The Mistakes I Made in 2013

So I wrote a marginally decent 500 word introductory paragraph for this post, but WordPress failed on me and did not save my work, so f*** it. It was pretty sentimental for me and went something like “2013 flew by yada yada…I had such a great year yada yada…I am so excited to see what 2014 has in store for me…etc etc.” But real talk, from the bottom of my heart, thanks a million for following this really random and crude blog of mine. Your words of encouragement keep me motivated, and as a 23-year-old who often opts out of sleeping under the covers just to avoid the simple task of making the bed in the morning, I need all the motivation I can get. So for my final post of 2013 I thought I’d do a countdown of the top five XTINA MISTAKES of 2013. Originally it was going to be ten, but I ran out of ideas. And it’s actually four because one of these is a lie. Deal with it.

5. I bought a super stylish peacoat from The Gap and within 12 hours I lost it. I think I left it in a cab or something…I hope the cab driver wrapped it up and gave it to his wife or mistress so that at least someone is enjoying it. I bought the same exact coat the next day to avoid an ass whooping from my mom. A costly mistake…and more proof that I still do not have my shit together in the slightest. UPDATE: Mom read this post and now knows about my lost peacoat. She is not pleased with me.

4. I broke the number one rule. I gave my phone number to an Uber driver. One of my resolutions for this year is to give my number out less and workout more. I thought Uber drivers set the bar for what it means to be a professional chauffeur, but this driver thought that my spelling his weird foreign name correctly (it was on my receipt) made us best friends who ask each other things like “what’s going on in your world?” Oh and he was fired the next day and was venting to me about it. And here I am like “Leszek, take control of your life.” *said in Bane voice*

3. I met Dirt Nasty at a Lollapalooza Pre-party (shout out to Johnny Schroeder for the pass). The first thing I said to him was that I loved his Vine videos…that’s like meeting Beyonce and telling her how great she was in Goldmember. He’s done so much great work throughout his career, from soft core porn to music and movies. I loved him in Scary Movie 3 and his song 1980 is a classic.

2. Most of you don’t know that I have a small tattoo of a beautiful butterfly my lower back. It represents all the changes I went through in college, which includes gaining weight and finding my true self. Getting this tattoo tops my list of “acts of rebellion” right in front of getting a double pierce at Claires. It hurt like a motherflipper, but it’s a hit with the boys. My parents still have no idea so let’s keep this on the DL for now. UPDATE: Parents found out and kicked me out of the house. You can find me at the Best Western in Evanston right across from Nevins.

1. (This is more of a highlight than a mistake, but I think it deserves spot on this list) One of my favorite holiday traditions is the annual holiday photo shoot I do with my two girlfriends, Em and Abby. Every year we go to a “professional photography studio” and get a full-out Christmas themed photo shoot, complete with an ethereal snowflake backdrop and 80s Christmas sweaters. This year we even had Em’s cat make an appearance in some of the photos. They turned out beautifully.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A HEALTHY AND PROSPEROUS 2014!

“He could have been the one.”

Don’t get me wrong, living with my parents definitely has it’s perks: home-cooked meals, premium cable channels, free rent, my dog…but when you live with my parents it’s pretty much like being back in high school but with a relaxed curfew, casual drinking in the house, and much more talk about the future, my career, and my love life (or lack-there-of).

When I first came home after graduating I was in heaven. Fast forward to four months later and not a day goes by where the thought of being on my own doesn’t cross my mind at least once. What triggers these thoughts? Most of the time it’s my dad yelling at me for no real reason…like the other day he yelled at me for incorrectly putting my dish in the dishwasher…yes, there is a wrong way. He’s also obsessed with health and fitness. If I had a dollar for every time he mentioned the word protein or Crossfit in the last month I’d have a stack about the size of a grande late from ‘bux.

One thing that I really miss about college is the freedom to bring home a new boy* every weekend. Unfortunately, this type of behavior is frowned upon at my house. If there were a “Ten Commandments of Living at Home” the first would be “Thou shall not bring home strange men.” I learned this the hard way one mid-summer night when I brought home a new friend after a night out at the bars. This story will follow me for the rest of my adult life, so why not share it with everyone? Like most embarrassing acts committed in my early adulthood years, this one involved alcohol, and a lot of it. I think I’m going to need a drink just to get through retelling this story.

*pizza

The night started out innocent and fun. My friend’s friend’s friend has connections at Sub51 (please excuse the name dropping) and was able to get  us a table and bottle which was an awesomely pretentious, but fun way to lead the night. After a couple drinks we decided to leave behind the loud music and Euro-esque nightclub atmosphere of Sub51 and make our way to local hotspot, John Barleycorn. This is where the night takes a sharp turn and my drinking goes from moderate to excessive. I’m standing at the bar with some friends and in walks an old fling. He’s with a blonde chick, who I immediately peg as the type who probably douses herself in “baby girl” perfume like Britney Spears’ Curious or Escada, calls her Dad “Daddy”, her instagram consists of average pictures of her cat, selfies, and selfies with her cat and other repugnant things of that nature. So when this happened I did what every smart girl would do: drink more. This lead to boring, and from what I can remember, soul-crushingly dumb conversation with some random guy who was friends with some of my guy friends. I know for a fact that the conversation was dumb because when he said he was from Minnetonka I immediately brought up Minnetonka moccasins and that’s about as deep as the conversation got…so as far as intellectually stimulating conversations go, we’re at about a 3, which was probably only slightly higher than my BAC level at the time.

Nothing about this picture reflects the night, except the fact that it was taken at a bar.

When we stumbled out of the bar, hand in hand, clearly in love, I had a choice to make: leave with my dignity still partially intact OR do I fight my inner voice of reason and do something in completely wreckless and out of character…obviously I chose to do the later; after all, I am the girl who has a blog about making mistakes. I decided to invite him back to “my place” aka my childhood home owned by my parents. We took a cab all the way back to my house 20 miles north of the city…a long enough ride for me to sober up and realize how bad of an idea this was. The whole cab ride I was trying to remember his name – he’d told me several times and each time I forgot it immediately after. When we arrived at my house I directed him to the basement (this is starting to sound creepy) and told him to stay there while I went upstairs to check in with my parents. My dad asked me who else was home and I slurred “no one, go to sleep dad.” He knew I was lying by the high-pitched inflection in my voice. I was screwed. Everything that happened after is a bit of a blur (I’d rather not remember/I don’t remember), but my mom said that she went downstairs and found my friend hiding in a closet. I tried to reason with them, making some ludicrous arguments like “it’s not a big deal, he just needs a place to sleep,” and I definitely tried to appeal to the fact that he went to my parent’s alma mater (University of Colorado) AND that he also hailed from the great state of Minnesota, which is also where my Dad is from. This guy could have been a the Prince of Monaco – it didn’t matter who he was because to my dad he was the enemy.

Would I ever see him again? Probably, and maybe we’d share a laugh over this…or maybe he wouldn’t find this at all funny (Update: we’ve both decided to pretend it never happened). My mom told me the next morning that the last thing I said before storming angrily up the stairs was “HE COULD HAVE BEEN THE ONE AND YOU SCARED HIM AWAY.” And that about sums it up.

Reflecting on Undergrad: Coding and Bullshitting

My college diploma. For one piece on paper, it sure carries a lot of meaning. It’s a symbol of possibility and opportunity, among other things – while also serving as a quiet reminder of my current situation as a 22 –  almost 23 year-old – college graduate who still lives with her parents. It also represents the successful completion of 128 credit hours. Of these 128 credit hours, there are a handful of classes that – for one reason or another – have left a lasting impression on me. There is one commonality between these classes: I had no business taking them in the first place.

CLASS 1: CSA 151 Computers, Computer Science, and Society with Dr. Uckan (class description)

My freshman year academic adviser must have been high on meth when she recommended this class to me. A class with a title that includes the words “computer” and “science” together? My worst nightmare come true. But as we all know, scheduling classes for the semester was always a stressful ordeal, so when I saw this class was still open, I clicked on “register” and that was the end of that.

My teacher was from Eastern Europe and I probably understood half of what he said during lecture. I spent most of the 50 minute class on my laptop scrolling through TFLN.com (it was cool back then) or Facebook chatting with high school friends (this was a new thing to do on Facebook – also cool to do). I had one “friend” in this class, and one arch enemy. I don’t remember her name, but I imagine it being an old lady’s name, like Judith or Gertrude or Beth. Everyday I’d stare at the back of her head with the most intense hatred. The reason I hated her? Where do I even begin? She never did anything mean to me, but her repulsive habits provided enough fuel to ignite this roaring fire of hatred. She bit her nails and spit them out on the floor, and picked her ears like a baboon. But what really got me going was the way she drank from her water bottle. It was infuriating. It was one of those water bottles with a sports cap (which by the way should only be allowed at the gym and at sporting events). She would guzzle it like it were her first drink of water in days. This girl was an embodiment of everything that pisses me off about people – just zero concern for the people around you, and distracting in the most horrible way. One day I had the pleasure of having her sitting right next to me. This was my facial expression for the entire duration of that class:

The semi-cool thing about the class was that I learned how to write Java and HTML code. I felt so accomplished when I successfully created and linked my own web page using HTML coding language. <p> — that is code for the end of a paragraph.

Even though I got a D on the first exam, I was able to finish out the class with a solid B, and with my pride unscathed…this class had the potential to be a major xtina mistake, but I persevered and made coding my bitch. If I can pass a college-level computer science class, then anything is possible.

CLASS 2: English 440 with Dr. Anita Wilson

When I signed up for this class I was under the false impression that it was a class on Major American Authors, meaning I’d be reading books by more than one author. I was wrong. When I received the long list of books to purchase for the class I was also made aware that the class was all about literature from Charles Dickens. Now, I have nothing against Charles; in fact, he’s probably one of my favorites when it comes to classic literature. But an entire class devoted to studying his work seemed pretty daunting and way too mature for me. Luckily my professor wasn’t some pretentious douche, but a cute old lady….she looked a lot like Mrs. Puff from Spongebob, but in human form. She tried so hard to get the class to participate, but usually ended up spending the entire hour and 15 minutes having a one-sided discussion with herself. Most of the class relied on Sparknotes, which explains why our discussions rarely went deeper than names of characters and basic plot points. She was an easy grader, so for my final project I decided to make a Facebook page for David Copperfield (no joke I actually did this). I made an album with screenshots from the movie, and came up with extremely cheesy statuses that tied in with the plot and mentioned various scenes and characters. Basically I made David Copperfield sound like a schoolboy bitch and mocked classic literature in the process.

Dr. Wilson – Such a sweet lady. Thanks for giving me an A.

Well said, Mr. Dickens.