Dress to Impress

I recently came across this (via etiquetteforagentleman.tumblr.com) and I could not disagree more. I may be the only one who feels this way, but the way I see it, the only way a person can be a better person than an attractive person is to be an attractive person who is also a stylish person. Got it?

Frankly, if I see an attractive person, I'm interested in him/her. That's all it takes. I don't care if you're a "good person." Or even an interesting person. I entertain myself enough to get through a conversation. The only purpose of the other person in a conversation is to make myself look good. Mainly because talking to no one seems to be an automatic red flag for some people. Also, because talking to an attractive person makes you look better.

Now onto style. One of the only things that can make me interested in someone else moreso than myself is if they're dressed nicely. Nice clothes get you in the door, but unique, fashionable, edgy clothes will get you in the bed (sorry for being crude...). Not only do good clothes make a person more attractive, they make a person more desirable all around. I'm waiting patiently for the day that I find my style match: someone who understands and challenges my style at the same time and would be willing to discuss my clothes, his/her clothes, other peoples' clothes, next year's clothes, vintage clothes, designer clothes, cheap clothes, celebrities' clothes, etc. Not only would this make a person more visually enticing, but we would actually have something to talk about.

The One Who Dwells Within

I have never hated being in college as much as I have this week. It's this week every semester, actually, that I, along with a few thousand other UNC students, begin to lose my mind. My first exam week went by relatively smoothly. At least I don't remember any tragedies. Second semester finals week is a complete blur to me, besides the mental breakdown I suffered while studying for economics (Ralph Byrns if you ever read this, I HATE YOU). But all was well and good after that was over because the end of that exam week meant summer.

This week before exams even started, things took a sharp turn. A downhill turn. Off a cliff.

Monday. All is well for most of the day. Internal conflict begins.
Tuesday. Went to sleep at 5pm.
Wednesday. Woke up at 7:30am (from 5pm the night before). Exam. Personal conflict causes me to completely stop focusing on class, exams, learning and breathing. Nap, even though I had slept for 14 hours the night before.
Wednesday night. Go to dinner. Get to dinner, head starts to implode. Skip all LDOC celebrations, bed at 9:30.
Thursday. Campus health for 2 hours. They don't tell me anything. French exam review. They don't teach me anything. Froze to death on the way home. Bed at 9.
Friday morning. 12:30am. I'm awake. I'm shivering. It's not cold. I can't swallow. I can't see anything. It's at this moment that I believe the demons began to enter my body. Yes, demons. The ones who dwelt within Cain, Nero, Judas and Legion, as well as Belial and Lucifer, the devil himself in the flesh. Can't breathe. Force myself out of bed to take some medicine that I know isn't going to help. May or may not have contorted my body into odd positions and ate some spiders.

At some point this weekend I regained control of my body. I'm just patiently waiting for the demons to return and, frankly, I'm afraid to see what's going to happen. But kind of excited.

Someone get Sir Anthony Hopkins on the phone.

True Life: I'm Awkward

College is a time when people tend to make great realizations about themselves. Students figure out where they're going in life, what they're good at, how much they can drink...I found out exactly how awkward I am. If you're wondering, the answer is VERY awkward.

In high school, I never had to face this most prominent part of my personality. I had a group of good friends and I never had to speak to anyone outside of that group. If I wasn't with them, I was at home where the only person I had to talk to was my bird. And she would take any attention she could get.

Once I got to college I realized that the social life that I loved in high school was about to go down the drain. No matter how much time I managed to spend with the few friends that came with me to college, I was still required to interact with other people. If you know me well enough, you'll know that that is probably the last thing I ever want to do next to wearing sweatpants and listening to Taylor Swift.
Even in the first days of college, I was faced with a roommate that I didn't really know. Sure, we had corresponded, but I'm super charming via Facebook and text message because those are crafts I have perfected. Plus, I can usually take as long as I want to come up with the perfect response. So needless to say there was a lot of awkward forced small-talk. I figured that would die down and things would be normal after a little while. I mean that's what happens with normal people, right? Not me. For a few months our room was filled with awkward small talk, then it all eventually faded into nothing. And the scared child inside of me was perfectly okay with that.
Then this year (last year too, but mostly this year unfortunately), I've been forced into social situations that I just have no idea how to navigate: parties. They always start out pretty good because I usually go there with my friends, then my heart drops and my mind starts racing. I don't know these people. What if they say something to me? I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't even know how to talk to people. Do they want to talk to me? What if they don't even want to talk to me? I guess that's okay...but that means there's something wrong with me. It's probably the fact that I'm standing in the most awkward place and not talking to anybody. Do they know what I'm thinking? Am I saying this out loud? Oh god. I should dance or something. I'll just check my phone. Oh. Nothing. All my friends are here. Facebook. Nothing. All my facebook friends are out being social and not on facebook. Uhhhh...

In the off chance that people do speak to me, I still can't avoid the awkward. I just don't even know how to respond to some things.
For example, I have no idea how to respond to "what's up?" I can't even explain my aversion to the phrase...it just triggers awkward. Usually I ignore it and pretend the person just said "hello" or something that I think a normal person should say.
Even if an exchange started off easily, with a simple "Hey! How are you?! It's so good to see you!" I usually have no idea where to go from there.

I guess I'm just doomed to a life of drink-sipping and phone-checking...

Happy Endings

A friend of mine (Yes, I have friends. Well. Some.), who will remain nameless, recently said to me "You know, Al, college is the time when people are looking for the person they're going to spend the rest of their life with. Yep. So you should think about that."
If you know me at all you could probably guess that I didn't think about it much (you would definitely know that if you can tell who said it). But I did think about it later, probably when I should have been doing homework or something important like that.
The more I thought about it, the more I started to think about how stupid that is. Why should I be looking for forever in every single person I meet? I usually can't even remember people's names. Usually I dread seeing them ever again. I just don't think I should be wasting my college life looking for the person that I'm going to be stuck with for the rest of my life starting at age 19. And I consider myself a nice person, so I'm definitely not trying to cause anyone to suffer through being with me for that long. I'm not even sure I want to spend all those years with myself. Call me a romantic, but I would like to just let it happen. Maybe one day I'll meet someone who just won't leave me alone and we'll spend the rest of our lives together (this is most likely to happen with the aforementioned friend). Until then, why is it so bad to do whatever I want?
I, like other people of my generation, have been taught most of life's lessons through television. Sitcoms taught me that people rarely get married before their mid 30s. And these shows are still running, so the mother and the happy ending may not be found until the characters are in their forties. Or maybe never. And you know what? That's okay. And it's hilarious.
So if staying single for a few extra years (maybe my whole life) leads to the hilarity that occurs on the sitcoms I've been watching, bring it on. And by "bring it on," I mean that every person tryin' to spend the rest of his or her life with me needs to back off. Funny > Happy.

Despite all these feelings, there are a few people I would never turn down if they just said "hey. let's spend the rest of our lives together."

Here's a list of people that I would consider spending the rest of my life with (though some in a completely nonromantic, nonsexual way. I'll let you guess which ones those are), starting right now.
Chelsea Handler. Imagine the mean jokes.
Sofia Vergara. I could listen to that voice forever.
Some guy from my art class last semester. I never spoke to him. Who cares.
Kevin Jonas. And his wife too I guess.
Anyone who will buy me milkshakes and Cheese Nips.
Any kind of bird.
My denim jacket.
Heidi Klum.
Carrie Underwood.
Beyonce's baby.
A skeleton.
Mrs Lovett from Sweeney Todd. Corset and human meat pies? My kind of woman.
Brangelina.
Demi Lovato.

I would keep going but even getting that much was a stretch. All I could think about was my wardrobe.

I don't really hate midgets...

...okay maybe I do. More on that later.

It has recently been brought to my attention that I am a negative person. And by recently, I mean that I've been told this for 19 years and I'm just now choosing to acknowledge it. The only reason now is so special is because I just challenged myself to create a list of things I like and I couldn't think of anything that's not sitting on my desk. And this is just a bunch of shit. I don't even really like it. Well except for the Pepsi cans. I like Pepsi.
BUT as my dedicated readers (of which I'm probably the only one) know, I had no trouble compiling a list of things that I don't like. Newbs, go back to February and check it out.

So I sat down and I said to myself "Garret," (that's what I call myself) I says, "Garret, this is a real problem. Why are you so hateful?"
And after some serious conversation with myself, I came to a conclusion.
Happy and realistic just aren't funny. I can't control what goes on around me, but I can change how I see it and make the best of it. For example, I could look at a midget and feel bad for him. I could feel bad that his little arms probably can't reach above his head or around anyone else's body. I could feel bad that he's probably going to be mistaken for a football a few times in his short (get it?) little life. I could feel bad that no one is going to love him. But I choose not to see those horrible things. If I did, what kind of life would I live? That would be a sad, depressing life only lived by those who do not qualify as human beings (see example).
So when I see a little nugget waddling around, I do what's best for me and ultimately for the world: I make jokes. The way I see it, looking at life the way it is is just sad. And don't get me wrong, this doesn't just apply to midgets. Other common examples include the British, anyone who resembles a witch, lesbians and anyone wearing sweatpants in public.

So if I ever offend you, just know that I am working on making this world a happier place. Midgets, hop off your little pedestals and get over it.

I could walk all the way to China!

Sometimes I just have too much energy. It's never at a convenient time, like, say, 8am when I have to get the fuck up and walk to class. Or at 11am when I'm only halfway through the day and I still have to run from one end of the earth to the other in less than ten minutes. Energy would be nice when I have three classes in a row in which most of my grade is based off of participation. (For any of you who were wondering, sleeping does not get you participation points. At least not at UNC.) Energy would even be nice at, like, supper time when I could go out and be social. But just like during my 8am walk and 11am run and all the classes in between, all I want to do is sleep.
But do I ever or have I EVER had all the energy I need at those times?

NO.
If I did, I probably wouldn't be writing this.
No, instead of having a normal amount of energy throughout the day like I would suspect a normal person would, mine comes in bursts. Like fucking supernova bursts. Usually around 11pm.
I sit around and do nothing all day because, well, I don't have the energy, but then when I SHOULD be winding down and doing nothing, my body wants me to do cartwheels and jump out the window.
In fact, if you care enough to check, you'll notice that several of the posts to this blog were done after midnight. Every single one of those, including the existence of the blog itself can be attributed to what I'm experiencing RIGHT NOW. Tonight it came a little early, probably because I've been up since the crack of dawn and my internal clock is thrown off. I guess that happens when you go from sleeping into the late afternoon to waking up to get the worm.
I just can't handle myself. I don't know what to do. Over the summer I would usually walk around my room (anyone who has been in my room can tell you that's not an easy task because it's ridiculously small and even more ridiculously cluttered) and then walk down the hall. Several times. I can't do that here because I live with other people who I don't think know how much of a freak I am and I'd like to keep it that way as long as possible.
So for now I'm going to roll back and forth in my desk chair, check my phone every five seconds, watch Jenna Marbles videos, clean my room, make my bed, eat something, stumble, draw a picture, write myself notes and tap my fingers. AT THE SAME TIME.
To my roommate: I'm sorry.

Birthday Sex

So it's my birthday. It's also Halle Berry's birthday, Jay Manuel's birthday and apparently the day that Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death. So hooray for us.
Thanks to modern technology and that kid from the Social Network, everyone on facebook can see that it's my birthday. And anyone who's anyone is wishing me a happy birthday, even people I don't know i.e. this one girl I've been facebook friends with forever and have never seen her nor heard anyone speak her name. Lord knows I love all this attention, but as I get older, the multiple well-wishers seem to blend together and I'm faced with a dilemma. In years prior, there would be a new notification for each wall post, so I would get notifications into the seventies if I went without checking it for more than a minute. Now all the notifications are crammed into one, so as I just logged on, I only had seven notifications. It was kind of upsetting.
But that's not the dilemma.
The dilemma that I face every year is what to do about these wall posts. I personally like when people thank me for wishing them a happy birthday, but if I commented on every wall post and said "thank you!" it would eventually get old and seem insincere. And kind of pathetic, like I didn't have anything better to do on my birthday. Obviously I don't, but that's beside the point. I mean of course I'm grateful for all the well-wishing. Who wouldn't be?
I could just post a status at the end of the day saying "Thanks everyone!" or some shit like that, but that seems even less sincere. The easiest option would be to "like" every wall post, but I've always seen that as a dick move.
I'm thinking about only commenting on/liking the ones that I feel deserve it.



Who am I kidding anyway? I don't really care about how people feel.