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qlistening · 3 years

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Is Now a Good Time to Become a Hippie?

Ha ha fun little opening note: I opened my iPad to write this and saw the Cornell notes template and now I’m wondering how the people who had to take Cornell notes to get through college are doing these days. Probably not well.

I’m cracking open the blog again this summer to really do some justice to the two month identity crisis that I, and maybe you, have been experiencing since graduation. I’ve been through the wringer, like most people, with the classic post-grad crises of “What am I doing with my life?” and “What am I even good at?”, and “Will I ever have fun again like I did in college?”. But honestly fuck those crises. That kind of shit is so cliche and boring to talk about. I need bigger broader shit on my plate. The type of existential garbage that can really wreck you. The types of questions that can’t be answered by your Mom saying “it’s okay honey”.

So the set I came up with is as follows: “What rules should I live my life by if I truly believe that our society will crumble to climate change in 1 - 2 generations?”, “How can I ever protect my soul from capitalism when I need the constant stimulation of city life to distract me from my depression?”, and “If I reconnect with my hippie childhood, will it destroy my chances of happiness and success later in life like it did for my parents?”.

I know what you’re thinking: “That’s an awesome list Ava. I wish I could have come up with that myself”. Sorry you can’t be me.

It’s got just enough “this girl needs to lay off the acid” undertones to be dismissed by the common man, yet is valid enough to make any stoner or stoner+ (the + is psychedelics) a little itchy.

Whithought further ado--I left this typo in here because I couldn’t stop laughing at it--, lettuce unpack these crises.

1. What rules should I live my life by if I truly believe that our society as we know it will crumble in 1 - 2 generations? I wish the answer was as simple as “more whippets”, but sadly, it just never is. There are actually a lot of sub-questions here like “Is enough change to reverse the course of climate change even possible at this point?”, “Does our species even deserve to be saved, or should we lean into the suffering and let the deer dance on our graves?”, “What the fuck are you supposed to be with your life when you can’t bring yourself to reproduce because the world is ending so you have to constantly invent a sense of purpose for yourself instead of just using your kids as a cop out?, and lastly “What if you’re making a mistake by not going to Mars with Jeff and Elon na d the vibes there end up being super lit?”

You see, I’m really good at coming up with these questions, but pretty bad at answering them. All I’ve come up with in terms of the rules and purpose part is just to vibe it out and focus my energy on good ol’ drugs, sex, and rock n roll till the end. But UH OH! Now I’ve become my parents.

Perhaps I could focus on nature, gratitude, and spirituality? OH CRUD! Now I’m Rose, who has definitely reconciled these issues better than me, but has the advantage of being an introvert. Shorty don’t need that social stimulation like I do and can just go hermit mode when the going gets tough. Not I.

How about a commune? Tempting, but I’ve heard about a lot of commune drama in my day and don’t really want to get whisked into some Midsommer shit by accident.

Comedy? Can’t go monetizing my best coping mechanism, now can I?

Pose your questions to a broader audience in folk songs like Bob Dylan? I think I’m too street for that and I can’t play the guitar.

Focus on work and being successful? Nope. Work blows and I’m supposed to be protecting my soul from capitalism.

I tend to treat this question like the hard ones on the EOGs and just skip it and plan on circling back later.

2. How do I protect my soul from capitalism when I need the constant stimulation of city life to distract me from my depression? And when I say I need that shit, I mean it. New people. New shit to do. All the time. I ain’t havin’ no baby, so settling down isn’t in the cards either. There is no scenario where I am going to move out to the suburbs just to stare at my husband every night for 30+ years or, in a more likely scenario, stare at the wall. I’m staying on the scene for a long time, maybe forever.

That being said, the city is ripe with capitalism. Everyone works like a dog 24/7, switching back and forth between 2 - 4 Apple devices to accomplish God knows what in the grand scheme of things. Tech, finance, and marketing (the classic city trio) have to be the most pointless and cutthroat industries we have come up with to date. It feels like you have to have to have one of those jobs to live there. To afford it, sure, but beyond that, to know that you beat out someone else to get it and that you have successfully stepped on your first of many necks on the way to the top.

I’m moving to Chicago in like 2 weeks to work in tech/finance and sucking my own dick for having a management position so, clearly, I am not above any of this. But I sure wish I was. Even the first month of my soul-selling transaction feels like it has taken years off my life and dulled my flame quite a bit more than school ever did. So I am on the LOOKOUT for ways to get my mouth on some deep dish pizza and fine Chicago men without all of these bullshit side effects.

And Finally…

3. If I reconnect with my hippie childhood now, will it destroy my chances at happiness and success like it did for my parents?

I feel like this one needs to be elaborated on a little more. For anyone who doesn’t know, my parents are both raging Dead Heads who practiced the art of escapism together on tour for 20 some years until Jerry Garcia died tragically in ‘95. In a desperate search for a new purpose, they popped out me and my sister and now we’re all living the middle class dream in a ranch house on the outskirts of Greensboro. “But at least they’re happy and they love each other right?” Nope. Ls all around.

Sadly, this isn’t just my parents. This seems to be the classic hippie timeline. You feel good, get high, get laid, and indulge your senses in your 20s and you realize that none of it is monetizable and come out the other end begging for capitalism to take you back and bless you with a mediocre career. I know I sound like Nixon right now, but I’m just reading off the data from what I’ve seen.

Shit is really fucking sad man. I just want to think and feel and vibe and enjoy the world for what it is before it gets too crispy but I feel like I can’t. Any step away from my career feels like it will just land me at the bottom of the totem poll with a job that sucks even more than the one I started with. And yeah, I’m a lot smarter and slicker and decidedly childless than my parents, but it feels like a big fucking dice roll to do the same thing that they did and expect a different outcome. I mean they are the two most genetically similar people to me on the planet, after-all. I really do think I have to be careful and stick with the straight and narrow for now. Bummer because I would like to just bool before the world ends, but unfortunately, that’s going to take a little too long for me to avoid these problems.

In conclusion: I believe the answer to the question I posed in the title is “Not really and I should probably start hashing these things out with a therapist instead of a tumblr blog sooner rather than later”.

And if you are wondering, no I am not high right now, but I am about to be because that shit was heavy.

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qlistening · 3 years

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Happy Pandemic-iversary

What’s up ladies. It’s around the pandemic-iversary and as you all know, I have appointed myself as head of commenting on shit that has happened during the pandemic and it’s time for a quarterly update.

If I had to guess, each and every one of you has gone one of two routes since the beginning of last year.

Route 1: Realizing that everything inherently cool and fun would be cancelled and quickly deciding that some factor like your mental health or the quality of your college experience was more important than the social/public health consequences of partying during the pandemic. If you’re feeling attacked right now, worry not party girl. That is not my intention. I myself am a founding member of the “anything to feel something” club and a staunch believer that if you don’t take care of yourself, no one else will.

Odds are that if you are in this group, you’re a wee bit entitled and/or your mental health is held together by a very thin thread. Taking away your regularly scheduled social interactions may have unboxed some demons that you would really like to tuck back in. I’m talking depression, anxiety, substance abuse, insecurity, issues with loneliness, etc. You either used partying to slam the lid shut on that box, or like me, pulled out your demons, worked on them a little, and boxed them back up with more partying when you were over it.

That’s growth baby! Nothing monumental, but you laid more groundwork for making it through your twenties than you would have otherwise AND you’re in a great position to reenter society when all this is over. Sure you were probably “on the wrong side of history”, but as long as you didn’t kill anyone, you will probably be able to live with yourself.

Route 2: The CDC said jump and you said “how high?”. These are my rule-following girly pops. My caring and empathetic girly pops. And of course, my girly pops who had inescapably valid reasons to avoid the rone at all costs.

Your year has probably consisted of a mix of being infinitely proud of yourself for doing the right thing, infinitely frustrated with those who did not, and infinitely in denial about how much it sucked. You knew that the second you admitted to yourself that all of the whipped coffee, brisk walks, and zoom happy hours in the world were not going to be enough to keep you happy, you would fall into an inescapable cycle of depression that you had no hope of climbing out of in your isolated state. So you made up bullshit tasks to keep yourself occupied for an entire year.

You are a fucking hero for that, BUT your transition back into real life is not going to be easy. All of those little tasks that you invented have started to feel like legitimate priorities that you are having trouble distinguishing from your real responsibilities. You have to be prepared to let all of that deep cleaning and gourmet cooking go in exchange for going out to bars and showering more than twice a week. And just a tip from the pandemic party girl; socializing is not going to be fun and easy or any more stimulating than those made up tasks at first. But humans are social animals and you need to get in touch with whatever aspect of going out that you used to love so dearly. Whether that was making new friends, relentlessly pursuing some dick, showing off your cute outfits, sweaty dancing, or just getting fucked up, there was a reason you did this shit every weekend and you need to acknowledge it in order to connect with your former self.

Now that I have lumped you into these two different groups, it’s time to talk about the middle of the venn diagram: depression. Whether you hid from that shit at home or at He’s Not, odds are it caught up to you eventually. It was easy to predict that removing the majority of stimulation and fulfillment from life and throwing around the term “uncertain times” for a year would create a sub-pandemic of depressed ass bitches.

I saw it coming from day one, but that only made it worse. Feeling your motivation and ability to find any means of generating serotonin slip away from you is a feeling I wouldn’t wish on anyone, yet have seen in almost everyone. I thought that seeing this shit coming would protect me from it and I was wrong. When it hit, I was consumed by the same sense of self loathing you feel when a boy fucks you over and you saw it coming, but didn’t have the strength to resist.

Self loathing and emptiness are some raw fucking feelings and I hope to God that, at the very least, our shared experiences with these emotions has cultivated a broader sense of empathy in our cut-throat society. So far, that hunch has played out in the polls.

Empathy or no empathy, these feelings are still pervasive throughout the world and I’ll be damned if a single bitch with a marketing job was going to miss their chance to capitalize on this. With that, we have the birth of “wellness”. That world is honestly a trigger for me at this point because I, like many of you, was fooled into thinking it would be the antidote to depression. But what it really is is a well played scheme to sell things to people who are down bad and desperate to regain control over their health and well being. Believe me, I understand that this is a natural byproduct of capitalism, but there is something really insidious about an industry with marketing tactics that prey on people’s fear that something is wrong with them and offer them bullshit solutions to fix it.

Reading that back, I realize that is pretty much the textbook definition of marketing, but I’m standing by the fact that it is fucked up. Sorry if that offends anyone.

For all of you ladies who have been dropping bricks on supplements, jade rollers, and overpriced subscriptions to meditation apps, I am here to offer you a reality check. You do not need that shit. Don’t believe me? You don’t have to! Men are living proof that I am right. Most have never taken a vitamin, stretched, meditated, or eaten a vegetable besides corn and are literally fine.

If you want to partake in the wellness trend, fine, but don’t let that shit throw you into a state of body hyper-awareness where you manifest health problems just from worrying about them. Don’t reward the companies who did this to you with your money. And PLEASE do not pass up on the opportunity to do normal twenty-something fuck shit that would actually make you feel better for the sake of your made up health needs.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. There is plenty more to comment on, but I have to go outside and smoke my half cigarette before it starts to rain. See y’all next time I am bored enough to write one of these.

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qlistening · 3 years

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An Open Letter to Men who are Bad at Sex

“You woke up this morning and chose violence” - Georgia right after I read this to her

To all of the men that I have had sex with and made the mistake of putting my needs aside so that you could feel good about yourself, I would like to take that back now. I want you to know what I really thought of you then and what I really think of you now. I want you to know that I faked every aspect of enjoying what you did in there and I probably went home and got myself off afterwards.

You probably didn’t notice because you came multiple times every time we fucked and you got to enjoy what it felt like to have someone concentrate on your pleasure and bring attention, effort, and knowledge into what makes you feel good.

In the middle of all that pleasure you were experiencing, did you ever stop to ask yourself “why is she here?” or “what is she getting out of this?”. Of course you didn’t. Because you have the emotional intelligence of a grape. You made the choice to believe that what you were seeing on pornhub was what I wanted, even though you have heard plenty of times that that kind of sex does nothing for women and is purely for the entertainment of men. You have the same intentionally ignorant attitude about the lies they are telling you on fox news, even though the network admits they are in fact lies that are purely there for your entertainment.

You never stopped to ponder whether or not your partner had an orgasm, yet you would be shocked if she had given you the same treatment. She got on top, she gave you head, she even managed to make herself wet enough to get you off by picturing someone hotter and better at sex than you while you were inside of her. And after all that, you just rolled over and went to sleep. Why did you think that that was okay? Why did you fail to even consider the fact that that was nothing shy of embarrassing on your part? You don’t live under a rock. You’ve been scrolling through instagram and twitter for years and you know women want to have orgasms and it requires knowledge and effort to make that happen. Yet you never even considered searching for that knowledge or putting in that effort.

Why? Because when life gets tough, you turn to the boys as your source of reason and validation. When you feel insecure that you aren’t doing enough in the sheets, they are there to assure you that as long as you got your dick sucked, nothing else really matters. But think about this: if this were really all that mattered, then why are you even venturing out of your circle of trust in the first place? I’ve seen you gentlemen have great success with collective action. Why don’t you just make yourself a little reddit page where you all get together and decide to cut women out of the equation and just suck each others’ dicks? Pretty good idea. I know some of you would be really happy to take me up on it.

But that’s never going to happen because the need isn’t there. You’ve got women in your phone and out at bars asking you--BEGGING you--to have sex. You can’t quite come to terms with how we could be so bitter online, yet so horny for you at 2 AM on a Saturday.

Well I’ll be happy to clear that up for you. We are using you. In most cases, almost strictly for validation. Our mental health rests on feeling good about ourselves and feeling good about ourselves rests on feeling good about our bodies, our sexualities, and our ability to nail down the partner of our choice some day when we are ready to settle down with someone we actually care about. What else could offer a quicker, easier, more heroin-like fix of validation than making a man come? For many women, nothing.

But as long as you understand that you are nothing more than a charging station for an insecure girl and that once her battery is full, she will speed away from you as quickly as possible, then I see no problem with our current arrangement. But if you feel a little demoralized and disrespected by what I just said, then I suggest you pick up your phone and put in an ounce of effort into learning about female pleasure. I guarantee you’ll be shocked by what you didn’t know you didn’t know.

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qlistening · 3 years

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Marriage: What is it Good For?

Alright I’m going to be 22 in a week and I think I’ve done enough drugs at this point that I’m really starting to get myself, so I am going to go ahead and tackle my feelings on marriage. And instead of journaling, as many mental health professionals have suggested I do, I will continue to post my shit on the internet because you guys are always so nice about it. I think the best way to approach this issue is a Q&A session with myself.

Q1: What are the perks of getting married?

As a woman, I would say perk number one has to be that people don’t ask you dogshit questions about your personal life if you do choose to get married. Questions like “Do you think you never got married because you have trust issues?” or “Wow I don’t know how you stand to be alone all the time like that”. Would you ask a divorced woman “Do you think this whole situation could have been avoided if you weren't so quick to trust him?” or ask a woman in an unhappy marriage “No you think you’d be better off if you just got over your fear of being alone?”. No! Because these questions are obviously disrespectful. Yet I witness middle aged single women like Chelsea Handler have to put up with this shit on the reg. Hopefully society will connect those dots before I reach that age

Another textbook perk to marriage is financial interdependence. “My money + your money = lots of money! YAY!” No bro. My parents have been unhappily married for the last 20ish years strictly due to a poorly thought out financial interdependence set up. And they are certainly not alone on that one. After overthinking their situation for 22 years, I have determined financial interdependence is only advantageous for a woman if she truly feels she has nothing to contribute on her own to society and would rather funnel all of her western educated energy into keeping her man happy so that her name stays on the joint bank account. If you don’t feel that way, then you should probably plan on financially supporting yourself, or else you’re going straight to resentment town. But don’t get too empowered over there. Financially supporting your husband isn’t a super lit move either. Imagine coming home to your husband overcooking the salmon that he bought from Whole Foods after you know he got to spend the whole day playing with the kids you almost died in the process of birthing. Express train to resentment town for sure.

Sex? This is kind of like the financial thing. You’re committing to give up sex with everybody else for your husband, who is probably not above the 75th percentile of pipe that is available to you. You’re also committing to not have sex at all if their shit malfunctions or the vibes go south between the two of you. Very dark but very real. My guess is only 25% of 50ish year old married couples are still fucin. You sure are optimistic if you’ve convinced yourself you will be in that demographic.

Having someone who completes you? I’ve always been conflicted about this one because it is kind of logically sound to have someone around that can do the things you can’t, but there is also loss of independence that comes with admitting you can’t do something. Not to toot my own horn, but I’m feeling pretty complete at this point in my life. I know I’m about to have a fun career, be rich, and be a better homemaker for myself than any man could. I also have confidence in my adult self to stay hot and cool enough to have friends and get laid. What’s missing? Someone who can fix cars and stuff around the house. Husbands can be a nifty source of free labor for this, but so can contractors and mechanics if porn logic applies and you offer “another form of payment”.

Wedding. Ain’t got shit to say about this one. Weddings are dope.

Q2: What are the drawbacks of marriage?

Sharing a room with someone else. We all quit that shit after sophomore year for a reason. It is not possible to fully be yourself in a living situation where even in your SLEEP your actions impact someone else. Beyond having to be considerate, you also have to provide an explanation for everything you do. Like if you want to wake up at 4AM, deep clean your bong, and binge watch a garbage show on hulu, suddenly you have to explain this to someone else. Not a great look. Also you can probably kiss your vibrator goodbye, because unless you are railing your husband nonstop, you’ll probably have a weird guilt complex about getting yourself off while he’s around.

Having a husband is tough from a PR standpoint. What if he’s ugly? You love him for a lot of super valid reasons, but unless someone knows you pretty well, they’re going to see y’all together and think “that’s the best she could do”. Maybe I’m shallow but that feeling would almost definitely eat away at me until I had to chat on him to prove to myself that it wasn’t true. Flip side, my husband is the hot one. He’s got motive to do the same.

Monotony is kind of inherent to the arrangement. Same house, same dude just about every day. Be real about this one. Imagine coming home to that continuously for about 3X the total amount of time you have been alive so far. That’s what you’re patting the cute old couple who have been married 60 years on the back for doing. Big ups to them for sure, but is that really what you want for yourself?

Q3: Ava would you still get married after making all of these valid points?

Yes but only with the following unrealistic stipulations:

Husband is perfectly equal in hotness to me and gives me best sex I’ve ever had.

Our money can never touch. No joint anything. No resentment. Clean divorce.

He’s chill with us not sleeping together all the time.

He’s chill with getting divorced if the vibes go south.

He doesn’t wan’t kids

He has some tangible and intangible qualities that make me better off with him than without him.

I’m sure not many men are coming to mind that check all of these boxes, but that’s okay because according to Q1:A4, I’m already a decently complete person. I also don’t have a biological clock to answer to and I will have more time to travel the world and hang out with my lovely friends if mister right never comes along.

Finished reading and want to tackle your own qualms with marriage? Make sure to follow in my footsteps and smoke some CBD for a warm and fuzzy conclusion.

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qlistening · 4 years

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UNC: An Average Man’s Paradise

Idea creds: Frances and Kate

Title creds: Carson

Sobriety status: less high than intended, but can’t complain

Alright UNC ladies, I think this post right here very well could be considered my passion piece. Today I am going to break down for you the different categories of men that have graced us with their presence at this university, and how to spot them if you’re out and about.

I’m just going to rip the bandage off and start with all of our favorite: fraternity boys.

Ah frat boys, God’s gift to the world and our gift to UNC. What would our college experience be like without them? It’s impossible to fathom. I refuse to even try. After all, they’ve given us so much, and asked for so little in return. Only, the humble bone sesh after a long night of diligently managing festivities in their lovely estates. True, they are occasionally known to break the condom or nut before even making it inside of you, but throwing it to them is really the least we can do with all that they’ve done for us. Plus, you’re sure to be in and out of there in under ten minutes, so what’s the harm? They come to use from Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Pinehurst, and other respectable southern cities, with the occasional northerner slipping through the cracks. No matter where they’re from, they have somehow adopted a common way of speech before arriving at UNC in which their mouths are left frozen in place at the end of each of their sentences. I am not sure how this group has achieved such an intense level of homogeneity over the years, but I can’t say I’m not impressed.

You can spot them in class sporting baseball caps (forwards or backwards depending on their respective frat’s gpa), neckbeards, sorority cocktail t-shirts (tiers zeta and above), and the ever popular flip flops. They tend to move in packs on campus and appear somewhat frightened when seen alone. Most likely, they will not make eye contact with you, especially if you have hooked up. As far as eateries go, expect to see them in lenoir for lunch and the agora for dinner (and again for late night), with respective meal plans at both. On Friday mornings, after dollar drink night at MAW, some stray from the pack and populate Wendys, Chickfila, and occasionally, Alpine. At nightfall, there will always be some guarding their basecamp, Bob’s, as well as some out on the prowl at La Res and MAW. Approach these men between the hours of 2 and 3 AM and you will get laid. Attempt any earlier, and the only thing that you’re getting is a spot at the back of the line in McDonalds. I personally don’t recommend approaching them at all, as you are sure to incur emotional damage, and awkward eye contact at the C-Square pool on a day you look kind of fat.

The next largest population on deck is the ever illusive: south campus boy.

Your only shot at seeing them is in class. Otherwise, they rotate exclusively between their beloved dining hall, dorm room, and Ms. Mongs. They don’t care that it’s stricter territory for drugs and alcohol down there. They weren’t looking to get messed up with that stuff anyways, except for the occasional nights they decide to drink an entire fifth of Svedka and throw up in the shower. Usually they’re much too busy actually doing their assignments or playing video games. If you see a cute one, don’t bother approaching him. The thirstiest ranks of the south campus girls have already sunk their teeth and adidas superstars into him. He is a lost cause. With limited access to parties and bars, getting to these men requires you to perform the dreaded classroom flirtation, followed by the dreaded orchestrating some organic situation where it makes sense to hook up. Fair warning: it is critical to screen these boys before putting yourself through either of those tasks, as many are weirder than you might think.

Third is a UNC crowd favorite. The student athletes.

Sitting in the back of the classroom every day in their giant parkas, members of this elite group certainly aren’t hard to spot. They’re best known for zipping around on mopeds and ignoring their role in group projects. They don’t tend to be extremely warm or receptive when approached on a night out, as their pursuit of women takes place primarily in the dms. I know I sound like a broken record here, but I wouldn’t recommend pursuing. Most of the time, they’ve really been around the block and aren’t making up for it in the skill department. If you do bag one, tell your story and most girls at this school will get jealous. Probably even the virgins.

Last and maybe not least? Carrboro boys.

They’re the ones that are really tucked away. I didn’t even know they existed until like junior year. Oh, but they’re out there. They’re ordering coffee with alternative milks at the meantime cafe, reshelving records in the WXYC studio, smoking cigs by the flagpole, and reading on the steps of Wilson Library. Yes, reading. They are really still on that shit. They’re into music that my parents listen to and vintage clothing that can only be understood by fellow members of the Carrboro clan. These boys tend to be more sensitive than the rest I’ve mentioned and, in many cases, more sensitive than you. Oh, but don’t you go feeling bad for them. These sensitive boys are probably racking up bodies at the same rate as their emotionally deficient fraternity counterparts. Think about all of the bandana wearing biddies over in Carrboro looking for a man who finally gets them. There just simply aren’t enough alt guys to meet their demand. I’m guessing scarcity is working out just as well over there as it is around these parts. And with that, we’ve come full circle with the title of this post and the primary reason I tend to outsource my boys. Good luck to anyone still out there clawing it out with this selection. Good luck and Godspeed.

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qlistening · 4 years

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A Beginner’s Guide to Copping Weed

Idea creds: Annie

Sobriety status: stone cold

Alright ladies. I know that many of you are sitting pretty with a beginner or intermediate knowledge of how to procure weed and may be looking to move up a level or two. I’m going to do my best to give you some grassroots advice on how to take ownership of your weed experience and feel like you know what the fuck you’re doing.

In exchange for my consulting services, I am of course forcing you to endure another semi-relevant personal anecdote about my experiences with weed over the years.

(ya better mf click to keep reading)

I lost my weed virginity at a hot tub party my sophomore year of highschool, days after my first sip of alcohol. I had just gotten into NCSSM and was ready to finally indulge in my hometown’s favorite pastime before I would be shipped off to live in a run down box of nerds. I ripped half a bowl, fell down the stairs, and valiantly crawled back up thinking “I liked that. I’m going to do it again”. I spent that summer smoking weed at parties, kickbacks, or any kind of hangout where someone was offering. Mid way through the summer, my best friends and I had had enough of living in this state of interdependence and wanted our own weed to smoke on our own terms. We bought our first gram for a clean $10 from a friend who was selling at the time and realized we had absolutely no idea what to do with it. I had never even seen weed in nug form and was shocked that it was smelling up my car so much. We were too young to buy a bowl or grinder, so we shook it up in a pill bottle full of quarters, ripped out the blank pages in our parents bibles (google’s idea) and rolled some joints that honestly, weren’t half bad.

Luckily, someone got their hands on a bowl before we had to start rolling up psalms. After a month of burning my fingers, forgetting to inhale, and coughing like a chain smoker, I finally started getting high. Smoking weed at NCSSM was a one way train to expulsion town, so I steered clear unless I was home for the weekend. Summer came and one of my closest friends started fucking one of the town’s well known drug dealers. Thanks to her hard work in the sheets, I got to hit my first bong at his house. This was the first time I REALLY got high. My dad called me during this excursion, asking to bring the car home and take it to the shop. It was my first time driving high and I was literally seeing stars, so I put in my Taylor swift CD and whipped it down Wendover Ave at the ripe speed of 25 miles per hour.

Senior year, Anna and I got into edibles after hatching a plan to drug our prom dates so we could sneak off to a UNC after party without them. The plan backfired when one gummy hit us like a bag of bricks and I spent the entirety of prom eating donuts, hugging my exs, and chasing butterflies around the butterfly garden. After that the gloves were off, and we were railing brownies, cookies, gummies, chocolate, and rice krispy treats on a nightly basis in our dorm room.

Freshman year, I bopped around taking geebs at frats and smoking on the soccer field. Winter came and I needed a solid indoor spot, preferably with a bong. I landed on my distant highschool friend’s illegitimate frat house and after a month of pulling up for my nightly bowl pack, I basically started living there. I didn’t have a lot of money at the time, so I paid my debts to him by flirting with him and helping him with his homework. Eventually, it was clear that I was going to be enough to sustain our relationship, so I took my first dab and begrudgingly threw him a bone (literally). My life as a prostitute was short lived. We got in a fight when I left a party at his house to fuck one of his brothers and he threw me out onto the streets.

Luckily I met Franklin that summer when we were working together at Elizabeth’s. He was cute, nice, a notorious Greensboro stoner, and sixteen fucking years old. I slipped an extra $10 into his tip-out every night and we ripped his bong after work. He had killer plugs, sick smoke spots, bongs, rigs, vaporizers, and a gas mask that I simply couldn’t resist. We kept that shit up for years and I couldn’t help falling a little in love with him. Let the record show that he is a flaky homophobic piece of shit, but he’ll always have a place in my heart as my favorite hometown plug.

Sophomore year, Georgia replaced him as my weed angel, stealing my heart with her perfectly pearled blunts from the day that I met her. Blessed with so many weed loving roommates, I finally had a place on my own to smoke and a system for copping that didn’t rely on flaky boys that only wanted me for my body.

Junior year I reached peak weed independence during my semester abroad in London. I was back to square one with no plugs and not so much as a lighter to smoke with. I managed to secure a couple of dealers from a group of skater boys who approached our group for a lighter during a picnic in Hyde Park. I spent a day fighting with dealers on Whatsapp, running around to “newsagents” to get papers and lighters, grinding weed in a pill bottle and rolling shitty joints like I was sixteen. Even though I was still pulling the same ratchet bullshit from my childhood, I couldn’t help feeling extremely proud of myself completing this mission with the odds stacked against me.

I know that was extremely long and filled with seemingly irrelevant personal details, but there is more of a takeaway from all of this than meets the eye. Getting weed is an extremely difficult process that relies heavily on your people skills, perseverance, and patience. Sometimes it’s as easy as walking upstairs in a frat house. Hell if you’re nice enough, a stranger might even slap a gram in your hand on the tube. More often than not, it’s about meeting other stoners, investing your time into cultivating those relationships, and waiting hours in the fucking car, only to end up overpaying for mid. I’m a grown ass fucking woman who smokes weed almost ever single day and I still endure the same idiotic struggles that I did when I was sixteen. There have been times I’ve had eight plugs and time’s I’ve had zero and started all over. No matter what you do, weed is illegal, plugs don’t last forever, and there is no perfect recipe for getting it.

And you know what, this should be frustrating to me, but it’s not. I don’t regret a second of the time I have spent doing ridiculous fuckshit to get weed because of all of the wonderful relationships and memories that have come with it. Frankly, I don’t think I’d have half of the social skills and networking abilities I do today if I hadn’t had to struggle so much just to get high. The only real advice I can give to you is be spontaneous, smoke with new people whenever you can, and be ready to bend over backwards to get what you want. I promise that these uncomfortable situations are going to make you better at smoking and honestly, cooler.

If this isn’t the advice you were hoping for, move to fucking Colorado or sit on your ass until weed becomes legal everywhere. Just know that if you do, you’ll be robbing yourself of the full experience and will never really understand what the lifestyle is all about. Sorry if that’s too ~rastafarian~ for you. I hope you at least enjoyed the pictures.

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qlistening · 4 years

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I ate nothing but tacos for a week, lost 20 pounds, got asked out three times, and orgasmed twice in missionary

The last part of that title should have made it explicitly clear that I am in fact, lying. Nevertheless, my accidental purchase of 80 tortilla shells has resulted in a fad diet discovery and a series of lifestyle changes that has unexpectedly altered the space time continuum of my twenties.

In the spirit of many successful and irritating bloggers that have come before me, I will first bore you with some semi-relevant personal anecdotes about the role of tacos in the broader context of my life before diving into the real meat and potatoes of my findings.

(maybe click here to keep reading. idek)

Reflecting on my semester in London, I have realized that my time in Europe has taught me some valuable life lessons beyond learning how to use public transportation and apple pay. The most important of these being that America fucking slaps. Fast food, air conditioning, working washers and dryers, rocky mountains, and amber waves of grain from sea to shining sea baby. In the words of Hannah Montana herself, “you can change your hair and you can change your clothes, but you’ll always find your way back home”. And find my way I did. Right back to the land of the free and the home of the dank fucking Mexican food. Europe has got some great eats, but my revolving diet of sushi, pasta, and stir fry left a taco sized hole in my heart that I was determined to fill upon my return to the motherland. Alas, regular trips to dillo, barberitos, and taco bell proved to be a less than sustainable means of filling this void for my poor wallet and digestive system. I needed a solution I could bring home, where Texas-size queso and unlimited chips couldn’t find me.

Now that I got that off my chest: meat and potatoes time. Tacos are a dietary Godsend. You may be skeptical of taking diet advice from a woman who was eating Krispy Kreme donuts out of a dumpster six hours ago, but I promise I’ve got the facts to back it up. Vitamins, fiber, balanced macros, portion control. These are all INHERENT in the taco diet. Throw some fruit in the mix, and you’ll be giving Jenny Craig a certified run for her money.

Don’t believe me? This is Harvard’s list of the best sources of vitamins and minerals with all potential taco ingredients highlighted.

If you’re gonna do this right, you gotta follow some rules here. Make sure you are working with corn tortillas. They’re considered whole grain, packed with fiber, and extremely filling. You’re also going to need a good slaw. I’m not talking about some two ingredient cookout slaw. You need some good shit with kale, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, and all that good stuff in it. Make some pico. Tomatoes, peppers, onion, garlic, lime, cilantro and you’re done. Change up the protein. Eggs, bacon, tofu, soy chorizo, regular chorizo, carne asada, pulled pork, chicken, fish, shrimp. Boom, you’re covered. Half an avocado a day will cover you perfectly for the two breakfast tacos and two dinner tacos that I am permitting you to eat. Yeah that’s right. Four motherfucking tacos a day and you won’t even be hungry for a fifth. Cuts out that idiot midday meal “lunch” that you neither need nor have time for.

Let me tell you something else. This is a next level opportunity for meal prepping too. Historically, I have been way too cool and spontaneous to execute meal prepping without dumping the majority of the meals in the trash. Any other meal prep scheme is too inflexible, too much work to cook, and sucks the fun out of acting on your cravings. This one is foolproof. At the beginning of the week, chop up some pico, cook up the meats or buy them precooked at TJ’s like I do, pick out a slaw kit with all of those good vegetables and you are SET. You’ll be in and out of the kitchen for each meal in less than 15 minutes.

“But Ava, I’m not some kind of loser who eats every single meal at home. I have a fucking life.” Okay, me too bitch. You think I haven’t considered that. If you have leftover shit at the end of the week, just break out the coronas and throw a taco party. “Okay but, what if I get tired of tacos?” You just won’t. Do you get tired of coffee? Alcohol? No. Because they leave you feeling so good that you just keep coming back for more. Anymore idiotic and frankly insulting oppositions? Didn’t think so.

Here’s your excuse to celebrate every day like it’s Cinco de Mayo and rock a waistline like KKW herself. You’re welcome.

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qlistening · 4 years

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How are the Bees REALLY doing?

Anyone who knows me well--which should be all of you because I just weeded out some of the weeklings on my private story--know that under this hard outer shell I have a soft side that sort of cares about the environment. In order to maintain my douchebag persona, I pretty much only care about “cool” environmental issues at this point. Polar bears, pollution, and pollinators are just a little too kombucha girl for me under normal circumstances, but the quarantine has me unusually curious about wtfgo with the bees.

Y’all all remember when all the liberals and like, Burts Bees were getting their aerie panties and waxy chapstick in a wad about bees being like an endangered species and dying and shit? Not gonna lie, this got a pretty good grip on my attention. Partially because Anna had a really cool beehive at her house at the time. Partially because the boy who emotionally destroyed me in highschool was allergic to bees, so I wanted to make sure someone was doing something to keep their numbers up. Despite my slight concern, I did what I usually do about these lame environmental issues: not a goddamn thing. Now, with rumors circulating that the bees are doing fine now, I decided to do a little investigating on what the fuck is going on in this weird little niche.

(once again you’ll probs have to click something to keep reading)

First, I consulted my resident bee guy, Luke Davis, who I happen to know spent the summer going door to door hitting up rich liberals for bee saving cash. How much? The organization he was working for raised $100k in about a month. For fucking what, you might be wondering? Lobbying for NC to pass the Pollinator Protection Act.

If you google this act, the first thing that is probably going to come up is a Daily Tar Heel article essentially roasting this bill for how dumb it is. Gist of the article is the bill makes no sense because a) bee populations are literally fine and estimated to have increased by like 500,000 hives in the past 10 years and b) it singles out only one type of pesticide that is not even proven to be killing these suckers. What type of pesticide is it? Neonicotinoids.

Yeah, I know you all had the sudden urge to hit your quarantine juuls after seeing the word nicotine shoved in there. Your instinct was correct. Neonicotinoids are pesticides that kill bugs by fucking up the nervous system in their brain with huge doses of nicotine. Huh? Farmers have been killing bugs with nicotine since the 90s, but the government couldn’t make a fucking decision about whether or not it was bad for us until our generation was already addicted? This is a whole other conspiracy for next week.

Anyways, PBS says that neonics aren’t simply killing bees, but rather making them a little dumber so that they forget to do important shit like killing off the sick bees before they infect the rest of the colony. Can you really blame those suckers though? Just like us, they went from sharp individuals to irritable little addicts, whose primary concern became when Smoke Rings closed on a Friday night. And this bill wants to ban the use of these pesticides and force them to quit cold turkey? I don’t know about y’all, but I am genuinely afraid to live in a state full of bees who are going through nicotine withdrawals at the same time.

Who were the four horsemen of this idiot bill? You guessed it, democratic senators from Raleigh, Durham, Charlotte, and Hillsborough. Real Miss Americas these four, with bills like “animal abuser registry” and “continuing education for prisoners” plastered all over their records. Probably wanted this bill as another trophy on their shelf. I guess $100k wasn’t enough to convince them to finish the job though, because this bill has been held up in the state senate for just over a year now.

Politics and conspiracy theories aside, I really did just wanna know what was up with the bees in the first place. After doing some really in depth research on the topic,

I found some real funny shit.

The first thing was this Guardian article that opened my eyes to a really weird phenomenon. Apparently the honey business is not super profitable these days, so beekeepers have been boxing up their hives and shipping them across the country to work on almond farms in California. Apparently summer camp on the almond farm is essentially the bee equivalent of Coachella, according to Arizona beekeeper Arp. He says “There can be hundreds of thousands of hives from multiple beekeepers in one staging area. It is like letting your bees go into a singles bar and then have unprotected sex.” Another beekeeper claims that they feel “disrespected” by humans after their summer of love on the almond farm. This guy says “They are in severe decline because our human relationship to them has become so destructive.” Interesting theory sir. The other guy said they just kept coming back with diseases from raw dogging it all summer in Cali, and that’s why they were dying.

Here is a pic of them arriving in their boxes to almond Coachella. I bet they’re so excited.

The European honeybees (aka the ones that do all of the work pollinating) are literally fine though. I read like three different articles that basically said it was only native species that were endangered. Sure, that is sad, but at least shit is still getting pollinated.

The story of the “bee war” between European bees and Asian bees has to be my favorite. Basically, the European bees are outcompeting the asian bees by having sexier queens. According to this article, European bees have like better pheromones or something so when the queen says she wants to get fucked and fed, her boys get on that shit immediately. Asian bee’s on the other hand don’t take that shit. If the queen is being too much of a bitch, some of the dudes will just grow some ovaries and start their own fucking colony. This lack of unity has apparently fucked them over pretty hard because European bees have taken over about 80% of their territory. But get this! Apparently the Asian bees are making a comeback because the European bees are such simps that they don’t even have the balls to form a new colony when their queen gets killed by a hornet.

Shiv sent me this this morning.

Asian bees might be on their way to the top.

TLDR: the bees are fine. Probably better shit to worry about in this day and age.

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qlistening · 4 years

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I Fucking Hate Brunch. The world will be a better place if I could convince you to feel the same way.

All you upper middle class Jeep driving girls can go ahead and put your gun back in its holster because I know you’re feeling attacked by this post right off the bat. I want you to read the argument I’m about to present to you with a clear head because if everything goes as planned, I’m about to rock your shit with how valid my opinion is on this subject, and I want you to be in a good headspace to take all of this in.

Ah brunch, a genius concept at first glance. A perfectly plated visual masterpiece, one filter away from landing on your insta story, delivered to you at a time that acknowledges and accepts your constitutional right to suck down a tanker truck full of alcohol the night before. No more pulling up to a greasy diner in your friends sweatpants for some scrambled eggs. Every classy restaurant in town is now opening their doors at 11 AM so you and your friends can get drunk before noon in a place that had the funds to pay an interior designer.

Well you know what else looked like a genius concept at first glance? Mortgage backed securities baby! And those suckers single handedly butt fucked the entire economy when you were like eight. I’m not saying that is in the cards with brunch, but I’m also not saying it’s not.

I’m actually an expert on this subject, as I have brunched it up in seven different countries and served this beloved meal at three different restaurants. And yeah, I know chomping down those pancakes in the upper righthand corner of this picture makes me a hypocrite, but the title of this post isn’t “I fucking hate hypocrisy”, is it?

(you might have to click the title to keep reading. I’m not about to relearn html to fix this)

Diner Perspective

As a diner, I know that the brunch is a classic case of “expectation vs. reality”. You wake up at like noon. Try desperately to make something cute out of your dry skin, smudged eyeliner and greasy hair from the night before. You fail miserably. Then you put on some clothes that typically reside in that rarely touched “darty-wear” section of your closet. When you pull up and sit down at the restaurant, you can’t help but feeling a little bit ridiculous. The waitress is sitting there wearing an apron and nonslip shoes and you are wearing giant star earings. There are like, old people scattered throughout the place as well. Their faces makes it pretty clear that your footwear choice of wedges was in fact, not super appropriate. Once you sit down, you realize how fucking thirsty you are. You start taking down glasses of water at an embarrassing speed and feel kind of bad that your waitress has filled your glass three times before you have even ordered.

Oh yeah ordering. You were so busy rehydrating your kidneys that you have no idea what you want when the waitress comes back to the table the third time so you order something stupid and kinda out of your price range. Either that, or your eyes are way bigger than your stomach and before you know it there are 5 plates and three drinks sitting in front of you. Whoever drank the least the night before whips out the classic “so ladies are we drinking” and now, thanks to that bitch, you have a mimosa on your bill too.

You eat a solid two-thirds of your food and suck down all of your drinks. You and your friends do a baseline rehash of the night and realize that you have little left to talk about. Because you like, already talked about it last night. Meanwhile, your hangover is hitting its peak and you would really rather go to the bathroom and pull trig than take another bite of eggs benny but shit! You can’t. Because of the judgy old people. You sit there and dream of when you can go the fuck home and lay down after this.

Oh here comes the best part! The bill! Thirty five fucking dollars you have to be joking. I could buy an eighth for that much. I sure as hell would get more use out of it. And I have to tip this waitress! it’s not like she turned on the ol’ razzle dazzle or anything. She literally just asked what we wanted and brought it to the table. Fuck this shit. “How much are you guys tipping? $5? Cool me too.”

Server Perspective

How the fuck is it already 9 AM. I feel like I slept for five minutes. Probably because I want to sleep at 5 AM. I can’t believe I have to work this fucking shift. I literally texted every single other server before I went out last night asking for a cover and no one responded. I worked thirteen hours yesterday with no break. I’m not even sure this is legal. Do I need this job? One of my friends made a lot of money as like a cam girl. Maybe I could do that. I’ve got pretty nice boobs. Wait no people might look me up and see them when I’m applying to grad school. Okay I’m getting up.

Good thing I’m still wearing my makeup from the night before bc I’m not trying to sit here and beat my face right now. Shit my uniform is literally disgusting from sweating for thirteen hours yesterday. Dryer sheet and a 10 minute run in the dryer and she’ll be good to go. Hair...going in a top knot. Alright lets take some Advil and get this bread.

“You know you’re late, right?” “Yeah I’m really sorry I forgot my apron and had to run home and grab it”. Fuck off idiot. I may be late but at least I graduated high school. Holy shit why has no on done any side work? I’m literally going to be sitting here making coffee, syrups, ketchups, toast, sweet tea, lemons and place settings for the next hour to make all of $2.13.

Oh yes the first customer is here. It’s the boy I made out with at DKE freshman year and his entire extended family. And they’re sitting in my section. Can’t wait for his grandparents and dad to emotionally abuse me while his mom insists on making six to eight substitutions to whatever she orders. The chef is going to literally throw hot grease in my face when I put in this complicated order. If you could even call him a chef. He’s just one of the line cooks that gets screwed into making omelets and microwaving food from the night before every Saturday and Sunday morning, as if it’s some kind of promotion. I need to get these rich people drunk or there is no way they are tipping me shit. Read them the brunch drink specials. Make sure to lock eyes with the women when you are describing our specialty mimosas. Phew they ordered $150 worth of drinks. That’ll be enough money to justify half-assing the rest of this shift until I can go home and smoke a bowl to forget what I just went through. Oh the white girls at table 46 only tipped me $5 a piece? Shocking. Could give a damn.

If you did not relate to this post whatsoever and are still clinging to your fantasies of brunch being “like the best meal ever invented”, you my friend, are too far gone. There is no way a working class girl like me had any chance of getting through to you in the first place. I sincerely apologize for wasting your time. For the rest of you, I hope we all learned something today. And that the next time the topic of brunch comes up in the group-chat, you will make the noble suggestion that we just cook the cinnamon rolls in the fridge.

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qlistening · 8 years

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