ad infinitum

I no longer need to know how to get to your house. And thank god because it was in the middle of nowhere and I’d always get lost. I spent a year of my life with you in what felt like Siberia. I learned the layout of the home, had my favorite room and played in your backyard. Now it all means nothing, now it’s just a spec on a deserted landscape. Next exit, please.

I no longer need to know math. I always knew I would never need to know it but I was forced to in high school. The teachers were liars. They said that we would always need to know about isosceles triangles and Pi, but we didn’t! Never once have I been like, “Thank god I know about Pi! It’s going to get me out of this pickle I’m currently in!” No. Screw Pi. Screw math. Screw useless information.

I no longer need to know how to unlock the deadbolt for the apartment in Barcelona. I never could quite figure how to do it and my neighbor would always start yelling at me in Spanish through her door for making so much noise. As someone with only a rudimentary grasp on the language, all I could make out was, “LA PUERTA! LA PUERTA!”

I no longer need to know if I can survive our break up and lead a normal life again. I no longer need to know if a day can go by without something triggering a memory of the two of us. I can! A day does go by without thinking of you! It’s a pathetic milestone for sure but you can’t laugh at progress.  It’s funny how, after every relationship ends, you suffer from amnesia and wonder, “How will I get through this? How will I get over it?” But you always get over it.  You have to. You get over it just like you got over the last breakup. After a certain amount of time passes, there’s only so much you can still mourn. The memories that once crackled and popped, and gave you something to hold on to are now faded and microscopic. You would miss them if you knew what there was to miss. Your body has willed them out of you.

I no longer need to know if it’s weird to eat an entire jar of Nutella while watching Friday Night Lights. I no longer need to know how many drinks I can have before I start Exorcist vomiting (six mixed drinks, a bottle and a half of wine.) I no longer need to know if we’ll remain friends after college (maybe let’s get a coffee?) or if I’ll find a job and make my parents proud of me. I no longer need to know if it’s a good idea to have a hot therapist (I prefer to stick with overweight 60-year-old lesbians. It keeps me honest.) I no longer need to know you because you’re not someone worth knowing.

Do some spring cleaning with your brain and get rid of the knowledge you’ll never need again. You may not be aware of it but it’s actually weighing you down, and once you get it out you’ll feel ten pounds lighter. Promise. I may not know much but I do know that.

Speaking of being honest, I got the best news one day. Someone that I thought about getting to know better told me, “I take relationships seriously, and value commitment. But I’d be foolish to think I could commit to one right now.” I wanted to grab this mans face and kiss him right then and there.

I’m about to bitch, but I really did appreciate the fact he brought it up to begin with. Except, I never asked for anything. Not an explanation, nor a “talk,” and definitely not any commitment. Because I already knew the aforementioned, and didn’t need to hear him reiterate it. And you know what Mr. Man Whose Honesty I Genuinely Appreciate Even Though You Lightweight Insulted My Intelligence? I GET IT. Men of the world? Believe it or not, but sometimes WE GET IT.

We get that you just got out of a relationship, and more than likely don’t want to get in another one any time soon. We get that you love coming and going as you please, and relish not having to check in or check out with anyone. We get that everyone’s “just a friend.” We get that we are also free to date whoever we want and you wouldn’t even flinch. We get that you are busy, and young, and handsome, and in your prime having the time of your life. We get that you’d be stupid to give that up right now.

But sweetie, you need to get that we get it. And we’re not mad, we have no reason to be. We’re just a little annoyed. Because it’s not always about you. It’s not about you telling us what you can do, it’s about us letting you know what we can’t. 

by  STEPHANIE GEORGOPULOS

I like how you mispronounce words sometimes, how you fumble and stammer and stutter looking for the right ones to say and the right ways to say them. I appreciate that you find language challenging, because it is, because everything manmade is challenging. Including man, including you.

When you sleep on your side, I like to map the constellations between your beauty marks freckles pimples, the minuscule mountains that sprinkle your back. I like the tufts of hair you forgot to shave and the way you smell when you haven’t showered in a while; I like the sleep left in your eyes.

I like the way your skin dies in the middle of the night, how you die from embarrassment the next morning; how you writhe in the snake casing you’ve left behind. I like that you think pillow snowflakes carry more weight than pillow talk; that you think my opinion of you is so fickle that it could change overnight. (It’s not.)

I enjoy seeing you insecure, vulnerable. I like to watch red steam light up your cheeks, a spreading mist of shame when you think you’ve done something unacceptable like missing a step on the stairs or not having the perfect answer to something I’ve said. It’s like you honestly don’t know how wonderful you are, it’s like you have no idea.

The burns, the scars, the black and blues on your face body heart, I want to know their stories. I want to know what hurt you, who hurt you, how bad the damage is. I like your hard, ugly toenails and the layer of fat that lines your belly, the soft parts you try to hide. It’s okay to be soft, sometimes.

I appreciate your ability to get inappropriately angry as much as I appreciate your willingness to apologize afterward. I like how your passion manifests unpredictably and uncontrollably, how your feelings cannot be caged or concealed, how you’re incapable of apathy.

I like how you can’t dance, how you have pedestrian taste in music, how the worst song on every album is your favorite. I like how enthusiastic you are when you hear it, it’s like you don’t know how terrible it is, it’s like maybe how you’re able to love someone like me. (Perhaps that’s your biggest flaw, perhaps that’s the one I love most.)

Your flaws single you out, set you apart, make you different from the rest, and thank god. I don’t just put up with settle for accept your blemishes, I like them. I like them because they make you human, and humans are easier to love than photographs and illusions and ideals; humans fit more easily between arms and between legs; humans are welcome to their imperfections because if there’s one thing humans can do perfectly, it’s love. Humans can love, they can do it flawlessly

By: Alida

Read the newspaper or a magazine or something that is on paper. Don’t let the whole ‘print journalism is dying!’ bullshit come true because sometimes dying newspaper jokes can be really funny. Also, if you stare a a computer screen too much you’ll either gain wrinkles around your eyes or you’ll start doing online dating/never leave your house because of reddit. Have a library card, and if that’s too much at least one copy of Romeo and Juliet you stole from your high school library. Also, if you get newspapers, don’t litter. Don’t be one of those assholes who cries at ASPCA commercials but throws cigarette butts on the ground that little baby corgis can choke and die on.

That being said, don’t let the Internet take over your life. Meet somebody in a grocery store if you can and not because their ‘OK Match E-HARHAR profile’ says they like skiing and the Aristocats as much as you do. Turn off the computer and step out into the sweet sun every once in a while, unless the robots or zombies have taken over and then you might not be able to do that. DO NOT LET THE ROBOTS WIN. Or Grub Hub. Or Etsy. Or Youtube videos of cats. Don’t download everything, go to a movie theater. Feel the rain on your skin, or the fresh cool breeze of human interaction. 

Delicious things kill you. Fun kills you, booze kills you, spinach kills you, cell phones kill you. Use these things in moderation but please promise to still have fun because life will always kill you. Eventually, your heart will be like fuck this I’m out and you’ll go to the big dog house in the sky because all dogs go to heaven. Well, don’t play Russian Roulette, especially if Russian Roulette has to do with not wearing a condom. Wear a condom. Hopefully the show Teen Mom will have run it’s 35 season course and 16-year-olds are like ‘oh condoms are free and babies are about as stupid as the man I’m about to romp around with maybe I should slap one of these bad boys on.’ You guys have SEEN the joy of giving birth in health class right? That is some ’70s torture porn if I’ve ever seen it. Hopefully they’re not just showing Knocked Up in health class now. Speaking of education, GO TO COLLEGE. LEARN EVERYTHING.

Don’t try to be an adult at 14. At 22, the American version of Skins is all kids in belly shirts dry humping each other and eating ecstasy syringes and showing off their tattoos. When I was 14, I was wearing braces, Old Navy tshirts, and wondering if sex was what happened when you thought of O*Town too often. Listen, I eventually lost my virginity and got my nose pierced and drank gin and did all sorts of cool things that will now be the death of me. I’m glad that at 14 I was sippin’ milkshakes and deciding if I could cover up my I’m-Puerto Rican-I-have leg fuzz for one more year. I’m glad I was a kid. Enjoy being a kid, and if you can’t do long division in your head, don’t start drinking whiskey. Because once you start drinking whiskey, you’ll forget all remedial math that you should know how to do in that dying brain of yours. Have first kisses that don’t end in ‘jobs’, but get a job, you lazy teen. Labor laws are for 8 year olds, and you should work for your money as early as possible so you won’t be a selfish shit. You can be an adult about that.

Realize that you will die, but don’t take it too personally. Just enjoy breathing while your chest still moves.

Fight for something. Fight for somebody. Don’t just sit around being like ‘oh man this day sucks because my cell phone doesn’t work perfectly and my high-speed 4d wifi smell-o-vision is going too slowly!!’ Don’t get pissed because you don’t have the coolest expensive sneakers that shoot fire at the real Pokemon I am counting on scientists to invent for all of us. Don’t want too much more than you have, and make your ambitions about things other than money. Remember that not everybody is as lucky as you are. Vote. Know what’s going on in a place other than your own sphere. Seriously, kids. VOTE.

Jeez, how much can be said about loving somebody? Do that, do it do it do it. I don’t care if the divorce rate is 96% and the only proof of romance is 36 Gary Marshall movies staring Julia Roberts, I want you to think love is something worth having. I hope we never become too spineless to do something selfless for somebody else, and we’ll always be willing to do something risky for our own heart happiness. I hope Carson Daly doesn’t still have a job, and I hope that you still can get robot butterflies in your stomach when some idiot half-grins at you. I hope that romance doesn’t involve only text messaging and vampire tween novels. 

And if you’re a kid now, I hope that you know that you are smart. And that you should have faith in yourself and people and you don’t become more cynical as years go on. And don’t become too full of yourselves, and you learn from our mistakes and read the things we wrote and say ‘hmph, I can’t believe they thought nachos were delicious when they hadn’t invented ____ yet.’ And you live in a world where more girls are happier with their bodies. And every gay kid can dream of his/her wedding. And Independence Day happened and Bill Pullman really was president, or there was a woman prez who wasn’t Michelle Bachman. And you cured diseases. And you made some peace. And you are more educated, and more hopeful, and watching better television sitcoms. The thing is, these are not the ‘good old days’ because tomorrow is always better.

Unless the robots take over, of course.

She really does. Last night, after hours of homework, I decided to hit the gym to get out of my room. While on the elliptical, I shot my mother a text message asking her if she’d be available for me to call her after I came back. She said of course, and asked if there was anything serious that I needed to talk about. I said no, and that was that. 

I then called her, and after catching up on old news and filling her in on my life here, I began to pour my heart out and ask for advice with some things I’ve been struggling with. It took a little bit of courage, because I honestly don’t talk to my mom about a lot of things a lot of the time, but I’m so glad I did. I ended up having one of the most heartfelt conversations I’ve ever had with anyone (let alone my mother)! After talking to her for about an hour and a half (definitely our longest phone conversation ever), I went to sleep at peace with myself and ended up having the best sleep of my life.

I don’t regret things easily, but I guess I regret waiting so long to consult my mother about my life. Cause if you really think about it, my mom DOES know best. Seriously…. Who has known me longer than my mom? Who has traveled with me, eaten with me, seen me at my happiest, seen me at my worst? Who has been there after yelling and screaming and has forgiven pretty much everything just because I humbled down enough to say, “I’m sorry?”. She’s the one who has been there for me implicity and explicitly through all of my joys and heartbreaks, since BEFORE day 1. 

I trust and respect my mother’s opinion more than anyone will ever know. She makes me feel validated and love, and she appreciates what I have to say. Above all, she listens to me and helps me. Gotta love her. 

I value the words of this quote so much and believe they are so irrevocably true that I almost put them as my graduation quote in the school yearbook. I didn’t for two reasons - 1) the quote had to be under 80 characters, and 2) the quote I chose was by Albus Dumbledore, and, let’s get real here….. it’s Albus Dumbledore. 

Anyway, I choose the latter when I look at my life - I think everything is a miracle. If you don’t believe me, spend a day with me.  I tend to react with such joy to little things that it makes me worry about what will happen to my already palpitating heart when something actually exciting happens. I mean, come on. At the beach with friends on Wednesday, I shrieked with joy upon realizing that my friend had a dinosaur towel (I love dinosaurs!). The other day at a candy store, I saw a truck shaped pez dispenser and almost had a heart attack of joy. If I catch an empty skytrain on my way into the city, I grin ear to ear all the way to the terminus station. 

But, if you think about it, everything IS a miracle. Seriously. How the heck did people even DREAM of creating those little pieces of shredded wheat and weave them into cute little squares that we call shreddies? How did people learn that increased body movement means decreased waistline? Most importantly…. how do they get the delectable hazelnut into the ferrero rocher? (I’ll save that one for an episode for how it’s made.)

And looking at the big picture. How on earth did I end up with my boyfriend? What if that text he sent me that one day was never recieved, and we never started talking? That’s a miracle. What if my grandma, living in Austria during WWII, was on one of the trains that blew up because of the war (she prayed every day that her train would be safe) and I wouldn’t even be here? That’s a miracle. 

Every day things amaze me with wonder because of the ridiculous odds of every action and event a result of a chance occurrence. The chance of someone in a group of 30 people having the same birthday with someone else in that class may be 0.71, but the chances of some of those other events occuring are definitely lower on the number scale.

A girl knows she has become a woman upon recollecting her past experiences and bringing them forth into her future actions and situations. Both girls and women exist in our society beyond the limiting boundaries of age and appearance; while both girls and women share the same experiences in life it is only truly the women that not only learn from their experiences but apply their learning to the future. 

Take a boy. A boy might be able to take a girl out, heck, why not 3 girls out, in one night. Yes, that sounds atrocious…. but it happens. I’ve heard of it happening.
A boy might  be able to take said girl(s) to a lovely dinner, then enchant her before the pale gaze of the moon and kiss her softly as the light gleams and is gone. A boy might tell a girl that he thinks she is pretty or beautiful, and the girl, the silly, silly, girl that she is, believes him, admires herself in the mirror upon returning home, and sleeps with a smile. 
A girl, feeling the exact same way as last saturday when a different boy took her out and made her feel special before never calling back, might fall asleep in her bed that night with a smile on her face and think to herself, “Yes, this boy is different”. 

In contrast, a woman learns. She’s been down this road to many times - the road that seems to have countless bumps and hairpin turns. The road of nice dinners and romantic sunsets and empty promises and boy never calling back when he says he will. The road of exits, rest stops, and countless obstacles blocking the way to happiness and self-fulfillment.  A woman learns that when a boy compliments her based on appearance alone he is not complimenting her character but rather things on the edge of her control - the amount of fat on her ass, the length of her legs or the size of her chest. A woman learns that when she goes on a date with a boy, it probably won’t work out, so don’t get her hopes up. Better yet, a woman learns to spot out the boys that don’t work for her so she can spend more time finding one that does. 

A woman learns the importance of self-worth and values. A woman learns that a boy who doesn’t call when he says he will probably isn’t worth sticking around for. A woman learns that though in movies, books, and fairy tales, relationships are seemingly perfect, the real life behind-the-scenes tour consisting of more bruises and scars that one can ever imagine, but it doesn’t mean one should give up right away. 

A girl becomes a woman when she realizes that she doesn’t need anyone that doesn’t need her. That superficialities are created to please others rather than the person involved. That while, reliance is great, self-reliance is better. 

I guess you could say it’s hard to become a woman before being a girl. A silly, flirty, gullible girl. We’ve all been there. Unfortunately, some girls take longer than others to become women. 

How does a girl know she’s become a woman? When she stops making the same mistakes, and instead makes new ones.