The Conclusion of the May Blogging Challenge

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have achieved the impossible. It is May 31, 2012, the official end of my May Blogging Challenge and I am proud to say I have actually accomplished my goal to blog every day.  This is a big deal. It is the first time I have achieved a goal I have set for myself since dropping my high school shoplifting habit.  

Needless to say, I’m feeling rather pleased with myself. During the month of May I explored the parasitic aspects of my mother’s relationship, established the “Sunday Night Round Up” which is basically my way of saying ‘I’m too lazy to write a real blog and you people will read anything (suckers),’ diminished Twitter for the 47^th time which has shockingly had little effect on people’s decision to use it, revealed six more characteristics of my future ex-husband, diagrammed the woes of my crack den apartment, honored Bob Dylan with a creepy yet serious birthday shout out, explored all of the ways and reasons I suck at being a young person, and most recently revealed to a shocked internet audience that real women have confidence in addition to their curves, muscle tone, and everything in between. It’s been an interesting month; a fulfilling month. But I am exhausted and I need a break that does not include me blogging about needing a break. You feel me? I know you do.

completely unrelated to post

So I am going on a brief hiatus, that will likely last anywhere from 12-? hours, while I figure out how to approach my blogging schedule in the future. While I don’t plan to continue the daily blogging, I do hope to establish some sort of consistency, as I know you will be waiting, uncomfortably on the edge of your seat until my next post.

Any feedback or suggestions on blogging schedule preferences, hit me up in some fashion, via comment, email, or midnight knocks on my door. I won’t answer, but I will call the police and relish the thought of your incarceration.

In the meantime, check out the last 31 blog entries. I promise, I worked semi-hard on them.

Love,

The girl who hasn’t changed contacts since 1978

Real Women Have Confidence

It’s no secret that I’m an overweight, pale, blonde girl. I wear double digit clothing sizes, makeup that is literally labeled “translucent” and have hair so light I would appear to have lesser eyebrows than Whoopi Goldberg. In other words I could moonlight as a beer wench at Oktoberfest any day of the week.

Yet my entire life people have treated me as if I were somehow unaware of my appearance. Phrases like “the South Beach Diet would work perfect for you!” and “OMG, like, what’s with your skin?” have been thrown at me since I was five and a girl on the playground told me I looked like an apple, a body type label that has stuck with me throughout adulthood.

In high school I spent many nights lying awake in my bed thinking about every part of my body that was flawed. My hair was too thick, my brow bone too strong, cheeks too chubby, arms too flabby, boobs too big, boobs too small, skin too broken out, stomach too big, thighs too thick, legs too short, skin too pale, hips too wide, butt too small, feet too arched, etc. Every part of my appearance was a disappointment to me and the constant reminder via CW dramas, flawless high school peers, and thoughtless family members and strangers, that there was a better alternative to me and all of my imperfections, that I could never and would never physically attain, made me ache inside to see a reflection that was no reflection of me. It was this kind of mindset which made me value being told I was “pretty” as a greater compliment than being told I was “smart, funny, kind, talented, creative,” etc.

It has been six years since high school graduation but I have only in the last two started to feel like I am not some kind of mangled rawhide, covered in slobber and dog hair, lying on the floor of an illegal puppy mill in Idaho. Vivid, I know. But perception evolves with the passage of time and what I couldn’t see when I was in high school is that I am actually pretty. Not to everyone of course, but to myself.

But my reason for writing this has nothing to do with how gorgeous I think my hair is now or how classy I think my pale skin is, and how even though I need to lose some weight for health purposes, I no longer want to be thin. I’m writing this because I think the biggest problem with the issue of beauty is that beauty doesn’t actually exist. Beauty is an intangible perception of something else that cannot be proven, but merely argued. Which leads me to my next point: the sickness of comparative beauty.

There’s a strange movement right now in our culture. On one hand, models look more emaciated than ever, and on the other women like Christina Hendricks are garnering mad attention for their naturally curvy bodies. Pictures like this are being passed around the internet:

 

 

While I can grasp that this is trying to send a positive message that thicker girls are just as sexy, if not sexier to some than skinny girls, I hate the fact that we need to tear one group down to lift up another. I also hate that the definition of female beauty is being dictated by the men who date them, designers who dress them, and people like Perez Hilton. I also hate that instead of rebelling against this system, we women allow it and promote it by being competitive with other women, diminishing each other for our differences. And lastly I hate that in a world of increased eating disorders, skin cancer rates, and deaths related to cosmetic surgery, we live in a culture that still promotes the constant alteration of our bodies. Viewing our faces and our bodies as blank slates for culture to imprint all over is a recipe for self-destruction.

Forget the fact that a few centuries ago artists would have had a throw down over who gets to paint me naked, in today’s society, I and so many other girls are not considered the “ideal” for one reason or another. But the fact is, that even despite the after-school special undertones of what I’m about to say, everyone is beautiful to someone, in their own way. Blonde or brunette, curvy or thin, fair, or tan or black, or whatever other generalized term we can create to label ourselves, everyone is beautiful because they are different. Because there are no two people EXACTLY alike. Because no person will ever be duplicated. Everyone is the master copy of themselves, which makes us each pretty undeniably special. And sometimes being special is actually better than being just like everything else.

So before you tan your skin to make it look more like someone else’s, or dye your hair to fit in with the trends, just think about the fact that you are the only person in the world with that skin color and that hair, and by choosing to make it some other color, you are choosing to say goodbye to one of the things that makes you unique. Let’s all learn to accept each other and ourselves for who we are so we can all live together in fat, skinny, ugly, pretty, peace.

And remember, real women have confidence, and sometimes that’s all we needs.

Love,

The girl still working on the confidence thing

Thoughts and Experiences of My life at 11:30 PM on a Tuesday

This is a rather disjointed blog post. So I’ve decided to think of this blog post as a Pinterest page representing my life. However I don’t understand Pinterest or enjoy it so there’s a very good chance it will just read like a really poorly constructed blog entry. Boo.

***

Thoughts:

My vocabulary has gotten exponentially better since watching Dawson’s Creek. It’s like how I get wittier after watching Gilmore Girls and sluttier after watching Gossip Girl. Well, that’s only partially true.

I couldn’t possibly get wittier.

***

Dialogue:

“My boobs feel like caves”

-something I just said out loud.

***

Conversations:

Tonight with my friend, Collin

fendercollin 11:45 pm
back a year ago or so you told me that I reminded you of a turtle!

fendercollin 11:45 pm
we were just talking!
and then I told you that you reminded me of a cherub and you got all mad

***

Memories:

Last night at the concert I heard some girl say she was going to “snort a line of Molly.” I thought she was talking about my mother’s dog.

***

Self Realizations:

Sometimes I stare at my work purse for a really long time and feel guilty about the fact that it is leather and that some animal had to die so I could have this purse to fill with tampon wrappers and chewed gum. But then I remember they don’t sell real leather at Old Navy and my guilt just comes from being born an American.

That’s all.

Love,

The girl with kaleidoscope eyes

Dave Matthews is More Important Than My Blog

Tonight I am going to a Dave Matthews Band concert. If you  go on his website, look at his tour dates, find out where I live, and come murder me right there on the lawn, you can. But that wouldn’t be my preference.

Happy Memorial Day, ya’ll. Or something else more jam bandy.

Love,

The girl with a little bit of heaven and a little bit of “hell yeah!”

 

Sunday Night Round Up #4

There are insects pitching tents in my apartment. Not in the dirty way ; though considering the vast population, probably in the dirty way too. They are setting up camp in various locations from the bathroom ceiling to the living room doorway, tormenting me with their presence, while no doubt researching rates for the increasingly popular window-front properties in my bedroom. I know deep down they don’t mean to pummel my existence, but that is just what they have done. They have pummeled my existence.

It’s been total insect anarchy since the bug on my toothbrushincident of last week. They just keep showing up and they won’t go away. There like a bunch of Occupy protestors. They accomplish nothing while making life a little more unpleasant for all who come into their company. Like last night when my bedroom was commandeered by a spider and some variation of a mosquito and I was forced to relocate to my living room for sleep, just to have my living room attacked by another spider and a stinkbug.

After several hours spent in the presence of savage wildlife I didn’t have the heart or testicles to kill, I managed to accumulate 2 hours of sleep. So today, along with my usual emotional instability, I am struggling with undiagnosed narcolepsy. I’m like Harriet Tubman, only slightly less historically relevant.

Anyway.

This week has been a gold mine of search terms used to find my blog. I invite you to feast on these 10 glorious representations of the maximum capacity of human intellectualism, that continue to fill me with great hope for the future of humanity.

Here is Our Top 10

1. Women are bad at parking because they are always lied to about 8 inches
2. Physical characteristics of inbred people.
3. Girl with blond hair bob blog ß(THIS IS ME!!!!)
4. I gave your girlfriend a dictionary
5. How long do meth addicts live?
6. Orangutan boobs
7. Ted Bundy dating game
8. Does soul mate = gold digger?
9. Human soul pie chart
10. Biggest rack of 2012

Frosted flake!

Love,

The girl who thinks “Cheerio!” as a farewell is SO April 2012

Why I Suck At Being a Young Person

I suck at being a young person.

Today I tried. Here’s what happened.  

This afternoon I went shopping. I needed to buy a lot of really important things with exactly ZERO dollars.  Soooooo I went to the record store. The record store I am referring to is a phenomenally well-priced, well-stocked, used media pawn shop version of heaven where I hope to conceive my future children. Going there is not why I suck at being a young person.

There were a lot of young people there. Mostly boys with checkered shoes and stupid haircuts looking at used cds and video games. But I, the only female that has probably ever been within 100 yards of the building, spent my entire 30 minutes there hunched in the corner of the room next to a 60 year old man with a pony tail and flannel shirt, scouring folk and blues vinyl records no one else will probably buy. This is why I suck at being a young person. It’s just like how every time I attend a concert alone because no one I know listens to the music I like, I end up befriending some elderly person with liver spots, who I have more in common with than 90% of my peers. This is not a real statistic. I made it up. Don’t hate.

This entire concept makes me very uncomfortable

So after spending $56 of the $100 I had actually set aside for clothing, I left and went to the mall where I could simultaneously buy cheap dresses and have my soul physically extracted by means of consumerist-driven centrifugal force. JK, I LOVE SHOPPING!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did I mention that I also suck at being a female? No? Ok.

So here’s another reason I suck at being young and at being female. The shopping itself went fine. Things that made me look fat, I put back. Things that made me look less fat, I bought. I’m not sure why girls need a horde of acquaintances to figure this out. If a dress makes you look like you could prevent a plane from takeoff, you probably shouldn’t buy it. Anyway. After buying some clothing, I went to Sephora determined to buy something that proved my youthful femaleness once and for all. But after twenty minutes of searching and physically rejecting the prices by way of dry heaves, I left, disgusted and happy I spent $56 on records instead of on one bottle of shampoo. This is not an exaggeration. I did not make this up.

I spent the rest of the night in my apartment, cleaning, listening to records, and growing increasingly aware of my lack of friends. It’s not like I’m completely friendless. I’m not Heidi Montag. I just don’t have a great amount of friends in a local proximity who I have much in common with.  So I decided instead of shimmying alone to John Lee Hooker and chatting with distant friends online, I should attempt to go out. This is where I really suck at being a young person.

I have no idea how to “go out.” I’m not even sure what that means. I’m pretty sure it involves bars and shitty music and body shots, but since my only understanding of contemporary social gatherings comes from watching Jersey Shore alone, I’m probably wrong. Nevertheless, the entire concept of going out intimidates me for the following reasons:

1. I don’t know how to order a drink. I once tried to order a glass of wine at a restaurant and when the waiter asked me what kind I wanted my exact reply was, “like, I don’t know. Red?” Then he proceeded to card me and remind me that 17 year olds aren’t old enough to buy alcohol. So if I were to go out and drink, the only way I would even have a drink in my hand is if someone else ordered it for me. And if someone else ordered it for me, I’d absolutely assume it was roofied.
2. I don’t know how to dress. I always think I do, but I don’t. Then I start judging everyone else for dressing badly, when really I’m the one who should not be wearing tights in 80 degree weather.
3. I get neurotically focused on knowing where the bathroom is. Like, I can’t enter an establishment and just start socializing like a normal person. My first thought is that I must find out where the bathroom is, because frankly I’d rather spend the evening completely alone than get lost on my way to the bathroom and end up in the backseat of some guys van.
4. I know I won’t enjoy myself. I realize this is not the mindset I should have going into going out, but it’s true. Because honestly, even though I am a very open-minded person, my greatest idea of a good time is sitting on my living room floor with a few friends and acquaintances, listening to records, doing absolutely NOTHING illegal, and talking about how it makes us feel. So if I’m with people who would rather be out than doing that, then I’m not going to enjoy myself.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I suck at being a young person.

Love,

The girl who “wants to be bad but doesn’t know how”

She Blinded Me With Science!!!…and a Day Off

Tomorrow is my day off. My first day off since May 6^th. It’s like, a totally big deal. Among other things, I am going to attempt to do the following:

1. Sew pillows for my couch  Learn how to sew
2. Break my sewing machine
3.  Cut myself   Shave my legs
4. Write something good decent
5.  Clean my car Generate an excuse for why I can’t clean my car

As you can see, I have rad plans for a bitchin’ existence.

Diving headfirst into my day off with some mad productivity, I have captured screen shots from my favorite parts of the music video for Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science”; the best song and video ever created by man or highly-skilled therapy dogs. I imagine they are the only other mammal with video recording capabilities.

I can’t quite explain how this represents mad productivity. But I also can’t explain how Ron Jeremy was a sex symbol. The world is a mysterious place.

Thomas Dolby – She Blinded Me With Science (Screenshots)

An absolutely understandable reaction to an old man screaming “science”

An absolutely acceptable reaction to scoring in croquet

An absolutely normal group of old men dancing with canes for no reasons

An absolutely fantastic way to end a video: pushing an old man in a wheelchair into a lake

You need to watch this video. I predict it will rank in the top 10 great experiences of your life, after seeing Shakira bellydance live, before winning a watermelon seed spitting contest.

 

I also predict Thomas Dolby to be the next L. Ron Hubbard with irrelevant celebrities like Bam Margera and Niki Hilton leading the way in development of a new cult religion. One that will blind them with science.

Love,

The girl who hopes to enter a serious relationship in the next 3 hours so she can make legitimate plans with a significant other that do not leave her feeling empty inside.

“How I Came to Love Bob Dylan”

WARNING: This post will probably not be very funny. In fact, this post will not be funny at all. If you want funny, go to Yahoo News. They’re terrible reporters. It’s a hoot.

For those of you who have read this blog before, you have probably detected my slight obsession with Bob Dylan. By slight obsession I mean borderline psychotic feelings of love for him, comparable to that which a mother feels for her child or Hugh Hefner feels for implants.

He’s so cool

 

But as a 23 year old woman who admittedly listened to complete and utter garbage until the age of 18, you may be asking yourself “How Lena did you get from Dashboard Confessional suicide tracks and Nelly remixes to Bob Dylan”? I know. The anticipation is ruining you.

So I thought to myself, what better day to answer this question than Bob Dylan’s 71^st birthday.

 

Here is the true, very unfunny story:

 

In the fall of 2007 I was a sophomore at a mid-sized college in Pennsylvania; a rural setting settled between two small, somewhat ghetto fabulous cities. Despite this, the college town and campus were relatively safe places for clueless, lightweight 19 year olds such as me to roam alone at all hours of the night and even for the occasional tryst to class.

 

But just two weeks into the fall semester things drastically changed.  On the streets of our small town a student was brutally murdered by a group of non-students visiting a downtown bar. The story went that the student was leaving his brother’s house in town and walking back to the campus, alone, around 2:30am when a group of men he did not know attacked him in a completely random act of violence, beating him to death and leaving him to die on the street.

 

The crime shook the campus. What always felt like a safe place suddenly felt extremely unsafe. Charges were filed and the men in custody were rung through the legal system with too much leniency in my opinion. In the week following his death, those who chose to pay attention learned a great deal about the student through University newspaper articles and press releases. Apparently he was a cute, 19 year old history major, who wrote poetry, hated pop culture, and loved Bob Dylan.

 

Reading about this boy, reading his poetry in a book the school published in his memory, made me feel extremely connected to him, despite the fact that we had never met. Every day following his death I read his Facebook wall; the heartbroken posts from friends, family members, his girlfriend, all asking the same questions and mourning the same loss of one person who was victimized by brutality that had nothing to do with him.

 

On the one week anniversary of his death, word got around that the school was organizing a candlelight vigil for him at the time and site of his death. I was determined to attend and after talking to my roommate she agreed to go along. We left around 2:00 am to walk downtown to the site, after gathering a few more reluctant girls from our dorm reminding them that if this was their brother or sister or friend, they would want as many people as possible to show.

 

Small groups of students filtered out of their dorms and off campus apartments, dressed in hoodies and pajama bottoms, some holding candles, others only holding back tears. Most of us didn’t know the boy who was killed, but that didn’t seem to matter. At the site there were police barricades, hundreds of students, and soft pools of candlelight filtering through the night air, as we encircled the spot of pavement, still stained with his blood and freshly blotted with tears.

 

I took a candle from someone passing them out and stood quietly in place. For the distance of the street, students continued in crowds in an act of solidarity I didn’t expect to exist. Some representatives of the University spoke, thanking us for our attendance and offering emotional condolences to the family and friends of the boy.

 

His brother stepped up and thanked us all saying he never imagined so many people would come. He said his brother was one of a kind, a free-spirit, a loving, creative, energetic force, who believed in the powers of love and imagination. He said a few days earlier, at his brother’s funeral, as they lowered him into the ground they heard a train whistle in the distance and all collectively felt that this was his way of saying goodbye. He said that if there was anything his brother would want it would be for all of us to be kinder to one another, to stop watching TV, to step outside and enjoy the wind and the rain, and read a book, and fall asleep under a tree. And then he said, after a few seconds of silence, “just listen to Bob Dylan.”

 

I’m not sure why, but I heard this in a very real way. After his sister and his girlfriend cried together, they announced that they were going to play his favorite Bob Dylan song and they asked anyone who knew the song to sing along.

 

I didn’t know it at the time, but looking back I think it was either “Girl From the North Country” or “Boots of Spanish Leather.” Either way it was the first time I ever heard the song. After it ended, we all returned to our rooms and the warmth of our beds. Days passed and conversations resumed to topics discussed before this tragedy, but I couldn’t forget about the boy who died and I couldn’t forget about his brother’s words to “just listen to Bob Dylan.”

 

After a few months of Dylan discovery I began to understand and five years later as a passionately enlightened fan I fully do.

 

Bob Dylan is more than just a musician or Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee. He is more than the songs played on classic rock stations and the influence for every singer-songwriter with untraditional singing voices. Bob Dylan is a human being who has been able to transcend generations, genders, races, religions, and political ideologies with his unique ability to capture the collective feelings of failure and success in the human experience. His words inspire in his fans to live and to be a certain way that has nothing to do with fulfilling expectations of others or herding with the masses, but rather to be true deep down in the soul of our individualism, to who we are and what we believe in separate from societal pressures. He captures the raw ugliness of human emotion and flaw and makes it something beautiful. Bob Dylan manages through his words and his music to connect so deeply with his fans that at a candlelight vigil to honor an untimely death of a young man, his music is that which is played and his influence is that which is mentioned.

So I’d like to take a moment to wish Bob Dylan a Happy 71^st Birthday and remind him that I would still pay to have his babies. Anytime, Bob. Anytime.

 

Love,

 

The girl who will be funny again tomorrow. Or not. Whatever.

One of the best versions of one of the best Bob Dylan songs EVER

Top 5 Most Embarrassing Songs Found On My iPod

My iPod is passing away. It’s currently attempting recuperation on my iPod dock, unable to play above a whisper, with the occasional static of an old age cough, but really there is little hope. My iPod is from 1978, an early model not even Steve Jobs is familiar with, and although it has served me well for several years even prior to my birth, it is nearing its demise and all I can really do is get down on my knees and pray to the Apple customer service that it is only a fluke. That tomorrow, everything will be back to the way it used to be before the pain of inevitable loss set in…

But life most go on and to prepare myself for an iPodless life I have decided to single out the 5 most embarrassing songs found on my iPod that make the idea of life without it, a little more manageable.

1.      “Get Your Freak On” – Missy Elliot

This might not be embarrassing for most people. But I am not most people. I have zero rhythm and a translucent skin tone and it is physically impossible for me to listen to this song without gyrating in some aesthetically unpleasing fashion, taking the suggestion to “get my freak on” far too literally.

2.      “I Love My Bitch” – Busta Rhymes

How did this get on my iPod? I’d love to claim ignorance here, but during senior week at Ocean City, MD after high school graduation, a group of friends and I walked into a boardwalk tshirt shop where this musical gem was playing. I have never felt so emotionally fulfilled by a song in my life and as I listened to the repetitive phrase “I love my bitch” resonating off of the retractable walls of the shop, a single glistening tear trickled down my cheek.

3.      “Hey Juliet” – LMNT

“I think—

You’re fine—

You really blow my mind—

Maybe—

One day—

You and me can run away—“

And then we can kill ourselves.

4.      “Imagine” – Jane French

This isn’t even a real song. That’s how embarrassing it is. This monstrosity of a love song is a fictional single featured on the now \-cancelled soap opera Passions. In middle school my sister and I watched Passions every day after school with bated breath.

Will Ethan ever leave Gwen for Theresa?

Will Ivy ever tell Sam that Ethan is his son?

Will Sheridan ever discover why she has dreams about killing her mother?

Will Tabitha find a replacement for her talking doll?

With questions like this, need I explain the embarrassment of this song?

5.      “One the Way Down” – Ryan Cabrera/”Bare Naked” – Jennifer Love Hewitt

These are both equally disturbing however since I have already featured “Bare Naked” in a previous blog entry, I think I owe Ryan a little time in the spotlight. Even if its for creating horrible music.

This song came out when I was in high school. When I was in high school I was silly, washed up, idealistic twit. I thought Ashlee Simpson was cool. The worst part is, I actually remember thinking this was a great song. Like, I can recall the words “Ryan Cabrera is a great songwriter” coming out of my mouth. It’s no wonder the God’s of music sent me Bob Dylan. I needed saving.

Love,

The girl who can’t deal with loss, or death, or the smell of water chestnuts

The Girl with a Bug On Her Toothbrush

As of today I have officially been blogging for one year. I have posted 70 blog entries, 22 of which were published this month, meaning a third of one year’s worth of blogging took place in one month. It’s like that birth control that makes you only have 4 periods a year, only BETTER!!!! And nothing like that.

So all night I’ve been trying to figure out how to commemorate such an anniversary. I had intentions of writing some sort of passionate, forlorn tale about seeking love and approval of the internet masses but still feeling dead inside…however if you know anything about me, you know my intentions hold less value than a State of the Union address, so that didn’t get very far. Distractions set in, tragedy struck, and all I can begin to entertain (?) you with tonight is this literary work of unparalleled genius:

 

The Girl With the Bug On Her Tooth Brush:

 

She was born a regular girl,

Never a looker,

Always a bore,

Almost a lush,

But became much more,

The girl with the bug on her tooth brush.

 

In an apartment on the top of a hill

Living alone

With youth to kill,

A six legged creature betrayed her trust

And she lost all will

The girl with the bug on her tooth brush

 

She let it survive for days before

Waving hello

Saying good morn

What else rhymes with brush

This poem doesn’t make sense anymore

The girl with a bug on her tooth brush

 

pimpin’ all over the world

 

Enough of that shit. Here’s what went down, yo.

Two days ago I discovered a gargantuan specimen hanging loose all over the wall above my closet. I wasn’t feeling it. But I made a conscious decision to ignore it and let it settle into its new space. Peace, love, cohabitation. I can dig that concept. I’m pretty sure Squanto wouldn’t chuck a bug from his tee-pee and if there is any one historical figure I model my daily life after, it’s Squanto, motherf***er.

Anyway.

This morning I stumbled into my bathroom, pretending to be drunk, but really just bloated from eating too much marshmallow fluff the night before. And there it was. Squanto , the bug, chillaxin’ all over my bathroom mirror. Not cool, Squantsy. But I decided to let it go. I was running late for work and rapidly decreasing gas prices were screaming my name.

So after a long day, I came home prepared to blow the blogosphere away with my brilliant commemorative posting. But when I reached the bathroom to remove my contacts I saw this:

There was definitely a brief Janet Leigh scream that expelled from my mouth.

 

No big deal.

So after approximately 1 hour of uninterrupted panic, I finally mustered the courage, a word not used lightly here, to pick up the toothbrush, carry it to the apartment door and throw it out into the rain. I felt a momentary rush of exhilaration before sheer embarrassment set in that I am a 23 year old adult woman who took over an hour to garner the bravery to carry a toothbrush twelve feet across an apartment. This embarrassment was of course followed up by frustration with myself for wasting precious minutes of my existence worried about something as arbitrary as a bug on my toothbrush when I should have been doing something more productive, like writing a blog entry or learning how to count.

So after a rollercoaster of mixed emotions and near death, bug-related experiences, I have determined that the best possible way to commemorate my year of blog writing, is to not commemorate it at all, and simply be the neurotic side show freak anyone reading has come to expect.

Good night and good luck.

Love,

The girl with a bug on her toothbrush