advice Tag

It’s that time of year again– the time when department stores start jacking up prices only to mark them down– “SIXTY FIVE PERCENT OFF THE WHOLE STORE”– the time when parents start laying down rules probably never heard of in the house, and it’s the time when salons start having special prices that are higher than their fanciest styles before. It’s prom season. Ahh, prom season. The season when tensions run high, the prices run even higher, and every single girl is waiting for that special night. But the specialRead More

While half of the high school is off shopping, the other half is busy cramming, because AP tests are in May. The beginning of May, to be exact. All of their preparing and studying comes down to this final day, the test day– where how you do is the determining factor of if you’ll be taking that class in college or not. It’s a time of stress, kids cramming and quizzing each other in the hallways, teachers telling other students to shut up because they’re trying to help their kidsRead More

A gig, a joint, a position, a role, a racket, a profession, a grind, they’re all still a job. Employment. If you’re a creative type, living in the rust belt, or were as foolish as our staff and majored in liberal arts, you’ve probably found yourself unemployed or scrambling from project to project in this post-career employment economy. At some point you’ll have to make ends meet and this will mean one thing: working for someone else. And if your only skills take place outside of cyberspace, or you speakRead More

I close my eyes and images appear in my mind. They’re ones I haven’t conjured up. They’re immediate and ugly and ferocious — a dismembered arm, a spider crawling outwards from an eye with its silky, black legs, and a red hourglass on its belly. I can’t sleep. Sometimes I wish I was a hamster. Hamsters are nocturnal, after all, and this sleeplessness at night would then be acceptable. I take a deep breath. (The kind that cracks your spine in a few places at once, but doesn’t calm youRead More

Family. Six letters, three syllables. We all have it in some way, shape, or form. Some people say it’s the people who are there from birth until death do you part, amen, forever. Some people say it’s the people who support you and love you. Both sets of people are right, of course, but the fact is that your family isn’t just what they have in mind– that the group of people who buy birthday cakes and hang your picture on their wall don’t have to be the people whoRead More

All’s fair in love in your twenties where rules are meant to be broken and mistakes are meant to be made (except where condoms are concerned). I’m officially past the point that’s considered “mid-twenties,” by numerical definition — as “mid” generally signifies, um, the middle of something. I haven’t had a one-night stand with a narcissistic writer with mommy issues, and an awful name like, let’s say, Donald, in awhile. (This may have something to do with having a boyfriend who smokes cigarettes after Sunday morning hikes. The one withRead More

If you’re like me– sixteen and thrust into a grown up world of taxes and employment before you even graduate– then you’re probably internally dying over taxes, employment, and what in God’s name the powerhouse of the cell is…because you have a biology test next week and you have no idea. If you’re not like me, congratulations, because you still have a soul hidden from the rudest people in mankind and the desperate urge to sleep. Juggling this all would’ve been easier with a handy guide to navigating the intricaciesRead More

I’ve been in low places, like on the floor — in a matching sweat suit that wasn’t mine. While crying and kicking my feet, a teensy bit, like a two year-old in the peak of his tantrum. And the matching sweat suit was gray and didn’t belong to me and was the kind you purchase at Target in the men’s section for $11.99. And it belonged to my decently androgynous roommate who dated a pretty androgynous woman who wore the same kind of underwear. And when they walked by onRead 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

So, I have kind of a problem with impulse control. If I see a cute (insert item of clothing here), and it’s not that expensive, I’ll usually buy it without much thought to whether it fits into my budget (lol, what’s a budget), or whether it fits into my wardrobe (but it’s cute! Who cares if I never wear it?) It’s something that I’m trying to work on. This past month I tried to go shopping-free, as in, I tried not to buy anything, except for food and toiletries (notRead More

It’s easy to always put the blame on your end, to think and assume that every fiasco is because of your doing, to just apologize even when it’s beyond your control. You have grown so attached to the notion that saying sorry will always make up for things, will always restore them back to how they are. I regret to break this to you but no, ‘sorry’ isn’t a magic word you can just blurt out to get things working how they used to be. You have to realize thatRead More

By the time you read this I’ll be 29, probably. One last year of my 20s. It’s settling on me like the realization that five compartments were flooding settled on Thomas Andrews, my 20s will be over. I will become 30… I wished that I had developed a better vision for what I wanted my life to be like when I was 30. If I had I probably wouldn’t be broke & living in my parents’ house in west Michigan. Maybe not majoring in Philosophy would’ve helped too. But thisRead More

My third grade self had planned on getting married when I was twenty and having children when I was twenty-two. (Even then I knew I would need at least a year of designated binge drinking before being responsible for another human). I was going to be a writer when I grew up and I was going to live by the beach. I loved the beach. It was inconceivable to me that there might be restrictions to the planning of these life events. It might be hard to find a husband.Read More

Week after week we seem to get lost in the shuffle. It’s normal and means you’re doing something right. If it was easy then it’d be boring. But stress mounts, so here are some ways to renew yourself on a daily basis. Because life is too short to spend day after day feeling drab. 1. Stretching This has helped me immensely. I started doing this to prepare myself for tennis and I now try to do it every morning in between gulps of coffee. Stretching your body stretches your mind…Read More

If I didn’t have people I loved and I wasn’t an indentured servant to my student loans, the chances are high that I would be a full-fledged hermit woman by now. All I would need is a good cave, a good book, and maybe some Hot Cheetos. Still, somehow, when I receive a social invitation, my first instinct is to say yes. It’s only hours before the event that I realize I’ve made a huge mistake. For fellow introverts, here is my humble hermit advice:   Under-Promise and Over-Deliver TheRead More