Beauty: Summer hair!!!

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous
YUMMMMM. It's almost warm enough to eat popsicles, and then complain when the wind blows your hair into them. Wind is bitchy like that. Image via blog.zulily.com

Now is about time to change up the dingy, mousy, winter-worn hair and make it bright and beautiful for summer. There’s just something about winter that makes everyone’s hair look gross. Maybe it’s the cold weather or the fact that we’re so lost in winter depression stupors that we forget that roots exist and colors need to be kept up. Here are a couple of tips to get your hair looking summatime fly.

Lana del Rey has some gorgeous hair. I wonder what her vitamin supplement of choice is. Her blonde is soft, proving that total bleach isn't the only way to go for a lighter look. Botoxed lip optional. Image via fromgotowhoa.com

 Highlights

As it’s typically the trend to go dark for winter and light for summer, think about getting highlights. Sometimes people make the mistake of what I like to call mall highlights. Mall highlights are when the highlights are thin, frequent and about 50 color shades of different from your darker hair color. Don’t get mall highlights, even if your hair gets colored at the mall.

Second, highlights don’t have to be blonde-blonde. I see so many girls with strictly “blonde highlights” that it gets boring as shit, and they all tend to blend together like a fucking blonde Ashley parade. No thanks. If you have darker or light brown hair, try to lighten up your hair with warm metallic tones, like bronze or gold. They still give you the lighter hair fare without bleaching your hair within an inch of its life.

If you have blonde hair, fuck off. Just kidding! You can have your blonde Ashley highlights and your not-as-noticeable-roots cake too. Jealz!

Bangs

Sure. Bangs look fucking awesome on Zooey D. But the sooner we cope with the fact that we aren't Zooey Deschanel's bangs, the sooner we can start living beautiful, bang free lives that are right for US. Amen sistas! Image via nylon.com

Bangs are awesome. But for summer? DON’T DO IT. Seriously. Imagine: You’re sitting on the beach. You’re on a date. He’s cute. His wavy hair is blowing in the wind as he lights up a cig and offers you a drag. You’re thinking about cookies, but take the cigarette anyways. He looks over at you and gasps, as your newly cut bangs are frizzy, curling and halfway up your fore head in a sweaty pile of “never take me out in public again because I clearly can’t handle it.”

Ok, that guys a dick if he’s judging you for frizzy bangs. Dump him. Regardless, it’s such a pain in the ass to style bangs in the fall and winter, let alone a much sweatier season. Throw in a ton of outdoor fun, a tan line down to your eyebrow and constant hairs dangling drips of sweat in your eye while you’re learning how to bike in traffic. You’ll die looking like hair-do roadkill, and your family will be shamed forever knowing that you were the girl with frizzy summer bangs who died tragically at a four way stop. True story.

Maybe you’re one of those people who has stick straight hair and who doesn’t sweat. Then it’s really only down to the weird tan line and sweat trapping a ton of blackheads and new zit friends. Bangs are fun!

The most important thing to remember about summer hair is ease. You wanna be able to go to the beach, get in a river or day drink (that turns into night drinking) and know that your hair doesn’t need a lot of maintenance. Keep it simple, keep it fresh and if anyone tells you your hair looks frizzy, you fucking cut them, steal their wallet and run. Trust me. They deserved it.

One HUGE flaw with HBO’s new series “Girls”

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous

As I already blogged, I am super excited for HBO’s new series “Girls” starring creative triple threat Lena Dunham. The new Sex and the City except I’m guessing way less fabulous and way more anxiety-ridden “where is my life going” and “why aren’t they paying me for work,” with the same amount of “why didn’t he call me back?”

Image via hbowatch.com

Except, what the fuck 20 something has HBO?! Unless HBO hasn’t caught on yet from the subject of their new show or straight hard facts, 20 somethings don’t have money. They barely have jobs and their own apartments. They especially don’t have money for cable and ESPECIALLY don’t have money for premium channels.

So when it comes to ratings and keeping this hopefully awesome new show afloat, I’m not sure if their 20 something demographic is going to be reached at all. Sure, people are super excited about the show, but they’ll be excitedly streaming it from some Eastern European website since HBO doesn’t stream their episodes either.

I almost feel like it’s going to be a one season wonder, or maybe two, like our fave Party Down. Sometimes it’s better to have a short series because then it doesn’t get drawn out like the shit hole that is The Office, Two and a Half Men, Family Guy, you name it. But still, this series looks awesome. Let’s hope there’s more than one season and that people with money and HBO watch the show!

UPDATE: Maybe all the kids/20 somethings forced to live at home with their HBO-subscribed parents are who HBO is banking on watching. Let’s hope so, because there’s a lot of ’em! Thanks, economy!

Fuck Dating: Stolen church music equipment and hissing

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous
Probably the next person to ask me on a date. Image via lifeisajoke.com

 Fuck dating is a recurring column written by an anonymous and fabulous 20 something

When I was thrust into the dating world (again) at the mere age of 20, I accepted a date with a rather leather-clad, metal bassist, long-haired dude I met somewhere and through someone I no longer remember.

Our first date is irrelevant. Drinks, chat, looking at his band equipment. Forgettable at best. Our second date however, went a little something like this:

It was a cold, wintry night. Warm, cheap booze was flowing indoors with roommates and friends. The long-haired boy, complete with a leather jacket and jean vest accent, arrived fashionably late-ish with a handle of some other equally shitty booze that was more embarrassing for him because he was not 20 and had a job.

Drinks were drank, conversations were had and kissing had commenced. We stumbled our way back to my bedroom to continue drunk kissing. Since it was the second date, I KNEW we weren’t going to be getting naked. Partly because I just didn’t want to and partly because I didn’t know him very well. That didn’t stop him from stripping down to his underwear and climbing into my bed.

Drunk, yet coherent and confused, I changed into head-to-toe pajamas. I’m talking neck high, down to my wrist and all the way down to my ankles. And then socks. Covered.

We kissed a little more, but he started getting really hyper and annoying so I asked him if we could just hang out. He turned around in bed and starting pouting like a child because I didn’t want to kiss anymore. As he turned around, he exposed a big tattoo of a star on his back. Not knowing what else to say, I asked him when he got his tattoo. He grumpily snapped that he didn’t want to talk about it, then tried to start drunk kissing me again.

Imagine this guy hissing at you. I'm never dating again. Image via fabulousbutevil.com

At this point I had had about enough of this jerk kissing me terribly and I got out of bed and started to walk out the door to go talk shit about him to my roommates. He then pounced forward, out of bed. Standing there in his dingy underwear, he tried kissing me one more time when I finally smacked him back so he’d get the picture. He recoiled, then looked at me with a fierce sparkle in his eye. His lip curled up, his hands formed into cat claws and then he hissed and clawed at me.

I stood there amazed at what had just happened. Did this guy really just hiss at me? I shook my head in disappointment that another human being would actually do this in public, not to mention on a date, and walked out of the room to tell my roommates through laughing tears that a dude had just hissed and clawed at me in his underwear.

A couple days/weeks later as I was retelling the story to a mutual friend (you can’t just hiss at someone in your underwear and not expect it to be retold,) the part about the tattoo caught his attention. I finally learned that my lovely date had gotten his star tattoo in jail after stealing a bunch of band equipment from a church. If the hissing wasn’t bad enough, this guy actually tried to get equipment for his shitty metal band from stolen church equipment.

An amazing, yet frightening tale.

Lesson learned: This is why you wait a couple of dates to sleep with someone. You never know if that tattoo they got was from jail after stealing sound equipment from a church. Also, you never know if that cute guy from Tuesday night is going to hiss at you in their underwear after one too many mojitos. Unless you’re into that sort of thing. Freak!

Fuck Dating: The time a date painted an oil portrait of me

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous
Not a bad parting gift to a couple of awkward dates. But still pretty fucking awkward. "Beggar Woman 1909" by Amedeo Modigliani. Image via oceansbridge.com

 Fuck Dating is a recurring column written by an anonymous and fabulous 20 something

When it comes to dating prospects, not all places are created equal. Some cities of the world, in fact, attract hoards of completely undateable people. This can come in the form of brodawg overpopulation or, in the case of Chile’s Atacama desert, a disproportionate number of miners and prostitutes.

About a month into my work placement there, I began to notice that most of the eligible men from the area were either away at college far off in another city or merely rumored to actually exist (I once heard from a co-worker that she had spotted an attractive man walking around somewhere.)

The details of my only short-lived romance there are a bit vague in my mind because the experience was so dull that I would often forget I was even dating someone. Out of desperation, I jumped on the first pretty face I had seen in weeks.

He, apparently, did not experience the same lapses of memory, however, as evidenced by the oil painting he would later try to present to me.

We went on a few painfully long dates in which we would discuss absolutely nothing over a cup of instant coffee and then afterward he would sheepishly ask permission to kiss me EVERY SINGLE TIME.

This drug on for about two weeks (I know. Time just feels so much longer when you’re bored out of your mind) until I received a text message throwback from middle school that went something like this: “Hello beautiful princess schnookums muahmuahmuah!!” (This part of the text may have been exaggerated.) “Would you like to be my gringa girlfriend? xD” (This part is not exaggerated. That emoticon literally was there and he really did specify that I was a gringa.)

I don't know if anyone looks like this when they're dating. The woman crying is pretty spot on though. Image via dollymix.tv

There are a lot of good reasons you should never try to have the “Where is this going?” conversation over text message. Most of us learn this around 7th grade after awkwardly passing that special someone a note asking, “Do you like me or like like me? Circle yes or no.” The “Can we be a couple now?” text message is the modern day equivalent of the “Do you like like me?” classroom note.

It’s difficult to express in the confines of a text that you’re just not looking for a commitment right now or that you’re just not looking for the same things out of life. This is why adults take the time to feel the situation out and then talk about the important topics in person.

To make things even more awkward, I had already exhausted the balance on my phone, a common problem for any phone user in Chile. So instead of carefully crafting some sort of explanation (“No thnx xD”) I just had to leave it. Days passed and by the end of the week, I had already forgotten about it.

Unfortunately, we knew each other through a mutual friend, so it was only a matter of time before we crossed paths and he was glaring at me from the other side of the room. While I was absentmindedly youtubing my nights away, he had apparently been stewing over what a heartless wench I was (and painting. More on that later.)

I may have a cold streak when it comes to dating but I do hate to hurt someone’s feelings. When we saw each other next, I made my best attempt to explain what had happened and gradually, he seemed to forgive me. I blissfully returned to Youtube and boxed wine, biding my time until I could move elsewhere. And he went back to crafting inappropriate surprises for me.

Yup. Every time. Fucking prick. Image via talknerdytomelover.com

Several weeks later, we saw each other again and he made an offer even more uncomfortable than becoming a virtual text message couple: he had made an oil painting for me (of me?) that he wanted me to have. Nothing makes you feel like more of an asshole than realizing that you’ve been blowing off someone who apparently likes you enough to craft artwork in your name. Few things create as strong of an urge to flee either.

I told him thanks, I’d like to see it but that I couldn’t accept it. What else can you say in such a situation? How could you accept such a gift from someone you barely know?

He insisted several times, in between spurts of scorning me (not that I really noticed, given how incredibly quiet he was anyway.) In my standard style, I avoided seeing the painting until time ran out and my opportunity had come to move somewhere else. Around the same time, he loaded several uncomfortably nude sketches of women to Facebook. I can only imagine what he had in mind when he painted something for me.

Lesson learned: When life lands you in one of Earth’s most desolate corners, maybe now is a good time to give dating a break and fully commit your extra energy to Youtube and boxed wine.

Watch this now: HBO’s “Girls” trailers

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous

 

This shit is gonna by SO FLY. Mid-20s, poor and fabulous. Ring a bell?! Lena Dunham is the chick who wrote, directed and starred in Tiny Furniture, which is basically the same premise of Girls, as it covers the same topics (20 something strife and living in New York City) and a couple of the same characters.

 

What I love about Lena is that she looks like a regular gal pal that you’d get drinks with, that would turn into being wasted on like, a Tuesday. But you’d have some really great conversations with even though you’re both kind of lost and confused about life. It feels a little bitchy to say she looks like a “regular gal,” but it shouldn’t. I just mean that she does not look starving nor perfectly formed from a surgeon’s table.  So many tv shows and movies just feature gorgeous human beings who are so unbelievably not human in their roles. J.Lo, anyone?! It’s refreshing and infinitely more interesting to watch people, as opposed to “stars” tell us stories. Nobody relates to J.Lo. People can relate to Lena.

As a 20 something gal, I’m super excited about this show. After all, it’s always fun to watch something that is frighteningly relatable to your current life situation. Dating, unpaid internships, never having any money, growing out of friendships and making new ones, etc.

Watch Judd Apatow interview Lena here. She describes the show as that time when you’re not a girl, but not yet a woman. And yeah, she name drops Britney. LOVE IT.

Also, jealz!!! I, along with EVERY 20 something of our generation, wants to be on this show. I hope they come out with contests and shit. Or if the show goes on for a couple seasons, we’ll have to make a pilgrimage to NYC to be an extra on the show.

Moldy tampon nightmare: All-girl punk band, or personal hygiene company gone awry?

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous

Check out this SICKENING story about a girl who found a moldy tampon in a new box of Kotex Tampons. I’ve never bought Kotex on the regular, but their response letter is cold and robotic and not sympathetic to the fact that some of their customers ARE PUTTING MOLD IN THEIR VAGINAS.

Fuck you Kotex! Mold is not very hygenic, and it’s really, REALLY wrong of you to think moldy tampons are ok and safe for women.

Read her blog here!!!!

Image via parrforthecourse.com

Dating: Scary movies are dating GOLD

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous
This could be you. But like 10 years older and with more booze and touching involved. Image via nick.com

Can I get a hell yeah for scary movies?!

Can you think of a better film genre to watch on a date than a scary movie? Think about it: After the first jumpy part, you’ll squeeze in close together. At this point, you can definitely smell his/her cologne/perfume. Yum.

Then, at every jumpy or scary part, you can grab and hold each other through the horror that is developing on the screen. After all the hacking, zombie brain-eating, apocalyptic kerfuffle, you’ll both feel like you truly experienced something special together.

You should also be drinking wine/cocktails throughout the entire scary movie. This needs no explanation.

At the end of the movie, you two will feel buzzed, both by the liquor and the jarring experience of seeing people die horrible deaths. It really is romantic.

Dating: The Facebook relationship status

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous
Image via thetechjournal.com

What has become the status quo in terms of stating your relationship on Facebook?

Back in Facebook yesteryear (2006) it was exciting to post that you and Billy Highschool-love were staying strong, even after freshman year started. It was a warning to potential suitors (and possibly a reminder) that you are, in fact, dating some guy from some other town.

That was when we were younger, and when Facebook had still been for college students only. How has the Facebook relationship status changed and how are people using it now?

Let’s look at our options:

  1. Single. Probably the most striking FB relationship status. It normally yields either a “yeah, no shit” or “seriously?! we HAVE to meet up with him” reaction from any given stalker.
  2. In a Relationship. Seen by FB friends as “yeah, I’m still with him” or “that shit is gonna crash and burn in like 1 internet year” (about a week).
  3. It’s complicated. The most volatile FB relationship status. It shows your brazen attitude towards letting everyone know exactly what’s going on in your relationship.
  4. Engaged/Married. Same shit, unless there’s a crash and burn revelation by either party and it turns into a furious SINGLE. Mostly translated by viewers as “Oh, good for them,” “I better get invited to that wedding” or “that’s not going to last very long. They are both batshit crazy.”
  5. In an open relationship. Yeah, unless it’s a friendship faux relation, nobody cares. You’re “in a relationship” asshole. There’s nothing less attractive than other people’s drama when you’re trying to get your freek on.
  6. Widowed. Sadsies. “That was really, really awful. Who wants drinks?” (you know it’s true)
  7. Separated/Divorced. Depressing, yet probably yields more jubilation and sick satisfaction to your FB viewers than any other relationship status. “Fuck YES I’ve been waiting to hook up with them since junior high!” or “Knew it! Who wants drinks?”
  8. In a civil union/In a domestic partnership. It’s either true, or it’s some boring white 20-something couple trying to keep the spark alive. “Oh.”
  9. BLANK. The elusive, mysterious blank.
That's creepy. Internet dating can be weird, y'all. Image via gawker

Most people, at least on my friend list, stick to the holy trinity of in a relationship, single, or married. Straightforward. No muss no fuss. However, once in a while your dramatic friends begin to update their relationship status daily: “In a Relationship.” “Single.” “It’s Complicated.” “In a Relationship.” “SINGLE.” “REEEEALLY SINGLE.” “So totally single I’m going to talk about it for 9 months because I clearly have obsessive tendencies and a penchant for oversharing!” I really which that last one was an actual status.

There are also the faux relations, where two friends decided to be virtually married or dating a friend forever. Good for friends everywhere, bad for potential dates stalkin’ on your info.

Then, ever so often, you run across a couple who leaves their status blank, but have been together for like 3 years. When you think of it, if you’ve been together that long and all of your friends know this, it’s really not pertinent information.

On the other hand, there are the couples who have been together for like 4-6 months and are still kind of in the honeymoon period of officially being a couple, yet leave their FB relationship status mysteriously blank. Is it because they don’t want people to know that’s who they’re dating, or is it simply a case of not caring about the FB relationship status?

Fascinating. Image via betweenthekids.com

One factor in omitting relationship statuses on Facebook is the fear of virtual breakups. It can be stressful and embarrassing to go through a break up, not to mention one that people can comment on or even ‘like’. Gross. It just leaves a lot of annoying “I’m so sorry! You’ll find someone better, I KNOW it!!!” comments that don’t make you feel better and make you want to jump off a bridge into a lake filled with needles. Relaying your most recent pain and heartbreak to a few people you care about and a LOT that you don’t is just another added stress of keeping up with relationship statuses on FB.

When not in a relationship, that I will gladly post, I prefer to be a blank. I think it’s the best way to be single, because you’re not stuck with this ‘single’ title. If you start casually dating someone, you’re not immediately pressured to let everyone know by switching your ‘single’ status to something else. There’s also an added air of mystery surrounding your relationships and dating life which is a beautiful thing in this digital age where everyone shares everything with each other.

Clearly everyone takes their FB relationships status differently. What’s your Facebook relationship status?

Recipe: Melted ice cream

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous
Image via gigabiting.com

Fuck yeah. Melted ice cream is the best food ever.

Supplies: Ice cream, spoon or fork, time

Directions: Sit on counter for 5-7 minutes. Eat!

Guest blog: DM at the movies, homosexual dark knight

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous

Guest blog courtesy of Dick Montgomery

So I was super excited to be at The Hunger Games midnight showing. The place was crowded with tweens, although none of them were dressed up. The energy at midnight showings is always awesome, because you know you’re surrounded by fellow fans. I went alone, and sat behind a block of 5 baby-faced teens. They were texting, and talking in sentence fragments as they discussed their senior skip day plans for the next day. Thankfully the previews came on and quieted the inane streams of drivel pouring out of their mouths.

Katniss shoots homophobes with her bow and arrow skills. Image via usatoday.com

It was after the twilight preview that the justin-bieber clone directly in front me made a VERY stupid decision. As a demonstration of his recently discovered testicles, he decided to shout “Twilight is fucking gay!” His now mortified lady friends promptly told him to shut up, because “Twilight is amazing.” to which he responded, “Maybe if you’re a fag.” As a fag who does not particularly enjoy Twilight nor homophobia, I was rather put out. It’s always kind of shocking when you encounter such brazen bigotry in public, and by the time I had really processed what had happened, the movie had started and I wasn’t going to miss any of this movie on account of this douche nozzle. The movie was great, and the bieber-clone didn’t feel the need to posture his pallid impersonation of masculinity any further.

By the time the end credits started rolling, I realized that I needed to educate this asshole before he assaulted civility and human decency again. We were all dumb high schoolers once, and it’s a great time to be chewed out for being an idiot. I decided to use a gruff approach, probably because I had just watched 22 children murder each other. Before I really had a solid set of talking points, I reached forward and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. I pulled his face over to mine and turned him so I could make eye contact. As I stared him down, I delivered the following warning in a voice not unlike Christian Bale’s Batman.

Lisa and Erin are bitchy. Image via unrealitymag.com

“Bro, You should probably be a lot more cautious about using homophobic language in public. You never know when there’s a fag sitting right behind you who’s FUCKING SICK of hearing your ignorant bullshit.”

It was obvious by the look in his eyes that at this point he was convinced I was about to do awful things to him. I pushed him away and swaggered off as he stammered half-formed words of apology.

It’s important to note that it is actually I who was scared shitless; I had no idea I had that in me. As I walked into the parking lot I shakily lit a cig and absorbed what just happened. After the initial shock at what a fucking badass I was, I cranked the radio in my car (which happened to be playing “Sexy and I Know It”) and drove away feeling ten feet tall.