SELFABSORBED.ME

So in exactly one week something big is going to happen. Bigger then big actually. Something that may change the universe forever.

“Hello, My Name is Kimberly, and I do not want a Birthday party”.

“Hello Kimberly.”

So there you have it. In one week I will be 27. Yes. I am officially old. And for the past 27 years I have been parting like it’s 1981. But this year, I can’t say exactly what, but something feels different. As you can imagine, having a birthday that falls on Halloween weekend has always been the challenge…I have had Cowgirl themed parties, 80’s themed parties, Scuba-Steve parties... Last year I got ten party goers across a red rope, one who randomly walked in drunk, I made the bouncer give me a piggy-back ride, fell on the dancefloor, and ripped my dress…essentially exactly what a birthday should be about.

This year though, I am having the Old Person Blues. Yes, 27 is still young, but it’s fairly close to having to “accomplish” things…or “figure things out”…or “give up your coke habit”.

I mean I don’t know, this whole getting older thing is very confusing. Should I be married by now? Should I be having kids? Should I run for governor of Alaska?

In lieu of a normal party this year, I feel like something different and non-fun. I want a good ol’ non-fun birthday. So here are some of my ideas:

- Sit at home alone and watch “Steel Magnolias”, and cry.

-Sit at home wrapped up in a wool blanket, eat cookies and cry.

-Knit an entire sweater out of corduroy

- Watch re-runs of Full House and mutter to myself about the ‘good old days’.

-Go to 4pm early bird dinner special wearing some sort of heavy rubber soled shoe

- Speed-walk around the mall at 8am, then go home and complain about my arthritis

I would like it if you could all vote on what I should do....

“So” She said on the phone to me after a particularly late night at work. “I went to Bloomingdale's to pick out a new outfit for work…and I had to make the forever daunting decision…of whether to look like a mom or a hooker.”


Just thinking about “work clothes” I could feel the bile building up in the back of my throat. I, myself have had one too many encounters with ‘work appropriate attire’ that I will deem sole responsibility on being a young woman in my 20’s. I can’t seem to win no matter which route I choose. I always see commercials for young people going to “work” in hip little corduroy blazers and ripped denim, carrying large architecture cases. Who are these people? Because, let me tell you something it more or less looks like Corduroy McGee's so called “work” is the unemployment line.

Even if you do happen to work in a ‘casual’ work environment, women still have the ever mysterious task of looking ‘nice’, but not ‘sexy’. But sometimes how can you be nice looking and not appear sexy? Or sexy, but nice? Or nice, but in a nonsexual kind of way? Or not nice and overtly sexual? Or how much wood would a Wood Chuck chuck if a Wood Chuck could chuck wood?



The lines become even more blurred when you are blessed by the Greek Gods with things I would like to refer to as, “boobs”. These so called “boobs" may seem fine in everyday life, but in the workplace they are utterly shunned upon. These alleged boobs must disappear completely come 9am, and must magically reappear after the hour of 5pm. However, if they are a decent size, even a basic v-neck sweater suddenly makes your work outfit look more like a Cheetah Club after-hours audition.


Oh and sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph may you be struck down dead if you have one of those dresses with spaghetti straps. You want to show a shoulder?! Who are you?! Naked Nancy?! Put that shoulder away, dammit, can you not see how you are arousing the men of the world and no one can concentrate on the work at hand with you showing that damn shoulder of yours! Men wont be able to “email” or “fax" or even have a basic phone conversation if they get one whiff of that Clavicle bone of yours!

The sexiest bone EVER

Have you not received the memo? Men will not respect you if they think you have a (whisper voices please) “body”. Yes, that is right, let no man think you have boobs, or shoulders or anything else for that matter. “Look at Mary, look at her and those BOOBS. Right there in her high necked-turtleneck! I can see the OUTLINE of those things! Distracting everyone! Get rid of her! She is a menace to the community! You better send that child home right now before she disgraces us in front of the men-folk! Now please, will someone go to the kitchen and churn some butter..."


Now if you don’t want to go the hooker route to work, you next best option, is the mom uniform. Oh yes, let me tell you, Peggy in accounting has this one down very well. Peggy is about 25 going on 83.

She strolls in everyday in her pleated front khakis, heart-patterned turtleneck and a blazer that’s big enough to fit the small population of Asia underneath it. But you know what, people like Peggy for her MIND, and because you can’t see any of those distracting things like “boobs”…or even that Peggy has an actual vagina. Thank God!

God forbid people found out she has an actual vagina, she may not get promoted at all.

I prefer to go to work with my entire body covered. Mostly in sheets, with a ski mask and possibly some goggles. I find I am much less distracting that way. And more people can concentrate on their work when they are not being demonized by my body or by my outrageous good looks.

And if Banana Republic could please stop advertising some kind of ultra good looking architect staff wearing high waist jeans and wife beaters, I might be able to actually be able to figure out what is work appropriate.

So I have been pondering recently ("pondering"...get it?! ... yeah, neither do I) what I am going to title my first non-fiction book...besides titling it the obvious 'No One Loves Me So I Blog', I thought maybe I needed something more.

I need something serious, yet thoughtful... exciting, yet provoking, challenging, yet...not challenging? I don't know, but I figure that is why I have you...my readers...to tell me how to live my life and what to title a bestseller...so please review the titles below and let me know what works for you, or if you have any ideas of your own...because sometimes, I think people who read my columns have actual thoughts in their brains...not always...but definitely sometimes.

For those of you who have not read Chuck Klosterman, there is a theory he has that transcends most theories I have on life…and no I am not talking about my ‘men in Birkenstocks’ theories, although that comes close. The theory suggesting that women function better in society because they recognize they have a nemesis and an archnemesis. The nemesis most likely being their best friend (clearly) or someone who has been their best friend (pillow-fight mishap perhaps); and their archnemesis being the girl they have hated for many years (essentially someone better looking). As women we like to think, “Oh no Sally will be a nice girl and get along with everyone…” But the truth is, no matter how lady-like Sally is, deep down she is willing to kill one woman and have the other woman mangled by wolves… the one mangled and still surviving of course, being her nemesis.

My Nemesis is as predicted, one of my good friends. Or more so one of my ‘seemingly’ good friends. If you knew us closely you would know my deep seething hatred for her. Or possibly jealously. Let’s call my Nemeisis “Hessica”… or as I like to call her “The Bitch that ruined my 22nd Birthday” . Now “Hessica” is one of those girls who gets away with anything. She can be a full out prick everyday of her life, because she is one of 'those girls'. And by ‘those girls” I mean- she is “hot and selfish”…two traits I have long desired to attain through many years of hard work.

She does all the normal best friend things…tell me how to style my hair…questions my job changes…tells me my uterus will never support babies…the usual. And as much as I hate her , I secretly long to be Hessica, long to be carefree enough to say what’s on my mind, wear what I want, think what I want….And some nights I sit awake wondering what might happen if a taxi cab ran her over. But truth be told, I don’t want that cab to kill her…just to mangle her up a bit, maybe give her a funny wink or smile or something. Maybe just hit the side of her leg just hard enough for her face to plunge into the cement street and break that perfect tip of her nose. Without her though, I wouldn’t spend so much thought into the clothes I wear going out at night, or the way I style my hair, or my overall attitude. And when all is said and done, she makes me strive to be a better (looking) person.

My Archnemesis is quite the same, except when I sit in bed awake at night dreaming of the cab hitting her I dream of it actually running her over and over again. I then imagine standing at her funeral while people talk about now they never much liked her to begin with. My Archnemeis of course being the first girl to ever take a boyfriend from me. I actually watched her walking out of his apartment building at 4am ...and no, I was not camped out in a bush carrying an extra large purple flashlight bought from the LLBean camping section (pg 24)…JEEZ! Not only did the cunt take my boyfriend, but she got some great job and some amazing house and even bought a car. I haven’t thought about buying a car since the subway system was invented in the 1600’s. I haven’t driven one in the same amount of time either. And the most expensive investment I have made this yet was in a bottle of percoet.

However my archnemis makes me want a get better job…rent out a bigger apartment…learn how to punch a nice uppercut to her face.... Either way, I actually work harder to become a better person by outdoing her. And stay motivated. And when all is said and done; having her around makes me a better person.

And one day when I am married and carrying babies, I may not care about either of these women. I may not care about any woman at all. But most likely I will just have new women to loathe in my life. Evil women such as, “PTA Members” or “Choir Singers"...regardless they all will make me a better person, forcing me to wake up every morning stating, “Kim, you woke up today to outdo that bitch.” Which, as I believe, is also a quote said by someone named “Jesus”.
Just sayin.