Things you almost always regret as soon as your liver is free of alcohol:

1. Eating those bar peanuts.
2. Not moving those clean clothes off your bed before you went out for drinks.
3. Throwing aforementioned clean clothes on the ground after going out for drinks.
4. Texting people you have dated, regardless of what you said.
5. Staring for what you now realize was a long long time at the boys on the other side of the room who went to your high school.
6. Thinking you can dance.

i am freaking OUT

not economizing

i have been buying lots of things. buying things makes me feel like i am improving myself. in america, if you throw money at something, you can either improve it or have sex with it. i can have sex with myself for free so hopefully i'll also improve. we are in america, after all. this ain't canada, where my money cain't e'en buy the empty stare of a blind gentleman. (i don't even know what i mean by that)

i bought clothes and accessories and bike tires, but thats not interesting to write about.

i bought Shere Hite's study of male sexuality (a hefty tome) for five dollars at the Newberry Library's used book sale. it was the best five dollars i've spent since buying five dollars worth of chocolate covered raisins. my next boyfriend might be happy i'm learning from the book, but i can almost guarantee that the raisins had the tastier outcome of the two purchases.

i bought a used J Crew sweater and an espresso machine for ten dollars total at a garage sale down the street. this was the best ten dollars i've spent since, well, that's a private matter. but that was a damn good purchase.

Dear You

I'm sorry for sometimes being a canister of concentrated hatred let loose in your metaphorical front yard. Someday I'll be a nice girl, if the rehab works.

Love, Me

i bought a one way ticket to north carolina.

anhedonia

i have, in general, much difficulty feeling enthusiastic about anything, but holidays and social situations in particular.. when i moved to college there was a running joke in my dorm because i reminded this huge group of movie loving people of Annie Hall; they claimed this was a compliment because they loved that movie. well, i'd never seen Annie Hall, and when i finally did, i found it to be less of a compliment and more of an astute perception of my not-as-carefully-hidden-as-i'd-like neuroses. whatever, so i don't experience collective effervescence? boo hoo.

so here is a shortlist of things that most people enjoy and that i find (a) uninspiring or (b) depressing because i find them uninspiring. the difference between (a) and (b) is the amount of ecstasy i feel as though i am missing.

• graduation; mine or anyone else's. i mean, i was pretty damn glad to be done and to move out of my shitty apartment, but i'm sure there's more to it than that.
• 4th of july; i hate fireworks.
• christmas and new year's eve; NYE is the worst because there is so much pressure to enjoy it. usually i sit at home and cry and eat cookies and watch a movie that takes place in the summer months and drink alone.
• weddings; actually, this probably shouldn't go on the list... i just feel sad for people who get married to some loser, or who get married young and don't get to have any fun. but i also don't want to have a wedding ever, so i'm including it.
• birthdays; just mine, actually. i hate forcing people to celebrate my birth when they should really be rueing the day, like i am. if someone would just leave a cake on my doorstep and give me the day off to eat it and ignore happybirthdays as i please, that would be ideal.
  
• romance; ugh, i know you just want to make out with me. stop pretending you care and put your hands on my boobs. good boy/girl.

maybe i shouldn't put that thing about romance up there without a disclaimer: you know this blog, like me, is half-joking all the time right? you can't just put your hands on my boobs. you need to amuse me with your cute sense of humor and buy me dinner first.

my class ring

my mom insisted that i let her buy me a class ring because i spent four years at the University of Chicago being stressed out, depressed, emotionally and intellectually isolated from my peers, and working my fucking ass off (most of the time). at the time, i mostly agreed because i didn't want to argue with her, because all i cared about was graduating and getting the hell out.

... but now that my ring is finally on my hand, i am so glad i have it. thanks mom!

i had the company create a custom die for me because i have a specialization in neuroscience. to be honest, my degree was technically in biology but my heart was only in the neuroscience (well, i loved the evolution and ecology classes but i didn't specialize in that). our degrees are A.B., not B.A., so i wanted to reflect that on the ring, too... because why would i want a ring to commemorate my college degree in an almost-accurate manner? it didn't cost anything extra for me to be a picky bitch about it, anyway. so my ring took an extra month and a half. and now it's finally here!

it is white gold with a white/clear stone in it and no black detail tarnishing, so it doesn't look like some rah-rah-school-pride ring. it is a serious symbol of my commitment to neurobiology. on one side it says A.B. Neurobiology, and on the other, 2008, and no other ring will say that.

the other thing i like about the ring is that it's big and hard and if i need to, i can hit somebody with it. haha, just kidding?

TMI

i need to go back on my antidepressants. like... whoa.

i wish

1. jamie would post more often
2. i had a bunch of chocolate or yogurt covered raisins to eat right now
3. for world peace
4. in lieu of world peace, for my mom to get off my freaking back for a minute.

i'm moving...

...to the south! did you know they have fried everything there? fried cheesecake, fried nachos, fried pig intestines. fried mac'n'cheese, perhaps.

July 31-August 3rd, my dad and i are driving a big white terrorist-style cargo van full of my non-terrorist belongings to my apartment. and we're coming back (it's cheaper to rent a van that way, for your future information). i am most excited to risk our lives driving an oversized vehicle on perilous mountain roads.

August 10th-- say nice things about me because i'm gone. (that's a song lyric, i know you don't have anything nice to say about me)

September 26th-- i just thought i'd include my birthday in this list of (ir)relevant dates-- irrelevant dates? i didn't think we were talking about my last relationship... ba-zing... :(

fail

1. every morning i wake up and tell myself:

"Elyse, you are not going to eat lots of carbs today! Let's get real, lady!"

then i head downstairs and eat a bowl of cereal and that's that. i fail. and that's all i really have to say about that. i should really invest in some yogurt or something. or eggs? yeah, i really do know how to eat right. there's no excuse for this behavior.


2. every evening i sit around and feel out of shape and i say,

"Tomorrow I will go on a run! No more 'Yellow Wallpaper' Elyse! Fit and healthy Elyse!"

and every morning i wake up and say,

"'Yellow Wallpaper' Elyse? What an inept analogy; you don't have post-partum. Settle down, honey, just do some crunches."

and that's what i do. fail.

my life is in utter disarray

do you know that feeling? it sucks, right? dude, yes. but perhaps what distresses me most about this disarray is that i bought a package of (generic) post its two weeks ago and half of it is sitting here on my desk, and the other half is missing. why!!?!? why did you leave me, post its? i can prove myself worthy, i really can... just come back to me, come back home.

the remaining half of the post its sit less than two feet away, mocking me, flaunting my failures as an organizer.

some things i said i'd never do but i did recently

1. see an Angelina Jolie film in the theatres
2. buy skinny jeans:

what can i say? i look good in them.

somebody take me out so i can pretend i'm a scenester. i'll part my hair really far to the side and wear some big sunglasses in the dark. i'll wear too much red lipstick and refuse to smile. i'll wear some godawful gladiator sandals.

bad luck

I have a mosquito bite on exactly the place on my foot where a sandal strap will rub, should I choose to wear shoes today. It's also right on a bone. Ouch.

EDIT (7/16) : I did not, in fact, choose to wear shoes yesterday.

nepotism beneficiaries

As a society I don't know why we allow this to happen:

• Lisa Marie Presley
• Ashlee Simpson
• Jamie Lynn Spears
• Miley Cyrus
• Haylie Duff
• Emily Osment
• Will Smith's children
• the other Hilton sister
• Ali Lohan
• Kim Stewart
• George W. Bush
• Avril Lavigne (not a nepotism beneficiary, but she's famous because... ? Because she looks like a shaved rat and embodies the sentiment of an bullied 13 year old girl?)
• the Castro family
• anyone affiliated with the Hills (even worse than nepotism... it's like MTV masturbating itself)
• legacy kids at Ivy League colleges
• me, after I inherit all my mom's jewelry and my parents' beautiful mission furniture

At least my furniture is something real, unlike Haylie Duff's acting abilities.

hapersona legomenongrata