On Being a Liberal Suffering From Conservative Episodes
I’m a pretty liberal person. I grew up with a lesbian pastor and parents who earnestly campaigned for an opera hall to be built in lieu of a new Vikings stadium. When I was six, I lovingly embraced a tree for 20 minutes, tears soggifying my pink velour overalls, as exasperated laborers waited to remove the rotting ash trunk from my back yard. I was the girl on campus who, three lattes deep and donning a “yes we can!” button, shoved a clipboard stocked with...
Lessons I Learned in Christian Grade School
Dogs don’t have souls. Don’t let those wagging tails and the limitless, unconditional affection fool you. Dogs are for hunting, and for pictures in calendars you give to your mom for Christmas. Girls in eighth grade cannot get pregnant—their bodies do not allow it. In response to your questions about Megan and her sudden affinity for sweat pants and abrupt departure from school, she changed her style and moved to South Dakota. I don’t care if you think you saw her at the mall this...
Honest Answers to Common Job Interview Questions
Tell me a little about yourself. As you may have noticed, I’m quite short, I compulsively destroy my cuticles when I’m nervous, and I’m definitely not used to wearing heels, eyeliner or this pencil skirt. I like watching netflix while eating food that matches the show/movie I’m consuming (Downton Abbey=sandwiches I cut into crustless circles. Toddlers and Tiaras=pixie sticks). I say a lot of things on the internet that would kill my chances of getting this job if you ever find them. For awhile, I...
12 Things I’ve Learned in 2012
1. Your 24-year-old metabolism has not become a glacier, it’s just a little harder to get it out of bed in the morning. 2. If you floss your teeth on the reg you get to be all, yea, I take care of my teeth, dentist, you’ve got nothing on me. 3. There comes a point in young adulthood when you need to stop smoking cigarettes. When you do, you’ll save your lungs, your wallet, and your conscience a lot of trouble. 4. Declining offered mini-loans...
Guy-to-Girl Online Dating Messages Decoded
“hello qt wha’s good I am a fun loving adventurous spirit always up for trying new things ;)” Translation: I want to have anal sex for the first time, so I am messaging 35 girls per minute until I find my one-in-a-million super slut who will let me violate her ass after knowing nothing about me other than what my car, and its new red rims, look like. “I would love get know you better and see what the future has for us!!!! I am...
Curiosities Produced by Counseling
-How many butts have sat in this chair today, and how big were they? Are we all creating an everlasting, one-size-fits-all ass dent, carving the legacies of our divorces and personality disorders forever into this fake red leather? - I wonder where I fall on the weirdness/most screwed up spectrum of this guy’s patients. Maybe I should stop talking about my general anxieties and make up something about how I can’t orgasm unless I’m in a barn wearing a Betsy Johnson dress. -I wonder how...
Things I’ve Been Observed Doing While Sleepwalking, Ages 4-23
Age: 4 Witness: My parents Description: I make a habit of walking into my parents’ bedroom and standing at their bedside, releasing incoherent strings of words. “Mommy, milk the kitty state fair for the gingerbread next orange dinosaur tree cookie.” I’m still surprised they didn’t put me up for adoption. Age: 12 Witness: Summer camp night watchman Description: I’m at summer camp, and, knowing my tendency to jabber in my sleep, vigilantly fight the urge to rest to avoid spilling to the 10 girls I’m sharing...
How Mitt Romney Coped Today
Mitt Romney wakes at 5 AM underneath navy blue billion-thread count sheets at a hotel that costs more per night than the average American family’s car. He rises, wandering downstairs to the hotel’s breakfast banquet in search of something to nibble on to curb the aching hunger for power in his belly when he spots a pristine, silver receptacle with the words “French Roast” engraved proudly on its side. Romney snatches it, tipping about two tablespoons of the devil’s liquid into a white China mug....
Types of Married Couples
The ones who never gave up. There were a lot of times when it seemed like this relationship might not work out—the 32 breakups, those cheating pictures on Facebook, the fact that one partner thinks he or she might be gay. No matter. This couple is so determined that making this relationship work is easier and less frightening than venturing out into the dating world that they will hurdle any obstacle in order to keep that shit locked down. They’ve likely dated since high school, and...
Anatomy of a Protester
Beard: Your beard is a way to show everyone who encounters your face how committed you are to saving the white rhino. You started growing it when the majestic beast was moved from the “super endangered list,” to the “holy fuck there are only four left on the planet endangered list,” and you are not going to cut it off until there are white rhinos happily prancing around all of Africa. Your beard gets angrier with every injustice of the fight, twisting menacingly and boiling...
Slutty Words of the English Language
Geode: You’re a mass-produced volcanic rock easily broken apart by children to reveal polished crystals, commonly sold in state park gift shops? Bullshit. You’re just trying to get everyone to say chode. Tardy: Tardy did us all the service of combining the terms randy, tarnished, dirty, ready, dyslexic, and TA into one. Something for the struggling college freshman in all of us. Demure: Demure is a call girl who bides her time in a double-wide wearing a leopard leotard and painting her nails different shades of...
Things You May Have Forgotten About Being Single
Freedom is tits. You can lay whoever you want, buy the Reese’s Puffs cereal your ex thought was “juvenille and unhealthy,” or move to Japan on a whim. As long as you don’t commit any felonies, your choices are without boundaries. Avoiding lonely-bastard syndrome requires effort. Sitting at home on a Friday night making a female independence-themed Spotify playlist does not qualify as starting a new chapter in your life. Call a friend you haven’t seen in awhile and go somewhere you’ve never been before....
