life Tag

Three hundred and sixty-five days ago, I walked across the stage at Radio City, diploma in hand, gauze on my post-Senior Formal feet and mom in the audience. I said goodbye to sharing secrets, stories, and clothes with my closest girlfriends, Tuesday night drink specials, and the corner-deli guy. I said goodbye to all-nighters, gin buckets, and afternoon ragers. I said goodbye to friends, to family, to professors-turned mentors. I said goodbye to one home, and said hello again to another. I said goodbye to college and hello to home.Read More

When your neutral state has finally surpassed that flat-line contentedness and you find yourself surfing an unexplained wave of happiness–life is good!  You’re in love with breathing and being and even that barely-there whiff of lavender tinted B.O. wafting from your pits (thanks to your new all-natural deodorant) is the smell of heaven itself.  This could very well be how your lazy Sunday begins. And then, to the dismay of anyone who ever had a soul, Pharrell Williams’ song “Happy,” (the anthem to your Sunday,) which has been playing onRead More

1. Are crotchless panties still considered sexy if it’s due to wear n tear? 2. Are we human or are we dancer? 3. Why does diet coke make me feel more human? 4. Is it pathetic, weird, or thrifty to buy some of your bras from the little girl’s section as an adult? 5. Why is puberty part of God’s plan for us? 6. How often does the President have sex? 7. Which President was the most sexually active? (Clinton joke lurking here.) 8. What was the last thing youRead More

Sitting still for an entire hour—it sounds easy enough. It’s simple to turn off your phone, power down the computer, find a quiet space, and sit. You don’t even do anything—the requirement is to literally do nothing! Almost seems like cheating, right? Right? Recently, I had the opportunity to see for myself just how “easy” it would be. One World Still  is an organization with a simple objective: meditate for an hour once a month. No dues or fees are necessary to be part of this event, and no registration isRead More

Chances are, if you’re reading this website, you’re somewhere in the same broad demographic that I am: 18 – 35. I read a lot of similar sites and try to consume content written by people who are in similar places in their lives. It helps me, in some ways, to know that people go through the same struggles as other people. To that end, many of the columns here and other places regarding relationships and relationship advice focus on people in their early to mid 20s; jumping from relationship toRead More

We all have things that we try to hold on to. Sometimes we do it because we think it’s what we are supposed to do. Sometimes we do it out of habit. Sometimes we do it out of fear.  What we don’t realize however, is that holding onto something that we are not meant to hold on to can potentially guide us from the course we should actually be taking in life. Holding on to things that we need to let go of can attach us to our past likeRead More

I think I finally understand how the Trix Rabbit feels. Earlier today I was peeling a mandarin orange–otherwise known as a Cutie–and I noticed a little sticker that read, “Cuties are for kids!” So, is that a requirement? Are some angry children going to run after me demanding I hand over the Cuties? I find myself asking the same questions that poor rabbit asked regarding his colorful bowl of Trix. Why can’t I have a Cutie? Why do only kids get to indulge in their juicy deliciousness? Little a$$holes, nobodyRead More

I have a curiosity for new experiences and adventures, an originality quest that lately has caused me to be reckless with my intentions and sloppy with my boundaries. The careful deliberateness I had cultivated evaporated somewhere between devirginizing  a twenty-six year old and my eighteenth bacon wrapped hot dog in a month span. Here are some lessons I have been privy to lately that I have realized you are never too old to learn:   1.  Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. This statement encompasses a range ofRead More

Netflix is a fickle friend. It’s difficult to resist falling victim to a Netflix addiction. It’s so easily accessible and not to sound like the stereotypical bad influence in a D.A.R.E. ad but…everyone is doing it.   Phase 1: Discovery With all this talk about Netflix I might as well see what’s up. Sometimes I like to have the TV on in the background while I do other stuff like clean my apartment or check Facebook.   Phase 2: Experimentation Top picks for me? Why thank you, Netflix. You’re so sweetRead More

Every ambitious person knows what it’s like to have people dump on their dreams. Sometimes friends and acquaintances go right for the kill, lecturing you about how unrealistic your goals are. Other times they dump on you passively, faking interest with shit grins and responses like, “Fun!…” and, “Good luck with that…” Regardless of the method, being doubted—especially by friends and family members–sucks. Unfortunately, putting up with Debbie Downers is a part of life. You’ll always have to deal with people that take a little too much interest in yourRead More

This one goes out to the Class of 2014. Whether you’re graduating this weekend, next weekend, or in June (yeah, I went to UCSB, I know all too well the pains of the quarter system and its late graduation dates), whether you attended a private school with 2,000 people or a public school with 20,000, whether you majored in dance or biochemistry, this article is for you.   I’m not exactly a perpetual optimist. A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about some of the harsh realities of post-gradRead More

May 2014 is upon us. It marks 1 year from when the best four years of my life (so far) ended and I entered this thing people call “the real world.” I haven’t seen many of the people with whom I shared classes, horrible professors, drinks, and memories for almost 12 months now. And soon, the class of 2014 will join me in the world I have not yet completely learned to love. There are so many things I wish I would have known about the post-grad life, but it isRead More

I’m pretty lucky when it comes to dealing with anxiety, because anxiety and I have a fairly straightforward relationship. Whenever I think I’m doing marginally okay, or feeling particularly productive, anxiety pops into my brain and quickly takes the wheel. It doesn’t matter how much I have achieved in my short 24 years of existence, anxiety has this trick that makes those achievements seem insignificant—it likes to remind me that I’m only one of approximately 6 billion humans on a planet floating in a vacuum of infinite space as weRead More

I firmly believe that when it comes to dating, texting is the actual devil. It is the demise of dozens of relationships and one text can be a game changer for countless others. One text can keep someone up all night in a ball of anxiety, and one vibration of a phone can send someone into a nervous tizzy. If it were up to me, texting would be strictly for use between friends. And not the, “Oh my god, I’m so not into him at all,” friends, I mean actualRead More

Getting dumped is something I have become well acquainted with during the past couple of years.  I like to blame it on my stint teaching English in Thailand, where an ex-pat lifestyle boasted an environment unsuitable for fostering skills to sustain a relationship and which resulted in a lot of strangers tongues in my mouth on island parties.  When I returned to the U.S. I went out with a lot of men that I was incompatible with, who I catered to, and who were only interesting after a whiskey sour or five.  I didn’t knowRead More