Forever 21

Every year around the 3rd week of August, I would order my little brother to leave the living room, get on 3-way with my best friends and sit in front of the tv to watch my favorite pop stars walk the red carpet. For my friends and I the MTV Video Music Awards were like a final hurrah to the summer and a welcoming hug to the new school year.

I wonder what Gwen Stefani is going to wear this year?

I can't wait to see the N'sync-Britney Spears mashup performance!

OMG Fred Durst is so hot! 

It's all embarrassing but I'm least proud about thinking Fred Durst was cute

I rarely, if ever watch MTV anymore but decided, what the heck after seeing comments about Usher "looking good for his age" on my Facebook timeline. Not even joking.

I barely knew who half the people at the VMA's were. Lucy Hale? Little Mix? Rixton? Your guess is as good as mine. I mean, Miley Cyrus won video of the year so basically that tells you about how much the world has changed since 9/11. Personally I feel like if you:

1. Were born before the mid 80's

2. Weren't a teen parent

3. Don't do a lot of babysitting 

Then you should feel seriously ashamed if you know who any of these people are. Except Iggy Azalea, I think she's cool.

Watching Nicki Minaj bounce her bum on top of an invisible anaconda and seeing Ariana Grande wearing a high cut, bedazzled leotard and gogo boots that Beyonce probably vetoed during her Destiny's Child days was unsettling.

 

Surely I haven't turned into the old lady sitting on her porch in the white wicker rocking chair, telling kids about back in my day... but honestly humans between the ages of 11 and approximately 23 irk me. What is a Vine celebrity? (I still don't know what Vine is. The new Youtube?) Why are parents letting their 13 year olds wear shorts with their cheeks hanging out or teaching their 10 year-olds to call me ma'am? Their metabolism and innate ability to operate on less than 4 ours of sleep when not yet a quarter century old? The little bastards 

A young guy at my gym (24 years old) told me he went out last night with friends, partied til 5am and came to work at 6. I wanted to pop an Ambien, drink a warm a mug of tea and curl up in the bed with my heating blanket just thinking about it.

Maybe I feel this way because I'm turning 30 in a little over a month and consequently I'm having a self realization/mini crisis moment. I feel like its finally time to put some things on the shelf and only dust them off for story time when I have to entertain grand-kids or court mandated juvenile delinquent volunteers at the nursing home. Hey sonny, let me tell you about the New Year's Eve when I drunk-vomited in my friend's sink and feel asleep on his kitchen floor.

Getting older doesn't have to be a death sentence just means you have to make some adjustments.  I'll admit that on occasion I shop at Forever 21 and I still make bets on which side of the Oreo is going to get the cream when I untwist it, but I've stopped reading Cosmopolitan magazine cold turkey. When I was in middle school I used to secretly buy them and stack them in the back of my closet after pouring over the pages of self quizzes and made to order puca bead necklaces. I realized I couldn't read Cosmo anymore when I recently read an article entitled "how to know if you're compatible with a guy based on the Snap Chat photos he sends you."

Anyways there's nothing wrong with getting older. Even with my sometimes creaky knees, hangovers after 2 drinks and that time my back went out, old age is a blessing not bestowed on all of us and I'm grateful for it. Now #TurnDown.

You're Doing Too Much

Today I'm a hater. I am standing in front of my Chicago apartment because it's finally over 60 degrees outside, drinking a 40oz of haterade and pouring one out for my homies that have had enough of social media wedding awareness or SMWA. But first, I'm going to share a secret with you.

I am clairvoyant

I don't normally talk about my super powers but since we're friends, I am opening up to you. One night a few years ago, I had a dream that I was attending the wedding of one of my Ex boyfriends. And this wasn't any old, we made out at a party, dated for a month and then broke up after he banged my suite mate type of relationship. Which actually happened to me btw. This guy was the one that got away.

Haterade

In the dream, before his wedding started, he swept me up in his strong tuxedo'd arms and confessed his love for me. He told me that I had been the one all along and that he was marrying the wrong girl. Then he gave me a long, hard ...ahem... kiss, and I woke up abruptly. I tried to shrug it off and got ready for work that morning like normal but the dream kept bothering me. As I commuted to work my curiosity won out and I looked him up on Facebook. Low and behold he had just gotten engaged. My heart fell and then I threw up on the lady sitting next to me on the train.

That was the moment my aversion to SMWA was born. I guess I could pinpoint the moment even further. It was actually when I saw the pictures of him and his wife-to-be dressed in their Sunday's finest. They were holding hands and staring lovingly into each others eyes on a fucking golf course. Dude doesn't even play golf! 

Because my fiance and I always leave the club and not only walk through, but scream at the drive through window.

I abso-freaking-lutely hate engagement photo shoots. Like I don't know about you, but I can't recall ever having put on a David's Bridal ball gown, waltzing through the forest at sunset and cradling my boyfriend's head in my lap. WTF? I'm not a Twilight cast member. Engagement photo shoots are the cheesiest thing ever.

WTF?

This one couple I know actually made a freaking engagement movie. Like for real, not for play-play. I actually think it could have been a cute way to show people how they met, but they made a gross production out of it. Set in the 1920's, filmed in black in white with ridiculous props and corny music. Neither one of them are up and coming film makers, struggling actors or prolific documentary screenwriters. So why all the fuss? The acting was not even good. I could have watched a rerun of Sex in the City and been happier.

And I get it. If you love someone you should celebrate that love. Its okay to want the world to know. Beyoncé is always screaming her love from the mountain tops for her husband Joe Camel. Just to set the record straight, I'm not hating because I am a bitter soon to be spinster with no prospects on the horizon. I gets mine. I just think people go over board.

I mean if you're lucky enough to have Facebook friends who don't solely exist to play Dungeons and Dragons, then about the time you reach your mid to late 20's, a lot of your friends are getting married and pooping out babies. That was not a typo.

My newsfeed gets cluttered up with photos of my friends counting the days until their upcoming nuptials and I'm over the moon happy for them! I believe in love and marriage and if we're not coworkers or frenemies, chances are that I want you to be happy. But lawd some people are doing the most!

*Only 78 days, 3 hours and 42 minutes left until we tie the knot!

*Can't wait to see my girl walk down the aisle! Here she comes now! *selfie posted to Facebook from the wedding ceremony with Fiance approaching the alter in the background*

*I love my fiancé so much that my heart of going to explode and then his is going to explode too so we've just bought our side by side cemetery plots y'all!

*We've been married 10 minutes and I can't wait for the next 10! Love you boo!

Am I the only one who feels like you don't have to bombard the internet with your over the top proclamations of undying love? Who are you trying to prove your adoration to exactly? I'll always hit the like button when I see something thoughtful and sweet one of my friends has done for their loved one. 

An actual Facebook Friend of mine. On their way home from work,  her Husband got her a Frosty and she got him a McFlurry, not knowing that that the other had already gotten them an after work dessert. How sweet right? Notice that I LIKED the status!

But these framed certificates of congratulations from Obama on your wedding union is a bit much.

You're telling me that President Barack Obama took time out of coordinating drone attacks to congratulate you on your wedding? Get dafuq outta here with that.

I'm not going to delete you because you're showing love for your significant other. But you people that take it too far and have subsequently made me vomit in my mouth a little bit, I'm going to have to unfollow your posts. Btw, congratulations on your engagement.

Cute idea but I can print this out from my home computer too, so stop acting like you're special. You don't know Barack and you don't know Michelle.

Photos are not own:

Totallylookslike.com

True Photography Weddings

Why I hate public bathrooms

For years I've been doing the Chun Li move when it comes to flushing the toilet seat handle so believe me when I say that it's nice to not have to touch anything in a public bathroom.  

#ThroughChristAllThingsArePossible

I know that America major American cities are getting on board with being less wasteful and saving the planet by banning plastic bags and I think its great. But the one thing we can not afford to skimp on is hand soap. These automatic hand soap machines are stingier than a Haitian refugee with a chicken wing. I mean they honestly give you enough soap to kill like 3 bacterium. So when you see me at the sink, flicking my hands back and forth, please know that I'm not pretending that I've got 2 turn tables and a microphone. I'm just trying to get some more dang soap.

I also dont like to be f'ed with unless I'll get the possibility of a new job or a free meal out of it. So obviously I hate it when the sensor won't pick up my movement and turn the water faucet on. Nobody wants to see me twerk in front of the sink just to be able wash my hands.

And nobody wants to spend a lot of unnecessary time in a public bathroom, afterall I'm not George Michael. 

But Some things should not be rushed! 

Most often the automatic flusher usually flushes before you're finished with your business. It defeats the purpose of being an automatic flusher if:

1. I have to squeeze my bladder muscles as hard as I can in order to pee in 3.5 seconds

2. I have 2.4 seconds left to thoroughly wipe and throw the tissue paper away in time for it to fully be sucked down the drain

3. I end up having to Manually push the button to flush it again anyway!

And since they're making everything automatic anyway, how about standard automatic plastic seat covers in public bathrooms. They have them at Chicago's O'hare airport and have changed my life!

Normally I'm squatting low enough to the toilet seat to avoid splash back and simultaneously get in my crossfit WOD. I basically do this maneuver so that my butt doesn't touch the seat because I don't go bareback, nor do I trust those paper toilet seat covers. Like if thats all that stands between me and crabs or trichinosis of the booty hole then I'll get my weight lifting in by hovering over the porcelain bowl thank you.

And a little privacy would be nice. Would it be too much to ask for bathroom door manufacturers to make door hinges more flush? See what I did there? If I can see you walk by from the inside of the stall, then I know you can see me getting my potty cardio on when you walk by as well.

As a bathroom courtesy I must ask moms to cut the umbilical cord: If I see another mother bring a grown ass 13 year old bat mitzvah'ed man into the ladies restroom I'm going to say something. If your son is old enough to tie his own shoes, there's a good chance he's old enough to use the men's bathroom alone.

All automatic everything is a double edged sword. While writing this I realized waving my hands in front of the hand activated sensors could possibly cause a hand tumor 30 years from now. Finger foods are awesome. 

I NEED MY HANDS!

Don't blame me for my slightly irrational fear of cancer, blame the Susan B. Coleman foundation and all the pink merchandise for sale in October. Let's write a letter to our congressman or have a kid hold up a piece of cardboard with an ill written message on Facebook to get some scientific studies on hand sensors up and going.