What about the Sh*# that I say?

Dear Justin Halpren (sorry avid readers today's post is directly marketed and geared toward one person and one person only)

As an unemployed, quote-unquote, Gen-Y slacker you claim to be a writer yet based your entire success off of words from someone else. And not just anyone else but your father. (Plagiarize much?) And because it's hard to copywrite the spoken word you were able to directly copy and paste what came out of his mouth onto your little blog that got turned into a medium sized book and now mainstream media will turn into a huge network TV show. Please don't get me wrong, I am one and one for all about the success of Gen-Y'ers especially in this economy and have many-a-times promoted a great blog. But what Yours Truly does not understand is why the words of a sometimes racist, sexist, agist and angry old white man can make so many people, especially yourself happy and rich.

I wonder what it is about your father that garnered so much attention. I mean I think I say shit everyday. I say shit on Facebook I say shit on my blog and I say shit in real life. However, no one (well as of yet) has offered me a book deal, a TV deal or has decided that William Shatner would be perfect to play me (I guess that would never happen but what about Lucy Liu?) (or as my brothers like to claim Margaret Cho)

Either way, Dear Avid Justin, I would like to officially take the time to not thank you for lowering the standards of which our next generation of Z'ers will have to choose their reading and viewing materials from.

Enjoy the headstone, may your TV show be a 3 episode success.

Sincerely
Yours Truly.

Yours Truly Gryllis

Dear Avid Readers.

I've been getting Facebook updates and pictures of all the outdoorsy things people do over the summer. Hiking, canoeing, camping, fishing etc. It looks like so much fun and I am always envious of people who have that innate sense of adventure and bond with mother earth. I mean, I love adventure. But somehow between me you and the lamp post my sense of adventure is getting on a plane to Amsterdam, figuring out how to get into the city center by using only public transportation and then trying to meet a stranger who is a local and having him/her show me the best retaurants, bars and spots that tourists don't know about. My worst nightmare, on the other hand, would be to be dropped in the middle of nowhere, like Bear Grylls and have to survive.

With that being said, it's not my worst nightmare in the sense that I would hate it. I mean I talk about auditioning for The Amazing Race and Survivor all the time and really believe that I want to do it. I just mean that if I were put in that situation it would be my worst nightmare becuase I would be terrible at it. I don't mean terrible (like my Math skills) but I mean terrible as in if I get too cold sometimes in the city I literally stop walking becuase I feel that death is a better alternative than being cold. Or when I get too hot I get a bloody nose becuase I don't have enough pores to let the heat out. I would be terrible in the sense that I just wouldn't make it out alive.

I look at the people who go camping and (in shorts) get on their hands and knees and start digging a fire pit. Or those woman who pull over on the side of the road and go neck high in prarie grass just to pee. I want to be like that but the truth is the minute I am on my hands and knees in the dirt I think about taking a shower. Or when I try to pee in weeds I would have an entire ass (quite a large surface area) covered with bites from mosquitos to spiders that would be entirely terrible. If I get bitten in Brooklyn I spend the rest of the night like an addict on the worst trip of their life, paranoid and thinking that bugs are eating me alive.

Anyways, dear avid readers, for all you out there that do all the things I wish I could do cheers. My hat is definitely off to you. Know that I wish I was there, I wish I could do what you do, and I wish I knew the first steps of bonding with nature. But, alas, yours truly, has accepted that I am a hotel, a.c., and restaurant type of a girl who understands and appreciates those who aren't.

I will bond by continuing to donate yearly to the WWF (not worldwife wrestling federation people but World Wildlife Fund) and making sure that when I order sushi I order only fish that is in season and NOT just salmon and tuna!

As Dorky as Dorky Gets

Dear Avid Readers. Call it teenage angst, call it a blast from the past but this week I decided to paint my nails black. After being immersed in Williamsburg for a full year now I keep seeing these cooler-than-a meat-freezer-in-Minnesota kids walking about town with black nails and I thought to myself, "hey that looks awesome" in fact, Yours Truly's BF even said that he thought it would be "cool". Well, on Monday a girlfriend and I decided to grab dinner and get our nails done. As I purveyed the rows of pinks, reds, purples, and blues I decided to go with black.

well, I got home poured myself a glass of bourbon and by morning as I was doing some dishes before work I screamed. I mean I screamed one of those screams that would have been embarrassing if there was actually someone else there in the room because I thought that there was a cockroach on my hand.

As I dropped a handful of silverware and backed away from the sink while shaking my hand (only about 3 seconds in real time) I realized that it was my own fingernails that were the culprit. (see insert of picture above as proof that in the dark whilst squinting how much my fingers now look like cockroaches)

Anyways, having this little "incident" this morning I realized something Shallow and Moderate about myself (a.k.a. something NOT deep and profound) I have always been comfortable with the fact that I wasn't the traditional definition of cool becuase I've always been confident in who I was inately.

Expample: When I started developing my 30's "stella-bump"

[Definition: Noun: the little pouch a women tends to get after many years of beer drinking. Synonym: Beer Belly Antonym: Six Pack]

I was ok with it, afterall, look how much press Bradgelina got when the papps discovered her bump!

Same thing with my nails. Even when I try to hip-out and get black nailpolish I end up scaring the shit out of myself and almost passed out from fear while washing dishes. And in events like this there is nothing better to do than 1. laugh at yourself 2. let the world know via Facebook and Blogger that you are the biggest dorko potato on Earth 3. Let those that know or not know you laugh with you in the hopes that you makes someone's day just a little better and in return this is the best and most financially smart therapy one can get because by doing so I only become cooler on the inside even though my outside might seem like I am a 32 year old that is obsessed with Twilight (which Dear Avid Readers, have no fear because I am not) I am only obsessed with The Real Housewives.

Another New Housewife of Miami

Dear Avid Readers,
Yours Truly is by no means what you might call a "sports fan" but I did get swept up in the Lebrocle as I was excited at the prospect that he may go to Chicago. But as the days went on the Wade/Bosch got into the drama-rama and Lebron extended his "decision" timeline I got more and more annoyed with the whole situation.

I mean, there was more drama in the weeks leading up to Lebron's decision than an entire season of The Real Housewives of Atlanta with Nene. I mean we had Wade and his baby daddy drama. Then we had Lebron and his Cleveland "it will be like a nuclear bomb in Ohio if Lebron leaves" (direct quote from ESPN) drama, and you throw in Bosch as a nice and rounded three-some you have reality TV at its best.

Yours Truly just has one last thing to say about this whole Lebrocle...and it's this. Next time you haters make fun of me and my Real Housewives, or my ANTM H2T, I want you think back on this time as you sat biting your nails, waiting in sweaty anticipation for Lebron to make his decision that he really is no better than the "what-you-like-to-call-shit-TV" The Real Housewives. My suggestion to BRAVO is simple. Go down to Miami, start a show called The Real Ballers of Miami and follow Wade, Lebron and Bosch around town as they hit up topless beaches, get WAAAAAsted on pink drinks with umbrellas and bang young girls. But me, I'll stick with the housewives, because after this week Nene seems sane and enjoyable compared to Le'muchodramabron James.

You Go On Girl...Move On.

Moving on.

Dear Avid Readers, I have been noticing how much people like to move on. They are constantly on to the next fashion trend, music trend, novel, author, restaurant, bar...you name it they have already moved onto it two weeks before I even thunk it; but that's not me.

My ipod still has music from Erasure (my first cassette tape purchase) or how about Aerosmith "Big Ones" (my first concert experience) I mean it even has a few Blink 182 (first downloaded mp3). I am absolutely ok with all these mover-oners who scoff at my Weird Al Playlist. the reason for that is, while the rest of my Dear Avid Readers move on to bigger, not-necessarily-always-better things I store the oldies but goodies away.

I'm the girl that walks into a party and the crowd says, "whoa, you have (insert any old school hit)" or "Man, I haven't seen that shit in years" that's becuase even though I learn to love and accept new trends I continue to hold on to the old ones.

Whilst my fellow Avid Readers are spending hundreds of dollars on skinny jeans, all I have to do is unpack my shit from storage and pull out my high school jeans. I mean we all know that it eventually comes back around. You may compare me to Weird Al's hit "White and Nerdy" (for all you folks out there Yours Truly is Asian) all I have to say is that's fine. I am absolutely happy with that because when it's all said and done.

The Real Non-Housewives of NYC

Yes Dear Avid Readers, I am guilty of loving The Real Housewives of All The Cities. I watch them incessantly, laughing at them and never quite with them for the most part but still with-them nonetheless. I share their lives from city to city story to story. I know their children, their husbands and their daily grind. But what I don't understand is why I am obsessed. I mean, I like to think that yours truly has a deep understanding of myself. I usually can pinpoint the reasons I feel a certain way, why I act the way I do and I am 99% of the time honest with myself through the hurtful truths and the righteous ones. But this obsession, this dire need to watch and be addicted is somehow hard to pinpoint.

Take Kelly, for example, she openly admits she is a hypocrite (most likely because she does not know the definition of a hypocrite) but either way, she says that she supports PETA but wears fur because PETA is only against torturing animals and she did not torture any animals to get that mink on her back. Why would I, Dear Avid Readers, find someone like her interesting? She also said that "making lemonade out of lemons doesn't necessarily need to mean making a bad situation good but could also mean making a good situation bad."(FALSE, Kelly, FALSE)

Or how about the charges this 45 year old filed on a 19 year old (although the 19 year old was at fault) over hair pulling extensions. I mean I should feel sad and disgraces by these women who are so trashy that they forgot the number one lesson in self-less parenting and that is to want your children to be better than yourself and not end up like yourself. These parents are taking it one step further and raising children to end up being like the women they despise.

What am I ultimately trying to say? Well, Dear Avid Readers, I needs to quits this show, but I just don't know how (same line I told myself many moons ago when i tried to quit smoking). but really, even with smoking I had to employ a hypnotist to fully be able to say adios to those killers. I may need the same therapy for these ladies. I just want to warn my avid readers that if you open Page 6 of the New York Post one day and front page story is of a young lady getting hypnotized to quit the Real Housewives, don't be scared. You heard it here first.

Mid-Life Purgatory

Dear Avid Readers,

I know, I know. It's been about a year since I've last shared "Deep Thoughts by Yours Truly." I find that I am at my best when things are slow and calm. It is typically those times that my little head is able to process and turn events into crazy thoughts in my head. After what seems like a busy and crazy year I've decided to return to the daily grind and be better at updating. These next few entries will catch ya'll up on my life since Wednesday December 17, 2008, but, for now, I wanted to talk about my mid life purgatory.

I don't think I will ever be a person who goes through a midlife crisis. I mean, I strongly believe that having an untraditionally tough childhood has led me to really, really, really appreciate the aging process. My life has increasingly gotten better and more fulfilling with age. But that absolutely does not stop me from having a mid-life purgatory.

For those of you unfamiliar with such above mentioned illness it is when you are literally stuck between being a kid and being an adult. Some people look at this and think...yuck, purgatory stinks while others think its the perfect utopian life balance.

I, on the other-hand, have no idea which one I am. Examples you ask???

1- I walk into the school cafeteria and will shake my head in disgust at all the little children going to school in their pj's BUT find it difficult to leave with my cup of coffee because the TV is tuned into MTV's "True Life"

2. I want to go back to school BUT only if it A.) pays me to study like an adult job does B.) does not require additional work when I am done with class like an adult job does and C.) Gives me 25 vacation days of my choice like my job does (I mean on top of daily classtime)

3. I love hosting dinner parties and throwing keggers and literally having a hoe-down every weekend, BUT the idea of strangers peeing and puking in my sparkly white toilet bowl isn't as glamorous as it was before

4. I attend the "young" events and feel it's too loud, too obnoxious, too hipstery and too, well, young BUT I attend the "adult" events and have a hard time contributing to mortgages, children and climbing the corporate ladder. I mean all I want to do is ask, "Can you believe Tamara in the Real Housewives last night??? I mean, for realz?"

5. I still hate going to bed and will find myself making picture frames, playing Nintendo DS or watching TV til late at night, BUT still getting my purgatory ass out of bed by at least 9 am.

6. On weekends I think about gardening, re-arranging the apartment or running errands BUT typically wake up hung over and wanting a greasy breakfast followed by a nap. (oh p.s. I don't know how to garden, am not too handy when it comes to decorating and really what are errands if not things that can be done tomorrow?)

7. In the sense of cognitive awareness I know that I should be excercising more and eating healthier as I grow older BUT I continue to tell myself that Asians have an additional 5 year bump due to high metabolism and I live in a city that celebrates fine dining so I should never waste such opportunities.

so there you have it dear avid readers. I have now bestowed upon you my deepest and most intimate thoughts. Trust me, more will be coming but, for now, I will leave you with this final thought.

If you find yourself reading this and thinking "yes, yes, yes, I agree" then there is clearly only one solution for you. Move to Brooklyn (preferably as close to Metropolitan and Graham as possible) and let's start a club together where we we act like complete teenage fools with the dignitgy and experience of an adult in purgatory.