7 Things That Really Bother Me And Probably Shouldn’t

1.  SELFIES – Look, I get it.  Some days you look real good, and it’s perfectly all right to document that.  But there’s a time and a place for selfies, which isn’t ALL THE TIME and EVERYWHERE.  Selfies are not for the #waiting_room at your #butt_doctor.  They’re for those nights you get real experimental with that eye shadow kit you got from T.J. Maxx because it was only $7.99 and Urban Decay is still a thing, right?! or that morning you wake up with magnificent sex hair even though YOU DIDN’T EVEN HAVE SEX LAST NIGHT OR ANY NIGHT IN THE PAST 4½ MONTHS AND WHY WON’T ANYONE HAVE SEX WITH YOU?!  Please, I welcome you to take that photo.  Purse those lips and look to the side as if something caught your attention just out of frame.  What could it be?!  A shooting star?  Two squirrels high-fiving?  A mass grave?  WE’LL NEVER KNOW.  But you take that photo, girlfriend!  And then sequester those selfies in the depths of your phone for eternity.  Look at them when that dude won’t text you back or when your fat pants become your normal pants and your normal pants become unwearable.  Just don’t post them on the Internet every 5 seconds!  Selfies should serve as a confidential reminder that you’re beautiful (because you are beautiful) and, more often, a source of immeasurable anxiety whenever someone scrolls through the photos on your phone.

2.  ACCORDION-STYLE POST-ITS – Whoever thought this was a good idea needs to get punched in the neck.  Post-its are great.  End of invention.  Accordion-style post-its are for people who hate themselves.  For starters, you never know if you’re writing upside down until it’s too late because the sticky end alternates with every sheet.  And if you stick the stack on your cubicle wall it’s like having a flaccid post-it weenie constantly drooping down into your workspace.  Worst invention since washable sandwich bags.  (Don’t even get me started.)

3.  PEOPLE WHO SHOW YOU PICTURES OF OTHER PEOPLE’S BABIES – It’s already risky sharing photos of your own kid, because you’re essentially demanding that people ooh and ahh over a miniature, bald version of yourself that poops its pants every 5 minutes.  But showing people pictures of kids that aren’t even yours?  No please.  Oh cool, that’s your friend’s sister’s baby?  What tricks does he do?  None?  THOUGHT SO.  *NOTE: This does not apply to pictures of puppies.  Puppy pics are always welcome regardless of how many degrees of separation.

4.  STREET GRATES THAT EMIT HOT AIR – I don’t know what it is or where it comes from but I hate it with all that I have.  Begone, Underground Wind!  Return to the sewers from whence you came!

5.  MEN IN FLIP-FLOPS – Admittedly, this one’s sexist.  However, I can confidently say there’s never been a time in my life that I’ve looked at a man wearing flip-flops and thought, “Damn, that looks nice.”  It’s not even about the hairy hobbit man toes.  Men only have so much control over this.  What bothers me is the sizing.  I imagine every transaction goes down like this: “Hi, I’m looking for a pair of flip flops because I’d like to repel women.  I’m a size 8, so please bring me a 9½ because I want my toes to curl over the front end and there to be lots of extra room behind my heel.  Did I mention I don’t understand how shoes work?”

6.  SERENADES – A serenade is just a hostage situation + a guitar.  There are a lot of questions you have to ask yourself when you’re on the receiving end of a serenade, mainly: where the fuck do I look?  Because let's face it—a serenade is just two people sitting in a room, one desperately seeking eye contact and the other desperately avoiding it.  How MISERABLE does that sound?  It's just 3 minutes of that.  And once those 3 minutes are up, a new panic sets in: what do I do when it's over—fucking clap?  There it is—a serenade is just one person clapping for one other person with no one else around.  Kill me.  There’s only one thing more uncomfortable than being serenaded and it’s putting on a wet bathing suit.

7.  PUTTING ON A WET BATHING SUIT – Probably what wearing somebody else’s skin feels like.  Except worse.

This Is A Post About My Butt

Does doctor/patient confidentiality go both ways?  I'll take my chances if it means I get to tell you about my bizarre visit with Dr. Augustus Garland Parker, M.D.* (*Name NOT changed because it’s the best ever.)

Kaiser Permanente is a special place.  It's like a DMV for your insides.  Also, the fact that I am under 70 and not shaped like an eggplant means I’m generally a 10 in most Kaiser Permanente waiting rooms.  I was there for my right knee, which had been bothering me for about 2 months, ever since I jammed it while playing catch with my Dad in the park.  (Because my life is a Norman Rockwell painting.)

The nurse called me in and I did my obligatory examination room pondering (should I take my pants off/why did I just read an entire pamphlet on gestational diabetes) before not one, but TWO doctors came in.  Two young dude doctors.  Dr. Augustus Garland Parker did not look at all how I had imagined (which was, of course, a hybrid of Roman Emperor Augustus, Judy Garland, and Richard Parker, the tiger from Life of Pi).  I never learned the second doctor’s name, but he looked exactly like Danny Galvez from Homeland.  So I will call him Dr. Danny Galvez.  Because creativity is an important skill to develop.  Dr. Danny Galvez didn’t say much, but what he did say generally creeped me out.  As I explained the pain around my knee, he sat there nodding with this huge grin on his face.  I probably should have been more tactful but all I thought to say was, “What??”  To which Dr. Danny Galvez responded, “Oh, I’m just really excited to check out your knee."  Outside of a doctor's office?  Totally weird thing to say.  Inside a doctor's office?  Still surprisingly weird thing to say.

Then both Dr. Augustus Garland Parker and Dr. Danny Galvez did their examinations – picking up my leg, turning it every which way, a lot of “Does this hurt?  How about now?”  But nothing hurt.  Because it doesn’t hurt when I touch it.  It hurts when I walk up and down stairs and when I crouch and you wouldn’t think a human spends a lot of time crouching but I spend a LOT of time crouching like probably 40% of my day crouching because I work in a bookstore and the way we store our books it’s like every day there’s a 2:10, 4:40, and 7:00 showing of Crouching Rachel Hidden Bookshelf.

Needless to say, the examination was inconclusive.  Dr. Augustus Garland Parker scribbled some notes, checked some boxes, then turned to me and uttered the 7 most profane words you can say to a 22-year-old female: “You need to work on your glutes.”  The record player in my heart screeeeeeched and then exploded into flames and then a phoenix rose from the ashes and then the phoenix gave me the finger and then hung itself.  I had a bad butt.  Medically.

From what I gather, I am in such terrible shape that my ass can’t hold up the weight of my own body, and my knee has stepped in to pick up the slack.  They explained some exercises I could do to strengthen my medical disaster of a badonk, then asked me to demonstrate to ensure I was doing them correctly.  Most of them were fine: squats and such.  But then Dr. Augustus Garland Parker – my stand up guy, my REAL doctor, with a name and a lab coat, and a goatee that somehow didn’t make me want to punch him – TURNED on me.  He said, “Do you know The Bridge?”  Duh, I know “The Bridge.”  Like any self-loathing, sexually-underconfident female, I’ve read Cosmo and yes I am familiar with “The Bridge.”  For those of you who don't know, “The Bridge” is not only a fantastic Ace of Base album but also a butt-toning exercise in which you lie down with your knees bent, shoot your pelvis to the sky, and clench your butt cheeks like there’s no tomorrow. 

So now it’s Dr. Augustus Garland Benedict Arnold Parker, Dr. Danny “Excited To Touch Your Knee” Galvez, pelvic-thrusting butt-clenching Me, and our good friend PERVASIVE SILENCE.

After I finished my Bridge demonstration and we all put our clothes back on, I stopped off to get some x-rays on my way out and bid adieu to Kaiser for the day.  BUT WAIT.  Guess who left me not one but TWO “non-urgent” (the medical term for “playing hard to get”) voicemails since the visit.  DR. AUGUSTUS GARLAND PARKER, M.D.  When we finally got in touch, he told me the x-rays on my troublesome knee looked fine, but that it seems I am missing part of my left femur.  Guys.  Can we just… let that simmer for a second?  MISSING PART OF MY FEMUR.  So, my knee that sucks is great and my femur that's great is missing.

Apparently there’s a small part of my should-be bone that’s actually some fibrous tissue, maybe left over from some childhood injury?  To be honest, I was pet-sitting a really cute cat when he called and I wasn’t paying very close attention to what he was saying.  But I have to go in for more x-rays.  In the meantime, I’ll be out posting MISSING signs around town.  For my femur.  Not the cat.  Greg, your cat is fine.  Wendell is fine.  I repeat, Wendell is fine.

An Updated Adulthood Checklist for the Post-Grad-Slumpers

This is how I know I'm an adult: I've surpassed the age of 18.

This is how I know I'm not an adult: I live with my parents.  I have 3 pseudo-jobs, none of which the government is aware of.  I assume I shouldn't pay for my own prescriptions or haircuts.  I was claimed as a dependent on somebody else's taxes (nothing like "claimed as a dependent" to make you feel like the ungrateful doesn't-know-how-good-she-has-it college-educated parasite that you are).

So where does this all bring us?  THE ECONOMY, of course.  THE ECONOMY, which, as I don't have to point out, is in all CAPS, meaning I don't have to spell out for you its grave significance, the way someone can write dogma or Dogma or god or God and you just know it's bigger and better and sobering and infinite and heavier cause CAPS are so HEAVY and they carry with them so much INHERENT MEANING that you can infer their weighty importance without so much as a disorienting run-on sentence masking itself as clarity.

THE ECONOMY, or that big, bad, faceless entity that my generation has decided to hate and love.  We hate it because we don't fully understand it, but we've heard it's to blame for our persisting post-grad loserdom.  We love it because it's the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card.  People don't scoff at us for living at home.  Our parents don't guilt us for asking to be reimbursed for the grocery shopping.  Friends don't blame us for canceling because we got a babysitting gig.  Not in THIS ECONOMY.

Sure, my adulthood checklist, by this century's standards, remains primarily unchecked.  But I think this is as good a time as any to rework what it means to be an adult.  Because even though I have definitely accepted more than one ride from my mother to a bar this month, I'm still a little grown up.  Just a little.  And here's how I know:

1. I hate pennies.
2. I appreciate naps.
3. Homeless people don't scare me.
4. I don't hollow out the brie at a holiday party, even though the rind is terrible.  Seriously guys, it's terrible.
5. I think there are more good people in this world than bad.
6. I think there are more bad people in this world than good.
7. I hate talking on the phone.
8. I'm on mailing lists.
9. I'm terrified of my credit card.
10. I can't figure out Twitter.
11. Sometimes I call my friends' parents by their first names.
12. I think people drive too fast.
13. NPR is interesting.
14. Sometimes I forget to eat dinner.
15. I watch documentaries by myself.
16. My birthday stresses me out.
17. Of course I'm going to vote.
18. I used to love Law & Order: SVU but now it just scares me.
19. I'm generally out of breath.
20. Sure, you can buy me a drink.

I don't know if I set out to prove a point, what that point would be, or if I've gotten anywhere close to proving it.  I guess  this post-grad slump is just a little emasculating and I'd like to be taken a bit more seriously.  After all, I'm 22 and a half.

And They Both Need A Good Hook

Writing is the golf of expression.

Today's Nugget of Wisdom

"Squirrels are just rats with prettier outfits." --My Friend Pilar

That Weird Realization

There's no such thing as adults, just grown-up teenagers.

A Genuine Cover Letter

To Whom It May Concern:

I’m fucking broke.  I have $112 in my checking account, and $584 in credit card debt.  I’m no math major, but I’m pretty sure that means I’m broke.  Oh, and I got an $88 parking ticket today.  Which I guess means I’m broker than broke.  Can I have a job please?

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t necessarily want to work.  I love my entirely free days, but I’ve discovered that with no money to spend and no unemployed friends to hang out with, this free time has lost some of its charm.

Hey, should I have started out this letter by stating my “keen interest” in joining your company?  Or are you the cool guys who see right through that sort of I-took-one-SAT-class-and-learned-the-word-“keen” bullshit?  Please let me know ahead of time so I don’t feel like an ass after submitting this to you.

Here’s what’s up.  I can read and write.  I have a college degree.  I learned the most valuable lessons in college outside the classroom—the ones that I would actually incorporate into my workday.  Like proper etiquette when meeting new people, interacting in diverse environments, and “beer before liquor, never been sicker.”

Here’s the truth.  I know little to absolutely nothing about your company.  I probably should have researched it before starting this letter, but there were so many words and my eyes got bored.  What I do know is I saw the word “Assistant” in the job description and, from what I hear, that’s what I have to become to eventually have a job that sucks less than the one I am currently applying for, with keen interest of course.  I know how to use a telephone and a computer and the Internet.  I won’t list my computer skills because I’m 21.  I was raised in the Age of Technology.  If I don’t know a program already, I’ll figure it out.  Because nerds love explaining that shit on Internet forums.

I don’t know why you asked for a cover letter because you probably hate reading them as much as I hate writing them.  You also stressed in your job posting that you wanted it BRIEF.  Why have one at all?  I’m just putting the most impressive aspects of my resume into sentence form.  You guys have figured that one out, right?

Here’s another bit of truth: Anyone applying for a job straight out of college who says they’re “proficient in Excel” is a bold-faced liar, myself included.  There’s absolutely no reason we would have needed to learn Excel, but we know how you corporate hotshots love organizing shit into boxes.  So as far as you’re concerned, you bet your ass we’re proficient.

In conclusion, I urge you to seriously consider me for this position.  Because I would really like to not be broke anymore and I probably won’t even be that bad at it.  And also if I get a job my mom will take me on a shopping spree for “work clothes.”  I needs me some cardigans.

Halfheartedly,

Forman

P.S. Did you ever notice that the word “halfheartedly” has the word “fart” in it?  Awesome.