My 25th birthday is tomorrow. Twenty-four has kind of sucked ass, but whatever. It's hours away from being over. Twenty-five will be better. I can finally rent a car, which is the aging milestone that everyone dreams of achieving!

    I came home from work today, with a bag full of fun cupcake baking activities I plan on doing with the kids tomorrow--oh, right, I babysit now too. I'm a nanny/bartender, because the best thing to do after being around someone else's kids all day is to go somewhere filled with booze that you're not allowed to drink. I swear I'm not masochist.
    Anyway, I came in with a spring in my step as I began bidding my final farewells to my twenty-fourth year. My dad wished me an almost-birthday, my mom had put a picture of me up on the desktop, and we ate curry and rice for dinner. The curry has nothing to do with my birthday. I just fucking love curry.
    I went up to my room to pick out a birthday outfit and call some people about potential birthday plans...and then I saw the condition of my room. Let's just say that, if I were a burn-out teenager trying to stick it to the man by making a mess and wearing black lipstick, my room would be fine. But this is the bedroom of a twenty-five-year-old, who's lived in New York City and graduated from college and writes papers dissecting literary theory. Or at least, it's supposed to be.
    But in all honesty, my room is a joke right now. There's an empty box for a box fan. There's no god damn box fan in my room. Just the box. I've got a different fan in here, a little oscillating fan on a shelf by the window (no box to be seen) which I made room for by dumping everything on it onto my desk. My desk, by the way, hasn't been able to be used as a desk since around the time I moved back into my parents house in December, but right now it is a please-call-FEMA level disaster. There's a plastic grocery bag underneath a book underneath a handcarved wooden incense burner underneath my big iPod dock, which has the cords draped around it like a lounging Greek Cesar. It's like the leaning tower of however much random shit I can absentmindedly stack in my room. There's a tissue neatly folded up on the corner--why this is folded instead of the army of clothes on my floor is yet another myster. There's an empty bottle of perfume, a glass that once had a candle in that is now a lightly scented dust collector, and what looks like a movie ticket stub. There's also a stack of books there; it's the hardcover Divergent trilogy, which has a pretty little cardboard sleeve that probably took one look at my room and said, "Fuck this, I'd rather be in Dauntless."

    Oh, yeah, the book situation. There is inexplicably several piles of books scattered on any available surface in my room. I can reach seven different books in three different places from where I'm sitting on my bed right now. Also a Kindle that doesn't belong to me and hasn't been charged in months. This isn't some adorable book nerd situation, where I just get so lost in everything that I'm reading that my room becomes a romanticized episode of hoarders. For my fellow English degree nerds (and because it's my birthday and I'll reference Jane Austen if I want to) I'm not being Lizzy Bennett, here. I think I have a condition like the quirky ominous girl from Signs, the one who leaves glasses of water everywhere like a total asshole. So basically, if there's a race of aliens allergic to books that tries to invade Earth, my room is the safest place to be. Besides, you know, a library.

    Second in line to books being scattered everywhere is jewelry. It looks like a gypsy tried to undress in my room and started just tossing her bangles and dangly earrings and big necklaces all willy nilly. Oh, and she left all her clothes on the floor; as it's been established, I apparently dress like a gypsy. Floral skirts and crop tops are god damn everywhere. Including in bags, because I did a lot of thrift-store-shopping recently and decided that keeping them in the bags was better than just dumping them on my floor. They're put away somewhere, ammiright? No?
    I think my favorite part of this mess is the chair. Yup, there's a chair. I discovered it as I was digging through what I had been referring to as the "too dirty for the closet, too clean for the floor" pile. I had seen the chair in my room, because I have eyes that can recognize shapes, but I had forgotten that it has a purpose as a chair and not just a clothes dispensary, until I started digging around in that pile of clothes and my hand hit something hard. It was sort of like that moment in movies about treasure hunters where the protagonists are digging, talking about how hopeless everything is and how stupid they were for going on this crazy adventure, when suddenly one of their shovels hits something hard and hollow. Only I didn't look up into Matthew McConaughey's stunned eyes to recognize the same holy-shit-we-found-it look that I was giving him. It was just me, saying, "Well, I didn't find any clean underwear. But hey, a chair! Also, I'm disgusting."

    And to top it all off, my going-on-twenty-year-old cat has dragged enough kitty litter across my bed to warrant pajamas that double as a hazmat suit, but at this point it's pointless to keep changing the sheets because she does it so god damn much.
    So I decided to do something that goes against my natural impulse and did the mature, twenty-five-year-old thing to do: I started cleaning straight away. I put on some good music, folded my clothes, vacuumed the floor, dusted all that needed to be dusted, and put my books away in alphabetical order. My new year will begin with freshness of room, body, and spirit.
    Nope! I described it to you online because fuck you it's my birthday.

    Never too old to stall, bitches.

    Come with me on a little adventure, a journey for satisfaction that ended in subdued dumbassery...

    It's about 12:30am, and I'm getting a bit peckish. I'm scheduled for the next late-night bar shift, so it'll do me good to sleep in late tomorrow (today, technically) to have energy for work. So instead of sleeping off the munchies till they can be satisfied with a hearty breakfast, I head downstairs to get a snack.

    I'm looking for something particular. Something that won't pester my sleep with guilt-ridden dreams about how little I'm off the couch and its correlation to the impending bathing suit season threatening me from the horizon of my calendar. The pantry offers no immediate snacks that wouldn't take preparation, and therefore noise: microwave popcorn, tortilla chips that would be useless without salsa, the like.
    So I head for the fridge. I am grateful to see it full, because many do not have that luxury. But I find myself with the first-world dilemma of having to weigh so many options against one another to make the best choice. I dismiss the easy option of leftover spaghetti and meatballs; some carbs with some starch and some protein to put a nice discomforting rock in my stomach that forces me to sleep on my side like a pregnant woman is the opposite of my current food goal.
    There's some leftover rainbow trout in a Tupperware container, but the idea of late night leftover fish is a little nauseating, no matter how delicious it was at the time and how delicious it will be when my mom makes it into fish tacos, or whatever.
    There's a bowl of brightly colored, hard-boiled Easter eggs, but something about going to bed with gritty yolk teeth and sulfur farts deters my appetite. The little drawer has cheese and deli meat, but there's nothing to stack them on because my brother already wiped out our supply of crackers before I could.
    My mouth waters at the sight of pickles, but I'm already not drinking enough water as it is. Snacking on what was once the world's most innocently healthy vegetable before humans came along and shot it up with enough salt to wipe out a slug colony would not a hydrated sleep make.

    The realization is strange because, duh, people eat celery all the god damn time. Some people eat it for their own health and pleasure, while others eat it because it comes with chicken wings and they'll eat anything edible within the proximity of chicken wings; they would eat the Styrofoam container if it hadn't made their poops so uncomfortable the first time they tried it. People eat celery, and I never even noticed it in my fridge. It must have an amazing shelf life, because I did not buy that celery recently but it was still hella fresh.

    The realization is mildly upsetting because I'd only ever associated this vegetable with alcohol. It's like if I'd been a starving potato farmer who used the entire crop to make vodka, not knowing of the mashed, baked, and fried goodness that could come of it. So I shamefully pick up that celery with a sigh of, "Wow, I'm an alcoholic."

    ...There's no point to this story. I'm not going to wrap it up with some metaphor about noticing the little things, and this isn't that moment when I turn my life around and quit drinking. I just felt really dumb. There is some consolation, now that I'm eating the celery, that I also realize celery is really fucking boring unless it's drenched in ranch dressing or peanut butter. I chose the latter.

    It's funny how some men think that certain things are compliments. Like earlier this month, one customer told me, "I don't want to sexually assault you, I just want to take you out for dinner," in response to my teal ribbon for Sexual Assault Awareness Month. He defended the "compliment" by saying that he was only interested in my brains, and my intellect, because I seem like a genuinely interesting person, which made it far worse. Now he made it seem like, if he was attracted to my body (which he was, because he'd told me so on several other occasions) then he would want to sexually assault me. Such gentlemanly words to woo a lady with!
    I had a man at work a few days ago give me a compliment that was almost fine. It was weird, but it was fine. Then it led into my favorite wtf conversation I've ever had about social inequality. Which, wow, that sounds terrible, I wouldn't read that. But you should. Otherwise why the balls did you come here?
    He calls himself Big Bill--because apparently that's what all of his ex-girlfriends have called him. Lol, casual big-dick joke. He's in his sixties, maybe his seventies. So addendum: Lol, casual-almost-a-century-old-but-also-big-dick joke. He told me that I was the prettiest bartender he'd ever seen. That was nice. Then he told me this:
    "If I was a hundred years younger, I'd ask you out on a date. And we'd have a good time, too."
    If he had stopped at him asking me out on a date, it would have been sweet. Strange, because what do you say to a stranger who says that to you, but sweet. What got me was the second part of that, when he said that we'd have a great time. What part would be great, the part where he's asking me out? I'm sure that'd be fun for him. Unless I say no, which didn't seem to be an option in his mind. I almost said something about it, about how he'd be lucky if I said yes, but I just gave him his Bud Light and went about my business.
    His friend, a bit older than he was, made a comment about how different things are today than they were in the 50s. He talked about how dating was different, how the ways that kids have fun today is different, and how things are not as good as they used to be.
    "I wouldn't say that," I said.
    "No, it's true!" he said. "Things were much better in the fifties!"
    "Oh, yeah?" I asked.
    "Trust me," he said, "you would have loved living in the fifties, it was way better."
    "Yeah, for you!" I laughed. "You're a white man. It was probably fucking great for you."
    His answer was awesome.
    "What, are you black or Indian or something?" he asked. "Why would it have sucked for you?"
    I was so not expecting that response that I had none to give. All I could do was laugh some more, because that was the most balls-out clueless thing to say. I was not alive in the fifties, obviously. I was barely alive in the eighties. But the internet provides some insight as to the status of women back in this supposed golden age, and we all know that the internet never lies.
    My parents were born in the fifties (don't tell my mom I told you), and my mom makes coffee for my dad every morning for work because he has to get up at the asscrack of dawn and she doesn't work anymore. What a tender gesture of love; my dad recognizes this and does not complain about whatever brand of coffee she chooses to buy because coffee is coffee at 5:30 am.
    If this were still the 1950s? Well...

    And that's over stale coffee. Can you imagine what would happen if he caught her cheating on him? It would probably inspire another dozen sequels in the the Saw franchise. This ad is like if there was a commercial today of a girl on trial, being questioned about what she was wearing the night she was raped, and then words show up on the screen saying, "You should have shopped and J.C. Penney." Let us playfully address some very sinister and culturally accepted realities of society, shall we?
    But no, being a woman was totally great in the fifties. Just ask these guys:

    I'm not arguing that I would have had a better time than black people or--good lord--"Indian" people in the fifties, because holy shit. But these guys would not accept that I am much happier to be a woman today, despite all the bullshit, than I would have been in the fifties.
    "You don't know what you're talking about," Big Bill said. "You weren't there."
    "No," I conceded, "but if I was, I'd probably be married with six kids by now."
    "Well, how old are you?"
    "Twenty-five next month."
    Neither man disagreed.
    "Yeah," I said, "I do not want kids anytime soon."
    Oh, boy. That statement was a big hit.
    "You don't want kids?" Big Bill's friend asked. "I don't believe that."
    "Maybe someday, but who knows."
    "Are you married?"
    I laughed. "God, no."
    Big Bill's friend told me about his daughter, who had never wanted kids and always said she wouldn't have them, even though she was married. Then she accidentally got pregnant, and, "Oh, boy, the light of her life those kids."
    "Good for her," I said. "But not for me, at least not right now."
    "You don't know what you're talking about."
    There's a lot of obvious bullshit that goes with him saying that, but I told him, "I know that I'm a twenty-five-year-old part-time bartender living with my parents and a fortune's worth of college debt."
    Apparently, unpreparedness for motherhood does not mean that I am unprepared to be a mother.
    "You'll change your mind," Big Bill said.
    "Well, till then," I said, "no fucking thank you."
    They laughed, and I was able to escape to a different side of the bar where guys weren't telling me how women's history is all pointy bras and sunshine, and how I need to have kids to be happy. I realize that that kind of thinking is damaging to society...when it's in someone who is going to be alive during the next several elections. I don't think I'll have that problem here. So I was comforted by the fact that they were not saying these things out of malicious intent, just home-bred ignorance. They were just speaking their minds, not attacking me.
    And their tips. I was also comforted by their tips.

Photo cred:
Coffee wife: this slideshow
Wife about to plummet to her death: this slideshow
Morality busting money: this site I found while Googling "make it rain" images

     I love to talk. When I’m not talking, I’m usually writing stuff that I’d like to talk about. And when I’m not talking and I don’t have anything to write with, I’m usually thinking about stuff that I’d like to write about or imagining conversations with people that will probably never happen. And when I’m not talking, have nothing to write with, and am not thinking about talking, I’m sleeping. And in my dreams I’m talking. Or having weird make-out sessions with Jean-Ralphio from Parks and Recreation at a pizza parlor.

    All right, so that was one time. I still feel uncomfortable about how much I enjoyed it, though...
    Anyway, as much as I love to gab, there are just some conversations that…to say it with no expletives, I could do without. I think about them a lot, and I think about all the stuff I should have said to end the stupid conversation sooner. It’s the classic case of discovering the perfect comeback hours after the fact. Just the worst, right?

     My absolute least favorite conversation happens when someone is clearly just talking to you because they have some weird tick that forces them to speak, and anything you say is just a rude interruption of the monologue they are apparently giving to you, the unaware audience. I’m talking about conversations like this:

Me: That’s a cute wallet. Where did you get it?
Lady: Next door.
Me: Oh cool, really? I used to work there. For seven years, actually.
Lady: Yes, they sell wallets and things with this design. It’s a sugar skull, a Mexican tradition.
Me: Yeah, I know. When I was working there, we got a lot of that in. Isn't it cool?
Lady: They have it on t-shirts, wallets, pictures…
Me: Candles, tapestries, flags, I know.
Lady: Yes, they have it on little prayer flags that you can hang up. They come in all colors.
Me: …I know, like I said, I worked there for seven years--
Lady: They also have a lot of jewelry at that store, just so many unique designs. Lots of rings, and earrings. I see that you wear a lot of rings. You should go check them out over there.
Me: This one, this one, and this one are from there.
Lady: They also have a lot of necklaces...

    This conversation actually happened with a lady at work (yes, this work). She had just ordered her drink, so being drunk was not an excuse. Besides the obvious annoying reasons why conversations like this make me wish that my hair was longer so that when I ripped it out from frustration I could braid it into a noose and murder the other person with it, I hate conversations like this because, as I've pointed out before, I'm not very smart. There is a lot in this world that I just don't know. Like where things are, or how they work, or what they do. Or anything beyond the most basic math problems. I'm not being coy, here; I'm not looking for compliments on my intellect in the same way that some might say that a dress is unflattering to get a reassurance of quality ass size (me. I would do that). But lets just say that if my life depended on how many Jeopardy questions I could answer--unless there was a category about literary theory, penguin trivia, or movie quotes--I probably wouldn't live very long.

    So when people talk to me about stuff that I actually do know as though I don't know it, I get really pissed. It becomes less of a conversation, and more of a list called, "Look at all the stuff I know!" I paid people for six and a half years to tell me stuff that they know, because I didn't know it yet. It's called college, bitch. Also, when I say that "I paid," I really mean "My parents and the government" paid. Obviously.
    But when I'm in a conversation with someone and I actually know enough of the subject matter to be a knowing contributor, I get excited. Then dumb people like Lady up there pop my balloons and verbally piss all over my parade. I imagine that it's the same feeling a redneck would have if the government finally collapsed and the gays and feminists and atheists came raiding his land to steal his guns and his women, and he finally gets to use that assault rifle he's been hoarding. Only his wife bought the wrong bullets on her way back from the supermarket. You finally have something useful, and no one can appreciate it. I promise that there was a shorter metaphor for that. But, again.
    There was one time, however, that a conversation like this happened that I actually had to appreciate, in a twisted, disconcerting way. First of all, it happened over AIM, which is AOL Instant Messenger for all of you little bastards who never had to wait for the god damn dial up orchestra to announce a cease-and-desist for phone users just to send a message via writing. This was in the later days of AIM, which gives you a nice nostalgic feeling for my story.

    So I was tra-la-la-ing along on AIM, probably looking for a new romantic quote to put into my profile or some hot celebrity to make as my buddy icon (remember those?!), when I got a message from a high school classmate. I was maybe a year into college, so the changeover from AIM/Myspace to the all-encompassing Facebook was just beginning to bud. The last I'd heard about this sort-of friend was that he had been discovered in the bed of his not-yet-legal girlfriend by her parents, who had called the police and had him hauled away to jail.
    As fates would have it, he was placed in a cell with an old family friend, who was there for reasons much less disturbing. They realized that they both knew me, and had some small talk. We all like to think that people think about us when we aren't around, and maybe they even talk. We hope that they say nice things. In this case, what was being said about me is irrelevant. The focus of that conversation is the location. Which was jail. This was shocking because I didn't think that I knew anyone in jail well enough to become a subject of conversation; it turns out that the number of convicted criminals I know makes up for that. Who knew!
    Because these are real people with real lives and real families (and real Facebook accounts that might unfriend me and send me nasty messages), I'm going to call the first jailbird Marty Martinson, and his cellmate we will call Barty Bartinson. I'll spare you the shitty abbreviations and the quippy ScreenNames and streamline the conversation for better reading. Here is how the conversation went down:

Marty: hey
(What I wanted to say was, "Oh, they have AIM in jail?" But I didn't.)
Me: hey
Marty: how are you?
Me: good, you?
Marty: good
Marty: so you know Barty Bartinson
Me: yeah, how do you know Barty?
Marty: he was my cell mate
(At which point I realized that he was no longer in jail and I felt stupid)
Me: Wow, small world. I basically grew up with Barty, our parents are best friends.
Marty: we talked about you
Me: Oh
Marty: yeah we realized that we both know you
Me: Um...cool.
Marty: he lives in [town]
(Should be obvious that I know this already, but whatever.)
Me: I know, I've been to his house dozens of times.
Marty: he got arrested and went to jail a few months ago
(Again...obvious...)
Me: I know, his mom came over and told us all about it.
Marty: he got drunk and tried to rob a liquor store
Me: Yes, I know. Like I said, his mom and my mom are really close. I've known his whole family for years.
Marty: it was the middle of winter, he was caught walking barefoot home
(At home, with my short temper, I was flipping the fuck out. Thankfully, there was the computer as a mediator.)
Me: Yes, Marty, I know. His mom told me. Like, right after it happened. She told us all about it.
Marty: he knew you growing up, he's been to your house before
(FUCKING DONE.)
Me: Yup. I've gotta go.
Marty: okay bye
Me: Peace out
(Because I always ended my conversations with "peace out" back then. How cool was I? The coolest.)

    Being a bartender is a sort of fantasy for all of those college students romanticizing the starving-artist lifestyle. Doesn't it just sound edgy? Doesn't it just seem like a job stuck out of time, like it was from a century grittier than our own, rife with possibilities of self-discovery? A time when one could just wash away the grime of life's suffering with a cheap drink and easy conversation? Just imagine yourself, cracking a beer with the local hairy weirdo who wastes away his days mumbling to himself on a park bench, feeding pigeons from boxes of Russell Stover chocolates, to hear that he actually carried his entire platoon out of the bullet-ravaged jungles of Vietnam after being shot (in the ass. In this fantasy you're serving Forrest Gump after Forrest Jr. finally got sick of being raised by a man-child and ran away). Or maybe some hot-shot hyper-masculine chauvinist punk comes in and starts talking shit about how well you serve because you're a woman and demands a sandwich, and you challenge him to a drinking contest, and the two of you pour back shot after shot until, through your vodka-soaked vision, you see him finally collapse from his bar stool, and you win a victory not just for yourself, or the bar, but for all of womankind.

    But here's a fun fact that they don't mention in movies: it is actually illegal to drink on the job as a bartender. And if someone gets too drunk from your serving, and they drive home and get in an accident, guess who's to blame. Not the driver for still being too stupid to be able to say "enough" after over 21 years of life. Not that pesky telephone pole for being so inconveniently placed in the driver's path. Nope! It's yours. I hope you've also romanticized jail, because you'll need those warm dreams to get you through those chilly, prison nights.

    Obviously,  the no-drinking-on-the-job rule is one that most places get away with regularly breaking, but unfortunately the bar I work at is not one of them, for various unfortunate reasons. So let me paint you a picture of what my job is like a lot of the time: think about the last time you were a designated driver. Now imagine that, instead of being responsible for two or three friends, you're responsible for fifty. And none of them are your actual friends. And in addition to making sure that they don't puke anywhere or get into any fights, you also have to serve them. All night. When put that way, how much fun does it sound?

    And my bar is not just for the roving packs of horny college students. It's also the kind that old, racist people go to to feel at home. I can’t really call them out on their bullshit because it’s essentially pointless because they’ll never learn. This is not the type of place where change begins; this is the type of place where their brand of outdated ignorance comes to die. And I’m broke and fresh out of college so I’m banking on their filthy, racist tips. I’ll feel guilty when I can finally move out of my parents’ house.

    "But Johanna, why are you telling us all this?"
    I'll tell you, random Facebook friend who noticed that I had posted about my blog in my status update but really meant to click on the Buzzfeed quiz of what your hidden talent is (I got painting. Apparently, guiltless late-night snacking wasn't an option). I'm telling you this because there are so many shenanigans that happen at that place, shenanigans that will probably wind up being worth writing about. Like these shenanigans, for instance. And anytime I mention going to the bar, or being a bartender, I don't want you to picture some young, charmingly broke post-college bohemian who values living more in her head than in a career, getting through her struggles with the drunken version of Arabian Nights. I want you to have the right idea about the bar I'm at. It's tiny, it's grubby, and every possible surface is covered in graffiti that is 45% penises. I do very much enjoy my job, and I'm grateful to even have a job so quickly out of college, but it has the pitfalls of any customer service job. Only with alcohol.

    Here on out, you will know what I'm referring to in the future when I mention "my job." Also, you can stop telling your bartending friends how jealous you are of their job. I have fun, but besides all of the shit I mentioned earlier, I now get to live through the bullshit of being asked my by relatives when I'm going to "grow up and get a real job." It's like that girl you went to high school with who was always jealous of her married-with-children friends, until she threw herself at the first guy to say yes and wound up with six hyperactive shitty monsters that she resents for stealing her youth. Mentally replacing the shitty parts of your job with the awesomeness of being a bartender is similar to that woman's desperate attempts to replace the shitty memories of her family growing up with a new family of her own. A lot of it will be shitty no matter what, because life.

    One more thing, while I've got you here: stop asking your bartender friends to give you free drinks. That shit is stealing. Every store has its product, and the bar's product is booze. Know that, a lot of the time that they give you a "free drink," they're the ones paying for it. Because if they didn't, they'd be thieving. Robbing the establishment and giving it to the sober, like Robin Hood for broke college students.

    I used to be one of you. Looking at girls who wear a t-shirt, boots, and nothing on bottom but skin-tight material that they are trying to pass off as real pants, wondering to myself, "What the hell is she thinking? Doesn't she know that she's not wearing pants? She looks absurd!" I should emphasize up front that the woman's weight plays nothing into this judgement, by the way. Instead of going on a subject changing rant about it, I'll just leave this here and say power to good body image.

    No, it isn't exclusively ladies of curvaceousness that receive the YOU'RE-NOT-WEARING-PANTS judgement. It's all women who took a look in their closet at where their jeans were hanging and said, "Nah. Covers way too much," that infuriate pantly-clad men and women alike. It might be one of the only things our genders agree upon. That, and Jennifer Lawrence.
    But lo, dear population. I am enlightened. I am not like you, becoming irritated beyond belief as you traverse across college campuses littered with lady stems barely covered in what, exactly? Barely anything. I could argue social-justicely that what women wear is none of your business and you should therefore shut the fuck up, especially if you are one because you're making it okay for men to do it, too. I could argue spiritually that the world is actually a beautiful place, and by allowing the frustration of silly women's fashions to weigh down your heart you're keeping yourself from experiencing true happiness. No, my pets. I'm just going to give you an honest, down-to-earth, no bullshit, and, most importantly to our generation's 5-second-rule attention span, very short list of reasons why wearing leggings as pants (LAP) is fucking awesome and why everyone as a society should accept it.

        1. "She looks ridiculous."
    Yeah, so does your frat-boy buddy in his college sweats for the fifth day in a row. I'll bet when sweatpants in public became a "fashion," people reacted the same way they do to LAP. You're like the people protesting racial integration in public schools or same-sex marriage, except that the marginalized population here is fighting for the right to be lazy and slutty at the same time. Eventually, you will lose, you ignorant fool, and good will triumph, and then some other silly fashion will arise and everyone will have something else to hate.

        2. "She just wants attention."
    Maybe this is true for the ladies who lean towards the shy side. But if you've ever met me, then you know that I don't need any help getting attention because I'm not very smart but I'm very, very loud. If I was a racist homophobe, I'd be on Fox News. Zing!
    Now, I know what you're saying: "That's not the kind of attention we're talking about, Johanna."
    To which I say nurrrrr, reader. I've already covered that. I'll flaunt my body however I choose, and if the ladies want to judge me then they should either shut up, or support the decisions of their fellow vagina-bearers. If the menfolk can't handle their shit, that's not my problem. And if you think I just want attention and that bothers you, then the best way to stick it to me is to not give me attention.
    The point I'm trying to make is that I know what I look like when I leave my house because I am a self-aware grown-up and I'll do what I want. Biotch.
        3. "You can see everything."
    I'll admit, some ladies don't seem to realize that their leggings are not opaque. And I'm not ashamed to also admit that I've been on the realization end of that. But really, on the scale of accidental nudity I've found myself in, that situation ranked pretty low. At least this time I was sober.
    Anyway, while you're complaining about "seeing everything" on her body, guess what it feels like she's wearing? Nothing. And it's god damn awesome. Ever have those days that you feel like not wearing pants, so you wear sweatpants? Wrong move, buddy. LAP are the answer. She's not wearing pants? That's the whole point! When I wear my LAP and someone says something stupid like, "You know forgot to put pants on today, right?" I say, "Oh, don't worry sweetheart. I didn't forget." Or I would, if I were classy. It's really more like, "No shit, you Neanderthal. You're lucky I'm wearing anything right now." Wanting to get away with not wearing pants in public is the real reason I wear pretty dresses in the summer, as you might recall. So what is my fall and winter solution? LAP. Now if only they could somehow have pockets...
        4. David Bowie
    Not to say that I take all of my fashion advice from David Bowie, but here he is making LAP an acceptable fashion statement in 1986. So go ahead. Tell the man he has to change his clothes. I won't be there to rescue you from the goblin castle and the dance magic after he kidnaps you for your impertinence.

    So be brave, fellow LAP wearers. Stride with pride with your LAP, and if someone makes an ignorant comment that you're not wearing real pants, just yank down their jeans or sweatpants or hammer-pants and say, "Neither are you, bitch!" (Make sure you get a tight grip if they're wearing skinny jeans. Those fuckers do not come off easy.)
    For the record, I am not condoning the wearing of jeggings. Jegging wearers are closet LAP wearers and are hypocrites because almost all of them join the chorus of anti-LAP cries. If you're going to wear LAP, then wear LAP. Don't be a coward and hide under the pretense of denim, especially because you are fooling absolutely nobody.
    But really, as long as there can be nothing named after the digits on a desert quadruped to be seen, LAP is perfectly acceptable. Denying them their right in society is only denying yourself access into the enlightened future of Earthly fashions.

I saw the new Hobbit movie with my family this weekend. There was a ton of awesomely amazing stuff going on, obviously, but also plenty to complain about. And then the dragon finally arrived. And all was well.

    December 1st proves to be a very conclusive day of the year. We're tearing through the final scraps of the Thanksgiving leftovers, finding ourselves at the sorry and bloated end of that deliciousness. The 365 days are in the final countdown, leading up to the ultimate countdown, where you throw glitter and drink champagne and kiss someone special at midnight. Or, if you're like me, chase a bottle of champagne with two dozen Jell-O shots, force yourself on a stranger, then throw up glitter around 9 am on January 1st. Tradition is tradition, after all.
    But December 1st is obviously the very beginning of December, the month of Christmas. And obviously there are other holidays involved as well, but every store is not bombarded with a ruthless attack of Hanukkah colors, and radio stations are not flooded with half-ass covers of Kwanza carols by desperate "artists." It's Christmas that takes over.
    But not on December 1st, when the holiday season officially begins. It takes over on November 1st. People are putting up their Christmas decorations and listening to All I Want for Christmas is You while skeletons are dancing in their neighbors yards. It's god damn unholy.
    Now, don't misunderstand me to be a Grinch or a Scrooge. I love Christmas. Not as much as other holidays, like Halloween, or even my Jell-O shot induced, glitter vomiting New Years. But few people deck the halls harder than I do. My decking of halls is balls out. Starting today.
    So, dear friends, I ask you.

WOULD IT HAVE BEEN SO GOD DAMN HARD TO WAIT TILL TODAY FOR CHRISTMAS SHIT?!

    Please choose from the following responses:

    a) No, it wouldn't, and I apologize for the prematurity of my Christmas celebrations. I have learned from my mistake and will reserve my holiday spirit for the holiday season.

    b) Yes, it would have been, because I am weak and impatient and don't give a shit about what the calendar says. What is time, anyway? Who dictates when I should be able to celebrate that which I love? Also, would you like to come to my Christmas party? No one ever comes...I don't really have any friends.

    Bars. Each one a controlled experiment of human interaction. You meet all kinds while bar-hopping, but you soon realize that all people populating places of booze consumption are basically divided into two kinds: the socially competent, and the socially inept.
    I was out recently, minding my own business, chatting with my friends at the bar as we charmingly broke early-twenties kids are wont to do. It was sometime after midnight that I was approached by a man. He was older, very bearded, and had been seen skulking around awkwardly between the clumps of people all night. There is nothing wrong with that; some people aren't good at just shoehorning their way into peoples' lives (like me). There is also nothing wrong with using an ice-breaking question to start a conversation. I am very patient with people's attempts to be social.
    Unless they open with this:
    "Can I ask you a creepy question?"
    Living is a learning process, and he's never going to learn unless someone points out his errors. Seeing as he was almost twice my age, he probably should have learned that this approach was quite wrong in any social setting, but maybe no one had told him before. I was happy to be that someone. That said, there may have been a more tactful way to go about it than my mildly-drunken way of saying, "That was a terrible opener. Never introduce yourself that way again. Seriously."
    He was not discouraged or apologetic. He kept staring at me with those big beardy eyes and said, "Well...can I?"
    I really didn't want him to. I don't condone that type of behavior and allowing him to answer is only rewarding shitty social skills. But, as any lady who's ever been to a bar will tell you, resistance to dumb male comments often just acts to elongate the interaction and it's usually better to just get it over with. It's a sad world, but it's the world we drunkenly stumble through.
    So I said, "If you have to."
    I was not expecting this to be his question: "Are you an empath?"
    For those of you who don't know what an "empath" is, don't try to look it up in a dictionary because it's technically not a word. But a Google search came up with the following definition:

    Apparently, empathy is so rare these days that they attribute it to supernatural abilities. I am pretty empathetic, empathetic enough to be able to recognize that this guy was drunk enough to form the question, "Are you an empath?" in his mind and decide, "Oh, yeah. That is worth asking."
    I was too dumbfounded for a moment to respond.
    "Um...what?" I said, partly hoping I'd misheard him and partly hoping that I didn't because I have a vast appreciation for the WTF moments of the universe, and mama, this one's a doozy.
    "An empath, it's like--"
    I was actually already familiar with the term "empath," but I didn't realize it was mostly a sci-fi thing till I looked it up. That makes it far more absurd. I stopped him before he could explain--or, with a hindsighted guess, describe a character in a book he read that takes place in space--and asked him, "Why do you think that? What would make you ask me that?"
    He looked a little awkward, and my super Empath skills were telling me that he was finally realizing how stupid he sounded. But now I was invested. Some creepy beardo at the grimiest hole-in-the-wall bar ever comes up and asks with all seriousness if I have emotional super powers? I must know more.
    "Well..." he began, a little hesitantly, "you're dressed kind of...like a gypsy, and...um..."
    (I should point out that was not the first time I was called a gypsy that night. It was the third.)
    He mumbled something, his confidence waning. But after a few awkward seconds, he regained himself, looking at me with almost angry determination, and commandingly said, "Explain your necklace."
    I looked down to see the necklace in question. I had on a long hemp necklace that I made with a silver peace sign, and another necklace with a pink stone hanging from a black cord. Writing this out is making me realize that there is no way to describe my outfits without describing a gypsy.
    Before he could ask which one I was talking about, he clarified with, "Explain the stone."
    I do not respond well to demanding tones like that, one of many reasons why I would not last in the army. My patience with the conversation had just run out, and I was certainly not about to get into the nuances of crystology with this creep, for a creep he most decidedly was.
    "It's a rose quartz," I said, "and fuck, I don't know. I like it."
    "Oh. Good," he said.
    And then he walked away.
    Thus is the occasion that I was approached by someone who learned their social skills from episodes of Battlestar Galactica. I can only hope that he's actually a mystical soldier fighting against those with secret supernatural abilities who would use their power for evil. Thank goodness I was able to convince him of my benevolence--unless...what if he's been tracking me? What if he's been monitoring my behavior, waiting diligently by my window on the off chance that he has to thwart my plans for global domination with his mighty boozy beard powers?
    ...Excuse me, I'm going to go double check my closet for spies. Just in case.

Dear Dresses-With-Pockets,

Let’s get this out of the way: I love dresses. Anything that lets me look like I give a flying turd about looking nice while in reality being just another excuse to not wear pants is a perfect fit to my increasingly I-don’t-give-a-flying-turd existence. But we all know the problem with women’s purses: they’re either impractically small, or unbearably huge. That middle ground for a purse is hard to find, and it means that carrying around my wallet or lighter or Reuben sandwich has always been a battle with me.

Then you, dresses-with-pockets, then you show up.

I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to go home with a cute dress, put it on in front of my mirror to discover that it has pockets. Or even better is when I don’t realize it until I’m already wearing it out for the first time. I’ll smooth out my dress or touch my body in an attempt to seem objectifyable to men and lo! where has my hand disappeared to? Suddenly it is not seen by anyone, and for a fleeting moment I believe myself to be an  amputee. Or a magician. Or that my hand has taken a spontaneous trip to Narnia that for some reason lies in the seam of my dress.

But no! Even better! I have POCKETS. Suddenly my big bulky purse is no longer needed, or whatever lucky guy friend I’ve dragged along can stop keeping my money and ID in his pockets because now I have my own! I am an independent woman!

Therein lies the beauty of what your existence means. While women have made giant leaps in today’s world, society is still generally sexist and trying to keep us down in many ways–one by making our belongings easier to steal. Don’t believe me? Try to steal a man’s wallet from his pocket. Now try to steal a woman’s wallet from her purse. Odds are you’ll just grab for the whole purse, am  I right? That means you’re not just getting her money, but her phone, her iPod, her make-up, her birth-control pills, her Midol—you’ve just sentenced her to a very expensive shopping trip. And all because she had to carry a purse, something men never have to understand.***

(***And I don’t include those shitty men’s messenger bags, and neither should you. Because while their wallet, sunglasses, and douchey Macbook are probably in them, no one is going to bring that fashion atrocity out to a bar at night because it's both stupid behavior and an anti-poon force field. Blech.)

But you. You, my pet, my turtledove, my darling…you set me free. You give me a place to put my cell phone so I don’t have to bring a purse. I don’t have to set my bag on the disgusting sink covered in some uncomfortably off-color film while I pee in the single-stall bathroom at the bar by the train tracks. You give me a practical place to sneak my tampons when I don’t want all the people, who I for some reason think are paying attention to me in class or at a restaurant, wonder what the hell I would need my entire bag for if I’m just going to the bathroom; with you around, I don’t have to put on a sweater just to hide it in my sleeve or pretend to drop my pen so I can slip it in my cleavage. You give me years of my life back that I will no longer be spent digging through my purse for endless minutes to find a lighter or my phone or my headphones or my debit card or that condom I found in my roommates desk that I stole to make it seem like I’m getting some.

You make me a woman. You set me free. And you give me life.

God created man in his image. Then created you, because you are better than all of us.

Thank you,

Your biggest fan

P.S. Call me.