Category: Story-Telling

The Blog-tember Challenge

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Hello, there! How’s your summer been? I had my first Pumpkin Spice Latte today, and while the weather definitely wasn’t on it’s fall game, I’m very excited to be slowly segueing into my favorite season. The tail-end of last summer was when I really hopped back on the regularly-blogging bandwagon. I had every intention to do the same this year,  but must acknowledge that jumping back into a routine is just not the easiest thing to do… thus, enter the #BlogtemberChallenge!

blog-tember

Bailey Jean from Brave Love thoughtfully crafted daily prompts for the entire month of September — designed to ease the struggle of coming up with something worthwhile to write about while uniting the blogging community in posting habits. She enforces a strict no-rule policy, and encourages bloggers to write as many times as they can throughout the month (and if it’s not everyday, still cool). I’m very excited that I found out about this in the nick of time and am excited for the adventure ahead. My only promise is to write more (which won’t be hard to do considering my past few months of absolutely nothing) and to read/connect more with other blogging participants. Good news all around.

To meet Bailey and check out her prompts for the months ahead, visit here. See y’all tomorrow, for post #1!

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Pizza, pizza!

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Due to a busy morning and, per the schedule, what looked like it was going to be a busy afternoon, yesterday I planned to take a short lunch break. Because I like to pretend I’m tiny and wealthy, I usually grab lunch from one of the near-ish delis on my break. Due to pressed timing, I decided to opt in for the closest thing available: a pizzeria next door to my office.

Upon walking into the pizza shop, at almost the exact same time my stomach loudly roared in hunger just as my eyes landed on an attractive, stylish man sitting close to the register, eating a single slice of pizza. I was greeted by the guy behind the counter, “hello Señorita, what can I get you?” Ummm one slice WAS enough last time. I’m trying to lose some weight here, is pizza really the best option? From the counter guy I heard, “HOW MANY SLICES YOU WANT?” Okay, I’m actually starving but the cute, metro boy is just eating one slice. “ONE? TWO? THREE? FOUR?” I panicked. My stomach growled for a second time. “FIVE? SIX? SEVEN?”

“Uh, the margherita. Just one slice, please.”

Who was I kidding? I was back for seconds twelve minutes later. Thankfully, the most-likely gay young man (remember, I work in Chelsea, hello?) had finished his skinny man meal and left. Also thankfully, the owner gave me slice number two at a discount — maybe because I scorned him for judging me, but probably because he really was. At least I burned more calories having to make the walk twice?

Moral of story: always trust your gut. Especially when it comes to pizza.

Pizzaholic

[There are Weirdos] On the 6

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The subway is a magical place. It’s a decrepit, vast underground tunnel where humans from all walks of life unite.  The rich, the poor; the black, the white; the Christians, the Jews, and everyone in between has somewhere to be. A home to some, a last-minute option for others, the New York City subway system is saturated with various “showtimes”, Michael Jackson impersonators, mariachi bands, and an overall diverse mix of folk. Much like a box of chocolates, with the New York subway, you really never know what you’re going to get.

This particular Monday en route home from work, it wasn’t a performer that caught my eye. These particular straphangers were in love, which is great I guess, unless you’re so in love (and/or drunk (on a Monday?)) that you must showcase this emotion publicly, without regard to proximity of strangers or personal space bubbles. In that case, it is simply the worst.

These kids felt it necessary to showcase their affection while being a mere eight inches away from a total stranger’s face — said stranger obviously being me. I must say, I apparently attract socially oblivious humans on the metro, because this wasn’t my first time experiencing something of this nature. About a year or so back, some dude fell asleep on my shoulder on a local, not-even-busy train to Washington Heights. And just a few mornings ago, a couple sitting directly beside me kissed 67 times between the 86th St. stop on the 6 train to 51st St. THAT’S FOUR STOPS for anyone who counts. I was thinking at that time perhaps one was leaving for the army (or dying?) but they both got off at the same stop – so I feel like they had more time together than they let on. That’s a whole other tangent.

So the close-to-my-face couple was very literally in my face. Every time the guy leaned in for a kiss, I considered just going for it, because my face was the exact same proximity to his as his lady friend. She was also significantly shorter than him (and me), so he was swooping at an angle, which would have made it ridiculously easy for me to get in there. I know that making out with a rando on the MTA is the stuff of dreams, but I was obviously thinking about it for comedic purposes. Which then got me thinking about a social experiment I jokingly (?) want to test out. Just how close can you get to train strangers while doing socially inappropriate things before you get told off? Depends on people’s tolerance, I guess. I’m pretty passive aggressive [read: I let a man who may or may not have had a brick and mortar home use my shoulder as a pillow], but a swift fake sneeze in the face diffused my problem quite nicely.  After all, there’s a special place in hell for people who display public PDA.

Little Miss Woods Comma Elle

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Like any proper Elle Woods aficionado, when I first found out I was summoned for jury duty, I was ecstatic. “A real live New York City court room,” I thought, “I’m going to Peggy Sawyer this bitch. My hot pink pant suit and I will be plucked straight from the chorus of boring drones in the jury box to sit front and center at the council bench. My passion for social authority and delivering justice will shine through my courtroom-virginal eyes. ‘Education be damned!’ the judge will shout as he immediately christen me ‘Hillary Junior’ and lets me take the stage, to legislate and jurisdict until the cows come home.”

…And then I googled jury duty. …And then I remembered practicing law in an actual courtroom probably isn’t as exciting as pretending to do it on the silver screen or a Broadway stage. …And then I wondered if it was Elle Woods I always identified with, or if it was just Reese Witherspoon all this time?!

In other words: I think too much, I have jury duty today, and I returned the hot pink pant suit. I feel like being summoned for jury duty (and actually going) is a very adult thing to do. Here’s to hoping if I get chosen for the trial, it doesn’t last forever and I can make it home for the holidays. I don’t leave for a week, but I think it’s already been established here that I have an over-thinking/over-analyzing issue. Maybe I’d make a good lawyer after all. ;)

Corthouse2 Corthouse1

:Edited to add: Jury duty got pushed back to accomodate holiday travel plans! Looks like I can postpone being a real person a little while longer. Whew.

10 Things About Me

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These lists that are going around Facebook are the third most annoying thing I’ve seen in while — only after  “things I’m thankful for” posts and Crossfit check-ins. The first rule of cross fit should be you don’t talk about Crossfit, amIright?!

Anywho, I don’t have anything to write today and since it’s literally the eleventh hour, I’ve decided to succumb to the nonsense. My apologies, followers. I hate myself a little more now too. Without further self-deprecating ado, here are ten stupid facts about myself:

  1. I like bacon. (You knew that)
  2. I like cats. (You knew that too)
  3. I require much more sleep to function now than I did two years ago and it makes me sad because it’s like I can actually feel myself aging.
  4. I use a paper planner (on an academic calendar) and write everything I do in it. If I do something I haven’t written down, I’ll have to write it in and cross it off. Holy Type A, Batman.
  5. I will meet Tina Fey one day (in the most non-stalkerish way that could be said). But really, I will.
  6. Even though I’m not important and am basically poor, I’ve put far too much serious thought into hiring an assistant to schedule appointments, send out birthday cards to family/friends, clean my apartment, things of that nature.
  7. I wish I could watch more TV without it taking time out of my day. I love TV and could easily make a career out of watching it.
  8. I drink coffee every single day. I worked at a coffee shop for three years in college and it wrecked my caffeine tolerance forever.
  9. I’m usually cold.
  10. I hate showering. I do it, though. Against my will.

Extreme Makeover: Blog Edition

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Adolf CATholicAs if we were the third episode in a fresh new America’s Next Top Model season, guess what it was seriously time for? It’s been live for a few days now, but just to state the obvious, LGBA got a fun, new makeover — just in time for the beginning of the season of changes!

A couple of things you’ll notice are the new logo, updated “about” sections, and refreshed photos/links to my contact info. My hope is that it’s simpler, cleaner, and hopefully easier to navigate. I’m always open to feedback, so please let me know if you have any questions or concerns as you click around the updated site.

Another difference you may notice is that I’ve started to post more regularly. I think in this month alone, I’ve already posted more than the rest of this entire year! That statement is both exciting and pathetic. It ties back to my post a few days prior, but I’m attempting to make the commitment, once again, to post new content on a regular basis. In efforts to maintain this, I’ve come up with a few weekly series I want to try to maintain:

  • Me, me, me! Mondays — because in order to commit to a regular posting schedule, especially to begin the week on the right foot, I need to write about something easy. Something I love. Something that isn’t a nightmare to create new content for/about. What’s easier than talking about yourself (and perhaps the occasional selfie) to begin the week? I rest my case.
  • Lists + Loves — a typical Virgo female, I’m OCD to the core: efficient, obsessive, critical, analytical. There’s nothing on this planet that I’m better at than making lists. If I wrote better Espanol, “Listy Lunes” would be the perfect way to incorporate this feature; however, my senior year Spanish four class consisted of weekly parties of eating queso blanco and watching (not reading) El Principito in English with Spanish Subtitles… so making lists somewhere in the middle of the week [in English] with no real commitment or confusing verb conjugation works just as well.
  • Feminist Fridays — per my Wednesday post, over the past days, weeks, and months, I’ve been increasing my role in the feminist movement. Equality has always been something I’ve been passionate about, but as I enhance my views and deepen my vested interest in promoting equal pay, equal treatment, and just overall women’s empowerment in the workplace and beyond, I’d love to share my passion in this small corner of the world I’m caving out for myself on the inter webs.
  • Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I’m going to continually strive to keep humor and story-telling an active and engaging part of this blog. Entertaining and making people laugh is my single favorite pastime, and without attempting to maintain that basic level of quirkiness and candor I try to incorporate into each and every one of my posts, this thing would fall flat faster than peanut shells in a Texas Roadhouse.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Ideas? Try me. I’m wide open, people.

A Case of the 23s

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“Um, I’m 23.”
“Ohhh, I’m sorry.”
That exchange happened today.

“Damnnn white girl, back dat ass UP.”
So did that. I digress…

Today was a bad day. I broke out into hives around 1:30am last night and woke up every hour on the hour after passing out around 2am. At 6am, I thought it was time to get up so I hopped out of bed and started getting ready. Twenty minutes of makeup and number-crunching in my head, I realized I didn’t need to be up until 7am, so I took a cat-nap and frantically re-awoke around 7:45am. I managed to pull myself together and was two trains into my commute when I whipped out today’s amNewYork. The entire paper was less than stellar, which was gravely disappointing, but it wasn’t until I saw my daily horoscope rating of a 6/10, that I knew I was in for trouble.

I have been reverse commuting a few days a week for the past two weeks to a lovely small town I like to call New RocHELLe. In efforts to not make the description longer than need-be, it hasn’t been awesome. Every day gets a little better, but the work I’m doing almost feels like an entirely new job and the additional commute is honestly treacherous (P.S. I’m up to three unintentional Taylor Swift song references so far, if anyone’s counting).

I get to work and blah, blah, blah. *Cue almost mental breakdown* I go to lunch. I call my mom and complain. I come back to work and have a real mental break down. *Cue embarrassing crying session at the new job* It gets a little better. I call my mom on my way home and have yet another mental breakdown. I travel home. I make dinner. I receive encouraging text messages from my boss. *Cue ugly-crying* *Cue calling mom* *Cue ugly-crying about my boss’ niceness to my mom* I work-out, it relieves some endorphins and I come to my senses about all the crying. I come home and blog. The end.

Excerpt from my last cry-session with my mom:
“WHY AM I SO EMOTIONAL RIGHT NOW?”
“I don’t know, we all have those days. Are you on your period?”
“NO.”
“Are you still….getting that?”

That was my mom indirectly asking me if I was pregnant MID-BREAKDOWN, MIND YOU. Like I said, It was a bad day.

As you may have noticed, nothing of extreme importance happened today, but it was MY BRAIN/BODY’S INHERENT MISSION to make sure I had a terrible time doing all of it. I had no control over my emotions, and nothing pisses me off more than A) lack of control and B) having emotions. Why was I so miserable when nothing was actually wrong? Why was I completely hysterical all day and WHAT PART OF MYSELF allowed CRYING in the workplace?? The only sensical answer: I had a contracted a case of the 23s.

Against common belief, 23 is NOT that age BETWEEN the time you’re young and crazy and the time you’re old and wise–it is the age you are BOTH. At 23, you almost constantly tell your 30-year-old friends, “your skin looks great!” while mumbling under your breath, “for a 30-year-old.” At 23, you hang out with your friends who just graduated college, and think, “a 40+ hour work-week is going to slap some sense into that lazy idiot.” At 23, you look at your peers who are married and with children and think, “I couldn’t imagine being with one person for the rest of my life.” At 23, you see someone who brings a different person home each weekend and wonder, “how many STDs must that guy have by now?!” At 23, if you are anything like me, you are hard-working, a little judgmental and mind-numbingly afraid that any small decision you make might impact the big-picture of your life. At 23, it might; but it also might at 32, at 45, or at 71.

What was wrong with me today? I cannot directly answer that question. Was it because I forgot my coffee in my apartment upon leaving for work? Or because yesterday was my best friend’s one-year wedding anniversary while my latest hookup was in a hallway of a piano bar with a Fios salesman? Or because I’m 23 and if life had gone my way, I would have been the world first Popette (female pope, duh) by 25? I can’t rightly answer the question. I do however, know deep down that my 23ness is both the problem and the solution.

I am 23, but I am also ONLY 23. I don’t have it figured out just yet, and I can only hope that with some more time, I will. I am only 23, and I live a pretty good life. I have a fantastic job with an amazing mom who puts up with my 35 phone calls of hysterical crying-fits per day, a pretty cool boss who at the very least pretends to care about my well-being and some amazing friends who never hesitate to lend a shoulder to cry on–even from three time zones away. Some days, being a 23-year-old girl creeps up on you, and being a 23-year-old girl just plain sucks. But as long as what the LGBT community tells me holds some truth, it gets better.

A Trashy Encounter

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Something incredibly embarrassing happened to me and naturally I couldn’t wait to publicize it all over the inter webs for complete strangers to mock and ostracize. I’m hoping that this is a common thread among all comedy writers, and I just don’t have a screw loose or something. I guess regardless, taking the alarmingly mortifying events that happen to me almost daily and viewing them from an outside perspective does typically lighten my mood. In fact, I almost view my life as if I were Jess’ long-lost cousin in The New Girl. I think Liz Meriwether and I would get along really well. Okay, now I’m just getting off topic.

A little back ground info to tease you with: I got a new job–like 2 months ago–and am now working in leasing at a residential luxury building in Manhattan. Can’t give too much away but my very first lease happened to be with a particularly well-known person in the world of fashion. In this post, we’ll call them Chandler. There may or may not be a few other “note-worthy” people who live/have lived in the building too, but as Chandler is in an industry I identify with (and by that I mean I used to work discount retail, holler), well, needless to say I think he or she is pretty cool. (20 points if you read that in Vanessa Bayer’s Miley Cyrus accent!) (Seriously help me, I’m addicted to tv.)

Fast forward to this afternoon. I just finished scarfing down a cobb salad both the size and weight of my head. And I’m not exaggerating either, I even kept aside half of the chicken pieces that came in it to save for later (thrifty, right?). Even though I’ve been working at this building for almost two months, I literally have the memory (and sometimes common sense) of a piece of cheese and don’t remember how to maneuver the “backstage” building areas. For examples, I don’t know where the trash room is; I just last week I found out about another public bathroom on our community floor; I know we have two stair cases but didn’t know where they lead or how to find them; etc. So as I was unsuccessfully trying to stuff my salad container into one of the small trash cans in our communal room, I knew I had to come up with a plan B. Since I wasn’t about to begin exploring the underworld of the building with 6 minutes left on my break, I decided to do, what seemed at the time the most logical thing and take the elevator up a few floors to dispose of my messy salad remains in the floor garbage room.

Upon my arrival, I thought to myself this was the aforementioned resident Chandler’s floor, but I hadn’t run into them since he/she had moved in, and didn’t think too much of it. Immediately upon entering the trash and recycling room, I realized that instead of an actual garbage can, there was only a garbage shoot and a recycling bin (I don’t live there, I don’t spend too much time in the trash room, how was I to know?) I questioned the thought of just throwing the salad container down the trash shoot, but knew it would break open and wasn’t too sure of where it would land. Maybe other (normal?) people would have just thrown the half-closed salad down the shoot and been done with it, but I think it’s been established on here that I’m far too neurotic to execute that type of nonsensical behavior.

So there I was, alone in the trash room, a plastic water cup gripped between my teeth, foil-wrapped chicken leftovers in my armpit and staring at the falling apart salad container the size of a basketball, panicking about how to dispose of it when naturally, who comes to find me there? Not only was this the weirdest of coincidences, but as Chandler entered the trash room, the first though that immediately enters my brain is, “OHMYGAWDCHANDLERTHINKSIEATMYLUNCHINTHETRASHROOM”! Because seriously, I’m essentially the help at this building, and why else would I be lurking on residential floors with salads the size of the once-planet Pluto? I starting panicking more. “Ummm heyy HAHAHA soo I’m trying to get rid of the salad and I, like, totally don’t know what to do? Do you have a bag or something HAHAHA??” I mumble, in a sad tone that came from a place in my brain that thought it was SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE to ask fashion royalty to DIG THROUGH THEIR TRASH for the poor, sad building staff. Fortunately this particular person is super nice and was willing to help. “Here, use this,” Chandler stated as they handed me a Coach shoe box with a thank you note inside that I couldn’t read quick enough, but I clearly know it was from some high-up fashion mogul that gifted them shoes from Paris fashion week. *le sigh*

After my salad was successfully disposed, and Chandler’s garbage was safely stowed in the trash room, we then shared an epically awkward elevator ride with minimal talking before bidding each other adieu. Overall, I don’t think I was necessarily my best self in this encounter, but I’m willing to take one for the team when at least an interesting story comes of it. And hey, next time you’re down on your luck or having a shitty day, you can think to yourself, “At least no one of societal importance thinks I eat my lunch alone in a trash room.” Right?

Tragedy + Distance = Humor

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Did an exercise in a writing class tonight and thought I’d share. I know I say this often, but getting on a regular blogging/writing/working out schedule would reaaaaalllly be beneficial to me. I have to work on that this summer. Anyways, the setup for the following is my instructor told us the formula for comedy (which, in case you don’t know is: Tragedy + Distance = Humor). Here is my exemplary story:

Growing up, I, like most Goosebumps reading, Are You Afraid of the Dark watching kids, had the deep, inherent fear of being kidnapped. However; being the naive only child born and raised in the rural Midwest that I was, my invasions of kidnappery weren’t exactly being abducted in a crowded grocery store or stolen away from my parents a mist the five o’clock rush hour at the subway station. My great worry was that some big, scary man, obviously clad in a black ski mask was going to whisk me off my feet in broad daylight and take me back to his hut in the forest behind my house to raise me as his own. Preposterous, right? You tell me.

It was a brutally cold Tuesday morning, and I was walking down my front yard to meet the school bus, not unlike any other day. I was in the 7th grade and had almost reached the innermost curb of the sidewalk when I saw him: A runner, clad in tight black athletic wear including, oh yes, what appeared to be a long, black beanie covering his entire face, as if a member of the Blue Man Group, only leaving holes for his eyes and mouth. He was coming in my direction, but thankfully on the other side of the road. “As long as he stays there,” I thought. But he didn’t.

This next part I remember vividly: just as the bright yellow school bus was rounding the corner onto my road, the masked villain was making his move, running across the street to swipe at his prey. I didn’t hesitate a second longer. In an instant I threw down my books, disarmed myself from the weight of my book bag, and ran like hell–all the while screaming mercilessly, as loud as I could. By the time I reached my mom, who was watching this calamity from the doorway to my house, I realized, much to my horror, that not only was I not being followed, but I also had an audience of about two dozen of my peers watching, drop-mouthed from the school bus.

As if doing the ‘walk of shame’ back down my lawn to pick up my throust-about belongings, and having the bus driver loudly ask, “Uhhh, are you okay?” in front of a silenced bus full of my schoolmates wasn’t enough, I later found out that my masked non-abductor immediately after the incident stopped by my house and profusely apologized for “scaring the shit out of that little girl.” Needless to say, the fear of complete and horrifying mortification has now replaced my once-fear of ski mask-clad runners/potential kidnappers.