I'll Never Be As Successful As 9-Year-Old YouTube Prodigies

You know when you go onto YouTube to watch one video and you suddenly fall into a fugue state and hours later you find yourself sitting there, in the dark, watching butterfly mating dances? It started off innocently enough - I searched "The Pierces cover" to see what horrible and delightful YouTube covers there were for one of my favorite bands. I guess I must've blacked out because next thing I knew, I was watching video after video of child prodigies. Incidentally, this is the same exact way I discovered Justin Bieber in 2008, way before Bieber Fever took the world by temperature (was I really just a hipster about Bieber?).

Anyway, I came across the following three videos which quite literally took my breath away (I've also been listening to a lot of "Shania Twain" recently so sorry for the drama).

I know some are kind of old so sorry if you've already seen them (but also not sorry because they're so good you should watch them every day). How worthless do you feel after watching those? I think I peed my pants in gym class and discovered pogs at the same age that the first girl is belting Adele. The second girl is not only talented and gorgeous but FRENCH. How dare she. I have trouble harmonizing with myself using Garage Band but the last two girls haven't even gotten their periods and can not only harmonize, but keep rhythm using freaking butter containers. My life is MEANINGLESS (Shania Twain-fueled drama again, sorry).

I don't know about you, but rather than feeling a "Wow! They're so cute and talented!" I instead feel a big "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT?!" It goes against science, logic, and geometry for these girls to be so talented (and rhombus-y). No matter how much monies I make for my company creating emails, whether I successfully toilet-train my cat (it's looking grim), how happy I am in my relationship or with the amazing friends I have, I will never be as successful as 9-year-old YouTube prodigies. That shit stings.

To end on a happier, unrelated note, do you think a banana, sriracha, and swiss grilled cheese sandwich would be delicious? I've been dreaming about it. Thank you for your time.

How to Use Stairs in a Metropolitan Area (Even If They Move!)

The world of walking can be a scary place. Just ask babies, who postpone walking out of fear and not motor function maturation, as scientists would have you believe. The danger of putting one foot in front of the other gets even more imminent as the population increases and familiarity decreases. This explains why tourists visiting highly populated areas are so fucking stupid. Look, I made a graph:

I spent way too much time making this graph.

In order to try and curb this loss of brain function, I've decided to outline the area I think needs the most work when it comes to walking: stairs. Please note that these suggestions-to-live-by obviously exclude those who are not able-bodied. It's also important to note that just because you are native to a large city, does not mean you're exempt from today's lesson. Some of you are stupid too!


Stairs: You Climb Them

This is pretty basic. When you use the stairs, walk forward by placing each foot on the step in front of you. Sometimes these steps go up and sometimes they go down. What you don't do is significantly slow down or stop altogether when you reach the first step. These are stairs. You've done this before. Do not panic and just keep fucking walking. There should not be a clusterfuck of people waiting at the bottom/top of the stairs because you forgot how to walk.


The Rules of Driving Apply

Provided you are in a country where people drive on the right side of the road, such as the U.S, you must walk on the right side of the stairs. If you're in a left-side-driving country, then the opposite is obviously true. If you are from the U.K. and visit the U.S., you must follow the rules of our roads and vice versa. If you're going to walk on the wrong side of the stairs and force everyone to collide with you, I expect you to drive that way too. Good luck!


Landings Aren't for Landing

And neither are the stairs themselves or the area right before and after the stairs. I know that cell phone service sucks, for the most part, when you go underground to use public transportation. Do you know what that means? You should finish your unimportant phone call/posting a photo of your cat to Instagram/sexting your boyfriend BEFORE you decide to begin your stair-y adventure. If you need to wait for somebody, the stairs are not a good place to do that. If you've just gotten off the stairs and have not figured out your bearings yet, walk a couple feet before you pull out your compass and/or check the skies for the North Star. Don't stand right at the top or bottom of the stairs, waiting for someone or looking like a lost idiot puppy, only to have innocent people ram helplessly into your back over and over again. And do not, I repeat DO NOT, throw them shade when they run into you. You're the problem, not them.


Moving Stairs: Same Rules but in Motion

The thing about escalators that makes them different are twofold: they move and everyone on them is going the same direction. You may think that this means you can stand anywhere on the escalator and ride up, carefree with the wind blowing in your hair. You would be wrong. Some people, for whatever reason that is none of your business, also walk up or down on the escalator rather than just standing in place and letting the next floor come to them. Perhaps they're late for something or dig the extra exercise. Whatever the reason, nobody deserves to be trapped when trying to get somewhere. The left side of the escalator is for walking while the right side of the escalator is for standing and being a lazy bum (like me!). Do not stand on the left side and do not try to walk on the right side. You will fail miserably on both accounts. It seems that while 100% of Washington, DC has figured this out, only 80% of New York City has. All it takes is one dope standing on the left side to block everyone from their destination. Don't be that guy.


If you don't want to follow any of these rules, that's fine...but I'll push you. I really will. Hard. I think that's really all I have to say. Maybe I'll also throw in a general "Try to be aware of those around you and understand that you're not the only person on this planet." just for good measure. Any questions about walking are welcome in the comments!

Nightmare On Bergen Street

I am officially a resident of Brooklyn, NY. Hooray! This is the third New York City borough that I've lived in, actually. Maybe I'll try out the Bronx someday. No amount of money can make me move to Staten Island though (and I'm pretty sure its existence is just a myth).

About two years ago I got this
baby for $80 on Craigslist. I'm a pro.

Sam and I have been buying all of our furniture off of Craigslist (except for our giant red IKEA Ektorp couch which, let's face it, was just an excuse to go to IKEA and stuff meatballs and lingonberries in our faces). I am a huge Craigslist enthusiast and have purchased most of my furniture from 20-somethings in the tri-state area who were moving on to bigger and better pastures. It was soon made crystal clear that Sam and I needed some furniture; we had a table-less dining room, blue IKEA tarp bags filled with books eagerly waiting to be shelved, piles of clothes that needed a home, and way more makeup than I ever use sitting on our bedroom floor. I'm kind of a huge decorating snob, so I wasn't about to just stroll into a IKEA again and buy the cheapest particle board furniture I could find. I knew how to do this. I'd done this a million times before. It was Craigslist time.


The scouring began and within a couple days, I had found a beautiful wooden dining room table for us. We went and picked it up a couple of blocks from our place and then carried it back. It was a bit heavy and we had to keep resting along the way because I have fragile, baby hands and noodles for arms. Soon after, I found a set of vintage-y purple chairs in Brooklyn Heights and we went and scooped them up. The seller ended up giving them to us for free. It was then that we were imbued with a false sense of Craigslist confidence. This was working and working WELL. We could find and buy anything on this little website.

Next came a gigantic oak bookcase. "Light and easy to carry" was how she described it on Craigslist. "Death and suffering that you can put your books on" is what she should have called it. Poor Sam carried the bookcase by himself for FIFTEEN BLOCKS while I struggled with just carrying the three shelves (remember: linguine arms). We should have seen the downhill pattern then, but when we found the perfect vanity table that was still in the box and a beautiful cherry wood armoire, we thought it would be a piece of cake. We scheduled a pick-up truck zipcar named "Tumwater" (our first zipcar was named "Mudget" and our Ikea-couch-carrying minivan was known as "Stillion").

Sam waited in the car, illegally parked, while I went into the first apartment to get the vanity. It was still in its box and very awkward to carry. Because of the aforementioned complete lack of upper body strength, I was forced to grab the lip of the cardboard box and drag it into the elevator and then out and into the lobby. I was building up a decent rhythm when I stumbled forward a bit and heard a sound from my ankle that no one should ever hear. It was somewhere in between popcorn and a chiropractic soundtrack composed by John Williams. Sam saw me struggling and came rushing in to help, but it was too late. My ankle was already screaming a big "Fuck you" to me, the vanity, and even Sam.

She looks so smug...

We dropped the vanity off at home and continued our journey to go and pick up the armoire. It retails at over $1,000, but we were getting it for $100. It was a steal. When we got to the apartment, the four-flight stair walk-up was a shock back to reality. Not even the dewy-eyed face of a happy Italian Greyhound could cheer us up. The armoire was in the living room waiting for us and it was even more beautiful in person. We pulled our britches high and, with the help of the girl selling it to us and neighbors along the way, were able to carry the 6'5" armoire down four flights of stairs and into the butt of Tumwater. "I didn't even think of how you would get it down. I had moving men bring it up and I'm not even sure how they did it!" said the girl. I wanted to sock her in the ovaries.

The worst part was over though, right? All we had to do was pull it out of the truck, roll it to our apartment door (thanks, Ethan Allen, for building your furniture on wheels), and tilt it into the doorway. We were worried about my being able to lift one end by myself, but when our neighbor saw us dragging it out of Tumwater's innards, he offered to help. We were golden.

No we were not fucking golden. The armoire did not, does not, will not fit through the front door of our stupid apartment (I love our apartment, this is just rage talking). Our neighbor was nice enough to let us bring it into his apartment and keep it there until we figure out our shit (he owns the whole brownstone), but the options are ridiculous and pretty grim. The armoire doesn't come apart (remember when I thanked you, Ethan Allen? I take it back). We either have to put it right back on Craigslist (  :'(  ) or round up some people with gigantic, beefy arms and carry it from garden to garden and then into our kitchen door, where it will fit (we measured this time). It looks like we're going to try the latter option first, but HOW RIDICULOUS IS THIS?! I have to ask the neighbor between the guy who helped us and our apartment, whom I have never formally met,  if I can carry my gigantic armoire through her garden. MADNESS. I would rather die.

We have nice friends though who are willing to come all the way the to Brooklyn tomorrow after work and lift shit for us (thanks Roy, Todd, and Aidan for your beefy arms and friendship), so maybe it won't be that bad. It's already pretty bad though so maybe my badness scale is really poorly calibrated at this point.

Consider this post my vow to never buy anything bigger than a chair off of Craigslist again. Also consider it a warning to always measure your effing doorways before being an impulsive, furniture-buying idiot. Craigslist, I do love you, but goddamnit are you a bitch sometimes. That all being said, is it weird to name the things you get off of Craigslist after the people you got them from? If not, we now have a table named "Jess," two chairs named "Lee 1" and "Lee 2," a vanity named "Bruce," and a fucking dick of an armoire named "Paloma."

On an entirely unrelated note: Anyone know how to get horrible scratches out of cherry wood? :(