I am Going to Feel Terrified Forever

Graduating from college is terrible. You have weird dreams all the time about worms worming their way into your body and destroying your life. I agreed to sign up for a temp agency in Seattle because I need to make money and be an independent person but the prospect of this makes me feel dead inside. My mother is putting pressure on me to go, otherwise I would just blow it off. I just feel more useless when I have to apply for a temp job while living at home with my parents. I also really dislike that my parents push me to do the annoying things I don’t want to do claiming that it will be a good learning experience. This is tiring. Having no stability is tiring. The prospect of living with my parents forever is tiring. I steal this from Lena Dunham all the time BUT “I am having a really hard time right now.” And I am, and everyone should feel sorry for me and tell me how much they love me and how they will send me money in order to provide a sense of security.

I asked my sister if I was going to feel terrified forever. She said no. I still feel really terrified.

Kurt Vonnegut is Ruining My Life

Being back in a city throws you into the arms of the pretentious urban people and their arms aren’t warm or relatable. Especially the men. I refuse to generalize and this doesn’t apply to everyone but I have had conversations with enough guys to realize that Kurt Vonnegut is ruining my life. Last night I drank alcohol and was with friends and there was a person there who I had met before. When we met before there was a lack of engagement. Most of his time was spent speaking to my friend about Vonnegut and reiterating points that she was making about his books yet taking credit for them. Anyways I was pretty bored because I couldn’t include myself because I have never read anything of his and this makes me feel excluded and maybe not interesting enough or good looking enough. And fuck, I am only human, I just want everyone to effortlessly pay attention to me all the time so that I can nonchalantly tell them about all of the interesting things I force myself to read. My immediate reaction to the one-sided conversation was to dislike this person. And he made some comments about not liking butts that were TOO BIG which was just wayyy too personal and made me immediately uncomfortable. It turns out he was blacked out but I didn’t know and the next time I saw him out he simply had no fucking idea who I was and I definitely remembered him.

Ok so then last night I was drinking with friends and we crossed paths in a park and I was just being a baby because I do that when I drink and he was wearing a fucking Slaughter House Five shirt and I don’t really remember how we got into it but I just kept pushing him about his idol. Instead claiming that I just wanted “The Female Perspective” which probably has no relation to Vonnegut and my friends insist he is no woman-hater and really had no connection to the conversation. Then I proceeded to list contemporary women writers like a really really pretentious drunk person who actually has nothing concrete or relevant to say in their arguments. So, you know, I wake up feeling really stupid about that because what I was trying to do was assert myself as an intelligent woman and instead creating points that were extremely emotionally charged and completely irrelevant. But now I see this as a beautiful BEAUTIFUL anecdote that describes the female condition. The amount of times I have had conversations with a guy where he brags to me about all the greatest authors of social and cultural critiques are a lot (or well probably more like 5-10 but I am sensitive so I remember each one very well). This is why it is so genuinely difficult to meet someone where you feel like they might even be 30% interested in what you have to say and who you are but I do generally feel like I put forward at least 50% and this is accidental but as a woman I kind of let them talk down to me and they attack me if I call them out on their shit and I really think this is the position that women are in today.

Also, I accidentally thought Vonnegut wrote Catch 22…

I Really Don’t Like Dangerous Situations

I am not attracted to dangerous situations. Last week there was the brief discussion of July 4th plans, my friend just casually suggested that he knew a great viewpoint for watching the fireworks. That sounds really cool and ok. I think the fireworks are pretty anticlimactic but due to social pressure I always watch them. So we asked him for more details and he described the place, a rooftop, that you climb to and then you watch the fireworks. I fucking hate climbing things. I’m not good at it, I look really bad doing it, and I don’t enjoy it. If I do make it up without dying, I dread the whole process of getting down and can’t enjoy a good view and feel kind of shaky and I bruise so easily. So I have been secretly dreading this all week, hoping our plans would change just enough that we decide to just walk to the top of a hill instead. Things didn’t change and I had to face the reality of my fourth of July. I really don’t like climbing things. We started drinking and I started drinking even more because the anticipation was overwhelming. I became so whiny and complainy that my friend’s mom who was making dinner asked if I wanted to watch the fireworks with her on an overpass instead. That sounded so nice and I am an old soul, I don’t fit into my generation and I started to wholeheartedly believe I should spend the evening with a women twice my age (which wouldn’t even be that bad because she is really a wonderful woman and I am clearly no longer able to relate to people my age). Regardless she gave me her phone number so that I could text her in case I panicked and wanted to meet up.

We leave and I keep drinking to try and ease the pain and would almost rather risk death by being drunk then having to yet again face a climbing situation. I am literally consuming any altering substance, smoking cigarettes etc. It is horrible that I have to prepare for the least exciting moment in my life. My children will hear this story only because I want them to know that it is ok to NOT  be attracted to dangerous situations (I use this wording because that is a question on OKCupid that I spend a lot of time thinking about it because every guy answers that “yes, they are attracted to dangerous situations” and I am just not and this is often a point of contention with myself). So I fucking climb and it is fine and I survive because I am a beached whale when I climb. Instead of actually using my extremities to help gracefully lift myself onto a stable surface I just throw my entire body onto said surface and grip and then just try and role to the appropriate area in order to stay alive. And I have so many bruises now. I look pretty bad. Then my night ended by putting at least 20 temporary tattoos on my right thigh.

 

The Arm

As the little sister, I am always on the defensive. My older sister is always trying to be in control. Who does it first, we cannot be sure, but to cope with my own discrepancies and sensitivity I make fun of my sister in one particular way. It was discovered last summer on the American road trip. As I packed the back of the car, Claire stood behind me with her neck craned and arm limply raised as if she needed to grab me in case the cooler was put in the wrong way. Ever since we were little it has been impossible to do a lot of things smoothly. Baking never worked out, usually I threw a fit and had to stop the project. Every time I feel Claire controlling me, I say, “Put away the arm away!” She is a REALLY good sport and laughs it off. We haven’t gotten to the point where we can make fun of my sensitivity, because when you are sensitive YOU CAN’T MAKE FUN OF THAT BECAUSE THEN YOU CRY.

I think Lily and I have run into this a lot. We share a bed and have no space, so tensions can be a little high occasionally (understandably, right?). Lily and I’s relationship has settled into a pattern which feels similar to the interactions of  Claire and I. I have expressed that it is my inherent reaction to assume that someone is trying to control my actions and Lily is really graciously aware of this. An observation, but as I get older the simpler it seems to be completely independent (and be in a lot of therapy).

I’m Looking for a Boyfriend

I have spent the last two years being single. Obviously I am not going to date anyone at my school but every time I leave for a new place, I expect to fall in love. I just don’t think this was ever destined to happen to me. My anxiety has ruined me in the whirlwind romance category. In fact, my sister and I are currently having a conversation on Facebook about love. First she declared that her daily mantra is “today is the day you could fall in love.” I then said, “I believe in love” (a line from Sex and the City). Then we talked about YEARNING in all caps.

I went on two dates in New York based on the very false promises of online dating. They were both mediocre too-short hipsters from Brooklyn who only talked about themselves and brewed their own beer. At least I understand now that just because a guy has a beard doesn’t mean he is attractive. It seems like it from a distance but they are just the faux-sensitive hipster. Also why do people always tell you to stop looking for a boyfriend, and they will find you. This doesn’t happen because I am always looking for a boyfriend. Boys lie about this also. They just want a girlfriend. Everyone likes monogamy.

Pray for the Frost women. Claire is starting to call everyone “dude.”

 

We Can Snuggle, But We Need Space

Although we are not a middle-aged Indian couple sharing a twin bed on the show “The Marriage Ref”, Lily and I may as well be. We have determined that every night in our double bed we are both thinking “WHY IS THIS BITCH SLEEPING ON MY SIDE OF THE BED” even though inevitably we know that there isn’t even enough room to have our own sides. Also, we have maybe spent 3 nights apart in the two months in NYC. Nights alone are few. This should be a reason to rejoice but it is not because Lily is not a man (but she is loving and supportive).

I have spent most of the summer complaining. The heat, my living situations, my internships. But in the last week I have realized I am grateful and have learned a lot. What I may have thought to be people attacking me, was really just my sensitivity (SURPRISE SUPRISE GENETICS). The East Coast is different. In good and bad ways. Ways I need to spend more time analyzing with my sister.

Lily and I have made so many obvious jokes about our relationship this summer. It is easier to do that than to actually acknowledge how insane it is to share a room with someone, let alone a bed, for months. We barely even knew each other before this, we hung out in Paris together for a few days in December. But the Seattle love connection is strong, and that is proving to be so undeniably true.

Make Me Popular

I think being in New York has the effect of making everyone want to be popular. By popular I mean recognized. And by recognized I mean D-list Hipster famous. I decided that NYC is meant to be taken advantage of and I should do this by pursuing my interests. I think this means I am starting a fashion blog. Which is actually extremely embarrassing to admit to because I feel like fashion is such a low-art form (?) and that a lot of unintelligent people have those and they just happen to be pretty with lots of money (but check out The Man Repeller for an intelligent/humorous form of fashion blogging). Also, I AM POOR. $88 in my bank account to last me 28 days. That is $3 a day. Everyone is rich in NYC and I had to spend $8 on a shitty salad because I forgot to bring my brown baggy lunch. But this is the inspiration, my poverty and therefore thriftiness (I argue it is genetic due to Judaism). I am trying to achieve the $10 outfit. Anyways, fuck it I am doing it. I will post the link once my tech savvy friend (thanks Timmy!) helps me design the page.

For a couple of weeks, NY was kicking my ass. Severely so. I was convinced everyone in NYC was against me, and that my soul was being crushed. But I am over the hump and seeing the light! Being West Coast centric is a sheltered childhood, because EVERYTHING happens in NY. I am glad I grew up kind of in the dark, because it is exhausting feeling the need to constantly be one step in front of everyone else. Also, every person who has grown up in NY that I have talked to has said they just want to move (this is two people, including the teenage boy working in one of the many Chinese/Mexican fusion restaurants in NY). But I can just really appreciate that sentiment. Air conditioning is a religion in NY which I am appreciative of.

Alright, help make me popular.