the after party.

GPOY

viva la revolution

The stresses of everyday grown-up life reached its full threshold today, because I couldn’t take it any longer and ran away: I drove to a beach where I proceeded to collapse onto a bird poop-ridden bench, stared into the dirty blue water, and impolitely thought, “Fuck this shit.” (Sorry.)

I spent the next 1.5 hours watching the sun set, ignoring PDA couples and smiling at babies, and kicking my feet into sand as I pondered if I should really buy a 50c hot dog from a shady street vendor (I didn’t — I bought a churro from him instead).

Then I drove back home because grown ups don’t actually run away,  stopped by my grandma’s house because no one was home and my auntie was scared that my grandma would be scared, and then promptly burst into tears because my sweet, beautiful grandma was saving me a piece of cake.

gq:

“I get the appeal of cupcakes. They are pretty and made of cake.”

The GQ Advice Lady on why your girlfriend is acting like Zooey Deschanel.

A number of women really do seem to have Etsy-ed themselves into adult-sized six-year-olds. Do you even sense a widespread cultural aversion toward the word “woman” itself? (Ahem, New Girl, 2 Broke Girls.) Two out of every five women I meet run some sort of cutesy “Cupcakes That Look Like Ryan Gosling” Tumblr, or are obsessed—and emphatically vocalize said obsession, like “I’m OB-seeeesssed..”—with Twilight, or wear more glitter on their person than Ke$ha’s dirty bedsheets. And it’s somehow fashionable for grown ladies to traipse around town in onesie rompers like bizarre brobdingnagian toddlers. (WHAT IS THAT? STOP IT.) I also recall a popular women’s blog up until this year ran a regular shopping feature called “How to Spend Your Weekly Allowance.” Uh, ladies: If it doesn’t come from your parents in exchange for making your bed, it is called a salary. Oy.

More here

soundtrack is omg good

As a newly minted graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles, I did the Most Glamorous Thing Possible: I moved back home.

It’s been about a month, and I’m still feeling a strange mixture of emotions. During my last month I was surprised to find that I felt no sadness, no bittersweet feelings about leaving college. I simply accepted what came and go, and while I enjoyed the hell out of my last quarter (re: Facebook pictures and re: Facebook pictures I’ve privatized), I didn’t feel any qualms either. Although I really miss my roommates and friends, I’m somewhat relieved to be given a break from school.

The best thing about being at home is that my parents finally treat me like an adult, and the worst thing about being at home is that my parents expect me to act like an adult. The certain responsibilities they now have of me are somewhat burdensome, but it’s the nice kind of burden, as if I’ve finally earned it and can carry  these expectations with their knowledge that I won’t drop them (re: screw up).

Mostly though, my thoughts have been residing in a limbo state, extricating myself from what is now the past, and anxiously looking forward (okay, more like panicking but oh-you-know-me) about the future. This liminal space I’ve been forced into is probably what I hate the most: the future isn’t so clear, and while I can wring my hands and write depressing Tumblr posts, the newest responsibility that I’ve given myself is to blindly pave the road to this future.

GoT x hp

the parallel is uncanny

Stop Instagramming Your Perfect Life.

“My life looks better on the Internet than it does in real life. Everyone’s life looks better on the internet than it does in real life. The Internet is partial truths—we get to decide what people see and what they don’t…Because community—the rich kind, the transforming kind, the valuable and difficult kind—doesn’t happen in partial truths and well-edited photo collections on Instagram. Community happens when we hear each other’s actual voices, when we enter one another’s actual homes, with actual messes, around actual tables telling stories that ramble on beyond 140 pithy characters.”

—————

I have had too many conversations about this topic, and the article captures the essence of my premise.  I think it serves as an often much-needed reminder that there is a distinction between connect vs. compare.

lol

Sometimes I read some of my old drafts or private posts. Usually they are whiny or slightly pathetic or full of profanity-laced depression, but sometimes they are a gem of wisdom and I just wanna hug myself and say, “You go girl. You get out there and do yo thang.”

Yes, their management primps them to have perfectly windswept hair/cute little skinny jeans and their wholesome, saccharine sweet image is micromanaged to the very last inch. but whatevers they are adorable and bubbly and sadly that lyric “I want to take you any way you like” does not mean what I think it means.

(Source: youtube.com)

an astute observation

What I find particularly amusing about having close male friends is that they have conveniently forgotten the fact that I am, in fact, a female.

I have gotten a lot of friendly man punches to the shoulder, shouts of “WOW YOU’RE SO STUPID” just because I don’t know how to play Mario Kart on Wii, and many episodes of them in ratty sweatpants with grease stains (“… the hell, I don’t have to look good for you”). Not that a girl needs to feel special in this kind of context, because I’m somewhat grateful for reaching that comfortable point in our friendship that I don’t have to be treated delicately (no you don’t have to open the door for me, nor do you have act “nicer”). I think the only time they remember is when I’m wearing a new outfit, my girlfriends compliment me, and then they yell at the guys and say “HEY SHE’S WEARING SOMETHING NEW. COMPLIMENT HER” to which they mumble, “Yeah that looks good on you.”

It’s also kind of funny/awkward when we decide to go dancing:

“Don’t dance with me, creepy.”

*snorts* “I wasn’t going to ask, presumptuous.”

What I want to actually say is that I make a wonderful wingwoman.

fondly,

Despite the fact that some of my cousins are now professionals, married with children, with slight wrinkles forming at the crinkles of their eyes, I think I will forever see them as 16, microwaving instant mac and cheese, playing Nintendo and teasing me.

And even though some of my cousins are now awkwardly reaching into their adolescences, husky voices, training bras, and all, I think I will forever see them as crazy 6 year olds, stacking Legos, throwing toys everywhere, sticky hands clutching mine. 

… I always used to resent the fact that I was clearly the cousin born in the wrong age gap. Too immature to play boardgames with the big kids, too overgrown to play Hide and Seek with the younger ones. And later on: still too young to understand what drinking meant, too old to know the newest Pokemon.

But now, I’m so thankful. Because now I can turn to some of them whenever I’m in need of career-wise advice or real-talk. And at the same time, I can turn to the others and hear them worriedly ask me about boy crushes and college.

I’m secretly typing this as everyone around me is sleeping, snoring softly away. With everyone in this room together, I feel like we’re just children again.

Merry Christmas.

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