Tag Archives: 2014

If You Need Me I’ll Be in My New Cave

19 Jun

I don’t know whether to file this post into the category “I did this so you don’t have to” or “when you think people are laughing at you they probably are and you should look in the mirror” or “Rebekah needs to buy a cave and stay there until 2015.”  Anyway, you can cast your votes after reading the next incredibly embarrassing thing that happened to me.  I promise I will laugh at this a few years from now.  Maybe.

So, I don’t know if you guys know this but for me, this year totally sucks.  It is the actual worst year of my life.  I thought that nothing could be worse than 2010, and I had really clung to that with every bit of strength that I possess in my entire body because at least then when something totally sucked I could be like “well, it could be worse.  It could be 2010 again!”  But now I don’t even have that because 2014 is totally worse.

I need to add here that I know that, relatively speaking, my 2014 has not been as bad as some other people’s 2014.  I know that probably I am sounding like a whiny little bitch right about now and people are gonna be all “well, those aren’t real problems” but whatever.  Those people can suck it.  So, let us continue.

So earlier this year, after I got back from Peru (which was really fun except for when my earrings were stolen out of my ears), I had an interview at this place that does community gardening.  I was really excited and totally qualified and the position was essentially made for me.  Anyway, I got all excited about it and then I got to the interview and in an effort to not sound like a raving lunatic because of all the excitement that I was feeling I dialed it back too far and I think came across as uninterested.  I knew it didn’t go well the second I left the office.  Anyway, I got home like an hour later (it was so far!) and looked in the mirror and discovered that my scalp burn from Peru had started peeling and there were like pieces of skin all through the top of my head.  I had looked in the mirror when I left, no skin.  But by the time I got there, skin everywhere.  So probably they thought I was this totally underwhelmed, totally boring, totally unmotivated person with serious hygiene problems.

That was a great day to be me.

So then fast-forward to this afternoon.  I had to go to this interview and it was sort of rainy outside when I left so I brought my umbrella.  By the time I got to where I was going it was not rainy but instead it was wildly humid. You know what does not do well in humidity?  Eye liner.  You know what would have been a good thing to do before interviewing?  Looking in the mirror.  Did I do that?  No, of course not.  So I talked to the lady for a few minutes, she seemed nice, and then I left and walked over to the Verizon store to deal with the fact that they had said they would send me a new phone in the mail but had neglected to do so.  Anyway, because of the earlier rain I had not brought my my sunglasses which, as it turns out, was a huge mistake because had I brought them I could have at least not looked like an ass while walking the streets of Brooklyn.  So I am walking down Flatbush and this woman in a car looks at me and starts laughing.  Like, seriously laughing so hard.  She was having the time of her life.  I thought to myself two things: (a) don’t be so insecure that you think some random person is laughing at you; and (b) did you sit on something?  You must have sat on something.  I looked at my butt, there was nothing there.  Why I assumed it had to do with my ass doesn’t actually make sense because I was facing her, so really logic should have told me that I looked like a total weirdo but no, I thought it was my ass.  Or that I had been shat on by a bird and didn’t notice because I get shat on more than the average person so it’s just like, normal these days.

So I logicked myself out of the worry and continued on to the Verizon store where I dealt with 4 different people, none of whom told me my makeup was fucked.  Also, I may or may not have had an almost mini-breakdown in the Verizon store because that is something I do these days at random places.  (As a side note, why don’t the people at the stores and at banks have direct access to someone who can help you at the help center?  Why do they also have to wait on hold listening to advertisements for mortgages and extra cloud storage and shit?)  Anyway, the lady on the phone was really nice and I don’t blame her for not telling me about my makeup because she couldn’t see me but I believe if she had seen me she would have told me about it.  Then I walked all the way home to my apartment.  I got home, walked through the door, went into the bathroom, looked in the mirror and BAM.  Disaster face.  I actually wish I had taken a photo of it because it was really something to behold.  So I immediately did the thing that I shouldn’t have done but it’s me so obviously I did it.  I sent the following text to the person I had just interviewed with:

“Thanks for meeting with me.  I just got home and realized my eye makeup had gotten all screwed up from the humidity and I am hoping that happened after I talked to you.  But if not, I am usually not that much of a mess and will not be leaving the house without a mirror in my purse for the rest of the summer.”

To which she replied:

“:) It’s all good. Very nice meeting you too.”

And then she said something else about shifts that’s not actually relevant to the story.  Her text led me to believe that my makeup was, in fact, at least moderately screwed up when I talked to her.  So, that’s good.  Go me!

The thing that is so sad about the whole situation is that I looked in the mirror when I got home and all I could think was “of course.”  That was it.  It’s like, obviously since I put effort into actually looking like a presentable human being today my eyeliner was like “sucker! You think you look GOOD?! Palease!”  So, that happened.  It has now been made clear to me that the only reasonable thing for me to do is put a bid in on a cave somewhere and move into it for the remainder of the year.  My friend Sarah tells me that probably I can just go into a cave and hang out there and eventually through squatter’s rights it will become mine but with my luck a bear will be living there already and would try to maul me but would only succeed in gauging out one of my eyes and eating my right arm.  I would defend myself with bear spray but, as we have learned from my experience with mace, I cannot be trusted with anything that comes in an aerosol can.

So, if you need me I will be in my cave.  I will be accepting visitors and snacks.

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What I’ve Learned So Far in 2014

6 Jan

I know, I know, 2014 is only 6 days old.  But, whatever, I’m like a sponge.  A sponge of learning.  And since I have found these new tidbits of information so titillating, I figured I would share them all with you.  Isn’t that great?  I think so.

1.  As many of you know, or have read, I have an intense dislike for companies that call me with fake credit offerings and the like.  Over the past few months, I have significantly altered my approach to these calls.  Instead of reporting said companies to the National Do Not Call Registry because it is fucking useless, I have simply been blocking the numbers from my phone!  Every time I get a bullshit call <BAM!>, blocked.  Of course in my case I don’t often receive calls from the same number more than once but still, it is so empowering.  I really feel like I show them, you know?  Anyway, that’s not what I learned.  Here’s what I learned.  I received a call the other day from a restricted number which I answered because my landlord calls me from a restricted number and I like him, he’s nice.  But it wasn’t my landlord at all.  It was a company asking to lower my interest rate.  So, obviously, I got mad and I was feeling sassy so I pressed a number to talk to a person to give them a piece of my mind.  After I had finished telling the dude on the other end what he could do with his lowered interest rates I hung up the phone, feeling good and strong and righteous.  Then I went online to see if other people had received calls from this same dubiously named company, “Card Member Services.”  In my search I found a very useful bit of information:  whenever I press the button to talk to someone to tell them that I think they work for a morally bankrupt operation, their computer algorithm thing thinks that I am a sucker and am actually interested in the “service” the company provides (AKA having them steal my money) and puts my number up towards the top of the calling list.  Then I get more calls!  I am my own worst enemy!  So this is what I learned: do not talk to a representative no matter how sassy you are feeling because, in the end, the joke is on you.

2.  I am not good at email.  This is something I have known for years.  In fact, for the past five years in a row my one and only New Years resolution has been to be better about email.  Every other year I have failed.  Considering it is now the 6th of the month (and year!) and I just checked my email for the first time, I am not feeling much more confident in my potential for success.  See here’s the thing:  my email is mostly junk.  I go in there and delete like a million things and then I have 4 or 5 actual emails that I want to respond to but by that point I’m so frustrated with the junk that I don’t respond to the actual emails.  The result of this is that emails go unanswered and then those people emailing me get frustrated and stop emailing, and then all I have is junk.  Just a bunch of stupid things from Yelp and Madewell and The Center for Food Safety.  So you know what I learned?  Unsubscribing is Life!  I just went on an unsubscribing-fest and it was AMAZING.  Goodbye Yelp! Goodbye Madewell! Goodbye Center for Food Safety!

3.  It’s really cold outside because of something to do with the arctic circle.  It’s so cold, in fact, that tomorrow we will supposedly experience a high of 13 degrees.  For those of you who are a little slow like me, that means that the warmest it will be tomorrow is 13 degrees.  That also means that at times it will be colder than 13 degrees.  Colder than 13 degrees.  I learned that tomorrow is going to be terrible but you know what is worse than tomorrow in Brooklyn?  Today in Minnesota.  The governor of Minnesota closed all the schools in the entire state due to cold weather for the first time since 1997.  So this lesson is two fold.  The first fold is that even though tomorrow is going to be insanely cold at least I can go outside without my face getting frostbitten within 2 minutes.  The second fold is that I never want to live in Minnesota.

4.  Last night I had a really hard time sleeping.  I felt sleepy when I got into bed but then I was wide awake.  I was just lying there, surrounded by cats, unable to move because despite the fact that each of my two cats only weighs 10 pounds they manage to take up all of the space.  I really believe that if I had a bed that was the size of the entire universe, my cats would still sleep in such a way that would leave me curled up uncomfortably in a ball.  Part of the reason I was having trouble sleeping was because I kept having itches. There was the itch on the bottom of my foot.  One under my left arm.  Another one in my hair.  I became convinced that I had bedbugs.  Then I thought, what if the ants escaped!  (They didn’t.)  Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I had the following thought: it would be terrible to be pregnant.  Not that for other people it is terrible.  For other people I think it is great!  I really do.  I love when my friends have kids.  But honestly, whenever one of my friends tells me they are pregnant (which is happening more and more often these days), after I am very happy and excited for them, I think to myself “better her than me.”  So here is the other thing I learned:  I probably should never have children.

5.  The other day I went to a bar to have a glass of wine and read my magazine before I went home, ate vegetarian chile and spent too much time watching shitty television.  There I was, minding my own business, reading about eating horses (???) when I caught the guy two chairs down staring at me.  I decided to pretend like I didn’t see him and went back to reading.  Unsuccessful.  The inevitable happened: he talked to me.

Guy:  Um, excuse me Miss?  I would like to buy you a drink.
Me: Oh, thank you but I actually think I am just going to have the one.  But if I change my mind you’ll be the first to know.
Guy:  (At this point I noticed some slight slurring)  Are you sure?  Because I was going to leave and then come back but only if I can buy you a drink.
Me:  No, I think I’m good.  I’m going to go home and eat dinner.
Guy, staring:  You have just the most beautiful hair.
Me:  Oh, thanks.
Guy:  It looks just like my mother’s.
Me: ……..

My philosophy, by the way, is to never accept a drink from someone at the bar because, aside from the fact that I am seeing someone,  you are then obligated to talk to them.  I mean, despite his obvious mommy-issues I am sure this guy was perfectly nice but no thank you.  Another thing that I learned: avoiding eye-contact with guys at bars is not always effective in combating off-putting pick-up lines.

So I guess that is it.  I guess those are the things that I learned so far in 2014.  Stay tuned because I am sure there will be equally interesting lessons to follow.  And now I will stop procrastinating writing this article that I am supposed to write by rambling on my blog and start procrastinating the article by making the Super Bowl pool thing for my job.  Okay, wait, here is another one.

6.  I love to procrastinate and I am really good at it.

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My Final Post

31 Dec

In 2013!  I got you there, didn’t I?  You thought this was my last post ever.  PSYCH!  Ha.  Okay.  Moving on.  Seeing as how this is the very last day in 2013, I thought maybe I would try to squeeze in one last blog post.  So, here it goes.

On my way to work yesterday, and having recently turned 30, I was thinking about all the things my also recently-turned-30 friends have been posting about being 30.  Like, how to know you’re 30.  Why your 30s are better than your 20s.  And things to stop saying in your 30s.  Sorry I didn’t link them all but after skimming through half a dozen such lists my eyes glazed over and I sort of just wanted to melt into a metallic puddle sort of like Alex Mack did on that show.  Come to think of it, I often fantasize about melting into a metallic puddle and sneaking out of, and into, places but that’s a story for another day.  So here are a few things. First of all, and maybe it’s because I wasn’t an avid social media user when I turned 20, I don’t ever remember there being lists about the things one should and should not do and say and think when maturing from teen to after teen.  Second of all, shut up.  I don’t know who made these people the authorities on the ways people should behave when they reach a certain age but I would like to see some credentials.  I would then like to take those supposed credentials, rip them up, throw them on the ground, and jump on them sort of like the bubble wrap my friend Carie and I discovered on a street corner a few years back.  There we were, two adults, one in her 30s, jumping up and down like lunatics on a giant sheet of bubble wrap, giggling and generally causing a scene.  We were, as some may say, acting “totes cray” and it was fantastic.  In fact, I wouldn’t mind jumping on a sheet of bubble wrap right about now.  Anyway, back to the list.  I agree with my friend Peter who, on a Facebook post mere hours after I was initially thinking about writing this post (get out of my HEAD, Peter!) said the following (much better than I ever could, mind you):

“There’s an article on Huffington Post about things you should not be saying once you’re over the age of 30. And I just thought, who is this punk to tell people what they should say and shouldn’t say? There are all these ways that people tell each other that they’re not good enough, that they’re unknowingly foolish and our minds get filled up with these corrections. Don’t write about this subject. This is how you ought to be. Don’t do this, don’t wear that hat, quit posting this, it’s too long, it’s too political…so for this New Year, my first resolution and wish for all of us is that we banish these little voices that seek to gain power or status over the “foolish masses” by shaming us for innocuous habits.”

Granted, there are things that people say that I don’t like.  It has nothing to do with age or anything, I just think these things are cliche, sound stupid, or make basically no sense.  But you know what?  I personally just don’t say them.* Anyway, I don’t know.  I am 30 and I sometimes say stupid things.  I also still have stuffed animals on my bed, do not own an iron, have no professional clothing, and sometimes I even eat junk food in the middle of the night (apparently all no-nos according to the internet).  I think I am still doing okay.  I also think that I shouldn’t just wake up one morning and be like “oh, I have turned this entirely arbitrary age and now I have to start behaving like An Adult.”  Whatever.  I like behaving like me.  So, I have compiled a list of things that people should stop doing altogether, no matter the age (this is in no particular order):

1. Stop making lists telling people what they should and should not do.

Oh, well, I guess according to my own list the list should just stop there.  That was a close one.  I just totally almost made a complete fool of myself.  But seriously.  I love The Internet just as much as the next person who enjoys cat videos, but I am oftentimes shocked by the things that go viral.  So that list, which obviously originated on Huffpost Women because shaming women is like a national pastime, must have been posted by like a dozen of my Facebook friends.  And I just kind of think that maybe there are other things that people should refrain from saying in casual conversation at all ages.  You know, things that hurt other people.  Things like saying something is “gay” or “retarded.”  Making jokes about rape.  Calling someone a whore or a fatass or a faggot.  Using racial epithets.  I don’t know, words like “adorbs” seem comparatively harmless.

So, anyway, that is all from me in 2013.  Thank you everyone for reading.  It was a banner year!  And I think next year will be even bannerier!  I’m looking forward to it.  Good things are coming down the pipeline for me.  And maybe for you.  Who knows.  In summation, this coming year I hope to write more, be nicer to people who are nice to me and meaner to people who aren’t, and check my email more often.  Try sending me an email sometime in mid-2014 and see what happens.  Hopefully something.

*Okay, fine, there was a recent time when I posted on a friend’s page my annoyance with the phrase “says nobody ever” but I didn’t write a post about it.  And I also don’t judge people for saying it.  I just think it is dumb, not funny and overused. But keep right on saying it if it strikes your fancy!

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