Uncategorized

Dating App Observations

/ apazhavila

A purely scientific review

Source: Wikimedia Commons

No one could have foretold that the saying, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,” would one day apply to dating apps. In fact, this is their target audience. Sure, there are plenty of fish in the sea, but that sea is actually a cesspool.

Case in point:

— Why you frowning at me like that? Your profile photo looks like a prison mugshot.
 —  Why are you taking selfies while driving? Don’t you have anyone at all who cares about you enough to take a decent photo for your profile?
 —  Why are these photos so grainy? Even the most basic smart phone takes clear photos!
 — Who is that woman next to you? Sure, her face is scribbled out, but I want to know who is she to you?
 —  You claim that after work you can be found at the gym. Not in a relationship with me, you won’t. You’re gonna prioritize time with me. You can work out while I’m sleeping.
 — You claim to be 45, but you look 55. Why the gray hair and battered face? Is it all those jars you had to open?

Things I don’t want to see:

— Your shirtless workout at the gym. (whutevs)
— The fish you caught. (you’re cool!)
 —  You smoking a cigar. (so cool!)
 — You pointing at your bros. (probably the coolest!)
 — You making out with your dog. (and you plan to kiss me with that mouth??)
 — You holding a huge hunk of meat, Fred Flintstone-style (blech!)
 — You holding a gun (WTF?)
 —  You lying in bed shirtless looking at the camera with bedroom eyes. (cool your jets — we haven’t even met yet!)

If I had a dollar for every profile photo I’ve seen with some variation of these components, I’d be a millionaire and could buy myself a quality mate instead of wasting time on these dreadful dating apps.

Things I don’t want to hear:

— “Hi, pretty lady.” (catfishing) 
— “God gave you a perfect face. Is it ok if I like your eyes?” (serial killer)
— “Let’s get kinky!” (nah)
 —  “I’m ethically non-monogamous!” (slut)

Once you weed out all the fake profiles and every guy with missing teeth, a snaggle tooth, over-eager chest hair, man boobs, beer belly, face tattoo, gold medallion, pinkie ring, or who is roided out, it leaves one man. And he lives 3,000 miles away.

Crushing 2023

/ apazhavila

Prepare to be inspired AF

Source: Wikimedia Commons

In the game of Life, you are the protagonist. The plot: move amongst several billion non-playable characters. The goal: to reach your death with a modicum of integrity and dignity left. The final stage boss is God, of course, who will tally the points you accrued over your lifetime. But let’s not get that far ahead yet.

I’m not saying that you should only look out for #1. You should show compassion to those NPCs you encounter along your journey. What I will say is that an NPC’s role is to supply you with some bit of information (which you need to analyze for usefulness because it’s just as likely to be a ball of belly button lint as it is a nugget of gold).

NPCs are also incredibly disappointing. Even if they’ve given you a major piece of the puzzle you were missing.

Can we all just agree on this? People are disappointing. Parents, siblings, lovers, friends. Everyone is placed in your path to provide some sort of adversity. These are the mini-bosses. If you’re lucky their influence will help you build character rather than mislead or harm you.

What I woke up this morning feeling grateful for is solitude. I recently blew up my life and rebuilt it to suit my needs. Now I get to spend half the week alone without distractions. I get to do my midnight snacking with all the lights on, making as much noise as I like. I get to sleep in each morning. I put my focus on self-care routines (like Pilates and listening to the Black Keys discography on repeat) and on creative pursuits.

My commitment to myself this year is to leave behind all that doesn’t serve me. That includes grief, grudges, and candy bars. I open my palms to the universe to receive all the energy and gifts it wishes to impart. I wish to expand with the universe. (It’s definitely expanding, not contracting, by the way.) I will search the darkness for hidden bounty.

I am going off-script. I will be the creator of my own destiny.

How about you?

I’ve Got Some Number of Problems

/ apazhavila

But salt ain’t one

Source: Wikimedia Commons

I’m not as concerned with sodium as health authorities want me to be. Not my doctor, by the way, but rather social justice warriors who take it upon themselves to spread anti-sodium propaganda.

Everyone is so worried about sodium. How much sodium is in that? Don’t want to exceed the maximum daily recommended amount for the day. It could kill me! (Ahem, nerd alert!)

I don’t care whether a serving has 2 grams of sodium or 9,000 grams. I don’t know what the maximum daily recommended amount is, and I don’t want to. As Jay-Z famously said, I’ve got ninety-nine problems but salt ain’t one.

While you’re spending valuable time scrutinizing the nutrition panel, trying to do math on the fly to gauge your sodium consumption for the day, I’m already eating. I don’t have high blood pressure, so it’s not going to be a problem for me. I’m tough like that. It’s my superhero power, really.

But here’s the rub: I’m not even into salty food; I’ve got a sweet tooth. With irritable bowel syndrome to contend with now and diabetes looming in my future, the outlook isn’t good. Sugar love-hates my body and my body love-hates sugar. I’m weak like that.

I strike a balance by eating cheddar popcorn mixed with caramel popcorn. The very definition of moderation.

P.S. — Can anyone tell me why I crave Coke every January?

Cleansing Vomit for You

/ apazhavila

Death to a horse

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Did you know that a horse can’t vomit? If a horse gets sick, it’s game over. 

Each weekend when you pick up your first drink, you agree to accept vomiting as the outcome. You know the likelihood that you will drink to excess and end up puking on the sidewalk as you bar hop with your pals. 

Meanwhile, that poor horse is sober. Involuntarily. He knows it will mean certain death if he reaches for beer #2. 

As for me, before I take any action, I ask myself: Are you OK with dying while engaged in this activity? That’s my criteria. I don’t want “Died on the teacups at Disney” engraved on my tombstone. My epitaph doesn’t have to be grand or dramatic. My last activity just has to be something I enjoy and would be proud to die while doing. 

“Entombed here while still seated at her beloved desk is Angie, who died writing a blog post.”

Now that’s the way to go out.

On Dinosaurs and Change

/ apazhavila

The old and the new

Source: Wikimedia Commons

After hundreds of years of us believing dinosaurs to look and behave a certain way, scientists are suddenly pulling the rug out from under us and saying, “Maybe these creatures actually had feathers. Maybe they sang instead of roared. Maybe they were blue and purple rather than brown or grey.”

Even if you have it on good authority that these proto-chickens looked any different than images shared with us civilians to date, please just let sleeping dinosaurs lie, scientists. Don’t switch it up now. (Same goes for Pluto’s planetary status being rescinded. But I digress).

Yet, change is the only constant. Death, taxes, and change — everyone’s least favorite things — continue to plague us eon after eon.

As I acknowledge this new year that has befallen us, I commit to filling my life with joy, laughter, and new experiences. This year, change isn’t going to scare me. I’m going to tightly embrace change until it feels smothered and cries “Uncle!”

I invite you to do the same. Let’s shake shit up. Not for anarchy, but for progress.

Panda to World: We Want to Go Extinct

/ apazhavila

For the love of bamboo, just let us go

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Citizens of the world: listen up. We’re tired of you meddling in our affairs. Stop caring for us in zoos and artificially inseminating us to keep our species alive.

We do everything we can to communicate that we don’t wish to keep living. Yet, you keep intervening. Take a hint, people!

We don’t roar, maul, or defend our babies like other bears. We only eat bamboo which provides no nutritional value whatsoever, hence why we are perpetually oh-so-sleepy, keep toppling over, and have no sex drive.

We’ve got the benefit of four legs but can’t be bothered to stand. We’re the clumsiest animals of all time, which doesn’t help us feel physically attracted to each other. Neither does our perpetually dirty butts.

Seriously, give up the cause, people. Let us go quietly into oblivion.

Smile and the whole world smiles back

/ apazhavila

Frown and the whole world gives you flack

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Fellow human, have you ever had this experience? You were frowning for a damn good reason, and some smug bastard tells you that it takes more muscles to frown than smile. It’s called resting bitch face for a reason! My face is at rest, thank you very much! And yes, it would take a hell of a lot more effort to smile.

I was once told by a complete stranger: “It can’t be that bad, can it?” Then he flashed an exaggeratedly large smile to indicate that I should smile too. Why? Because I’m making him uncomfortable, that’s why. If I’m not flouncing about in a frilly dress, smiling idiotically for no reason, then I am making that stranger feel ill at ease as we both wait at the bus stop. Who on earth smiles while waiting for a bus? A crazy person, that’s who.

Don’t you hate it when someone tells you that you look tired? That’s just a dick move. “I see that you’re suffering, and I thought I would take a minute out of my day to let you know how really shitty you look.” Let’s be better than that, people. Don’t just point out the obvious — offer a solution. “You look tired. Here’s a bed!”

Sometimes I think I’d be better off in a post-apocalyptic world living alone as a squatter in an abandoned warehouse. This warehouse is stocked with shelf-stable 80’s foods, including Magic Middles cookies and original Honeycomb cereal. All that’s on the agenda each day is to gorge on the deliciousness produced over three decades ago and talk to my scarecrow friend who never tells me I’d look prettier if I smiled. I’d just be sitting around with RBF, while feeling happier than ever.

By the by — I’m intrigued to see a lot of doctors following my blog, specifically therapists. If any of you has figured out what’s wrong with me, give me a shout! 🙂

Horses: Humanity’s First Technology

/ apazhavila

Bonus — alcoholic milk dispenser!

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Have you ever considered the origination of horseback riding? At some point in history, humans and horses existed separately on the planet and didn’t have a single thing to do with each other. Now — we’re atop their backs forcing them to do silly footwork in dressage and jumping hurdles for no good reason.

According to the Internet, humans started riding horses 5,500 years ago. In Kazakhstan. Where, interestingly, locals apparently consume horse milk, fermented until it’s mildly alcoholic. Now that’s a milk that’ll help put your kids to sleep at night!

So, this first rider, in the fourth millennium B.C., gazed upon a horse and thought to himself: “I should put my body on top of that creature’s body.”

He figured out a way to capture the horse, and then, because he was the original horse whisperer, convinced that horse to do his bidding, which was to take him to the grocery store post haste so that he didn’t have to schlep food home in a reusable animal pelt bag slung over his shoulder anymore.

Now he had a horse he could measure with his hands. This steed is 15 hands high! Not too mathematically sound, since everyone has different sized hands, but such as it is. Because the horse was our first vehicle, we measure car strength in “horsepower,” despite it being an embarrassingly obsolete comparison.

The horse doesn’t want us on its back. It resents our lazy and imposing ways. No one belongs on anyone else’s back unless it’s a koala or monkey baby clinging to its mother. Or when a human voluntarily carries another. But the horse never volunteered for this job.

How do I know this? Because they toss us off whenever they get the chance. I climbed onto a horse when I was a teenager, and he nonchalantly reared up, dumping me into a blackberry bush. Message received loud and clear, Mister Ed!

I say, we let ’em all go. Let ’em run wild. We’ll just tap them like kegs anytime we need a good dose of alcoholic milk.

The Real Lowdown on Napoleon

/ apazhavila

A totally 2% true history

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Contrary to popular opinion, it wasn’t Buddha or some other yogi that came up with the idea of mindfulness. It was none other than Monsieur Napoleon Bonaparte.

People say he was short. He wasn’t. He was of average height, around 5’6″ says the Internet. Some think he was crazy. Not so, according to my cursory research. And you know how he kept his hand tucked inside his lapel like a weirdo? He was stroking the One Ring to Rule Them All, stored in his watch pocket!

Perhaps the most important thing to know about this historical figure is that he was all about mindfulness. Before battle, he could be found strolling through his garden.

Someone once asked him, “Monsieur, aren’t you nervous? You’re soon to be in mild peril!”

“No!” replied Napoleon. “Smell the fragrant flowers, feel the sunshine beaming down upon us. I live…in the moment!”

Then that other person practiced living in the moment as well. 

“Hey, you’re really onto something!” he said, when his buzzing thoughts and worries disappeared.

“Yes, it is called mindfulness,” said Napoleon. “Tell all your friends. It’s the next big thing!”

And so that other fellow went on to regularly post photos of himself in a mindful state on Instagram. He attracted millions of followers, and the rest of us soon caught on that multitasking is the root of all evil, haste makes waste, and it is perfectly acceptable to wear black yoga pants to coronations and funerals.

Feminism vs. Domesticity

/ apazhavila

A rant

Source: Wikimedia Commons

I’ve got a full-time job, a husband, a kid, a house, a car. I’m living the American dream! So why is it that as I push the vacuum cleaner back and forth, I’m like, “Fuck this! I hate domesticity!” 

When I do laundry, I abuse the washing machine like it has personally wronged me. I’m slamming the lid down, knocking stuff around, growling — like primal growling. 

“I fucking hate domesticity! Every excruciating minute of it!” 

And I have to ask myself, “Is today the day I check myself into a mental institution? Am I crazy? Do I need more medication?” Then I soothingly stroke my own shoulder like Gollum, and I say, “This is just feminism. It’s feminism, right? Yeah, of course I feel this way!”

I like to think I have more important stuff to do. I don’t have more important stuff to do, but I wish I did. Like being Chief of Staff to a CEO, or better yet, the CEO herself. That woman doesn’t have time to waste cleaning house; she would outsource that shit.

Every time I do housework it makes me want to grab my go-bag — because, of course I’ve got one already packed — run to the car, and drive to anywhere that isn’t home. It is an undeniable “flight” response to household responsibilities. 

My 3.5-year-old was recently trying to get my attention, and I was like, “Yeah, yeah, quiet down. Mommy’s trying to write jokes.”

I was not cut out to be a housewife, a mother, or a cleaner. I don’t think I was cut out to be anything, but these things especially don’t come naturally to me. This is just feminism, right?