Fivesome For Collab

So glad that I can text my old friends 

such vital information.

Do you ever write letters? I’m in pretty regular contact with the friends that I grew up with, thanks to group iMessages and them not being around me frequently enough to remember how annoying I am. It’s been pretty delightful figuring out how to translate my different friendships from childhood to adulthood. While I love the convenience of only being a text away from my old friends, sometimes it’s nice to put in a little more effort so that they remember that I’m more than words on a screen. Unfortunately I don’t make this happen as often as I wish it would. I’m THE laziest pen pal because I never start writing a letter until I have something nice to send it on, and then it can take me days to walk to the post office to send it. Which is even lazier than it first sounds, because the post office is about 30 steps away from my apartment. Maybe even less.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to start writing letters with my friend Amy for a long time. I’m also supposed to have sent her my Christmas present, but I put it off for so long because I wanted her to have a letter with it since I would be sending her mail anyway. I mean, are Christmas presents like wedding gifts? I have a whole year to send them right? But I finally got it all together a few days ago, so she can have a happy middle of the year present if the “one year” rule doesn’t hold up.

My gift for Amy is a “friendship sweater.” Last spring, I had a dream that I had a cropped, fuzzy sweater that I shared with Amy. After telling her about my dream, we decided that we should have an actual friendship sweater, so we both started looking casually. I don’t remember if we agreed that the sweater should just happen to us or if we were looking for something more specific, but I know we wanted something more in the pink/salmon family. Then, last December, I found Her.

Meet Elaine.

She was soft, she was cropped, and she wasn’t conventionally beautiful. I saw Her hanging there and felt like she was already ours. She was kind of edgy, and she was kind of ugly. She was pretending to be an alligator, but she couldn’t hide the fact that she was really a soft, fuzzy sweater. I’m hoping that when Amy gets Her tomorrow or the next day, she likes Her. I mailed Her a couple days ago, and in the envelope, I also enclosed this notebook, where I wrote Amy a letter.

It's like, personal or something. Damn, our hundred year old floors look nice.

My plan is that we can write our letters in the notebook and send it back and forth with the sweater. I won’t have any excuses about not being able to find cute paper, so it should hopefully work well. In finally getting that whole package together, I’ve realized that it really is important to me that we start writing to each other. I’m beyond thankful that I still have that friendship, and friendships like that friendship, and I’m also thankful that I’m at a point in my life where I have the time to honor that with letters. I love my friends and I want them to know it and it’s only right that if I have an opportunity to show them, I use it. Now if only there was a way to make me get off my butt and walk those 30 steps to the post office…

My Life In Shopping Lists: #paintyournailsforbruce

Snacks are the most important part of any party. We're having a #paintyournailsforbruce party tonight, but wet nails aren't stopping me from making finger foods exclusively. Oops. It's the THOT that counts...

My Beauty Philosophy, Part 1

I think we're still friends 

because I cook a lot.

As women, our relationship with beauty is always changing. I turned 22 about a month ago and for almost a year; I’ve been deliberately single for the first time since high school. For me, those two factors have led to me really developing the idea of my own beauty.

I think the age that I’m at is a pretty common one for coming into one’s own routines and tastes regarding their beauty. I’ve gradually come around to being less interested in trends and more interested on what looks good on me, and I’m beginning to be old enough where it shows a little if I’m not taking care of my skin every day. I also know that it’s important to start taking care of my health now, so that I have healthy habits later and don’t have to play catch-up with my body.  For anyone, creating their routine is about two things: developing the idea of what one would like to look like, and the amount of time and effort they are willing to spend in order to work towards that.

I’ve also been single for almost a year now, but I haven’t been open to the idea of dating or talking to anyone new. Some people might not think it’s healthy, but I’ve always been somewhat accommodating to the tastes of the person that I’m seeing (or want to be seeing :P). I’ve chosen how to wear my hair and clothes because this boy likes my white pants, that boy likes to see me smiling, or another likes me wearing my hair away from my face.

It looks sexy pushed back.Image

To me, my looks are the least important thing about me. I’m not going to stop watching awful television or eating cloves of raw garlic for a boy, but it’s nothing to me to wear more blue or put on my glasses. So while I haven’t had a boyfriend, I’ve been thinking more about what makes me feel pretty and sort of fine-tuning that image.

The natural progression of this for me has involved spending an embarrassing amount of time reading beauty blogs. I’ve edited my skincare routine but I’ve also tried to make it into an actual routine. Like, hi Gabby, you have to wash your face EVERY night and put on sunscreen EVERY day. You’re pretending to be an adult now.

I’m trying to make my own philosophy and rules about beauty. I want to have good taste but I also want to care less what other people think about my taste. Ugh. I think I spend like more than ten hours a week on this shit. Like, what do boys do with all this extra time?

I die.

Yo Wanna Hump?

Re: Sex With You Tonight

Today I walked by a freshly planted tree and thought about setting it on fire. I am destructive. I could say that I was destructive, but I am a work in progress. More thoughts than impulses at this point.

After paying lots of people lots of money to help me understand why I am this way, what I know is this: Perfectly good things bother me. They bother me because I don't believe that they can stay perfectly good forever. I destroy things because I like to have control over when they are no longer perfectly good. This is why, when I have been eating healthy and I suddenly have half a pizza, I will stop exercising for a couple weeks. When I have a pimple, I will pop it and then continue to pick at it until I leave a scar. And yes, sometimes I see a brand new tree and think about burning it down. I self sabotage because I am afraid of surprise. I am afraid of being challenged by life and so I make bigger, pointless challenges.

I am most destructive when I start to like myself more. I don't want anyone or anything to make me feel less confident and somehow I think it's better if I do it myself. The easiest way is to set myself up for some rejection. I don't know if I just think I'm special or if I really am unique in the way that I approach this, but I think I might go in with different expectations. I do not go out, get sloppy, and chat up someone who I probably don't have a chance with. I want the no, not the yes.  I prefer to contact someone when I'm sober, with a direct request, knowing that I have more than a 75% chance of getting rejected. If it so happens that I get a yes, I'll do what I proposed and move on to the next potential rejector until I get my fix. I guess I think I'm different because most people don't consciously admit that they want the "no."

This isn't good. It is not having control. It is looking at myself and really believing that I don't deserve to win sometimes. That I don't deserve to think that I might be becoming someone that I can admire. It's saying "Oh, you think you're improving? Well, I'll show you that you are nothing. Just wait." It is not just saying it, it's doing it.

I know on one level that no one deserves to feel that way, but then on another level, I think I am no one. And paying lots of people lots of money has only let me know why I think that. We have yet to find a way to stop it. Maybe that's because "we" can't, only I can.

Why it takes me so long to get ready for a workout

I was too lazy to remind him.

I am a lazy girl. I used to think that I hated working out but actually, I hate getting sweaty because I’m too lazy to take a shower afterword. I will gladly do squats for days and work out my abs and do yoga (but not hot yoga), I just can’t get down with the sweat. I feel like maybe I’m secretly a goddess and subconsciously I know that if my sweat touches the ground it will turn into a bubbling spring of healing water. I can’t think of any more logical solution as to why I hate working out so much. I mean like aside from my hair.

It’s like I’m biologically designed to be a woman of leisure. It just takes so long to wash and I am not down with having a sweaty workout and just using dry shampoo. Forget the fact that they have yet to invent a spray that is for real invisible on brunettes, it’s gross. And sadly not that discreet of a secret: I totally have a bald spot. My hair is really heavy. No amount of Googling has resulted in me finding a hairstyle that doesn’t pull at the thinning hair around my part during a workout and it just leaves me wondering if no other woman has this problem. Like, hi I can’t be focused on my hair staying in place while I’m pretending that I can run, I’m too busy keeping my boobs inside my shirt.

And yeah, I get the paradox. I could cut my hair short so I don’t have to worry about the bald spot and it might have a chance of recovering! But why would I cut off hair that I love just to make it easier to do something that I hate? But how much would I hate it if the most annoying part was taken out of the equation? Is testing that solution worth the two years it would take to grow all of my hair back? The answer is no. Because this was never about my hair, it’s about me being lazy. Stop typing and go for a run, Bald Gabby.

My Life in Shopping Lists: Spelling Does Not Count

The Classy Girl's Guide To Being Unwelcoming

happy wtf

Why does no one write advice about how to give someone the impression that you aren't happy to see them? I could really use The Classy Girl's Guide To Being Unwelcoming because I need to give a hint that I'm done without having to be rude about saying I'm done. Like, how do I tell you that the fact you can still see my Instagrams kind of bothers me, but, you know, like a lady? Or like, maybe it's acceptable to say, "listen, I would love to catch up, only I'm really, really petty!" if you say it nicely enough? But I feel like that's more than nice enough already, because what I'm thinking is something more like "Haha, I only agreed to get coffee because it would be rude not to. I don't want to tell you anything about my life, creep."

I just realized what that last part sounded like. To be clear I don't think it's acceptable to be rude to someone on a first date. I actually don't think it's okay to be unwelcoming or unkind to anyone that you don't know. Yes, act like a lady to those people, because they haven't yet done anything to you personally to deserve anything else. My question is how to keep the somebodies that you used to know exactly that if they insist on trying not to be.

Can we start with the approach? Why is it always a request for coffee? Why can't it be a request for dinner or lunch or a show so that I can decline without seeming like I'm holding a grudge? I just want to move on and have you not in my life anymore but you have to ask me to get coffee because you know it would be rude for me to say no. And even my Yes has to be such a No (You know?). Like, "No, I'm not so small of a person that I can't take the time to have coffee with someone who I don't like. No, actually it is weird that you asked. No, I don't want to be friends with you just because I'm okay(ish) with spending a tiny amount of time with you." Yeah, that's what my Yes actually means, and usually the only "yes" behind it is "Yes. I am still repulsed by the way that you talk."

So like, the ladylike response is an unenthusiastic acceptance. When it's time to actually be there, I don't want to hug you when one of us arrives because it literally makes me ew and that has nothing to do with what you look like, it's just your face and the fact that you're touching me. Also, everything else about you. But I have never been a hugger so you probably will not take enough of a hint from that because it won't be weird. I can just not hug you and still be polite. The next step is kind of tricky, because so far you have been as obtuse as a the letter Y (you'll see it, don't worry) about the fact that I don't want to be here, and I need my coffee order to reflect that. I will add Bailey's to my coffee when you specifically are not looking. It's rude to let you know that early that I'm so unhappy to be there. Then I need to order something pungent to eat. "The onion bagel with chive cream cheese? Oh, you have lox? Great I'll have lox. Oh, I'll just have the Cobb salad but can I get some extra bleu cheese? Oh you have a pickled herring sandwich with kimchi and Worcester sauce? Yeah I'll have two." It's like the polite way of creating space. I will not chew with my mouth open or put my elbows on the table because I will not have to.

After I begin chowing down on my PHKWS sandwich (because BLTs are over omg), the conversation will probably start. I will direct your question of "What's new?" towards you. When the time comes that you insist that I tell you about myself, that is when it is time for me to say "I'm sorry, but I'm not comfortable sharing any of that with you."

Boom. It's simple, it's respectful, and it's polite. That's all I'm looking for here. So there are two ways that you can take that. The first is that you have grown up and changed in the year since you last tried to talk to me and you just accept it politely and we are good. The second is that you are basically the same person in that you tell me that you hate that we're so distant and ask what we can do to fix it. So I'll have to be like, "right, there is no 'we,' you and I are not friends anymore." And that will just be the same conversation as always, blah blah blah sad (for you) and whatever and then you'll probs try to take it back at the end and give the first response but oops. That moment passed. And honestly even if you have changed and it is the first scenario, I still don't want to know you. I will be nothing but happy for New You for being able to make friends who don't have to carefully show you that they are done with you, but our situation stays the same. No, really.

I don't know if that's the classiest way to handle the situation, but it's really the best that I can do. I think it's ladylike so long as I don't don't compromise my level of comfort for your sake if I do not want to. But hey, at least we don't have to hug at the end.