Category: Aesthetics

please note: this post is all lowercase because i can’t afford uppercase. priorities, y’all.

this year, i’m turning 30.

i won’t miss much about my 20s. it’s been a minute since i last “partied,” and i can’t say i’m choked up about my inability to process more than one glass of wine. the college-aged crowd is welcome to take my place at the beer pong table while I head to bed at 9:30. peace. out.

i’m pretty sure i’ve actually been 30 for about 15 years, and i’ve spent all this time waiting for my body to catch up. my idea of a fabulous friday night has always been somewhere along the lines of binge-watching grey’s anatomy while eating copious amounts of pretzels dipped in peanut butter.

i hate bars. dating. roommates. house parties. “finding” yourself. basically all things that make your 20s, well, your 20s. but, i am pretty devastated about one tiny detail:

it’s not cool to be poor anymore.

remember when, if you were rich, you were kind of a jerk? like, if you couldn’t complain about your crushing student debt on the daily, you weren’t part of the “it” crowd?

remember when talking about vacations in xyz fancy-ass country was kind of a dick move? like, when going to florida for spring break was a big deal? now people take legit vacations and stay in hotels for chrissakes. (when did we start staying in hotels?!)

people in their 30s own real watches (and they didn’t buy them from target)! people in their 30s order wine at dinner—and not just the cheap house wine either. these folks have fancy gadgets that come in apple’s sleek packaging, loft apartments in parts of new york i’ve never even visited, and their furniture is not exclusively ikea/craigslist. what is my world coming to?!

and, if you’re rolling your eyes, i get it. i wouldn’t use “destitute” to describe my financial situation—even by a 30-year-old’s standards. the word “poor” comes to mind, but that’s not true either. perhaps, “monetarily unstable” is the more suitable term. as a freelance journalist, i make enough (look, y’all, i splurged for italics!), but not nearly as much as i’d like. everyone told us millennials to find our “passion” and, unfortunately, nobody mentioned i should consider take-home salary when i went searching. i blame overly supportive parents. *hi, mom! thanks sooo much for believing in me!

when being poor was cool, i truly rocked it. i remember:

• doing my makeup solely with makeup samples
• ordering the cheapest beer on tap
• living with three roommates and their cats, dogs, ferrets (once)
• smuggling in twizzlers, diet coke and tiny bottles of vodka into movie theaters
• couch surfing
• when my body could handle breakfastlunchdinner ramen without shooting my blood pressure through the roof from excessive sodium
• wearing the same dress to three weddings
• wearing the same shoes until they fell apart
• bottomless brunches at the red derby, and just sitting there for five hours like a jerk
• not tipping nearly enough (i know, i know, i was a booface in my 20s!)
• walking around with a broken android screen because a new one was too expensive and my contract wasn’t up
• living in a walk-in closet
• buying dented cans to get the discount
• sleeping on an air mattress on the floor until the day i moved in with my (older) significant other

with the big 3-0 fast approaching, i’ve decided to woman-up. it’s time to start paying for netflix* instead of mooching off my parents. it’s high time i order that headboard. time to get off the “family” plan on my cell phone. i’m ready to buy a wallet that doesn’t have hello kitty on it. and the second-cheapest beer on tap. and healthy groceries. and a watch.

AND CAPITAL LETTERS, BOOYAAAA! This is 30, folks.

*(Just kidding, Mom, I’m totally gonna mooch off your Netflix forever. Love you.)

Photo Credit: Fabian Blank

*I found this gem on an old computer while I was looking for a different file. I wrote it almost a decade ago during an early-morning creative writing class. (Resemblances to my actual little sister are pretty far off as she’s a gorgeous woman!)

Waking Up Katie

Two red-rimmed eyes peer through the semi-darkness, their blurred pupils suddenly coming to focus on me. Caked in gunk and watering slightly at the edges, these orbs of irritated flesh stare expectantly. A lone finger, its nail bitten to the quick, revealing the raw pink inside, interrupts this questioning gaze and proceeds to methodically explore the grimy crevices, smearing yellow goop across an eyebrow and down a cheek. The remnants of Barbie magenta nail polish dip in and out of the two small pockets and finally come to rest on one of the pale blue irises, causing the globes of color to cross and uncross rapidly.

With her hair sticking up at odd angles and her arms and legs entangled rather dangerously in summer sheets sticky with sweat, she resembles a mad contortionist, a science experiment gone awry. The being in the bed next to mine sniffs twice and, after casting another, pleading glance at me, rolls over in a convulsion of flailing arms and knotted curls. Soon, her breathing slows and she begins to snore, loudly.

My little sister can sneeze up to 25 times in a row. It’s a world record; we’ve checked. She has asthma, severe allergies, scoliosis, weight issues and chronic colds. When you look at her porcelain fair complexion, knobby knees and stooping way of carrying herself, you’d think she was about to drop dead any second. But the child has an impish smile that confirms it—ignorance is bliss. She still hasn’t gotten her head around her own physical limitations enough to recognize them. My mother hopes she never will.

The alarm clock goes off, its scream beginning the day in a manner as tranquil as a punch in the face.

My sister’s posture tenses subtly as she instinctively clutches tighter, her tiny fingers wrapping securely around a post in the headboard. She feigns sleep but sneezes five times and utters a word she probably shouldn’t know under her breath.

My sister is a weakling, but she’s a fighter, and it’s my turn to wake her up.

I’ve always had a teensy bit of penis envy.

It’s not that I don’t value my chromosomes. Estrogen has its perks—amiright, ladies? And who wants to clutch their crotches in fear every time a baseball hurtles by? or deal with embarrassing teenage erections? Ew.

But the lack of certain equipment makes my XX world more challenging.

Stake outs, for one thing. I want the stuff of ’80s cop shows, Lifetime movies and bad paperback mystery novels. I want—more than anything else—to ‘case the joint’ while huddled in a station wagon, it’s brown, stained interior peeling and musty. I want to stay up all night getting buzzed on the marriage of blue Gatorade and Twizzlers. I want to have a puppy-like sidekick who will do most of the work but get little of the glory.

Sadly, it’s not to be. All that liquid blue sugar has to go somewhere, and peeing in a bottle is every woman’s nightmare.

Writing my name in the snow. OK, to be honest, I’ve never actually had the urge to try this, but after further consideration, it seems vital. What if I was stuck on a mountain, at the precipice of death, and my last chance to communicate with the world before succumbing to the elements was snow writing? A dude could urinate something pithy. My last words would be a puddle—how very profound.

Then there’s hiking. If a bear poops in the woods, so can I, and squatting behind a tree is par for the course when you’re an outdoorsy gal. But I’m in the Peruvian Andes, and there aren’t any trees of substantial size. I have to hike far off the path to find a safe hiding spot—nobody wants to see my moon hit the sky. Ew.

Weekend hikes throughout Peru have become female map-making expeditions. For my testosterone-filled Significant Other, gorgeous outcroppings of rock are just landforms. For me, they’re the perfect bathroom. For him, the uncharacteristically fat eucalyptus we just passed is a curious anomaly. For me, it’s an emergency latrine.

And despite my constant vigilance, I usually don’t get lucky. Most of the time, when nature calls, Mother Nature doesn’t provide (for shame, woman!), and I end up playing Twister with a bunch of prickly bushes.

Women need backgrounds in espionage and circus acrobatics just to relieve themselves.

For several years, I’d heard of companies like SheWee, pStyle and Go Girl, which attempt to solve this problem for the female adventurer. #innovation But using appliances that are little more than glorified funnels painted feminine hues seems, I don’t know, icky.

It wasn’t until last month that I decided to man up and try them out. Peeing standing up can’t be more difficult than the alternative. Because even if I find a hidden place to pee; even if I manage to avoid the jagged rocks, curious bugs and unfortunately placed cacti, I still—invariably—run the risk of peeing on my shoes. Ew.

So I ordered a couple products and read the instruction manuals front to back. I’m only two steps in, and I figure I’m already way ahead of any dude. Now, I just have to find a suitable place to give it a go.

Anybody up for a stakeout?

UPDATE: After trying out a few models and doing LOTS of Internet research, Freshette is the best. Check it out.