A Conversation with My Psyche on Valentine's Day Eve

Sigh.

Like you didn't see this coming.

Well, I mean, I don't even have an easy, soulless booty call!

You're the worst NYU student ever.

Tell me about it. And I haven't even started to read Lolita yet. I've had all week...

Well maybe you can start tonight, since you have nothing better to do.

Shut up.

No, but seriously, how did you let this happen? It's the dry skin around your nose, isn't it? That, and all your leg hair.

Oh, like you're so blameless. How about my bouts of unmanageable depression? Whose fault is that? How about the million ways I worry when a guy gives me his number? Or my total inability to hold a conversation with a stranger I find even remotely attractive? Or my blatant need to try to act funny as a way of impressing potential dates? That's all your fault, buddy, and that's why I get to choose between ordering Silver Spurs delivery and making a NyQuil-and-wine cocktail tonight. So thanks. Thanks for that.

Well you're the one who keeps forgetting to call that therapist back.

But isn't that your fault too?

...Shut up.

-Josh

Gossip Girl Reality Show Remake

YES, YES, FUCK YES. BEST BDAY PRESENT EVER.

I'm all over this shit.

-Jess

I can drink LEGALLY

Last night after midnight I went to a BAR and showed my REAL ID and actually entered LEGALLY.

Because today is my 21st birthday (on Friday the 13th, how fitting).

WOO.

-Jess

Stress

Last week an NYU journalism student interviewed us for her inquiry class. She seemed shell shocked at the amount of work Josh and I take on. She assumed we got paid for this little blog because we post on it so much! I think it's safe to say that most of you know we do not get paid, and that it actually is a lot of work to keep this up, when you think about the fact that I edit NYU Local every Thursday, plus write articles for it, plus write articles for Daily Gorilla, plus do their pop culture graphs, plus do homework, plus have a job that I work at 30 hours a week... yeah. It gets busy.

This is basically just a longwinded, self-pitying way of saying sorry I haven't posted much substantial material the past few days. My wifi has been spotty this past week and I am busy. Obnoxiously so. To the point where I am always banging into people in the staircase leading to the 6 train and spilling hot coffee all over my hands and sleeping 5 hours a night.

BUT. In a matter of HOURS (midnight!) I turn 21. So I may or may not be posting much this weekend because I am going to try to spend the weekend as permawasted as possible.

-Jess

Dear Jess and Josh Readers,

Sorry. I feel like my posts as of late have been heavy on the stupid and light on the substantial. I've been dealing with crippling depression   the shame of continued unemployment   stress.

Also, like, hey schoolwork, glad we could finally meet. NOT. Heh heh it's because I hate doing homework.

Okay so expect a whiny Valentine's Day post from me in the very near future. Until then, here's a dancing pony.



Yours Truly,
Josh

Save Money!

No snark here, just some good, common-sense tips for the next time you're grocery shopping.

-Josh

Under My Gossip Umbrella

http://realityslap.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/rihanna-chris-brown-snuggling.jpg

I was not going to post about this because much of it is unsubstantiated gossip and there is also a fair amount of victim blaming going on. However, fuck it, here's my two cents on this unfortunate incident: a friend of mine who works at Vogue confirmed to me that the rumor around the office is that Rihanna did indeed give Chris Brown herpes WHICH SHE CONTRACTED FROM KANYE WEST. How we're going to confirm this I have no idea, but just thought I would share.

Obviously what Chris Brown did was unacceptable, even if Rihanna was cheating on him/gave him an STI. Hitting people doesn't solve anything, mister!

-Jess

Quality Journalism Has No Idea WTF is Going to Happen to Quality Journalism

Josh and I, along with Cody and Lily, liveblogged NYTimes Managing Editor Jill Abramson's lecture and Q&A session held tonight as part of the Gallatin Lecture Series.

-Jess

SEX

Today in DG:

A lengthier, better-researched version of this post lamenting the lack of comprehensive sex ed.

-Jess

The Saddest Thing I've Ever Seen

From the Literacy Foundation

-Jess

Makin' Me Love and Hate Axe at the Same Time

Rapid-fire posting woo! This is a terrific, lecherous little ad from Axe Fantasy, whatever the hell that is.

-Josh

Stuck in 1998*

JESS: i just got an email notification that i received a fax... what do i do?
JOSH: uhm
JOSH: LOL I have never gotten a fax
JESS: i know wtf
JOSH: go to the machine copy thing and then just like....wait for it
JESS: lol
JESS: fuck it i'm deleting it and pretending i didn't get it
JOSH: wait LOL wait... you got an email
JOSH: saying.... that you got a fax
JOSH: you got an EMAIL saying that you got a FAX
JESS: A new fax has arrived from **** (Part 1 of 1) on Channel 1**
JOSH: LOLOLOL
JESS: LOL. ok that is pretty ridiculous
JOSH: "Hi, I'm calling to tell you that I sent you a telegram"

*JESS'S MOM: just read the post on being stuck in 1998--it's actually 1992. i used to have people call me to say they were sending a fax and then call again to see if i got it. then they started doing it with emails

WHY I WILL BE ALONE FOREVER PART 890432

My uterus has apparently decided it is 10 years older than my actual age: my heart clenches and then melts when I see hot guys being cutesy with kids. UGHHHHHHHHHH is this the point that I start dreading birthdays and hearing "tick tock, tick tock" in my sleep??

-Jess

Overqualified

Job listings like this confuse me. Do I really need a Bachelor of Arts to "be able to identify specific clothing items that celebrities are wearing in candid photographs"?

No, I do not. I just need a lot of free time and a frightening love for Us Weekly. I have one of those things! Maybe "The Company" should hire me as an intern or something, so that I might learn.

-Josh

Facebook Attempts to Be More Like Digg

This morning I woke up and all the sudden Facebook had gotten a lot more judgmental. They've apparently gone the Digg route and added a "Like" button to statuses, pictures and other things, that allow friends to give you thumbs up if they think you look hot/like what you have to say. The Facebook evolution continues. I am predicting a backlash in the form of angry, irrelevant "REMOVE THE 'LIKE' BUTTON FROM FACEBOOK" groups to begin cropping up the second the bros emerge from their morning Natty Light-induced hangover.

-Jess

JOSH SAYS: This in addition to the Digg application for Facebook. Someone thumbs-up this article on Stumble and save it to Delicious, then Digg it on Facebook. Then kill yourself.

Life & Love With Jess's Mom

No, mom. I can't. But thanks for reminding me.

-Jess

Oops

As it turns out, Chris Brown does not make everything better.

-Josh

=(

I hate when I spend all day anxiously anticipating the newest installment of Gossip Girl only to discover it's a rerun. Balls.

-Jess

The Misshapes "didn't get the memo" about the recession, their own tired irrelevance

Makin me more nauseous.

Have there ever been people less self-aware?

-Jess

Ughhhhh

Last night I saw my friend's DJ set at some bar in the E. Village and only had 2.5 vodka tonics and didn't go to bed feeling drunk but at 3am woke up and began vomming for 4 hours. I am either a severe lightweight or I have salmonella. Or the flu. Either way I am now on the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce and toast!) and kind of feel like I want to die. That is all.

-Jess

Happy World Nude Day

Wish we had known about this and I would have so insisted we participate.

-Jess

Birthdays Was the Worst Days, Now We Sip Champagne When We Thirsty

So here's the thing about turning 21 on Friday.

I know that it will be offensive and cliched and ridiculous for me to lament it and say "oh I'm so old" and "god I don't want to age" but I honestly do feel that way. Turning 21 is not the milestone it used to be anymore, since I have more or less been drinking since I was 14, and the only problem I have getting alcohol is when I want to go to a bar that scans IDs, but it's not like I go out anyway.

The thing about turning 21 is that I am getting older and I remember desperately, anxiously awaiting my 21st birthday with a palpable urgency every other birthday before this one. On my 16th I thought, "It would be nice to celebrate this with champagne," and on my 18th I thought, "I should stop doing so many drugs," and on my 20th I was in London about to get my heartbroken but I didn't know it yet, so everything was wonderful and swimming and I could drink legally, then. And I could do that in Paris, too, just have a glass of wine with dinner, or grab a drink with the guy I was seeing who was much older than me without having to worry that I would get carded and it would be mortifying. Every birthday since my 14th I have wished that I could be 21 so that I could join the club of Adults swilling vodka tonics and looking oh-so-grown up, because according to David, who can apparently read palms, the wry lines that fan out around my fingers mean that I have an old soul, which explains my affinity for whiskey, and also explains why I am terrified of aging: I do not want to be old. Turning 21 means close to nothing except that now when I hang out with my older friends I do not have to be afraid of getting carded. Turning 21 means I am one year further away from being a teenager, one year closer to being 30, to settling down, to having to search for a husband and debate the color of the drapes and when we should have kids and if we should send said kids to a Montessori Preschool. I will be one year closer to having to figure out how to do taxes and how to invest money and perhaps soon I will no longer get hit on by every single construction worker because I will have lost that youthful glow that comes with being 16-20.

This is all ridiculous, I know. 21 is still young, and I still feel this strange melange of incredibly young and naive and incredibly sobered and jaded. I am scared to be a real person, to enter into the world fresh-faced and excited to find out that indeed, it sucks, and I will be unemployed and alone. I'm not sure when birthdays became anxiety-inducing as opposed to exciting and cupcake-laden, and I certainly never thought I would feel this way about turning 21, but there is something lovely and attractive about drinking illegally that will be lost, quite literally forever, come this Friday.

Oh, alright, someone slap me.

-Jess

Stop the Presses?

Tonight I finally saw SonicVision, Moby's 420 playlist paired with some neat graphics blown up on a huge screen at the Museum of Natural History's planetarium. It was wonderful and definitely lived up to the hype my friends had given it.

And what better way is there to stop smoking weed? None, I say, so I'm quitting for a little while.

Wait, what?

Yeah.

I'm in no way saying that smoking a lot of weed is bad or that in order to be productive, you have to stay off the herb. That's not what I'm saying at all. What am I saying is that recent circumstances have added up and led me to the conclusion that I should lay off marijuana for a little while. Here are my reasons, in lazy list form:

1. Getting high isn't as fun for me as it used to be. See, the problem with doing a substance--be it recreational or medicinal, as in the case of NyQuil, for example--often enough is that you come to have certain expectations. Great nights are had, highs are achieved, but pretty soon you need more and more to achieve the same effects. That is called tolerance. When my tolerance gets too high, however, I start replacing a notion of having fun with a mental checklist, waiting for certain things to happen and never appreciating my time spent high. I've lately come to realize that when I get smoke now, I don't do it for the fun of getting high--I get high to watch a TV show, to eat a sweet food then a salty food, and to Stumble on Wikipedia, in that order. I get high, in other words, and still have to do things, because my mind must create order in situations and I am neurotic. And what stoner wants to do things?

2. I'm getting lethargic. It's not just my weed tolerance that's gone up; it's happening with caffeine, as well. But when my rudimentary coffee stops even slightly waking me up after a previous night spend in a weed-induced haze, and I'm feeling fatigued all throughout the day--no matter how many cappuccinos I pay too much for--well, it can't just be caffeine's fault. I am lanky, so I'm tall but I'm thin, and chemicals really affect my body and stay in my system. So while I'm certainly not high 24/7, the more I smoke, the more I have that general drowsiness that accompanies a proper sesh. And while that drowsiness can be nice on a chilly winter weeknight, I need energy to propel me through those chilly winter weekdays. Especially because...

3. ...I'm still jobless! And therefore not receiving a paycheck. And therefore cannot justify spending fifty dollars on an eighth, or even splitting that with a friend, with my current frequency. This one's the really sucky reason that actually isn't just me being neurotic, but a fact is a fact is an empty bank account. I already go out to bars and clubs a lot less than I used to, and while there was a lot of complicated reasoning to go along with that, the sad reality remains that drinks are expensive in this city, and I wouldn't be able to pay for many vodka tonics anyway.

4. I need...I need to know I can do this. Look, I know that marijuana isn't physically addictive. But I also know that there is such a thing as psychological addiction. To me, that point comes when you can't think things are funny without being high, when you feel you've "wasted" a staying-in night if you haven't smoked, when you grow despondent over not having any more weed. And while I haven't exactly reached obsessive levels yet, I do worry that I'm getting close to the Rubicon--that moment when I can no longer imagine life without weed. And it's enough that I'm (sadly) there with cigarettes. I don't need to be addicted to smoking two things.

5. I've generally been pretty down lately, for a lot of stressful reasons, and I just don't think weed is helping; in fact, I think it may actually be making my feelings of depression worse.

Woo. By blogging about it, I'll be able to hold myself accountable, and I hope my readers will help me out. (Even those of you who do partake.)

I'm not saying that everyone who smokes a lot of weed will experience these things; chemicals affect each person in different ways, and what grows tiresome for one person may grow more exciting for someone else. So this isn't a veiled insult toward anybody's lifestyle, seriously. But there's no way for me to deal with the problems I listed above without giving up smoking altogether, for the time being.* I hope to get a lot of my issues straightened out so that I can go back to smoking weed in a truly recreational way. But right now, even if my relationship with Mary Jane is still intact, it's definitely getting shaky, and sometimes taking a break is just the thing that will make the reunion all the sweeter.

And the reunion will be all the sweeter.

-Josh

*I am making one exception: suburbia. Houses, real houses, were practically made for smoking in. Should I find myself in, say, New Jersey or Long Island or the greater Philadelphia area in the near future, I won't not smoke. But then, when I'm at a house in the first place, it ususally means I'm on some sort of vacation, and vacations are special magical times when the calories don't count and your brain cells can't get destroyed by any amount of drugs or alcohol. I hope.