Worse Than Puberty

EXTRACURRICULARS: Great Haircuts Growing Out are Worse than Puberty

2010-07-20T09:58:00.013-04:00

Getting a haircut is always risky - it could be amazing, bring you one step closer to your dream of looking like Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly's hottest lovechild, or...it could end up like that time you got "The Rachel" when you were 11, but somehow wound up looking a lot more like 80s Tina Turner.

But that risk is part of the reward; when it pays off big, not only do you look good, you feel as though you've pulled a fast one on fate. Haha, fate, you may have beaten me in the career success, love, figure, face, and friends departments, but I have bested you in hair!

And then it's suddenly 4 weeks later, and fate has won once again.

Yes, there is the option of just repeating your earlier triumph, but some of the glory ebbs away when your instructions aren't based on a fuzzy cell-phone photo you took of a picture on your obsolete computer, but on repeating something that's already been done.

Still, it could be worse. I could ask for a mid-90s Gwyneth...synonymous, on my head, with "Dennis the Menace's bowl-cut."

-Posted by Jilly

SCIENCE: Ear Infections are Worse than Puberty

2010-07-15T09:26:00.000-04:00

Yes, I have one. Actually, two, but one that hurts a lot more than the other.

Yes, I'm 25 years old.

Somehow, though, the infections refuse to acknowledge this fact, refuse to see that at some point, they're supposed to move on to younger, even smaller ear passages, to temporarily deafen smaller, more impressionable young ears.

Sigh. The only abnormally small thing on my Amazonian body and it's a.) not visible to normal people b.) only could for causing me pain.

-Posted by Jilly

EXTRACURRICULARS: Disapproval Via the Lack of a Compliment is Worse than Puberty

2010-07-13T13:07:00.001-04:00

Drastic changes to one's appearance are always a bit nerve-wracking. Not that whatever you had going before was necessarily great, but once you chop off or dye all your hair, give in and start wearing rompers, or admit your need for podiatrist-approved footwear options, you want a little hollow reassurance, a "hey, not only is this not so bad, it's better, promise."

This comes up most often in relation to the drastic hair change. The conversation goes something like this:

Person: [Staring at your incredibly obvious, 10+ inches off the sides new-do] Did you get a hair cut?

You: Yeah, I did. Felt it was time for a change.

Person: That's nice. By the way, what's this dip recipe?

You see the problem - "Person" is supposed to come in with a compliment there, not a request. In fact, the "I love your new haircut!" conversation followed by a whispered "ugh, it looks AWFUL" to another "friend" is so common as to be a given - liking or not liking your haircut is not a prerequisite for TELLING you that I like it. Just the opposite. Knowing you got a haircut is, theoretically, to "like" your new haircut, at least in public. This is so well-established that Seventeen magazine never even had to tell me it was something I was supposed to do.

Which is why when you DON'T get the automatic-appearance-change-compliment it's such a slap in the face.

By the way, I noticed that you have a "face-slap" red handprint on your cheek there - is that new? I totally LOVE it!

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-07-09T00:01:00.012-04:00

1.) Searching the free craigslist ads for necessary furniture.

2.) Searching craigslist ads for anything.

3.) When your friends on facebook post ads looking for babysitters for their kids and offering to pay double what you currently earn to spend a week with them in the Hamptons. I mean, is this what life has come to?

4.) Seriously considering quitting your job and becoming a professional nanny because you know they have more earning potential than you currently do.

5.) Having to think about things like your earning potential because you are now a responsible adult and not married to an sick but generous, old, rich man.

HOME EC/SHOP: Holes in the Heels of your Socks are Worse than Puberty

2010-07-06T09:26:00.000-04:00

You know that horrible feeling where you're certain that, despite being in your home, and thus stocking-footed, you've stepped in something horrible?

That sticky, squishy feeling of something digging into your heel?

That sensation of "oh god, one of the cats didn't make it to the litter box, and I don't want to look at the bottom of my foot to confirm this suspicion?"

This is the constant sensation of the heel going through a hole in the sock.

Unfortunately, though, if you're me, you regularly strip off socks right after taking off shoes, thoughtlessly tossing them into your laundry pile to be worn semi-uncomfortably another day. Okay, okay, you strip them off in the middle of the living room once you've realized there's an annoying hole, and then, three days later, you notice those socks in the living room and decide to move them the 50 feet to the laundry pile, forgetting the pressing needs that urged you to leave them there in the first place.

Even worse, of course, is when you DO step on something squishy/sticky/yucky through the hole, but stepping in disgusting things is a whole 'nother gripe.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-07-02T00:01:00.014-04:00

1.) Planning your life (including your work schedule) around the release date of Twilight movies.

2.) Having a really dreamy guy in your small office who does not acknowledge your existence in any way shape or form, not even for a traditional platonic morning greeting. Does this mean we aren't soul-mates???

3.) Reading a good quote and immediately thinking about how profound you will look when you post it on facebook or as your gchat status.

4.) When your favorite author is actually a blogger who writes about reality TV shows. Richard Lawson from Gawker, holla!!!

5.) Getting star-struck talking on the phone with a beautician whose videos you've watched on youtube.

6.) When the friend you're talking to has bad breath.

7.) Realizing, too late, that YOU were the bad-breath friend

8.) When the back of your legs stick to and/or sweat on plastic or leather chairs

9.) Actually considering arch support.

10.) Being told you're "too old" for the Chuckie Cheese.

MATH: The high price of having fun is Worse than Puberty

2010-07-01T00:01:00.000-04:00

I have some plans coming up this week. They include dinner with a friend, drinks with another, providing barbecuable foods for the 3rd (on the fourth) and possibly going to the grown-up arcade on the fifth (of July).

All of these things, to varying degrees, none of them totally ignorable, cost money.

I seem to remember as a kid NOT having money and still having fun. When did that change? When did all entertainment begin to involve expense?

Seriously, what are other options? Hanging out with friends at home? You'll probably provide beverages, cook a meal, or, more likely, do both - costs money. Throw a party? Money. Go bowling? Money. Just drive around? Money.

Even the things I can remember as activities from when I was younger have now become expensive - things like sports (DAMN tennis isn't as cost-free as I hoped) and games (seriously, $20 for Jenga?) and just hanging out at the gas station like hoodlums (I feel compelled to purchase something now, so they know I mean well).

No wonder they call them sugar daddies - I need a parent to pay me some allowance, stat.

-Posted by Jilly

SCIENCE: Humidity is Worse than Puberty

2010-06-29T10:12:00.000-04:00

How many times have you heard this one:

"It's not the heat that gets me, it's the humidity."

If you live on the east coast, in large swathes of the midwest, anywhere in the southeast, in fact, pretty much anywhere at all besides the southwest, I'd wager it's...at least once, every uncomfortable summer day, ever.

While it may be a statement about as interesting and thought-provoking as "sometimes I think kids these days just grow up too fast," it has a basis in fact. Fact is, nothing sucks more than a truly humid day.

Even if it's only a balmy 70 degrees outside, high humidity ensures that by the time you make it in the door of your work, or the grocery store, or the bathroom when you shuffle out of bed, you'll be "glowing" like a pig. Hairstyling is a futile effort (but one which we can't seem to resist, anyway, making it all the more hurtful when it inevitably withers), clothing selection actually requires thought, and footwear can be a previously unimagined nightmare.

Seriously, how do toes suddenly rub together to the blistering point in shoes you've worn comfortably for months? How can a foot possibly swell this much overnight? How come flip-flops aren't just generally accepted as business-casual?

I'm not an ardent environmentalist, but I do maintain a paper-towel-free household full of unplugged appliances.

I've been running the AC every day this week, the entire time I'm home.

Ah, humidity, you cruel harpy

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-06-25T00:01:00.011-04:00

1). When, despite your expensive college degree, your job consists of running errands for the office secretaries, effectively ranking you lower than an unpaid intern.

2.) Being 25 and getting jealous of the interns your friends manage who make $15 an hour watching movies all day.

3.) Looking into buying a monokini for the summer because, at the age of 25, your body is too old and gross to really be exposing all that much skin in public.

4.) Sending an email to all your friends in a certain city telling them you'll be in town and you're excited to see them, only to get no replies.

5.) Thinking that "everytime" is a legitimate English word on the grounds that it was in a title of a Britney Spears song.

6.) People who need glasses and refuse to wear them

7.) Hipsters' insistence on glasses that make them hideous. I speak of the granny-glasses.

8.) When large girls where very, VERY short skirts.

9.) Morning breath

10.) That all healthy diets cut out all the best foods.

SCIENCE: The Red Wine Lips are Worse than Puberty

2010-06-24T08:33:00.000-04:00

It's no secret that I'm a fan of red wine. I don't keep it at home much, because I tend to accidentally turn the majority of most bottles into vinegar on the top of my fridge, something which is even more maddening than food-waste, since it's wine, but at a meal out, or a friend's party, it's my go-to beverage.

The problem with this decision becomes more obvious the more I go-to. It's the wine-lips.

You know what I'm talking about, that purpley-dark tinge around the inside of your lips and the tips of your teeth, not only screaming "lush over here," but simultaneously ugly in and of itself. You can discreetly wipe, or scrape, your mouth, you can try to contort your face in ways you're certain will keep the wine on a direct path towards your throat, no lip or tooth contact involved, but it doesn't matter - it will show up.

The biggest problem, at least for me, is that the wine-lips tend to settle in right around the start of a second glass. While I probably don't need 2 glasses, it's not exactly mega-lush territory, yet, and at a cookout or house party, it's likely to happen.

Meaning that at many of these events, I look combo-hideous, both vampyric and over-indulgent, even if I'm the most sober person in the room.

If only I liked beer.

-Posted by Jilly

PASSING TIME: Realizing Too Late That You're Out of TP is Worse than Puberty

2010-06-22T08:16:00.000-04:00

As a woman, toilet paper is important to my daily existence. Having it at hand, when it should be at hand, is akin to having my keys when I get home, or my wallet when I reach to pay for the groceries; it is fundamental to finishing the process satisfactorily.

Of course, we've all come home before to realize that, despite being the most anal frequent-purse-checker ever, the keys are...inside on the counter. It shouldn't be so surprising, I suppose, that toilet paper occasionally slips one's mind until the moment of crisis.

That doesn't mean it's not disappointing, though.

Yes, one can "drip-dry." But my lord does that feel unpleasant. It makes me feel almost morally dirty to resort to it.

And then of course there are times when, for whatever reason, you manage to make it through the OTHER kind of going to the bathroom...

...I don't need to tell you that makes me feel dirty, too.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-06-18T14:15:00.000-04:00

1.) Meals made of the last 3 random ingredients in your pantry because you are too lazy to go to the supermarket.

2.) Disgusting dishes you made after being inspired by Top Chef only to realize you are not qualified to do anything in the kitchen but occasionally operate the microwave.

3.) Not knowing how to spell basic words.

4.) Not knowing how to spell basic words even though you majored in English.

5.) Shirts with any kind of written message on them.

6.) Playing Mah-Jongg on your computer

7.) Losing Mah-Jongg to your computer

8.) Cramps

9.) Having a black thumb (re: plants)

10.) Literally, having a black thumb. Shouldn't you see a doctor about that?

MATH: Just Missing the [BLANK] is Worse than Puberty

2010-06-17T08:40:00.003-04:00

Last night I went out for dinner with a friend. We had some interest in hitting up a movie, but decided not to rush just to make it.

As it turned out, credit cards were replaced in wallets JUST 10 minutes after the start time.

I have similar apprehensions about tonight's scheduled haircut.

The "just missed it" problem is bad enough for things like movies, which are optional, but the necessity missings are far worse. Watching a bus or train pull away as you run awkwardly to reach it, for example. Or rushing through the airport like some lame "Home Alone" sequel only to arrive at the gate panting, clammy, and not legally able to board.

Then there's when friends (or radio stations) are giving away freebies, the times you're in line at the coffee shop and see the last sample-bite of cookie or cake eaten in front of your very eyes, the trips to the diamond store when you just miss their promotional jewelry giveaways.

Okay, that last one might be wishful thinking, but the point remains: I would hate to "just miss" it.

-Posted by Jilly

EXTRACURRICULARS: Waiting for Service Windows is Worse than Puberty

2010-06-15T09:08:00.005-04:00

As mentioned previously, this week is the bathroom remodel. This means no end of difficulty - sneaking downstairs to do my business, brushing my teeth in the kitchen sink, which inexplicably grosses me out, hiding the cats away and praying they don't pee on things to demonstrate their rage - but then there's the real issue.

Waking up early to let the contractors in.

I realize that real people with real jobs wake up before 8, and it's not all that big of a deal to get up early for a few days when a brand-new bathroom is the result, but dragging yourself out of bed a full hour plus earlier than you would, feeling slightly stomach-achey from your string of 6-hour nights, only to sit on your ass for an hour? That's brutal.

This morning that was exactly the case. 8 AM rolled around and no contractor. No worries, I'll just get to work on sending out a few e-mails. 8:30 showed up, and I congratulated myself on not waiting to eat breakfast. When it hit 9, the only thing I could think was "jesus christ, I could have slept a FULL HOUR more. FULL HOUR."

In just the last 12 minutes my boyfriend has already heard this (whispered, of course, when the contractor went back down to his vehicle) approximately 72 times.

Don't even get me started on the cable guy's "I'll be there between 8 and 2" bullshit.

Grand scheme of things? Not important, or even that big of an imposition. Small-scale? I'm gonna be a lot less fun to be around today, I can guarantee it.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-06-11T00:01:00.001-04:00

1.) Getting one of those enormous flies in your house during the summer that you can't get to leave and just buzzes loudly around the room incessantly.

2.) Being so hot during the summer that you start sweating immediately after taking a shower.

3.) Waking up in a panic and thinking that you forgot to set your alarm for work when it's actually your day off.

4.) Waking up peacefully and thinking it's a day off only to realize you have work.

5.) Days when you have to work.

6.) Everything about TGI Friday's

7.) Actually EATING TGI Friday's

8.) Knowing your pet hates you

9.) Becoming some weird inter-species version of that pubescent kid who tries WAY too hard to get the cool kids to like him in your effort to overturn your pet's hatred of you

10.) Spray Cheese

LUNCH PERIOD: Top Chef Hosts are Worse than Puberty

2010-06-10T05:30:00.000-04:00

Bravo's version of reality TV hits on a formula that's like crack to me: take a topic that's of vague interest to women, gay men, and hipsters in general, find someone who's made a capital-N Name for him or herself in the field, find someone else who likewise crawled to the top, through her amply-on-display-bitchiness, rotate in a few celebrity guest-judges, either from the world in question or the world at large, and top it off with a hot hostess who has some tangential connection with the proceedings.

The one place this fails for me is Top Chef. There, the hostess is a supermodel-stunner, Padma Lakshmi. Yes, I like Padma - she married Salman Rushdie, after all - but I have a hard time believing she eats enough foie gras to weigh in on it with any degree of expertise.

Still, with Padma, I was willing to give some leeway - after all, the lady's all curves, a sure sign that she probably eats SOMETHING on occasion, in stark contrast to the majority of her fellow-models.

Kelly Choi, however, hostess of "Top Chef: Masters," is another story.

The woman is so thin that she looks like a bobble-head. I bet I could fit my hands around her ribcage twice. Her body type reminds me of the South Park episode where they draw starving Africans.

This immediately places her credentials in question, a much bigger problem since this is the self-titled "Masters" version of the show, (read: the version where every single contestant is a world-class chef) where the judges should be, if anything, more discerning. The original Top Chef is like a competition amongst grad students. On "Masters," it's about choosing between food Einsteins and food Stephen Hawkings; doing so requires more than a working knowledge of physics, if you know what I'm saying.

I get that they need eye-candy, but if that's all the hostess was supposed to be, they could have done WAY better. Sure, I don't buy that Cindy Crawford would qualify as an expert on all-things-edible, either, but it would be a LOT more fun (and a lot less like witnessing the moment of first-contact) watching her do it.

-Posted by Jilly

EXTRACURRICULARS: Bathroom Issues are Worse than Puberty

2010-06-08T00:33:00.000-04:00

Next week, all week long, I will be without bathroom.

Zip. Zilch. Nada way(s) to accommodate my walnut-sized bladder for a full five days.

This is for a fabulous reason - we're getting our bathroom redone, and it will be chic, beautiful, and clean. But the fact remains - for an entire week, every time my high-fiber breakfast starts going to work, I'll have to run downstairs and knock on my neighbor's door...and blush furiously.

It's an issue that I'm dealing with through advance mental preparation, but it brings to mind one of the many-varied problems of adulthood: what about plumbing when your place has only one bathroom?

For those of us who are urbanites, and/or those of us whose income mirrors my own (read: is tiny), the luxury of a second bathroom is not even a possibility, and won't be for the foreseeable future.

If a plunger can't fix it, then, you're stuck - to be truly prepared, should I also have an emergency chamberpot? An emergency port-a-john? An emergency stronger stomach/will/bladder?

I'm one of the lucky ones; embarrassment aside, I'm at least allowed to shower/brush my teeth/function bodily in my neighbor's bathroom.

Next week will be a lesson in dreading the day when that's not the case...

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-06-04T00:01:00.013-04:00

1.) The fact that Fifty Cent is at my goal weight.

2.) Hitting your goal weight and then getting "comfortable" and putting all of it back on.

3.) Owning an old lady muumuu... which you wear... on a daily basis.

4.) Actually passing by a hideous discount clothing store with old lady muumuus in the window and thinking to yourself: "I want the floral pink one with snaps down the center."

5.) Having an entirely separate wardrobe of comfortable/home clothes you know you can never wear in front of any other human being who isn't genetically related to you out of fear they will reject you.

6.) Wearing those clothes in front of others, anyway.

7.) Realizing that people significantly younger than you are now allowed into your bars.

8.) Women who date for money

9.) Not being able to just get over it, already, and date for money.

10.) Heel blisters

SCIENCE: Being Allergic to Something You Can't Avoid is Worse than Puberty

2010-06-03T10:00:00.004-04:00

I'm sure many of you have been suffering from seasonal allergies lately. According to weather.com, the pollen counts in my neck of the woods are apocalyptically high. Highest ever. We're lucky to be alive-high.

While the pollen-nasal drip is a pain, allegedly, someday, it's supposed to pass.

My owning a cat does not. At least, god willing, not for a long while.

That mini-paragraph, in fact, is the nub of my problem. I am very much allergic to one of my cats. Eyes itching, throat itching, nose clogging, bad-breathing allergic to him. But I love him! He's the best little dude in the world. Big, puffy, sorta like a little bear, and he gives hugs - seriously, arms on either side of the neck hugs. He's the kind of cat you want to keep around forever.

Even if he weren't, though, my grandpa was a vet; my family doesn't adopt animals and then UNadopt them. Not possible.

So I suffer...daily. I rub my eyes too much, and I make that gross self-throat-scratching noise, and I sleep poorly indefinitely.

And he doesn't even know it's for him.

-Posted by Jilly

MATH: Crappy Tippers are Worse than Puberty

2010-06-01T10:04:00.003-04:00

I am NEVER against a free meal. Before we start here, I just want everyone to be fully aware of that.

But I do find myself feeling incredibly awkward on occasion, when that free meal is being provided by a crappy tipper.

Now we all know the crappy tipper is a liability at a shared-meal. There, you end up deciding between trying to force blood from a stone or paying to cover what is eminently not your cost of dining out, a situation that results in your biting your tongue forcibly just to ensure you don't accidentally spit out the "well for Christ's sake, if you can't afford to tip appropriately, then don't come out at all - it's not a surprise cost or anything" sneaking around the inside of your mouth.

But the crappy tipper who is paying for your meal is another story entirely. When you're not plunking down your own cash, the need to call someone else's cheapness out disappears; or rather, it morphs into a "well I don't want to be rude, or ungrateful, since that might mean fewer free meals in future!"

Nevertheless, you don't want your good, unbesmirched tipping history associated with this sort of blatantly cheap behavior. What to do?

You can't offer to throw in the few dollars to cover the difference - again with the rudeness slash presumption. The only option is to hope you're alone with the bill before the server gets back, so as to be able to slip a few dollars cash into its neat internal pockets when your partner isn't looking, assuming you carry cash, that is.

Barring that, you just have to smile and smile and be presumed to be a villain.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: ARE THESE THINGS WORSE THAN PUBERTY?

2010-05-28T00:01:00.005-04:00

1.) Creepy guys at the gym.

2.) Not being able to tell if a guy is being creepy or just going about his daily business with you being overly suspicious.

3.) Humidity.

4.) Road rage.

5.) Not experiencing road rage because you are 25 and don't have a driver's license.

6.) The Sex and the City sequel

7.) Bug bites between your toes

8.) Being incredibly excited about planting your own vegetables this year, but knowing that excitement isn't enough to overcome a black thumb.

9.) Bloating

10.) Blaming bloating when we all know it's a real 5 pounds.

SCIENCE: Hot Weather is Worse than Puberty

2010-05-27T00:17:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid, I was under the impression that summer was my favorite season. After all, it packed a double-punch -- right hook: my birthday came during summer, left hook: no school!

Like most kids, though, I was blatantly stupid.

Now that my entire life isn't made up of finding ways to spend excessive free time, summer is a semi-literal version of hell on earth. I hate few things more than sweating, and what with "jobs" that rob me of the ability to spend every afternoon in a movie theater, or a friend's pool, or my parents' centrally-air-conditioned basement, that starts to become a real problem really fast.

I'm currently hiding out in my bedroom, the one room I've managed to install a window AC in, because sitting in the living room was making me dizzy - and if this weren't my day off, I wouldn't even have that luxury.

Beyond that, my natural humbuggery gets a pass in winter - never bothering to meet my friends out, or even leave my couch and sweatpants, is understandable when it's 22 degrees out and the sun goes down at 3:30. Not so in summer.

Is there an opening for the Ebenezer Scrooge of the Fourth of July? Because I'd like to nominate myself for the position...as long as it doesn't require wearing a totally stifling outfit or going out of doors...

-Posted by Jilly

MATH: Spending So Much on Something You're Afraid to Use it is Worse than Puberty

2010-05-25T00:01:00.000-04:00

Recently, I've had some freelance income that has left me with enough money to both feed myself AND pay rent before going into debt.

Clearly this means it's time to shop - my pent-up demand has existed since long before the recession started.

Unfortunately, necessity-based frugality is not something that you overcome immediately. I may go out and eat a dinner here and there, because logically I'm aware I can afford it, but no amount of staring at an existing bank-balance will cure me of the half-conviction that I can't. I may buy my friends a round of beers, sufficiently capable of suppressing my gut impulse to tell them "but only PBRs," but it takes will.

And I may be able to buy something nice, either because I need it, or because dammit, I want it, but lord knows I won't be able to use/wear/take-off-the-plastic-sleeve-from it.

Is this like gaining and losing weight, where it's relatively simple to pack on the things you refuse to spend money on, but will take you months upon months to undo the work of a few bad jobs?

I don't know the answer, but lord knows I'm not going to find out the using-this-stuff way...

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-05-21T00:01:00.010-04:00

1.) Reading a guy's blog as seeing how horrifying the inner workings of the male mind can be.

2.) When the male blog you are referring to actually belongs to someone in your close social circle, not some obnoxious guy you've never met.

3.) Thinking, incorrectly, that you have high privacy settings on your facebook account only to realize all your pictures and information was made totally public without your knowledge.

4.) Committing to moving to a place for years that you know in advance will be cold, dreary and miserable.

5.) Meeting a 50 year old with nicer and less wrinkly skin than you.

ENGLISH: Having to Write a "Bio" of Yourself is Worse than Puberty

2010-05-20T09:35:00.000-04:00

Recently I was sending some important documents out to an as-yet not-well-known individual. Amongst the details for what I should send in this bundle was

"A bio of yourself."

Now other people may not agree, but I think there are few things more horrible than having to write yourself into a few sentences...unless it be writing yourself into more than a few sentences.

What are the salient features of my life? Where I live? What I do? How often I go to the gym? How often I wash my hair?

And what's the right tone to take? Deadly serious? Playful and lighthearted? Fifth-grade assignment? (I tend to opt, by necessity, for that last one).

No matter what you've been up to recently, or in the last...your life, it tends to seem rather pitiful when gathered together in one place.

Oh, it doesn't? Your bio is WAY better than mine? Then you have the opposite problem: how much do you really tell? Surely you don't need to list every single A-paper you ever wrote, but how many past projects should you gesture at? What, for example, would Bill Clinton include on a "best-of" sheet?

At least I'm comforted by the fact that, though I take issue with bios because of the glaring light they throw on my doesn't-seem-that-impressive-now list of accomplishments, those on the other end of the achievement scale have the same problem.

Which is to say...there's nothing to look forward to in this department.

-Posted by Jilly

EXTRACURRICULARS: Getting Totally Sucked in by a Show on DVD is Worse than Puberty

2010-05-18T09:36:00.002-04:00

In the last few months I have developed two new obsessions: Deadwood and The Tudors.

Both of these are wonderful programs, interesting and filled with historical detail and costumes and olde tyme steamy scandals.

But as both of these shows are also available to me on DVD, I'm beginning to understand what a crack addict feels like: all you want to do is crack...or watch The Tudors, whichever.

I've worked past my Deadwood addiction just slightly by consuming every single episode there was.

The show on DVD is the bane of good intentions-how can you really get much work done knowing that there are multiple episodes just waiting for you to watch them, calling out your name as you try to plug through some tedious task? How can you possibly limit yourself to just one episode, knowing there's a whole season just sitting on your Tivo? How do people ever stop impulses without parents or other authority figures around telling them that dammit, they have to?

Part of me thinks the answer with this new obsession is to just get it out of my system...by just letting it all into my system.

That might just be the addict talking, though...

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-05-14T00:01:00.007-04:00

1.) Wearing a short, flowly skirt on the windiest day of the year.

2.) Finding out only after you've consumed something that it had an ingredient you are allergic to.

3.) Knowing that you could find out one way or another whether you suffer from life-threatening medical issues you suspect you might have with a simple, routine test but not being able to afford to do any of those tests because of a lack of health insurance.

4.) Researching "itchy heart" on webmd.

5.) Researching anything on webmd.

6.) Planning on eating item X in your fridge and only realizing when you pull it out that it is moldy/wilted/otherwise inedible.

7.) Eating it anyway

8.) The coffee shakes

9.) Being deeply involved in programs no one else has heard of

10.) Being the person who tells an involved story about those programs despite every else's utter lack of interest

-Posted by Karla and Jilly

SOCIAL STUDIES: Totally Unsolicited Opinions are Worse than Puberty

2010-05-11T07:46:00.000-04:00

They're found in every walk of life, from the dressing room to the dining room, from the movie theater to the mall...

...the dreaded giver of unsolicited opinions.

We all have a friend who was raised to know the importance of honesty, but not of tact, and thus feels free to offer his or her two cents on anything and everything, whether or not you wanted it, whether or not it's necessary, especially if it's somewhat harsh. Somehow this friend never reminds you, for example, of how great you look in reds, but s/he is right there telling you your last haircut flattered your face more completely.

This friend is, most times, barely tolerable - how much worse, then, when the invasiveness posing as honesty comes from a total stranger.

Recently I was trying on a half-dozen or so dresses at my hometown TJ Maxx with my mother, when the lady one dressing room over decided it was high time she let us know that

"That color just does nothing for you."

I was told about the poor fit of another number, the fact that a third "really makes you look flat," and that a 6th, unsurprisingly the one that screamed country-club mother of 3 to me, was "gorgeous. You just HAVE to get that one."

Thanks, lady.

Children, it's important to be honest. It's also important to bite your goddammed tongues once in a while. Err on the side of the latter.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-05-07T00:01:00.003-04:00

1.) Getting a haircut and still spotting hundreds of split ends right after.

2.) Being so anal retentive that you focus on how many split ends you have.

3.) When your pet would rather lie motionless and undisturbed on the hard ground than cuddle with you.

4.) Realizing that your pet is not the only living thing out there that feels this way about you.

5.) Realizing that, among the other living things that would rather lie motionless and undisturbed on the hard ground than cuddle with you, are 98% of adult human males.

6.) Allergies

7.) Cleaning up because family is in town, only to realize that they had no intention of stopping by your place during their stay.

8.) The smell of burning hair.

9.) Being in a situation where you've managed to burn your own hair in the first place.

10.) Realizing that, on the increasingly fewer nights in your life where you overindulge, your hangover payments will only get worse and worse.

LANGUAGES: People Who Yell at Their Animals as Though They Understand are Worse than Puberty

2010-05-06T15:42:00.000-04:00

Sitting in my living room on a lovely, springy day, I heard, wafting up from the street below, the sounds of a woman who was clearly not as calmed by the soothing breezes as myself.

"Oh my GOD. Come ON, for Christ's sake, let's get GOING already!"

Feel free to add the simmering anger and Boston accent yourself.

Wondering what could be going on, assuming the sort of parenting I have seen the 3 times I've been inside a Wal-Mart in the last 10 years, I looked out...

...to see the woman yelling at, and pulling the leash of, her small dog.

Lady, I have news for you: your dog a.) can't understand you, except that you're somehow mad at it for peeing and b.) is a dog, and will get distracted, as dogs do.

I understand the frustration. I've been there before, when one of my cats has knocked over something with real or sentimental value, or has pooped in the middle of the floor.

And I understand the expression of the frustration. You had places to be, and dammit, that dog was holding you up.

But it's a dog - if you need to yell at it, yelling in dialogue form adds nothing to its understanding. It does, however, distract the people around.

-Posted by Jilly

SCIENCE: Being Afraid of your Water is Worse than Puberty

2010-05-04T11:51:00.000-04:00

For those of you living under a rock, this past weekend Boston was thrown back to 1893 by a massive water-main burst.

Long story short, Boston proper and at least 20 of the surrounding suburbs, all served by water that flowed through the exploded main, were told to use only boiled water for drinking, handwashing, food-washing, dishwashing, and just about everything else.

For some reason, showering was A-okay, as long as you closed your eyes. Yeah - let's not question that.

So, morally opposed to buying 75 individual bottled waters, as all stores were out of gallon-jug varieties, I dutifully boiled.

And boiled.

And boiled.

And yet, even though I went long over the recommended 1-minute of bubbling required for safety, and even though I'm not a particularly paranoid person regarding food issues, I still felt unclean about the whole affair.

Chalk it up to bathing in what may be poo-infected streams.

This morning the city said we're good to go, so, against my natural(ist) impulses, I ran all the taps for 15 minutes straight, fully cleansing the foul, foul pipes.

Thank god I live in my time - if this was hard on me, imagine what chamber pots would have been like.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-04-30T09:18:00.000-04:00

1.) Trying to steal the internet connection from a Bolt bus that is riding along side you while you sit in your Fung Wah headed non-stop to Chinatown.

2.) The fact that the only thing to eat along any US roadway is McDonalds.

3.) When you run into someone you recognize but were never actually friends with and you have to force conversation.

4.) Running into someone while eating something kind of embarrassing that is probably all over your teeth.

5.) People who think they are successful on the grounds that they married someone rich.

6.) Knowing that, at least insofar as "happiness with your life," those people are right.

7.) Allergies

8.) Using your days off to catch up on your Netflix instant queue.

9.) Book deals for marginally funny internet phenomenons.

10.) Being more invested in "The Tudors" than your currently lame life.

SCIENCE: Heidi Montag's Face is Worse than Puberty

2010-04-29T09:29:00.000-04:00

Very few people are blessed with a combination of youth, wealth, attractiveness, with a good figure and the interest of millions in each of their little actions to boot. Horrifyingly enough, Heidi Montag is one of those people.

And look what she did with it.

I'd say the result is "Barbie" but only in its plastic appearance - while her face in complete repose may somewhat resemble the doll in question, what's more striking about the side-by-side comparison is that the pair in fact have equal facial mobility.

I understand the pressures of living under a microscope, or at least, as no one cares what I do, I understand that there would BE a lot of pressures to doing that.

But which one of them makes you need a triple-D cup? And exactly which pressure is giving "mini brow lifts" to 23 year olds?

At some point, long, long ago, I thought I was vaguely jealous of the Hills spawn - what, because these people are raised incredibly wealthy in families that can buy great internships, they deserve a show?

I learned my lesson. Unfortunately for her face, long before Heidi learned hers.

-Posted by Jilly

SCIENCE: Travel-Induced Indigestion is Worse than Puberty

2010-04-27T09:52:00.000-04:00

As the three of you who read this know, I was traveling to a wedding over the weekend, with flights at 6 AM going in both directions, just to add a further dash of misery.

That 6 AM is bad enough in itself, but it much further exacerbates another of the banes of air-travel: the most-of-vacation indigestion that almost inevitably seems to follow.

It takes different forms; some people, no doubt, spend part of their trip running to the bathroom over-frequently, the time in the air having left their guts frantic. Others, I'm told, may spend their entire vacation without that pressing need, a problem of mounting proportions. Still others may have a pepto-bismol commercial start-up in their interiors during and after flight; bloating, gas, cramps, and heartburn duking it out for the upper hand.

I'll pretend I have a shred of shame left and not share with you which of these camps I fall into.

Point being, at a time when, likely enough, you want to feel free and easy, be it for the business trip, vacation days, or stomach-pinching-strapless-dress-wearing wedding you're traveling to reach, your insides are, at least for the first day or so, in total revolt(ing).

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-04-23T00:01:00.010-04:00

1.) The way that the brothers and sisters of celebrities are always similar but unsettling versions of their famous sibling.

2.) People who work at TMZ and think their jobs have value.

3.) The amount that you spend a year on barely used cosmetics and beauty products.

4.) When your pet is bothering you non-stop and you can't understand why for hours and then you realize that its bowl of water has been dry all day.

5.) When your pet is bothering you non-stop and you can't understand why for hours and then you realize that it's because you locked it in a room by mistake.

6.) When your pet doesn't bother you, something you find out some days or weeks later when you pick up a strangely ammonia-scented pile of clothing.

7.) The acting on made for TV movies.

8.) Knowing a lot about said acting because you watch quite a few of sais made for TV movies.

9.) Self-tanner, and those who self-tan.

10.) Being called "racist" for poking fun at the self-tanned (see: Achieving John Boehner's Tan, specifically the comments)

EXTRACURRICULARS: Flying Super Early in the Morning is Worse than Puberty

2010-04-22T00:01:00.002-04:00

Flying is amongst the worst things you can do with your day.

No matter how long your flight, you can tack on at least two hours to that just to make sure you're allowed to board it, maybe three or even four if the airport on either end isn't particularly close to your starting or ending destination, meaning that, even on a short jaunt, you're wasting close to half your waking hours on the whole affair.

And what an affair - crappy seats, expensive food, the inability to bring your best hair products if, like me, you refuse to pay to check bags, butt-soreness - hardly a glamorous trip to the great beyond.

How much worse when in order to spend a day this way you have to wake up hours before dawn.

There's some benefit to this strategy - Friday, when I utilize it, I'll end up in Minnesota early enough to go out to lunch and dinner with my mom, squeeze in some shopping, and, if I feel up to it, maybe even work (though personally I'm of the mindset that travel days are, in essence, wasted days, dedicated only to surviving the ordeal of travel and then recuperating from the whole damned affair).

But I'll do so at the price of waking up around 3:30 AM, probably forgetting the only important item I'll need for my trip. And I don't sleep on planes.

Modern times are all well and good, but Friday morning, I can guarantee you I'll be nostalgic for, oh, 1802. Barouche-landaus may not have been all that much more comfortable, but you didn't take them very far very often, and they certainly can't have been that much worse.

-Posted by Jilly

SCIENCE: Being Too Lazy to Shower is Worse than Puberty

2010-04-20T13:36:00.003-04:00

We've all been there, or at least, I tell myself we've all been there so that I don't feel so personally disgusting when I say that there have been times, okay, many times, where I've just been too lazy to shower.

Sometimes, when I'm tired, and haven't just been to the gym, the motivation leaves me. Sometimes the world can deal with my hair being a little greasy. Sometimes, when I know things are actually bad, but my laziness STILL wins, the world can deal with me having washed just my bangs.

I liken this laziness to the "I really have to pee, but don't want to stand" and "teeth-brushing is hard this late at night" varieties.

Don't worry, I showered today. At least, looking at my bangs, you'd think so.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-04-16T00:01:00.002-04:00

1.) Seeing a nasty split-end in your hair but not being in a position to do anything about it because you don't have a scissor or because you are in public.

2) Noticing the start of wrinkles and loss of collagen at 25.

3) Spending a small fortune on anti-aging eye care which you already know has no noticeable effect.

4.) Not having had a hair cut in about 6 months because $60 every 6 weeks is too much of a commitment for you.

5.) Knowing that your hair doesn't react well to bangs but being talked in to getting them every 3 years to disastrous results.

6.) Static cling at inappropriate times.

7.) When old men suddenly switch from charming and sweet to creepy.

8.) Being asked what sort of beer you're drinking...at 10:47 AM...at work.

9.) Sorta wishing that your answer to that question wasn't "iced tea."

10.) The fact that Blossom clothes are apparently "trendy" once again.

SCIENCE: Having a Black Thumb is Worse than Puberty

2010-04-15T09:18:00.000-04:00

I'm a big fan of the local-eating movement - not only do you get a gold star for the environment (which is no small gain for a woman who has given up paper towels, a loss I feel deeply every time one of my cats pukes), but the food always just tastes better.

Which is why it pains me so deeply when I consistently kill my tomatoes and rosemary, run off to the store to buy and plant fresh basil just to watch it immediately wither and die, receive healthy plants from friends and somehow reflect on our relationship by sucking all life from them.

I try, I read the online literature, I water regularly, and then, if things go south, less regularly, in efforts to grow my own...

...and I always fail.

Local eating will still taste great when I pick it up from the store...but my bank account will be so much less tasty.

-Posted by Jilly

LUNCH PERIOD: Food Between Molars is Worse than Puberty

2010-04-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

Maybe it's because I don't cook much meat at home, maybe it's because the meat I DO cook, when I do it, is mostly made up of corrugated cardboard held together by salt, maybe it's because god likes to laugh at us - whatever the reason, whenever you go out to a nice restaurant, you seem to wind up with the stringy strand of something, the little bit of corn-shell, the unreachable gram of gristle between your molars.

Apple skin is also a real bitch for this one.

No matter how you realign your tongue, probing desperately towards the offending chink in your dental armor, dislocating your jaw in your efforts to find the right angle of approach, it doesn't budge.

Getting desperate, you might go in for a quick fingernail swipe. Nothing. Did you even go for the right tooth-crack?

And you're wanting to try again, but it seems so rude, and maybe toothpicks would be the answer, anyway, but really, since when has picking your teeth with a toothpick been in any way classier than doing so manually?

Inevitably you have to do one of two things to end your suffering: wait until you have access to floss or just go for it, unrelentingly, until you manage to extract the offending particle.

You know I never manage the self-control required by the first.

I suppose "waiting patiently for things to run their course" COULD be considered a third option...but if that's right, man, do I want to be wrong.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-04-09T00:01:00.010-04:00

1.) Dressing in light clothing for what you have been led to believe will be a warm and sunny day only to spend the entire day really cold and avoiding shade.

2.) Dressing in heavy clothing for what you have been led to believe will be a cold day only to spend the entire day sweating and carrying around a winter coat like a jackass whose never heard of weather.com.

3.) Timed lunch hours.

4.) Friends who have high paying jobs where they can take full afternoon lunches and nobody cares while you get your pay docked for every minute of lateness.

5.) Umbrellas that are not broken enough to completely throw away but are just broken and misshapen enough to embarrass you as you use it.

6.) Actually bothering to fix a broken umbrella.

7.) Missing a show that got canceled more than the friends you don't see much.

8.) Canceling a date with those friends just to make sure you catch that show.

9.) The smell of rotten dairy.

10.) Gladiator sandals.

SCIENCE: Doctor's Appointments are Worse than Puberty

2010-04-08T09:10:00.000-04:00

In just a few minutes, I'll be zipping away on my bike in order to visit the doctor.

You might as well replace that last bit with "personal hell."

Now I'm not someone who refuses to go get a checkup, who thinks that walking it off and a piece of gum to hold it together are all a body needs, who assumes that the infected-looking sore on the leg will just "take care of itself."

In fact, today's visit is just a routine checkup.

I am, however, the type of person who has indigestion and assumes it's stomach cancer. I also assume all the cancers I assume are somehow my fault. My midwestern guilt and persecution complexes get full airing, pretty much.

Ugh, just thinking about how soon I'll be sitting in an uncomfortable, ugly-upholstered chair, filling out details of my life habits and hoping the doctor can't somehow divine that my "5 vegetable servings a day" line is crap, makes my stomach hurt.

But that would just be the cancer acting up...

-Posted by Jilly

EXTRACURRICULARS: Being the Exception to the "It's Like Riding a Bike" Rule is Worse than Puberty

2010-04-06T15:56:00.000-04:00

Last Friday I unexpectedly had an afternoon to myself. And not just any afternoon - a stunning, sunny, perfectly temperate afternoon.

I decided to bite the bullet I'd been gumming for the last month or so and go buy a bike.

I already owned a bike, it just happened to be all style...which weighs approximately 50 pounds more than all function. I rode it the last couple of summers, and it's charming to look at, but it was so heavy that I realized I was finding reasons to convince myself onto the bus in order to avoid the sweating panting mess riding this behemoth of a bike turns me into.

This is all simply to note that it's not like I haven't ridden a bike since I was 10 years old.

And yet, as the bike-shop man tried to find a bike that would work for me, you wouldn't have known it. Each new model would be wheeled out for my testing slash approval, and each time I would make an effort to give it a spin around the carpeted showroom...

...well, let's just say that I didn't flip over any handlebars or anything, but "making an effort" is as close as I came to actually RIDING any of these bikes.

I finally just bought the least expensive model in order to stop the hipster-witnessed shame of my biking inferiority.

But I like it, really I do. Lord knows I'm not going to be making any comparisons anytime soon.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-04-02T00:01:00.003-04:00

1.) Finding out through In Touch magazine that your husband collects Nazi memorabilia and myspace skanks.

2.) Having a husband that collects Nazi memorabilia and myspace skanks.

3.) Myspace skanks.

4.) Myspace.

5.) People who mistakenly think facebook is still a step-up from Myspace.

6.) Having a beautiful day unexpectedly to yourself, then realizing you don't know what to do with it.

7.) Knowing that, even if you ever make real money, you'll still care about the cost per unit comparisons at the grocery store.

8.) Even knowing what the cost per unit comparisons at the grocery store are.

9.) Spending hours making a toy for your pet only to realize said pet won't touch it.

10.) Having spent hours making a pet toy at all.

EXTRACURRICULARS: Girls who Compete on Everything are Worse than Puberty

2010-04-01T10:01:00.000-04:00

Last night I went to a show and ran into a former friend. This is a girl who's very nice, but tries very, very, VERY hard. We exchanged our single polite nothing, and I assumed that our interaction was over, at least until the next time I show up at something "hip" enough for her idea of what counts as cool.

What I didn't know, though, was that this FormerFriend was at the show with NewGirl, which girl recently started dating a friend of mine.

NG seemed very nice - sweet and easy to talk to, and all the other things you want NGs to be for friends of yours - but FF was hanging around the pair, trying to show how funny and crazy she was and generally having to somehow "prove" something about who knows WHO here.

To the extent that, late in the evening, when my friend was near the stage, next to me, and had to draw my ear down so that I could hear whatever he was shouting, FF felt the need to grab his shoulders, shout at him, and pull him away.

This isn't a friend competition, FF. I couldn't care less if you know him, too.

But the girl that's competing on everything doesn't see this.

Another tidbit: a friend of my mother's recently told me about her first visit with her now daughter-in-law. Said D-I-L was staying at mom's for some holiday and, every time mom and son started to look like they might be sharing a quality moment, swooped in and verbally dragged son away.

This is offered simply to show that to the true I-need-you-to-know-I'm-better/cooler/more-loved female, no one is off limits in the battle to establish her own supremacy to herself.

Girls, this is one of the BLESSINGS of old(er) age - it's not always a barely-concealed turf match.

At least, it's not for me...

-Posted by Jilly

EXTRACURRICULARS: Good Intentions are Worse than Puberty

2010-03-30T09:47:00.000-04:00

Today I have to go into work three hours early because, in a fit of good will some six weeks ago, I said "sure, why not!" to extending my shift this way, incidentally in order to facilitate my boss's trip to Mexico.

Tomorrow, a day I usually have off, I'll be working an extra-long shift at another of my jobs. Why? Because when I'm asked face-to-face, I have a hard time simply providing "because I'd rather not" as an excuse.

I sign myself on for misery with the best of intentions - I'm gonna help out! It's no big deal - and when the bill comes due, I realize that I'm small and petty and lazy and generally feeling ungenerous.

Of course if either boss got me on the phone and asked if it was okay, I would insist that it was, which leads me to believe my problem may not be the good intentions, but the inability to admit the bad ones...

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-03-26T00:01:00.007-04:00

1.) Not understand the logistics of social networking software so you end up friending someone you actually wanted to block.

2.) Having people in your life that create so much drama that blocking is a legitimate tool.

3.) When you block someone because it is just too emotionally taxing to have them around in your life but then finding out the other person never even realized they were blocked because you don't mean enough to them for them to stalk you.

4.) Social networking in general.

5.) The fact that a terrible Justin Timberlakey movie is being made about the heinous troll-like beginnings of facebook.

6.) Having "your thing" suddenly become trendy, making you look like a trend-ho.

7.) The sort of cleaning that takes you an hour and a half to do, but which no one notices (i'm looking at you, freshly-dusted slat blinds).

8.) Wet socks.

9.) Bloating

10.) Trying to tell yourself it's just bloating, even though you know it's 5 pounds.

EXTRACURRICULARS: Missing the 2 Weeks of Decent Weather for "Adulthood" is Worse than Puberty

2010-03-25T09:50:00.003-04:00

When I was a kid, my favorite season was, logically enough, summer. No school, my birthday, even laxer rules about bathing - what's not to love?

But as I grew up into the awareness that sweating constantly is my least favorite thing in the world, that love shifted to the in-betweasons. I.e. early spring and just-crisp-outside-autumn, the two times of the year where you can wear a kick-ass outfit, topped with a jacket that DOESN'T gain 20 pounds for you, and still be comfortable.

So it seems a cruel, cruel joke to have my days off fall on the days, this sorta-spring at least, that are winter-throwbacks. It seems much, much crueler yet that my days "on" have always been the sunny, cloudless perfection that tricks those of us living in Boston into staying for another year.

It's bad enough to miss the 2 seconds of indisputable loveliness Boston has to offer, but to miss it for WORK? Salt, meet wound.

This is why grown-ups are always so grumpy. This and the slow protestation of their digestive tract against any and all tasty food.

-Posted by Jilly

ENGLISH: Faux Celebrities Writing "Tell-All" Memoirs is Worse than Puberty

2010-03-23T09:51:00.000-04:00

I read somewhere recently that the Ho-han is working up a memoir - perhaps because she can no longer seem to get work elsewhere. This irks, but Lindsay has actually done something to get to the top from which she fell to rock bottom. If her entire film legacy is just The Parent Trap and Mean Girls, I feel as though the world is a net winner for her having graced Hollywood's screens.

But while I find it a little sad, slightly irritating, Lindsay's is not the memoir I take issue with. No, my problem is when people like Nicole Richie, or Paris Hilton, or someone who appeared on a reality show for one season ages ago, and whose only talent was eating more bugs than the next guy, write memoirs.

I'll admit it - the driving factor is jealousy. These people haven't done anything, haven't worked for anything, and yet they're just handed a book deal, to be written "with the help of" someone who can actually write? I'd shave my head and walk naked through the streets beating a bongo for a book deal, but unfortunately I haven't managed to achieve the world-altering pinnacle of being "the bitchy one" on The Real World.

Sigh. Dignity is a real bitch sometimes.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-03-19T09:30:00.000-04:00

1.) The fact that all my favorite shows are on Bravo (as opposed to PBS or the history channel).

2.) When your must-watch show for the week is "Millionaire Matchmaker."

3.) Seriously considering signing up as part of the "Millionaire Matchmaker" dating pool (on the poor side though, not as one of the millionaires).

4.) Having to pretend that you have actual professional goals in your life during job interviews or application essays.

5.) When the only professional goal you can come up with in life is "to be Oprah-rich."

6.) Poppy seeds between your teeth - why even sprinkle them on things? They're minefields!

7.) Books with the movie-still cover.

8.) How amazing Alec Baldwin is.

9.) Tastes that teeth-brushing can't eradicate.

10.) Knowing that, because you write incredibly black humor, your friends and family are often more uncomfortable than proud to see your bylines.

HOME EC/SHOP: The Threat of Identity Theft is Worse than Puberty

2010-03-18T10:05:00.000-04:00

I write many, many places. The majority of these are next-to-no-name, either small operations, or so crowded with other writers that my pieces are bound to get a bit buried from time to time, but either way, I have logins galore, passwords aplenty, all of them needing to be accessed from various computers all over town.

Okay, nix that last part - I don't have access to multiple computers. This isn't "Hackers."

Point being, while I am not an "I have just one easy-to-guess" passworder, there is some necessary overlap between some of my minor accounts. I was an English major - I only remember "mood."

So last night, when I received an e-mail from one of these multiple websites, saying that a request had been made to switch the e-mail aligned with the account from mine to "jilligogon@yahoo" - gogon? Come on - I promptly acted on their suggestion that I login to cancel this request.

Except since the business in question sent their confirmation e-mail TO THE REQUESTING ADDRESS, I was already blocked from my account.

Enter: Paranoia.

After a frenzy of coming up with passwords based on what house the moon is in and the square root of Pi and various other things that hopefully weren't too "personal," I settled down somewhat...but I'm still locked out.

Amongst the e-mails this company CAN'T manage to send are ones addressing this problem. How wonderfully ironic.

-Posted by Jilligogon

SCIENCE: Vacation Weather Switches Right When You Leave are Worse than Puberty

2010-03-16T10:37:00.000-04:00

This morning, I'm writing from a sunny New York City. The skies are blue, it's pleasant out, heck, even the constant honks of unamused vehicles sound cheery from my twelfth-floor perch.

But maybe I'm just not paying good attention to said honks' real feelings, seeing as I'm busy packing.

Now it was rainy and crap in Boston when I left it Sunday, and I suppose it's not all that surprising that a few hours south along the coast it was still rainy and crap. And I came on this little 2-day jaunt specifically for a museum exhibition, something essentially unaffected by weather. Hell, I might have benefited from the rain there; the museum was already massively crowded, which I can only assume would have been worse if the wait time in the line outside hadn't been such a dampened affair (though it may also have been better, as a museum's appeal rises exponentially on a rainy day...).

The point is that, no matter why I came on my vacation, no matter my expectations of what I would do/see/accomplish, bad weather is always a downer.

Which is why it always seems to clear off just on time for you to head to the bus home...

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-03-12T00:01:00.002-05:00

1.) Being featured on this website.

2.) Getting really psyched to be sick because it puts you one step closer to that goal weight!

3.) Having ugly pets and knowing that pets always look like their owners.

4.) People with horrible hair who don't know it.

5.) Having horrible hair, knowing it, but choosing not to do anything about it because that's the least of your physical flaws at this point.

6.) Getting little seeds - like blueberry seeds - caught deep between your molars

7.) Trust fund kids.

8.) Not being a trust fund kid.

9.) Being duped at the remainders table, but feeling compelled to read your purchase, anyway.

10.) How much faster time goes as you get older

EXTRACURRICULARS: Oversleeping your Alarm is Worse than Puberty

2010-03-11T10:34:00.000-05:00

Most of us have dreams of one sort or another that recur regularly. One of these to which I'm subject, and which is apparently fairly common, is the "didn't see it coming dream."

You're in high school, walk into a classroom - possibly one led by a former favorite teacher - and realize there's a test that day. Only you haven't been going to the class the whole year. You're not even sure what chemistry is. Dear god, you are so, totally, completely, utterly f**ked.

I mention this dream not because it is the same as my gripe of the day, oversleeping your alarm, but because that split-second, when you roll over and the numbers on the clock are glaring an hour that tell you that you should have already been in and out of a meeting, let alone out of bed, in that moment, the sinking, terrified, oh-dear-god-I-can't-fix-this feeling is exactly the same.

Unless this happens to you every morning, or unless it happens on the one morning that you were poised to bring your company public, or meet with the first art dealer who has been interested in your work, or be inaugurated, you're probably safe after an oversleep - tail between your legs, but unharmed.

But that split-second feeling...well, suffice it to say that if you walk away from your oversleep unscathed, you've certainly earned it.

-Posted by Jilly

SCIENCE: Mini-Previews of What it Will be Like to be Old are Worse than Puberty

2010-03-09T00:01:00.004-05:00

No one loves being sick, especially no type-A person who views calling in sick to work, despite a.) inability to walk more than 25 feet without needing a rest and b.) the fact that the job is with children, making illness on the job akin to deliberate cruelty, a major moral failure, worthy of all-day guilt.

That said, though, you do get to totally indulge yourself for at least a day, whining with abandon, begging weakly, theatrically, even, for water, kleenex, the channel to be changed, totally ignoring the things that you could easily be doing because, dammit, you don't feel good.

Being (mildly) sick isn't a picnic, but, barring projectile vomiting round the clock, it's not unmitigated evil, either.

The preview illness gives you of daily life in another few decades, though? That's terrifying.

Trying to turn on the shower and being unable to manage it because your fingers ache? Cruel.

Shuffling around and tripping over nothing, with no apparent cause, because you just can't hold up? Scary, especially when you factor in that one day, your hips won't be so...bouncy.

Craving only tea and things that won't hurt your jaw with unnecessary chewing? Defeating the purpose of life.

On the plus side, we could all be hit by a bus tomorrow.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-03-05T00:01:00.005-05:00

1.) Moldy fruit that you still feel like eating because it was expensive and that's good money going to waste.

2.) That iffy dairy stage when you don't know if it's edible but it's not quite expired yet so you let it sit around until it's DEFINITELY expired so you feel justified in getting rid of it.

3.) Hearing Lady Gaga songs on constant loop on the radio. I like her a lot but dang! Sometimes you need a break.

4.) The cliche-ness of all romance novels.

5.) Being in a room full of gorgeous guys with great senses of humor and amazing bodies.... because you are standing inside a gay bar.

6.) Realizing you'd rather stay in the gay bar than face the ordeal of finding men who might be sexually interested in you.

7.) Being terrified of an audit...even though you made poverty-level money.

8.) When your laundry comes out of the washing machine SOAKING.

9.) Wet socks.

10.) Being simultaneously tired and over-caffeinated.

BAND: Music Piracy is Worse than Puberty

2010-03-04T11:49:00.002-05:00

I know I'm not going to change any minds with this one, but stealing music, or ebooks, or any other information that you think "should be free," is just repulsive.

You believe that art should be accessible to everyone?

I have news for you: the patronage system went out of fashion some time ago, and without it, artists need to be able to make money from their products in order to keep MAKING products. I'm sure desk job Joe would love to believe that artists just can't help BUT create, that they make things out of the goodness of their hearts and the burning fire of their passion, but fire needs fuel, and utilities, unfortunately, aren't as easily found for free.

"But musicians can just tour to make money," you say, "and since I hear their music, I'm more likely to go to their shows."

Fair enough, but an average working musician's take from a concert is NOT high - the club has a minimum that has to be met, and driving cross country, even if you sleep in the van, costs. Not to mention that the product you're taking is not created by just a musician - there's a studio behind it, employing engineers, and technicians, and any number of other people, all of whom also have bills to pay and, given that they work hard to produce a product people want, deserve to be able to do so. Besides, I defy you to tell me that you've been to shows for every artist you've stolen songs from. Bullsh*t.

As for book stealing, I don't think there's a comparable argument to shoot down - last I heard book tours by authors who AREN'T Dan Brown don't cost any money to attend (or cost a nominal amount), and the only product the author has (and the agent, and editor, and publishing house behind him or her have) IS the book.

"But I'm sticking it to record companies. They're evil, and their practices are, like, ripoffs and inflationary and stuff."

This may have been true in 1987, when record companies still had power, but I have news for you: major labels are dissolving fast (due in no small part to rampant piracy). More importantly, though, your average artist who is having his or her songs stolen is on a small label that's barely got the money to pay for the creation of records, or possibly s/he is without label support, and finding ways to raise money for the record WITHOUT BACKING. Which means you're essentially stealing from someone's pocket.

Try as much as you like, you have no moral high ground here. Would you go up to someone who grows organic vegetables, or hand-knits artistic accessories, or paints murals, and just take what they spent hours and years working on without leaving a single cent?

Then why steal art?

-Posted by Jilly

LUNCH PERIOD: Miso-induced Nausea is Worse than Puberty

2010-03-02T19:15:00.002-05:00

When you're ill, there are a handful of foods that, despite your body's attempts to reject nearly everything you put into it, are still able to slip past the gatekeepers located around the epiglottis. These include, but are not necessarily limited to, 7UP, saltine crackers, and broth.

Miso soup is, essentially, broth (imagine using a soy-bouillon cube instead of chicken, and you'd have it). Not only should it not induce nausea, it should cure it from what I can tell. In its complete lack of substance, it is the equivalent of a soft fuzzy blanket for your digestive system.

So a bowl of miso resulting in not just nausea, but prolonged, mouth-watering-in-vomit-anticipation, movement hurts, but so does sitting, so God, what option do you even HAVE nausea?

Well, at the very least it seems unfair. At best, half-a-round with Gwyneth Paltrow's detox diet will now have lasting effects, sort of like an acid-flashback, every time I eat one of the "foods" I was allowed while on it

Wait a second. That sounds pretty "at worst" to me...

-Posted by Jilly.

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-02-26T00:01:00.002-05:00

1.) Anything that involves "kid geniuses."

2.) When really good, well-written, thought provoking books just don't hold your interest anymore so you go back to reading the Twilight series.

3.) When the most exciting part of your day is tracking the shipping status of your latest online shoe order.

4.) Ordering clothes and shoes online when you live in NYC with every store imaginable just a subway ride away because you can't be bothered to get up, shower and make it outside.

5.) People who dress really skanky and have huge fake boobs but still talk about what conservative, heavenly Christians they are (Alexis from Real Housewives of Orange County, anyone??).

6.) Having a "type" that pretty much equates to "gay men."

7.) When it's raining sideways...

8.) ...and you actually HAVE to be somewhere

9.) Girls who wear bras that are too small for them, creating quad-boob.

10.) Knowing that quad-boob will get them more guys.

EXTRACURRICULARS: In-Crowds are Worse than Puberty

2010-02-25T10:05:00.004-05:00

As a pubescent individual, I was, and I assume most others were/are, aware that barring acne, horrible fashion decisions, general physical awkwardness and Steve Julius' unobtainable perfection, in-crowds were the worst thing puberty had to offer.

They were impenetrable, seemingly generated out of the beige walls of the middle school itself, fully formed before you even realized you were on the outside of one.

Trying to break in was a certain path to continued loserdom, coupled with disdain, trying to form your own crowd was only satisfying if you could blind yourself to the fact that the REAL in-crowd was laughing at you, and rating you distinctly "second-tier," and pretending you didn't care at all, or actually being completely oblivious...well, ignorance may be bliss, but socially, you may as well have been a horseshoe crab.

The thought most of us (i.e. those of us not "in" the in-crowd) consoled ourselves with was that this, too, would pass. In the words of my mother, "those kids hit their peak in high school - do you really want to look back and have peaked in high school?"

No, I don't!

But what mom didn't tell me was that, while those kids may hit the apex of their actual power in high school, while that may be the time when snottiness and a face that, at the selection committee held in 4th grade, showed promise, actually has any real-world value, THEY don't think that high school is the end of their social lording.

In fact, they recreate the "in-crowd" up until the day we all die.

The benefit of adulthood is that not being part of some self-proclaimed "cool kids" circle actually stops mattering to you. But having to encounter people who believe this thing still exists, and, however briefly, finding yourself playing on their terms?

Well there's a reason that they always try to convince you all the worst parts of puberty will PASS.

-Posted by Jilly

ENGLISH: Getting Rejected at Warp Speed is Worse than Puberty

2010-02-23T12:33:00.003-05:00

As a struggling writer, I've had my fair share of rejections. In fact, I've had what I like to believe is significantly MORE than a fair share, but what, in actuality, is likely not anywhere near whatever the cosmos have deemed "fair" for me yet.

Point is, I'm not tying all my hopes to any one piece, or publication, any more.

Moreover, I applaud the use of (by which I mean use-with-followup) online forms. I don't even use paper towels anymore, so the amount of trees that have died just to make sure someone read my pieces weighs on my conscience, and the cost of stamps weighs on my finances. A rough estimate would show somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of my writerly write-offs last year as stamps, many of them on self-addressed envelopes that have never flown home.

And of course I value expediency if I intend to send this same piece to some other possible home.

But all that said, "hearing back" from a publication you have propositioned in an hour or less with the same form e-mail you've received every other time? Kind of offensive. Tell me that you already have a piece similar to this from another author, or that some other piece of mine is under consideration, and better, or that for reasons x, y, and z, this just sucked - anything but "despite the evident merit of this piece, it is not a good fit for us."

With turnaround like that, a girl's liable to suspect you of being a bit disingenuous, sirs.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-02-19T00:01:00.005-05:00

1.) Friends who contact you to make plans so you plan your day around seeing them and then mysteriously disappear when you were actually supposed to meet up.

2.) Friends who make every conversation about them.

3.) When your message waiting indicator beeps on your cell phone and you get all excited about your message only to see that it's a confirmation that your most recent bill has been paid.

4.) When you're waiting from a really important call about a job or something and you see that you have a call or a message and you get all excited only to realize it's definitely not who you were hoping it would be.

5.) Not knowing basic rules of English grammar even though you were an English major.

6.) Tragically bad haircuts on people who could have otherwise be totally cute.

7.) The decline of Luke Perry's career - there's still a job for you in my heart, Luke!

8.) Knowing that, in a hostage situation or horror movie, you'd be the first to go.

9.) Ominous didgeridoo music.

10.) Ugly child actors - seriously, there are any number of parents willing to prostitute their cute children, why EVER cast the ugly ones?

LANGUAGES: Being Totally Paralyzed in the Face of Twitter is Worse than Puberty

2010-02-18T10:16:00.000-05:00

I say it slightly shamefacedly, but yes, I "tweet."

For some people this is just a new format to broadcast the snippets of wit they're so adept at spinning, Wilde-esque, from the world around them. For others it's a platform for a view or belief system, like "what would tiny buddha say?" For many, many more it's a way to tell you what sort of sandwich they ate today and whether or not they're tired.

For me, it is an agony of indecision and overanalysis.

Is that funny, or just forced? If I put this observation about Hilary Swank's teeth up, will I be too offensive? Why did I lose 2 followers yesterday (mind, I don't even have 100, so this is a serious percentage drop)? And what about swears, and the word "penis," and other things that Michael Ian Black make seem so easy, but which I have a sneaking suspicion won't really fly for me? WHAT OF THOSE???

I think I'm missing the point entirely. Should I tweet that?

-Posted by Jilly

SCIENCE: Those Mucus Commercials are Worse than Puberty

2010-02-16T00:01:00.001-05:00

You all know the ones I'm talking about - where that nasty, beater-wearing ball of lung-snot walks around, talking like a jerk, having his nasty snot relatives over for dance parties and family reunions and general being-snot affairs.

Is it necessary for commercials to absolutely disgust me in order to sell their product? I get that there's a product to be sold here, that it might have a less-than-savory, but perfectly functional, even desirable goal, but isn't there a feeling-good-and-playing-sports-with-the-kids route they could have taken? An "I'm too tired to be effective at work, until I clear out that lung-blocking mucus" version that showed run-down adults, not sambaing snot? An...ything else?

I feel the same way about those toe-fungus-critter commercials which, thankfully, I haven't seen in a while.

I'm not sure I have a positive solution, but I can say this: I will suffer any indignity, fungus, mucus, or as-yet-unknown-nasty-spokescritter-related, in order to avoid your products.

Now that's effective product-recognition for you.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-02-12T00:01:00.002-05:00

1.) The fact that, despite never having bought a ticket, I have yet to win the lottery.

2.) Realizing that your wish list of things you want could be totally achievable with maybe $4000 but you are still not able to get anything on it because, despite being employed, you are still penniless.

3.) When your wish list of things you want includes mostly drastic/surgical methods to improve your looks.

4.) When all your friends are not penniless and can spend money on awesome things that you can't afford.

5.) Complaining about how penniless you are every week on your blog.

6.) Being told you're a cynic by a guy in a heavy metal band

7.) Times when you really have to pee, but you're too comfortable, or tired, or just lazy to move

8.) Sarah Jessica Parker movies of the last 5 years

9.) Having Alec Baldwin, current version, on your list, though you're 25, because he's SO awesome.

10.) Dropping your scarf/hat/gloves on the floor at a bar because, it being winter, you have just too much sh*t to keep track of.

EXTRACURRICULAS: Hangovers are Worse than Puberty

2010-02-11T15:57:00.005-05:00

We've all woken up at some point or other in our lives with a layer of thick wall-to-wall-to-ceiling carpeting lining our mouths, heads pounding, with a nagging sense that some sharply-clawed living thing managed to crawl down our esophagi while we slept and decided to set up a running-heavy fitness regimen in our innards.

Unless we were particularly precocious, though, this was not a sensation we felt during our pubescent years. In fact, I read somewhere (i'm too sluggish to look up the source) that even if you were downing too much from the dustiest bottles at the back of your parents' liquor cabinets while you were still in braces, you likely didn't feel the awful, miserable, cruel effects of your behavior.

Essentially, your body doesn't know how poisonous alcohol is the first time it attacks, so you sail on past the hangover without a second glance...until the second, third, or what-have-you time you furtively sneak the water-bottle full of vodka out with you "to a sleepover," at which point you've probably decided the fun is worth the possibility of pain.

But as we age - and I am not lamenting my self-ascribed decrepitude while secretly being aware of my actual youth, here, since "as we age" began before I was halfway through college - the hangovers become fiercer, their claws longer after years without a trim, their teeth whittled to a point during the larger and larger intervals between the last time you distinctly OVERindulged and this.

I'd find a moral, but I'm too busy trying not to scream out in pain to bother.

-Posted by Jilly

DETENTION: Finally Understanding Sarah Palin's Position is Worse than Puberty

2010-02-09T13:21:00.001-05:00

Through the 2008 presidential campaign, any number of semi-meaningless questions were raised. How well did you know this guy who maybe used to do some unsavory stuff? How pregnant is that daughter? Is that botox paralysis, or is Cindy McCain's face just actually like that?

These were just the tip of the 24-hour news cycle iceberg.

But one question has stuck with me ever since August of that year, refusing to go away, even though, as with the massive zit I got the day before the 7th-grade mixer that Steve Julius was totally going to attend, all my prayers and Clearasil have been directed at making it disappear.

That question is: how in God's name did someone as evidently dense as Sarah Palin get to be governor of an entire state? Forget this campaign, how did manage to pass high school based on a wink, great tits, and a snarky inflection when she doesn't know what's under discussion?

Now we know: cheating. And not just any cheating - utterly unsophisticated, cliche, I-actually-write-my-answers-on-my-hands cheating.

I have to believe that it was just such a poorly-conceived plan that people didn't really believe she'd try to get away with it, and thus never noticed her palmed answers before now.

Even her craftiness is utterly lacking in intelligence, creativity, or thought.

If I didn't find her morally reprehensible and emblematic of everything terrible in America today, I'd say you almost have to love her for it.

Almost.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-02-05T00:01:00.016-05:00

1.) Going on a diet and realizing that the only thing you can eat now is raw carrots and almonds.

2.) Having the intention of going on a strict healthy diet but instead breaking down after a couple of hours and eating a whole bunch of crap because you have no self-control.

3.) Weighing yourself after you've been going to the gym and realizing that, not only have you not really lost any weight, but you actually might be gaining some.

4.) Small women who date guys that are twice their size. Daddy issues anyone?

5.) Waiting forever to read popular books because you are too cheap to buy copies and you are instead checking them out from the library.

6.) People on the subway who smell funny. And sit next to you.

7.) Bloating.

8.) Seeing the perfect haircut, getting it, and realizing you just spent your weekly salary to look like you sat on the wrong side of a bowl. Stupid wrong-shaped face.

9.) The show "Hoarders."

10.) Secretly wishing you could GO on Hoarders, or a show like it, so that someone would totally makeover your house for free.

P.E.: Heidi Klum's Beauty Even through Pregnancy is Worse than Puberty

2010-02-04T00:01:00.000-05:00

There are plenty of women out there who are normally stunning. 2/3 of young Hollywood, for example.

But the one time that I can win, mentally, at least - because let's be honest, even that 1/3 at the bottom of the barrel are in a WAY better barrel than I'm ever even going to visit - is when the starlets are pregnant. Even a personal stylist, trainer, and chef can't make daily vomiting, swollen ankles, and a diet consisting of peanut-buttered-pickles look good.

I even had my moments of feeling superior to Catherine Zeta-Jones thanks to pregnancy.

But Heidi Klum? If I was up against her, she'd still be anyone's choice, no need for fetishistic interests, at month 8. She walks out on the runway in a skintight dress with a bulge that goes 3 ft deep and she still screams sex appeal. She probably makes morning sickness look good.

I've always known I was born under a lucky star, even given my current situation, but ladies like her...they must poop rabbits feet.

-Posted by Jilly

EXTRACURRICULARS: Nip/Tuck is Worse than Puberty

2010-02-02T00:00:00.001-05:00

There is bad TV all OVER the place - I'm looking at you, A&E; since when is a show dedicated to "Hoarders" an art, or even a form of entertainment? But I must say that Nip/Tuck is the worst of all.

Why?

Because I actually watch it.

This is a show that managed to move to incestual, secretly trans-sexual relationships within its second season, which has flipped every character's sexual orientation at will, made a mime-murderer out of the once-Nazi son, and shot or killed...I think almost every person on the show.

Karla and I lost our Nip/Tuck virginity together our senior year in college, with a set of Netflix dvds she rented mostly as a joke. We were predicting every twist and turn. Not just the "oh god, now they're probably going to have animal sex" moments, but literally the lines - almost word for word - leading up to every bad cliche.

And yet, I watch. I Tivo it, even. I sit through the wooden acting, the ridiculous plotlines, the subpar dialogue...and I like it.

I'm watching an episode right now and just heard the line "you have to choose. The monkey, or me." And they were literally referring to a monkey.

But I have no one to blame but myself...

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are These Things Worse than Puberty?

2010-01-29T00:01:00.008-05:00

1.) Having to be careful of what websites you visit because you're at work.

2.) Making eye contact repeatedly with an ugly guy on the subway.

3.) Those last 5 minutes at the end of the day where you aren't doing anything productive but you have to stick around so your boss doesn't see you running out of the office.

4.) The fact that Macaulay Culkin is almost 30.

5.) John Edwards the politician.

6.) John Edwards the man.

7.) How damned hot James Franco is.

8.) Being incapable of enjoying "relaxing" time because you feel like you OUGHT to be doing something worthwhile.

9.) Commercials that target women with stereotypes that should have gone out of ad-man style 50 years ago.

10.) The coffee shakes

ENGLISH: The Death of JD Salinger is Worse than Puberty

2010-01-28T15:13:00.000-05:00

There are certain things that, as a matter of course, every pubescent individual MUST do. Wear hideous clothes due to too-close attention to trends and a budget - and taste level - that induces you to shop at Claire's boutiques, for example. Or buy a Tiger Beat magazine to obsess over heartthrobs that will later come out of the closet. Or form a family-singing group because you actually think that is somehow cool, and that you're gonna "make it" as a modern day Partridge family, except singing Amy Grant covers (okay, maybe that last one was just me).

Amongst the most indisputable rites of pubescent passage, though, is the reading of, and total identification with, The Catcher in the Rye. As it turned out, I was something of a misfit, an outsider. But I have no doubt that half the cheerleading squad, the girl who was THE hottie up through grade 9 since she got boobs way earlier than anyone else, and even Steve Julius himself picked up that book, read it, and said "I feel exactly the same way."

Teen angst is a universal, and no book taps into it more adroitly. And yet it transcends that much-belabored topic. I've read hundreds of books about outsiders, but I'm still looking for my Holden Caufield today - to save, to marry, to be way cooler than everyone else with; who knows which.

Perhaps all the attention for creating the archetypal misunderstood loner caused Salinger to conflate himself with his character; the only thing he was as well known for as Catcher was his extreme reclusiveness (though if you haven't already, pick up Nine Stories - he wasn't a one-trick pony). He's one of those people that periodically you might have to check online to see if he had, in fact, died since last you looked - he was deliberately so far outside the spotlight that in many ways he was already half-a-shade well before today.

Nonetheless, it's sad to think that he's really gone. Even as a 20-something who has long been mostly over the whole "I'm so misunderstood" phase of her career, it was heartening to think that Salinger was out there somewhere; as long as he was, there was a good chance that someone, somewhere, really "got" me.

They don't make literary giants like they used to. Rest in peace, JD Salinger.

-Posted by Jilly

EXTRACURRICULARS: Passive-Aggressive Bosses are Worse than Puberty

2010-01-26T10:22:00.000-05:00

The boss-employee relationship is already a difficult one. If you want to keep your job, you're already prohibited from any truly honest discourse with the head honcho, even if said honcho "really wants you to just be open with me so we all have a better environment." Like with friends and their love interests, the declared desire for honesty and the inevitable reaction any true honesty will bring are as far apart as can be.

But the passive-aggressive boss move makes things infinitely worse.

I'm already annoyed that I can't tell you off when YOU show up late, or leave way too many things on my plate, so that if I don't plow through at least half I look lazy, but half requires constant harried work, something I don't feel a part-time job at ridiculously-low an hour should demand of me, or block the internet so that half the time I can't do the things you ask of me with anything like effectiveness, and the other half I can't check an e-mail even though I haven't had anything particular to do for the last few hours.

But arriving and giving the "oh, you chose to do this? Because that means I don't get to finish the thing I had intended" speech, in a 'non-accusing' but obviously annoyed tone, or leaving a note that "next time, I really prefer you do the whole thing while walking on your hands" even though you didn't make that at all clear beforehand, or saying one day that I should do whatever I think is best and the next, when I've done that, second-guessing me and delivering the equivalent of an "i'm disappointed" speech with a little purse-lipped smile and a heaping helping of condescension -- doing any and all of those are enough to make a girl try sabotage.

Which you may not discover for a while, or ever, as your saboteur is just as P-A as you are...

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-01-22T00:01:00.007-05:00

1.) Knowing more about Heidi Montag's plastic surgery procedures than current events in the rest of the world.

2.) When you make your homepage something really responsible and smart like nytimes.com but realizing that every time you load a new window, you immediately switch to some other mindless site rendering your homepage useless.

3.) When your stomach growls and another person can totally hear it.

4.) When the most exciting decision you'll make in a certain day is what to have for lunch.

5.) Realizing that your metabolism is starting to slow down already from age while you're still in your 20s.

6.) Morning "news" show stories

7.) The fact that many people really believe the things are informative

8.) Avatar-induced depression

9.) When it's just warm enough so that precipitation isn't snow - 34-36 degrees - but the air, and the rain soaking into your skin, feels incredibly cold.

10.) Wet dog smell.

SCIENCE: Webmd is Worse than Puberty

2010-01-21T00:01:00.001-05:00

This morning, I had a bit of a health scare. The details are truly disgusting, so I won't go into them, but suffice it to say that my digestion is implicated.

Thinking that I might convince myself I was 100% healthy, I went to webmd...where, as with every other time I have ever gone there, I was almost immediately, 100% convinced that I was dying, or, if not that, suffering from an autoimmune disorder which will wreck the rest of my now-going-to-be-awful life.

Of course this conviction threw my stomach and "gut-brain" into tumult...further proving to me that I do, in fact, have Crohn's or something similarly miserable.

But the real facts in the case are that a.) I don't know what, if anything, was wrong b.) I probably won't act on the problem unless it repeats itself soon and c.) all I managed to do was possibly guarantee that it WILL come back again. Like I said, my digestion was implicated.

Sites like Webmd, where I am allowed, nay, encouraged to self-diagnose with a symptom-checker, are cruel and unusual, at least to the obsessive, neurotic, and anxiety-ridden, like myself. Really, though, if you're using them, I'd wager you're in the same boat, the one where you think to yourself "that blood in my ear probably IS a tumor!" instead of remembering that you had an ear-zit.

There is a benefit to these sites, of course, a very clear one - for example, in the past, an equally I-won't-visit-a-doc-for-it problem was whittled down to either motion sickness, an option I wasn't really on board with, as I was sitting on my non-moving couch, or an ear infection, something which Webmd informed me doesn't actually need antibiotics in most cases, they're just prescribed so children won't have to suffer longer than necessary. This kept me out of the doc's office for a good reason, and quelled my fears of permanent hearing loss at the same time.

But for god's sake, sometimes a little information is a VERY dangerous thing - rather than letting myself believe I have ulceritic colon, could you folks at Webmd just put up a "this symptom NEEDS a doctor" sign for certain things? At least then, I'll know when I really SHOULD worry unnecessarily as I put off calling for an appointment.

-Posted by Jilly

EXTRACURRICULARS: Tori Spelling is Worse than Puberty

2010-01-19T00:01:00.000-05:00

Currently I'm watching a perennial Lifetime favorite, Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?, starring, you guessed it, T. Spells.

Now as a Lifetime actress, I'm more than happy with the Spellster. Along with Tracy Gold, and the holy grail, Kellie Martin, she really is the bread and butter of the crappy movies that are the reason I watch the channel, and its sister, Lifetime Movie Network, or LMN to those of us in the know, at all. Her lack of any real subtlety, discretion in choosing parts, or talent is what makes her great.

But the fact of the matter remains: she is talentless, and moreover, not much of a looker. In fact, when I'm feeling particularly drab of a morning, when a hairstyle or hat flattens my hair to my head, accentuating the lengthy oval I call a face, I don't say "god, I have such a horse-face," I say "I'm looking a lot like Tori Spelling today."

It has always been true that having famous and/or rich parents is enough to get you places that you couldn't have reached, or even craned your neck to see, if you were operating solely on your own merits. But at least with Paris, and Peaches, and even Nicole Richie, that wee alien-faced woman, looking at the lucky-daddy-was-born-first-girl in question isn't painful.

Every time a kissing scene comes on, I'm actually a little physically repulsed. The actor opposite T. Spells is by no means appealing, and yet I pity him for having to try and force it with the Spellster. He's probably thinking to himself "DAMMIT, why didn't they pick Jennie f*cking GARTH!"

Sigh. I suppose I could alternately wish my parents had been richer and/or more famous. But then I'd run the risk of BEING Tori Spelling, and so I'm thankful every day that they were not.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are These Things Worse than Puberty?

2010-01-15T09:15:00.003-05:00

1.) Still playing a gameboy at 25

2.) Still OWNING a gameboy at 25

3.) When you're given a REALLY bizarre or crappy gift, but politeness dictates you respond warmly.

4.) When the movie you've been waiting for from Netflix is out of stock.

5.) A computer so slow it's painful which you can't afford to replace

6.) When people make plans starting at 9pm when you had the intentions of going to bed at 10.

7.) Getting plastic surgery to please your current boyfriend.

8.) Getting a tattoo to please your current boyfriend.

9.) Not having a boyfriend to get plastic surgery or a tattoo for.

10.) Telemarketers.

-Posted by Jilly and Karla

SCIENCE: Cleansing Detox Diets are Worse than Puberty

2010-01-12T00:34:00.001-05:00

I'm working on a series for Vanity Fair right now entitled "Goop and Goop," in which I spend 30 days taking the advice of the inimitable Gwyneth Paltrow and trying to apply it to my daily life (okay, imitable, seeing as that's the whole point of the series).

Which wouldn't be such a bad deal, all told, except that currently I'm in the middle of a Gwyneth-style cleanse.

Meaning: gluten, dairy, shellfish, meat, soy, "nightshades," condiments, caffeine, soda, alcohol, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting are all off limits.

On-limits? Drinking most of my meals through a straw.

The worst part about it? Just today I found an article on Reuters in which British Dietetic scientists debunk most fad diets, including cleanses, which they note "are pointless," since the body self-cleans out toxins.

So tomorrow day 2 of starving, caffeine-headaches, and dizziness.

...5 days to go AFTER that.

(Forgive me if my posts become less and less coherent this week...)

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are these things worse than puberty?

2010-01-08T07:44:00.001-05:00

1.) When you have to come up with stupid questions at an interview to show interest in the company.

2.) Recognizing that you are a much more attractive candidate for things on paper than in person.

3.) Wanting to go on the Biggest Loser to lose 15 pounds.

4.) Actually being a fan of the Biggest Loser.

5.) The fact that the closest thing we have to investigative journalism nowadays is TMZ.

6.) Liquid diets...that aren't just ironic references to drinking.

7.) The smell of damp wool.

8.) A bad, SHORT haircut

9.) Not being told your haircut is bad, since all women will say "I love your haircut" in order to prove they know you got one, and thus doing it again.

10.) When your pen leaks all over your hand.

EXTRACURRICULARS: The "Music" of Taylor Swift is Worse than Puberty

2010-01-07T00:03:00.002-05:00

An open note to Ms. Swift:

I don't listen to your music, but I do watch TV, and so I was forced to aurally suck down a line or two.

"When you're 15, if somebody says they love you, you're probably gonna believe it." That's not a direct quote, actually, but it's pretty close, and anyway, I really don't want to devote more of my life to you via a google search.

POINT is...

Just so you know, when I was 15, had someone told me he loved me, I would have said "I don't believe teenagers really even know what love means."

No, seriously, I said this to my high school friends at the time.

Cynical? Perhaps. Reason I probably didn't have all that many friends? Yes. The right answer?

Most definitely.

You can't help having been put up on a pedestal for writing songs "all by yourself!" and singing them reasonably well, and looking good while you do it, and why would you want to? But you can make them just a titch less retarded. For those of us who would prefer our 15 year-olds to become less horrible, not more.

Or, if not for those sad, beleaguered folk, so long unrepresented that they have come to expect it to stay that way, then for the 15 year-olds themselves. Lest they, one day, start websites like this, regretting the stupidity of their own youth.

-Posted by Jilly

EXTRACURRICULARS: Really Horrible Commercials are Worse than Puberty

2010-01-05T00:04:00.001-05:00

I know there are bright people working in advertising; Mad Men proves that, right? The occasionally brilliant commercial, the kind that you bring up to random individuals and describe in detail, ending with a "god, it's so funny," even though your telling it has stripped it of even the barest whiff of humor, indicates that must be the case. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote ads before he wrote Gatsby, dammit!

So why oh why must there ever be truly abysmal advertising?

I exempt "I own the dealership!" local commercials from this complaint.

On the national level, though, a company has probably hired an ad firm to do their campaign. People have thought about it. They've tested it. They've told the men in charge, around tables in conference rooms, and on conference calls in cubicles, and via documents and power points, that "this is the thing for you." And they've heard "yes, it is," in response.

Millions of dollars, and this is the best you can do?

I've got a proposition: hire me not to make your brilliant ads - I'm sure dues-paying goes into attaining high-level positions in that field - but to screen them. To tell you "hey, this 'heartwarming' thing you're going for is really hitting more on the 'pederast' cylinder," or "you think this is funny, but it's just uncomfortable," or "you might not be feeling 100% about this one, but trust me, the crowd that grows amish-esque facial hair as a style statement will be TOTALLY into it."

I'm waiting for my phone call, money-makers...

DeBATE TEAM: Are These Things Worse than Puberty?

2010-01-01T03:40:00.001-05:00

1.) The - should I take a cab home or walk late at night in the slush? - debate.

2.) Wanting to work holidays because you get paid only for the hours you work so days off mean less money.

3.) The way media outlets do end of the year recaps and you watch those as if they are new and informative somehow.

4.) Girls who have a track record of only dating guys who turn out to be gay.

5.) Being exhausted and ready for bed every night by 11:30pm, even on special occasion nights like New Years Eve.

6.) When you get a preview, via your body's unexplained aches and pains or the flu, of how truly horrible being old will be.

7.) Bloating

8.) Leaving your Christmas decorations up until March because, darnit, those santas make you feel happy.

9.) Babies on airplanes. Yes, even the ones that aren't crying.

10.) Being slightly allergic to an element of your living situation that's fixed.

P.E.: Being Physically Functionally Retarded is Worse than Puberty

2009-12-31T00:01:00.000-05:00

Today I went to Marshall's to get a pair of gym shoes. Being the good multi-tasker that I am, I first stopped off at the supermarket to pick up the ingredients for a dip that I plan to bring with me to a New Year's Eve party, planning my route so that I'd waste the least time possible.

Until, that is, the moment when, wanting to try on my shoes one more time, I set down my bag of groceries on the floor, hard.

Too hard.

So hard that I shattered the jar of red peppers sitting at the bottom.

Immediately a puddle of pepper juice started to leak through my "green" bag and onto the floor of the shoe aisle, smelling tantalizing and looking like diarrhea. Thinking fast, I stuck my hand into the bag to remove the offending jar, and place it in a nearby trash bin.

Not only did this action result in me splattering the shoes I was buying, as well as a pair of nearby Uggs-knockoffs, with juice (okay, with the Uggs-alike, it may have been intentional), I completely sliced open my finger.

Of course I didn't KNOW I'd sliced open my finger until, sitting down a few feet away as the Marshall's crew dealt with the results of my idiocy, I set the Marshall's bag they'd given me to encase my own dripping affair on the ground and noticed that the handle was smeared and streaked with a red too dark to be pepper-related.

Awesome.

On my trip through Shaw's to buy ANOTHER jar of peppers, the cut started bleeding through the band-aid that the Marshall's crew had dug up for the idiot. I hung my head in shame, and stuffed the hand into my glove. It couldn't cover my failure, but at least I could keep from messing yet another aisle of unsuspecting consumer goods.

-Posted by Jilly

HOME EC/SHOP: Owning Children That Reflect Poorly on You is Worse than Puberty

2009-12-29T00:00:00.009-05:00

This weekend was marked by travel for many, excessive security lines for the not-so-few who were impacted by the Nigerian fail-blog stunt, and many, many, many horrible children.

I mean, seriously.

I get that infants can't help it that air-pressure changes hurt their soft-spots. I get that small children are naturally OCD, repeating "[motorboat sound] is a good song! [motorboat sound] is a good song!" over and over and over, tunelessly, for an hour, at the gate area because hey, it's STILL funny for them. I even get that, as a parent who has, like me, been traveling all day, you might not feel like chasing after your four-year old as he dashes maniacally through crowds of adults, at least not right away.

But could you at least pretend to be a little apologetic about it? Or at the very least not entitled?

I'd expound, but I'm nursing a sinus headache, compounded by no fewer than a dozen under-5's on my flight, all of them raised in the school of "you never say 'no' to your kid, lest it harm their precious self-esteem."

I dread the day when this batch is all 16, and STILL wrecking my flights...

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are These Things Worse Than Puberty?

2009-12-25T11:58:00.001-05:00

1.) People in snow-prone areas who don't shovel their property and leave you to tread precariously over sheets of ice as you pass their house.

2.) That friend who you can only see if you make plans waaaaay in advance. As in: "Oh, sorry. I already have plans for May 3rd, 2011 but maybe we can meet up on the 5th between 3:15 and 4:09."

3.) When your only real plans for the future include walking your dog and settling in for a night of "The Ghost Whisperer."

4.) When you aren't sure whether or not to use a product because it technically expired years ago but it's too much time and money to replace it.

5.) When your refrigerator contains only years-old salad dressings.

6.) Watching 12 hours of TV in a row because a marathon of your favorite show is on

7.) Watching 12 hours of a TV marathon of a show you don't even much care about because eh, why not?

8.) Kernels of popcorn stuck between back teeth

9.) Knowing that I'll have to work out for 3 weeks straight, without eating, in order to take care of the massive amount of food I ingested over christmas

10.) Planning on making it 6 weeks with tomorrow's leftovers meals

EXTRACURRICULARS: Fan Responses to Celebrity Deaths are Worse than Puberty

2009-12-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

Brittany Murphy, aka Tai from Clueless and the voice of Luanne on King of the Hill, died Sunday. This is, unequivocally, a sad thing, as the woman was only 32 years old, and, as her death was from cardiac arrest, likely was suffering from either addiction or eating disorder issues.

It highlights, though, an EXTREMELY annoying phenomenon; I speak of course of "fan" responses to celebrity deaths.

Now clearly the internet is first and foremost an echo chamber, one where people feel compelled to call things out simply to hear the sound of their voices, but I still don't see why that means that any time a celebrity, whether at the peak of his or her stardom or, more often, not so much in the spotlight or even seen in a negative light, dies, thousands of people, maybe millions of people, suddenly manufacture a feeling of empathy so profound that they have to give internet-voice to it.

Forget about Michael - the turnaround there was glaring enough that people MAY have noticed it already, as the sorts of accusations flung at him pre-mortem were pretty horrendous - let's focus on Brittany.

If you look around the interwebs, articles posted in the last year, the last three years, the last anything-before-news-of-her-tragic-death broke, the comments are catty and awful; "those extensions are ratty," "her hair is awful, who told her to do it," "oh my god she is so anorexic it's disgusting," "she was on Craig Ferguson and was so totally wasted oh my god how pathetic." People definitely had opinions on Ms. Murphy, and they felt the need to voice them, it's just that the majority of what was bouncing around the room, reverberating against the blank walls, was bile.

It makes sense - if you're of the opinion "well, really, I don't think she looks much thinner than most of the starlets out there, and frankly, that was a really darling dress," why bother to comment? Comment boards, especially when an article deals with celebrity, are for superfans and vitriol; there rarely seems to be much of the middle-ground of "Is it all that important to know whether or not she works out twice a day, given the pressure of Hollywood?" Those sorts of opinions aren't particularly violent, and so they don't get voiced.

Why, though, the turnarounds as soon as any celebrity dies?

I don't believe in speaking ill of the dead, I agree that young people dying is inherently tragic, but does it sanctify someone over whom, a week before, you were spitting piss and vinegar? Am I the only one who finds all of these "OMG, i am sooooo sad about __. RIP ___" tweets shallow and disingenuous as opposed to touching?

Given the frequency of comments being made on the Huffington Post's article Sunday, when a single click to the slideshow of Brittany Murphy and then back to the article meant at least 100 new folks all mourning so deeply that they feel the need to tell the world about this emotional state, I suppose the answer to that question is "yes."

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are These Things Worse than Puberty?

2009-12-18T00:01:00.001-05:00

1.) Steven Seagal, Lawman

2.) Hipsters who claim PBR is actually good.

3.) Having the kind of taste buds that actually BELIEVE PBR is good.

4.) When someone farts in a department store.

5.) Sitting on a toilet seat that looked clean, only to discover, when you stand, that there had been pee droplets. Oh yeah, that was a pee droplet. Nasty.

6.) When people ask you what your plans are for the weekend and all you can come up with is doing your nails.

7.) When you have to pee in a male apartment or dorm room and you know for a fact that men don't clean things the way they really should because they are genetically dirtier than women so you have the whole should I sit or not debate and you end up just squatting every time you are there.

8.) People on crowded subway cars who don't use deoderant.

9.) Parents who rage and/or curse in front of their own children.

10.) When a stranger has waaaaaaaay long scraggly hair with split ends and they are close to you and static attracts their hair to you so you have a stranger's split ends floating around your person.

SCIENCE: The Coffee Shakes are Worse than Puberty

2009-12-17T08:08:00.003-05:00

I am well aware that coffee is a drug. A legal drug, to be sure, but anything whose absence can give me headaches, grumpiness, and leave me unable to function properly deserves the title. Under this definition, I also count "water" as a drug.

But for whatever reason caffeine's addictive powers are unquestioned, almost joked about, as though people's relationship to the stuff is permanently in the 1950s. "Oh that Henderson, can't make it through the day without his cup o' joe and his 5 fingers of whiskey!" and everyone laughs chummily.

Which is why the caffeine shakes, already a horrible feeling, of mixed anxiety, mild nausea, and, well, shaking, are even worse; because caffeine's very acceptance as a legal stimulant means the world expects you to regulate yourself appropriately and, if seeing you in a state of either severe withdrawal or serious overdosage, will look at you as though you're any other drug addict.

Not "they treat you like they treat crackheads," mind you, but "they treat you like your shaking problem, currently, is arising from crack."

It's odd that even the most regular of caffeine drinkers will still encounter the shakes on occasion; with most other regularly-used "drugs," say alcohol, there is usually some point in one's life where you stop being an annoying adolescent about the thing and, having gotten the "too much is never enough!" impulse out of your system, no longer, or at the most very rarely, indulge to a point where the casual passerby would point you out as troublingly intoxicated.

Okay, okay, so people still get wasted plenty after the age of 21, but when that happens, usually you either a.) aren't much of a drinker, generally, or b.) see it coming. With the caffeine shakes, I feel as though I've moved into another realm of addiction, one where need overwhelms logic entirely; I may know this next cup of coffee will put me over the edge into a realm of pure pain, but I'm tired, so it's going in my body. Or worse, I'm so out of tune with the amount of crap I've already poured in there, that I don't realize this is going to blow my mind...and my nerve endings.

And yet I never learn my lesson; in the next week of holiday madness, I'll likely get the caffeine shakes more than once in my efforts to stay awake long enough to plod through the monotony of working retail for hours on end...the sign of a true addict, indeed.

-Posted by Jilly

HOME EC/SHOP: The Confusion of Leggings with Real Pants is Worse than Puberty

2009-12-15T09:57:00.000-05:00

I own a few pairs of leggings. They let me get away with scandalously short dresses (okay, what I consider scandalously short, so exactly four inches below my knees, measured with a ruler), are warmer than just tights, and sometimes give the illusion that I'm young enough not to remember the 80s, and therefore to take this trend at face value.

But leggings are NOT equal to pants.

I'm not saying they can't come close - I have no issue with the aforementioned too-short-for-censors dresses paired with leggings, or their close cousins, really-long-tops.

But I draw a line in the sand...or rather, under your butt cheek. This is the rule: the top must reach the bottom of your butt cheek for you to wear it with leggings.

Why create some seemingly arbitrary fashion mandate? Why not the equator of the butt, or the back of the knee, or six inches above the belly-button, so we can look totally sweet like in the Jane Fonda workout?

Because for most people, anything shorter looks ridiculous, unflattering, and...well, gross.

The butt is a funny thing, mainly because on most women it is the region most egregiously affected by the you-can-be-skinny-and-still-not-have-a-good-body conundrum. I've seen size 2s with saggy-dumper butts. The butt requires attention, slaving on ellipticals, and on top of that good genetics to ever deserve the spotlight.

Some people give the butt this devoted care, but most leggings-as-pants wearers are under 25, which means they're less likely, barring disorders, to feel the need to slavishly workout. Their bodies take care of themselves - a six-pack still induces only the mildest of hangovers, and a massive gorge at the Cheesecake Factory leaves them more than capable of fitting into their high-school jeans. Or maybe they gained 30 pounds their freshman first semester, but even then, they're probably wearing MORE leggings, not less.

This is one of those trends which, ten years from now, people will look back on and say "JESUS, what was I THINKING." You people look like you're wearing half a lycra bodysuit. Has anyone ever thought to themselves "god, I bet I'd look GREAT in a non-shapewear bodysuit?"

If you have, and you're right about it, I suppose I exempt you in theory. The problem is that when the Jessica Albas of the world wear this style in practice, a million girls who can't see clearly over their shoulder in a mirror just follow suit, blindly, guaranteeing that I, too, will be blind...since I'll be pouring acid in my eyes from all the dumpy asses I'll have to stare at.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are These Things Worse Than Puberty?

2009-12-11T00:02:00.017-05:00

1.) The fact that you can earn more in one month of child support from getting pregnant with some rich guy's baby than I expet to earn all year at my job.

2.) When your dinner consists solely of a block of cheese - not the classy kind you buy at Whole Foods, the bodega kind.

3.) Middle-aged man humor.

4.) When you think someone is REALLY happy to see you but then you find out that they actually just screwed up and took too much of their anti-depression medication.

5.) Ugly guys - not just because they are crappy to look at, but also because, if they ever get power, they have a chip on their shoulder about it for the rest of their lives.

P.E. : Being Incredibly Tired from Umbrella-Carrying is Worse than Puberty

2009-12-10T10:27:00.000-05:00

Now before you start judging, let it be known that I have been sick the past couple of days. Maybe not "stay home from work" sick, or "running a fever sick" or "immediately distinguishable from the allergies you get, frequently" sick, but sick nonetheless...with a head cold.

That said, I'm fairly certain that even a minor amount of upper body strength would have allowed me to get through the walk from hell (read: from the grocery store to my house, umbrella in hand against the driving rain) without the cramping and all-over weakness I managed to wrangle.

Winds were strong, rain was wet, and something I was determined wouldn't soak my baguettes, wrecking another several dollars worth of food, and I was...panting, quickly.

Seriously, if I didn't weigh...enough, I would have assumed I was going to be whipped up into the air. Another person, however, might have assumed this trip was annoying, but not particularly difficult. Who can possibly ever know, really?

Re-entering my house, not soaked, but trembling, I only managed to squeak "benny...help!" before basically dropping my grocery purchases in a heap.

Perhaps I should reconsider my total avoidance of strength training? Naw...

-Posted by Jilly

SCIENCE: Forgetting to Brush your Teeth is Worse than Puberty

2009-12-08T12:33:00.001-05:00

Certain parts of your life are so much a routine, that you can slash often slash exclusively perform them in a fog. Things like getting the coffee maker going in the morning, taking your contacts out at night, and, of course, brushing your teeth.

The problem is, since most of these activities are essentially autopilot events, if the routine is disrupted, even briefly, you run a very real risk of missing a step, even an important step. Say, for example, your phone rings while you're on the toilet - maybe you people are on top of your lives, but for me, leaving the bathroom to answer has been known to be enough to derail other hygiene activities, possibly until it's too late.

No, this doesn't happen every day, and no, don't fear calling me before noon just for the sake of the people I may meet up-close; it's a relative rarity, but it's a real possibility.

The REAL problem with the routine-broken-elements-lost bit, at least when it comes to teeth-brushing, is that it only happens in the morning. Yes, my nighttime oral hygiene CAN be missed, but if it is, there are only two possible reasons: reason 1-I have fallen asleep on a couch, in the middle of a movie, or at some other time and in some other place than I should; reason 2-I am so close to reason 1 that I'm just too tired to care. Don't judge me - reason 2 rarely happens.

In the morning, though, I might be out the door before I even realize my routine has been upset, and thus that my mouth is upsetting.

Thank god that going through puberty teaches us tricks for when we're afraid of our bodies' odors, appearance, etc etc. Thank you, puberty, if only for this.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: ARE THESE THINGS WORSE THAN PUBERTY?

2009-12-04T00:01:00.001-05:00

1.) The fact that even gorgeous supermodels have husbands that cheat on them.

2.) Men who are nerdy, ugly and awkward but get lots of women because they have money and some kind of claim to fame.

3.) Hangnails.

4.) Watching episodes of Glee that inspire you to want to sing around the house only to confirm you have a TERRIBLE singing voice.

5.) Talentless people who film themselves doing unremarkable things and post it on youtube.

6.) Watching those videos on youtube.

7.) Being incapable of making it through a cooking endeavor without seriously cutting a finger.

8.) Trying to type with said finger. And its bandages.

9.) Early-90s "business" suit styles.

10.) Molestaches.

EXTRACURRICULARS: Feeling Judged by your E-mail Inbox is Worse than Puberty

2009-12-03T09:19:00.000-05:00

Most mornings, I wake up and have to clear out a lot of junk mail - advertisements from companies I bought from once, over a year ago, and alerts about certain types of news I have set up but which I'm usually too lazy to read through, etc etc.

Occasionally, though, I see one of the most toxic junk mails of all. The ones from life-and-career-destinations-I don't-have.

Hey e-mail inbox, can you lay off the judginess for, like, a day?

I've gone through phases where I've thought "hey, what about grad school?" or "I think I could get a different job and still manage my life" or "I should volunteer," but these were clearly just blips intended to boost my self-esteem momentarily, not things I planned on following through on.

Shouldn't my e-mail box know that?

I think probably it does, and continues forcing these things under my nose to remind me how pathetic I'm being. And yet it consistently labels my credit card bill, one which I really do want to pay on time, because I'm lame enough to care about my credit rating, as "POSSIBLE SPAM."

-Posted by Jilly

EXTRACURRICULARS: Being Too Lazy to Go to a Party is Worse than Puberty

2009-12-01T00:01:00.002-05:00

I often bemoan the fact that I don't have enough friends/social events/things to do in general. Why won't more people invite me to their posh VIP evenings? Why aren't I in with the bartenders at some super-awesome place so that, when I'm there, I drink free? Why am I always on my couch in nightpants?

And then I remember: it's because I'm generally too lazy to bother to make it out of said nightpants, let alone out of my house, even when I DO have an invite to a place full of people I know and already like.

A red-carpet lifestyle seems so appealing, and yet I can't even be bothered to shower on my days off. I look back on photos from college, or through albums of friends who, at least according to their limited self-selection of facebook pictures, are totally ker-AZ-y!, and think that's what I want, but then I realize the new episode of "White Collar" still hasn't been watched, and I simply navigate away from these reminders of my shame. I salivate over fashion magazines and still spend 2/3 of my life in non-clothes.

The holiday season is upon us, and theoretically it's a time to turn things around - social engagements abound, even for me, and I've managed to rack up quite a few dresses that are truly more comfortable than any sweatshirt can ever be...

...but let's be real. Come January 1, I'll be only slightly hungover, having left a New Year's party earlyish, because I wanted to get home and watch that Paula Deen special I'd tivoed.

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are These Things Worse than Puberty?

2009-11-27T07:57:00.001-05:00

1.) People who decorate with fairies and other magical woodland creatures.

2.) That really, really long, scraggly, nasty-split-ends hair that true fairy-decorators often sport

3.) Secretly being halfway to fantasy-fairy nerddom yourself. Okay, 3/4 of the way.

4.) Allergies

5.) Knowing that all the eye-rubbing you do because of your allergies means you'll be pug-wrinkly by the time you're 30.

6.) Being pug wrinkly by the time you're 30 even though you took special care not to ever rub your eyes.

7.) Not having any big Thanksgiving Day plans because you live with your parents anyway.

8.) When what you are most thankful for on Thanksgiving is missing a day of work.

9.) Jobs that don't give you paid holidays.

10.) Not caring if your job gives you a paid holiday because not being at work is compensation enough.

HOME EC/SHOP: Not Having Thanksgiving Leftovers is Worse than Puberty

2009-11-26T00:01:00.000-05:00

I'm spending this Thanksgiving in Chicago, with the boyfriend's family.

This is a good thing - a truly amazing thing, really. Their version of celebrating a holiday involves waking up whenever, drinking mimosas with breakfast and assorted beer and wine all day long, and eating well...and doing nothing else, if you don't want to. Moreover, bf's mom doesn't even really allow you to do much - sort of a 'my kitchen, i've got a plan' type - so the worst I'm in for is setting the table and cleaning up after the awesome meals she makes us.

Heavenly.

Except for one crucial factor: I have no Thanksgiving leftovers. Sure, they'll save the extra turkey etc., and I might have a sandwich on Friday, maybe even take one with me on the plane home Saturday, but that will be it.

No days upon days of turkey, no sweet potatoes to pick at whenever I feel like it, no pie that I can eat, sliver by sliver, until what I think has been "really nothing" is in fact a quarter of a pie's worth of nibbles.

And worse yet, for the day that I will be there, in close contact with these leftovers, I won't be able to just dive in and take whatever I want. At my house, and my mom's house, I might be known to grab a little shred of turkey, salt it, eat it, and walk away, until half an hour later when I want to break off a little bite of stuffing. At the boyfriend's parents' house, I can't just rummage and graze on their fridge like I'm in some blood-sugar version of "Speed."

Sigh. I'll still be thankful, but not AS thankful as I would be with a loaf of white bread and a turkey breast waiting for me when I get back from Chicago...

-Posted by Jilly

LANGUAGES: Trying to Actually Communicate with your Mother is Worse than Puberty

2009-11-24T00:01:00.001-05:00

Recently I had a phone conversation with my mom about a gift idea she'd thought up for Christmas.

"What about snow boots? I know they're not 'fun,' but they're the sort of thing you're happy to have around when you need them, you know?"

"That's a great idea, mom, where were you thinking of getting them?"

"Well I saw a pair in the Land's End catalogue that looked reasonably cute."

"Does it say they're waterproof? Because the thing here is that so much of the street is pitted that there are big puddles, especially in winter, that might be like a foot deep, and you step in by accident and you're ankle-deep."

"It says here they're...'water-resistant.'"

"Yeah, I think those are probably not a good option - 'water-resistat' probably means they'll soak through by the time I walk anywhere - they need to be rubber, like galoshes, and say waterproof, because otherwise it'll probably be a waste of money."

"Oh." (note: here there is a distinct cooling of tone).

"But I think it's a great idea - that's the sort of gift I want, something practical that I need but don't want to spend money on for myself. I just think if you're going to do it, and spend a good amount of money on it, you should get a pair that will be legitimately water-proof is all."

"Mmm."

And at this point the conversation cooled noticeably for a solid 5 minutes.

Why is it that mothers need to be hurt by you EVER saying their idea wasn't spot-on? Is that just my mother? Whenever I try to speak calmly, honestly, and in an "I know we're both adults here, now, so how about we just say what we mean" fashion, I end up either regretting it or hearing an echo from where my words are bouncing off a stone wall.

Add it to the ever-growing list of "why I don't think I should have kids." Because I know, if it were me, I'd probably be irrationally hurt, too. Damn parents and their lasting influence, even when you actively wish you could act differently than they do...

-Posted by Jilly

DEBATE TEAM: Are These Things Worse than Puberty?

2009-11-20T07:54:00.001-05:00

1.) Getting a tattoo of a passage from Twilight on your back.

2.) Getting any sort of short-sighted pop culture reference tattoo for that matter.

3.) Jobs where you do nothing all day.

4.) Jobs where you actually have to work all day.

5.) Passive aggressive people.

6.) The coffee shakes.

7.) Watching weight-loss shows just to feel better about yourself.

8.) Planning an entire morning around making it to the post office, only to find out when you arrive that it was closed.

9.) People who use "abuse" when they mean "annoy."

10.) Being too poor to buy a burrito for dinner.

HOME EC/SHOP: Dusting is Worse than Puberty

2009-11-19T10:49:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I got inspired - tidied up the piles of papers in the living room, wiped down the stove, scrubbed out the toilet - basically, ended up pretty impressed with myself.

I even cut a rag, dampened it, and dusted surfaces. Gold star.

And this morning, sitting down, I looked across at a few of those surfaces, expecting to feel proud of myself, allergy-free, and Martha Stewart-y.

Instead, I saw dust.

Most thankless of tasks, most constantly necessary, why do you taunt me?

And how does the boyfriend's mother keep everything immaculate?

-Posted by Jilly