I Like Big Beards And I Cannot Lie

(Lately I’ve been on a total crush cruise on dudes with long-ass beards. I’m not sure why, I think the slide into my late twenties is making me somehow even MORE of a horn dog and giving me a primal desire for fur. Other things have been happening too, but this is infinitely more important.)

There’s just something about a full fuzzy beard pressed up against your mouth (or anywhere else on your body for that matter) that gives you a feeling of warmth and happiness.

And not just because it kind of tickles.

Maybe it’s because I love snuggling with stuffed animals and puppies and such. Maybe it’s because my dad shaved his beard off when I was five and it was so shocking I still haven’t recovered. Either way, there’s something about a man with a beard that says, “Yeah I can build you a fire and help you assemble that IKEA furniture. But I can also bathe you in my facial hair and give you the time of your life. Take my hand and we’ll go have a sensual shower under a waterfall, after which we’ll eat lunch at Chipotle and cruise around in my Honda. You won’t be disappointed.”

I’m inclined to believe him. 

His beard tells me he knows what he’s talking about, and he knows where to get the best local barbecue and craft beer. After you, my Viking prince.

 

On a side note, I have also been on two episodes of Eric from Opticynicism‘s podcast, Brick Wit House. Check them out here and go support Eric and Leo. They’re cool guys and Eric also has a really nice beard now.

Ep 10 – The Overdue Holiday Episode

Ep 21 – Giggle In A Gas Mask

Go listen to their podcast (it’s lit fam) and also go watch this video I made because I’m lame and am moving to YouTube now. SUBSCRIBE TO ME, FRIENDS!!!! (Or don’t. I only am vlogging right now so my stuff is pretty boring. Idk, y’all decide, I’ll still love you no matter what.)

RITA’S MUKBANG WITH BOYFRIEND | APRIL 10th VLOG

(P.S. This was my first vlog and I just got my MacBook today so I’ll be uploading a whole bunch more in the next couple days. It starts poorly but just hang in there.)

This is me with a Snapchat filter but I still think it’s pretty hot.

Catch Colds, Not Feels

(Or be like me and catch both. Your call really.)

I’ve been sick for a little over 2 weeks and it doesn’t seem to be going away. Speaking of things that aren’t going away, I’ve run into a slight predicament in the realm of romance. (And not VD you pervs… geez.) Rather that something that was never supposed to be anything other than friends hanging out has recently become slightly more than that, at least on my end.

EDITOR’S NOTE: If the person I’m talking about (and you know who you are) is currently reading this right now (although that’s doubtful, and I’m not sure if you do actually read this), please click away. I promise I won’t say anything bad or personal but I also don’t want you to be aware of the aforementioned feels I currently possess. Also, you don’t need to know the extent of my crazy (even though you probably already think you do) and I don’t want any of my nonsense and most-likely-fleeting feelings to affect our friendship. Thank you for respecting my privacy, now please go away. :)

Alright, now that we’re alone I can get back to the business of explaining my current problem. I truly believe that old age is turning me soft because I rarely get sick and I rarely have genuine human feelings of this nature.

So basically I have a friend who I’ve known for almost a decade and now that I’m back home we’ve been hanging out. It’s been really chill and fun (as hanging with your friends often is), and up until recently it’s been totally casual. (Side Note: I never know how to spell the truncated version of “casual”. Is it “cash” or “caszhe” or “caz”?? Someone please let me know in the comments.) Then a couple weeks ago, we were sitting at the bar completely “caszche” and I suddenly got an overwhelming urge to kiss him.

…Uhhh, what now?

First of all, WHAT THE HELL, ALANNA?!?! Second of all, Like come on girl, it’s HIM. Your FRIEND. The guy you once saw get so angry about losing in Pokemon Brawl that he got up and left your other friend’s house. Plus, I’m not looking for a boyfriend or anything even resembling a serious relationship. I just broke up with my boyfriend of four years and not only would that be disrespectful to him but also to the new guy. Not to mention it would be irresponsible for my own sanity and general well-being.

But the thing about feels is that they don’t care about logic or rationality. Your amygdala is just like, “Soo… I’m gonna take a nap. Sorry about your lack of good judgement, peace out fam.” Then your hypothalamus, along with its little buddy the nucleus accumbens, is all like, “Alright alright alright,” (a la Matthew McConaughey) and before you know it you’re attached to your phone in case he texts you and wondering what he looks like naked.

(Also, please don’t bust my balls if that’s not entirely correct. I’m not a neurologist and it’s been a while since I took that class.)

So all of this basically is fine, just me freaking out about having feels to begin with. Especially for someone I’ve been friends with for so long and want to remain friends if things go back to normal. The weird thing is that even though we’ve been friends for a billion years, I realized that I actually know very little about him. I mean, I know things like what sports teams he’s into and his opinions on the election and why his brand of beer is superior to mine. I know that he constantly travels on the basketball court like we don’t live in a society with rules and I know what memes will make him laugh.

But the other day, we were just talking (like humans do, ya know?) and he starts talking about his family and their quirks and stories about his parents and nephews and all that. Suddenly, I notice that I know NOTHING about his family or even his life outside of the superficiality of drunken conversations and trash-talk while playing video games. I thought back for a second and realized in the almost ten years of knowing him, he’s never once mentioned anything about his family and now he’s sitting here talking about growing up with his siblings and how their relationship has changed over the years.

“Hey, nice to finally meet you, my name’s Alanna. What’s yours again? Oh, that’s right, your name isn’t even your real name, it’s your middle name but I didn’t even know that until like 7 years down the line. Nbd, fam.”

I feel like I’m in one of those movies where after years and years the people find out their friend/spouse/family member is actually a spy or a member of the royal family (except on a waayy less significant level). Normally, I’d question my own listening skills and scold myself for being too self-involved, but this time I wasn’t just being a self-centered bitch. I talked to my one friend the other night about this whole thing and she was basically like, “Wait.. he has a family?” and I was like, “I KNOW RIGHT?!” so there ya go.

She also joked about how her and some of the guys were assessing this situation and how the guys were like, “Yeah they’re ‘chilling’ but they’re not ‘chilling’. I give it like 2 weeks at the most,” and my friend was all, “Yeah, yeah, whatever… I think this is actually happening.” (I’m directly involved and I still question whether or not I’m in a coma or perhaps have slipped into another dimension where nothing makes any sense.) My friend made a very legit observation that none of us have ever seen the guy bring any girls around.

Literally. None.

That tripped me out pretty heavily because he obviously dated and did other human things but none of us actually witnessed it. And we’ve all brought around our various dudes and hos, even if it was just some bullshit thing. Not him though. I remember seeing one girl drive up while we were playing football like 6 years ago but she didn’t even get onto the front yard. He just walked all the way over to the road and talked to her while she stood next to her car, and from 100 feet away we were all creeping like, “Ooohh shiittt, waddupp,” (and damn, even from that distance it was obvious she was hot af) but when he came back up to the field he didn’t say a single word about her, the conversation, or the situation at all. He just left us in the lurch leaving us to make up our own conclusions as well as some pretty funny jokes.

The moral of this story is that I like a guy who may or may not be the Batman.

I’m not even worried about analysis or labels or anything, it’s all in good fun and my life is going pretty great in general at the moment so in a totally uncharacteristically-“me”-type-way, I’m just enjoying having fun and chilling with a friend. (But not “chilling”, of course.)

If you read through this entire post, congratulations. You get a prize. (The satisfaction of reading 1200 words of nonsense.) I hope you’re all having a wonderful December. Merry Fuckery and Happy Lols to you all. <3 <3 <3 <3

Things That Moving Taught Me

(Lessons about life, love, independence, and the point of exercising. But most importantly, lessons about myself. And why other people can suck it.)

If you follow me on my myriad social media, you might know that I’m going through a huge transitional period in my life and basically everything you know about stuff unrelated to my physical body/mind is different now. (Try to keep up.)

I broke up with my boyfriend, took a leave of absence from school, and moved back in with my mom and step dad. I’ll talk about the details of the breakup and other things in another post, but this one is about the process of moving from one place to another.

If you weren’t already aware, it fucking sucks.

Although I feel like quite the beast because other than my dad carrying the big furniture out of my apartment, ’twas all me (not Alessandro cause he left me in the lurch mad hard) and doing all that by myself made me realize that I can do anything so haters to the left.

Here’s the list of things moving taught me. Enjoy.

1. 90% of my possessions are just trash or scraps of paper. Also clothing. I have too much of it.
2. Carrying all those books back and forth is exactly why people don’t read. No one should be this literate.
3. I have more boxes than actual things to put in said boxes.
4. I never thought I’d have anything negative to say about consumerism, but here we are.
5. Where is all the cocaine?
6. Of all the things I have in common with homeless people (heavy drinking, flannel, boxes,etc.), the ability to pack lightly is not one of them.
7. Officially jealous of hobos.
8. There’s no scenario wherein I don’t fall down the stairs again at the end of this. (SIDE NOTE: I did fall many times but luckily not down the stairs.)
9. Initially, I wrote this list on a physical piece of paper because I CAN’T LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES.
10. So. Much. Paper.
11. I spent more time staring at everything than actually packing.
12. Seeing my life laid before me in boxes and trash bags made me wonder why no concerned citizen hasn’t intervened on behalf of this poor mentally challenged young woman. I really shouldn’t even be allowed to drive.
13. Adults don’t need this many posters.
14. Nor this many American flags unless they operate a military sign-up post.
15. I need to stop getting drunk and buying crap online.
16. Going through all this reminded me of the time I hid a $1,200 check somewhere and the apartment became a “National Treasure” movie. (I still haven’t found that check.)
17. My neighbors stole all my trash cans as one last “fuck you” before I moved, so I waited until the last day and made my own Trash Mountain on the sidewalk. It was glorious and evidence as to why you shouldn’t fuck with me.

    

    Not exactly like my Trash Mountain, but close enough.

18. My back is going to hurt forever.
19. I totally don’t need a man. (Except for my dad because even with all this hardcore girl-power flowing through my veins, I still can’t lift heavy furniture.)
20. This is the first time in a long time I feel like I’m moving my life in the right direction, so despite everything that’s been going on, I’m really truly happy.

By the way, I’m dyeing my hair blonde next week so strap in for that mess. Pictures and more to come later. Bye now :)

R. I. P. Diane Kitten

(Well, not really.  I mean, kind of.  Like you think you know someone for a whole year and then they turn out to be a completely different person so you sorta feel like the person you knew is dead.  That’s where I’m at right now.)

Alessandro and I finally took Diane Kitten to the vet after almost a year of having her (not out of neglect, we’re poor) but because she randomly started coughing and it was clear she was having trouble breathing.  We rushed her to the kitty Emergency Room and found out she has asthma so it’s all good and she has medicine and feels much better now.

We found out some things like she’s about 2 years old and has a little tracker in the back of her neck (which I totally wanna remove, especially considering we looked for her owners for a longggg time and nobody claimed her so they’re clearly just bad people).  We also found out she is not a she.

Diane Kitten is a boy.

Then again, how am I supposed to know how he/she identifies?  It’s my fault for assuming he was a girl, but apparently he’s neutered so it makes sense why I was confused.  Also I hoped he was a girl for solidarity purposes, imposing my own desires concerning his gender upon him which is totally philistine and not at all forward-thinking.  I never thought I’d be this type of mother (cat-owner) and my surprise as well as my feelings of loss at the news were quite disconcerting.

I looked it up though, and there exists a phenomenon within the transgender community that people don’t really talk about.  There is often a need to mourn the person you (or your friend/family member/etc.) used to be so that the true person can live and flourish in their real identity.  It’s actually good to grieve the loss of the prior identity and gives the transgender person a feeling of closure without any guilt in moving on.

I’m likening my feelings to this phenomenon because even though it’s just a cat, I feel like I got to know him as “Diane Kitten” and in my childish brain, I built up this whole personality surrounding that female identity.  Now I feel like I have to get to know him as a boy and mold an idea of who he is around this knowledge.

The worst part is changing the name. I was proud of that name.  (She even has a twitter account.)  The deal was that if we found out Diane was a boy, Alessandro would get to pick the name, so he picked “Mr. Tibbs”, Sidney Poitier’s character from the movie “In the Heat of the Night”, which is a badass role and Sir Sidney Poitier is probably the coolest person you could name someone after, but he already has lots of social media accounts and Virgil Tibbs had to deal with so much racism and bullshit which I would like to shield Diane/Mr. Tibbs from.  “They chew you up and spit you out.”

“THEY CALL ME MISTER TIBBS!!!”

So here we are, going through the gender identity process together.  Tibbs has certainly taken to his new name like a justice-minded detective to the mean streets of Sparta, Mississippi.  I’ll miss Diane, but I can’t wait to spend the next couple decades growing and learning with my perfect little boy.  :)

Whiter Than Ghosts Swimming In Clorox: My DNA Results

(I had no idea how aptly named my blog was.  It’s sad because a little part of me always felt gangster, and I really hoped my internal makeup was more diverse.  “White Girls Be Like” was never more real.  I can’t even…)

Recently, my friend Jessie of “You’re Fine” took a DNA test and wrote about it on her blog.  I was like, “Awesome, I wanna try that!” and bought a test from 23andMe to see my own ancestral breakdown.  I figured it wasn’t going to be as interesting as Jessie’s, but maybe I’d find out something cool or find a relative I never knew about.

First of all, I had no idea about the process of sending away your DNA.  Basically you have to spit into this little cup thingy until it reaches the line (they say it takes about 5 minutes for most people, but I was spitting in this thing for half an hour).  Then you do some sciencey stuff and wrap everything up in the package they give you and put it in the mail.  A million years later (or about a month), you get your results online and all this cool stuff telling you about yourself and some stuff you already know (like, “yes, I know I have red hair, thanks for the info”) but also some stuff that you wouldn’t think they’d know which is cool.  For instance, they knew I was a sprinter (back in the day, not now) because I have some gene that says something about my muscles and how they’re made to sprint.

On the website, there’s a million reports all about what your DNA means (I highly recommend doing this, it’s super fun), and you can click on said reports to give you more detailed information.  I started off seeing my ancestral breakdown.

So… I’m white.

There’s a bunch of smaller percentages under these, but mostly I’m British and Irish.  Big surprise.  Another thing they can tell you is how much Neanderthal you have in you.  Apparently I have quite a lot, and I’m not sure what that says about me, but my mom laughed and said, “That makes so much sense!” which is always nice to hear…

More Neanderthal than 58% of other 23andMe customers.  I’m basically a cavewoman.

Some other things they told me I was likely to possess were interesting because I totally broke the mold and said, “Hey, DNA!  I don’t care what I’m ‘supposed’ to be like.  I’m gonna be ME.”  Here’s a list of stuff that was wrong:

1. Unlikely to have a cleft chin.  I totally have one.  In fact, my cleft chin is a definitive factor about my face.  My uncles used to think it was funny to take a tissue up to my chin and say things like, “Hey, Alanna, I think you forgot to wipe,” or, “You have an ass on your face.”  The latter isn’t very clever, but still hurt my feelings.
2. Unlikely to have a widow’s peak.  Uhmm… hello??

   

   Sailor’s wives come to my head to see if their husbands have come back to port. 

    

3. Likely to have detached earlobes.  Mine are definitely attached.
4. Likely to have a little unibrow.  Wow.  Not nice.  I don’t have a unibrow and I actually don’t seem to grow any hair in between my eyebrows so take that DNA people!!
5. Likely to have straight or wavy hair.  Okay, this one is half right I suppose.  My hair is pretty curly but sometimes just wavy depending on the humidity or if God wants to punish me that day.

Other weird stuff about me is on the reports like the fact that I have wet earwax (shut up, it’s not that gross) and something about if I can tell if my pee smells like asparagus after I eat it (asparagus, not eating my pee).  I can also share my reports, so if you’re interested in how my ring fingers are longer than my index fingers, feel free to shoot me an email.

All in all, I’m just another white girl who likes to hang out in basements (probably because they remind me of being in a cave).  Have you ever tested your DNA?  If so, what’d you find out?  If not, what do you suppose you are?  How Neanderthal are you?