#1: It’s so worth it to splurge on amazing clothes — why save money on anything you’re not absolutely in love with?!
#2: Asking total strangers to hang out is a little crazy, but it won’t kill you.
#3: It’s totally not worth it to cut people in line. Karma’s a bitch.
#4: While girly faux “martinis” are always nauseating, meeting prospective female friends via the internet is benignly pleasant.
#5: If you’re in the position to do a peer or superior a favor, the weirdness of asking will be offset by how cool it was of you to offer.
#6: Dang, guys, people dressing up and pretending to be homeless in order to beg for $$$: apparently not just a myth.
#7: Okay, I don’t know who you are that you think stalking a man off the subway might be a good way to meet your soulmate, but let me tell you: it’s just not.
#8: There’s no need to insinuate yourself into a group if your bold, dramatic jewelry does it for you, but no matter what: if a group welcomes you, dude, hang with them.
** Always dress for adventure. Fate may reward the brave, that’s true, but it also looks significantly more kindly on girls who do not take walks outside looking like hobos.
#9: Turns out all that hooey about preparing for a job interview by giving yourself pep talks, getting there crazy-early, prepping awesome questions, etc., is not just a cruel hoax.
#10: Never ever ever ever ever spraypaint inside.
#11: The simple act of just physically embracing a total stranger is not going to magically cure all of your problems and woes, surprising though that might seem. Drugs not hugs, kids.
#12: If you voice your even semi-reasonable demands with enough gusto, the people in power will give you what you want to make you shut up.
#13: Eco-friendly home-made cleaning supplies work just as well as store-bought supplies, and for a tiny fraction of the price. Also, clean your friggin’ bathtub or nobody will ever love you.
#14: If someone’s doing something fun on the street and you want to give it a try, why not ask? You might end up becoming a semi-pro movie marquee changer.
#15: All professors — even the ones who aren’t — are cute. Oh, also, I guess they know stuff.
#16: Donating blood on September 11 is like volunteering at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving: the place is jammed, so go assuage your guilt somewhere else, you fair-weather samaritan. (Also, if you have shy veins, you really need to chug the dang water before trying to give.)
#17: The kind of people who seriously play drinking games are the kind I’d have to be drunk with to hang out with in the first place; sometimes the cost of a waived cover charge is a dude wearing lederhosen smacking your ass.
#18: Not even semi-nude burlesque dancers can bring out my (deeply repressed) inner Picasso.
#19: Turns out when you amble the kid-littered streets of an affluent neighborhood decked out in Hello Kitty garb, soccer moms and joggers alike tend to mistake your cheerfulness for molesty intent.
#20: If you don’t like baseball at home, you’re not going to like it at the ballpark. Especially if you can’t find a decent sandwich there!
#21: Seriously, STOP ACCIDENTALLY TRYING TO KISS GAY GUYS. Especially under ridiculous movie-cliche false premises.
#22: Apparently you have to fail an IQ test to work at Kinko’s. But complaining about an employee to corporate won’t buck up their attitude or yours.
#23: If you mix every on-draft beer together in one mug, I’ve decided the resultant beverage is called a BEERICIDE. It’s not very good.
#24: Before entering an adulterous affair, make sure your paramour isn’t illiterate. Then, um, go ahead and not have an affair. Seriously. Don’t do it.
#25: Don’t stand — don’t stand — don’t stand so close to me. Or to anyone else, for that matter.
#26: True to all outside evidence, coffee is both as bitter and as dark as a David Lynch movie. But unlike a David Lynch movie, it will not actually make you vomit. So … drink up, I guess?
#27: If you have decided to introduce yourself to a guy by smacking his ass, DO NOT ASK FOR PERMISSION. He will say no. He will say no loudly. Then he will gossip about you in German.
**That fact that somebody is wearing leather, copious scalp tattoos, and a piercing the width of a pencil through the bridge of their nose totally doesn’t mean that they’re not intelligent and articulate. But they still might not let you ride their dragon scooter.
#28: Before you ask someone on the subway to turn down their obscenely loud music, consider the possibility of being trapped underground next to their pissy, metal-loving selves.
#29: White-knuckling the hand rails on the subway may look ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as falling out of your seat and head-butting a fellow passenger in the groin.
#30: Guys, it’s not just a tool against drugs and rape — you can say “No!” to anything! ANYTHING!
#31: Please keep your fluids inside your own body. Or at least off my foot.
#32: Don’t have a date tonight? Whatever! Just ask some guy on the street out. Even if it doesn’t go perfectly, it’ll probably be, like, pretty okay.
#33: If you are the first person to publicly speak out against atrocious behavior on the T, all of a sudden you become an even bigger jerk than the dude who was jerky in the first place.
#34: DO NOT EVER ASSUME SOMEONE IS PREGNANT. Sometimes the bun in the oven is just a muffin top.
#35: Flirting with guys can get you free stuff! There’s just no possible way you didn’t already know this.
#36: Feel free to remain polite to guys who overtly hit on you — even if they’re known foot fetishists! As long as you’re in a safe situation, the worst that can happen is you … just have to wait a few minutes before slapping them, I guess.
#37: Nobody cares if you change your dang clothes in public. But it might cause scary-conservative homophobic German dudes to chat with you?
#38: Sitting down with a total stranger at a restaurant can lead to a great conversation. Or it can lead to tales of drunk driving and a mouthful of seriously mangled teeth. Choose your victims wisely.
#39: When you pull the “Bank Error In Your Favor!” card from the Community Chest of life, dude, sometimes reporting the error to said bank only results in good karma. (But if I had to do this again, I probably wouldn’t press my luck.)
#40: Tween pop bands will not sign your breasts. Probably with good reason.
#41: If the service is reaaaaaaaaaally bad enough, not even this bleeding-heart feels guilty about stiffing someone on the tip.
#42: Want a discount in a store? JUST ASK.
#43: You know that thing you’ve been really scared to do for as long as you can remember? Just do it. It’ll be okay. ALSO! It is less uncool to accidentally get somewhere ten minutes early than it is to skulk around behind draperies in order to make an on-time entrance. Just sayin’.
#44: Although I can’t get away with ditching it entirely, turns out my hair requires waaaaaay less shampoo than I thought. Yours might too?
#45: Tyra was right! Live eyes totally work! They’ll make your totally-hot-but-maybe-not-actually-hot work-crush talk to you!
#46: If you offer it nicely, passersby don’t mind the occasional unsolicited advice.
#47: Hockey is basically the greatest sport since … uh, public flagellation?
#48: Music is kind of like a novel for your ears, but at the end of the day, dude, don’t turn your back on literature.
#49: DO NOT HIT ON THE TRIVIA GUY.
#50: Blowjobs are awesome. As are — surprisingly — those girly sex seminars that teach you the ins and outs of oral sex!
#51: I don’t want to touch you.
#52: If you use a Porta Potty, not only will you get someone else’s dang urine all over yourself, but you’ll probably make a public restroom attendant almost cry and also your mother will make fun of you a lot in your blog comments.
#53: I know you’re lazy. I’m lazy too. This doesn’t mean we can’t band together and drastically reduce our paper towel consumption.
#54: Apparently someone reading this site really wants to hook up with his godmother. I’m thinking about increasing my market share in this niche demographic.
#55: It seems that most people do not actually enjoy reading awkward erotica about pubic hair getting caught in people’s teeth. And to those people I say: screw you! And perhaps I will engage in profoundly awkward pillowtalk while doing so!
#56: If you are a bartender who, while pouring single-malt scotch for a lady, sighs: “That’s a man’s drink,” then stop reading this and call me.
#57: Turns out the unwashed masses didn’t earn that little epithet by smellin’ pretty.
#58: I, like that dude in The Pina Colada Song, am nobody’s poet. (But still suckered somebody into publishing a few of mine.)
#59: In the shower today: take a squirt of your usual shower gel; add a double-handful of granulated sugar; mix into a very thick paste; rub vigorously on skin; come over here so I can lick you. I AM NOT KIDDING. Except about the licking.
#60: Turns out the Jesus of Suburbia is a middle-aged woman who wears glasses and has no respect for right-of-way laws; also, cops can be racist.
#61: Good first date conversation: “Where did you go for undergrad?” Bad first date conversation: “I like to mentally list the presidents in chronological order when I’m doing things that you do better when you’re not concentrating on them. Like orgasms.”
**Sometimes in Canada male strippers will let you high-five their floppy penises and THAT IS CALLED JOURNALISM. Amazing guest post by the lovely sandyb.
#62: Long, platinum-blonde wigs? Probably not a good choice for deep-voiced flamboyant dressers who have broad shoulders and stand six feet in heels.
**Weirdly, the word portrait of dogs eating semen IS NOT the weirdest part of my mother’s guest post about the really quite true story of my conception.
#63: When walking on the street, you can sing like nobody’s listening — ’cause even if they are listening, they don’t care.
#64: Taylor Lautner: he’s not-so-hotner.
#65: Don Draper: sexy as all get out. Modern-era chauvinistic dudes who just wish they were Don Draper: will make you cry and then stress-eat Hershey’s Kisses.
#66: You really can cut people in line just by asking. Holy shit. Cheat code for reality.
#67: The ol’ “spit out everything you chew into a bucket without swallowing” diet, while good on paper, is actually more tedious than it is gross.
#68: Nobody can dance. This doesn’t make it any less embarrassing when I try.
#69: Sometimes trying desperately to do the right thing is basically about the same as doing nothing.
#70: If you hit on every dude within three seconds of noticing him, all you do is save a few extra minutes before inevitably realizing that every dude in the bar is a loser.
#71: When you let other people make your decisions, they let you buy delicious carbohydrates and expensive soap. These people are called salespeople. They are your friends.
#72: No tickets available to an exclusive event? Just show up and ask the bouncer if you can get in. THIS CAN ACTUALLY WORK.
#73: If you’re a bad enough dancer, sometimes the universe just hands you money. (On the stipulation that you never dance again.)
#74: Karma. It’s a thing.
#75: Stealin’ stuff out of a dude’s pants is actually an okay conversation starter and might net you a free drink (or get you forked).
#76: Old people who like to shout at joggers in the street totally don’t take it as good as they give it. Goddamn old people.
#77: Sometimes you meet your soulmate on public transportation but he’s like kind of Asperger’s-y. If this is the case, it’s okay for you to take the lead and give him your number.
#78: It is useful to have a blog where people feel like they know you. That way, when you go on a kleptomania binge, they will validate your actions in the comments section even though you still feel like kind of a jerk.
#79: Sluts and hula hoops are to theatre as bacon is to food. (Pink? Curved? Kind of greasy? AND UNIVERSALLY APPEALING.)
#80: When you’re speculating on the lives of other people sitting in a bar, why not just approach them and ask them to confirm your speculations? Then afterwards they can speculate on what a jerk you are. Win/win!
#81: Private karaoke rooms feel weirdly like sex motels. You rent them by the hour, can’t look the clerk in the eye afterwards in case he heard you, and the management secretly makes DVDs while you’re in there.
#82: Blackjack is apparently where people just give you free money. Sweet.
#83: You can strike up a conversation with the dude sitting next to you on an airplane, sure, but once you get to gabbin’, faking death might be your only way out.
#84: Go ahead. Send a drink to your long-time trivia nemesis. You’ll still never figure out whether s/he’s a male-to-female transsexual.
#85: It’s worth sacking up and asking that cute guy at the bookstore out. Even when he brushes you off, at least you’ll have the peace of mind of not ending every fight with your future husband: “I should have married the guy in the motorcycle jacket at the Booksmith!”
#86: Hey, you know those foods you’ve sworn up and down your whole life that you’ll never like? Just having the willingness to try doesn’t mean you’ll start liking them…
#87: …especially if you try to ease into them but your doucher friends start your sushi trek with sashimi and you end up vomiting discreetly into your napkin then wondering how to politely dispose of it.
#88: Bloggers are extremely cool dudes, and most emphatically worth meeting in real life! Plus, lots of them have self-diagnosed social anxiety disorders too, so when you tell them you spent the forty minutes prior to the meet-up skulking hyperventilate-ily in a foyer, they won’t judge you.
#89: You can ride the subway WITH NO PANTS. Guys. You can RIDE THE SUBWAY WITH NO PANTS. This is not illegal, and the only people who glance at you askew are spinsterish blue-hairs who whap you reprovingly with their canes. And the cane hits your leg. Your bare leg. Because you are FLYING PANTSLESS, you beautiful bastard.
#90: Posting a Craigslist missed connection ad may not net you the love of your life (or even a decent book recommendation), but isn’t it worth a shot?
#91: Dude, stripping down and getting your bits airbrushed at a spraytan parlor is actually completely fun and non-awkward — and you really do look great afterwards. Let us band together and RECLAIM SPRAYTAN from its Jersey Shore social exhile.
#92: Tell your friends you love them today.
#93: Turns out obese squirrels will do absolutely anything to get their paws on a peanut — including climbing on and about your person (and much-beloved fedora). Keeping this in mind in case my food budget goes any lower.
#94: Speaking of food budget, you can apparently keep yours at rock bottom without eating nothing but peanut noodles. My readers have expressed this to me; now I’m just trying to convey it to the five pounds I put on during this week-long experiment.
#95: Sneaking onto the subway without paying your fare: totally doable; not worth the mental agitation. Just pay up, chump.
#96: Turns out you can remove your unwanted upper-lip, eyebrow, leg, toe knuckle and pubic hair with the contents of a travel sewing kit. I’m not actually suggesting that you should do this. Just, y’know, point of interest.
#97: NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER PICK UP A GUY ON THE SUBWAY. (Is that enough “ever”s? Probably not.)
#98: As far as I’m concerned, you get some points for attempting to be brave, but when you’re trying to get over your intense fear of heights? Don’t push yourself too far, too fast or else you’re just going to end up terrorizing some five-year-olds with your fluent and creative grasp of swearing.
OMG I LOVE this post!!! It IS totally worth it to splurge on clothes! And shoes. 🙂
This is a fabulous idea!!! I love that you are stepping outside your comfort zone to try new things…it is something I have been trying to do more of. Maybe this will inspire me to do it!
Good luck!
Ben
sportypolitics.wordpress.com
This is pretty much the best list ever. Seriously. It is.
[…] Only-in-the-Movie Technique of Meeting a Man, Learned to Say No, and many other adventures. Her archive is rather […]
I enjoyed reading this list 🙂
Dear, the pups will eat anything….ANYTHING. Did I ever mention when we lived in the country I discovered our dog happily eating a deer’s head with the neighbor’s dogs (no body–just the head). Ah, country living.