This guy...

...has issues.



Seriously? What the hell is your problem, guy?

Sugar & Spice

I may not be the girliest girl there is. I love beer and football, but I also love going shopping and girl talk. I think I strike a nice balance.

But there are some girly things that are just ridiculous. Absurd things. And you know what? We girls know this. I know this. But I participate in them, anyway.

Take GOOP, for instance. GOOP, for the uninitiated and unfamiliar, is potential worst person ever Gwyneth Paltrow’s e-newsletter in which she attempts to foster her image as the Martha Stewart of the new generation, only, like, prettier. Week after week I open this vapid monstrosity to find recipes for searing whitefish, or tummy-toning workout routines from Gwynnie’s personal trainer, or instructions on how to make a cheery holiday wreath from stray socks plucked from the dryer. Week after week my eyes roll back into my head as I hover my cursor over the “Unsubscribe” link, vacillating. And week after week, my subscription to GOOP lives to see another day. What if next week is the week she (or, more likely, her minions) writes about something useful to me? What if I miss it? It’s a thought I cannot bear.

Which brings me, of course, to another girly trait that I recognize as ridiculous but cannot seem to shake—the art of over-thinking. My mind is a mess of worst-case-scenarios, including the fresh hell in which Gwyneth Paltrow writes about the key to existence and I miss out on enlightenment. The normal part of my brain can identify my faulty reasoning but does nothing to stop the girly lizard-brain part from picking apart every worry, every scenario, every text message, every “We need to talk about something,” every “Can you come into my office for a second?” It’s truly exhausting. And yet it persists.

But not every girlish absurdity I embrace, whether intentionally or not, is a fatal flaw. When I turn on the TV, there’s a 33.3% chance that whatever I flip to will be near embarrassing. My DVR knows better than to miss a week of Gossip Girl or Grey’s Anatomy, and woe be the work that needed to get done before I stumbled upon a marathon of ANTM. I may be rotting my brain but I simply can’t help myself.

And then there’s the girly-girl things I could help, but why bother? Like getting dressed up in cute party dresses even when the occasion and the weather don't warrant it. Sometimes a girl just wants to look pretty, okay? And freezing toes and chattering teeth aren't standing in my way.

For the most part, I’m not complaining. We all have our guilty pleasures and peccadilloes. I think that one of these days I’m going to need to do something about GOOP, though. I just don’t think I’m buying what Gwynnie’s selling.

'Tis The Season

The holidays are all about giving. Giving to friends, giving to family, giving to charity. I happen to love giving gifts, and I have it on good authority that I’m an excellent gift-giver.

But I don’t want to talk about giving. I want to talk about getting.

Mikey and Mattie covered their best gifts ever on a podcast episode, so if you want to know all about them, you can go ahead and fire up your iTunes and give that a listen.

In the meantime, what were my Christmases like?

One year I received Moon Shoes, Nickelodeon’s low-tech, plastic-and-rubber-bands attempt at simulating low gravity. These were the loudest, clunkiest contraptions ever created and so of course I spent my Christmas day afternoon galumphing around the cul-de-sac, disturbing the neighbors with the terrible sound of hard plastic on cold concrete. Surely my parents regretted this purchase right away.

Technically the best Christmas present I ever received was probably my DSLR. Two Christmases ago I got a Nikon D60 and a couple of lenses, and while I barely used it for the first year I had it out of sheer terror of breaking it with my clumsy recklessness, I use it a lot more now, and surely will well into the future. Unlike the camcorder I received Christmas of maybe 9th grade, when I was sure I was going to be an award-winning filmmaker, which sits in its case to this day, underneath some forgotten shelf in a dusty closet.

The worst gift ever? Probably pajamas picked out by grandparents. Don’t get me wrong; I love pajamas. But I sleep in t-shirts and cute comfy shorts. I don’t need a matching pair of long-sleeved shirts and pants with cartoon reindeer saying “Ho ho ho!” silk-screened onto the front. If you’re going to go that far, at least go all out for the grown-up footie pajamas. But I think I’ll stick to my standard shorts-and-t-shirts, thanks.

Footie pajamas aside, being a grown-up sucks in a lot of key ways, and I think Christmas is one of them. When you’re a kid, it's the best day ever, because you wake up in the morning to all these toys and then you have all day to play with them. As an adult, your Christmas list consists of clothes, and “necessities” like a new DVD player to replace one that broke, or an external hard drive. After the initial unwrapping, you’ve got the whole day ahead of you to... play with your brand-new Gap winter coat? That doesn't sound quite like the makings of the most wonderful day of the year.

This Christmas? Well, I'm hoping for some awesome boots. I still need a football to complete the sporting good store in my car's trunk. What else will be up to Santa. I'm just hoping it won't be coal. Or grandma pajamas. I've been good; I swear.

Well. I'm trying.