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.

Plan B Is Not An Abortion Pill

bang list

(in no particular order)

by Boots Electric !!!

joseph gordon-levitt

james franco

caleb followil

robert pattinson

josh homme

daniel day lewis

alexander skarsgaard

[[[ more to come ]]]

"your glasses are sexy"

.... {insert male name here}.

I get this all the time. Never cute, often cool. But sexy. Sexxxxy. That's pretty damn specific. Not everyone is sexy. And my glasses, these big, round plastic things I wear over my face every single day, make me sexy. Hearing this so often really makes me laugh.

So I am trying to analyze how and why this came to be in a world where, growing up, the adage "boys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses" was totally true. I mean, come on. Glasses?

I have come up with a few benchmarks that explain the relative sex appeal my glasses give me (and countless other ladies, and dudes for that matter, as well).

1. Slutty Smart Girl Fetish

Nerd porn. Fucking in the chem lab fantasies. Being spanked by your stern boss lady staring hot sex daggers through her spectacles. I get it. Some dudes really get off on that kind of thing. In my research, that is, noticing what happens to me in my daily life, most of these guys are nerds, scenesters, geek chic types. Kids that jam on guitar in their room for 6 hours a day writing songs about the glasses girl he just can't have. Or, as a perfect example, Taylor Swift in her music video. My dear friend Andrew was straight up about it with me one day at a party. Andrew is a caustic, highly intelligent and handsome young man looking for a match. He says to me, "Boots. Do you know that girl over there?" He points to a pale, sweet-looking blonde with killer thick tortoise shell frames on her rosy face. No, I did not know who she was. Why do you ask Andrew? Are you interested? He replies, "I just saw the glasses and and thought 'Yes, a cute girl nerd!' " Need further proof? I had a sexual rendez-vous with a punk rocker I knew in high school. He was highly attracted to me, and he made it very clear.

NOTE: I guess at this point I should talk about what I look like, because this whole post is about looks and being called sexy and the glasses, etc. So, ya know, I don't put pictures of myself up here because I really don't think it's necessary, it's not about what I look like but what I have to say and how I'm saying it.

So what do I look like, for the sake of this argument? I'm pretty. So I've been told. I've been called some adjectives that are very flattering, regarding my appearance. Needless to say, I am confident that I appeal to a reasonable percentage the opposite sex, and YES, my argument is contingent upon that opinion. So take from that what you will. I'm not saying putting cool glasses on a shovel-faced girl is going to make you want to fuck her. I'm saying that something about glasses just gives us a mysterious extra...je ne sais quoi.

ANYWAY, this punk rocker told me to never wear contacts, because the glasses were his favorite thing about me. He just "likes girls with glasses." I thought back to high school and all of this guy's girlfriends... were cute girls with cool glasses. Ah hah.

And you know what? Even those brotastic, sporty, preppy guys who would never associate themselves with a "nerdy girl" sometimes make exceptions for the right girl in the right pair of glasses.... it's something they've thought about. Trust me. I dated a lacrosse playing, beer guzzling party dude in college and I was his first "smart" girlfriend, and he loved, LOOOOVED, my glasses.

2. CONFIDENCE

This one seems simple, but it actually didn't register with me personally until someone pointed it out. "You have to be confident to wear glasses!" someone told me. I thought, well, I don't like touching my eye and these glasses take 1 second to put on and take off... I wear them because I'm lazy.

Such is not the case. I bet you'd be surprised how many glasses-free people wear contact lenses instead. Some, not all, contacts wearers just don't like the way they look with glasses, but I'm apt to believe that as far as young ladies and gents go, they don't want to look like a nerd. They might be worried that wearing glasses will make them look like a douchebag.

But the confidence to wear the glasses, the confidence to rock some trendy frames, to commit to a look, to wear it every day and still go about your life, that makes sense too. My newest pair are kind of extra large, dark brown tortoise shell outside, white inside. People constantly compliment me for them and say things like "I could never wear those. But YOU pull them off." I hear this A LOT. I say, of course you could wear them. You could just put them on and then you'd be wearing them. No one is going to say "WHY IS THAT GIRL WEARING THOSE COOL GLASSES???" And if they do, they're not going to stop you and shout it in your face. That's what I think, anyway. But that's because I have this "confidence" thing.

And that, my friends, is appealing. Sexy, even.

3. Style/Irony

Pretty self-explanatory, right? In the ironic sense, that glasses give a caricature-like look of style and intelligence. That's why so many scenester assholes have been wearing big, dramatic plastic frames with fake lenses in them as of late. If I wear glasses, it's not because I'm trying to pull off a "look," it's because I'd kill people in my car if I wasn't wearing them. In some circles, a cute girl in a pair of attention-grabbing eyewear (see: dark thick frames, never EVER wire-rimmed or otherwise) will set of boner alerts. Based on pure, shallow iconography alone. It's a fashion statement, like Yves St. Laurent's classic frames or Miranda Priestly in film fiction. Or, it's just a fleeting attempt to copy that same accessorized intelligence.

So, what have I learned? It's saying something to wear glasses in this day of Lasik and Acuview Dailys. And something about that has sex appeal. It's dominance, it's authoritative, it's geeky, it's trendy. It's hot.

Apple Training: The Night Before

I was very recently hired at the local Apple Store. A position that is not easily acquired, it turns out.

Tomorrow, EARLY, I embark on a voyage to Boston where I will being Day One of my Core Training, as they call it.

I've already been sworn to secrecy about delicate and private matters of Apple Inc. I will probably be able to write very little of what I learn tomorrow and over the next two days in Boston. Seriously, though! I could be fired or sued if I divulge details. So I'll have to be vague.

I'm not really scared. I sort of thrive on going into things blindly. I'm not scared of doing things alone or following directions or meeting new people. I just feel anxious, because it's going to be quite a production: waking up early, driving to the mall, parking, walking to the train station, meeting up with the other new hires, getting on the train, the ride, then the curious two block walk in God knows what direction to the training premises . In the very basic directions sent to us by the manager, all they tell us is when we enter the building ,we're to look for a "huge waterfall."

It is just daunting, that's all.

We're going to be there for 9 hours. Well we have 1 hour off for lunch, so 8 hours of Apple training. What on EARTH could they do with us for 8 hours? And three days? I seriously can't even imagine it.

I just have a vision of a huge, high ceiling hall filled with people and Steve Jobs' huge face on a screen saying WELCOME.

Indoctrination begins tomorrow.

UPDATE: So now I know. Three long days! Fun though, if not a little daunting (ftw). And no deets. Sorry. Who cares? No one not even you.

auto

This is the kind of car I drive. It's a 2002 Hyundai Accent GS, bright ass red, two doors, hatchback.

JEALOUS?

It's kind of a chick car, it's cute, it's very compact. It's Boots sized, for sure.

I have an unusually significant attachment to my car, but -- then again -- a lot of people do, no?

I didn't get my driver's license until I was 20 years old, as a soon to be junior in college. I had been terrified of operating a motor vehicle for much of my youth. I had nightmares as a child about being abandoned behind the wheel of a moving car. Yes, the thought of driving was horrifying.

I'm not exactly sure why, but I know that I HATE dangerous thrill-seeking type activities. No roller coasters, no horror movies, none of that panicky shit. I have enough panic in my dumb life as is.

Driving was, however, a necessary part of life. Something I entrusted others to do, but not me. I didn't trust myself. Too scary.

I had a borderline traumatizing situation when I was about 15 years old that involved my dad allowing my untrained ass to back my mother's 2000 Nissan Maxima, standard, out of the garage. I had no idea what to do with a clutch and an accelerator and I sent the car speeding in reverse a little ways down a hill into woods and slamming the back end into a tree trunk. It was a bit mangled, but no one was hurt. We did have to tow the car out of the mess I had made.

It was definitely a marked moment in my life that I experienced real danger, real lack of control and high intensity panic. I had been very, very weary to get behind the wheel of any car from that time on.

I finally pulled my shit together and got my driver's license in the summer before my junior year of college, after two years of having my ass carted around by friends to parties, never the sober one, feeling really pathetic that I wasn't independent, that I still politely begged for rides, that people were starting to resent my handicap.

It's coming up on two years behind the wheel, and I am obsessed with driving my car. The feeling is blissful to be in control of a speeding machine and in control of where I'm going and when I'm getting there. But you all know that.

However, I did get into my first real accident. It FUCKING SUCKED. It was totally my fault, too. I was talking on the phone with my dad about important stuff (seriously) and I was going way too fast on Rt. 4 south, approaching a stoplight. Long and short I crammed the front end of my car into the back end of another. The lady was fine (but a bitch) and my car was mashed up badly. The cop made me cry (of course). I drove a rental for two weeks (dope). Now my car is mine again. I felt so bad that I had hurt her. My dad's repair guy pulled massive strings to prevent my darling Accent from being totaled.

+++

My favorite thing to do in my car is sing. It's weird. I'll start by listening to music on my iPod, then I'll come across a song I really like to sing, and before I know it, that damn song is getting the way of my vocals. I get antsy and I want to hear what I sound like. So I'll turn off the stereo and listen the sound of my own voice.

I'm not the best singer. I'm pretty good, though. I can definitely carry a tune, but my chops are shaky, not very strong or controlled. I love singing. And in my car I find myself belting out songs like a fucking diva. It's really, really great. Being able to have that alone time, moving fast, flying down roads, in control. And I'm not scared anymore, not at all. Another irrational fear dominated.