THERE I SAID IT: The Holiday Edition

There are many things about the holiday season that we either pretend to love or hate. Some gulp down egg nog, others hold in their sneezes around that beautiful tree, we shovel down marshmallows and sweet potatoes, or gently tell relatives that, “yes I am still single.”  I find my self playing the “grin and bear it” game quite a bit at this time of year. #tbh this cold weather that keeps us cooped up inside can often drive me a little insane…

As I am sure you have noticed “Joy” is a very popular word this time of year. Joy ornaments. Joy candles. Joy cups. Joy cookies. Joy lights. Joy cards. Joy picture frames. Joy bottles. Joy songs. JOY JOY JOY JOY! So like, yeah, its cool to see my name everywhere… for about two days. After that I just get a little overwhelmed. “Don’t be modest, Joy! This is your time!” said no one ever. Whenever I mistake a holiday outburst of “JOY” for my name I get a round of “Not everything is about you, JOY.” Well, Excuse me for living. Is it MY fault my parents were so happy when I was born that they just had to name me after the emotion that overwhelmed them?! (Is joy even an emotion?). So if you see something with joy on it and you send me a friendly snap chat or text of it, I won’t yell. If you post a cute joy light show on my wall (no idea what that would even be), I will gladly like it. But lets just keep in mind that everyone else is doing it to me too and don’t don’t DON’T buy it, because TRUST ME I have enough.

On the topic of Thanksgiving: I don’t like anything on the table but mashed potatoes… THERE. I SAID IT. Sorry. I’m sorry. But as I am sure you know, reader, I am allergic to quite a bit and therefore can not indulge myself in most of the pleasures of the holiday. Stuffing, pie, gravy, all things that I can’t eat. “But what about sweet potatoes! How about squash? Do you like your grandmas famous jello mold?” Uh…no. Maybe there are more things that I don’t like on the table then there are things that I CAN’T eat. I’m a picky eater, okay? I just don’t like being tied down to certain foods. This is also why I hate breakfast, because people say things like “you can’t have spaghetti for breakfast.” To that I say “I DON’T TELL YOU HOW TO DO YOUR JOB!” I digress. I like the idea of thanksgiving, but I think my palate would appreciate a little more of an open menu.

The final example I will use to dampen your day is the pressure we have around this time of year. The pressure we have for snow. Am I innocent of putting this pressure on the clouds? Oh no. oh no no no, in fact I would say I exude the most pressure to the snow gods around this time of year. Every morning, starting the day after halloween, I wake up and look out my window hoping for a white coating on the ground. Does this cause unnecessary sadness in my morning routine? Maybe. Does this cause we to shed a tear or two in the shower? An average of four tears actually. But goddamn it I LIKE SNOW! And in this ever warming world we inhabit it is the only thing I have to know that we aren’t in hell yet.

For those of you who think this post is too cynical, take it with a grain of salt, if this were just a generic happy post you wouldn’t read it and you wouldn’t be laughing. I certainly am thankful for lots in my life and you should be too…AKA free speech and the people who upload stuff to netflix. Happy Thanksgiving

The secret cure to save my generation (no seriously)

It was recently pointed out to me what a genius I am for my (patent pending) Netflix mood theory. Are you prepared for this knowledge bomb? It’s vastly improved my life and can help you balance your world too! All for the low low price of absolutely nothing! (and posting your results)

Here we go… I believe that a cause for much of people of my generation’s dissatisfaction, unhappiness, or maybe even general life confusion stems from the fact that we are watching the wrong TV shows. This theory only really applies to people who watch full seasons at a time on Netflix but still.

OKAY so I believe in keeping my life at equilibrium. Sometimes I will avoid things that I know are too fun or too intense because I know they will throw my world into a state of unbalanced events. In addition to other things, I use TV as a way to add weight to either side of my life scale.

An example of this phenomena is when I finished my term on the executive board of an organization I had been involved with for 5 years. Obviously this caused me some grief and inspired feelings of emptiness and worthlessness. This was the perfect time to start a show I spent all of high school avoiding. Starting in 9^th grade I spent every waking moment not thinking, not watching, not talking about a little show called The Office. Why? I wasn’t ready for it. Too much, you know? But this was the perfect time to start it to balance the emotions in my life and boy did it work out for the best.

Example two- of my Netflix mood theory took place during the first semester of my freshmen year. To anyone who has every started college you know how strange a semester this can be. Everything was new to me, people, diet, workload, location and this can cause some people to spiral out of control. Thanks to Donald Draper, Roger Sterling, and Peggy Olson I had somewhere to go when I needed to slip away. The craziness of their world helped me keep mine straight. 

And how I know this works was emphasized last spring. Gossip girl was in their last season, a show that I started watching when I was in 7^th grade when I was THIRTEEN. So like, I was invested to an unhealthy degree, and I knew how devastated I was gonna be when it ended. So how did I balance this hit that CW was about to throw at me? With another TV show of course! How I met your mother was in their second to last season and I knew at the end we would at least SEE the mother so that was something to look forward to. BALANCE WAS SAFE!

So make fun of me all you want. But I’m a genius. And I lead a beautifully balanced life. Whatever helps us stay content, at perfect equal ground between elated and melancholy, should be welcomed with open arms. Am I too much a product of my generation to the point that I need TV to keep me from spiraling out of control- for sure. But at least I manage it… somehow. And now you can too.