On Smoking

I started smoking cigarettes when I was seventeen, I think.

First, I wasn't able to procure any pot. I was zooming through my late adolescence, giggling and munching on snacks, sucking THC fumes through my bent tin cans and older brothers' bongs and learning how to choke back coughs. I tried a clove cigarette, loved it, and made that one of my cool things to do on the drive home from high school.

When the day came that the ultra-potent-sugary-sweet clove cigarettes led me to vomit in the preschool park down the road one drunken night, I decided to quit. At some point, someone offered me a cigarette. I always sniffed at the stale, chemical smell of tobacco. I tried it. And soon my clothes, my hair, my hands smelled of charred aromatics and I thought, "this isn't so bad."

It soothes your soul, to puff a cigarette. First, there may be a head rush. It can be wonderfully dizzy or terrifyingly woozy. The oxygen in your blood becomes lightly medicated. Maybe your heart rate slows a bit. Your windpipe scorches the first few times. Your mouth parches and tastes like charcoal. But your eyelids may relax and your fingers suddenly know how to flick off the ash and you take tiny drags, you exhale and your tongue is coated with a satisfying flavor. Like bacon, or miso soup. Nowadays, coffee and cigarettes taste and smell the same to me. There's a fine line that separates the rich, blackened aroma of roasting coffee beans and Marlboro Lights charring my insides.

You are able to shuffle into groups gathered, now able to participate in the inane chitchat that fills the smokers' circle. Take a cigarette break. Meet someone outside who's having one too. Share a lighter. Talk. Get a little tipsy at the bar and courageously ask someone to spot you a "stoge." Offer one up to a good looking person and smile bashfully when they thank you.  

Eventually you realize the magical effects of cigarette smoking while intoxicated. Breathing air alone is stupid when you can inhale nicotine. Cigarettes are the fuel a drunk person needs to keep going. It's like being wrapped in a warm blanket of fuck yeah. And with that, why smoke just one? You'll think, "Hell, I bought a pack of 20 of these things! I can just give a bunch of them away to people on the street and smoke the rest in rapid succession!" The drunkenness is intensified.

Then, if you're like me, there's the inevitable downfall of over indulgence. After burning cigarette after cigarette, the chances of all those toxins making you queasy reaches maximum potential. The delicious, smoky aroma morphs into a chemical stench. Maybe your stomach starts to flip from the excess mucus running down your burnt esophagus. I have spent some time hurling in the bushes after my last drag sent my dark and stormy back up the way it came.

Alas, we know it's bad for us. Smoking kills, stinks and can even risk the health of others. It turns your teeth yellow, sours your breath and eats up a sizable chunk of your cash. But for all of smoking's negative qualities, the dedicated tabagie still meet, commiserate and suck nicotine together. Whether you want to curb your appetite, calm your jitters or simply look fucking cool, I doubt we'll see the day cigarettes go out of style. So find your matches and escape to your quiet, happy smoker's lounge, wherever it may be.

Poetry: The Death of Us

The death of us came through the car speaker

Black smoke rolled from behind the grate

The death clung to the synth beats

that tumbled around my knees

The death of us cut into my ears

and like ice, it slid down my throat

into my gut where

it sat, screaming

Your mangled heart knocked

and I let it in

12 tracks with your scrawl

Impressed on the back

The songs rot in my stereo

Fouling up the windows

The death of us rattled in my head

With those melancholy, strumming

Burnout tunes you like

Pulling on my eyelids

so that tears falls out

and my

fingers tremble

to the bassline

And my hands find

tiny knobs and switches

but I quiver when the

death pulls me close

The sounds become loud

to suffocate me as I weep

in disbelief

The death of us lives in my car stereo

Where I’m tempted to shatter its souvenir

Strung up with desire that

I could feel like I used to

That death isn’t so permanent

So instead,

I lock it in the glovebox

Praying for it

to decay

And that one day, long from now

I’ll open it and

nothing will be there

He Sucks [UPDATED]

I'm currently dealing with the loss of my boyfriend. The relationship lasted about a year, but the tenure of it wasn't what you'd called "clearly defined." Rather, it was riddled with breakups, blowouts and periods of companionship without definition.

My history in relationships has been sordid and short. I never struck it big with a great guy, or even bagged a great guy for that matter. I've had few meaningful encounters and many meaningless slopfests. I've been cheated on and pretty much disrespected in all scenarios, which doesn't say much for me. As someone who craves stability and hates to play the field, I've done a fuckup's job at finding anyone with a good heart and head on their shoulders. I blame that on my lack of self esteem and the habit I have to take the first thing that comes my way.

He was very different from the other goons I'd dated because he "fit the part." He looked, smelled, sounded and acted like everything I wanted. What joy! He is devastatingly handsome, like Carey Elwes from the Princess Bride in flannel and paint covered jeans. He's a few years older, wiser, harder than me and other boys I knew. He was a ham on the dance floor, quick with a joke, and made sexy eyes at me at work where we met. He had a live in girlfriend, though. And when that relationship finally ended and ours finally began, I was kept at arm's length for a long time, wondering where we stood and if I meant anything to him at all.

It was never felt completely right, the two of us, but it was enough fuel for my fantasy, in which he and I were good for each other, happy, balanced. I dreamt, after he cheated on me, that he'd find the courage to get me back, like an episode of True Life, "I'm Fighting for my Love." I'd be independent, kicking ass in another country making films, he'd be at home, buying a diamond ring and plotting his triumphant return to my life. I was in major denial-land. I refused that a guy who looked the part and sometimes acted the part wanted me, and I had him, and I wasn't going to let him go. I refused to be alone and admit failure. But for being as pleased with myself as I was for bagging a boyfriend, I failed to see that what I had was a fuckup in his own right.

REASONS OUR RELATIONSHIP FAILED

-he cheated on me and never successfully redeemed himself

-his baggage from his last ex carried well into our relationship

-he was secretive

-he was super passive aggressive

-he was insecure with himself

-he was not easygoing or fun to be around at times

-he had a bad reputation for being difficult to be around among friends

-he was spineless and incapable of coping with his problems in an adult way

-he was uncomfortable around me, my friends and family at times

-I often felt like I was invading his space when we hung out

-he kept me around but didn't make me feel important for many months

-he lacked empathy about my insecurities and failures

-he would avoid addressing his problems with me

-he used my aggressive nature as an excuse to not tell me things out of fear of a fight

-he internalized his personal issues and kept them unresolved

-he was immature

-he gave me a shitty Christmas gift and I gave him a great one

-he didn't give me a birthday gift until days later after I mentioned it, because he never asked what I wanted, and I gave him a great birthday gift

-he kept things from me that he thought would make me upset, which made me more upset

-he rarely comforted, validated or complimented me in a sincere way

-he didn't take responsibility for his shortcomings and made me the bad guy

-he turned fun things into tense and unpleasant things

-he'd ignore me for days sometimes

-he didn't brush his teeth often and has dandruff he ignores

-he made simple things difficult and even painful at times

-he once accused me of "losing my spark" which was in fact his own insecurity with himself

-he had a defeatist attitude about many things

-he had no will to make things better for himself and ignored my advice

-I often felt he had given the best of himself to his ex girlfriends and the worst of himself to me

-he clung to his former girlfriends for friendship and didn't think this was strange

-he always put on a phony smile, when I knew he wasn't happy, when he talked to me

-he assumed so many things about me: what I really meant, how I felt, what I was thinking, etc.

-he admitted that once he cheated he had no idea how to fix the error he had made so he let the relationship die

-he discarded someone who's beautiful, caring, sincere and interesting

-he sucks

There were a lot of good things too, seriously. He was my best friend for the better part of the year, we worked together and spent all of our free time together. We went on trips, laid on the beach, cooked, shopped, got sloppy drunk, danced and partied together. Our favorite pastime was eating pizza in bed and watching episode after episode of The Simpsons. We both found a mutual passion for silver tequila and True Blood. We had the best sex and snuggles of anyone we'd had before. We even invented an emoticon for a cutesy character we cultivated >^O.o^= which is supposed to be a slightly retarded big fat house cat, and he'd climb on top of me and make that face and pretend to be a dumb kitty cat trying to protect me from intruders. I taught him how to roll a joint and he taught me how to make eggs over medium. He would always parallel park the car when I couldn't, and he was gifted at it. Waking up next to him and rolling into sleepy kisses still is the greatest, closest thing I've ever had with someone else. And I cried my weight in tears when things came to an end.

I will really miss the things we shared, but I need to remind myself that he isn't the guy from the fantasy, he is a real person who has problems and wasn't able to give me what I deserved.

*UPDATED

I found out a few days ago that he is seeing/sleeping with a friend of mine from the place we both work.

He's a heartless bastard.

Thanksgiving

The number one thing I was not looking forward to seeing this Thanksgiving was baby shoes. I mean, when a newborn baby is wearing tiny itty bitty shoes on their feet. Some strappy, oddly shaped patent leather blip of fabric and rubber that must have been sewn together by children's hands.

My cousin Eric's new wife just gave birth to a baby six weeks ago, and he has a 3 (or 4?) year old son from another lady who's got some kind of autism. And I'm thinking, if that newborn is wearing shoes, I'm going to be so friggen' over this whole family thing. This whole, "we gotta dote on babies and give them shoes and make everything about them."

I'm not used to babies in the family because... well, because I'M the baby. I've always been the baby on both my father's and mother's side. And that's why it makes perfect sense that all of my cousins, now well into their 30s, are procreating and I'm not much of a baby anymore, at age 23.

I'm not a baby in the sense that yes, I am a grown-ass woman physiologically and biologically and mentally, but for a lazy motherfuckin' chick that lives with her mom and dad and spends her free time watching reality TV and feeding her fat ass from mommy and daddy's leftovers, I'm a toddler.

Anywyay, now I'm not a baby. But I'm ok with that, I don't have some complex that demands childlike attention. Quite the opposite, I'm getting edgy to start this "adult life" I've heard about.

So starts Thanksgiving. I'm the lone 20-something relative, well-dressed and smiling and composed, directing traffic from the parents/aunts/uncles, the octogenarians, the newly minted family men/women and da babiez. Plus, there's a 14 year old, my cousin's wife's first child (confusing), who must be stuck in some sort of hell. She's dealing with a 4 year old learning-disabled step brother, her mom's new husband (who's actually amazing, love him), a fucking NEWBORN sister, starting high school at a Catholic school where her step-grandmother is a guidance counselor, and Thanksgiving with my aging crew of family members.

Right off the bat, my uncle is the loose cannon in the room. He is a high school teacher who's slowly declining into, safe to say it, lunacy. Aggressive, unsettling lunacy. He lunges at any opportunity to talk about himself, like when he asks me how I'm doing. He has focused all of his post-divorce energy into the 3rd revival of his band, which he's feverishly excited about. He hates the local government that punishes state workers for doing the best they can. He's quick to fight. He's ready to pop. One might think he's on coke, with the edginess and squirming he exhibits, but he's probably just got a raging case of adult ADHD. He's worn, graying, with Vans sneakers and Elvis Costello glasses. He used to be my absolute favorite uncle. He and I used to play guitar in his home studio when I was 14. The years between then and now have run him into the ground.

He's living with my grandmother, who's become very fragile in her age. She's always been an interrupter, but now it seems that she's just very old and talks whenever the thought strikes her. That, or she's silent, which breaks me up. I don't like that she's beyond conversation. I show her how my iPhone works. I love her so dearly, so thoroughly, and it's a different grandma than I'm used to. I need to treasure those moments.

As it goes, after an unnecessarily heated argument between my cousin and my uncle about why WiFi passwords need to be remembered, things became stagnantly awkward as we ushered people to sit and eat. My poor aunt, in a swirl of tiredness and discomfort, burns the gravy. No big deal. I'm staying out of the line of fire but genuinely asking her about how she prepared the meal. I feel like I really want to start cooking properly. Her advice is to just try, because truth be told, Thanksgiving cooking is really idiot proof. Just stick the turkey in the over, it turns out! I was really surprised.

The littlest baby in the room, newborn Ella, is very, very little. Only six weeks old. She's a tiny thing. I realize that I've never known a newborn before, and looking at her, she looks like a moving doll and not a real baby person. I'm sort of wowed by her.

Here comes the part of the story I've been dying to write: the baby's shoes. I was asked a few days before Thanksgiving about how I'd be celebrating, and I grumbled about my family. I'm a bit discomforted about the new presence of babies, no secret there. I'm always a bit disturbed how adults fawn over babies and shower them with things they A) don't need and B) can't understand. Like presents. And baby shoes. I told my co-workers that I was dreading seeing the newborn in fancy shoes, because no newborn needs shoes. They don't walk, why do they need shoes? Why do parents buy shoes for newborns?

And so when I laid eyes on little Ella with her little pink frilly garter belt headband and dress, I immediately scanned her feet for some stupid baby shoes. And guess what was there?

Tromp L'oeil socks with mary jane shoes!

Nothing could have been more BRILLIANT. Socks that look like shoes. Nonsense avoided. Societal norms maintained. Her's were pink, BTW. Matched her outfit. I gushed to her mother how much I loved them and she agreed, what baby needs shoes? They don't even stay on.

I was pleasantly surprised that my sour puss was put in its place real quick.

The other baby in the room is Aiden, who's like 3 or 4. At one point, he's in child's pose (naturally) on the floor, crying for about 40 seconds. I stare at him on the floor and think, that's how I feel 90% of the time and I wish I could get away with that. That's what being a grown up is like, just as miserable as children but with more reason to feel that way and less ability to express it.

On the plus side for Aiden, he loves the Wiggles, which I learned when the TV turned from yucky football to Wiggles. He was boogying all throughout the meal, looking behind the TV to see if there were more Wiggles back there, singing right along with them in jumbled English. I was proud of him. I didn't even know that he's been held back with his speech development. He'd only recently been able to communicate at all. Way to go Aiden.

My Nonna was cooing over Ella, doing her great-grandmotherly schtick. My mom got all tight-lipped when this started happening. She doesn't ever let her feelings show, which I admire, because that takes a lot of restraint and keeps the calm. She did whisper to me "my mother is so fucking annoying." I think wow, that's not really like her to let that out. My Nonna is a little old woman after all. But, don't get me wrong, she has 100+ reasons to be resented by her family. I respond to my mom "I know." She adds, "I feel so guilty." I just look at her and squeeze her hand. Guilt comes with the territory. I do not chastise this. I am so beyond understanding the deep, ugly issues my mother has with her mother. All I can do is think, despite the grief my mom and I have had, I will never have those ugly feelings toward her. My mother is my role model and I love her to death. I will never have that special kind of guilt. To see the changes that transpired from generation to generation that turned malice to admiration falls on my mom. I respect her so much.

Despite the tongue-biting and the vortex of uneasiness around my uncle, Thanksgiving was a good gathering. We gave thanks for the ability to be there, together. We toasted my aunt for working so hard to put it together.

I felt like I haven't changed since I was 17. I was somehow made to feel like I shouldn't have been there. I wish I had more going on in my life, that I would have caught a plane to be there. I really need to unstick myself from this rut and grow up. I want to be more of person next year.

When I was 17, I lost my virginity the day before Thanksgiving. This is a picture of me that day.

D. G. A. F.

So the other day. It's Friday and I'm at the bar with my friends, and we're talking about what we're planning on doing on Saturday. I, for one, am planning to go to Soul Power, which takes place in a speakeasy and a DJ plays old 45s of soul and surf music from the 60s and go-go dancers shimmy around under red lights. It's very, very nice.

A friend says, I'm going to DGAF to hang out with our friend Molly.

"You're doing Molly at DGAF tomorrow?"

"Yeah, it's the black light party."

I think of a few seconds.

"I'm going to that."

Not really a bright idea, though. I've been to DGAF, which means Don't Give A Fuck, many times before and I determined that I hate it there.

In short, DGAF is fluorescent, smoky, slippery lazer light orgy for the 18-21 set. It's where you go if you're in college, that much is for sure. It's where you go if you want to wear fishnets and underwear, if you have dyed pink hair and facial piercings, if you want a boy with fist-sized gauges in his ear to literally spit his saliva into your mouth, and if you like guzzling 'Gansett and paying cover to do so, and if you want to make out with people so a photographer will capture it, and if you like heavy bass.

In theory, DGAF should be a good time. I've tried with good intentions to have fun. The thing is, it never ends up happening. I can't get drunk enough to let down my guard. I get freaked out when the girls with their tattooed arms and belly shirts turn into little animals. The music is a trip to listen to, but it makes me want to sit on a couch and feel the vibrations rather than swing my arms around and rock my head forward. I also feel old. No one I know (other than my randomly dedicated mid-20s male friends) goes there. I drink slowly and sit, or walk around, or go to the patio, watch the freak show, feel gross, feel lame. To me it seems like DGAF is a form of aggression therapy + a voyeuristic photo shoot. It's a release for some, no doubt. But I have no desire to cut loose like that.

REGARDLESS, I went anyway. Why? The only reasons were: it was black light themed and I had access to Molly, MDMA, pure ecstasy. The thought of the two was super appealing. I'd been to blackout parties before and I've done Molly before, never together. Recipe for a slutty, trippy good time.

I put on a black outfit, grabbed a yellow highlighter and went to meet up with my friends. I met up and they had bags of glow sticks, light up spiked bracelets, blinky things, etc. I asked someone to draw an anchor on my chest with the highlighter. We swallowed the capsules of Molly. We drank water, we waited a few minutes. We decided to head to the club.

After a totally unnecessary reckless car ride, I got out of the car sweating, burping bubbles of air and feeling what must be pure poison reacting in my belly. I felt like I had swallowed vinegar and baking soda. I felt very queasy. As we're walking, I tried to stay quiet but was forced to take a detour and slip into a parking lot with my boyfriend, who was chewing a flavored toothpick. He was consoling me, giving me escape options, being a real peach. I hurled, it it burned and it didn't relieve me. I got more nauseous. I hurled again. As I rose up, I felt my eyelids stiff and my neck rigid and my ears popped and my mind kind of felt like the low end of the radio dial. I started to talk out my feelings to my boyfriend and I could only smell the REPULSIVE sickly mint that oozed from his toothpick.

His eyes were as big as saucers and his was gnawing steadily on this toothpick and his face was lit up. I could tell he's been hit by the roll and so have I. I felt fine now. So we entered the club.

Typical colors smashing against each other swirling lights and WOMP WOMP WOMP music. I felt stomach reactions again. I went to the bathroom. I tried to steady myself but I felt like I was stuck in sound waves and every vibration shook me up. I puked a little more. I leaned against the stall. I though, "This always happens to me." I got up and toward the mirror and I was standing among girls who were glittery, torn up, Spandexed, fishnetted. I was wearing a black miniskirt from H&M and loose black tshirt.

The night consisted of me couching it, sipping water, being simply dazzled by the light show, the creatures, the groaning mechanical sounds of the dubstep. I colored in quite a bit of my friend's arm tattoos with the yellow highlighter. The pain in my stomach stayed with me all night. My eyelids felt like vinyl window shades that wanted to snap and roll themselves up. Staring at light trails and feeling strangely disinterested in movement. Feeling depressed about that. Feeling depressed that I could feel depressed while on uppers. I felt like sparks are coursing through my body, but slowly. My boyfriend was in full force twirler mode. He was elated, exhilarated. I made sure to keep my morbid comments to myself.

Because I'm local, I ran into a few people I knew. One drunk hipster who recognized me and gave me a hug. A hippie nerdy type who is actually very nice and chatted with me about a movie project we had both worked on and asked me earnest questions. I went onto the patio and was violated by the foul smells of menthol cigarette smoke and beer. I doodled on myself.

Toward the close of the night, I grabbed a seat off in a dark corner at a deserted bar. I could keep my eye on the dance floor, my friends freaking their bodies and waving their glowing arms around. A dude approached me, as dudes do, when the see a girl sitting by herself at a club, her face glowing yellow under ultraviolet light.

He was from Georgia, he was a sailor on a submarine, he called himself "the best prostitute in the world because he's in the U.S. military." Somehow he told me he can touch any dude's dick and it wouldn't be weird. I asked if he's gay (no, just southern). He asked my age (30). He was shocked (obviously). We shouted/whispered to each other over the music and started discussing depression, pain, loneliness and passion. He told me if someone cut his arm with a knife he'd do nothing because he can't feel pain. I told him that I keep coming to this place but I never have fun. He propped his fingers up on the edge of the bar and walked them over -- "you need to put yourself on the edge of something." We were having a surreal, brief, deep connection.

My friends found me, at the very moment. I introduced them (his name was Trevor). My boyfriend emerged. I introduced them. I got strange looks from my friends and Trevor got the hint and said goodbye, it was nice talking to you. I agreed. I wrapped my arms around my boyfriend, who was still chomping away on his droopy, soggy toothpick. He is so handsome.

We survived the drive home. I threw up one more time. I ate a slice of multigrain bread. I washed my face and scrubbed off the hearts and whiskers I had drawn on myself. I didn't feel buzzy anymore. I resented myself for being sick and a wallflower. I brushed my teeth and I went to sleep.

Style Blog>Depression

I'm struggling. I'm fighting against myself and what feels like my nature. I'm scared to try something new, even if it is something I'm longing to do. I feel too old. I'm 23 years old, and I feel like I should have started five years ago.

The reason I'm writing now is because I'm at a coffee house on the cute block in the city where the bookish and the grungy and the dreamy people go. I never ever come here. But I met a friend here who loves fashion as much as I do, and he and I have a lot in common. I'm staring at long-haired young men out the window. The sky is very gray and it's damp from rain. Girls wear giant stretched out sweaters and their roots are showing. Everyone is disinterested. I am so happy to be here right now.

I want to create a style blog, probably a Tumblr. I want it to be a combination of Fashion Toast and LookBook and DIY. I want to to be very low key, very accessible, and unpretentious. I just want to be able to get my fantasies off my chest, or rather, on my chest. I want to be inspired and forced to be creative and lovely. Clothes have given me so much of my identity. It makes you the best version of yourself. In your mind's eye, you can become that which you desire. It shows everyone who you are, and even if you're just looking into the mirror you can be anyone you want to be. It's such a beautiful thing.

This desire is not troubling or even difficult to achieve. I'm just perpetually stuck in a rut, stuck in a ditch I've dug, stuck in bed and without real motivation to get out. I am my only naysayer. I've willingly snuffed out my own identity and now I mourn it. I'm like a crazy murderer who cries over the corpse they've created and feels sadness and not remorse.

Blogger has always been the most welcoming invitation back into my mind and the place I'd like to be, permanently. Blogger and Boots Electric!!! have been real friends to me. They're my imaginary friends. They are made in the image of everything I love about writing, commentary, editing and pulling media and creating something very genuinely me. I've always found that I can come back here and start writing, and not only feel ok about it, I feel proud of myself for not sucking as badly as I always think I do.

I live (sort of) in this great city with art and camaraderie and food and calmness. The city is only as pretentious as the 18 year olds posted up at the Ivy League school and famed art academy. I think my problem is that I have always envied them, because I thought I was going to be them. I was primed and ready to be an artist and an I-don't-give-a-fucker. I was not confident, but I was also not scared enough to stop. I had ideas that were bigger than me. I was so interested in so much. I had that kind of warm ball of power that was in my stomach that filled me up and also soothed me. Whatever it was, it was truly mine, it set me on fire. I had blinders on, and no one could persuade me to be any different. Anyone who tried was beneath me. I looked and felt older than 17.

I think 18-21 was the deconstruction of myself. It was trying and it was numbing and I made so many decisions to become someone I didn't really like. I lost the ball of power. I probably vomited it out of me one night after drinking too much. I spent a few years truly sick from my environment of stale college and shitty beer and unfamiliar friends and they weren't like me at all. I was uninspired. I felt like a tourist when I remembered myself. I felt like I had run away from home or got a divorce from a girl I loved. I truly loved her. My memories serve to glorify her and put her on a pedestal. Unaware of her beauty, unburdened and disinterested in pleasing boys and fitting in. Those blinders. They are helpful and damning. I don't see anything I don't want to see. I didn't see threats when I was younger. And now I only see parts of a woman and I see nothing else.

I've always thought that my fashion is the only thing about the old me I've retained. Probably because it's easy and it makes sense and it changes all the time but can always remind you of something else. I still have clothes from when I was Her. But my style has certainly improved over the years. Back when I was Her, I was pale as sour milk. My hair was long, frazzled and heavy like a stage curtain. I loaded my neck with tacky charms and woven necklaces. I wore lacy, gothic skirts over flared jeans. I was pudgy. I wore way too much eyeshadow.

I feel so beautiful on the outside now. I am comfortable. I got the right haircut. I stick with liquid eyeliner and lipstick now. I love lace and Native American prints and the color peach and leather boots and sweaters. My heart races thinking about it. Think of the most gorgeous, simple thing. Now think about putting it on your body. Seeing yourself wrapped inside of It. Letting it soak into you and carrying that beauty with you always. Only you get to decide what goes on your chest of waist or legs and feet. You can paint your fingernails gray. You can tie a ribbon your hair, for god's sake. Nothing warms me like that warms me.

I will compose looks and outfits that are very me. Some will be skirts and leather boots and sweaters. Maybe some will be based on fine dining or brunch. Some will be the clothes you wear when you're listening to music and smoking pot with your friends. Some will be the very best of laundry day.

All I need is a camera and a cool background. I feel like this isn't beyond me. I think I can make this happen for myself and I think it won't hurt like it has been hurting if I do this.

CHRISTMAS

"I've been working on my match.com profile."

Says my sad sack uncle, in his Cream t shirt.

I'm blogging undercover, which is out in the middle of the living room of my Aunt's house on Christmas day. Watching the Celtics game with my cousin's husband. He's a really nice guy wearing white socks and drinking Sam Adams, quietly and occasionally asking me to check the weather for the supposed storm tomorrow.

My two grandmothers are wearing red sweaters and talking loudly to each other. I worry about them.

My mom and my cousin are talking about my mom's ex husband, who is an old drunken spinster at this point. They've been divorced for a very long time and she rarely speaks of him, if at all. But she's freaking out about imagining a life with him. We spotted him about a month ago at my cousin's wedding. My mom is strained, stressed at the thought of a life with the ruddy, lonely man she barely recognized. My cousin keeps chiming in, "But it wouldn't have been like that. It's not the same." It's very absurd to see my mom worked up about a man she hadn't seen in 30 years.

My sister is talking about her lovable illegal immigrant Irish drug selling boyfriend to my mom's hippie friend, Debbie. Debbie is being calm and understanding while my sis laments the late night phone calls from dealers and the fact that he doesn't pay his parking tickets and ripped the boot off his car. She's afraid he'll be deported. She's probably right.

Dad and Debbie's husband Warren and my uncle are lamenting my father's lawsuit. His nonprofit adult education business was fucked over by the city's school system and the lawsuit has been in affect for over 10 years. They've just begun trials and it's looking grim for dad.

As for me, my period hit me this morning like a freight train of blood. I was really happy and relieved because I always think I'm pregnant. I took a load of cum right after I took my nuva ring out a few days ago and I was sure that would stew itself into twins or triplets or some horrible shit. But no, blood arrived, thank god. And now I'm bleeding through my tampon and underwear and trying to plug myself up with toilet paper. Forcing drippy lasagna into my face is unappealing right now.

I'm gulping klonopin every few hours to keep my queasy stomach/vein-bulging pulse/tight muscles/rapid heartbeat under control. I'm anxious thinking about the guy I'm dating, or not dating, which basically heads all of my anxiety at the moment. I'm kicking myself for even thinking about it and letting it get to me.

I'm sucking macaroons out of my teeth.

Baby monitors are crackling and then suddenly the babies appear, and they smell like poopy. The cousins I grew up with closely are much older than me. They're in their 30s now, married, babied. There are 3 toddlers stumbling around. They're cute. They're very tiny. Gap jeans are cuffed on Aiden and he can barely walk. I know he wants to be naked.

It was quite a sight to see three babies aged 2 and 1 years old receive over 10 gifts each last night on Christmas eve. All they could understand was picking up objects, tearing them, and then throwing them down. What was really strange was seeing my cousins, my friends, coo and goo while flipping pages of a coloring book and say " Look Emma! Book! Coloring book! For Emma! Wow!" Being a parent to young babies is bizarre.

5 pies appear on the table and barely anyone touches them. Are pies irrelevant ? My uterus is swishing full of blood and cramps are pricking me and I can't move. I have to go to work tomorrow. Heart pings in pain. Look for another pill to take. Keep gulping the red wine until my skin tingles.

My parent's Jew friends are decked in cowboy boots and cactus jewelry. They sit idly and very politely. It must be nice to not have to sit among your own family sometimes.

We're just doing what we always do, family robotics. Hugs, appetizers, TV set, chatter, slyly text someone, and end up in a heated conversation about something highly un-Christmasy. Trying to enjoy the relative clash, which always seems harder than it really is. I want to plug myself up with more stiff cotton, grab a slice of my down comforter, take some downers and magically receive a call from the boy I adore. What a Christmas miracle that would be.

I come home, plug myself, steal a pill from my dad, and pull myself under the covers. Avoid my sweet faced sister as she asks me to spend time with her. I am somehow frozen and radiating at the same time, emotionally deadened but ready to snap at any moment.

I catch 3 minutes of online conversation with dream boy. I gain .5 points of satisfaction but mostly feel like shit about it. He doesn't really care about me.

I suck down a vodka drink and no one cares because I'm old enough to drink. I hope the pills take effect soon. I debate on another drink, for the warm tingle buzz, or a shot of Nyquil.

ALCOHOL PRO:

Warmth

Buzz

Gradual incoherency

NYQUIL PRO:

Sedation

Slight hallucination

One shot will do it

ALCOHOL CON:

Takes too long to drink properly

Can't get too drunk at home

Spins

NYQUIL CON:

Puts me to deep sleep fairly quickly

Can't multitask while sedated

I wish I still had the hydrocodone syrup. That shit was so good, so tasty, so heavy. It made me itchy, but I loved it. I miss it.

I guess I could do both. It's Christmas.