I Cleaned Out My Dresser and Found Weird Stuff!
A few different things brought me to this post today. First of all, I decided on a whim that I immediately wanted to sell my HUGE 8-drawer dresser and have a nice desk/chair combo in its place. You know, to give myself a legitimate “writing area” and to, you know, “write ground-breaking pieces.” (I’ve had my desk for two days. So far, I’ve written this post and read up on cool theme cakes, so YOU TELL ME if the desk has done its job yet.) The second reason is total nostalgia after writing a pretty biting Facebook post aimed at a chick I went to high school with. Someone wasn’t very nice in regards to my graduating class, so I put on my Bitch Cap and went to work.
I was like,
It was pretty fun! A bunch of us Marian girls got a laugh out of it.
I mean, if I’m being totally honest.
Anyways!
I had to clean out my dresser in a hot second because people on Craigslist immediately wanted to come over and purchase it. And then I had to get my “writing space” put together, so everything that was in my dresser is now in a massive pile in the middle of my floor. GrOwInG uP iS hArD!
This is me after a long day at work, hair flying around like crazy, sitting at my desk. You know, just writin’ them thangs.
So here I am, going through some weird stuff I found. I have this bad habit of moving around like a nomad, but never really getting rid of anything. Looking at this pile of shit on my floor, I notice it’s full of random things from high school and college. This is stuff that no person actually needs on them. I very easily could’ve put this all in a box and kept it at my mom’s house. But no, I moved from Omaha to Lincoln, and then from Lincoln to Los Angeles, and then have moved in Los Angeles TWICE, without ever having gotten rid of anything.
I’m just learning as I go, I guess.
So here’s some shit I found. Let’s reminisce, friends! First, here are some shirts.
I have two huge stacks of tshirts from high school. They fit me when I was a fetus, but not no more. I’m going to pretend like it doesn’t bother me, if that’s cool with you. But hey remember junior year when we won Field Day and then senior year we were fucking ROBBED because the system was flawed? Me too. Regardless, that shirt kind of made me want to cry a little.
I’ll give you one guess as to who bought me this shirt. If you said my mother Lisa Latka, you win! My mom is a nutcase and I love her. OF COURSE she bought me a Fuck Cancer shirt.
My cousin Chip and a few of his homies bought me a Sox shirt in 2003, I believe. It was for my birthday, right before sophomore year began. Good times! Again, I don’t think even ONE of my boobs would fit in this shirt now, let alone two… In fact, I think Josh borrowed it for something in college, for a video we were shooting, and the fact that it fit him and not me still haunts my dreams to this day.
My diploma! You may be thinking, “Emily, you worked really hard for that thing. Why was it in a random dresser drawer and why do you consider it to be ‘weird stuff?’” Well… I never had anywhere to put it and “worked really hard” is giving me a little too much credit. However, I do appreciate you thinking that! You’re adorable.
Also, THANK GOD my loans have gone to good use and my writing skills have only improved since graduating college. Where would the world be if I, Emily Latka, hadn’t written about The Wanted and weird YouTube videos?
LOL LIFE IS FUNNY LIKE THAT.
Okay this last picture is a Greatest Hits Compilation. Let me explain the following:
1. Josh, Anna and I, while getting ready for a Halloween party in 2008, decided to have some drinks. And then tally those drinks. As you can see, we were HOT MESSES before even getting to the party. #YOLO
Photographic proof. Yikes.
2. A really kick ass photo of Anna and me from high school.
3. Random mix CDs. Notice how Anna’s Ultimate Summer Mix 2007 features “one grandma song.” God love her, she knows me too well.
4. All four of my high school IDs.
5. A fake Time Turner, bought for me by my mother on a whim, because she is FUCKING RAD.
Okay so that’s some stuff I found in my dresser. It was fun to not only discover it all, but then take pictures of it and put it here for you people.
In closing, clearly I need to clean out my stuff more often. And clearly I need to get my life together and get this pile of stuff off my floor, organize it, and put it somewhere. But until then, I’ll just stare at it and envision myself wrapping all my high school girls and college friends in one giant hug.
And drink wine at the same time!
I Swore I’d Never Put This on the Internet, PART 1
Our country is in disarray, you guys. This last week has made me really cynical, mean, annoyed, and generally a not-nice person to be around. So sorry to those around me. I tend to project onto other people when large, looming forces get me down.
But for real. See somethin’ say somethin,’ people.
So I’m going to make you laugh. I’ll at least try.
I had a slight epiphany while watching an episode of “Girls” (my friend’s HBO Go account say WHAT!) so hear me out, y’all. Say what you will about Lena Dunham, that bitch is honest. She reveals really terrible things about herself for the sake of her writing and her “art.” So what the hell have I been doing? I’ve had this blog since December 2011 and have revealed various random anecdotes about myself, this is true. But lately, have I really been saying anything? Am I truly giving a view into my brain or am I just spewing crap about boy bands?
My last post was about my soul-crushing realization that my student loans are killing me. The post itself happened randomly, after I had a slight nervous breakdown on my front sidewalk. I just reread it though, and realized that I wrote about a pretty big chunk of my anxiety. So congratulations, people! I’m going to be more honest!
I can be fun and I can give weird lists about things I like, or more often things I hate, but I figure I need to share more. I need to tell you stories, cautionary tales, or sad musings about my single life. If I’m going to become the voice of our generation someday, I have to start today. The time is now! Live life to the fullest! #YOLO!
So now that I’ve sufficiently caught you up to speed on my new goal for this blog, here is the first post in a series of posts. I told myself I’d never put on these certain stories on the internet. There are various reasons why, as you’ll see, but the biggest reason being complete and utter embarrassment. I am a self-professed mess and I think about a lot of dumb things. But at the end of the day, I told myself I’d never reveal the dumbest of the dumb. I also wanted to preserve some form of my dignity. But Emily Latka is a fool, so here we are.
This is me in 5th or 6th grade. It wasn’t a good look.
I was a tall kid. My parents knew from the time I was little that I would be a tall kid. My mom is 5’9″ and her brothers are all somewhere around 7’7″ or something. It was expected. And sure enough, I hit fourth grade and the “how’s the weather up there” jokes started, much to my chagrin. I could sense, even then, that adults would take my height as a sign for athletic greatness.
In 5th grade, my parents asked if I wanted to be on the basketball team. I was ambivalent at the time, as I was already in dance classes and on the softball and volleyball teams. It didn’t bother me to add another sport to my repertoire. I remember walking into the gym and seeing one of the coaches practically salivating at the tall girl. I could see the cogs turning. Maybe this team could win! She could be the center! She could jump high, grab rebounds, and score some serious inside points!
Wrong.
I really dislike being told what to do, and even more than that, I dislike being told what I should like or enjoy. I was told that because of my height, I would be a fantastic basketball player. “You’ll learn to love it!” I was told that as the tall girl, shit would change and I could “go places.” Shit, I just wanted to go to Baskin Robbins! I don’t want to go anywhere just because I’m freakishly huge! (The real kicker in this whole saga is that, even with my displeasure for the sport, I was forced to stay on the team for FOUR YEARS because not enough girls in our grade wanted to play. If I left, there would only be four people total on the entire roster. I was stuck. I couldn’t leave and have the entire basketball team fold. Such is life for an adolescent girl!!!)
Bless my parents’ hearts, though. I would just randomly run up and down the court, flailing my arms around, hoping to somehow touch the basketball and then immediately get it out of my hands. I would guess that I spent maybe 30 seconds out of every single game with the ball actually in my hands. But I swear my parents didn’t even notice. They’d just stand there like,
I always felt a little bad for them. They were rooting for the worst excuse for a basketball player ever. Luckily my sister came along and blew me out of the water, being a super star athlete. She played in a special, elite basketball league in middle school, which as you can imagine did wonders for my self esteem.
But then in sixth grade, something terrible happened. And this is the story I swore I’d never put on the internet because it’s really embarrassing. It’s embarrassing to tell people how much of a basket case I was as kid (well, and now, I guess). This story is where a lot of my future anxieties stem from. It all started with one basketball game!
I can’t remember what team we were playing, I just remember that the gym was really dark and hot. (Arguably, that could just be the way my mind chooses to remember it, because of how traumatic it was.) I was, as predicted, the center for our team. I was the big bean pole stuck in the middle, practically underneath the basket at all times. I was half-assing it because I hated it and didn’t give a shit what the coaches wanted anymore. But still, the ball hit the backboard, I jumped up with the other team’s center who was all up in my grill, both of us going for it.
What happened next put stars in my eyes. This girl, this equally massive, tall giant, came down with the ball in her hands. In the process, she elbowed me straight in the boob. We’re talking a direct ELBOW into my left knocker. And you girls know, at that age, you don’t have breasts, so much as tender little breast-ettes. This girl barreled into me so hard, and so fast, I got the wind knocked out of me. I fell to the floor, clutching my chest, dry heaving for what felt like hours.
My teammates crowded around me, my coach ran out to see what was wrong. I think someone asked if I was elbowed in the ribs, if I was hit in the stomach. I just nodded, saving myself from having to tell everyone that my tit hurt something awful. I said I needed a minute, so they let me sit on the bench for awhile. I just hung my head in between my knees, praying with all my might that I wouldn’t throw up. But don’t worry, I still had to finish the goddamn game, because OF COURSE I DID.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. My boob still hurt. And I was still too embarrassed to tell anyone why I was in pain. It was throbbing. Looking back, I’m sure I just had a bruise. It really wasn’t that big of a deal. But to a kid who didn’t know any better, my life was over. I had these visions of myself as a girl who had one normal sized boob, and one stunted boob that just sat there. I found myself thinking the worst of the worst, that I was deformed and my life would never be the same. The horror! Uneven boobs! And from a sport that I absolutely hated, no less!
I was convinced for months that it was going to stop growing and that I’d be lopsided. And I mean I would legitimately worry. I consistently lost sleep over my impending handicap. I would say for a good three months, very rarely did I fall asleep without thinking that the next day would be THE day, the day I noticed myself leaning off kilter. It was a rough time.
Before writing this, I told my mom how much of a worrier I was, and how my anxieties really used to get to me as a kid, and she said she never even noticed. So… that made me feel just great.
Okay that’s my story! That’s how I spent a huge chunk of my 6th grade year. I was an anxious little girl, obsessed with pop music, wondering where I’d end up in life, worrying over my body being a piece of shit forever.
KIND OF LIKE NOW.
Can people please comment on this and tell me I’m fine? Or least be like, I had weird fears as a kid too! I don’t want to do this alone. And if you comment or give links to your own embarrassing stories, I’ll check them out! Let’s be weirdos together, y’all.
Love you, Boston. Be safe.
[Follow me on Twitter. Because I'm fun there. @EmilyLatka, ya heard? And check me out on Tumblr. It's a fun place to be.]
My Mother Was Right, I Wasn’t Prepared For This
I’m going to get real with you all: I’m in a bad place. I’m not in the right frame of mind to blog. I shouldn’t be expressing myself through an online medium on this day, of all days. I’m going through a rough patch. Things are bleak.
MY STUDENT LOANS ARE CRUSHING ME.
Y’all, I just don’t know how we do it. I don’t know how we graduate and pretend like everything is okay when it is most certainly NOT OKAY. I go through the motions, week after week, making payments on my student loans, when all of a sudden I’m like, “Hold the phone. Just stop. Emily, just stop. Have you looked at your total balance lately? Have you even glanced at the surface you’ve so barely skimmed? You can’t afford that coffee, you have money to pay back!!!!!”
I owe numerous private loans and I owe a significant amount to the government. Typing that sentence just gave me a heart murmur. So, there’s that.
Can I hire a Sugar Daddy to pay this all off for me? Is that a thing?
I just need to calm down. So I am here, blogging about more incessant nonsense for no reason other than the weird sense of happiness it brings me. So thank you, readers. You are my Xany Party, as well as Valium, Klonopin, and Ativan all rolled up into one giant hug. Or whatever.
Don’t get me wrong. I can’t pretend like I didn’t see this coming. Our parents knew what the hell was up. They all had those conversations with us. My senior year of high school, I offhandedly said something about my “college fund” to my mom and she literally laughed in my face. She found it adorable that I thought I had a college fund. As if our poor family could save ANY money for me to attend college, let alone enough to qualify as an actual “fund!” She sat me down and told me if I wanted to go to college (and I was absolutely expected and forced to, which is the real kicker in this whole “higher education” FRAUD) I would have to pay for it myself. And by “pay for it myself,” she meant taking out numerous loans.
My mother warned me. She told me I would pay “hundreds upon hudrends of dollars a month” on loan payments. And I said back, “But this class on the History of Sports is so fulfilling! And I HAVE to do two internships in Los Angeles, mom! GOD, it’s like you don’t even GET me!” I never in a million years thought she would be right. I never thought my monthly payments would be this high. I guess I just forgot to take into account how many loans I’d end up with after four years.
Apparently I’m not smart or good at math, so one wonders why I even bothered with college in the first place…
But I took out the loans anyway. I assumed they’d be off waiting somewhere in the distant future. I pretended like they didn’t exist. You know, like how people pretend racism, or say the “Lindsay Lohan Conspiracy,” don’t exist (Spoiler Alert: they both exist). I just never expected these loans to hit me so hard. Every single person I talk to, we’re all drowning. Even if we don’t admit that we’re drowning, we are.
How do we make this stop? How do we get out from the crushing realization that this borrowed money will follow us wherever we go? If I ever come into any sort of money, it’ll go to loans. Raises, tax refunds, extra cash, coins from my purse. It should ALL go to the loans. And yet they don’t because I have to live and have food. And don’t even get me started on how much rent, insurance, and car payments cost me a month! I’m going mad!
You guys, let’s just wallow in this together. Let’s band together and agree that this sucks. We all owe a shit ton of a money to a shit ton of places. If I even jokingly talk about buying a new car any time soon, or saving up for a house, or “going to grab lunch,” slap me in the face. Because I can’t afford it. I can’t afford to give my money towards anything other than the seemingly thousands of loans with ridiculous interest rates.
And for that matter, just slap me in the face. I’m sure I probably deserve it for something.
5 Things I Do NOT Have Time For
I’m a firm believer in memes. I believe that they say a lot about our culture, as a whole. When Sweet Brown expressed that she didn’t have time for stupid fires, what with her bronchitis, we sympathized. Who DOES have time for that kind of shit, when you got real problems?! The phrase has been adapted and used so many times because Sweet Brown gave voice to a very distinct problem: there are certain things that no one has time for and people need to talk about them.
I personally still use the phrase on an almost daily basis. If something comes up that I do not like, or want to waste my time listening to, I’ll tell everyone around me that I don’t have time. I have work to do. I have important things to think about. So without further adieu, here are five things I do NOT have time for, now or ever. Enjoy!
1. Animals with facial expressions
When Grumpy Cat came out, I was ecstatic. As someone who doesn’t get along with cats, even I can say that cat is ADORABLE. He’s so angry! He’s unhappy at the world! Hilarity ensued.
But it made me realize that aside from the grumpy expression on this particular cat’s face, I do NOT want to see animals with other facial expressions. I remembered how creeped out I felt when I saw this:
This is not a fun picture for me. People laughed at what looks like a dog smiling over his cake. I think this is terrifying. I do not want my dog smiling at me. I don’t want my dog to in any way express himself other than wagging his tail or licking my face. And for that matter, remember this commercial?
It is horrible! It gives me nightmares!
There was also a post on BuzzFeed the other day that featured a dog with, wait for it… A MAN FACE. The dog looks like its face is that of a HUMAN BEING. It’s giving a very pensive expression to the camera. Only people should be worried! We worry about taxes and debt and world peace! Dogs shouldn’t be freaked out!
WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!!?! I don’t have time for these shenanigans, you guys. I just don’t. I want my dog to look at me like dogs are supposed to.
2. Vanity Plates
I feel like for this one, people LITERALLY do not have time for them. I’m not exactly versed in how you go about getting vanity plates, but I feel like it’s an arduous process that many people don’t want to wait around for. When I go to the DMV, I want to walk in and be out in 10 minutes. That rarely happens.
Don’t you have to do extra paperwork for this type of thing? Aren’t there hoops to jump through to get specific letters and numbers printed and waiting for you? Or is it a mail-in thing that they just send to you?
Wow, just typing those questions out was exhausting. NO TIME.
And also, I feel like people aren’t taking into account what license plates are for. They are identifiers. They are there for registration purposes, sure, but they’re also there for cops. If you speed past one, they’re immediately tailing you and looking up your name to give you a ticket. I guess what I’m saying is, if I happened to commit a crime, or happened to go through a yellow light, I don’t want to make it easier for people to find me. Isn’t that like, the number one rule in rule breaking? You want the quick getaway with the least amount of witnesses! You don’t want the cops to ask someone, “Do you remember any part of the license plate from the car?” and a witness to be like, “Yes I do, because it said EM’S CAR. Done.”
(I am not planning on committing a crime, so no one send this link to my mother as a distress call, MMKAY?)
When I see vanity plates, I roll my eyes. Was going through all that trouble really worth it? And do you really want to be the guy featured on the news when a huge graphic pops up saying, “A man with the license plate BROS 4 LYF was seen leaving the scene of the crime…” Didn’t think so.
Think it through.
3. Plans I don’t care for
If I don’t want to do something, I’ll tell you. If you ask me to hang out and I don’t want to hang out, I’ll let you know. If there’s one thing everyone in my life needs to know about me, it’s this: I don’t bullshit when it comes to making plans. It’s actually kind of a running joke now. Friends will ask me to hang out and before the sentence is even out of their mouths, they see me shaking my head.
I don’t want to be mean and I certainly don’t want to be the person who never goes anywhere. (Although truthfully, my apartment is delightful and I’d spend all my time there if it was socially acceptable.) But I also don’t want to give false hope to anyone asking me the honest question of whether or not I’ll show up somewhere.
I’ve had friends throughout my life who constantly blew me off. You’d ask them to do something with you and you’d get an answer like, “Yes! I would LOVE to come! Oh I’m so excited!” About a week later it’s, “Yes I’ll totally be there! I have to check with this other person who asked me first, but I’ll totally come with you too.” But inevitably it turns into, “Oh no… Oh I’m so sorry, I can’t go! I’m so bummed!”
But these people forget that I see them do this dance with OTHER people! I know that they knew right from the get-go that they didn’t want to go! It was so infuriating because I kept wanting to shake them and tell them to say NO. Saying no is an art form and I am a goddamn artist.
So I guess this is two-fold: I don’t have time for certain plans that I don’t want to be apart of, and I don’t have time for flaky people who won’t tell me the truth. If you don’t want to hang with me, totally fine. Just tell me when I ask, not thirty minutes before I’m heading out the door.
4. Bad TV
This is a short one. I feel like many people can sympathize with this. Along with people telling you which music you should be listening to, being told to watch certain TV shows is the worst. I know, I know… I am a total offender (because I like to think I know everything about everything) by suggesting TV shows to friends and family on the reg. I should stop that, huh.
But I like what I like. There are SO many options for good TV right now. We’re in the age where not one single network show won a Golden Globe this year. The only winners were from cable and Showtime. That’s ridiculous! And also awesome.
I do not want to watch the Kardashians or anything on E! (JUST KIDDING, The Wanted have a new show coming out, so it’s pretty much the most exciting thing I have going on right now); I won’t watch bad sitcoms on NBC; and I will not, no matter how much you try and convince me otherwise, get into a “Housewives” show. I am not dissing any of these shows or the people who watch them; I’m simply expressing that I, Emily Latka, have a stocked DVR full of shit that I genuinely am bananas for. Again, I literally do not have time for TV I don’t already enjoy.
So let’s all just agree that our shows are all great to each of us and everyone else can kick rocks.
5. Waiting around for new, exciting music when Britney’s heading to Vegas, Beyonce is on her throne, and boybands are on tour left and right
I saved this GIF on my computer as simply “bye bitch.” I know my Beyonce would approve.
Seriously. I’ve seen a few people on Facebook lately being like, “I need recommendations for new music! Send me links and suggestions, friends!” That’s fine. I respect that. Finding new music is an exciting time. I, however, have ZERO time for new music when SO MUCH is happening with my favs.
You guys. Britney is heading to Vegas. Regardless of how you view her or her music, this is big. This is probably how our parents and French Canadian neighbors felt when Celine Dion announced her Vegas show. I am already planning my entire weekend to see her.
Oh and did you see Beyonce’s half-time show at the Super Bowl? (LOL like I have to even ask.) She is kicking ass and taking names. I already have tickets to see her at the Staples Center in June. And if you’re really wondering, I am listening to her on my iPhone right this very second because I can’t stop.
But we can’t forget the boybands. Like I said, The Wanted have a show coming to E! New Kids on the Block, 98 Degrees, and Boys II Men are going on tour together. The Backstreet Boys are still kicking it. Justin Timberlake has new music again! I can barely contain my excitement from all these developments!
As you can see from this plethora of information, I have a lot of old music to listen to. I can’t even think about finding new music right now because I will lose my mind and/or all my money to iTunes.
If you could see my face right now, you’d all laugh at me.
That is all. Those are five things I don’t have time to worry about, not counting the time it took me to write this. And sadly, it didn’t take me long to write this because I just drink coffee and spaz out on my laptop, spewing nonsense. I apologize for this post already. Let’s talk about some shit you don’t have time for! Comment or text me, whatevs.
Emily’s Totally Unnecessary (and Completely Unsolicited) Advice: HOW TO Survive All Your Friends Being in Relationships
So guess what, everybody! This is about to be one of those posts, the ones that make my friends currently in relationships slightly uncomfortable! (You know who you are.) You’re reading this, already slightly cringing, wondering how I’m going to be a dick to all you “married folk.”
Fear not, friends. I ain’t here for them shenanigans. While I am very grating, and clearly narcissistic, I do love you all and love that you’re in happy, healthy relationships. But if I’m here for nothing else, it’s to remind the world that I am single and a total MESS. So why not capitalize on all that and write about it? I do it for the people.
But this post is for all you singles out there, blowing around like tumbleweed, not sure where you’re headed, drinking wine straight from the bottle, doing randos after the bar, not progressing emotionally. My people! It seems like almost all of my good friends are in steady relationships and I’m just chilling on the sidelines, acting a fool. So here is my advice on how to spend your downtime, or rather, ALL your time. Because I am the pinnacle of advice-giving, naturally. (As if you didn’t already know, LOL.)
1. Become BFFs with your Netflix.
You may think this is a joke, or a slight exaggeration. But there’s a lot to be learned from your Netflix account. It studies you. It knows you. It records your likes and dislikes, giving you a comprehensive list of shows and movies you would enjoy. And you know what? It’s almost always right. That “Suggested For You” list is always right! Listen to it.
Don’t be afraid to spend your Friday nights tucked in bed, laptop up to your face, engulfed in all Netflix has to offer. If you’re sad, watch something sad OR uplifting. If you’re nostalgic, watch something you’ve already seen OR something to broaden your horizons. The choice is yours, girl!
And when the time comes, when someone really amazing and cool comes into your life, they may ask you if you’ve seen that weird, obscure movie no one’s heard of. And you’ll say you saw that shit years ago. Because you’re cultured and down with being on your own sometimes. It’s all full circle.
2. Get really into a cleanse.
I’m not crazy and saying single people need to drink lemon water with the cayenne and the syrup. That’s disgusting and frankly, it would be very rude of me to suggest. I’m just saying there is something to be said for finding a weird health kick and then going balls to the wall with it.
Right now I’m really into smoothies. I have a ridiculously good blender and just want to throw whatever fruit I have into it ALL the time. Just juice the shit out of it. Really go hard on some fruit and veg, you know?
Again, it’s all about how you want to fill your time. But do you, be healthy, and then brag to all your friends because you’re healthy. And then when the right person comes along, they’ll be like, “Hey stop eating all these veggies for a hot second! Let’s go to Palm Springs and get tanked together and eat a bunch of food and be in love!” You’ll smirk to yourself, knowing all those smoothies went to good use, and then immediately…
3. Listen to a lot of Ryan Adams.
I just feel like if there’s anyone whose voice in equal measure makes you feel shitty and less shitty at the same time, it’s Ryan Adams. Sometimes it’s nice to be in a sad, I’m-going-to-die-alone mood and fully wallow in it. Ryan lets you do that. You can listen to his voice and feel shitty, but then also think about how rad his voice is and feel not as shitty. Does that make sense? (Does ANY of this make sense?)
And fine, if Ryan Adams doesn’t do it for you and you’re like, I need something with a little more PEP, might I suggest The Wanted? Y’all think I’m joking but I’m not. Listening to boy bands can get you through a lot of shit.
Point proven, a thank you.
4. DON’T read anything by Nicholas Sparks.
I honestly have never read a Nicholas Sparks novel, so I’m not an expert on his style or prose. But I have watched all of the movies based on his books and let’s be real, nothing good can come from any of that. So just don’t do it. That’s my one bit of real advice: don’t do it, girl. It’ll make you feel bad that you’re single and we’re just not here for that. We have enough shit to feel bad about.
If you need a good book to read, I suggest something more mysterious or murdery. Or hell, revert back to old books you’ve already read. From where I’m sitting, I can see my Harry Potter collection and I’m seriously considering riding that train again. Why not?
5. Hone your drinking skills.
No one wants to be a sloppy mess outside of college. And I definitely don’t/can’t drink like I used to. But remember, now is the time! Before you’re married or have kids, now is the time to continue to get shitfaced drunk. If you want to go out to the bars, do it. Or go to a friend’s place. Drink and reminisce about old times. Or, do as I am doing now, and crack open a bottle of wine while you write nonsense for no one.
In college, you drink what’s there. You drink disgusting beer and cheep vodka to ride the wave to Drunktown. So now is the time to find what you like. Don’t just drink any old thing. Become a beer snob! Go to wine country! Stock your fridge with alcohol because you CAN.
And later in life when your perfect mate asks you your drink order, you won’t mumble “whatever the special is” or “whatever you’re having.” You’ll confidently order the shit out of that cocktail and down four of them. And then get sloppy together because it’s adorable.
So that is my advice to the single people out there.
Watch a lot of movies, eat clean, listen to good music, read weird books, and drink up. Because soon you’ll be a “grown up” and have to be responsible.
Whatever that means!
Emily’s Favorite Things, 2012 Edition
If there’s one thing we all have to remember, it’s this: no one gives a shit about anything anyone else likes. I’d venture that about 75% of all conversion conversations (you know the ones, where someone tries to convert you to a band you HAVE to listen to, or a movie you HAVE to see, while you nod your head aimlessly) fall on deaf ears. I don’t care what bands anyone else likes because unless I discover them on my own, in my own way, I feel cheated. So all those books I keep recommending on Instagram? I’m totally right and you should read them, but I really don’t take offense that no one cares. But this is a happy post, I swear!
I say all this because I’m about to put together a list of things I loved this year. It’s a plethora of things and I am literally just making this up as I go along, with no rhyme or reason. And if you agree or disagree, that’s great! Let’s have an open dialogue like it’s group therapy, y’all! I also write these things in hopes that people will strike up conversations with me about their favorite things. So please do that.
And if we can’t all aspire to be like Oprah, what are even DOING here, you know?
This bitch could sell me horse shit and I would GLADLY buy it.
1. John Green
I read A Fault in Our Stars in the spring and couldn’t put it down. Don’t worry, I trust you’ve all read it because, PLEASE. It’s an amazing book that topped almost every Best Of list of 2012. Buy it on Amazon, write about it in your diary, Carrier Pigeon it to every one of your relatives, etc. etc.
After reading it, I said to myself, “Emily get it together and order every single book John Green has ever written.” And then I did.
This is the picture I took of his books when they arrived. I captioned it as follows: “EEEKKKKFGKVKKENTEKRJF!!! Which one should I read first?!?” Because you know, I’m twelve.
But John Green is amazing because he can take a “simple Young Adult” book and make it great. In fact, he makes them magnificent. He creates rich, storied characters with individual quirks. No, not just “manic pixie dream girl” quirks, but actual human quirks, imperfections that real people have. I believe every sentence he writes. As a self professed cynic and all-around asshole, that’s quite the feat for me!
2. One Direction
I’m not going to give a huge comprehensive list of why I love One Direction because I’m sure people would just skip over it. I’m just going to tell you quickly why they’re great: their second album is flawless in the best 90s-boy-band way, each member is adorable, they love each other like brothers, and they’re all fucking stupid… which is half their charm right there! And I’m not gross; they’re all over eighteen, so we can take comfort in that.
Also, here are a few videos and pictures to better prove my point:
PLEASE lie and tell me that didn’t send you back to your youngster days. Please.
That’s the best song on the album, TBQH. If you’re not immediately wanting to go listen to your old Backstreet Boy CDs, I don’t even know what to do with you.
3. Price Peterson
Sometimes you see a person online with such a distinct VOICE, you wonder how it hasn’t happened before now. Like how hasn’t someone like Price Peterson broken through before Price Peterson broke through?
I like to think I have a distinct writing voice, in that I mostly just say things out loud and type them, so as to really give you the feeling that I’m speaking to you. (I say that like it’s huge news to write how you speak, but I also like to state the obvious, so here we are.)
Price has been writing for awhile and clearly he doesn’t need a weirdo like me singing his praises, but whatevs, his writing truly is one of my favorite things this year.
Price is a writer for TV.com and does hilaaarious photo recaps of some awesome shows. I followed a few writers on Twitter who always went apeshit for his TVD recaps so I dug into those pretty quickly. Basically he screen-grabs funny moments from the show and adds his own special flare. Here are two of my favorites:
Look, sometimes we speak in LOLs and JKs. Sometimes we revert back to using the language of yore. It’s just great that Price can take serious shows (depending on how you categorize them) and make them funny. He also usually hits the nail on the head and knows exactly what we’re all thinking. Let’s also just be clear on this: writing full-fledged recaps is a hard thing to do. It’s really time consuming and takes a special eye for sure. So let’s give him the props he deserves when he makes his recaps not only comprehensive, but FUNNY.
Go read his stuff and laugh. His website is also tops because his BIO is everything I’ve ever wanted my blog bio to be.
Oh and he also likes 1D. So there’s that.
4. Retrospective articles on Thought Catalog
So there’s this thing lately. It’s been going on over the last year and I don’t like it. It’s this thing where people are making fun or, or rather looking down upon, people writing about what it’s like to be in their 20s. Apparently our age group is required by law to “suck it up,” “enjoy it,” and “stop complaining.” In some circles it’s known as the “HBO’s ‘Girls’ Dichotomy.” To some, “Girls” creator Lena Dunham is brave for giving a voice to a generation of chicks who are fumbling around, unsure of what to do next. But to others, she’s a stuck up rich girl who has dared to complain about how hard it is to be young and white.
It’s all just really exhausting, let me tell you.
But here’s the other thing: Lena Dunham hasn’t rewritten history. People in their 20s have been complaining about it FOREVER. This shit ain’t new. She’s just the only person in recent years brave enough to be like, “Hey everyone older than me… It blows to be unsure of every move you make, to be educated but poor, to belong but be an outcast.” I just hate when people diminish other peoples’ problems because they themselves have already suffered through it. We haven’t been in our 20s before! Let us write about it and wallow in the sucky parts every now and again! For future reading, please go here, here, and here, motherfuckers!
Rant over.
This just brings me to what I love this year: Thought Catalog. It’s just a big collection of people writing various essays. And some of my favorites have been exclusively about being in your 20s and wanting to figure it the hell out already. Here are some recent ones that have caught my attention:
15 Guaranteed Things That Will Happen To You in Your 20s
8 Things That Are No Longer Cool in Your 20s
23 Signs You’re a Premature Old Person
That last one has been on my personal favorites as of late. I fear that I am actually turning into a 75-year-old spinster. But whatever.
I’ve said on The Demo how much I LOVE Tumblr, but don’t understand it. Seriously, this is where I feel really out of touch. Tumblr is this big entity that I think of as a storefront: I’m on the outside of the glass, looking in adoringly, and wondering how the hell I got here. I just want in the club really bad. I’ll join soon, swearsies.
I’ve also stated before about my love of a specific blog and I’m here to tell you what it is: Beyonco.
Here is her blog used to be described: “So you’ve stopped to take a gander? My name’s Liz, 15. Canada. I like algebra. Ask me stuff.”
I couldn’t even tell you how I found this specific blog, but this 15-year-old Liz is the BALLS. She’s funny, she reblogs really random shit, and she constantly has funny photos. Seriously, if you’ve seen my Cover Photo on Facebook any time in the last year, it’s probably a funny Tumblr picture I first saw on Liz’s page. This girl has no idea that I love her blog, and this may sound creepy, but this is the beauty of the internet! We can all weirdly connect with one another!
So if you see this, Liz from Canada, know this: I think you’re funny and I think you should be a cool writer someday. But you know, you say you like algebra, and people who are good at algebra probably go on to be like crazy smart scientists and astronauts. So whatever you want to do is cool, girl! Do you.
Yikes.
Okay so those were a few of my favorite things. Now is the time where you people reading this either comment and agree, or Tweet me, or text me and tell me to fix typos. I love any and all feedback. Also, let’s discuss our love for Oprah. Because bitch is STILL in charge; this is her world, we’re all just living in it.
Oh and we’re all still here… so the Mayan Apocalypse can SUUUUCKKKK ITTTT!
5 Age-Inappropriate Movies and Why We Shouldn’t Have Been Watching Them
So my girls at xoJane compiled a list of the movies they all watched as kids that they should not have been watching as kids. To be fair, I saw the link on my Twitter feed and before even clicking on it, I had about three movies in my head that I knew I shouldn’t have watched as a child. Lo and behold, two of mine were on their list!
And just so you know, while researching/scouring YouTube for clips from these movies, this has been my face for the last hour:
Also, I’m homeless.
I’ve stated before that my parents apparently didn’t know what was going on in my life. Ludacris is not appropriate for 8th graders! I should NOT have been allowed at a few friends’ houses! We were never chaperoned!
There were so many movies I should not have been allowed to watch. (I don’t blame my parents for my problems. I’m just really dramatic.) One of them was a comedy and most of the jokes flew over my head. Re-watching it now makes me chuckle because so many of the jokes were really inappropriate and no where near my level of comprehension. The other movies just straight up scared the shit out of me. Ohhhh growing up…
Okay so here are 5 movies I watched before the age of thirteen and the various reasons they’ve fucked me up for life. Enjoy!
1. “Clueless”
Such simple times, you know? This movie came in 1995. Yikes.
I don’t know when or why my mom decided to buy us this movie on VHS, but she did. We had it on our basement and my friends would come over and we’d view it for hours on end. We probably rewound it a thousand times and just kept hitting play. I also watched it at other girls’ houses during countless sleepovers.
But let’s juts sit back and think about this for a second. Cher spent half the movie building up to her sixteenth birthday. She kept saying she was turning sixteen in May, that she had her learner’s permit, and that she couldn’t wait to drive on her own (even though she totally did all the time).
But the other half of the movie is all about her losing her virginity. She was fifteen!!!! FIFTEEN! Remember the scene at lunch (when they cut school…) and Tai is flabbergasted over Cher being a virgin? And Dionne counters that back with Cher just being picky? I watch that now and can’t believe it. Our girl Cher was being chastised for staying a virgin as a sophomore in high school. AS IF!
It’s just funny to look back on this movie with a full understanding of the world. And high school, for that matter.
Other lines that are hilarious now that I understand what the hell they were talking about: Tai asking for an “herbal refreshment” and Dion saying no, but they “have coke here,” because duh, “this is America.”
“I can’t participate in any physical activity that involves balls flying by my nose.” “There goes your social life.”
“I’m sorry, but do you have the dates of these alleged tardies?” “One was last Monday!” “Mr. Hall… I was surfing the crimson wave. I had to haul ass to the ladies’.” (Full disclosure: I have used this exact phrase, word for word, when on my period.)
2. “Jawbreaker”
So who remembers THIS hot mess?
This movie came out in 1999, only a few short years after “Clueless.” I’ve read that you only have 3-4 distinct memories from each year of your life, which in and of itself, is really depressing. But even more depressing is that one of mine from that year was apparently walking through Blockbuster with my friend Natalie and her dad. I remember that I was spending the night at her house and we wanted to watch a movie we hadn’t seen. So we skedaddled down to Blockbuster in search of a fun teen comedy. We saw the cover of “Jawbreaker” and immediately thought, “I bet this movie is like our favorite movie Clueless! It has three girls on the front and it’s super colorful! Let’s get it!”
Cut to a few hours later, my life would never be the same.
Basically the three bitches on the front decide to kidnap their friend on the morning of her sixteenth birthday and mess with her. So they sneak in to her room, tie her up, tape her mouth, and shove her in the trunk of their car, just to fuck with her. Yay FrIeNdShIpZ! (Ugh.)
But then when they open the trunk, they realize she is dead. And not just dead, but dead with a huge, massive candy jawbreaker stuck in her windpipe. Rose McGowan’s character decided to shove a jawbreaker in her mouth before taping it, and the girl, in her “I’m kidnapped and in a fucking trunk” freak out, must’ve swallowed it and stopped breathing.
Ever since then, I cannot eat jawbreakers. They scare the living shit out of me. I used to have nightmares about accidentally swallowing one and choking. To this day, I text my old roommate every once and awhile, just to remind him: “If you don’t hear from me for a few days at a time, assume I choked on something in my apartment, and come find my dead body.” This is a legitimate fear of mine.
But basically this movie was NOT suitable for children. There are curse words all over the place, there is creepy-Rose-McGowan-sex with random dudes, and the girls are really, really awful. If someone asked me to watch this movie now, I’d tell them to F off.
Ugh, I’m stressed out just writing about this.
3. “Child’s Play”
Oh I’m sorry, the fact that I can’t watch scary movies comes as a surprise to absolutely no one?
That’s what I thought.
If you ask me about “The Exorcist,” I’m like, NBD. No big thang! That movie didn’t scare me. Sure, it made me never want to go near a Ouija board again, but who didn’t have that fear after watching it? It freaked me out and had scary parts to it, but it didn’t inherently scare the living bejeezus out of me like “Child’s Play” did.
Scoff all you want, this movie should not have been shown to children. I’m pretty sure the first time I watched this was at my childhood friend Kylie’s house. I think her older brother was like, “Hey girls come watch this with me so I can laugh at how dumb you are!” I think I watched half. And then do you want to know what I did that night for the rest of it?
I went upstairs to her living room where her mom and dad were watching “Patch Adams.” Now THAT is a movie, am I right? Honest to God, if you mention “Patch Adams,” all I can remember from it is sitting in front of Kylie’s TV, rocking back and forth, sweating over the fact that the rest of my friends were downstairs and probably being attacked by fucking dolls.
And lest we forget, this is a real line from Chucky in the movie: “You stupid bitch! You filthy slut! I’ll teach you to f–k with me!” Oh, and then he bites the mom.
No thank you.
4. “Titanic”
Don’t get me wrong, I love me my “Titanic.” I look back on this movie with fond, fond memories. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time and I definitely don’t think I shouldn’t have watched it at all as a child… I just think my mom covered my eyes for the stupidest parts.
So raise your hand if you saw this in the theater. I myself was nine (NINE!) when this movie came out. That’s even weird to type out because it sounds so ridiculous. But whatever. I was nine and my mom took my sister and I to see it. She was even younger, but whatevs.
I’m sure my sister and I begged our mom to take us because, duh, Leo DiCaprio was in it and every human on the planet was going to the theater for it. Bless her, I’m sure she just didn’t want us to feel left out.
But let’s think about this for a second… I remember being there and watching the entire movie. But the only part my mom felt compelled to lean over and cover my eyes for was the drawing scene. Apparently Kate Winslet’s titties were too much for my young doe eyes to see. But go ahead! Watch the death and destruction of hundreds of people! There are people falling to their deaths, shooting each other, killing themselves, and generally panicking over imminent death… but shield your eyes from the boobs! Really, mom? REALLY?
I guess this is just more social commentary than anything. We permit our kids to see really scary things, but freak out at the sight of nudity. My parents let me watch the entire ending of the movie but scoffed at Kate’s fun bags. Such is life, I suppose…
5. “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”
So this was like the scariest movie of all time, right? Like universally, we can all agree? Screw trying to
figure out the Middle East. Let’s just all agree on one fucking universal truth that this movie is the scariest thing on record.
Cool, I love when we’re all on the same page.
People try and say that just the boat ride scene was scary. I disagree. Sure, that scene was fucking terrifying and no one should ever be subjected to it again. But the entire movie itself was awful. Charlie was poor and essentially his whole family was laid up in one, massive bed. Wonka was an invalid, didn’t know how to relate to people, and had an entire army of little people at his beck and call. These are serious themes that no child should have to face! Save that shit for later in life when we realize everything sucks!
Here is an even more comprehensive list as to why this movie is scary as shit: one girl blows up, one disappears into a TV and no one really cares, a kid drowns in chocolate, WONKA’S OFFICE?!?!, wallpaper licking, death by giant ceiling fan, Slugworth’s entire disposition before AND after the big reveal, death by garbage chute, and the Wonkavator’s OBVIOUS building code violations.
I give this movie one, big massive…
The ONLY good thing to come from this movie? The Condescending Wonka meme. It still gets me every time.
So there you have it, 5 movies that my tiny brain should not have been watching.
Did anyone else have these feelings? What movies do you look back on and think, “…the fuck were my parents thinking?!” Let me know so I don’t feel so ridiculous for writing this.
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