Variant Squirrels

Before I moved to Michigan, I thought that squirrels looked something like this:

And maybe they did, a long time ago. Long before the invention of cars.

Now they look like this. 

I no longer want to cuddle with squirrels, and this haunts me every day.

making up for lost time

I know, I KNOW, this post would have been more appropriate a few weeks ago but, uhhh, just making up for lost time and I thought this demonstrated the angst within my soul rite now

Alex deeply apologizes for briefly falling off the face of the earth

oy vey

Hey Internet, it's me. Olivia.

I'm pretty tired today. I've got a midterm tomorrow in Art History and I'm not feeling that great about it. Well, I guess I should be okay, but today's French exam rattled me. I do not like my professor. Her intonations are very frightening.

I hope she doesn't look for random blogs on Blogger.
I should have used a fake name.

I also just found out that my friend is sick. I feel sorry for her. My empathy is so great that I feel sick as well. Maybe I can get an extension for this test, because I am so, so sick. With empathy.

I had to workshop an English paper for one of my classmates today. The girl I was partnered with used the phrase "spitting in and sipping from the bowels of freedom". That is disgusting. I asked her if she maybe meant bowls. She was insistent that "bowels of freedom" is a common phrase.

It is not. I googled it and am considering emailing her because I am tired and spiteful.

I hope she doesn't read random blogs on Blogger.
I am overestimating my exposure.

I just ate some dark chocolate and am feeling better.

Thanks for listening.
Love,
Olivia

Wait a minute....

Do people still read blogs anymore? I am getting the sense that they are sort of passé. Oh well. I'll be here when they become vintage or when Urban Outfitters starts promoting them as if they are vintage when really they are just mass produced by Chinese children in sweatshops.

I'll be waiting...

It's Just my Face

Recently, the term "resting bitch face" has thrust itself into the vocabulary of my generation. This describes a person whose natural, expressionless face looks cold and judgmental.

"RBF", as it is called, is very common. Especially among those who actually are cold and judgmental.

Another type of unfortunate facial syndrome is a consistent and unavoidable look of disinterest. These people have features that convey boredom, no matter how excited they may be.

I call this "Whatever You Want " face, or "WYW". 

Never try to impress or entertain a person with this defect. You will only be disappointed.

I am not afflicted with either of these conditions. I have something far more detrimental to my existence in society.

"CTLC" face. "Chronically Terrified, Lost, and Confused".

I consistently look like I have been dropped violently in a random location where I have no sense of direction or linguistic comprehension. 

Coupled with the fact that I look about five years younger than my actual age, I am often treated with a troubling amount of care.

I won't even begin to describe what happens when I try to sit in an exit row.

So, the moral of this story is: if someone looks sad, terrified, or lost, don't try and help them. They probably just have CTLC face. 

Llama Fact #1

If llamas had opposable thumbs, not only would they be better piano players...

they would take over the world.

Why yes, I am alive

When I was a child, I would hide under the sink with my dog and eat her treats.

I also put cat food in the toaster and let it fall into the crumb-catcher. I would then eat warm, crispy kibble.

I snorted Cascade dishwasher powder when I stuck my nose into the box to smell it.

This happened more than once.

It also happened with Tide detergent.

There is no real purpose to this post other than to say:

I made it.

I lived past childhood.

I don't know how this happened, but I am proud.

Lessons in Scalping

2 weeks ago, I decided to give up shampoo.

I know this seems like a slightly medieval (or at least super granola) thing to do, but I read an article on the dangers of sulfate that moved me deeply. I had never realized the torture I had been inflicting on my hair just by trying to make it smell like herbs.

I hid my shampoo in the closet, and bought some baking soda.

This wasn't for making cookies, but for scrubbing into my scalp. Apparently this is equivalent to giving your head a deep tissue massage and then taking it out for a really nice dinner.

I was also instructed to pour apple cider vinegar into my hair. This is supposed to make add shine in a non-damaging way, but it just made me feel like I was fixing some baroque salad out of follicles.

I let my hair dry and expected to see the full effects of my Jewish heritage emerge.

Instead, my hair looked pretty good. I felt as though I had entered a mutually positive relationship with the dead skin sprouting from my head.

However, healthy monogamy soon lead to adulterous fantasy.

I missed shampooing my hair. I stared longingly at the colorful bottles in Walgreens and secretly smelled the conditioners in my friend's shower. My hair had never been happier, but our relationship was turning one sided.

I sought a counselor:

My friend pondered my question.


And with that, I realized that I was not meant to treat my scalp well.

In some alternate universe, there is a version of me who brushes her hair gently and only washes it with sustainably-gathered eagle tears.

This person also probably has an awesome tan and can do math in her head.

(Disclaimer: the existence of this person is negligible, but I choose to believe)

I wish I could be this girl, but I'm just not cut out for a life of selflessness.

I unearthed my shampoo and took a long shower.

It felt like coming home.




******
P.S: Snaps to anyone who caught the "heritage"/"hair-itage" pun. You guys are my favorites.

Pneumonia and Other Dangers

The best thing that ever happened to me was when my mother almost died.

Don’t get me wrong; she’s a fabulous mom. She taught me about literature, art, elitism, and caffeine addiction. I owe everything to her. However, she never let me watch TV, so as a five year old, it was hard to see her as anything but menacing.

 While my friends were allowed to fry their eyeballs out on Disney Chanel, my mom would feel the computer to see if I had been using it behind her back.

If the moniter was warm, consequences were dire.

But things were about to change…

The anger that my mother had towards mind-numbing entertainment had manifested in her lungs. After a week of excruciating fatigue, she went to the hospital to find that she had developed a severe case of pneumonia  She could die if left untreated for even a few more days, and she was placed in the ICU for a week.

Distraught, my father racked his brain for ways to entertain my brothers and me. He went to Blockbuster and rented up all of the Pokemon vhs tapes he could find. He also grabbed some obesity-sized bins of candy and cheesey chemicals. After all, his children needed to eat.  

We spent the ensuing days in a blissful hurricane of Japanimation and corn syrup. I didn’t care if my mother ever came back.

But she had other plans.

My mother had been fighting for her life with pure maternal love, vowing to make it through her illness so that she could be with her children again.

Upon her return from the hospital, she expected to be welcomed by the proper and loving cherubs that illness had torn away.

But she found something much darker.

We had gone rabid. It was like Lord of the Flies with processed food.

She was not welcome on the island, and I let this be known.

Years later, I would be overrun with guilt for my vile behavior.

But in the meantime, I was just happy that she was still on bed rest,

And couldn’t get up to check the computer. 

By Olivia

Buying New Shoes

What happened today

In high school, I wrote a comparative paper about mustaches. It included this at the bottom of the page:

Man without a mustache:

Man with a mustache:

Somehow I made it to college, where I am deciding between majoring in art history or comparative literature. 

I'm doomed. I blame men with mustaches and candy bars. 

Making Friends

This isn't how I make friends....

This isn't how I make friends either.

Instead...

I'm working on it. 

The Drinking Games we Play

There comes a time in a person's life when they must enjoy becoming drunk. This isn't a certified saying or anything, but I think that it is sort of an underlying cultural fact, one that sort of makes me feel like a stunted failure for disliking drinking.

I guess it's not really my fault that I hate alcohol. The first time I tried drinking I got busted by several sets of parents, and my grandpa died the next day. I've always been suspicious that my mother killed him just to teach me a lesson. Anyways, I now associate alcohol with shame and regret. This is probably why I rarely get invited to parties.

Anyways, not long ago I decided that it was time to get over my aversions and grow to love something that is dangerous and unhealthy. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald's drink of choice was a Gin Rickey, which is just gin, lime, and club soda. I hate gin, club soda, and am only lukewarm towards lime, but the name Gin Rickey is super appealing. It oozes charisma, and I'm sure that drinking one ups the odds of writing a masterpiece that will be turned into various movie adaptions, one of which will star Leonardo Di Caprio, who will be alive long after the rest of us are gone.

Refusing beers became a lot easier at this point. I just told people that I saved my alcohol for Gin Rickeys, which made me sound like a bad-ass mixologist instead of the killjoy that I am.

Because I am true to myself, I got really into this drink that I hypothetically adored. I went over to a friend’s apartment before a party, and instead of taking apple pie vodka shots like a normal white girl, I insisted on making everybody Gin Rickeys.

The last time I tried to mix drinks was at a sleepover when I was 17, and I spilt grey goose all over my friend’s sleeping bag when I forgot to screw the tumbler shut. When it came to making Gin Rickeys, my confidence in mixology was very high, but completely unfounded.

My friend didn't have any gin, but she did have whisky. I insisted that it didn't make a difference. She also had no club soda, but she did have tons of limes. I made up for the lack of carbonation by squeezing double the amount of lime juice, and adding just a splash of tap water.

I decked out the Gin Rickeys in coffee mugs, and served them like the gracious guest I am.

They were terrible.

But my friends were not. They politely pretended to adore my Gin Rickeys (although because of the alcohol substitutions, I had started calling them Whickety Wacks).

This act of unconditional kindness was most likely meant to satiate me so I would stop mixing drinks, but all it did was inflate my ego to gargantuan proportions. I was just getting started.

My friends, however, decided to do shots. Like normal people.

I forwent this activity to instead make Vegan White Russian con Meil. This consisted of warm almond milk, tequila, cinnamon, and honey.

It was terrible, and no one pretended otherwise.

Except for me.

Not only did I drink this concoction, I continuously forced my friend to drink from the mug as well. This was partially to prove to her that I was actually a gifted bartender, but it was mainly because I needed someone to help me finish it and there were no dogs around. I really just don't like drinking.

When my friend nearly choked on a glob of tequila-congealed cinnamon, I knew I had flown too close to the sun.

I hung up my bartender hat and took a shot of vodka.

It was terrible.