"Wag More, Bark Less"

Who doesn't love watching YouTube videos of cute animals? Or looking through Buzzfeed compilations of funny looking creatures. You probably have your favorites--the slow loris, the fox, the corgi...

Before the internet blew up with animal cuteness we had the zoo. (I mean, we still do have the zoo. No one panic--it's still there. It's just that at age 24 I access the zoo less frequently than I access the internet.) Anyways, when you'd go to the zoo you would always have your favorites there too.

Have you ever taken a deeper look into why your favorite animal is what it is?

Is it because it reminds you of yourself? Is it because it acts how you want other people to act? Is it just because it's funny to look at? 

I'll run through a self-analysis first so you can get the hang of this.

I have 2 favorite animals. The first is a dog. This is the most boring answer ever. So usually I tell people it's a giraffe instead because it creates less backlash. So, my favorites are dogs and giraffes, and I have come to realize that I like them both for 2 different reasons.

I discovered during a conversation I was having the other day that I'm a dog at heart. I am a people-person to a fault. I love people, I want to be around people, I just want people to play and be happy and that's when I'm happy. I can be alone for awhile--I can be independent for spurts. But at the end of the day, if someone asks me to hang out I'm texting back "yesyesyesyesyeswherewegoing??"

People always say they like dogs because no one else gets as excited as a dog gets when they see you. And I just nod my head because I feel like it would freak them out if I said, "Well I'm super pumped you're here too! I've been waiting around all day to see you!" But it'd be the truth. I just really like people. So I identify with dogs. 

Giraffes are my favorite animal mostly because they're quiet but are super interesting to look at. While I tolerate loud noises, I've never been a huge fan of them. Fire trucks in parades, action movie sound effects, Will Ferrell...these loud things just stress me out. In the zoo, the giraffes were always a sort of respite for me. They just sat there being accidentally hilarious and didn't say anything. 

I'm going to stick my neck out (hehe) and say that I kind of look for my friends to be like giraffes. I'm not drawn to the loud, flashy animals that are throwing things just like I'm not drawn to loud, crazy people who are...throwing things. I guess. I like people who are interesting, and funny both on purpose and despite themselves, and not aggressive, and not loud unless they're getting attacked by a hyena. So I would like to be friends with giraffes.

And there you have it--I have selected my 2 favorite animals based on who I think I am, and who I want to spend my time with.

Do you have any rhyme or reason for your favorite animals?

If your favorite animal is a sloth are you now getting worried about the fact that you're sloth-like?

Before you go ponder, I will leave you with this video that answers the question of what it'd be like if dogs and cats were humans:

"I hid under your porch because I LOOOVE you!"
-Dug, UP!

You don't have to outrun the bear...

Lots of people motivate themselves with the mantra that someone is always better than them at something, or that someone else is always working harder. But a lot of times I make myself feel better by insisting that there's someone else out there who's worse off than I am in any given situation.

Every time I sit down to tackle an adult task, usually involving my health insurance in some capacity I think to myself, "Someone out there is dumber than I am, and is trying to do this same exact thing." I never really think about the possibility that they just give up and don't end up doing what they need to do. I just imagine that they somehow succeeded so there's no reason I shouldn't.

It's also never really occurred to me how lame of a "pep talk" this is for myself until just now. But I've already started writing so I've sort of committed to being lame for the day. Oh well--can't win 'em all! (Again, lame.)

Anyways, this sort of logic works for all sorts of things. Here's a few examples:

When getting a pedicure: "I'm sure they've seen grosser feet."
When writing my senior thesis in college: "Someone more clueless than I has to have done this before."
When running a road race: "There will be slower runners."
When taking a test: "I'm sure someone did worse than I did."

So, I use this line of reasoning a lot, and lately I've started wondering how many times I've actually been wrong. I really bank on the fact that I'm at least mediocre in every situation I encounter...but maybe I'm not.

Someone has to have the grossest feet a pedicurist has ever seen. What if it's me?

Someone has to be the dumbest person to ever try to get a referral from their doctor. That could very well be me.

Is there someone out there keeping a tally of all the times I've incorrectly assumed that there's gotta be someone somewhere in the world that's more screwed than I am?

(There were definitely a few car rides in my life before we used GPS where I wasn't able to comfort myself with my lame mantra, and actually thought to myself, "I am the most lost person in America right now, and quite possibly even the world." As you can tell, I get really irrational and dramatic when I get lost. All the sudden it's like, rules of the road no longer apply, and I just start taking U-turns whenever the hell I feel like it.)

In summation, what I'm trying to say is that while, with some things it's worth trying to finish first or be the best, I'm of the opinion that a lot of times it would suffice to just not finish last or be the worst.


"You don't have to outrun the bear--just your slowest friend."
-Unattributed

(P.S. In case you were wondering, [which most of you probably weren't] I did some research on whether I should be saying "dumber than me" or "dumber than I"/ "worse off than me" or "worse off than I" and while I thought it'd just be a quick job for Google, turns out that I actually stumbled into one of the grammar world's most hotly debated topics. Apparently people have been fighting about this since the 1700's. The rule I decided to go by was that if "am" is either used or implied than you use "I," like this, "Surely there is someone out there dumber than I [am]." The great advice that the website gave me was to just avoid these types of sentences altogether. But, you know, I like to live dangerously.)

Drive Me Crazy

Driving can cause a lot of frustration. Having grown up in Massachusetts, I feel as if road rage was something I learned in Driver’s Ed. (No, actually in Driver’s Ed my instructor was this creepy guy named Vladimir who would turn 90 degrees in his seat to stare at me for the entire hour and tell me I looked like Julia Roberts. My mom would hug and kiss me and tell me she loved me every time I left the house for a lesson—like she was never going to see me again. No lie, ask my family, it was terrifying.)

Where was I? Oh yeah. Road rage. My ultimate rule of road rage is to always keep in mind that there are human beings driving these cars. Sometimes this calms me down, but other times it just gives me more rage. Like, you’re trying to tell me there’s a brain somewhere inside that car? I just don’t even believe it.

I absolutely hate when someone is behind me, and I’ve come to a stop for a very good reason (a pedestrian crossing, or a fire truck coming towards us, etc. ) and they can’t see why I’ve stopped so they start beeping at me, or try to go around me.

Look, whenever I’m in my car, it’s because I’m trying to get somewhere. I’m just as aware as the next person that stopping dead in the middle of the road for absolutely no reason is not going to get me where I need to go. So why can’t you just trust me that I’m stopping for a good reason?

One time, my car broke down in the middle of an intersection in Cambridge. It just shut off. And as I had been stopped at the red light at the intersection prior to breaking down, I had no momentum. So I was stuck. Clearly, I start panicking. I’m pressing on pedals, I’m frantically trying to restart my car. Anyone that looks through my window can see that I’m having a moderate meltdown. Meanwhile, some lady is across the intersection from me beeping and throwing her hands up at me. Like I’m there on purpose just to piss her off. Yes, I mean to be parked in the middle of this intersection. I’m not trying to restart my car—I’m just dancing to a Ke$ha song on the radio. You don’t like it? Well too bad!! All in a day’s work of inconveniencing you, m’am.

Seriously, people drive as if they are the only human being on the road, and everyone else is My Pal 2 in a booster seat or something. And I don’t say this to suggest that I’m not one of those people. Because I am absolutely guilty of doing the same things that make me so angry when other people do them. Like slowing down at a yellow light to take a right and making the person behind me miss the light because he wanted to go straight. I get so angry when people do that, but it’s really unavoidable. No one should take a right going 40mph. And I don’t really expect them to change their route just so I can make a green light. So I don’t really know what I want from them in that situation, or why I get angry, especially when there is no doubt that I would have done the same thing were I taking a right.

The vast majority of us on the road are trying to get somewhere in a timely manner, so I really do try my best to remember that. Maybe Vladimir tried to teach me that during my road lessons but I was too busy concocting an escape route… 

"Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?"
-George Carlin

Four-eyes

I'm not the suffer-in-silence type. Therefore, if you've been within a 50 mile radius of me for the last week, you've heard me complain about having to wear my glasses. I've had glasses since the fifth grade, but worn contacts daily since sixth grade. In the next week or so I have to go to a few different eye appointments, and they need me to not wear my contacts for a period of time before the appointments.

I could write a novel about why I hate wearing my glasses. In fact, in this week alone I have probably given enough material to my mom and close friends for them to each write their own novel about why I hate wearing my glasses.

So, I contemplated writing this entire post about all the reasons I hated wearing my glasses, but then I figured out a way to make it look like I was only picking one complaint to write about, and can still sneak in all my other complaints. So it was a win-win...for me anyways.

DISCLAIMER: What you are about to read will be full of #firstworldproblems and #whitegirlproblems. I understand that millions of people wear glasses every day and never complain about these things. I understand that me complaining about this is trivial and unimportant. To my critics I say: Have you read a single thing I've ever written? It's all trivial and unimportant. You should be used to this.

Anyways, here goes:

I cringe at the fact that people may think that I'm suddenly wearing my glasses to look:
1.) Smart
2.) Cool
3.) Edgy/Alternative/Nerd Chic
4.) Like a sexy librarian

To be clear: I am wearing my glasses this week as a means to an end. In fact, any time you have ever seen me wearing my glasses I either:
a.) Have just removed my contacts and am walking to my bed to go to sleep
b.) Am on my way out of my bed to go put on my contacts in the morning
c.) Have an upcoming eye appointment
d.) Have an eye infection

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this yet, but I hate my glasses. When I wear them, I feel like crap. I associate them with being sick or tired, because the only time I ever wear them is when I'm sick or tired. So when I go out and I'm wearing my glasses, I don't feel super sassy and witty, or sexy and mysterious, or like I deserve some hipster street cred...I feel like I have conjunctivitis and I just want to go to bed...and everything I look at has a glare.

So, while we're on this topic, let's talk about the stupid quote from the movie Ted, "You're not a nerd, you're a whore who found glasses." We need to stop working this quote into memes, and applying it to any girl who we see out at night wearing glasses. All I'm saying is maybe she has pink eye and is just trying to make the best of the situation, OK? All this judgement about "fake nerds" and the like is just making me anxious. Do I just stay in my house all week to avoid being branded as fake, or a poser or a "whore who found glasses?" 

And if someone wants to go around wearing non-prescription glasses because they think it makes them look cooler, I actually applaud them for their dedication. Because, in my (highly intelligent and eloquent) opinion, wearing glasses sucks. You can have your hipster street cred. You can be the sexy librarian. Or the sassy nerd. All I know is that next week I'll be right back in my contacts, spending all morning putting makeup on the bridge of my nose to hide the giant indents left by those demon spectacles. 


"I can't complain, but sometimes I still do."
- Joe Walsh

"Is this gonna be forever??"

Like most people, anxiety occasionally gets the better of me. I know you'd never be able to tell from the even-keeled and not-ridiculous-at-all nature of this blog, but I can sometimes get rattled. Often, when I'm stressed out or anxious I try to figure out what is making me feel that way. What exactly about the situation at hand is the part that is causing me to panic?

The answer is in that famous YouTube video, "David After Dentist."

In short: I'm afraid it's going to last forever.

I know it's stupid and irrational, but it's so easy for me to lose my perspective when I'm in a bad spot.

When I get a stomach bug and am lying on bathroom floor it's really difficult for me to think positively. All I can think about is how I'm going to be here for days. Weeks even. Wrapped around the toilet.

When I used to work night games at the ProShop, the game would let out and the store would fill with people. The line at the registers would wind half-way through the store. And without fail, every single time, I would look at the clock and think, "I'm never going home. I will be 30 years old and still standing at this register, ringing people up."

I know I'm not the only one who has this fear of growing old while in the midst of one, constant, horrible situation. One of my favorite college stories ever is my friend Rachel's rendition of what happened to her one day in the dining hall. I'm going to tell it in the first-person, and hope that I do it justice: "I was at the frozen yogurt machine filling up a bowl, when all the sudden I end up holding the handle to the machine. Only it's no longer attached to the machine. I frantically start trying to stick the handle back into the machine but my bowl is starting to overflow. So I panic, and just start grabbing more bowls, and filling them with fro-yo. And in the middle of all of this, I think to myself, 'I'm going to be here forever filling up bowls of frozen yogurt! This is never going to end!! How much fro-yo does this machine hold?!'"

Of course, this story has a happy ending. Rachel ended up graduating on time and everything was ok. She was probably only hung up for about 30 seconds by the "Fro-Yo Fiasco of 2011." Someone finally came along, saw her dilemma and helped her get the handle back in. But that's not the point. That's never the point when you're in the situation.

The future is a time for looking back at the chaotic moments in our past and laughing about how trivial and short-lived they were. The present is a time for panicking about the present situation rapidly becoming our future and depriving us of the luxury of looking back at the past and laughing at it. It's tough to be in a state of panic and honestly believe yourself when you say, "someday this will be hilarious." Because you're not in "someday," you're in "today," and "today" sucks.

If the stressful situation is long enough--say, more than 30 seconds--there's a slight chance I can calm myself down by reminding myself of all the other times I thought I would be stuck in a hamster wheel of anxiety and discomfort. I'm not still at the ProShop ringing up customers from that game in 2008. I'm not still on the bathroom floor of my house puking since I was 14 years old. Rachel isn't still at school filling up bowls of fro-yo. "This too shall pass," "It's always the darkest before dawn,"and all of those uplifting quotes that probably aren't even true (is everything actually darkest before dawn?)


"Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!"

-Jay Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald), The Great Gatsby