The Freakin' End

Dear friends, enemies, and biddies,

I write to you with mixed emotions today, because today is the end of Biddie Lifestyle. After a lot of contemplation, I have decided to move my passion for blogging to a new platform for several reasons. 

Life in the real world does not lend itself to daily opportunities to observe the biddie lifestyle. No longer can I lovingly judge every girl in the campus Starbucks while simultaneously gathering material for my blog. While I see plenty of biddies at nights and on weekends, my days are now spent in a cubicle, avoiding the crazy person who sits next to me and hoping my boss doesn't ask me to design another thing in Microsoft Word. Nay, I haven’t grown up, but my life is changing and I think it’s only healthy to start fresh, rather than try to make Biddie Lifestyle something it’s not: boring and adult. It’s like when I try to make one of my bodycon skirts acceptable for office wear: it could work if paired with a frumpy sweater and eight hours of pulling it down to knee-length, but it’s best if I just head to the Loft buy a new skirt.

Not to get sappy, but thank you all for your support. What started as a pet project…is still a pet project, but I truly thought I would be the sole reader (and yes, I would laugh at all my jokes). Since October 2011 I’ve amassed more than 60,000 page views and 900 unique visitors per month. Sometimes I reflect sadly on how much money I could have made had my AdSense privileges not been taken away from me after I asked people to click repeatedly on the ads (word of advice to any budding bloggers out there: don’t do that).  I've had a great time blogging here and hope you found it remotely entertaining.  In commemoration of the last two years, I've compiled a list of my personal favorite posts, which you can read now, some day when you're putting off studying, or never.

• How to Meet Your Boyfriend's Family
• How to Act Around a Girl on Her Period
• How to Have a Successful Relationship
• Biddie-fied Halloween Costumes (This was somehow also published in JMU's student newspaper...a tad cleaned up, as you can imagine.)
• How to Hit on a Girl
• How to Hit on a Guy
• Which Disney Princess Are You?
• Where NOT to Meet Guys
• Why Girlfriends Are Annoying

THE GOOD NEWS
I hope you decide to follow me on to Casual Thursdays, my new internet home.

It is my goal to keep the sass (read: offensiveness) and to not become one of those mom-blogs with picture diaries of my recent shopping trip. If you’re interested in keeping up with all the weird shit I think about, my personal transition into the real world, and my struggle to learn WordPress, come along, I’d love to have you. If not, I hope you get genital warts.

To all the biddies out there: peace, love, and vodka. Over and out.

Welcome to Adulthood

It happens before you know it.  One day, you're taking seven back-to-back shots with no trace of a hangover the next day, and the next you're crying in the bar on your 22nd birthday becuase I don't know about youu, but I'm feeling eighty-twooo.

You see, after 21, nothing matters.  Your life becomes a dismal spiral of desperately trying to find a long-term boyfriend, working 9 to 5, getting married, having kids, getting fat, etc. Your peak is over, and adulthood really does creep up on you.  Here's how it goes...

Social Life
First, you will see a dramatic change in your social life.  Presumably after graduation you get a job.  It could take a few months, but you'll probably move to a new city.  You might know a few people but it's doubtful that that one girl you had a class with wants to hang out every night.  Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to make new friends.  Unfortunately, I have not figured that out yet, so for the time being my best friends are Leiutenant Winters (I've started watching Band of Brothers) and the lady at 7-Eleven down the street from my office.

So how do you fill your time?  It's strange, because you no longer want to drink to excess.  Not even on the weekends!  You get home from work and you are TIRED, in bed by 11:30.  Well, you know what they say, early to bed and you'll still hate waking up at 7. 

Matching up the days of the week with an alliteration that entails lots of alcohol consumption is still something people do in the real world, but it is more to be kitschy and less something they live by.  Adults prefer "Hump Day" and "Casual Friday."  But perhaps the end of binge drinking is a good thing.  See it as an opportunity to cleanse your liver and lose that pesky beer belly that appeared halfway through sophomore year.

Remember when people told you that the key to finding happiness in college was the vague, "Join a club!"  It's kind of the same thing, but now the phrase is "Take up a hobby," which is so annoying because what even is a hobby?  Stamp collecting?  Scrapbooking?  Let's be real, everyone always fakes their hobbies anyway.  No one is really a photography hobbyist, they just take pictures on their cellphones.  No one really likes the outdoors, they just like saying they do on their social media profiles.  Regardless, activities that seemed dull back in your glory days now become the highlight of your evenings, e.g. spin classes, scrapbooking, and I suppose for some people stamp collecting.

Clothing
Shortly after getting my job, I realized that none of my clothes were acceptable for the office.  For the first time in my life, I went in to Ann Taylor Loft.  I bought plain "blouses" with no loud graphic or glitter.  I bought "slacks" that fit less like a bandage and more like a drape.  Within a month, my wardrobe has gone from biddie-licious to boring.  I barely even recognize myself when I go shopping now: all the clothes in Forever 21 just seem trashy now.  What can I say, people change.

PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME.

22 Going on 82
Yes, this may all seem a little presumptious to you young whipper-snappers out there, but lamenting your age post-grad is just part of a natural transformation and adjustment period.  It's a lot like crossing the threshhold into adolescence: one day you're 10 years old and loving life when your mom says loudly in the grocery store that "you reak of BO" and then buys you your first stick of deodorant.

The fact is that we are all still young, we barely have our first jobs but our whole worldview has changed now that we can't wear leggings and cowboy boots every day.  We know what it's like to not get carded suspiciously at Wal-Mart, AND IT HURTS, OKAY??  You start thinking less about what you're going to do with your stupid weekend that begins on Thursday at noon and more about insurance and paid vacation.

A word of warning: don't go to Target between now and September.  Back-to-school sales are like a trigger and before you know it you're giving that third-grade asshole with all the crayons and gluesticks the stink-eye, or crying and throwing dorm bean bag chairs and extra-long twin sheets all over the aisles.

But you know what, it's not all bad.  Someone asked me if I wish I was going back to college come September, and in some ways, I do.  It's easy to remember only the good stuff, but let's not forget your random freshman roommate or the acute scent of vomit on the drunk bus.  Let me tell you, leaving work and stress behind at 5 p.m. is a liberating feeling, as is not being afraid to check your checking account balance in fear that there isn't enough for even the small bottle of Barefoot. 

Growing up takes time and shouldn't be rushed, and right now I'm just not ready to put JMU Alumni liscence plate holder that someone rudely got me for graduation on my car, OKAY?

Why I Hate Getting My Hair Cut

There are a lot of things I don't particularly care for that 99 percent of other girls in America absolutely love.  One of them is Beyonce, another is The Bachelorette, and another is pedicures.  But above all, I vehemently hate getting my hair cut.

I haven't had a very successful - or even notable - past with hair salons.  From elementary school through tenth grade I was a horse girl, which means I wore stirrup leggings and shirts with dancing horses, filled entire sketchbooks with horses in different poses, and most relevantly wore my hair so that it actually resembled a horse's: long and stringy.

Like this, but less cute and more socially awkward.

Later in high school I went to a few places in the mall before dances and to keep my bangs looking punk rock, but it was nothing serious.  I didn't develop a relationship with a hairdresser that most women seem to treasure.  But hey, I was eighteen and didn't want to carry any serious relationships with me into college.  Who needs a boyfriend hairdresser when you're just going to move away and meet new people?

For the next four years, my entire budget was spent on crop tops, boxed wine and bad magazines (you know, school supplies).  Getting my hair cut was not in my budget and was definitely not on my list of priorities.  It would happen spontaneously when I would ask my roommates to just go at it with a pair of scissors we kept in the knife drawer.  While my budget expenditures have not changed, as part of an effort to become a mature human I have started getting regular, professional trims.

The first one I got was okay.  I went to Great Clips, where I was referred to by my father.  My dad has thin hair like me, and also like me, does not give a flying fuck about what it looks like.  (My mother is one of the aforementioned ladies who has a strong working relationship with her hairdresser Vivian, makes appointments years in advance, and probably spends about three times the amount on her hair than I make in a week.  I ignored her referral.)  Anyway, Great Clips was a Great Experience; I liked it because I got to gossip and girl talk with the hairdresser, Michelle, without the pressure of having to maintain a friendship for years later, another thing I dislike that most girls love.  Even though it had been four years since I had a haircut and I made up a lie about how I had been living in Europe and didn't want to get my hair cut, Michelle didn't judge me because she knows that "the metric system can be confusing when you get your hair cut."  Yeah, whatever, and here's a $20 tip.

Unfortunately, I have moved away from Great Clips and this time I had to find a new "parlor," as it were.  I went into a few places, asked if they took walk-ins, and if I didn't like the look of the place I pretended to get an emergency call that forced me to leave.  Eventually I found myself at the Hair Cuttery, which is an okay place except none of the employees spoke English.  Definitely worse than having to use the metric system in Europe.

I already get my hair cut at the Cuttin' Corral.

Here are the main reasons I hate getting my hair cut:

1. How many nasty heads have been in that sink today?
2. I have a giant mole on the back of my neck, and when people comb over it, that's not a good time.  
3. They try to get you to buy so much stupid crap, like your weight in hair product or a $6 blow-dry.  Like maybe I would if it wasn't pouring rain outside and also if I couldn't dry my own damn hair for free.
4. You have to stare at yourself in the mirror for a minimum of 20 minutes.  While I do that same thing every hour on the hour, there are reasons this is not enjoyable at a salon, like that your hair is middle-parted and that you resemble Friar John with that cape that goes up to your chin.

By the time trauma was over, I looked like I had a mullet, I had bangs I didn't remember asking for, and just wanted to get out of there.  While I will probably wear a ponytail for the next six weeks, at least I'm not him:

What Your American Girl Doll Says About You

Looking back on the days of our innocent youth, I'm sure we all have fond memories of childhood best friends.  Maybe you spent hours swimming in between each other's legs at the pool, which is weird.  Maybe you two built forts in the backyard and perfected your explosion noises as you guided model planes through the air, which means you were a boy.

But whoever your best friend was, mine was better.  She always listened, never bogged me down with her own trivial, less important problems, and let me pick out all her clothes.  She was my American Girl doll, and we did everything together.  Our friendship was a special one.  I always let her win the staring contests, she always let me win the laughing contests.  I played with her until age 12.  It's whatever.

Now, let's not pretend we all haven't been consumerist assholes since age 4.  Which American Girl doll you had told more about you and your values than probably even what Spice Girl or Disney Princess you were.  No you can't play with me at recess, because you have Kit. 

Anyway, let's begin.

Felicity

Felicity was the OG of American Girl dolls.  Today, they don't even sell her which is just a backstabbing move.  She gave them everything, and now they just hand it to all these stupid little Girls of Year to shit all over the brand that means so much to us: the 90s girls.  Out with the old, in with the new, they said!  Let's name the new dolls stupid things like Saige and McKenna, they said!  I digress...

GET OUT OF HERE!

Felicity was a 17th century lass who played games that were named after whatever object was involved: hoop and stick, ball and cup, keg and stand.  It was a simpler time.  Her clothes were gorgeous, she had a horse, and she was probably a little pretentious because she was relatively rich.  If you had Felicity, you were either a fiery red head, your lived in Williamsburg, or you were a horse girl.  

Josefina

Here's the run-down on Josefina.  She lives in New Mexico, her mom died and her dad has to take care of her and her crap ton of siblings, she's scared of anything and is mostly boring.  From what I recall she is not very popular and her clothes suck.  I don't know who had her except for Hispanic girls.  Sorry if this is offensive.

Kirsten

Like Felicity, Kirsten was one of the first American Girls.  Like Josefina, she lives in a foreign land.  Her and her Swedish family are roughing it on the Minnesota frontier and she has to do a lot of stupid things like quilting and milking animals.  She wears her hair like Princess Lea and accessories were like a spoon and a handkerchief.  Cool Kirsten.  For some reason she gave me the heebie-jeebies, but you probably had her if you were blonde and blue-eyed.

Addy

She grew up as a slave and is pissed off about it, obviously.  Hands down, Addy was the most badass.  She's always talking about how unfair slavery is and questioning society, so needless to say she was smarter than probably half of America then, and probably half of America now.  I knew a few random white girls who had Addy, but it was kind of like "bitch, please."

Samantha

Samantha was a rich bitch.  She had bangs and voluminous brown hair, was an orphan, and wore WAY too much plaid for one little girl.  She had bows for every outfit and pearls.  WHAT EIGHT-YEAR OLD WEARS PEARLS??  If you had Samantha you were probably pretty, snobby, and now you shop at places like Banana Republic and Colors of Benetton.  

Molly

Molly grew up smack-dab in the middle of World War II.  She had glasses, and like Samantha had brown hair and bangs, but in every way Samantha was pretty, she was the opposite: nerdy, awkward, and strapped for cash.  I don't actually know about the last part but let's just say she didn't come with a velvet purse like Samantha did.  If you had Molly you were the "funny girl," a little bit quirky, and your name was probably Molly.  

Kit

I hesitate to even include Kit, because she showed up when everything started going south (I was getting to the age where it's not okay to wear a matching outfit with your doll in public).  Her last name is Kittredge, which would make her name Kit Kittredge, which is not a name.  She grew up in the Great Depression and reallllly broke the mold because she had short hair and clothes that didn't cover up from head to toe, like all the other dolls.  If you had Kit, you were in the grade below me, and you're probably now a slut.  Just saying.  

Hussy.

Twin Dolls

Although twin dolls don't have their own books, accessories, and weirdly in-depth story lines, I have to give them a shout out because that's what I had.  No, Emily didn't have her own book but you better believe I wrote one about her.  She looked JUST like me: dirty dishwater blonde hair, poop brown eyes, and as my mom puts it, "skin the color of honey."  I was obsessed with Felicity so I dressed her colonial style clothing that my mom bought at JoAnn Fabrics.  I never understood why I had to have the off-brand clothes, until I recently went into an American Girl store and discovered that the dresses are $40.  I wouldn't buy a dress for MYSELF for that much.

Whatever American Girl doll you had, I am certain she was dear to you.  Mine still sits out in display in my room, because I just didn't have the heart to let her sit in the attic with the less awesome toys and the mouse community that has taken up residence.  While I'm waiting for the day Beanie Babies finally reach the value I was told they would so I can sell them for a small fortune, there is no way I would EVER sell Emily.  Bad bitches for life.

Office Lifestyle

Your own computer.  Your own phone extension.  And three beige, fabriced walls to call your own.  Some would say working in a cubicle is the American dream.  I mean seriously, who wants a job with "flexible hours," where they're not "tied to a desk all day," "hunched over a computer screen"?  NOT ME.  I'll sit on my ass all day and quickly minimize Facebook every time I hear someone coming around my cubicle wall, thank you very much.

Well, I've only had my own cubicle for a few short days at this point, but it's taught me a few things.  It's pretty similar to college in that you privately judge and hate everyone around you, only this time you're not in a classroom and you're stuck with them from 9-5, not 50 minutes.

It may sound like I hate my new job, but I actually really like it!  It's kind of a cross between the fun antics and dynamics of the casts of The Office and Workaholics.  It's a less glamorous version of Mad Men (but just the parts they don't actually show....yeah...).  So, combined with my real-world experiences and observations from TV and grown-up friends, let me tell you about a few staple personalities of office life.

The Jokester
For me, his name is Steve.  Incidentally, he is my only friend so far.  The jokester, by real-world standards, is not even slightly funny, but under the glare of 30 flourescent lights he's a lolocaust, probably with a bald head but mysteriously existent ponytail.  I don't know about other offices but I'm pretty sure Steve doesn't have a desk because he seems to spend all day wandering around and making jokes as he passes by your cubicle.

The Loudmouth
Much like a nine-hour trans-Atlanic flight, in an office there is no privacy.  And The Loudmouth DOES. NOT. CARE!!!  For me, her name is Lois.  Actually it is Janet but seeing as I hear more of her than I see, I think she sounds like a Lois so that is what I'm calling her.  Also like Steve, she doesn't seem to work but instead spends all day on the phone with her friends and family.  I am particularly excited for her daughter's recovery from her wisdom teeth removal, because I'm interested to see what topic Lois/Teresa will talk about for 8 hours straight next.  (Note: she is my second favorite because she yells at people when they misuse the printer and also says "damn" and "shit" sometimes.  She doubles as the office badass.)

The Crazy One
Let's just say I know who is most likely to snap.  Paul.  It's Paul.  He is definitely crazy, depressed, creepy, and mutters to himself.  Unfortunately/fortunately, the padding on my cubicle wall is just thick enough so that I can't make out what he is saying.  He's probably harmless, but I'm going to offer him half of my Twix just in case.

The Gossip Queen
She is in everybody's business all the time, and you bet your new box of ballpoints she is judg-ing-you.  No office romance is safe.  Be careful what you talk about by the printer because her desk is located right next to it and she knows all about your softball team drama and the Mexican dinner your boyfriend took you out to last night.

The One Who Brings Spaghettios For Lunch
YOU'RE STINKING UP THE WHOLE BREAK ROOM, CHEF BOYARDEE. 

Nina
You know, Nina of "Nina speaking, JUST a moment!"  She's the "nice girl" of the office and you just freaking HAAAATE HER.  She says things like "Happy Monday," "Workin' hard or hardly workin'??!" and "Tag, you're it!" when leaving a voicemail for someone she's been playing phone tag with.  Also, I'm pretty sure the nice thing is a facade because there is just no way someone who talks in that high-pitched of a voice isn't clinically insane.

The Intern
You know, the young, hot one that wears pants that are probably a liiiiittle too tight to be considered professional. 

The office, in a nutshell, is its own fantastic microculture.  It's a magical place where people put up reminders in Comic Sans to FLUSH THE TOILET!!!!!, where binder clips never run out, where Internet Explorer is the default browser, and where I get 30 emails a day to an account I NEVER EVEN CREATED. 

Yes...I think I'll like it here.

iPod Shuffle: White Girl Edition

I know we all think we're original and stuff, but there are a few aspects of life in which we're all just the same freaking person.  Especially girls.  We all Instagram the same crap over and over again.  We all ask our friends what kind of haircut they think we should get, even though we know they don't give a rat's ass.  We all force ourselves to like salad.

And we all like the same music.

If you are a white girl, which I assume you are if you're reading this blog (shout out to my boyfriend being my only male reader, because I make him read/laugh at all my posts) I can guarantee you all like the same music, as listed below.

White rappers

Obviously, you like any type of rap, but especially white rappers.  Mac Miller, Macklemore, Eminem.  Ask any white girl about Mac Miller and she will be all like, "Oh my god I loooove Mac Miller.  I saw him one time on tour with Wiz!"  Play any bad rap and she will start doing some silly ass dance in which she kind of sways back and forth and kinda jumps around flinging her hands around.  It's endearing, okay?

Country

White girls like country music because they think it was written about them.  While most country songs center around the summertime, whiskey, and trucks, there is always a shout out to an adorable girl that makes the singer feel something deeper than other girls, and wears cowboy boots and drinks a lot of wine.  So, obviously, written about me.

Just take Luke Bryan's "Drunk On You"... 

Girl you make my speakers go "boom boom."  Yes, so I can hear the music over my annoying shrieks and cackling.  Unless you're talking about something else, in which your innuendo is over my head, so whatever.

Dancing on the tailgate in the full moon.  Sounds like my Friday night.

That kinda thing makes a man go "mmm, mmm." Sure.

You're lookin' so good in what's left of those blue jeans.  I WEAR CUTOFFS LIKE LITERALLY EVERY DAY.

Drip of honey on the money maker gotta bee.  I don't know what this means.

The best buzz I'm ever gonna find. You're damn right.  Also, I never realized how stupid these lyrics were.

Rock from the early 2000s

Think Blink 182, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and any band she ever saw at the Warped Tour.  Play "Feelin' This" at a party and she will start shaking her hair around because it looks punk rock and cute.

Ke$ha

Because duh.

"Wagon Wheel"
And not the stupid Darius Rucker version.  Bump that.  Play this song in a bar and loud screams will erupt from each huddle of white girls.  Suddenly they come alive, dancing around and yelling all the words as vodka and cranberry juice slosh everywhere.  Join in, or leave.  Those are your two options.

Decent female singers
I have to hand it to girls who have some good taste in music, but it's not without a cost.  If you've ever ridden in a car with me and Adele came on, you probably have never ridden in a car with me since.  It's a real shame because these women -- looking at you, Regina Spektor -- plant false seeds of hope in our minds that we will someday be able to play ukelele and sing a cute song in a video left on our boyfriends' Facebook walls.  Problems with that: I don't own a ukelele, and I love my boyfriend.  Never would I put him or myself through the humiliation of listening to me singing along with Ingrid Michaelson.  Except in the car.

The entire lineup of any summer music festival
Festivals are their own culture, popularized on a mass scale by Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and now apparently Firefly which until this year I've never heard of.  Did you know Forever 21 has a whole line called the "Festival collection"?  Pretty much it's just tribal prints, cut-offs and glow sticks so I don't see how it's any different from any of their other collections/my daily wardrobe but whatever....

Anything they can twerk to
Except NONE OF US KNOW HOW TO TWERK.

The Stages of Post-Grad Life

Exactly 38 days ago, I graduated college and witnessed a man release a dove on stage seconds before he received his diploma.  Obviously, both were monumental occasions in my life.  Since then, I have been "fun-employed,"* a term I use when answering the only question people ask me in polite conversation nowadays: "So, what are your post-grad plans?  Got a job yet, you adult, you, har har!"

*Interestingly, my research has shown that my dad seems to hate me a little more each time I say that, as he sees his retirement money dwindling away as I ask him for money to buy donuts and theme park tickets.

Anyway, the Bible tells us that most important things happen in increments of 40 days (the great flood, Jesus lost in the woods, something Moses did, etc.).  If tradition holds true, then in two days I'll either be extended a job offer or will finally solve Level 65 of Candy Crush.  Either way, these past 38 days have taught me a lot about the stages of post-graduate life, which, not coincidentally, directly mirror the five stages of grief.

1. Denial
This stage can happen as early as freshman year of college or as late as your first year of grad school.  I always thought people are really annoying in this stage, because it usually resembles one of the following scenarios:

1. A drunk girl talking about how she's never going to graduate because then she won't be able to go to theme parties (this was me).
2. A drunk guy talking about he's never going to graduate because then he can't sit around in his boxers all day and smoke weed.
3. Panicked seniors joking about how they're going to fail their last exam on purpose.

In all scenarios, I'm just like, "No you're not, so shut up."  Going into it, we all know college is going to end and that we're going to eventually graduate on schedule, because if not we'd be 25 and the number 60 won't refer to how many Gs we're making a year but rather how many seconds our keg stand is.  And we all know we're going to pay some junior too much money to take over-saturated pictures of us and our roommates (who at that point we definitely hate) all over campus in stupid poses and grad caps.  Thus, denial is pointless, for this is the way it shall be.

The denial stage continues into the first few weeks after graduation.  It's fun for awhile, believe me.  You might take a trip or two, sleep in, get a pool membership and Instagram pictures of your fabulous life and strawberry daiquiris.  Post-grad is great in this stage, until....

#hardlife #nofilter

2. Anger

You start to get angry.  You get angry that none of the 30 places you've applied to have contacted you back. You start doubting your self-worth as you realize YOU are becoming the Target employee with a Bachelor's degree in English and Early Renaissance Bullshit.  You think about all the money you wasted getting wasted an education and get even angrier.  Then your parents start asking when you're going to get a job, gently suggesting that you waitress or strip for awhile, "just so you're not bored, honey."  

3. Bargaining

I theorize that this is when most people who formerly denounced grad school urgently sign up for the next GRE.  "If I just go to grad school then maybe I'll find a job doing what I actually love.  Besides, I'm overqualified for these stupid jobs I've been applying to...so I need more education."  In two or three years, you'll restart the process, but then you'll have a Master's so you'll know how to deal with it.

4. Depression

I mean, obviously.  You can't go to theme parties anymore, your parents are your new roommates with a better social life than you, and you've heard every rejection possible from "This position has been filled" to "After meeting you and talking for an hour as you sweated your way through your button-down, we feel that your personality is lame and not suited for this company so we went with another, less clammy candidate who has a better haircut and professional experience."  Of course you're going to get depressed.  

5. Acceptance

You get a cat, look for receptionist jobs, and start seriously dating because that's the only way you're going to pull yourself out of this mess.  (This is speculation, as I have only made it to stage 4.)

So if you're still in college, live it up because someday you'll have to explain to your teenager that the only thing you did with your English degree was watch all six seasons of Mad Men in your first month out of college and write a mediocre blog.  Impressive.

The Real World: When Girls Stop Being Biddies and Start Being Adults

In a few short weeks, I will don my cap and gown and walk proudly across the stage to accept my hard-earned diploma.  It's a moment I've imagined vividly for 56 days, when I began my countdown to graduation.  But while I'm excited to finally close the door on all-nighters, endless projects and the tenure system there are a few aspects of the real world of which I'm hesitant.

Wardrobe

There are a lot of behaviors that aren't acceptable post-grad.  What probably/hopefully comes to your mind are things like flip cup tournament fundraisers for charities and taking Tuperware containers to buffet-style restaurants.  I'm okay with that.  What I'm not okay with is how literally 90 percent of my wardrobe is not appropriate for wear in locations that aren't college campuses.  What kind of workplace has a yoga-pants dress code? None.  Cowboy boots and jean shorts?  Forget about it.  Bathing suits?  Only at the pool.

"This is business casual right?"

And think about it...have you ever seen anyone older than 22 wearing a hoodie?  No.  I don't know what they do with all their heavily worn sweatshirts but I'll tell you one thing: Plato's Closet does not go for that stuff.  Or maybe they just don't go for any of my stuff.  Seriously I hate that place. 

You can't just throw your clothes in the washer on normal cycle and cold water anymore.  Life in the real world means one thing: you better find a cheap, close dry cleaner because once you move your tassel over your clothes are way too nice to "tumble dry."  Regular washers and dryers are for peasants, apparently.

Social Media

Did you know that once Facebook finds out you've graduated they take away your chat and then you're forced to use some website called "Google Plus"?  But seriously, have you ever seen anyone under 22 on Google Plus?  Be prepared to get G-Chatted.

You know when you go on Instagram and there's always that one girl that's like "Cooked my dinner tonight and it was so delish #chefstatus" and her meal actually looks ratchet?  I hope that girl isn't graduating because it's not acceptable to do that anymore.  When you graduate, you have to cook every meal every night and if you're Instagramming all of that you need to get a job or start a mommy blog.

Mashed pomegranate and bird poop for dinner #nutritious and #soyummy

Reading Material
Let's be real, no one in college has time to read leisurely, but when they do they [girls] are reading Cosmo.  But say your goodbyes to the 52 never-before-seen-until-next-month sex tips because from here on out it's Real Simple and Southern Living for you, Miss Thang.

Eating and Drinking
This is about to change drastically.  Nowhere outside of a college town will you find pitchers less than $2, so drink up.  You can't swipe a card and get handed a meal anymore.  You also can't keep wearing your 21st birthday tiara and expect to get free drinks every Friday.  Live it up birthday girl.

Congratulations to the class of 2013, and may your transition into the real world not hit you like two-ton tractor trailer going 80 mph.  I hope you have all taken over-saturated pictures of yourselves around campus in your graduation garb and posted them all over the Internet, because you don't get your diploma unless you have.

A Letter to My High School Self

Dear 17-year-old Sallie,

Hey girl! It's me...and I guess you.  You're probably sitting in a hookah bar, pretending to read texts on your purple flip phone and thinking you're a badass because you don't think the employees know you and your 12 friends aren't 18.  Live it up girl.  Live it up.

First of all, I need you to listen the hell up.  I know your life sucks and all right now because you haven't figured out brown eye shadow and curling gel is not your best look, but here's the good news: you won't always be in high school.  Things get better, specifically around junior year of college when you ditch the high school boyfriend and you turn 21, but I don't want to give away endings, so enough about that.  Let's focus on the here and now.

Number one: stop listening to Owl City.  You will regret that, when four years from now -- no matter what you do -- it still accounts for 12 of your 25 most recently played songs on iTunes.

Take a minute to apologize to everyone who ever went to your MySpace and had to hear this crap playing automatically.

Number two: lose the punk rock look.  What is that?  I know you want everyone to know you went to the Warped Tour, but you didn't need to buy a T-shirt from every band you saw.  Also, you look like a hoodrat, and nothing screams tool like writing "Hug more" on one Converse and "Hate less" on the other.

Speaking of looks, Mom was wrong when she said you look the best senior year of high school, so don't be alarmed when those graduation pics come back and you look sweaty and fat.  Don't blame it on the photographers either, because the truth is, you are sweaty and fat.  Get over it.  Also, quit being a brat and maybe your mom will like you a little better.

Stop thinking you're cool, cause ya ain't.  The things that you think are cool and try to discreetly brag about are actually really freaking embarrassing.  Think about that the next time you open your mouth to blurt out some fact about horses or volleyball.  It might also behoove you to not make out with your entire grade, but ya know, hormones are hard to control, so I understand.

Here's a friendly suggestion: maybe you shouldn't drive for a couple years.  At the very least, try to avoid ever reversing, your friends' driveways and most parking lots.  It'll save you a few replacement car doors and your dad a few buckaroos.

Other than that, keep on doing what you do, which from what I can remember consists of trying to get teachers fired and rigging the senior superlatives.

"Peace out river trout," as you would say.  (Stop that, too.)

White Girl Problems

White girls get a lot of unnecessary crap, like why they're always wearing lacy dresses in the woods in American Eagle ads and how they're always complaining and driving poorly.

But listen, our lives hare hard.  It's not all Starbucks coffee dates and cute stuff your boyfriend does for you, okay?  White girls have their own sets of problems...

Tweeting too much.  I try to make all my tweets hilarious and/or weird, but sometimes it's not always possible.  It's unfair when you're kept in class the full time.  It's really annoying when you have a bad workout.  Sometimes my dinner is mediocre. These are the kind of things that the world doesn't definitely needs to know.

Anything having to do with cars.  Just don't talk to me about that, okay? Every time I go home my dad asks me if I've changed my oil lately, and I just stare at him.  What are you saying and also who has time for that?

Math.  It's not our fault -- boys are just better at math, and numbers are boring.  Literally the only thing I know about math is how to calculate percentages.  My mom taught me how so I know what price 40 percent off cardigans are.

Looking at yourself in the mirror while you cry.  Who knows why you started crying, probably because your butt looked particularly flat that day, but once you look in the mirror there's no going back until your pillow is literally covered in snot.

When Facebook took away wall-to-walls.  Like, how am I supposed to stalk people now?

Trying to decide your future baby's names when you have so many picked out.  Don't look at me like that.  What do YOU do in class?

All your favorite childhood idols ruining their lives.  Amanda Bynes: posting vulgar and degrading messages on Twitter.  Topanga: gee, I wonder where she's been for ten years.  Lindsay Lohan: Lindsay Lohan.  Miley Cyrus: bad, awful, nasty haircut, identity crisis and smoking salvia.  All we have left is Hilary Duff and she's pregnant with Good Charlotte's baby sooooo I guess lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Screw Vernoica Mars, let's get The Amanda Show Kickstarter going. 

The fact that Miley Cyrus ruined her life and still gets away with having the hottest guy in the world as her husband.  What gives.

Legitimately thinking your life is Mean Girls.  I exaggerate a lot of stuff, but not this: The other day I told someone I knew the girl whose dad invented Toaster Strudels.  I absolutely do not, but sorry I'm not sorry that I grew up in the Mean Girls era.  Who am I kidding, it's always an era because it's the best movie ever made ever.

Your mom's friends on Facebook.  Seriously, stop blowing up my news feed and stop asking me to "add my birthday."

Your checked bag on an airplane.  Fifty pound limit??  Do you know how much my hair products weigh ALONE??

Pandora being more attentive to your needs than your boyfriend.  I think it's pretty obvious that it was created by a girl, but for any boys out there looking for dating advice: be as polite and accommodating as Pandora.  If you don't like a song, it apologizes profusely and swears that it will never play that song again.  I've told my boyfriend time and time again I don't like when he talks to other girls, and he hasn't sworn off that, so......

Studies about how bad Diet Coke is for you.  Water has 0 calories too, and nobody says you shouldn't drink that, do they??

Not having enough time to keep up with your blog because you have to apply for adult jobs. Ugh, whatever.

The Truth About Girls

The media are full of lies about girls.  For example, we don't sit around on beaches eating hamburgers with perfect hair.  When I'm on the beach my hair looks like Cousin It and the only thing I'm eating is saltwater that I inhale through my nose because I can barely swim. Also, I'm probably sun-burned and bloated from drinking seven Smirnoff Ices.

But it's not the media that are the biggest secret-keepers of le femme.  No, it's girls themselves.  The truth is, behind every made-up face and cute little outfit is a monster.  A hairy, slobbering monster that is barely held in check.  Girls are full of lies, and our hair is full of secrets.  No, I'm not talking things like "girls don't fart."  We're all over that, because it's 2013 and girls put farting on their resume.

The first lie girls want you to believe is that they are clean.  I've lived with girls for four years and let me tell you, they are freaking nasty.  In college, you should assume you will go through a vacuum cleaner a year before it breaks, and that is because you will literally suck up so much hair that the vacuum can't handle its own nastiness and just dies.  They say on average you lose about 100 hairs a day, but I'd say it's more like getting Lassie shaved every day and then just sprinkling her hair all throughout the apartment.  I don't even want to think about what's in my shower drain.

The second lie girls want you to believe is that they are dainty eaters.  But give a girl a couple glasses of wine and a tub of Cheese Balls and you won't see any sign of either (not even the container) within half an hour.  Drunk girls eat like they've never seen food before.  It's like cavemen gnawing on whole wooly mammoth thighs.  And they're greedy, too.  Ask for "a bite" and you might as well have told her you hooked up with her boyfriend.

The third lie is that girls like boys.  I'm not saying they are all lesbians, but deep down we all have a hatred for men.  It's not even bred in feminist pride, it's just a raw hatred for the male species.  Maybe because they're all assholes, or maybe that they try to tell us we should look like a million bucks eating a hamburger on the beach (I DON'T EVEN LIKE HAMBURGERS).  I love my boyfriend, but at any given time I'm ready to break up with him just because he's a male. (A lot of this is because I get bored often.)  I've said it before but I'll say it again...

The fourth and final lie is that we're not all back-stabbing bitches.  We are.  There's not one girl on the face of this earth who wouldn't talk bad about her best friend.  It's not that we don't love our friends to death, but really, what else is there to talk about?  Girls will say heinous things.  They will say things they don't even believe to be true, but you'd be surprised what comes out over a bowl of broccoli and cheddar at Panera.

These are only the lies we tell to the rest of the world.  The lies we tell ourselves are much, much worse, like that all my tweets are funny or that I wasn't the one who slashed my ex-boyfriend's tires.

Now Trending

Much like the ebbing of the tides and the popularity of bellbottoms, certain things in our culture come and go. Fads are what keep life interesting, when our bitchy friends or kids from high school that got pregnant aren’t doing the trick. Here are some of the latest trends from our generation…

Super Foods I can’t find a recipe that doesn’t have kale in it these days. I don’t really know what kale is, mostly because I don’t really care enough to find out, but from what I can tell it looks like steamed spinach they served in the cafeteria during elementary school. I don’t know what part of a kale smoothie sounds enticing, but according to Pinterest if you drink them in the morning it’ll shrink your waistline in a week…all I’m saying is I wouldn’t want to see what’s coming out the other end. 

 And quinoa, Jesus. No one even knows what quinoa is. Every time I ask some hippie who swears by quinoa what it really is, they always say “it’s a supergrain.” Oh, is that so? Well that just answers all my questions...NO. That’s the biggest load of propaganda I’ve ever heard. A grain is a grain, and they’re all boring and stupid no matter what kind of Mediterranean dressing you put on it.  Go eat some protein.

Ew.  

Vine I guess it’s the new Snapchat, but dealing more with videos you can post. Whatever, the point is I can’t pay attention to any YouTube video longer than 30 seconds and if it doesn’t have a baby laughing or a cat scratching a dog in the face then I’m really not interested.

Tinder We’re in the digital age, and despite Catfish’s best efforts this app is making online dating less and less 400-pound-man-in-his-mom’s-basement and more and more normal. When the sorostitutes in my class aren’t talking about what they pinned to their “Loveeee” boards on Pinterest they’re talking about who liked them on Tinder.

Rednecks
Has anyone noticed that rednecks are the new guidos of reality TV?  They're totally in right now.  One thing I don’t hate: Si from Duck Dynasty. One thing I do hate: that Buckwild wasn’t filmed when I was in high school because THAT’S LITERALLY WHAT MY LIFE WAS LIKE. 

Lookin' good boys.

Sneaker Heels You know when you find one of those bags covered in sequins that you had in middle school, or those crinkly shirts circa fifth grade yearbook picture? It hurts, deep down, to think that you ever wore these things. This is how we’re going to look at sneaker heels in three years months.

    

Turqoise Go in any Forever 21 on the east coast and the only colors you’ll see are glitter, cheetah, and light turquoise. 

Side note, if you’d like to participate in my grassroots movement to make Teal Pants Tuesday a thing, go out and get a pair of teal pants and wear them…on Tuesdays. And then tweet about it.
Rustic Weddings Weddings are nothing these days if there aren’t chalkboards directing people where to sit or receptions that take place in barns with a butt-ton of paper lanterns and string lights in them. It’s all about rustic chic, two things that absolutely do not go together, but if you hire a wedding planner (which is, by the way, not a real job) then you better believe she’ll make it happen. 

  

Boo It’s some fluffy dog on the Internet. Bitches love it, who knows why.

No matter what fads come in and out of style, I think it's safe to say that 99 percent of them are all dumb, the exception being fad diets because those things have really worked for me.