All posts by Kelli Johnson

Recently, I cut off my medium length blonde hair to an overgrown pixie. It’s short enough where hair ties mean nothing to me anymore, but long enough where you can’t quite see my skull yet. This wasn’t some radical act I did in light of a breakup or in protest for veganism, gender identity, or Bernie Sanders, or anything. I just didn’t like my hair. And it turned out great! It’s the shortest I’ve ever had it and I absolutely love it. It’s fun to wake up every morning andRead More

I read this article recently about some CEO lady who basically went on a rant on why Hillary Clinton, and well, women in general were not MEANT to be President. Their biological physiology does not align well with the job because you know…those damn hormones. Oh and also the Bible says so. Yeah, I know, I couldn’t find the verse either. As women, we can run households, schools, hospitals, entire corporations even, but we CANNOT and SHOULD NOT run the country (or apparently a church, for that matter…), because whoRead More

The thing about Tacos de Huicho, the most kickass taco place in town and probably the world, is that though they have kickass tacos they also have a not so kickass restroom setup. It’s not as bad as the one in my favorite Starbucks. The one that has the automatic light that seems to always turn off right in the middle of doing your thing. The one that seems to give up on you the way your high school English teacher did during your junior year. But it does onlyRead More

I am not a doctor. I do not hold a PhD. I am not writing this from a research lab strewn with papers on the subject I am (sort of) going to discuss. I am a 23-year-old creative writing graduate that lives with her parents. I am currently student teaching high school English. And I am writing from this bed where my clean clothes still lie in a pile (and will probably never be put away because that’s just how I roll). I have no authority on this matter andRead More

When you start dating someone truly fantastic, a weird thing happens.
Your heart swells and you become acutely aware of how happy and excited and nervous you are all the time. You have this fullness that you never really knew you were lacking, but you like it. When you go through a break up with someone in a truly gut-wrenching fashion, a weird thing happens. 
That swollen heart can shatter into a hundred thousand different pieces and those shards of your broken heart travel through your body and begin poking atRead More

Let me preface this by saying that I have no issue with beauty pageants…or whatever the politically correct people of the Internet want to call them. If you’re beautiful with a rockin’ bod, hats off to you, my friend! However, I do take an issue with the fact that we are still pretending these beauty pageants are anything more than beauty pageants. Yes, these women are philanthropists and scholars and diplomats and general do-gooders. But first and foremost, they are beautiful. They are beautiful women, who are ALSO those otherRead More

You know how sometimes you get text messages from friends that just kind of irritate you? Maybe it’s a hostile “K” or a passive aggressive “:)” or maybe it’s just a “hahah.” And you think, “Hahaha?” That’s not a response. Those aren’t words. Those are sounds. You sent me sounds. How am I supposed to respond to that? Right, so texting has become this enigma of conversation where we laugh, but aren’t actually laughing and send smiles when no smiles are actually occurring and that’s all fine and well becauseRead More

I’m the type of person that will avoid conflict, confrontation, and basically, any form of criticism at all costs. As a kid, I would write notes to my parents whenever I was asking for something. Not because they were mean people, but because they might say no and I would rather receive that information from a checked box than a verbal, “Not this time, sweetheart.” I quit a job via letter once. After my boss received it, she called me and left a voicemail. I was too nervous to listenRead More

I’ve heard many personal accounts from friends who suffer from the frequently talked-about, “Resting Bitch Face.” These friends are sick and tired of people asking them, “What’s wrong?” and telling them they need to smile more. They can’t help that their face invokes fear into every fiber of random onlookers’ being – they were just made that way. And while I can try to sympathize, I can’t say that I really understand what that’s like. Because while they’re trying to stop people from assuming they are habitually pissed off, I’mRead More

I was four-years-old when I came to the realization that I couldn’t read. Of course, at that point, I never could read, but it was at this age that I became acutely aware that I couldn’t read and that everyone else could. My mom could. My dad could. My eleven-year-old sister could. It was basically all the guy on Reading Rainbow could talk about… Why couldn’t I? So I did what any four-year-old would do and I asked my mom, “When will I know how to read?” My mom wasn’t entirelyRead More

That was the title of the article. I saw it on Facebook and instantly clicked it because…I was sitting in my room, watching re-runs of Seinfeld, eating a bowl of the kind of cereal that makes you poop, wearing my tangerine high-waisted shorts, and suddenly…regretting all of my decisions. And as it turns out, guys HATE high-waisted shorts. They think they are awkward and unflattering and should be burned at the stake. (Along with your rompers, which according to the article, look like pillowcases and your maxi-dresses, which apparently makeRead More

If you were to Google the burgeoning metropolis of Bakersfield, California you would find it is known for many things. Aside from carrots and Buck Owens, Bakersfield has made quite a name for itself as having the worst air quality, the most illiterate citizens, and the place where lost phone calls (and hopes and dreams) go to die, due to terrible cellphone reception. Either Forbes just hates Bakersfield or it really is a barren wasteland pretending to be a functioning society. But for me, Bakersfield has always just been home.Read More

I remember standing on the ledge of the terrace to this very old monastery that had literally been carved out of the mountain the town was built upon and looking over to see the most beautiful Italian landscape I had ever seen (because I had never seen any up until this point) and I thought, “…wow.” And then all of a sudden, like a 21-gun salute, everyone immediately whipped out their cameras in an attempt to capture that “wow” feeling. And I get it. I would be lying if IRead More

If you’re like me, then you put on some serious “el-bees” between the months of November and January, respectively. The champagne was flowing, the sugar cookies were freshly sprinkled, every possible retelling of A Christmas Carol was playing around the clock, and then all of a sudden you realize that you’re looking a bit like a bowl full of jelly yourself. Hey, it happens, man. ‘Tis the season. If you’re also like me (once you came down from your sugar high), you realized that enough was enough and it wasRead More

We’ve all heard them… around the water cooler… in gym class… during that uncomfortable “what the heck do we even talk about?!” time with your grandparents around the holidays. We’ve all heard some pretty outlandish claims in our lifetimes and yet there are still those perpetuating myths that simply won’t die. Perhaps, we should blame Hollywood movies or simply an uninformed society, but the fact is, these untruths are continuing to spread and I, for one, am sick of it. So here it is…four popular myths (or rather the firstRead More