Google Tried to Warn Us

In drinking years, I belong to AARP

So I'm hungover today. I fail at not drinking, although to be fair:

1) It wasn't even that much
2) I drank a lot of water in between
3) It was Saturday

So this morning my head was like "You need to keep sleeping BUT I'm going to hurt so you can't, haha!"

And then I was like "Well, fuck you then, I'm going to take some Advil," but my stomach was like "Not if you want to keep it down" and I knew it meant it, so I just had bacon instead. But then my stomach was like "I'm hungry/I'm full/Drink juice/Ack, nono not juice!" and honestly it's just a little ridiculous.

I think they need to lower the legal drinking age to 18 or 19, and I don't care about all the "real" reasons people always cite when debating the point. It needs to be a thing because face it, your years of being able to drink-drink are pretty limited. It would be like if you had to be 30 before you could play professional football - your peak's been wasted. Just like athletes set their career records in their 20s (at least, I assume they do, honestly I don't care about sports so I'm not sure) all of your crazy drinking stories happen when you're young. Once you pass 25, you will never again drink from a funnel or a comically oversized boot glass, shotgun a warm Heineken (so at least there is that silver lining), or even be able to hear the word "fireline" without instantly throwing up in your mouth.

After 25, You'll play beirut (beer pong for those of you that are doing it wrong) in a desperate attempt at a college throwback, and secretly dump most of the beer into the bushes when no one is looking. You'll have to take shots in two gulps and then rub your stomach for ten minutes before even thinking about taking another sip of your beer. You'll buy a 30-rack of beer when your friends come over, only to discover 22 cans of it still sitting on your back porch when you dig out the snow shovels 7 months later. You'll actually have the same bottle of whiskey in your house for so long it starts to taste better eventually. Or maybe you won't do any of those things, but I do and this isn't really your blog anyway, is it?

When I was somewhere around 22, the hubby (then bf) and I split a bottle of absinthe with maybe three or four friends, and we killed it by 10am the next day with the old hair of the dog shot. Now I can't even look at a bottle of that green shit in the liquor store without wanting to vomit and take a nap (not simultaneously, that would be dangerous - I know this because the mandatory "welcome to college, please don't die this semester" freshman class told me so).

Now it's like, someone mentions that whole "hair of the dog" thing and I'm like "omg are you joking? I am never drinking again" which is always completely 100% true. It's just that sometimes, "again" just means "today".

It's hard to accept being drinking-old though, especially when I'm still young for all other purposes. Sometimes I still buy a six-pack of beer thinking I'm going to drink it all on my day off, and instead I watch Netflix and then go to bed at 11. I drink nothing but bottled water all day, or, if I'm feeling adventurous and the expiration date is approaching, maybe I'll go wild and have a glass of milk.

I remember meeting people who were in their mid-20s to early 30s when I was 22 (I feel like I was 22 for like 5 years, is that weird? It's like when I tell stories about when I was a kid and in every single one I'm like "so I was like 11, and...") and anyway, they would tell me how they don't really party anymore, and I'd think they were boring people who didn't like to have fun. I thought of my drinking future in the exact same way that I thought about Disney World when I was a kid, like "Wow, I really hope that when I'm older I will still want to go to Disney World... I hope I don't decide it's lame and only for little kids," except it was more like "I hope when I'm nearing thirty I still think it's fun to play Asshole until I pass out in my chair... I hope I don't decide it's lame and only for college kids" And all I can say in response to that is "well, at least I still do want to go to Disney World."

Maybe the saddest part is that just when I've finally retained knowledge of the rules to drinking card games into the next day, I'm at the stage of my life where being the one that gets fucked by the table actually is kind of a bad thing. (If you didn't get that reference, you probably never played cards with a joker as the 5 of hearts on a coffee table with Jack Daniels ripples in it, and you have no idea what you missed out on.)

I don't know exactly when it happened, but sometime after my 25th birthday, "going out for a few beers" actually became a literal thing and not a downplayed euphemism for getting shitfaced. Sometimes, when you're young, "a few" means "a lot" - usually on the same days that "again" means "today".

I just realized this blog is full of vomit references and random tangents but it is about drinking, so I think it's perfectly appropriate and I'm not changing it. Also, I'm lazy. You're lucky I blogged at all. I pretty much only bothered because my Chromebook was already on my living room couch and the Game of Thrones facebook game wouldn't load.

I think there's also a possibility that I'm being pessimistic about my drinking abilities because I was up until 5am and slept on a couch with my earrings still on, because none of this in any way diminishes my desire to go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans next year.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I am officially drinking-old, but that doesn't mean I'm ready to drinking-retire. I think I'm up for the beerquivalent of bagging groceries in my old-man orthopedic shoes ten hours a week for something to do. Maybe I'll even wink at the cute vodka bottle working the checkout register.

I'll probably blog more, since I'm "quitting" drinking

I know I'm the most sporadic blogger in history (or at least, you know, in my social circle - because non-bloggers are not sporadic, and all my friends either don't blog or blog practically every damn day) but I do have an excuse. See, most of the time, I'm too busy actually doing things to write about them. Like, I would love to tell you some of my awful/awesome drinking stories, but I'm usually to busy creating another one to bother. That's all about to change (for awhile)!

The hubby and I have decided to "quit" drinking for a few months. There are a few reasons for this, and some of them are responsible ones, so let's get those out of the way first:

1) To lose some weight - seriously, on weekends beer probably represents half my caloric intake, and since the other half comes from the buffalo wild wings I eat with the beer, this can only help.

2) To save some money - Duh, we need to save money to go to New Orleans (Hoping for Mardi Gras!) and/or Las Vegas (again, because why not?) so we can drink some more. There's logic in there soomewhere, yes? I just feel like Bourbon St would be more fun than Boylston, Massachusetts to drink at.

And then there's the not-so-responsible reason: tolerance break! Apparently there's science behind the whole quit-for-a-few-months, become-a-cheap-date-again thing. Something about enzymes building up in the liver. Wikipedia says it works, and I'm trusting the guys who co-wrote every single college paper I've ever done.

So those are my reasons, and the result is more free time, and it's twofold: One, I won't be going out as often so I'll be home and probably on my computer, and two, I won't be sleeping off hangovers every Sunday so I'll probably get up before most restaurants stop serving breakfast. I mean, yeah, IHOP, Denny's and Cracker Barrel serve breakfast all day, but 1) There's no way any sober person ever is going to go to Denny's, and 2) I don't care what time it is, if it's my first meal of the day, it's breakfast time. Bring me some bacon and eggs and to hell with your dinner specials!

So anyway, this all sounds pretty solid, right? So why did I put "quit" in parentheses? BECAUSE, I'm still 20-something years old and where the hell else can 20-somethings meet up with friends after work besides  a bar? I'm not going to suddenly become antisocial just because I'm cutting back (although apparently that is what happens to some people). I'm just going to employ the tactic I should be using every time I go out: One glass of beer, followed by one glass of water. Keeps the calories down and keeps me hydrated, so win-win, right?

According to internet lore/annoying advice from know-it-alls, I should be doing this all the time to prevent hangovers, but at the same time, I feel like a hangover is your body's way of telling you you're a fucking tool, and who am I to shut my body down when it wants to take a stand about something? Also, no one wants to be that lame-ass at the bar ordering free fucking waters from a harried bartender who's probably already thinking of spitting in your drink because they're pissed off that they're working on a Saturday night while you and all your annoying friends are still trying to make "epic fail" a verb.

So I guess what I'm saying is I could (but won't, without significant bribing) be a DD for a while. And I'll probably blog more (which isn't saying much, really).

In the meantime, if you're having Stina-withdrawal (admit it, you are), there are always a couple of options for you:

1) buy me a beer
2) buy me a beer
3) Buy me a beer somewhere - if I'm not spending the money, it doesn't count, as far as I'm concerned.

I don't trust people with mustaches: a personal study in the irrational

We're all familiar with the 5-second rule, right? Germs take 5 seconds to latch on to food when it's dropped on the floor... maybe they move slow, or maybe they're just courteous and rule-abiding, like in this picture my friend showed me recently:

I'm not a believer in the 5-second rule myself, but I evidently share with my brother the similarly irrational belief that my breath is antiseptic, because if I drop something on the floor, I immediately pick it up and blow on it. Although in my case, my breath might actually be antiseptic, but only on Saturday nights - fine, selected Thursdays and Fridays, too. (Do you see what I did there?)

It doesn't end there, though. There are several completely irrational things that I at least sort of believe. I'm going to share them with you, but before you judge me, ask yourself how many times you've jinxed someone into owing you a coke you full well know they're never going to deliver. And I'm not even going to ask about all your elementary school cootie shots - we're going to leave those in the past, where they belong.

I don't trust people with mustaches. In my personal experience, everyone with a mustache either looks like a serial killer, a dirty old man, or at the very least someone possessing an unhealthy obsession with the Olsen twins. Now, if you yourself are a mustached gent (or lady) please be aware that I'm not saying that you are any of those things. I'm just saying you look like one of those things.

You know how your car makes all kinds of weird noises at different times in its life? For most of those noises, I have pretty much the same fix... Strange clunking sound that could be anything from stuff rattling around in the trunk to the wheel falling off? Turn up the radio. Odd beeping noise that sounds like probably all the doors are open and/or the car is about to self-destruct? Turn up the radio. Insistent crackling sound accompanied by smoke billowing out from the fuse box? Turn up the radio and roll the window down. But when that noise sounds even the tiniest bit like a buzzing sound? BEE IN THE CAR, hooooly crap, OH MY FUCK, there's a BEE in my CAR! Pull over! Abort! Just jump out, let the car go, it's not worth it, the bee can have it, hellooooo 911, Bee in the fucking CAR!! ... oh hold up, sorry, it was just my phone vibrating. My bad.

Some of you may know that I have been being told for 3 years now that I need to get my wisdom teeth removed. You will likely also know then, that this is never going to happen. Firstly, I've had a cavity filled without Novocaine and IF YOU THINK YOU ARE GETTING YOUR STUPID DRILL ANYWHERE NEAR MY FACE, you vile white-coated fiend, you've got another thing coming! So then my dentist and all of you rational people out there are like, "Well, why don't you just have them put you under, then?" and that brings me to my next irrational belief: if you think that's such a good idea then you do it, and we'll see who's on the front page of failblog tomorrow with Sharpie genitalia all over their face. (Do I mean pictures of genitalia drawn with Sharpie markers, or do I mean actual genitalia belonging to a Sharpie marker? You'll always wonder that now.)

In a similar medical vein (ha) I have a weird relationship with the doctor's office. It's like, first of all, I hate going to the doctor, because I'm a fairly sane human being and the doctor's office sucks once you're too old to get free lollipops there (I think I just now uncovered the secret evil conspiracy between doctors and dentists). The thing is, I also know that if I have an appointment, by the time I get there, absolutely nothing will be wrong with me. I could be vomiting frogs on the way there, but by the time I get in the exam room, I'm miraculously cured. If I decide to tough it out and refuse to make an appointment though, I will just get sicker by the day until I cave, make an appointment, and get miraculously healed as soon as the nurse calls my name. Now my doctor probably thinks I'm a hypochondriac, but the truth is that I really did have bacterial meningitis yesterday. I think I may have had a touch of West Nile, too.

The other thing I've noticed is that night time, in general, is a lot scarier than daytime when it comes to irrational fears. Like if I hear footsteps on my front porch in the daytime, I'm like, "Yay! Mail's here. What wonderful mystery item did I and my antiseptic breath order on amazon last night?!" but if the footsteps are at night there is clearly a serial killer outside my house. So what if it's only 6:30 and my husband is due home any moment? It's dark out, a serial killer is the only plausible explanation. It's fine though, I actually have a foolproof serial-killer survival tactic. It works on werewolves, vampires, and most other imaginary predators of the night, too: I lie on the bed, perfectly still, with all four limbs and all extremities completely on the bed (this is crucial) and pretend to be asleep. The only downside to this tactic is that it unfortunately does not work on bees.

Not every one of my exclusively-nighttime irrational beliefs is a fear, though. Take my alarm clock. (I'm not afraid of it, I just deeply and inexorably loathe it. Big difference.) If I wake up in the middle of the night, I absolutely will not look at my clock to see what time it is. The reason for this is that I wholeheartedly believe that if I don't look at it, I can go back to sleep for like, six more hours, but if I do check the time, it is suddenly going to become twenty minutes before the alarm's going to go off anyway. The worst part is that I will probably still go for the instant gratification of going back to sleep anyway, and be rewarded with a groggy, walking-dead outlook for the rest of the day, when I wake up at exactly the wrong stage of REM sleep or whatever.

My alarm clock is actually not the only non-sentient element of my life that conspires against me, though. Take snow, for example. If a snowstorm is coming when I have to go to work the next day, they will predict 5-10 feet of snow (all those computers, and they still give as wide a range as Charter Communications does when your internet is down) and possibly a tornado, or maybe locusts. And I will be like, "Wow, there is no way they're going to open the library tomorrow! I'm going to the bar!" (because I just love the way the sun reflecting of all that snow affects my hangover). The next day, of course, it will be sunny and unseasonably warm, with not a snowflake in sight, and I will spend the whole work day contemplating whether to trade my soul for a BLT or a McDouble. If, on the other hand, a snowstorm is coming the day before I need to drive or fly somewhere that I actually want to go, they will call for a coating to an inch, and we will get 3 feet of solid ice. This brings me to my irrational belief in this whole thing (because the rest of this paragraph is just solid factual information): I look at the weather forecast every day, even though, regardless of what it says, I am just going to believe that the weather will do the exact opposite of what I want it to do. I've tried tricking it, but it knows better than to buy into "Oh no, but if work is cancelled tomorrow, then no one can download porn in the library, and what a travesty that would be!"

Just when I've gotten to that part of my blog where you're like "Hm, nope, I don't think I can identify with her after all, she's got some pretty weird shit going on in her head" (admit it, it's your favorite part), I'm going to circle around and come back to things that I am not alone in irrationally believing: things that, like the 5-second rule, are met with a worldwide attitude that "I don't know, it could be true, let's not chance it just in case". 

Okay, I've probably stepped on tons of cracks, and my mother's back is still fully intact, but the thing is, I stepped on those cracks without noticing, and deliberately stepping on a crack is a whole different animal, right? Like, if I'm mindful of the surface I'm walking on, I will totally avoid the cracks, because what if? Besides, even if that myth isn't true, there is the whole "the floor is lava" thing that could suddenly become real at any minute, if I open a space-time rift by stepping on the line between tiles at Market Basket. (For some reason, I never picture this end-times scenario happening anywhere else).

I don't always have birthday cake, and I don't always have candles, and I don't always make a wish even if I do have candles, but WHEN I DO all of those things, I never, ever tell anyone what my wish was. You know why? Because at my fourth birthday party, amidst more My Little Pony-themed shit than you can even imagine, I blew out my candles and proudly announced that I'd wished for a real pony. I am still waiting. What I should have done is wish-and-tell to be grounded, but at that time I still legitimately believed there was a chance I could grow up to be a princess, so my logical reasoning skills were clearly not fully developed.

I also don't walk under ladders, not because I think it's bad luck in some abstract sense, but because that's just a stupid thing to do generally. In fact, if you walk under a ladder and it or an object falls on you, it's not even bad luck, it's just the price you pay for being a moron. Breaking mirrors, though? Well, I dropped a little mirror I was using for a craft project once and thought nothing of it when it broke, but guess how many years I've been working at the library?

I'm not really sure how I feel about the whole knock on wood thing, so I compromise. If I say something that seems like it could be jinxed just for having said it, I knock on the closest object that is either made of wood, or covered in laminate that has a fake wood grain on it. (In retrospect, yet another way I could have salvaged that pony wish).

There's a lot of irrational stuff out there that I never really bought into, believe it or not. Like I guess there is some kind of thing where if something-or-other happens, you're supposed to throw salt over your shoulder? I don't know what the myth is, but I feel like whatever you're avoiding can't be any worse than stepping on a salt-covered floor with bare feet. And that thing about your ears ringing means someone is talking about you? (Or is it itching?) There is no way that could be true, or every single person from the People of Walmart calendar would be at the doctor's complaining about their ears every day. Also, what about celebrities? Is there a minute ever that someone, somewhere isn't talking about Lady Gaga or breaking up with Taylor Swift? Wouldn't their ears always bother them? Similarly, a shiver means someone's walking on your grave? I shiver all the fucking time, and I am so not going to be buried anywhere, because hello, serial killers and bees can still find you as long as it's dark, and I'm not completely ruling out the zombie thing yet.

Ultimate Advice Book Speed-Read

It seems like nowadays a person can't fart without another endeavoring person writing an advice book on how said fart could have been accomplished faster, to better profit, and in accordance with some handy acronym. (Flatulent Autonomic Reactive Tooting, perhaps?)

But there wouldn't be books like "The 4-Hour Workweek" or "5 Minute Abs" if these endeavoring authors didn't at least have some grasp of the notion that people with real jobs (that is, people who have not made a fortune selling bogus advice books) don't really have a lot of free time to, well, read advice books.

In the spirit of this, I've decided to help you all out and summarize some popular advice books in... are you ready for this? Three words or less. Because I am just such a nice person like that.

The Science of Skinny

Eat Vegetables, Dumbass.

Although I have to wonder about the subconscious implications of the fact that the cover apparently is obsessively measuring the waist circumference of a string bean. NOT SKINNY ENOUGH, BEAN.

What to Expect When You're Expecting

Hopefully, A Baby.


Unless there was some truth to that old jump rope chant... "it's a boy, it's a girl, it's an outer space creature... oh, crap."

He's Just Not That Into You

Call You, Maybe?


But probably not.

Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man

Gorgeous, Don't Argue.


Just be ladylike and keep your mouth shut... except for when you... you know what I mean, baby, 'cause now I got you thinking like me.

How to Win Friends & Influence People

Mostly, You Lie.


Hopefully you can influence them to believe you. I think it works better if you get them to think like a man first.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

Bacon or Sausage?


Luckily, the Big Slam comes with both.

Who Moved My Cheese?

I ate it.

Who leaves cheese unattended?

What Color Is Your Parachute?

Your Job Sucks.

Maybe we can help you find a new one? If not, at least you just helped us keep ours by purchasing this book!

The 4-Hour Work Week

Collecting Social Security.


Because that's the only way this is going to happen, and we all know those lines can be long. Direct Deposit, dude. It will reduce your work week another 95%.

Organizing from the Inside Out

Clean your shit.


At least, I hope your house/desk being being messy and unorganized is the focus of this book, because the only other possibility is that they want you to alphabetize your organs.









Congratulations, you've (sort of) just read ten books in forty seconds, and are well on your way to bettering yourself!

Sure, there is the minor issue concerning the fact that I have not actually read any of these books, but were you really going to read them either? 

I'm happy to take three-word summary suggestions on any other books you'd like to (sort of) read. Just leave a comment.

Asking the right questions

Much like Captain Jack Sparrow's poignant "But why is the rum gone?", sometimes it is critical in life to ask the right questions. Here are a few examples of the right question to ask in various life situations the next time you encounter them (and you will, probably the next time you open facebook).

WHEN SOMEONE SAYS: Why do women always date assholes and then complain that there aren't any nice guys?
THE RIGHT QUESTION IS: Why are assholes always so goddamn good looking?

WHEN SOMEONE SAYS: Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.
THE RIGHT QUESTION IS: Why am I always stuck with the last pick? Or alternately, who keeps letting Chuck Norris pick first?


WHEN SOMEONE SAYS: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
THE RIGHT QUESTION IS: Can you please explain Lyme disease to me?


WHEN SOMEONE SAYS: If a train leaves New York traveling west at 50 mph and another train leaves California traveling east at 45 mph, where and when will they meet?
THE RIGHT QUESTION IS: Who the fuck takes trains anymore?


WHEN SOMEONE SAYS: You can't have your cake and eat it, too.
THE RIGHT QUESTION IS: Why don't we just buy a bigger cake next time?


WHEN SOMEONE SAYS: The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
THE RIGHT QUESTION IS: How do you know that?


WHEN SOMEONE SAYS: I loved him enough to let him go.
THE RIGHT QUESTION IS: Was he dangling over the edge of a cliff?


WHEN SOMEONE SAYS: Don't give advice that isn't asked for.
THE RIGHT QUESTION IS: Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?


WHEN SOMEONE SAYS: Will you marry me?
THE RIGHT QUESTION IS: What's in it for me?


WHEN SOMEONE SAYS: I'm just going to keep hoping & praying until my problem goes away on its own!
THE RIGHT QUESTION IS: And which hand are you going to shit in?



I would write some more, but some guy just stashed vodka in the bushes in front of my work so I have to go refill the bottle with water and put it back now.

A lot better than that shit you'll find in your fortune cookie tonight

Sometimes as humans, we learn from experience. Other times, we learn from observation. In my eyes, the apex of learning occurs when we are also laughing. Or something. Honestly, I just felt like I needed to preface my list of life lessons with some words, so here they are. I'm outlining a few lessons I've learned in life, through experience, observation, and/or wikipedia.

You actually will use cursive writing in real adult life. Growing up in a world rife with computers and instructions to "PLEASE PRINT", I never thought I'd actually need to use cursive - and I wasn't buying that "you need to learn an entire new writing style so you can sign your name to important grown-up things" bit, because everyone knows you only need to sign the first letter of your name and then just sort of scribble randomly. The real reason you need to learn to write in cursive is in preparation for that day when you go into work so hungover that you literally cannot lift your pen off of the piece of paper you're writing on. On that day and only that day, cursive is going to be the most amazing thing you've ever experienced, except for possibly a Big Mac.

Everyone can get 15 minute breaks at work. How many people have started smoking just to get extra breaks at work? I know I've been tempted even though I sure as hell know better. Honestly I can't believe that I've only figured this one out in the last year or so, but you don't need to take cigarette breaks just to get off the floor for 15 minutes. Just remember: Not everybody smokes, but everybody poops. It's not like anyone's going to follow you in there to find out that you're actually just sitting on the closed toilet lid playing Angry Birds.

Everything worth watching on TV is on Sunday at 9:00 pm. You can only watch one of them at a time, though. Seriously, TV is just pure junk all week long, and then everything you actually want to watch is all on at the same time. If you like a show that's on at a different time, you probably have horrible taste in entertainment. Either that, or your show is getting moved next season to Sundays at 9.

Don't talk trash about other people. It's supposed to be bad karma, it makes you look insecure, blah blah blah there are a lot of ways that you can try to make yourself feel good for refraining from talking trash about someone else, but the real reason I advise against it is because it's like an unwritten universal law that the second you get to that one horrible thing that's been in your head but you know you shouldn't ever say, that person will suddenly appear right behind you and hear the entire thing, and you will never get back that DVD you lent them.

Try not to outdrink everyone else at the table. You're going to feel absolutely great if you do. You'll see yourself as funny, charming, clever and - when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the bathroom mirror - damn hot to boot. That is, until the next morning when your friends won't return your calls, you open Facebook to see that you wrote "Peace out bitches" on all your co-worker's walls at 3:15 am, and the credit card slip in your purse says "Don't eat yellow snow" in the tip line. Then you're just going to feel like the asshole you were.