My Romance with the Bromance

bro·mance

/ˈbrōˌmans/

noun

informal

1.  a close non-sexual relationship between two (or more) men

1. 
   

   I am very excited to talk about this particular subject because I don't think guys understand how absolutely precious a bromance is to women. They know that we want to just melt to the floor in a sticky puddle of mushy gushy when watching our favorite romances like the Titanic (still swooning over Leo), they know that we want to nuzzle our faces into puppies fur for forever and ever because, really, we've all had that moment when we are snuggling up to a pup and literally don't ever want the moment to end and fight the urge to put the poor guy in a submission hold out of purely selfish reasons. They also know that every time we see a baby we want to pinch their little cheeks off, and make the most ridiculous noises that we never knew we could make. 

   
   

   And yes, the "bromance", my gents, fits in this very same category for us.

   
   

   Why? Well, lets look at American culture for one. The majority of American boys have been taught at a young age that their masculinity is extremely vital in being a male in this world. Being told to "be a man" and to "grow some balls" has significantly influenced men in how they behave, which has them holding in their emotions most of the time rather than expressing them, especially with other guys. A lot of men are hyper aware of how they are portraying their masculinity, afraid of showing any hint of femininity or homosexuality (remember that saying: "no homo" guys?). 

   
   

   So, for us ladies, when we see a guy actually letting all his emotions go, and showing his true love and admiration for his bestest bud we go coo-coo bananas. We EAT UP THAT SHIT like goddamn froyo. It shows your comfortable in your own skin, it shows you live life to the fullest, and it shows that you are an open person... all of which make you extremely attractive. 

   
   

   Yes, those brooding, bad-ass, mysterious guys can be hot too, but they are usually the object of our desire because we want to crack them open, but in most cases that never ends up happening and we find ourselves shoving three-day-old chinese food down our throats sitting in the same sweatpants we've been in for an entire week screaming to ourselves "WHY COULDN'T HE JUST LET ME IN" with noodles falling out of our mouths like drool. 

   
   

   I'd have to say that my absolute favorite public display of bromance-dom is that of Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake. I don't even want to admit the amount of time I've spent on youtube watching anything that involves the two of them together. If you haven't watched any of them, DO SO NOW. Your heart will grow three times its size! They are the perfect representation of what a bromance is. First off, they are both hilarious, but when they are together their jokes bounce off each other so well and they will go so far with a joke that you forget what they were even talking about. Like any best buds would do.

   
   

   I love encountering bromances when I am out in about in the city. I can sense the bromance like radar, and when I detect a bromantic situation occurring, I immediately have to stop everything I am doing so I can just watch and marvel in it's beauty. It's like catching a shooting star as it arcs across the deep blue sky. It's rare to witness it, but it happens all the time.

   
   

   So guys, embrace the bromance. Be bromantic. Feel the love and give it right back because it makes so many of us happy. I can confidently say that if I was dying and taking my last breaths on this earth and saw a bromance happening, I can't lie to you...

   I would die fulfilled.

   
   

Nostalgia Kills

Being an adult is strange. I still don’t even really consider myself one for the plain fact that I for one: still need to look up how to properly write a check, the only credit card I own is from Kohls and I didn’t even want it, the sly middle aged lady tricked me into thinking I was getting a rewards card, but hey, mind as well build my credit for the three times I go to that store every year. I also was looking online at apartments yesterday and I had to look up what “sublet” meant. I had to read like four different definitions until I was fully confident in its purpose in the world. I hate folding clothes, like I literally hate it. I always over-stuff the washer with blacks, whites, towels, shoes, pillows, rainbow socks, (My mother is probably cringing at this) but you get the idea. Being a 20 (almost 21 BETCHEZ) year old woman is weird and the older I get the more foggy the memories become and that is absolutely terrifying. Especially high school memories because I wasn’t aware of how far away that time actually is from me now. NOT COOL.

Losing all of my memories is one of the worst things that could ever happen to me. I have made SO many photo-albums, home videos, and diaries since I was like 6-years-old that it’s insane. I am just obsessive with making sure my 80-year-old self can spend a whole weekend looking through this huge pile of stuff just to know it happened and be able to re-live those moments, and to think that any of this stuff that I have worked so hard to capture gets destroyed or lost BREAKS MY TENDER HEART.

I barely ever think of the future, which I know can be a problem. I live almost entirely in the now, which is what you're supposed to do, but recently I’ve been thinking of the past. Maybe its because everything is changing so rapidly now, but I definitely know nostalgia has dug its claws into my shoulders because I’m realizing time is RIDICULOUSLY unfair. Being a kid was THE BEST. Even if during the time it seemed pretty normal and regular. But that’s what it is, WE DON’T APPRECIATE IT AT THAT AGE. I don’t know about you but I remember being told over and over as a kid: “this is the best time of your life, don’t wish to be a grown-up, you can run and play and have no responsibilities… so take advantage of that” and I was just like, Okay? Whatever can you stop interrupting me while I try to duck-tape this bed sheet to my bedpost without making the whole ceiling to my fort collapse? This is some serious shit right now I got a lamp and coloring books and my beanie baby friends underneath there.

And here is where I begin my list of nostalgia. I couldn't fit them all, the list would be never ending, but here i'll let the bits and pieces of what I miss about my childhood reveal themselves. 90’s kids, this is for you:

      1.     Forts

Ah, forts... those were the best. I swear to you my cousin Cassie and I were the CHAMPIONS of fort making. We made a fort in our grandparent's basement ON TOP of a Ping-Pong table and UNDERNEATH it. Yes, it was a TWO-STORY fort. BEAT THAT SHIT.

2.     FURBY’s

Those things are evil, but I remember the hype of those furry wide eyed creatures and I just HAD to have one. When I got it I had NO IDEA how to take care of it, the manual confused the hell out of me so I would just tickle it and pet it till it made noise, little did I know that it WOULD NEVER SHUT THE FUCK UP. I wrapped that thing in a blanket and buried it in the dresser so I could sleep at night. I was definitely convinced mine was possessed by Satan.

 3.   L’Oreal Kids Shampoo (No tears!)

There is a soap scent at my work called “pear berries” that I would keep smelling because it brought me back to childhood but I didn’t know why, and then a woman shopping saved my life and said that it smelled like the l’oreal kids shampoo. MY MIND EXPLODED. I was suddenly brought back to bath time and rolling around nakey with rubber toys in bubbly warm water as my mom struggled getting me to sit still so she can scrub that pear scented deliciousness in my ginger locks.

 4.     Harry Potter

When this came into my life I was INVESTED. I was basically MARRIED to this world. I’m surprised I wasn’t put into a mental institution that is the level of DEEP my mind was in it. My cousins and I pretended in my room that we were at Hogwarts, and I was always Harry because duh. We used my encyclopedias as charms and transfiguration books, we used pencils as wands and I swear to god my mind brought me there. It really felt like I was at Hogwarts and I wish my mind could do that magic now. I was playing PlayStation games of Harry Potter, computer games, reading the books and watching the movies religiously, and you can tell because my sorcerer’s stone dvd skips at almost every scene and my books look like they have survived a flash flood (which actually happened) and been ran over by a truck. I have a Harry Potter tattoo now… IT IS PART OF ME.

5.     *NSync

Nsync was probably the beginnings to my unhealthy infatuations as a child. Justin Timberlake was my first celebrity crush ever and I thought he was the most beautiful and talented thing I had EVER seen. When he falls from the sky in “Bye Bye Bye” and lands like Spiderman and then chuckles I still collapse and melt into a puddle. I JUST saw his 20/20 Experience concert– my first time seeing him live for the first time, and I gotta tell you I was 7 years old again that night, I should have been embarrassed but pff no. Nsync had the best songs, dance moves, outfits and music videos. If anyone tried telling me Backstreet Boys were better I would get worked up and yell at their face and run and cry in the bathroom. THAT IS HOW MUCH I CARED FOR THOSE BOYS, cuz they’re ma boys. *tear*

6.     Lite Brite

Oh my god this contraption was amazing. I would spend hours upon hours poking those cool clear colorful plastic pegs into the holes, watching them pop out and drop, putting them back in, and then watching them fall out again when my hand accidentally hit the board the wrong way. Those things were hard work, my fingers remember the pain of constantly holding those little suckers, and they would find their way EVERYWHERE in the house.

7.     Amazon Trail

Many might have played “Oregon trail” instead, but Amazon was very similar. This computer game was intense. You are in this canoe and your mission is to basically discover shit. I remember taking it very seriously. You have to first off know where your rowing to (which I got lost many times), you got to go fishing with a spear and discover new fish and eat the fish and TRADE the fish with villagers. You go through jungles with just a flashlight and find new animals. I remember getting trapped at one village by this evil man and it was the SCARIEST thing ever.

8.     Playgrounds

There was this elaborate HUGE wooden playground I would always go to that must have taken so much mind power to create because there were so many secret entry ways and passages and holes to go through and things to climb it was almost overwhelming for my adventurous and curious soul. There were like three towers and I didn’t even figure out how to get up one of them yet because I didn’t even get that far into exploring the playground the last two times I was there… that is how insane it was! There were so many spaces to squeeze through and I remember constantly hitting my head on the dark wood so many times when I played there because that’s how challenging it was. I wouldn’t be surprised if a child just got lost inside and didn’t know how to get out. It probably happened.

9.      Avril Lavigne 

This girl saved me from wanting to be slutty like Brittany Spears and put me in check. So thank you, Avril for doing that for me. I went from wanting to wear belly shirts and glitter in my hair to sporting wristbands and side ways hats and neckties and band t-shirts with a tough girl attitude. I just wanted to rock and flip the whole world off saying GIRLS CAN BE BADASS TOO. I stopped caring and screamed “WHY SHOULD I CARE” and “WHY YA HAVE TO GO AND MAKE THINGS SO COMPLICATED” But for real, why?

10.     Mermaid Lyfe 

I bet I am not the only girl who pretended she was a mermaid in the pool. Ariel was my favorite Disney princess because duh she was the only princess with red hair because of that I swore we were connected. I would swim underwater with my feet together flappin’ my feet like fins and emerge from the water over dramatically and flip my hair back and sing “ah a ahh, ah a ahh, ah a ahh ah a ah a ahh!” like the totally cool person I am.

I hope you found all these very entertaining. This post took me way longer than I thought to write out (about 4 hours) and I still have homework to do. I think I had enough nostalgia for the day, but its nice to reflect on all the good times once in a while and get a little depressed inside about it, but initially they make you smile, and that tells you something.

Your Writerly Success Gives Me Dark Godzilla Fantasies

When I hear about someone else’s success in my field of work I want to grow into Godzilla and smash my fat feet all over the city of Chicago in one big childish hissy fit. The fact that they could be someone I know or a fellow classmate and in my range of age makes it even worse. This rage comes over me and I suddenly feel like becoming the next Disney villain. I WANT WHAT YOU HAVE SO I MUST TAKE IT FROM YOU AGHHHH. I will poison your apple, I will steal your voice, and I sure as hell will take your magic genie. All of this I do in my own imagination of course, because I am too big of a pussy and only an evil bitch in my mind. On the outside I am just a friendly girl from next door, eager to please. But Jesus Christ, I didn’t know how competitive I was until I came to art school. This is on a whole other level than petty high-school sports. It really is a nasty feeling I get inside and the only way I can make myself feel like a better human being is if I click “like” on their Facebook status that says they just got an article published in a Chicago magazine. WONDERFUL. I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU. I KIND OF HATE YOU SO HARD RIGHT NOW BUT I WILL LET IT GO AND CRY TO MYSELF LATER.

     That’s the thing, if I totally become my own therapist I would tell myself that this rage that burns into embers from the pits of my sensitive, artist’s soul every time a fellow writer shares good news is basically anger and resentment towards myself, not them. I mean I do mentally picture pulling their hair until they beg “uncle!” but I know that it’s really just me wanting to do this to myself. Every new discovery that someone is moving forward with their writing career makes me reflect on how little I am doing. Then my anxiety builds and I feel shitty about myself and don’t know where to start. I wrote a book review this semester that might not even get published and submitted a story to a bunch of literary magazines that got repeatedly rejected. Damn look at me go! Some people can just GRIND, you know what I’m saying? They can just work work work work work and fucking work. I can’t do that; I cannot be a sane and functional person if I do that. I know it might sound like a lazy excuse but I think there are just certain types of people who can be productive everyday all day, working two jobs and working an internship and going to school all at the same time. FUCK. THAT. SHIT. I would die. I would probably collapse onto the ground and shit myself. That is just way to fucking much. I need time to myself and time to actually live for myself. I will not be society’s bitch! ANARCHY. I do give those kinds of people props though; I can’t even wrap my head around how you guys do it.

     You may find this surprising after what you have just read, but I am not very good at being negative. You can even ask the people that know me very well that I am the voice of optimism; sunshine and rainbows and motivational one-liners that many make fun of me for, but sometimes I need to let myself be mad and sad, but I only let myself feel these feelings and think these thoughts for a certain small amount of time. It’s like my brain has its own countdown and it can sometimes be seconds after a negative thought, and sometimes can be twenty minutes– like right now, so I basically get pretty over myself at around this point. Kind of like that one friend who will complain about their day for what seems like forever when all the shit that went down didn’t even seem that bad. If she is reading this, she totally knows I am talking about her and will later use it against me and decide not to let me have a bite of her pop-tart. What I’ve said now is way too specific and now she will definitely know I am talking about her. HAH. SORRY I LOVE YOU.

     It is pretty hilarious to me that I came to this trendy little café to do homework and feel like the cool, hip writer that I feel like I am supposed to be, which is actually working pretty well cool-factor wise besides the fact that this mocha latte has left my palms super sweaty, my heart racing, and my digestive system very upset with me. I also haven’t done any homework yet but this piece seems to be working out for me on some kind of productive and ego-boosting level, and it doesn’t make me feel like as much of a lazy asshole anymore.

     That is the beauty of writing I guess.