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Everything'll Be Alright

Sometimes, I wake up with a sore throat and bags under my eyes and I think about how I'm still sleeping with a tattered teddy bear instead of a man and I say, "Well, this sucks."

But, then I realize I have a job where I get PAID to sing with an 80 piece National Repertory Orchestra in snow-capped Colorado, and I say, "...Nevermind. It's all good."

Twenty-Two

Today is the last day of being twenty-two years old. And since apparently, thirty is the new twenty, I guess that means tomorrow I will turn thirteen. So, bring on the boy band posters and the braces and the distant longing for inaccessible men.

Sometimes, I feel like I have been whirled into an endlessly cycling lifestyle of contract from contract, paycheck to paycheck, diet to diet, frienemy to frienemy, small coffee to small coffee, snooze button to snooze button. But, when I sit down and really think about it, a lot of mental progress has occurred over the last year. In honor of the occasion, here are twenty-two somethings I have acquired in my back pocket these last 365 days:

1. Where a chai addiction is overcome, so is born unshakable gummy bear consumption.

2. The state of financial brokenness propels one to consider all-time lows... like dancing on bars in sparse clothing. But, only for a moment before guffawing at such a nonsensical solution.

3. Single life makes for great self exploration and realization.

4. Facebook videos are the easiest way to make friends.

5. There comes a time when you realize that diet books provide more weight loss for your wallet than your body. Nothing will satiate appetite quite as much as self love.

6. Bikes are the new awesome, once you get past the initial numbing of the crotch area.

7. "That's what she said" is a (fantastic) way of life.

8. No matter how many people tell me I need to move to New York, I'd still rather be in a granola city on my bike, singing in piano bars at night and making coffee in the morning.

9. Gay friends are an unmatchable support system, albeit judgmental of my jersey knit wardrobe.

10. Tiny girls with blonde hair and bubbly, self-indulgent "oh my god" personalities are never tolerable in doses larger than 5 minutes.

11. Falling in public never gets easy.

12. Songwriting is as unbelievably artistically satisfying and gratifying as it is terrifying.

13. The service industry is completely, absolutely, totally not for me.

14. Mornings are incomplete without a peanut butter and banana English Muffin sandwich.

15. A steady rapture of celebrities is currently occurring. And it's wiggin' me out.

16. Pesto Mayo= Bliss

17. Until now, I have lived a life of unrealized love for pitbulls.

18. Faith is the key to sanity, stability, happiness, and hope.

19. Homesickness doesn't wither away with age. Oh how I took southern hospitality (and livermush and sweet tea and Sun Drop) for granted before moving to Colorado.

20. Everything's better when set to a backdrop of snow-capped Rocky Mountains.

21. Thongs never stop feeling like perpetual wedgies.

22. Jim Halpert remains the all time reigning champion of best boyfriend material.

Confessions: Part 247

1. I will only buy tampons if there is a self-checkout available. If this means driving ten minutes out of the way to an uncrowded Harris Teeter, so be it.

2. Even if all six items of clothing looked ghastly on me in the mirror, I will never give all six items back to the fitting room assistant to hang on the return rack. It makes me feel like a failure. I know, deep down, the Old Navy clerk with her pony tail and headset is thinking, "Wow. None of the clothes fit her? How sad."

3. I spend countless hours dreaming of the day, not when I will record a killer album with songs worthy of the next Zach Braff soundtrack, but when I will go viral on Youtube. Like The Outside Joke.

4. I still think Kirk Cameron is cute despite his being Left Behind.

5. Just as my taste buds are going through their seven year shift (I suddenly have acquired the taste for dark chocolate while simultaneously abandoning my chai addiction), so is my taste in men. Blame it on Slumdog Millionaire and Anoop Desai, but suddenly I want a strapping young Indian gent clad in white linen with gold trim.

6. Twitter makes me feel like I'm friends with Ingrid Michaelson. To the point of friendship bracelet status.

7. I've been on Twitter since early 2007 when it was introduced to me by an alluring computer nerd of a man in Australia who I "met" through Virb... the most aesthetically pleasing social networking site I've ever seen (and rarely used since).

8. There's nothing I want more right now than Perm For A Day rollers.


9. When I'm at a stoplight with the windows down, I turn down my iPod from fear that the driver in the adjacent car is judging me.

10. ... Sometimes, I forget to turn the iPod down in the aforementioned situation. Like yesterday. When I was full-blasting "The World Will Know" from Newsies.

11. ... I full blast "The World Will Know" from Newsies in my car.

12. Despite all efforts otherwise, I have always been and steadfastly remain a girl who likes boys who like boys.

13. Sometimes, I watch Gossip Girl. And by "sometimes" I mean daily.

14. I also watch The Hills.

15. And The City.

16. And Taking The Stage on MTV.

17. I take it personally when anything negative is said about The Office. Seriously. No, really. This isn't joke.

18. My self worth is determined directly by how much water I'm retaining that day.

19. I prefer one-liner stand-up comics because they are easier to quote in first-impression-I-need-to-make-friends situations.

Where My Girls At

Something incredible has happened to me. Something that hasn't occurred since my inception on this heart attack of a planet. Something I bashed for years on account of all the backstabbing and deception. A mission that has until this time proved fruitless in an ocean of caddy, two-faced, green-eyed monsters blanketing the earth.

I. have. girlfriends.

By this I do not mean I am a polygamous lesbian.

By this, I mean- in the midst of my weeping waves of catastrophic upset over the last three days, female hands have reached out to me, armed with Oreo Pie, romantic DVD's, and a man-hating vengeance propelling me into a previously foreign state: self- respect.

This has never occurred in my life.

I had yet to know what it what was to list at length my romantic woes to someone who wasn't a gay male. And don't get me wrong, the gay man is a luxurious Bette-inspired companion.

But this time, this 100th time of getting it wrong and paying the price, this time I needed a girl. And I got an army. I don't know how it happened. I don't know that I even deserve this estrogen-filled embrace from all sides... but, it is unbelievably refreshing. So, to all of you empowered and empowering women in my life with your broken pasts and bright-eyed futures, with your phone calls, and your coffee, and your 2 in the morning hugs and your t-shirt sleeves stained in my mascara, and your wheat thins, and your cutesy texts, and your unbelievably selfless, unconditional love...

Thank you.

I'm sorry I have been wholly anti-girl for so long. There are a few gems out there, after all.