he hadn’t seen yet. “I have houses all over the country for work.” Tight bro.

Me: Am I gonna murdered by you tonight?

Lee: Haha yeah right, I’ve had 6 knee surgeries. You can push me over. But I’m a real good hiker.

Me: Seems legit.. You can’t leave your bag where you’re staying? Because I’ll probably Uber or walk and again, leaving it at mine, not trying to get murdered by a weak kneed man.

Lee: Not making it out there til after the show. Not a murderer. You can have my ID.

Me: K swing by in 30 to drop off your bag. I’ve said the proper goodbyes to the ones I love incase I die.

Lee: 0% chance.

So clearly after some real investigative conversation I agreed to let him come store his belongings at my house. He showed up 30 minutes later with a large duffle, likely large enough to hold some murder weapons and well chopped body. I had preemptively put my pepper spray in my back pocket, so I invited him in and offered him the left over beer from my 30^th birthday, the always classy, Coors Light. As I joined him on the couch he sat with legs out long on the chaise portion, with my cat already betraying me nestled in his lap, beer in one hand and the other, petting Jack. As he settled in he proceeded to make small talk and drop hints that he was so comfortable he wouldn’t even mind skipping the show and just staying in for the night. Which I quickly shut down, and then started contemplating murderer or just full on homeless?

The conversation was pleasant if not slightly awkward and we decided to walk to the venue. He asked about Portland and how I liked it. He asked about what I did for work. He asked me how dark I thought the venue would be. He asked me… wait what? I’m sorry did you just ask how dark the venue would be? Well I mean it’s a concert hall and this is a rap concert so my guess is, the lights will be off and likely focused on the stage so.. probably dark?

Silence and a knowing look thrown my way.

Sorry do you mean like how many black people do I think will be in attendance? I meaaaan, I have no idea and I don’t think that’s data I can readily ask the venue for. It’s Portland, but it’s a rap concert. I don’t really have an answer for you because I’m not really sure what this conversation is. 

Young Dolph is from Memphis, reaaaal dark out there. Memphis. You ever been to Memphis?

Nope, can’t say that I have, but I’m sure it’d be fun.

Real dark. Are you into the dark?

Why do you keep saying ‘the dark’? Are you asking me if I like black people? Yes. Yes, I like black people. Do YOU like black people??

Yeah.

He finishes vaping as we arrive to the venue.  He buys our tickets, so that’s check one for the not homeless box, but also I think we’ve now thrown some checks towards the subtle but not really that subtle racist box?

The concert is full of fucked up youths on a Sunday and the openers are 16 year old DJ’s that sounded like they’re attempting their first set ever. “Let’s Go!” screamed through the sound system a minimum of 67 times over a heavy beat before Young Dolph made it to the stage. At which point, sober Megan had a great time. The concert was fun and so was the music as I politely bopped my head along to the beat in what I’m sure looked super cool, super hip and super sexy. I also nearly murdered the man child in front of me that insisted on instagramming the entire show for his 3 followers that were likely the friends standing next to him. Quick PSA, no one wants to watch a muffled concert on instagram. If we wanted to watch the concert, we’d likely be there so your 10 second clips of songs that are hard to make out with blurry lasers and no actual view of the performer are just clogging my feed. For the love of god, stop.

Every once in a while I smiled at Lee behind me as he got more drunk to confirm he was still there and I continued to bop my head and sip on my sparkling water.

The concert ended. We walked back to mine and I slowly removed my pepper spray from back out of my purse and into my pocket again. We may have shared the Young Dolph experience but I’m not convinced I’m making it out alive yet. As we walked home he talked more about what he did, national sales of power tools or something in sales. It sounded boring and he was trying to make himself sound more important than I had a feeling he might actually be. And right on cue, he talked more about this house he was buying and how it was actually a company owned house for sales reps that came in and out of state. As with all of the other homes he “had across the country.” Ah but of course.

We arrived back at mine, with him calling an uber as we approached. My sense of relief washed over me. He came in, grabbed his things and with a brief hug goodbye, off went Lee into the night. To be honest though, I didn’t suggest he call an uber so quickly, he took that upon himself. It’s possible my personality and company wasn’t up his alley but it’s also possible I was too into “the dark” for that to be an option. Either way, after he left I triple locked the windows and doors and continued to do so for the next week.

So all in all, not the worst date I’ve been on. I survived my first sober date in a decade, got a free concert out of it AND I didn’t get murdered. Although he still knows where I live, so I guess more appropriately I haven’t been murdered by Lee, yet. 

Still haven’t touched a 2019 penis though.  But I guess that’s why they say it’s good to have goals and that’s what the internets for right? Questioning murderers and trying to get it in. My psychic did say 2019 was my year of getting what I want, so I’m not too worried.

Maybe for next year’s post, I’ll fill you on my second sober date of 2019.

Otto.

Dirty: A Love Story.

Whoa whoa, twice.. in one month. I know you’re probably wondering… Megan are you dying? Is this your last hoorah? Are you telling us all you got that third cat?  Nope, this is called lacking a social life/putting off my new years resolution to work out and get that boyfriend body.  Which if you’re not familiar, a boyfriend body is a term I just made up but is totally real obviously and classifies as the least amount of effort you can put in that makes your body look good enough to attain one single male interest for an extended period of time.  You’re welcome for the extension to your lingual breadth.  But back to the point of all these words in the first place.

This weekend I did something that I honestly didn’t think I would ever do again in my lifetime for reasons of dignity and self preservation.  In honor of a friend of a friend’s birthday who I’d never met, I was a patron at a bar called Dirty.  Now I wouldn’t tell you to not go maybe once in your lifetime, because only experiencing it in person can one truly understand the disastrously sad and horrendously amazing establishment that it is.  Plus if you go and decide you’re into it, it’s probably a good barometer to determine that you need to do some serious self evaluation on who you are as a human being, because you might be a trash human.  Honestly, I’m barely speaking to myself right now for going a second time.

For those of you who have been, let’s take a walk down memory lane.  For those who are not located in the Portland area, let me break it down for your sweet, untainted souls.  This fine establishment is located on a corner of downtown Portland whose intersection literally gets closed off at night on the weekends because the city of Portland doesn’t trust the drunk debaucherous idiots that enter and depart these local institutions to literally stay alive if moving traffic was flowing through the streets.  Which is what those streets are made for. Cars. Going to and from places. Not drunk savages, like myself apparently. Just felt it was necessary to really reiterate that point.

The last time I went to Dirty I’m not even sure I was fully 21 and had a fake ID from Montana that was like 2 years expired and somehow it was not a problem at all, sorry mom. But I think that’s the kind of edgy forward thinking bar they’re trying to be.  Like if this bar was a person he’d be a cool guy who lets everyone know he’s cool by wearing a fedora and tailored vest, often.  I’m also pretty sure the last time I went I was hit on by a 40-something balding Arabian man, who promised me wealth and fancy dinners?  Who I then obviously married and have been hiding from all of you for the last 9 years. The age difference can be tough but we’re generally happy with struggles just like any normal couple you know? Orrrr I was pretty toasted so I could have completely made all that up.

So let’s dive in to present day, shall we? The door man. Wow. What a human. He wore a silver sequined blazer that felt very Michael Jackson-esque and was more stressed about who was getting a VIP wristband than a Jewish mother stresses about the lack of marriage proposals for her unwed adult daughter. I’m pretty sure… in his mind he was living out his dream job. Which is tragic but neat and I can only imagine his penis must be the size of an acorn. But more importantly right off the bat the best thing you would notice about him is that he had the essence of a young Spencer Pratt, the reality star from MTV’s hit classic “The Hills.”  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that LC would never learn to like him and he that he would grow up years later having done nothing else except owning an extensive crystal collection and have a baby for the sheer publicity of it.  I thought it might be nicer to let him live in his stressed out VIP wrist-banding bliss.

I assumed as 3 young ladies entering a club before 11pm that entry would be a no-brainer. But it turns out, in comparison to most other female patrons, we were much older and our vaginas weren’t visible via short skirts.  So douche-sequins made us pay a cover.  I can’t remember the last time I paid a cover for a bar that didn’t have music or some offering other than, we serve alcohol and we think we shit unicorns so you’re going to want to pre-pay for our majestically over crowded “dance floors” and the potential to die if we catch on fire because we’re definitely over capacity and there’s no way everyone would be able to safely flee and leave an evacuation.  But I like a little thrill of risk in my evenings every once in a while so why not.

Upon entry we were escorted back to the VIP area for the friend of a friends birthday to find an empty solace of seizure inducing lighted walls and ceilings where the immediate priority was to get a beverage and start forgetting these terrible life decisions. When deciding on beverages the strategy is going to be stick to what they know.  The obvious choice here is going to be your basic bitch vodka soda because you know this place is churning them out like a kid who just discovered his dick gets boners. They have definitely never made anything that has more than two ingredients or anything adults would drink really.  You get your drink in a glass that isn’t quite glass, but a really good imitation plastic because THEY ALREADY HAVE THE EXPECTATION to fuck you up so hard you’re going to become incapable of holding your drink at some point in the evening. Now whether that’s via their beverages or the inevitable rufie, who’s to say. And plus, no one has time to clean up broken glass for 50.

As the evening progressed, and I mean like within 10 minutes of arriving, the room went from the three of us, to like 50 youths. Where did they come from? Do they hide them in the basement and release them when it’s time to pack a room? Someone should probably look into that or at the very least call child protection services. Either way, 50 children descended on the dance floor along with like 4 security guards for the purpose of… protecting us from each other? I don’t know but it’s always a good sign when you’ve got four of them in a 30×30 area.

The most important staple of Dirty would be the multiple stripper poles that are not for strippers but encouraged for patron use.  And right on cue, wasted babies climbed up and began attempting what looked like stripper pre-school. I think I stood there for a full minute, mouth open, wondering what would your mothers say right now? Do you even have a mother? What did your dad do to make your daddy issues manifest into a full on visual display? AND WHAT FRIEND would honestly let you go out in that outfit and encourage you to climb on that pole? Do you not see how gross all these dudes are and if they’re here they must have at least one genital disease they’re anxious to pass on to you?! But then it hit me. I came to the realization that I was 100% staring at a version of what once a baby Megan, thinking the only way to a mans heart was to climb a platform, let him see up my skirt and sway on a pole until some more aggressive child kicks me off of it in search of her own gross boyfriend. Sometimes I wonder how the fuck I’m still alive and made it through my early 20s.  It’s probably a mystery to us all.

After a quick jaunt to the bathroom, which didn’t have a door because, obviously… I managed to shove my way to a more clear area where one of the security guards and I had a great conversation about what a blessing it is to be in the presence of so many drug fueled adolescents.  He agreed that it was all terrible and at that point I wished him well and good luck.  After 15 minutes in the worst place you can be on a Saturday night, I decided it was time to depart from my soothing oasis down memory lane.

AND THAT WAS IT.  I was too old, too clothed and too self aware (aka not yet rufied) to truly enjoy the amenities that Dirty has to offer. And I wasn’t in the mood to scoop up some drunk crying barely legal and mentor her back into decency.  I was hungry and there was food to be had elsewhere.  If you’re especially lucky your experience will last into the next day like mine. By sleeping in a weird enough position that the door stamp from my wrist somehow transferred onto my right boob and I still can’t seem to get it off.

Maybe someday, my kids and then their kids will have the opportunity to continue the tradition of bringing shame to the family and have themselves a Dirty night.  But probably not, because I’ll burn that crack house to the ground before I let my hypothetical children and grandchildren damage their self esteem simply by entering a building.

So basically, what I’m saying is if you’re ever feeling nostalgic or now presumably intrigued, hit up the Dirty but don’t stay longer than the allotted 15 minutes or you’ll probably die.

Otto.

New Year. Same Me.

Hi friends.  I’ve missed you.  But more likely than not, you’ve missed me more. Understandably.

As I sit here eating my second dinner and watching Oprah slay the Golden Globes, it makes me want to ponder and reflect on the past year and it’s copious shortcomings. Simply put, 2017 was a trash year, full of trash humans, making trash decisions. But we can’t wallow in everything that sucked dick because that would be lame and we’re all cool, obviously. I mean I’m like super cool, but yeah, you guys are cool too.

So to start 2018 right I think it seems appropriate to celebrate the wins that were afforded to me in 2017.  Plus it’s been a while since I’ve grossly overshared with the internet, so this will be a good catch up for us all.  Let’s dive in.

 

I kept my household to a max of 2 cats.  I may or may not have signed up to foster a bevy of animals in the coming year, but that’s a 2018 issue guys.

I moved back to my hometown and in that time my mother has probably bought about half of the groceries I’ve had since I’ve been back.  If that isn’t progressing as an adult, I don’t know what is.

I gained 20 pounds and still managed to have a guy tell me my body was sick.  He might have been lying or drunk or both… BUT I’LL TAKE IT ALL YOU SWEET ANGEL OF HUMAN WORDS.

I went on a date with a gay dude, who definitely didn’t know he was gay yet.  Because 2017 and gender fluidity and stuff. Also dating people from the internet is weird, but in a shocking twist he looked moderately like his photos, so again, add it to the wins list.

I finally invested in a jean jacket and it’s a total game changer.  It ups your cool factor by at least 2.

I had zero abortions.  In fact, I didn’t even have a pregnancy scare.  You have to be getting laid  for that to happen.  So basically…CRUSHED IT.

I worked my budget well enough to include CABLE.  FULL ON CABLE and I’m a motherfucking household of one.  Am I a wizard or just watching Harry Potter marathons on Freeform whenever I want now?  I DON’T KNOW YOU TELL ME.

I bleached out my hair, which I’ve wanted to do for years and the ultimate decider totally wasn’t the number of increasing grays appearing on my head because I don’t even have grays. WHAT EVEN ARE THOSE? Anyways, there’s nothing better than sitting in a salon chair for 12 hours, burning your scalp and giving away your Christmas bonus to fry your once silky smooth locks.  But I am now apparently the mother of dragons.  Or at least I think that’s how it works, I don’t exactly know. Amazon hasn’t delivered my dragons yet.

I arranged and participated in a full Christmas photo shoot at JC Penney this year for my office.  Truly fulfilled a lifelong goal.  A few takeaways from this one…It’s decided, I should probably be a sweater model.  And for those considering their own photo shoot, it wasn’t as cheap as one would expect and you can’t drink beer while you do it.  Still totally worth it.

I lost my key ring and had to tow my car to a dealership for a replacement.  BUT GUESS WHO CAN OPEN THEIR TRUNK OFF THEIR CAR KEYS NOW? THIS BITCH.  Sorry I know it’s hard to mistake me for the queen, because I’m so damn sophisticated.

I got really into poetry like a cool hipster middle school teacher and it’s made me feel like I’m a smart person with really deep interests. Should I add this to my instagram About Me section? Let me know your thoughts.

I wore blue eye shadow out in public.  On purpose. And pulled it off without looking like a hooker, or at least not a cheap one.  Well more honestly I probably looked like I had a high minimum and a strict set of rules.

I was text pen pals with a dude for like, almost all year.  Because what’s more fun than text messaging back and forth aggressively until you’re like 4 months past realizing it’s never going to happen, and then 3 months after that you finally agree to rise up to your self worth and admit that it’s all more annoying than your self serving need for attention.

I took some great selfies that no one will ever see, as well as some truly horrendous photos that will absolutely never see the light of day.  But regardless, every time you snap you get closer to knowing what your best angle is and from what height.  And THAT’S IMPORTANT.

I bought sexy underwear and didn’t use it once.  You probably invested in bitcoin, I was overly optimistic about my chances with men last year, same difference.

The number of tequila shots I’ve taken went down substantially this year.  We’ll can call it adulthood or maybe just that my brain/body/life can’t handle it and Netflix’s selection this year has been on point.

I’d just like to reiterate here my willpower to not get a third cat.  I truly expect you to be giving me a small round of applause in your home as you read this.

2017 was the first year I deeply considered botox.  Baby botox, but botox.  BECAUSE I WILL BE YOUNG FOREVER AND WRINKLES ARE FOR OLD PEOPLE.  Which I will never be.

I still order taco bell to my home.

I didn’t win the lottery but I did receive more dick pics this year than I have in any of my other years of living but yet somehow was on Tinder significantly less.  So if someone wants to figure out that math for me at some point, thanks.  Some were average, some unfortunate, all alarming.  Just know if you sent me one I definitely wasn’t the only one who saw it. If I didn’t ask for it, you don’t get to choose who see’s it.  FEMINISM?

 

As for 2018, you ask? New year, same me.  Slamming taco bell and maybe a mediocre penis when it comes my way if I’m lucky.  JK MORE LIKE IF THEY’RE LUCKY. Am I right? Nailed it. High fives to myself.  Also, I did make a resolution to write more, but I’ve also had that resolution for the last 3 years.  So set your expectations low buttercup.

K LOVE YOU MEAN IT BYEEEE.

Otto.

How to stay single. According to someone who has stayed single.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

I really couldn’t tell you which one is more akin to my life as it relates to my ability to have a successful interaction with a male.  The last tinder date I went on, the guy whipped out a bag of crack he had found on the street the weekend before and was graciously holding on to it so another homeless person wouldn’t find it and hurt themselves.  I asked, “How do you know it’s crack though?”  And he said because he and his friend “gummed a little.” So thoughtful of him right?  That’s why we went on a second date to see Seth Rogan’s extremely romantic, Sausage Party.  Which I highly recommend if you’ve ever wanted to see food orgy, or enjoy being extremely uncomfortable for about 75% of a movie.

So, maybe right now you’re just trying to “find yourself” and “do you” and “fuck guys because they suck” or whatever it is…. you find yourself actively trying to stay out of the way of the male gaze as epicly as I seem to be unintentionally doing so.  And your life is like I just don’t get how to not crush the dating scene.  Well  I’ve carefully selected traits of my personality, habits and interests and mapped out the way for you my friend in a simple of list and tried and true ways to truly shut down and cock block yourself, no douchebag friends required.  So without further ado… here we go:

Invest in a cat, then talk about them.  A lot. (Repeat).

Don’t get laser hair removal… really free fly on this one, you have room to be creative.  It may get uncomfortable at times, but mind over matter am I right?

Which will then lead you to shave infrequently, then on the offchance you’ve made the decision to ‘scape, within the next 24 hours you’ll regret everything in life and become a creative problem solving sleuth on how to scratch that itch in public.  I don’t even want to know the amount of security tapes that must exist of me, when I thought I was alone.

Get right side heavy… if you feel you have more to say in a text conversation and they have not yet responded to your first one, this is your chance to keep it going.  Text them as much as you want, until your screen is completely right sided.. and then some.  Because you have something to say, and the texting game of waiting as long as it took them, let alone waiting for a response in general is stupid.  Sometimes you need them to know that you saw a cat on a leash out in public and that you cooked a dope dinner and that you’re seriously freaking out about the end of Stranger Things.

Try to dress edgy and cool for your date, which actually ends up being flannel with manly undertones, such as a fur vest on top or masculine boots.  Really present a non-feminine vibe that most guys love.

If you go out for the evening for ladies night and you’ve got a guy you’ve been thinking about, don’t put that phone away.  Definitely drunk text him some super nonsense (like a lot) until he stops responding and then try and play it off the next morning like it’s cute.  “Haha omg that boozy bitch, she’s so crazy…  So really though are you in love with me, should we get brunch and discuss our wedding plans?”

If it’s a first date bring up all your insecurities and personal issues you are currently going through so he really understands who you are before committing.

Eat a lot.  Like sky’s the limit on those cheesy pizzas and taki’s.  Both pre-date and on a date.

Fuck the vodka soda… we’re not on a diet here… so order that bourbon/margarita/sugarbound hell of a hangover to your hearts content because you’re not impressing anyone in the morning.

Choose Netflix over all else.  For sure, say yes to that date, then 20 minutes prior be like hey not so sure that I’m going to make it, tied up at work… and binge watch Narcos like your boss demanded you do so.  Season 2 comes out next Friday, so for real though, go catch up.

Admit that your Instagram is a lie.  You went hiking once four years ago, but you still post TBT’s of it frequently because you’re trying to create a self image of outdoorsiness… and the only selfies you post are heavily filtered, angled, duck faced and from that wedding you went to last summer when your makeup game was lit.  It’s okay.  You can stop that now.

There’s no limit to the number of Harry Potter references you can make.

Say goodbye to Snapchat filters, you don’t need those anymore honey. If you feel inclined to keep them, keep your insecurities loud and clear by only using flattering filters and duck face.  If you follow me on snapchat you know I’m a big advocate of the bee filter. 

I will admit that staying single on the internet is hard with all the dating apps that are out there.  If you still feel the pressure to conform… hop on Bumble.  Swipe right on a bunch of guys, match with like 3 of them, then either never talk to them, or choose the super fit guy who doesn’t have a t-shirt on in any of his photos and then ask him why he’s so obese.  It goes over great.

Your online aura should also really project that you’re into unsolicited dick pics.  For example this recent gem: 

Feel free to get creative in how you choose to decline your dicks. 

If you’re going to like his Instagram posts make sure it’s from at least 2 years ago so he knows you took the time.

If you’re in a room with someone who strikes your interest.  Walk near them awkwardly, throw in some shifty dance moves and for sure stare at them. When they catch you, look at the ceiling like you’ve just spotted a really cool piece of the ceiling you’ve never seen before.

Tell all your friends how great you are at dating so they’ll definitely want to set you up with their friends.

Keep telling yourself that normal dating is overrated and that once you’re super fit  from that gym you’re going to join next week you’ll be done with this peasantry of dating because you’re going to find love on The Bachelor. Like you totally deserve to.  Then never join that gym.

If all else fails… according to Cosmo, to win over a guy you’re supposed to wear soft clothes… so wear razor blades.

I’m alive.

Hey internet:

You’re probably wondering where I went.  I’m sure for the last 2 years you sat in anguish running through the endless possibilities… Did I die?  Did I find eternal happiness and have nothing left to pander on sarcastically?  Is it possible that my constant love of food subsided and thus my inevitable modeling career picked up and I’ve been super busy in Paris walking runways? Perhaps I’ve been working on expanding my flannel collection and that was taking up a lot of my energies and effort.  It’s also possible I’ve ripped multiple holes in my favorite sweatpants, refused to stop wearing them and really focused on expanding my Netflix horizons.  And maybe also added a second cat to this human family of one.  Lets just go with all of those things happened and now I’m updating you with no promise of continuing or stopping, maybe we’ll chat again in 2 years.  WHO KNOWS.

Here are the important highlights you missed:

I still don’t think Crocs are appropriate footwear.  Not that it’s something I think I’ve ever shared within the confines of this before.  But now that it’s a topic of discussion… Have I thought about how convenient it might be to wear them with wool socks and sweatpants and how maybe I’d actually love it? For sure. But will I? No. Or not yet.

I left New York. What do I miss?  Getting anything edible delivered to my front door at any time day or night.  Yes, obviously from the greatest city ever…the delivery of food is what I miss.  And my friends.  But food might trump them.

I moved to San Diego, where I have learned that getting a tan has not been completely ruled out of my functional capabilities. Am I now a professional surfer? Sure, between the hours of 10:00pm-7:00am while I’m sleeping.  That’s also where my new beach body exists as well.

I invested in a second cat, because I’ve heard a lot about how it’s important to invest in your future. I waited three hours at the humane society to see the cats because I was having an off day and thought it would be a good pick me up.  Obviously I should have known I would come home with one.  His name is Jack.

I went on a two-on-one Tinder date for Easter brunch. It lasted 9 hours and was “unique.”

I watched “The Duff” and have decided they stole the copyrights to my life approach to men.

I saw a psychic who read my tarot cards, and great news guys.  Some time in my life I will be getting married.  Still TBD on the specifics of whether that’s on my death bed or really soon or somewhere in middle age when I’ve already invested in 4 more cats and 2 hamsters and end up with a guy who’s bald on top and has a thin pony tail halo.  But apparently the universe saw my concern and wanted to make sure I knew right off the bat of the reading, that I WILL be getting married, someday.  So sleep easy.

I also invested in a pet psychic.  But that experience felt a little unauthentic… and expensive.

I went paddle boarding for the first time ever and didn’t fall off. Yeah, your girl tried an athletic activity, kept her balance and wasn’t completely awful at it.

I may have accidentally signed up for some new Pokemon Go dating site, that I thought was a normal matchmaking site, but it turns out I have yet to be accepted and it’s been in process for weeks so… I’m not going to look to deeply into that, because that could become a real bummer for me, real fast.

I have gotten a substantial amount of unsolicited dick pics.  So that’s cool.  I mean, thank god for the 21^st century, it’s what we as a human race have been technologically advancing for.

My grandma is currently on the prowl for men for me, so if you’re interested please feel free to contact her directly.  But please don’t send her any dick pics, my grandpa wouldn’t like that.

I think I may be developing texting arthritis.

My new apartment looks into a hotel, so I’ve now seen a lot of naked strangers in bathrooms taking poops.  An act I didn’t think would be something I’d see in multitude, but this life is full of surprises.

I have not birthed any new humans into the world.

I read the newest Harry Potter book and while not a vital story to the framework of the collection, it was nice to say hello again to some old friends.

It’s probable I’ve eaten more fire Cheetos and Taki’s than doctors would recommend the body process in a lifetime.

Snapchat has been invented and it’s really taught me a lot about the insecurities of myself and my friends based solely on filter selections. Looking at you dog filter.

I own multiple sets of the Kylie Jenner lip kits.  Because I’m weak and felt like that was a confession that I needed to get out.  You now have my permission to judge me.  But only on that, and nothing else I’ve ever written on here.

I think for now that covers the basics.  In summary: I’m still alive, it’s late, and I need to get back to my Hunger Games book on tape and feed the cats before bed.  Aka.. crushing it.

-Otto.

I’m still single. It’s okay, my Mom still loves me.

When you work all day every day, it seems that all of the things you used to be able to accomplish in your personal life fall to the wayside. In this case it was a battle for top priority between personal hygiene, sleep and my blog. I chose sleep as my main priority, and for personal hygiene I now try to shower at least every 3 days. Unfortunately, the blog is where I’ve fallen. Shockingly, after multiple 12 hours days and getting home repeatedly at 11:00 o’clock at night, I’ve found that I’m not that funny that late at night, and when I try to write, it all sounds delirious and like someone who thought they were a blend between Socrates and Lena Dunham. But shocker, shocker, in the AM I would come to realize I am not Socrates and this is certainly not a blog of my philosophic thoughts. Nor am I Lena Dunham, running around naked at every chance I get on HBO. For now.

Separately my time to awkwardly date has diminished greatly. But don’t worry, because I’m working on that. Just for you.

I’ve actually come up with a great analogy for my current love life. There’s this one little oddity about New York that I continuously experience here, but not until I moved here had I ever encountered it. On a beautiful, sunny and clear-skied day, I can walk down the sidewalk and feel drops of something wet hit me. My first inclination the first few times, was that a bird was shitting on me. Which, I welcome with disgust, and the slightest hint of acceptance in the superstition that it’s good luck. But it turns out, no birds were shitting except that one time last month on my way to work, fresh after my day one rotation of my three day shower schedule. The next logical assumption would be that everyone has air conditioners, and they’re all leaking out onto the patrons below. Which has totally happened, and it’s possible I have may have googled if it’s possible to contract tetanus through the eye when air conditioner run off comes in contact as you look up. I think I’m in the clear. But more recently… I look up and it’s nothing. It’s mystery droplets coming from nowhere and from nothing. Literally, no idea. The best I can hope for is someone is spraying plants on a roof top garden, the worst, someone is peeing off their rooftop garden. Like this unfortunate mystery, that is where my love life lies. It doesn’t quite make sense, I’m not sure if I’m getting watered or peed on, but I’m hoping for the best.

My mom has been a big advocate of me advancing my love life, but has also made it very clear that she loves me no matter my marital status, like I’m making the choice to just stay actively single and increase my cat ownership. In college, she told me she’d love me no matter what… if I was a lesbian. Now that I’m supposedly not a lesbian, it’s I love you no matter if you’re single. I think it’s all subtext for figure your shit out., so I can proceed with loving you. Well I’m like 98% sure I’m not a lesbian, so step one right? That questionable 2% is for Mila Kunis.

I will give her credit though she’s made some great strides towards the advancement of my love life. She came out to NY to visit me/attend an accounting conference a few weeks ago. She was staying in a hotel close to Times Square where I assumed the worst trouble she could get into was being attacked by Elmo. Well as it would seem, Times Square is full of cops, who in my mother’s eyes are young men in uniform, which means they must be safe, decent-hearted people who you know have a job. She proceeded in the following manner:

1. Are you single?
2. You know… I have a single daughter.
3. Here, you want to see a photo?
4. [Proceeds to show them my Instagram]
5. Do you mind if I take a photo of you to send to her?
6. Do you want her number/here just take her number.

I started getting texts from her of random police officers, some who had obviously agreed to taking a photo with her and some who it looks like she stealthily took a “selfie” without them knowing.  It was on this last visit where I learned that my mom has considerably upped her selfie game.  Police officers to the dressing room to the subway.  If there was room for an outstretched arm, we’re taking a selfie.

I even received a text from one of them, “Hey is this Megan?  I think I met your mom yesterday?” Keeping an open mind that maybe my life could actually turn out to be a romantic comedy in the making, with a “kooky” mom who happened to stumble upon the “love of my life,” I responded, even if he was a ginger.

We attempted to make plans to hang out, but hello work schedules colliding. When we got close to discussing the attempt to meet up again he asked for a photo, as my mom wasn’t handing out hard copies, thankfully, so understandable that a refresher was in order. I didn’t hear back for 5 days. 5. I’ve never been shut down so hard on a filtered Instagram photo. When I did finally hear from him, it was, “Sorry, busy week.”

It’s okay, you’re a raging ginger, life is probably punishing you enough anyways.

So the quest continues guys. My mom is also apparently spitting game on my behalf on the owner of a coffee shop in Portland, Oregon. I’m sure our relationship will really blossom the one or two dates we go on each year until eventually he proposes after a good 40 or 50 dates. Which also means I’ve got at least a good 20 years to lose weight for the wedding. Win for the both of us.

In the meantime, Rascal’s holding down the fort as the man in my life, and makes an excellent little spoon. If you haven’t heard I’ve also made him an Instagram, so feel free to give him a follow @OhHeyRascal. Because making an Instagram for my cat is considered a victory up in here.  Or maybe I’ll just hit up this guy… although it seems this flyer is all over the city, so I may have some competition.

 

Otto.

That one time I fell in love on Tinder. Or not.

Yeah, it’s been a while.  Forgive me for trying to have it all… sleeping, eating and blogging can get really fucking exhausting.

As an individual who constantly finds herself as the epitome of wildly successful dating (as you should know very well by now)… I naturally thought that Tinder would be a good outlet to up my dating success.  If you’re not familiar with Tinder, the very brief overview would be that it’s an app on your phone where you swipe through photos of people. If you “like” them, and they have also “liked” you, then tinder opens up the channels of communication for the two of you to start chatting….dating, judging, slutting, whatever your heart really desires.

I’ve never been of the mindset that Tinder should be used for real dating, but more so day-time amusement… ego boosting, and seeing how weird conversations can really get. So of course, I went against the grain of my own common morals and met a real life person from Tinder. For a real life date. You’re welcome in advance.

Typically when I converse with someone on Tinder, and they suggest we meet up sometime, my initial thought tends to lean towards I get that you want to meet me, because I am understandably awesome, but WTF is wrong with you? However, I’m in this phase of my life where I’m trying to grow as an individual or some bullshit, and have decided to try new things and expand my horizons… So when Phil Macaroni, (Flag number one, your name is Phil Macaroni), asked me to hang… it loomed over me. Like a Dementor in Harry Potter and my Patronus just wasn’t on point. So at this point I have no option but to cave and say, okay. Let’s meet up.

According to his Tinder photos, Mr. Macaroni was relatively attractive, seemed like he had a lot of fun and a lot of friends, smoked weed, and went to a lot of music festivals. Living the dream of your 20’s I suppose. So instead of suggesting we grab a drink somewhere like a normal person, I thought it would be fun to go to a sober Sunday brunch, in a very small and trendy restaurant in SOHO, where we were to be seated at a communal table, where everyone surrounding us would be able to hear our entire conversation… but more importantly everything that he said. Because of course.

I waited outside the restaurant for about 45 minutes, when I got the “here” text. This is where you’re going to want to practice your game face… because when you get that text and turn around to greet someone you’re expecting to look one way, and they look like a much shorter, more grimey, balder, older, chain smoker than you were expecting, you’re going to want to try and not look too surprised. To which I can say, good thing I practiced. Well I didn’t really practice I just mentally prepped for like 5 seconds, but you get the point. He had one of those beards that you know would never be a full beard, kind of spotty, flat and thin and was just long enough to go halfway down his top lip, which grossed me out more than I think I can express in word format. And hair that was awkwardly wispy in front but thick enough in the back that you knew he had been holding out too long on his impending balding.

We go inside and get seated and have the most awkward and uncomfortable first 5 minutes I may have ever experienced in my entire life. And I have had SO MANY awkward moments. A lot of half smiles and one word answers to awkward questions, and cutting each other off at inopportune moments that had the restaurant been bigger and had a back exit… I might have pulled a shady bounce. I couldn’t help but keep looking at his weird non/beard – beard…But not to worry, eventually we did get into the rhythm and flow of a conversation where I learned a plethora of things about my new pal Phil. I have listed them below for your ease and convenience…

1. Saying you took over and now run your Dad’s company… is not the same thing as saying you have a Snapple route. Saying you have a Snapple route, where you deliver Snapples, is saying you have a fucking Snapple Route.

2. Saying you smoke weed every day is not the same thing as saying that before you had to come back home to your Snapple route, you were working on a semi-illegal pot farm located somewhere in California so far off the grid you had no ability to technologically connect to anyone. Or that you would go a week without changing your clothes or showering because you had 1 bathroom for 20 people. Nor is that same thing as saying you were also busted on your drive back home with a trunk full of weed and now have extensive lawyer fees that you’re paying due to the nature of how much weed you had in your trunk. But more importantly, you said all of that, on a first date. “Oh, so… is pot farming like, what you want to do in life?”  Yes/no. He loves the farming aspect, but quickly learned the retail side is where you want to be. NOTED.

3. Saying your “roommates” are super awesome because they’re cool with your stoner lifestyle, is not the same thing as my parents are dope because they let me live in their basement and don’t mind that I blaze.  “Oh you live with your parents and have no intention of moving out any time soon?” ALSO NOTED.

4. Macaroni has had “great success meeting people from the internet.” Not in regards to dating however, more in reference to the fact that he belongs to a plethora of online message boards and chat rooms of varying music interest. He meets people from the chat rooms, they rent vans, go to music festivals together and has yet to run into any murderers… So far, he’s made some great friendships.

5. He is NOT a fan of drinking at bars in the city because as he put it… Why would I pay 12 dollars for a beer to sit in a crowded room (which is what we were doing), that’s super loud (our restaurant was also loud) where I practically have to yell at who I’m talking to (we were definitely speaking at a high volume)… So you’re telling me you hate where we’re eating…When instead he can buy a six-pack and invite you over to his parent’s backyard in Long Island. Dope.

6. He believes that people who dress fashionably bold and live in fashionable/trendy areas are in fact not fashionable or trendy at all because everyone else in the area is doing the exact same thing and therefore everyone is not dressing boldly but exactly the same.  He’s so deep.  So deep, so wise.

7. He insists that his fries are extra crispy.  Like, aggressively.

I wish I could bestow upon you the exact looks of disdain that were coming from my bench mates, let alone the fact that they were stuck next to his bubble of chain smoke smell for the duration of our breakfast.  But there was no one look I could give my fellow patrons that could sum up in its entirety my sincere horror and apologies to the them that expressed, Oh My God I am so so sorry, please don’t judge me for being out with him.  I swear to god we didn’t meet in a music chat room, and I have not worked on any illegal farms.  And I promise you I have in fact showered in the last 24 hours as opposed to my friend over here and no my standards are not in fact this low.  Why the hell am I sitting next to three banging guys the one time I can’t spit any game?!  Help, I’m single!  Trust me, I tried, and the look comes out more like earnest constipation.  Which really doesn’t help towards your own self value at that point.

In the midst of my responding to a question… he bluntly cut me off and asked me if I wanted to get out of there.  I don’t think his fries were crispy enough for him.  It’s possible I’ve never more ecstatically agreed to leave anywhere as I did in that moment, only to realize it sounded like I was eager to get out of there to continue our date onto something else…Immense panic to follow. We hailed down the check and when I tried to split it with him so that it was clear that I owed him nothing and I intended to keep him on the furthest seat back in the friend train, his exact words were…”You’re paying for an apartment in Manhattan… and I have a business and live in Long Island. Don’t worry about it, clearly, I have more disposable income than you.”

Touché dick bag. Touché.  Brunch is on you, I’ll take these fries to go please.

I tried to hail a cab immediately upon exiting citing I had a lot of work I had to finish up… but even that was no match for Phil.  Of course since he had driven to meet me, he offered me a ride home. And since apparently I’m very poor and he has a full tank of gas evidently paid for by his father, or excuse me… “his company,” that was my only option.

It was in this car ride home when I officially knew it wasn’t meant to be…. when he didn’t break for pigeons. My mother has crashed her car into a tree in our neighborhood in order to avoid hitting a squirrel, so needless to say… my family is big on saving the lives of animals we have no sentimental value towards.

Our goodbye was nothing short of uncomfortable, when I practically fled from his car to avoid what could’ve been an attempt to put his face on my face. I then walked directly into the bodega so he wouldn’t actually know where I live but will now probably assume I’m a fatty with a need to buy more food after a brunch.

So that was probably the only Tinder date I will ever embark on.

 

– Otto.