How Urban Dictionary defines me is shockingly accurate

So, my friend Z informed me yesterday that this week is "Urban Dictionary" week on Facebook, or something*. Not surprisingly, I love Urban Dictionary and can remember spending hours in college sitting on my couch**, browsing through the "random" definitions, and laughing uncontrollably. I never thought, however, to search for my own name. Thank God Facebook was there to enlighten me, because otherwise I never would have known that all my ex-boyfriends had gone on Urban Dic and graciously provided them with the most accurate definitions of "Meghan" to date! Below are a few of my faves.

1. I can only assume my first ex wrote this one, because he was a horrid speller.

2. I may as well have written this one myself, not just because it's so fucking true, but because of the borderline-eerie use of language I could have created myself. This one was probs written by my third ex, who was madly in love with me and often used fake words. He also frequently said "gosh."

3. So. True. Remember my days of Hautey Toddy?? All I did was talk about my undying love for skinny jeans. It's just getting eerie now. My second ex wrote this one; we dated during the high tide of my skinny jeans wave.

4. My favorite by far: I am both a kidney bean and a diva.

5. Um, weird. But LBO, probs true, especially if the tub is filled with orange juice, chocolate milk or Chai tea.

Obviously, I now want you beautiful fucking people to search your names on Urban Dic and post your favorite definitions in the comments.


*I fucking loathe Facebook, so I don't really keep up with whatever is happening on that shit
**Futon

Cold Ryders Anthem

For about a week now, I've had a nasty cold that traveled from my throat and into my chest before finally taking root in my nasal cavities. Yesterday I had to stop for cough drops on my way to work, and whilst standing in line at the trusty Duane Reade, I was struck by inspiration. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Cold Ryders Anthem - rapped to the tune of, obviously, the Ruff Ryders Anthem by DMX.

Cold Ryders Anthem

Cough!
Drop!
Sneeze it out, get out that snot,
Whoooa,
Nooooo,
That's how cold ryders roll
(Repeat X2)

Sickos wanna sneeze, sickos wanna hack
Then sickos go see doc, sickos want refund/
All I know is pain (cough)
All I feel is rain (snot)
How can I breathe right, with this shit in my face?
I resort to Nyquil, these fliuds move in sinus,
I didn't know what black snot was:
New York pollution, wildest/
My boogerz is with it,
Blow my nose? Shoot a free throw
Into my trash basket,
You fuckin' right I hit it!

What the fuck nose 'gon do, when it runs up on me?
Fuckin' with the wrong bitch, it's no match for mint tea,
I'ma have to show boogerz, how easily I blow boogerz,
Into tissue, or toilet paper, 'cuz my New York ass is broke y'alls/
Nothin' I can't handle,
Break snot up and discharge it,
Ball it up in a hankie/
Just 'cause I can't stand it,
Make some tissue capes, float them onto waste,
Making art of slime? Another day in the life...

Cough!
Drop!
Sneeze it out, get out that snot,
Whoooa,
Nooooo,
That's how cold ryders roll...
(Repeat X2)

Is y'all readers crazy?
Can't believe you made it here,
To the second verse of this, a rap song 'bout a cold/
Nose is acting up again, 'scuse me while I spit and 'choo,
You know I'm tryna push out this shit
(Yeah, I know, I'm pitiful)
That's how illness gets round,
Sickos don't cover mouths,
Spewing germs into air, just don't give a shit man/
Oh, they think it's funny, but they don't know this honey,
It's about to get ugly, when I Dial their face/
Like a motherfucking phone!

Ew, my snot's now green,
Probably an infection, something like Gangrene,
Yeah, I did rhyme "green" with another "grene,"
What? It's my song, and I'll do what I want/
Cuuuhhhh hkkkrrrrrrkk kkkch cccchhhh,
Sorry had some phlegm,
Fuck yo, this shit's gross, like my face is pure ooze,
I'ma grab tissues, it's all about those napkins,
Bitches talkin' Kleenex, but I prefer some Puffs Plus...

Cough!
Drop!
Sneeze it out, get out that snot,
Whoooa,
Nooooo,
That's how cold ryders roll...
(Repeat X2)

Caw, caw, caw: Strike a prose

I wrote this on the 6 train early one morning, on my way from home to work.

--

The thing I hate about winter is that there's no sounding rain. Lots of snow, plenty of snow, but I miss the pounding of the water against my panes. The sound of the rain is like the forward motion of time - it never stops, until it does, and then you have no choice but to accept the silence.

I've heard lots of sweet words from sweet boys in my life, but yours stole all kinds of pastries. "Your name hangs in my heart like a bell," you said. "Found myself a picture that would fit in the folds of my wallet, and it stayed pretty good," you said.

But your words were secondhand, usurped from past brilliants, on loan to me for a limited time only (LTO). A faulty loan at that, motherfucker, since the words weren't even yours to give. In retrospect, this angers me. How dare you? How dare you take those words from their creators, then haphazardly give them to me? Not even you could make me hate something so beautiful.

Not even you could make me hate you. Months and months passed, and all I wanted was to hate you. You launched more borrowed words at me, and with every blow I remained resilient. I couldn't hate you, I couldn't hate you, I couldn't hate you - though not for lack of trying. When the final blow came, finally a set of originals - I love someone else - the cannon shot echoed off the Southern hills. Then a deafening, ringing silence. The snow came. I crouched, and looked around, but you were already gone. (The only thing worse than a giver of borrowed words is someone who doesn't understand the impact of his own.) The fog remained, my wound still hemorrhaging, and I curled up in a little ball and licked it for hours. I found in my last traces of consciousness that I truly did not care if the bleeding stopped while I slept. I did not care, and then in the last glittering moment before sleep blinked me away, I did.

When I woke up, I had some of my strength back. I stood up in the melting snow, and saw the meat of the land poking through the dead grass. I gathered my things and was suddenly aware that, for the first time, I felt nothing. The love I had for you, the words I had said to you and saved for you - never borrowed, always my own - everything was gone. All I had wanted was to hate you, but this was better. Anything could happen to you, you could take your borrowed life and your borrowed words anywhere you wanted, and I would not care. The wind had taken them while I slept. They belonged to no one. They were finally free.

It was warmer now. There was still no sun, but at least it was warmer. I began to walk.

The snow turned to rain. This clearing was much bigger than I remembered. I made my way home, knowing I would never see you or hear you or feel you again. My long brown hair dripped - when had it gotten so long? - and I wondered if I had possiby made the whole thing up, like maybe I invented you from all the songs and poems and plays I had loved in a past life. Perhaps you were some new sort of phantom made of skin and bones and veins and teeth. How do we know what is real?

I stopped walking. Something inside me told me to stop. I sat down in the field, in the cold and the wet, waiting for the carrier of words. I'm still sitting here, though I move around sometimes so no one knows that, still, I wait. An army of love surrounds me at all times. And I know he will come because truth attracts honesty. So I will just keep waiting.

Overhead, a black bird cries, and the squishy tears roll down my cheeks as my dark hair, now drying out, blows in the wind. The bird tells me (secretly) he has never borrowed or loaned anything in his life, except for his breath, on loan from the gracious universe, to be returned at an unknown time. Just like the rest of us.

Someone else can have your borrowed words. I can subsist on creating my own, until he arrives, and we co-pilot as birds ourselves, never borrowing, only living.

Caw. Caw. Caw.

A couple pictures of me in a cute hat

Y'all. I have been so, so busy recently, living life in New York and working on a few very exciting new side projects (more to come on these later), that I haven't had much free time to write, because I've been doing exciting things like buying hats on the streets of New York.

Yes, it's true, I bought a new hat. It was $5. I am very excited, because it is very warm. It is knitted and it covers my ears and it is cute. And it was $5. God bless this city.

Plus: it has those tassel things!

It's the little things in life, really. I've been wanting a hat like this since winter began*, and now one is mine. And this blog post is officially over, because it is lame.

*Started fucking my life up, little bastard

Irrational fears you're not supposed to share with other people because it's sorta angsty and thus embarrassing

Sometimes I have really, really irrational fears that come out of nowhere, and they sort of take over my brain for a while. So today I decided that it might help if I write them down and share them with the entire Internet. You know, like it might just make me feel a little better to know that everyone who reads my blog knows how I really feel deep down inside, on my worst days. #human #dontjudgeme

So, firstly, sometimes I read blogs like this and worry that I will never ever have what they have. What if I never get married? What if I never have babies? What if I never have the home life I want to have?
Even worse: What if I've already had the great loves of my life, and I've like reached my quota, and I don't get to have any more?
Even even worse: What if I don't deserve any more love because I fucked up my past ones too much?
Even even even worse: What did I do wrong? What is so wrong with me that all my past relationships failed so miserably and I can't stay in touch with even a single one of my exes, even just as friends?
What if I'm just one of the unlucky ones?


Did you ever hurt so badly that you loved it?

What if I never write anything meaningful or far-reaching?
What if I never finish my book?
What if I lose my writing voice, or my drive to write, or people stop liking my writing?
What if I never achieve anything great in my life?
What if I just think I have something great to offer the world, but really I don't?
What if I spend my whole life doing a job I like, but don't love, just because I want the security of having a job, and then I never make enough art and I forget my passion and I wake up and I'm 30 and I've made nothing significant?
What if I just keep telling myself there's always tomorrow, and I put off all the things I want to do, just because it's easier that way?

It's just one day, one day, one day after another.

What if there's actually no order to the universe, and every action is ultimately devoid of meaning?
What if that lack of order means that it's possible to make just a few mistakes and totally fuck up the rest of your life?
What if I've already fucked up my life and I just don't know it yet?

Ugh. I hate when I get like this, and I hate even more when I sound whiny. I finally watched Conan's last episode the other night, and I teared up when he said the following, because I felt so inspired by his positivity. I have to hope that what he says is true, because otherwise I have no idea what to think.

All I ask of you, especially young people, is one thing. Please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism - it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen. I'm telling you, amazing things will happen.

Sorry, Conan. I promise I'm not usually this cynical. I'm a really optimistic person, I swear! It's just that I'm human, and I'm honest, and as an honest human I have to say: the future is fucking scary sometimes, and your early-mid 20s especially suck because it feels like all the decisions you make carry the weight of the entire world. People keep telling me they don't; I can't help but suspect that, secretly, they do.

Perhaps our entire 20s can best be summed up with one singular, rather annoying symbol. Get ready. It's a classic. Here it is.

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Throwback Thursday: Since U Been Gone

This week, Throwback Thursday sort of speaks for itself. This song is simply the best song ever to sing aloud, really loud, in an East Village bar surrounded by all your closest friends.

Unfortunately, because Google owns YouTube - now only mere steps away from owning literally everything in the world - I couldn't find an embeddable version of the official video for the song. But this version is amazing, because 1.) Who doesn't love Reba McEntire? 2.) Toward the beginning, Kelly sings: "It wasn't long 'til I called her mine." Wait, what? Is Kelly a big ole closeted lezzie? It would make sense. We can only hope.

Quick Blog: I'm a spaz

Today was insanely busy at work. To appease your ravenous blog appetites, I have prepared a short but entertaining photo essay titled "Why I'm a huge fucking spaz."

These three photos were all taken at bars and/or dance clubs, where people are supposed to appear cool, collected and preferably somewhat inhuman.*

May 2008.

May 2009.

January 2010.

*Inhuman in, like, a hot way. Not in a total spastic is-she-or-isn't-she-an-alien kind of way.