On "Cat Person," As A Real-Life 20-Year-Old Girl

Disclaimer: this post will discuss heterosexual romantic relationships between young cis women and older cis men, because a) that's the relationship described in the story, and b) those are the only relationships I have personal experience with. If you are trans or identify outside the binary, or your sexual orientation is not heterosexual, and you have thoughts about how other genders and sexualities interact on age differences, please reach out to me and tell me your stories. I'm always trying to learn more!

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person

^ Please go read it if you haven't.

The Internet was taken by storm this past weekend by "Cat Person," a short story by Kristen Roupenian that was published in The New Yorker. Because I am liberal scum, I am a paid subscriber to the publication, but I didn't know about the story until Sunday evening, when Kumail Nanjiani tweeted about it and I had to have a look for myself.

I was absolutely mesmerized. I am a reader, but I'm much more partial to physical books than digital ones. I can sit for hours with a paper book and be totally immersed (provided, you know, that the writing is good). But even a brilliant piece read from a screen can lose my attention, regardless of length, purely because of how easily distracted I am by my glowing box of diversions--other articles or stories, YouTube videos, Spotify, or the four to five Word documents I've got open at any given time, full of my own fledging novels or poems. With "Cat Person," I started reading and didn't stop until I was finished. I will admit that I took brief pauses after certain moments, moments that articulated thoughts I've had so vividly I had to take a break just to let them sink in. It was dizzying.

Despite the visceral discomfort we all feel when reading this story, nothing criminal happens. That's what's so crazy about it. It's just...gross. It's a little bit off. It's the uncanny valley of a sexual encounter. She's 20, he's 34--legal but creepy. She consents because she doesn't want to summon what she believes is the requisite amount of politeness and tact to say no--legal but upsetting. Their sex is at once almost an empowering one-night stand but also almost a case of sexual assault. It walks the line so finely and so articulately, most female readers can immediately drum up an occasion of their own that eerily reflects this one, whether they want to or not.

Being 20 is by far the most confusing age I've experienced yet. Really, I'd say from 18-25 or so, being a woman is complex in a way that being a girl never was. When you're under 18, you are a minor, protected by the law (ostensibly) and only engaging in romantic and sexual relationships with people who are also minors (except under awful circumstances). While the question of assault still looms large, and far too many young girls are plagued by predatory behavior that permanently traumatizes them, society has purportedly made strict rules about who young people are meant to date--each other. Over the age of 25 (this is just me projecting, as I haven't gotten there yet), many women have started living on their own, supporting themselves financially in some capacity, and thinking about marriage and kids as a possibility, even if it's not an immediate one.

It's that hazy area in between, where, in the words of professional adult adolescent Britney Spears, "I'm not a girl, / Not yet a woman." If we're still in school, we're college or grad students; otherwise, we've just recently entered the workforce. Many of us have never been in real relationships (cue Adele singing Hello, it's me). For those of us under 21, we can't even go into bars. And yet! There are men in their 30s, 40s, 50s (need I go on?) who are pursuing us romantically. I made the rookie mistake of setting up an OkCupid profile during my freshman year of college, mainly just to see if it was any better than the tragic hookup wasteland of Tinder, and I was propositioned by multiple men over the age of 30. One 58-year-old man messaged me asking me out, making him older than both of my parents. I shut down the profile pretty quickly after that.

Most girls are told from a young age that we mature faster than boys. Science backs it up (I think, but you can Google it). Therefore, at 20, when we are, by the legal definition, ready to date fully grown men, there's some appeal. Theoretically, the maturity gap is rendered moot by the age difference. These guys--these men--have money, jobs, stability. They don't share a house with seven roommates. They don't wear flip flops to dinner. They don't hook up with your friends, because they don't know your friends, because they're 30. I've never been on a date with a 30-year-old (and I hope I won't for at least a few more years), but this is the kind of bare minimum paradise I imagine awaits me on the other side of 25.

Despite all these clear perks, there are drawbacks. A 30-year-old man is gonna know exactly what he wants from a relationship, physically and emotionally, whereas a 20-year-old girl has no idea. Sex and love mean very different things to those two people. And the power is going to lie with the man, 99% of the time. His gender and his age position him above that woman, no matter how smart or sexually experienced or physically strong she may be. Of COURSE there are exceptions. But the danger comes when we as young women assume we are the exception, when of course, categorically speaking, we almost certainly are not.

I have friends who have gone out with older men. In most cases, they were not scarred for life, physically or psychologically. They just didn't work out, because one or both parties realized that they were just too far apart in experience to have a lasting relationship. I have wound up in conversations with men at social events where neither of us realized the age gap. Twice I found myself flirting/chatting with men in their late 20s as an 18 and 19-year-old, respectively, and both times when they found out my age, they politely ducked out of the conversation. I was hurt--I'm legal (sort of), what's the problem--but in hindsight, these were just good dudes. They weren't trying to tangle themselves up in the type of gray-area sexual encounter described in "Cat Person," and they definitely weren't looking for a relationship with a girl who still had the word "teen" in her age. My total lack of life experience was prohibitive. I am so glad that these men found my age disqualifying instead of titillating.

There's one other fascinating aspect of "Cat Person" that has been touched on decidedly less than I'd like in the thinkpieces I've read so far. I'm talking about Margot's perception of herself. While she and Robert have sex, she becomes most aroused when thinking of herself through his eyes, as a young, thin, beautiful girl that he was grateful to have in his bed. It's the kind of thinking that has attacked my psyche in the past. In practice, I am horrified every time an older man makes a pass at me in public or yells something lewd at me from a car. I feel violated and scared. But in theory, when I think about what I represent to them, this beautiful object that they will never have...I feel...powerful? As insane as that sounds? While I've established that older men will always have greater agency in sexual encounters with younger women, there is a weird sort of synthetic power that comes with being a young woman in a society that teaches women their greatest assets are their beauty and their youth. I have struggled with self-esteem about my looks my entire life, but even at my lowest moments, I am still a 20-year-old girl, and that alone makes me appealing to a disturbing subset of older men. Some dark corner of my mind derives pleasure from that. It's a thing that I've never admitted and that I've never heard any of my female friends admit. But seeing it in "Cat Person" has me wondering if anyone else in my demographic experiences the same thing. If so, what does it mean? What do we do with it? Do we try to rewire our thinking to avoid these infrequent but very real thought patterns? Or do we accept that we are not saints, that our more insidious feelings are just a part of being human?

I don't have answers to these questions, and I don't have a surefire way to avoid unsatisfying or unsettling sexual experiences in the future (if you do, WTF and also who are you?!). What I do know is that "Cat Person" represents the type of fiction I'm always dying to read. It exposes us, it challenges us, it forces us to confront what we think we know about people, forces us to admit that we might be wrong, not just about others, but about ourselves.

I Am Scared And Nauseous: An Incomplete List

1. literally everything about the president, everything he says and does and stands for. but he's gonna reappear on this list many times more specifically

2. the fires currently eating my hometown/current place of residence

3. maybe we're on the brink of nuclear war with North Korea?!

4. hurricane-damaged areas of the US still reeling

5. Nazis are back?!

6. pretty stoked about all the powerful predatory men being taken down by brave survivors but also I'm genuinely terrified about the possibility of backlash because as far as I can tell when men are publicly humiliated they tend not to take it well

7. we've had about eighty gazillion mass shootings this year and no one will do anything about gun control

8a. the tax bill that just passed raises taxes on literally everyone except for people with private jets. like even regular rich people are paying more taxes you have to literally be a sultan who drives a car made of gold to benefit from this tax bill

8b. they snuck in a bunch of CRAZY CRAP like anti-abortion stuff and other seriously problematic cuts to healthcare

9. A KNOWN PEDOPHILE/SEXUAL ASSAILANT MAY BECOME AN ACTUAL SENATOR IN AN ACTUAL US STATE

10. I have a lot of finals tomorrow

11. boys????? still sending me mixed signals???? in this economy???

12. oH RIGHT NET NEUTRALITY. WE MIGHT LOSE THAT

13. there's a real chance that the president and/or his closest associates colluded with a hostile foreign power to sway the 2016 election, taking it from a competent/experienced politician who literally would have sawed off her limbs for the job and giving it to a bigoted hot-tempered manchild who among other things has: mocked a disabled reporter, not known what clean coal is, said all mexicans are murderers and rapists, said the central park 5 were guilty even though they were exonerated by DNA evidence

14. I have submitted about eight hundred million poems to lit mags and most of them are taking forever to answer but of the ones who have responded I have gotten one acceptance and six rejections

15. sometimes the frat/srat people in my buildings have very loud parties a) on week nights thus disrupting my sleep/study schedule b) and then they don't even invite me ok thanks for the flashbacks to high school

16. I only have like a year and a half until I graduate college with a degree in popular music (what was I thinking) and like I'm probably gonna go to graduate school but the program I'm looking at is only a year and a half and then what???? I am not a pop star yet!!! I am not even pop star adjacent!!!! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO

17. MUSLIM BAN??? yeah that got passed. bet you didn't even notice. but they added north korea (duh) and venezuela (?!?!?) to the list so now the supreme court is like "oh I guess it's not racist/xenophobic/Islamophobic anymore so it's fine!!!!!!"

18. THE LIFE EXPECTANCY OF A BLACK TRANS WOMAN IS 35 YEARS OLD HOW INSANE IS THAT. how are people literally murdered just for existing. black trans women have spearheaded so many of the most important milestones in LGBTQ+ history. and no one is doing anything about this

if you have anything else you'd like to vent about please leave a comment I'm gonna go KEEP STUDYING FOR FINALS WHILE LYING IN THE FETAL POSITION ON THE FLOOR

Coming of Age on the Internet (or; I Miss Adolescence?)

My sophomore year of high school was rough.

Without getting too too personal, it was a difficult transition. I was halfway done with my 7-12 prep school which necessitated a change in campus. I went from being a top dog ninth grader who had a handle on social and academic pressures to being a bottom-of-the-food-chain tenth grader who was struggling in pretty much every subject and felt utterly lost in the social landscape of high school. I have never (read: NEVER) been popular, but freshman year I at least felt like I had a foothold. Tenth grade it was like all the process I'd made completely evaporated. Plus, my older brother went off to college, and it was the first time in my life that my family situation had experienced any upheaval since my little brother's birth ten years prior. I was shaken.

The summer before that school year, a few of my friends stumbled on YouTube vloggers, specifically attractive, college-aged, British boys. I knew what YouTube was back then, but it never really registered with me outside of watching covers of my favorite songs. During the summer of 2012, I not only found Vlogbrothers (John and Hank Green's YouTube channel), but also Jack and Finn Harries, Dan Howell, Marcus Butler, and a whole slew of others. Most of them hailed from the UK, though there were a few from Australia, I think, and South Africa. They were three to five years older than us but barely looked it. They had endearing accents. They made silly skits and answered viewer questions and doled out vague platitudes on Twitter about how all their viewers were beautiful and special, even though we were fifteen and utterly unremarkable and there were millions of us.

The infatuation with these boys lasted all through my sophomore year. I rejoined Tumblr with renewed vigor, I watched their videos every time a new one was uploaded, I posted pictures and GIFs of them on Twitter and on my friends' Facebook walls. We play-fought over who would get to marry who, over which of them we were most like, over which (identical) Harries twin was hotter (you'd think it was Jack but then you'd mature and realize it was Finn. It was the hair. Don't ask). In hindsight, part of my social alienation could probably be attributed to this obsession. The "cool" girls had real boyfriends and real social lives. I had YouTube. I had Tumblr. I had imaginary relationships with boys an ocean away. We could never fight. We could never break up.

When junior year rolled around, I regained some footing (and some sanity). I made new friends, I joined more activities, I got refocused on schoolwork because My God It Got Real. Sure, my YouTube boyfriends could never break up with me, but I definitely dumped them. I stayed subscribed out of laziness, but I watched their videos less and less, until all at once, I wasn't watching them at all. I unfollowed them on Tumblr and Twitter to improve my ratios. I fell out of the loop on their lives.

I grew up.

Recently I've been having a bit of a nostalgia renaissance (what a phrase). I've been looking at old Facebook posts and old tweets, cringing at my past self and the things I thought would make me seem funny and cool on the Internet. In that vein, I decided to rewatch some of the videos that brought me so much comfort in my younger and more vulnerable years. The main thing I noticed is how young these boys look! At 20, I'm now the same age as they were when I watched them, if not a bit older. I found a Jacksgap video from 2011, which would make the twins 18, and they look like absolute babies, younger than the boys at my university. It's hilarious to me that when I was 15, they seemed like mysterious older men. They were kids. They were trying to find themselves or get attention or some combination of the two. They didn't know any more about the world than I did. The other thing that strikes me is how the videos were kind of...stupid? I thought they were so quirky and witty at the time, but now it all seems so trite and embarrassing. I always assumed that their target audience would have been people their own age, but now it's clear that their demographic was always just a bit behind them. The socially awkward 19-year-old boy seems "adorkable" to the 14-year-old girl who doesn't know any better. Ah, how I was misled.

And yet.

I miss being misled. I miss being a lost 15-year-old. Being a lost 20-year-old is harder. The stakes are higher. Sure, I still live in my hometown of Los Angeles and my parents are always just a phone call or excruciating freeway ride away, but a lot of my consolation has to come from within. The questions I'm dealing with aren't about where I'll go to college or if I'll ever get asked to a dance or how to find the area under a parabola (I've already forgotten all the math I know). I'm figuring out how to get people to pay for and pay attention to the words and music I write, how to forge healthy romantic relationships, whether or not I'm brave enough to live my dream of traveling the world in my 20s, what my role is in the confusing, chaotic terror of the American political landscape. I'm defining womanhood and blackness for myself. And if I achieve the visibility I'm hoping for, I'll be the role model to the teenage girls just a few steps behind me, trying to get a glimpse of What Could Be.

Coming of age on the Internet is a crazy thing. We're the first generation to do it. Our adulthood will be defined by what online fads and jokes we were a part of and which ones we elected to skip. The idols of our generation aren't just musicians and actors, they're the YouTube and Twitter famous. We are the most depressed, anxious, dryly funny, politically engaged, socially conscious generation in human history. We are unprecedented. Which, of course, makes the future sort of terrifying. Yes, at times I wish I could go back to 2012, to unironically (then ironically) saying #YOLO, listening to the hip new pop song "Call Me Maybe," to when the worst thing that a presidential candidate said during a debate was that he had binders full of women. But it's 2017, kids, almost 2018. The Internet babies are voting and buying liquor and going to war. We're graduating and falling in love (for real) and running for office.

There's so much ahead of us. It'd be a shame if we spent so much time looking back that we missed it.

I Am Not Special & Neither Are They

The first time I ever got catcalled I was 15. It was outside a concert, by a man at least twice my age. I don't remember what he said, just the ice cold fear that swam over my body when I realized how he was looking at me. When I was in eighth grade, I read Tina Fey's memoir Bossypants. In it, she dedicates a chapter to how when women are asked when they first felt like grown women, they hearken back to their first incident of public sexual harassment. That night in February 2013, despite the fear that overcame me, for the first time in my life, I felt like a woman. Not like an adult with any autonomy or agency, but like a woman, with a woman's body, a woman's body that men would claim and comment on from that day forward.

These days, I get catcalled at least once or twice a week. Sometimes, it's benign ("hey, beautiful, give me a smile"), sometimes, it's invasive ("nice ass"), sometimes it's direct ("give me a blowjob" - once that was actually screamed at me from a car), sometimes it's just bizarre ("Girl, I wanna take you to South Florida" - yeah, that one actually happened too).

When the harassment started, I was two weeks shy of eighteen, and no boy had ever even looked at me. I was so anxious around them, so inexperienced, so insecure. I was a kid. A prime target.

He lived on my floor. I thought he was the cutest boy in the hall, but I was surrounded by cute boys in the music school, so I rarely thought of him. I heard he hooked up with another girl on our floor. He didn't seem like an option.

The first weekend of the year, two weeks after we moved in, he got stoned out of his mind at a party a bunch of us went to. On the encouragement of a fellow partygoer, he began to aggressively hit on me. We were standing in a circle of all our floor-mates, plus a few strangers, and all I could do was giggle nervously as he leaned into me, as he made comments about my body, the body I still didn't feel like I owned. I had never felt so...physical. So defined by the body that carried the code-red thoughts I was having. After a few minutes of discomfort, I literally ran away. I recognized the symptoms of the panic attacks I started having the previous year--my throat closing, the sound of my heartbeat in my ears like a kick drum, the cold sweats. After hiding on the other side of the backyard for a while, I ran into some of my other friends and slowly reintegrated into the landscape of the party.

The next night, the boy came into my dorm room with a bunch of other people (we were kind of the social room, much to my chagrin). He stayed after everybody else left so he could apologize to me.
"I didn't want to make you uncomfortable," he said.
"I was just really, really high," he said.
"But I do think you're beautiful," he said.
I choked out giggly replies, anything to get him to leave. I remember thanking him. I remember smiling because finally, at long last, a cute boy thought I was beautiful.

It wasn't over. For the next three weeks, he came into my dorm room almost every day with a flimsy excuse. He sat next to me in dining halls. He liked all my Instagram posts, including the hundreds of photos I'd posted before we'd ever met. I remember watching in amazement as my notifications updated, surprised at his boldness. He would untie and retie my shoes, tug at my clothes, play with my hair. I never asked him to stop, just froze and waited for the touch to be over. Sometimes, I think (I hope), I ducked from his hands, only for them to find their way back to me. More than once, he would make me eat or drink whatever he was eating or drinking. I would say no, and he would beg, and beg, and beg, to the point of making the other people at the table uncomfortable, and I would just giggle like an idiot and submit, eating or drinking whatever it was. During one of his many visits to my dorm, he put food directly into my mouth while I was still asking him to stop.

The symbolism was not lost on me. Every weekend, he asked me to go to parties at his frat house, and I would decline. If he didn't listen when I turned down his offer of potato chips, what would happen when something else was on the line?

So how did it ultimately stop? I tried everything. He was the king of doublespeak. He would tell me and my roommates that he "really liked me" and "just wanted to get to know me better." But he would tell his roommates and the other guys on our floor that he was just after me because I was "playing hard to get." A couple times, his roommates told him to back off, and he would reply, "no, trust me, she wants it." I cringe as I write those words.

The only thing that got him to let it go was when he stumbled on some of my tweets. I had written a thread about him, without naming him publicly:

I don't know what came over me, this digital boldness that I so clearly lacked in real life. But while we were eating in the dining hall one evening, he located the tweets and read them out loud. I tried to laugh them off as a "general feminist rant," but I could see his face fall. He knew they were about him.

And all at once, the advances stopped.

My roommates were relieved, partly for my benefit, mostly because they were probably just tired of hearing me talk about it all the time. The girls on my floor gave me daps for my #feminism. The guys on my floor told me to apologize. (??!?!) Yes, they said that our friendly antagonist was upset because "I'd hurt his feelings" and that I should say I was sorry. I recognized even then that apologizing would be absolutely insane, so I didn't. And I don't think we ever spoke again.

Last year I invited a boy up to my apartment. We'd talked all night at a party, a Halloween party where I'd spent most of the night with my shirt half-unbuttoned. I thought maybe he just wanted to keep talking. He didn't.

"Is this gonna happen, or...?" he asked.

"Um," was all I could say.

"I mean...it's 3 a.m.," he said. "And you're wearing...that."

I blamed myself. You did a shot, he could see your bra, you touched his arm like a video vixen, you invited him up to your apartment, what did you think was gonna happen? The panic rose again, the cold sweat, the heartbeat rhythm section, the tightening spiral of my throat.

"We could go to the bed," he said (ew). "Or...I could leave."

"You should leave," I said.

And he did.

He told me he'd text me.

He didn't.

I tell these long-winded stories to express solidarity with all the women harassed and assaulted by Harvey Weinstein and other serial predators like him. But maybe even more importantly, I want to reach out to girls harassed and assaulted by trusted authority figures, by friends, by family. The guys in these story are not special or unique. They are devastatingly average college guys who did a devastatingly average thing. People, but men especially, are so quick to say that rapists and other sexual predators are shocking or rare. But they're just not. I am lucky that nothing serious happened to me. These guys thought I was too much work and gave up. Had they been more determined, our stories might have had different endings.

If you have ever been harassed or assaulted, you are not alone. We believe you. No matter where your story falls on the spectrum, it's not your fault, and it's not okay. I didn't owe that guy an apology. If you spoke out or fought back, you don't owe them an apology either.

If we allow harassment--if we condone the behavior of people who don't listen when we say no--we allow assault. Rape culture is built on the backs of the stories that don't merit expulsion from the Academy, the slippery slope of "it was just a joke" and "why are you being so sensitive" and "it could have been worse." That's why I'm writing this. Because I didn't get assaulted. Because I have stared the monster in the face. Because I felt its breath on my face. Because I didn't know what it looked like, walked by it on the street, said thank you when it flashed its teeth, let it get close, struggled to get away even when I didn't.

You are not alone. It's not okay. It's not your fault. We believe you.

#MeToo

What I Learned in Boating School Is

(Just kidding. I go to music school, ya loons! But if you know what I'm referencing, please find me at Thornton for a high-five and maybe some loose candy in my backpack if I'm feeling generous.)

So. Another year under my belt. It feels insane that this is true, that I'm halfway done with college, that two of my four years in the popular music program are over and done with.

This year punched me in the stomach. It knocked the wind all the way out of me -- I got my heart broken, I doubted my ability, I doubted my love of the art, I fell back in love with music, I fell in love with some more people (who also broke my heart), I strengthened my friendships into the most meaningful connections I've ever made, I wept with my friends on election night, I closed the fall semester out with a song by The Who and finished the year with a Katy Perry tune, I started my own funny little record label, I met John Mayer, I ushered a new generation of pop kids into the madness of our program, I did it, I did it, I did it.

And so did you. Whether you just finished your last year in pop or your first, whether you're majoring in something else entirely, whether you don't go to USC or you don't go to college, you did it. Regardless of the things that have happened to you before this moment, they delivered you here, and you did it, and I'm proud of you, and you don't hear that enough. But especially you, the pop kids of the Class of 2020, I'm so proud. You took my advice and you passed the trials of this year with flying colors. You opened your hearts to each other. You opened your hearts to me. At a party towards the end of the semester, I remarked to one of my closest freshman pals that I'm glad he is my friend, and he thanked me for making his year so special. It warmed my heart in the best way. I always wondered if I was welcome in their circles or just this weird old crony looming above them and spouting Pearls of Wisdom. Turns out they like having me around.

So it goes.

To the popular music Class of 2021: get $@&$#! ready. But fret not: I love to give advice. ;)

When I wrote my open letter to the Class of 2020, I didn't know anyone was going to read it. But they did, and it gave me a platform to speak to a lot more people about what it means to be a popular music major at USC's Thornton School of Music. It's crazy and it's heartbreaking and it's the worst thing I've ever done and it's the best thing I've ever done and when I told my songwriting and performance professor that I cry three times a day I wasn't kidding because I just. Feel. So. Much.

You don't have to cry thrice daily in order to get something out of this program. But you have to keep your head up and your eyes open. You have to let the tears fall when they come. You have to let people in and you have to be willing to learn.

In keeping with the first post I wrote, here are things I learned after completing my second year in the program.

1. This is a logistical thing more than anything, but you guys know the women's bathroom in The Music Complex? As of this writing, the only stall other than the handicapped ones that is guaranteed to lock is the fourth stall from the door. Surviving sophomore year means paying attention to the little things.

2. Make friends with kids who can write horn charts. You're better off shelling out for a "thank you" cup of coffee than muddling your way through a chart you have no business writing. Ask your classmates. Heck, ask the older kids, there are more of us that know what we're doing (though, regretfully, I am not one of them). You're here to learn, and you should take full advantage, but you should recognize when you're out of your depth and need to ask for help.

3. You can play that second keyboard part, I promise.

4. Pop theory is easier than classical theory, but you still have to do the work. Capital wins the title of "professor who most wants you to pass his class," but you still have to show up, and you still have to do what he asks of you. Here's the deal, though: all the things that didn't make sense to you this year will suddenly click. I have no idea why or how. It just happens.

5. You have to try a lot harder in performance class this year. Look, I trust you. I believe in you. But with few exceptions, you probably didn't push yourself to your absolute limit this year. You might THINK you did, but you didn't. You didn't practice every day. You didn't listen to the songs on the treadmill, in the shower, on your walk to every class, for hours before you went to sleep. You didn't ask your individual instructor for help every week on your part. You did the work well. Sophomore year, you have to be better. Ya just gotta. This isn't going to make sense until it does.

6. Sometimes the only way to save your voice is to not use it for a while. Read into this as you will, but on a literal level (at least for singers), take a few days of vocal rest scattered throughout the year. Also, drink water, get 8 hours of sleep on nights when you don't have to stay up, warm (but not hot!) tea is your friend. Thank me later.

7. If you want to gig, expect to play for single-digit audiences. I have a blog post about this from a few months back, but I reiterate: this is the time to gig, and you will have to play for literally two people. It's okay and it's still fun and if you like performing, this is the only way. You will get performance opportunities for crowds of hundreds or even thousands, but if you're playing Genghis Cohen on a Thursday in the midst of pop rehearsing szn, don't count on more than a handful of extra-supportive friends in the audience.

8. Only go to parties where you personally know the host and the house. Okay, this is not a catch-all rule--if you're an extroverted person who loves going out, it doesn't really matter who's hosting it or where the party is. But if you lean towards the introverted side, or find yourself wondering what the point in all this Turning Up really is, then follow this rule. I go to my friend's apartments and kickbacks (or even, dare I say it, ragers) at Su Casa because it's fun to party at a place when you know where the bathrooms are. Literally and figuratively.

9. You might--read, will--have to miss Fun College Times for your career. This year, I started writing pop music professionally, and because the god of scheduling does not have time for my requests, my sessions have almost ~all~ been on Friday nights. Because of this, I have missed many a party, a hang, a jaunt to the roller disco. Most of those Fridays, I really didn't care, because I love being in the studio. A couple of times, I got out early enough to catch the second half or tail end of whatever activity was going on. But a couple times, I was seriously bummed that I was missing out on Typical Teen Experiences to advance my professional well-being. My advice to you is: go to the session. Play the gig. There will be more parties, more opportunities to talk to cuties of the preferred sex(es), and more late-night runs to McDonald's. I promise.

10. Shame is a social construct and you should not be ashamed of yourself. If you're not hurting anyone, you shouldn't feel ashamed of yourself. Whether it's what you eat, what career opportunities you're taking or not, or who you love, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Eat cake with your friends on the lawn in the back of the cinema school. Don't say "yes" to that house party show you know will be a disaster. Tell your crush how you feel regardless of how horribly it might go. As a person who struggles with anxiety, this mantra helps me a lot--shame is not mandatory.

11. You should have a meeting with Sean Holt. Maybe you're taking lessons with him, maybe you're in songwriting with him, maybe you only have him for performance, but--you should really sit down with him and have a meeting about your life/career. He knows what the $*@&#! he's talking about, and he cares about you already, even if you've never spoken to him. This goes for people outside this niche little program, too: talk to the Sean Holt in your life. And hell, talk to the Patrice Rushen, too.

12. Sometimes you won't be able to hear your part until you listen through different speakers. Take from that what you will.

13. Don't say "yes" to everything. This might run counter to the advice that some of our professors give--sorry!--but as a person who is both highly ambitious and highly anxious, I have a tendency to agree to things before I think about whether or not I actually want to do them. We're told we have to hustle, to grind, and it seems like the only way we're gonna make it in this industry is to say "yes" to every single offer we get. You might be the kind of person who can do this, but I am of the camp that you should wait an hour before responding so you can think about it. Do you want to sing background vocals for your friend on the night you were supposed to catch up on all your other work? Do you want to drive for three hours to a session so you can play a guitar solo that might not get used? Do you want to put together a band and find rehearsal times for a last minute gig at Parkside? There are no right answers to those questions, because it really depends on your personality. But for me, there are definitely times when the right answer to a job offer, however cool it may sound, might still be "no."

14. I think I gave some variation on this advice last year, but: go to sleep. I have a lengthy blog post about staying up late and what it means symbolically, but really what I mean to say is: skip the party. Leave the party early. Leave the party and keep hanging out with your friends but go to sleep before 2am. I know what you're doing. You're chasing some ideal night you had long ago that probably wasn't even as good as you remember it. Let go of the idyll. Get some rest, champ.

15. Keep a journal. If you know me in person, I've probably already given you this advice, but: PLEASE start keeping a journal. In 5, 10, 20, 50 years, you are going to want to look back at this time when you were young and beautiful and living the #college #life. But really, keeping a journal is an asset for so many reasons. Read entries from the previous months, weeks, and even days to find patterns you need help breaking. Cull unusual soundbites and concepts to write music, poetry, fiction. Transcribe stimulating conversations. Scribble over a whole page in dark ink until it bleeds through when you're pissed. Draw a big ol' pink heart with your crush's name in the middle. Worry and pour out all your circular thinking when you're having a panic attack (this works so well, trust me). I'm about to fill up my third journal, and my only regret is not starting sooner.

16. What you're feeling might not be love. Listen, I'm first in line to call every single infatuation "love at first sight." I write songs about people I see for three seconds in elevators. I have cried over boys I pass at crowded parties. I tell my friends excitedly that this new, sparkly person might be "the one." But so far, I've (almost) always been wrong. The elevator doors open, and they get off on their floor. The boy I was too scared to talk to leaves the party before I do. "The one" kisses somebody else. You, too, will get off the elevator, and leave the party early, and kiss somebody else. I can promise you that.

17. You have to forgive. You're going to make so many mistakes this year, over these next few years, throughout your godforsaken 20s. And your friends are going to make mistakes, too. Please don't hold a grudge. Please don't miss out on what could be a lifelong friendship because of a misstep, a single breach of trust, one drunk night. Protect your heart. Redefine the relationship. But don't cut people out of your life too quickly. Forgive other people. Maybe, when you screw up--and I promise that you will--they'll forgive you, too.

18. You can do this. No, really, you can. Sophomore year is hard. They don't call it the slump for nothing. If you had a great freshman year, this might be the time when things you thought you knew are called into question. If you had a bad freshman year, this is your next big shot to change the narrative, to make good on the as-of-yet-unfulfilled promise of college. But you have to keep reminding yourself that you're here for a reason. Your admission was not a fluke; you were chosen. You are not getting worse; you're just realizing that you were never the best to begin with (also, you're getting better, I promise). Hold onto your friends, your significant other, your family, however geographically distant they may be. Hold onto your mentors and your professors and your RA, for God's sake, if you've got one. You are gonna make it. This is your moment.

That's all I've got for you this time around. I learned a lot my first year, but I learned way more my second year. I can't wait for a long and restful summer, because after that, I'm a junior in pop...and I've heard season 3 is where things really heat up. ;)

Time and Starting Fresh

I'm not gonna lie to you, I had a weird night last night.

Honestly, it was a weird day that dovetailed into a weird evening that didn't end until 4 in the morning. Ted Mosby's mom was right: nothing good happens after 2 a.m. (although shoutout Mackin Carroll for always bringing his conversational A-game no matter the hour. And his Crazy 8s A-game. We will finish sometime, and I will trounce you.)

Whenever I go to a party, I have a small existential crisis. If you see me looking up to the sky, I assure you that nothing interesting is happening up there, I'm just looking for stars. I started doing this at the beginning of freshman year, when I was so consumed with social anxiety that I needed something to ground me. I chose constellations, however few and far between they may be in smoggy LA skies. If I can find just one star to look at, somehow my brain is satisfied and convinced that Everything Will Be Okay.

These existential crises progress into stranger and deeper spirals the later I stay up. By 4am, the last hour where people could conceivably still be awake without intersecting with those damn early birds who are starting their days, I am Full Philosophical Jensen. Even though I am her, I do not like being around her. She is so pretentious and she talks so much and she writes poems that do not make a lot of sense in the morning.

When I first woke up today, I felt embarrassed. I didn't get drunk or make any materially bad choices, but I had let my night be guided by unrealistic expectations. I thought if I just stayed up late enough, if I just saw the night's events through to their logical ends, then I would receive a reward from the universe. All my insecurities would disappear, all my anxieties would be soothed, all my behavior justified. But the truth is that we mythologize the lateness of the hour because we think time can absolve us of our weaker selves. "It was late" is almost as good an excuse as "I was drunk." Time is relative. At 4am in Los Angeles, it was noon in London, and I had the audacity to believe that I was special. I talked about that at length last night, as I so often do, asking my friends if everyone thinks they're special. Mackin quoted Fleet Foxes lyrics.

So it goes.

I guess I am writing this to tell you that it is not too late to give yourself a fresh start. You can make choices based not only on what feels good, but also on what feels right. You can be radically honest with yourself and the people around you and you don't need a broken clock to do it. You can choose to fix what you did last night, or forget it, or follow it home. You can wash your face and take some Emergen-C and drink a warm mug of tea. I know it's the end of the semester and the end of the month and, unless you are a baby or very old, some strange middle point in the long and confusing continuum of your life, but listen:

You get to pick when your fresh starts happen. And a Sunday in late April seems as good a time as any.

FOOTBALL IS A METAPHOR (Or Is It?)

Hi there. I don't normally do posts like this. This blog has sort of devolved into me posting whenever I feel like it with whatever's on my mind, with a few posts about the pop program thrown in for good measure, but I thought I would whip this one up real quick, post Super Bowl.

I'm already seeing a lot of people online talking about how this game felt like a metaphor for the 2016 election. The diverse metropolis in the South that's being lovingly sent up by Donald Glover in a hit show about music and race and humanity is battling it out against a controversial but widely loved team from the cold, white North. I don't know a lot about football, but I've heard the word "deflategate" a lot, and I know that the Pats have won a lot of Bowls. Also, Gaga is a metaphor for Bernie. Somehow. I think.

I have never once in my life cared about football. But as I watched the game wind to a close with Atlanta in the lead, I got excited. It felt like if the Falcons won, then maybe there was hope for this fractured, deeply wounded nation in 2017. And then somehow it got tied up. And then somehow the Patriots won. And it was over, and I don't know any of the players' names besides Tom Brady, and life continues as normal, I guess.

It's not a perfect metaphor. The Patriots are a talented team, a proven winner with the experience and the skill to take the ring. I don't actually know anything about the Falcons. But I couldn't help but feel like overtime was the brief, final window of hope. The minutes before they called Pennsylvania and I went home from my friends' would-be celebration party, crying in my Uber.

In the wake of this particularly nail-biting Super Bowl and an even more nail-biting presidency, I'd like to give everyone some Sunday night, crunch time motivation to get through this week, and the next one, and the next one.

1. Work out. I hate me, too. But I started working out on New Year's Day, at least 5 days a week every week, and it has helped me a lot. Exercise is by no means a cure for your afflictions, but it is an effective treatment that can lessen whatever symptoms ail you. Would recommend giving it a go, even if it's just walking around your neighborhood (or on a treadmill) for 20 minutes a day.

2. Sit by a window if you can't go inside. I know in most of the country, the weather is too abysmal to contemplate going outside more than is necessary. Even LA is going to be hit by some more rain this week. So, if going outside and soaking up the fresh air and sunlight isn't an option, sit by windows. It sounds crazy, but while you're going about your daily tasks, if you can move closer to a window and stare out at nature, it might just lift your spirits a bit. Especially if it's raining or snowing--ya can't beat the view of Mother Nature giving it all she's got while you're inside, hopefully a bit warmer and drier.

3. Stop procrastinating that thing you've been procrastinating. If possible, do it right now. If it's not possible, do it first thing tomorrow. Seriously. Just do the thing. Do it fast and then if you didn't do a good job, set it down and go back and fix it later. Just make a really strong first attempt so you can feel less like a human pile of garbage.

4. Go to bed before midnight tonight. Regardless of when you need to be up tomorrow, try to get in bed by 11 or 11:30pm at the latest. Burning the midnight oil isn't always the most effective strategy, especially if you've made a habit of it recently.

5. Drink some tea. Your favorite kind. Maybe add a little lemon and/or honey if you're feeling particularly adventurous. Hell, it's still the weekend, have a cookie with your warm drink! NOW you're getting it!

6. Write in a journal. Even if you're not a big diarist, find a notebook, journal, or even some blank copy paper and write down your thoughts. Write for 20-30 minutes about whatever comes to mind. If possible, work through some of the personal and/or professional problems that have been nagging at you for a while. Don't worry about grammar or spelling or cohesion of thought, just write stream-of-consciousness about what's bothering you. If, afterward, you'd like to throw it out or set it on fire, go for it (but be safe!). Or, better yet, pick it up as a hobby that you return to every week, or even every day.

7. Watch one (1) funny YouTube video. Don't fall down the rabbit hole. But watch one video clip that you know is gonna make you laugh--might I recommend the official SNL channel, perhaps with the clip of Melissa McCarthy as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer--and then tackle your next challenge.

8. Clean something. Even if it's just washing a couple of dishes or taking out the trash, the sense of accomplishment you'll feel will motivate you to do something a bit bigger (or maybe stopping for the day because hey, you got something done).

9. Text/call someone you miss right now. Let 'em know you're thinking of them. You'll both be glad you did.

10. Get excited for this week. Go over your schedule, look at what you have to do, what you get to do, and just get amped! Yeah, you've got work, deadlines to meet, emails to send, papers to write, but every day you're getting closer to the life you want to lead. And yes, our country is more politically and socially turbulent than it's been in years, but it's also more politically and socially engaged than it's been in years. When was the last time you had this many conversations about politics--thoughtful or otherwise--with friends, family, AND strangers? I can't recall it. Yes, we're coming together to work through hard topics because we have an unpopular and possibly dangerous leader, but hey. We're coming together.

To real, diehard Atlanta fans: I'm sorry. To the Patriots: you won. But we don't have to like it.

#BernieGaga2020

Love The People Who Love You & Don't Worry About The Rest

Recently, I've been feeling a bit alone.

A friend I've had since childhood has all but disappeared from my life. Neither of us did anything wrong, he just stopped answering my messages and I stopped trying to salvage a relationship he didn't want to keep. He's not a bad person. Nobody knows how to gracefully end a friendship. I'm sure he just couldn't see a way out of what he thought what was a dead end without hurting me.

(I was hurt anyway. So it goes.)

A friend I made last year that I thought was going to be one of the most important people in my life never wants to hang out anymore. I haven't fully let go of it yet, but I'm less adamant about us hanging out. I text less, come around less. He never texts or comes around at all. I suppose he, too, saw that the friendship had run its course before I did. Not once did he speak badly of me or try to hurt me.

(I was hurt anyway. So it goes.)

A boy I briefly and painfully liked sent me perhaps the most brief and painful of all mixed signals, then abruptly dropped off the face of my earth. He gave me a lot of reasons why we wouldn't work. He stopped acting like my friend and treated me like a jilted lover though we never even really got close. He got back together with his ex. He stopped answering my messages. He never spread rumors about me, never said anything cruel to my face, went about excising me from his life in the kindest way possible.

(I was hurt anyway. So it...you get the point.)

These kinds of personal inconveniences are, I'm sure, the kinds of things that every human being goes through on a regular basis. Especially in college, where relationships are forged and forgotten quicker than any other time in our lives, it's normal for love or companionship to flare out just as suddenly as it first sparked. But to be honest, it's not just personal rejection that I've been experiencing.

Professionally speaking, while I've been having some really cool opportunities lately as a writer, I've not been having the same luck as a performer. I'm coming to terms with the fact that making money as a performer may not be in the cards for me. Hell, I don't even know if I'll make money as a writer, but as of right now it seems possible. I know I'm only 19, and that I can't close the book on myself yet, but symbols and signs from the universe seem to be coming out of the woodwork to tell me to get offstage. And while performing gives me anxiety, it's more than a little disheartening to feel like I'm not good at something I always thought I was good at. To feel like I am surrounded by people who are better than me, to feel like I don't have the intangible "it" factor that my friends and classmates seem to have in spades. It's probably for the best--I'm more comfortable in the studio cowriting songs, at my desk drafting blog posts and poetry and scripts and novels, sending my work out into the world from the comfort of my bedroom and not having to face anyone in the immediate aftermath. But it still hurts to feel shut out, to feel like I'm not good enough, to feel like people would rather Irish goodbye out of my life than to stay or at least give me a reason why they're going.

This all paints a grim picture. But I have experienced great comfort almost simultaneously with these grievances. A few close friends have pulled me in closer, held me tighter, made me feel like a real girl. They've let me be myself wholeheartedly. They've let me cry and they've let me make awful jokes and they've started the conversation and they've invited me over. They answer my texts. They keep coming around.

The transitions I've experienced have been rough. I don't bond with a lot of people, so to lose someone I have a genuine connection with is painful. It's humiliating to feel unwanted, to feel shunned, to see the doors of another person's mouth closing as they speak. But it happens. People move on from you. Jobs pass you over. You find out that those dreams you had as a kid aren't going to pan out, or they're going to take a different shape. But then you meet different people. And you find another job. And you get a new dream. And you stop panicking that you're not on the path you expected to be on and look out the window for a second and realize that it's raining, it's raining in Los Angeles and we've been in a drought, and your umbrella keeps turning outside out and you can't get a ride and your socks are soaked through but there is a river of floodwater running through campus and you just know if you had a block or board long enough you could sail that thing all the way home.

Love the people who love you. Don't force it but don't you dare stop it. Love is nothing to be ashamed of. If something lets you in, stay awhile. And if it gets quiet and checks its phone and looks anxiously at the door every few minutes, take the hint and leave. Love the people who love you and don't worry about the rest. Put out all the huge, embarrassing, childish love you've got into the universe and reel in everything that bites. Keep getting hurt and keep accepting it. Kiss frogs and frat boys and French horn players. Don't take it too personally when they go back to the swamp.

What I'm trying to say is that it's going to be okay. That it already kind of is.

It Is Hard to Be Yourself

It is really difficult to be yourself. Or maybe it's just difficult to be MY self.

I feel like the people I've met at college fall into these neat little boxes--the carefree artist, the reserved academic, the ambitious preprofessional, the inebriated frat star, the boisterous clown. I find myself at the nexus of a lot of these groups, always on the outskirts of their fun and never quite invited in. I'm either too boring or too wild or too lazy or too uptight or too unfunny at any given time to any given person. I feel like other than my family, I don't really have anyone who makes me comfortable being my full self. I don't mean to cast aspersions on my friends who appear to fall into these boxes--and I recognize how tremendously unfair it is for me to categorize these people so narrowly--because I know they're not trying to change me. But it's inherent that when you're hanging out with seven of your friends and all seven of them are in sync and you're not there with them, you're gonna feel some pressure to be different.

I guess what I want to know is how I can feel contented with who I am and not feel like it's too much or not enough.

The artists make me worry that I'm too mainstream when they come to class in big flowing skirts and cool vintage clothes, and I'm wearing an outfit plucked straight off a mannequin from the Gap. The academics make me feel like a burnout when they spend their Friday nights holed up in the library, and I stay up till 3am, bouncing from party to party with my music and film friends. The preprofessionals make think that I haven't done enough for my future when they land internship after internship, where my resume lays mostly blank. The frat stars make me feel like a square when they do five shots in a row or have one-night stands, and I quietly explain that I don't drink or do drugs or sleep with strangers. The clowns make me feel exceedingly boring when they get a big laugh in our motley crew of friends, and my jokes fall flat.

I just don't want to feel like I'm listening to the wrong music or wearing the wrong clothes or watching the wrong movies. I want to feel like people want me around and not like I'm this strange passenger who stole aboard their cargo ship moments before launching into the sea.

That sounded weird as hell, but I'm going with it.

I think the worst part about these feelings is that sometimes, I know EXACTLY who I am. When it comes to my career, I know what I want and where I want to go. But all of that gets muddled when I hang out with people whose personalities seem a lot more defined, or at least recognizable. Embarrassingly, I feel like I can't even recognize myself sometimes.

I guess the point of me writing all this is to say that one of my goals for my next year of college--and all the years to come in my life, I suppose--is to get better at being myself in front of other people. Going to a school like USC, being in a program like the pop music program, living in a house full of film majors--I'm surrounded by unique individuals all the time, and somehow, that has always made me feel like I'm standing out wrong (which just situationally makes no sense). I'm going to embrace all aspects of my personality: be loud when I feel like being loud, shutting up when I feel introspective and quiet, cracking jokes when they come to me, writing when I'm inspired, and being the odd patchwork person that I am. The artist, the academic, the preprofessional, the frat star, the clown. (Okay, maybe I'm not much of a frat star, but you get my point.)

And if you've ever felt these feelings, if I've explained them in a way that makes them sound familiar to you, then I urge you to do the same. Spend the next academic year of your life without superfluous filters. As long as you're not hurting anyone, you should be allowed to do pretty much whatever you want. So, I guess, figure out what that is, and then go do it.

Talk soon. xo

Very Dark and Very Quiet

I'm writing this because it's 10pm on a Thursday and a friend of mine just got some really awful, awful news. The world seems like a very quiet, very dark place right now.

I spent the last half hour or so just scrolling through my own Facebook profile. I stopped at spring 2014. I felt myself going through the familiar routine of longing for a time gone by. I mythologize my junior year as the pinnacle of my adolescent happiness--still somewhat isolated from my peers, but okay with it; content with my group of friends; happy with my body; doing well in school; succeeding in my extracurriculars. I also look back on it as the time B.G.C., or Before Grammy Camp, when my life was turned upside down in a way that I can't quite explain. To put it vaguely, my life was simpler before I met the people at that magic summer camp. My life is not better or worse now, just a great deal more complicated.

But the truth is, if I really force myself to remember my junior year, I know that it wasn't perfect. There were nights when I was incredibly stressed out by my demanding course load. There were weekends when I felt lonely because I wasn't out on dates or at parties with my classmates. And there were days where I was bored or insecure or mad at my family or unproductive with my writing because that is how the world works. No stretch of time is ever as perfect as we remember it to be.

More to the point, when I was a junior in high school, I looked back on years prior as simpler times, specifically middle school. And it's true, it was simpler. But the biggest truth is that the simplest time of my life was when I was an infant, and it's because I only knew like five people, all of whom were related to me. The more people there are in your life, the more complicated it becomes. This is the hardest lesson I've learned through growing up. The only way to keep things simple is to shut everyone out. But simple is lonely. Even for an introvert who would gladly spend all day holed up in a room with just a piano, a laptop, and a bag of snacks.

Even though I know my obsession with my junior year is dumb, I still find myself wishing I could go back to late 2013 and early 2014. I want to relive those days, when I still lived at home, when I was surrounded by people who I knew so well, albeit people who I didn't always click with. That's another thing about being a freshman in college: even the closest friendships feel so transient. The person I consider my closest friend is someone I met in September. We've only known each other for six months. The friendships I had when I graduated high school were founded on four to six years of meals and movies and sleepovers and study dates. Now what is it? Parties in which I took care of their drunken, stumbling bodies? A few chance deep conversations in their dorm rooms? Some especially productive jam sessions at the music school?

I guess what I'm saying now is that despite how truly incredible the people at my university are, I still feel very disconnected. I can count on one hand the number of times I've formed a real, long-lasting bond with someone on an immediate basis (it's probably only been once). For the most part, my friendships are a slow burn. I haven't completely opened up to anyone I've met at college. There are certain parts of myself that I don't trust with other people. I don't know how to change that. Maybe it's best that I don't.

This post doesn't have a thesis statement or even a point. But it's 10pm, and I am writing, because the world is very dark, and very quiet.

Talk soon. xo

Teenagers and Our Culture of Bingeing Culture

I'm a big fan of youth binge culture with regard to media consumption.

I'm sure sociologists and journalists have branded this phenomenon with their own pithy soundbites, but I'm going to call it like I see it. Teenagers have a tendency to binge--sometimes on destructive things, but that's another story--especially when it comes to media. We find a band we like; we listen to all their albums on Spotify, watch all their music videos, watch interviews with the lead singer. We find a good TV show; we barrel through all eight seasons in three weeks on Netflix (what? I didn't say that. I've never done that. I have a healthy relationship with television). We see a great stand-up special; we spend hours scouring YouTube for clips of that comedian doing other shows. It's a habit that I've fallen into. The Internet makes it easy. But I'm in a bit of a rut right now. I'm not in the process of bingeing anything at all.

I could start in with some new TV show or explore the discography of an artist I've never listened to. But instead, I've decided to examine what it is, exactly, that drives me to do this. Part of it is my obsessive personality; I'm very all or nothing, so if I like something, I'm gonna invest myself into it as much as possible. But I think it's a process that many people in my generation go through.

At the age of 18, I'm only just now entering the world of mass media. As a child and even somewhat as a teenager, my tastes were mandated by what I was allowed to watch and what was marketed towards me. Though I've always been very individualistic, it wasn't until the end of high school that I began discovering things that weren't recommended to me by my parents or commercials for shows I was already watching. This mainly took the form of stand-up comedy, a long-forbidden haven of jokes both dirty and way over my head, but also in new kinds of literature, interesting music, and bizarre movies (Being John Malkovich is my second favorite movie and also the weirdest thing I've ever seen).

The moment teenagers like me enter this realm of new entertainment possibilities, we go a little bit crazy. We are at such a fascinating point in history in which if I find something I like to consume, I can view it over and over again or use the endless archive of the Internet to find things similar to it. I don't have to go to the library or the record store or the Blockbuster. Almost everything I want to watch, read, or listen to is available on my laptop, in my bedroom, and a lot of it is free.

However, there is a point at which we run out of material on a particular subject. I'm going to use Louis C.K. as an example. I found one of his specials, "Oh My God," on Netflix, remembered hearing his name in some context, and decided to check it out. I laughed harder at that special than I have at anything in my entire life. I eagerly await the idea that someone or something makes me laugh that hard again. I was so enamored of his POV and style that I quickly digested his other specials and began combing the web for more clips of him in interviews and his TV show, Louie. I like Louie (from what I've seen, which is only about half a season), but to me it's not as rip-roaringly hilarious as his stand-up, so now I'm at a bit of an impasse. I can keep rewatching his specials on Netflix or through his website, but I'm going to have to wait a while for new material. Joining the Louis C.K. boat this late meant a tremendous backlog of content for me to watch, but also missed opportunities to see him on tour or get access to the new stuff just as it was coming out. I'm constantly searching for his name in the news to see if he's got a new tour or special planned, but he came out with something in May of 2015 (that I loved), so it's going to be a minute.

Same thing with me and John Mayer. My senior year of high school I became obsessed with him. He's one of my all-time favorite artists, and he wrote my all-time favorite song ("In Your Atmosphere," which is on his live album Where the Light Is). I spent most of 2015 listening to his albums, of which there are many. Now that I've heard every song of his (I believe), I've grown incredibly impatient for his next record, which is due out in the fall. Every time he posts on social media about it, I freak out for like ten minutes and start imagining it and how incredible it will be because he's going in the studio with the same people who made Continuum which I believe is inarguably his best album and maybe one of the best albums of all--

I need to relax with this whole John Mayer thing, I'm aware.

I think my point is that while there are drawbacks to the way that teenagers consume artistic content-- in the way that we essentially overdose on an artist or media personality and very quickly run out of our supply--it's a pretty great time to be alive. And while I am very eager for my favorite creators to put out new products, the old stuff is always just a click away. And it always stands up to another binge.

Sorry, I Gotta Go See About A Boy

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all!

Love is in the air…or pollution. Our planet is languishing before our very eyes! Get your priorities in order, simple humans!

*cough* Anyway.

I am an academic. I am an artist. I am a feminist. I am a sister, a daughter, a student, a counselor, a friend.

But I'm also…a teenager. And even though I pride myself on my strength, my maturity, my wisdom, and my talent, I am also ashamed of my less shining characteristics--specifically, in this case, my romantic naiveté.

Basically, I put every boy I like on a pedestal and, in turn, rob them of their humanness. I set them up to fail me. If he doesn't like me, it's earth-shatteringly disappointing. If he does like me, it's…also earth-shatteringly disappointing, because let's face it, most teenage boys have yet to master the whole Prince Charming thing.

In reflecting on my tendency to Alaska-ize or Margo-ize the boys I like (to borrow a phrase from an an author I like), I have started to see the validity of the other extreme. I literally have a note on my phone containing song lyrics that read, "Love is a lie, God's not alive, and I can't trust a soul." Now, that's not particularly helpful, either. Saying "screw relationships" and giving up on the possibility of romantic love because of a few isolated incidents of heartbreak is equally problematic.

I've spent a lot of my life believing that having a boyfriend would solve all my problems. (Super, hopelessly, unbelievably false.) And in the moment of being rejected or heartbroken--which has happened more often than I would like--I retreat into solitude, believing that there is no point in pursuing romantic fulfillment at all. (Also super duper ridiculously untrue.) Neither of those attitudes is healthy.

If having a romantic relationship is something you want, you shouldn't feel ashamed or embarrassed or naive. Cynicism is the enemy of joy. Even though I have experienced more setbacks than set-forwards (yeah, Jensen, keep telling yourself that's a word), I still believe love is real. But as I get older, I'm starting to see--or at least acknowledge that I should see--that love is real. And by that I mean, love is not a fantasy or a movie plot. Love is fulfilling and euphoric sometimes, but love is also frustrating and disappointing, and love is also just average. Love is like life, in that it cycles through periods of ups and downs like anything else.

You might be thinking, who is this 17-year-old girl who's never had a real relationship to lecture me on the nature of love? To that I say…nobody, I guess. But in case you didn't know this already, I'm a reader, and a writer. And being a reader and a writer means going inside of yourself for the stuff you feel and the stuff you have yet even to fathom. I have used the word "love" liberally because I don't think love is restricted to 30-year-olds who built their relationships like houses. I have felt pain and longing and joy and attraction. So maybe I haven't been in love to your satisfaction, but I have been in love to mine. I happen to really like Valentine's Day, because celebrating love, in whatever form it comes, is a thing I think we should do a heck of a lot more often.

Here's my point: you can't let your search for love rule your life. But that doesn't mean you should stop searching. Now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go see about a boy.

(Just kidding. But I probably will go watch Good Will Hunting.)

Apply: A Definition (or 5)

Apply, v.

1. To make a formal application or request.

Gee, thanks, Google, for that utterly thrilling definition that is at once concise and provides no new information. Really?! To apply is to make an application?!
I digress.
The most applicable *cough* definition of the word "apply" right now is 'to college.' As in, I am sitting at my kitchen table, as I have been for the last two hours, waiting for my art supplement to upload to SlideRoom so I can finish off my application to my dream school. As in, since August 1st--the day the Common App launched--the bulk of my life and mind has been overtaken by the before, during, and after of applying to college. As in, on May 1st, I will finally know for sure where I am going, but until then, I will be experiencing such a huge range of emotions that I likely will have several (more) mental breakdowns. The first worldiest of first world problems. Oh, college. You silly, demonic little beast.
If you're in my shoes…first of all, I'm sorry. Second of all, we've got this! Only a few more months to go and then all of this is behind us!
Dear colleges: I am formally requesting that you admit me. Yrs, Jensen.

2. To be applicable or relevant.

Google's done it again. To be applicable?!
How does one manage it, in the year 2014? We live in the digital age. Every day we are inundated with more information than our feeble human brains can possibly process. Advertisements for shampoo that will make your hair salon-fresh after every wash, television shows about Kerry Washington saving the country from catastrophe, YouTube clips of a cat dialing 911, Yahoo! homepage articles about how ebola is SO TOTALLY IN YOUR HOUSE RIGHT NOW. We're used to it now, so everything gets swept under the rug. So how do we stay remembered?
I used to think that was the most important question in the world. How can I be applicable? How do I become relevant? Then I read The Fault In Our Stars, and I was still convinced it was the most important question, even after Hazel Grace tries to teach Augustus that being remembered is about quality, not quantity, of memory. Now, as I figure out where I'm gonna spend the next four years of my life, I realize that even though the stress, anxiety, fear, hope, and excitement I am feeling is amplified and overwhelming now, in a year and a half, when I'm well into my freshman year of college, I'll barely remember it. I'll be at some incredible school, swamped with work and music and activities, and I won't give a second thought to the arduous months that brought me there.
So if I won't remember this, what is arguably the most formative time in my life so far, how can I expect other people to remember me? When I can't even remember myself?

3. To put (or spread) something on a surface.

Finally, a definition that does not contain some iteration of the word 'apply' in it.
I just spent a whole paragraph convincing you that you can't expect other people to remember you. But…you should still try. You don't have to be remembered by everyone, or remembered forever. But you should strive to have an impact, to matter, in a small way or a big way. Not everyone is going to walk on the moon. Not everyone is going to win a Grammy (although I sincerely hope to myself). Not everyone is going to be the President or cure cancer or write the next great American novel. But maybe you'll be a second grade teacher, and you'll make some lonely little boy fall in love with learning. Maybe you'll get married to the love of your life and have four beautiful children. Maybe you'll give a homeless man five dollars every day and be the reason that he survives, or gets back on his feet. Maybe you'll buy someone a cup of coffee when they're having a rough day.
So spread yourself on this blue-green surface. Put yourself out there. Life is a lottery and every ticket wins. Throw yours in and see what you get.

4. To give one's full attention to a task; to work hard.

Every teenager in the world has heard the phrase "apply yourself" at least once. Or twice. Or a million times. It's late April, in the horrible end-of-year-slump we all face, and you've got a precalc problem set to tackle and APUSH reading to annotate (or, y'know, skim) and an English essay to rewrite, but when you get home, you drop your six-ton backpack angrily on the ground and lay facedown on your bed. And one or both of your parents come in your room and they ask what's wrong, and you say you don't want to do your work. And they say, come on, honey. Just apply yourself.
Well, I hate to break it to you; they're not wrong. You should apply yourself, when you've got lots of work to do and you don't want to do it, or you don't understand a difficult concept, or you're holding yourself back from a great opportunity that seems hard or scary now but will pay off later. But that's not all you should work hard for. Apply yourself to getting a good night's sleep, to taking a hot bath, to eating a delicious and healthy meal, to going for a jog, to listening to some really good music. Work hard at taking care of yourself and making yourself happy. The world expects a lot of you, and trust me, you CAN rise to the challenge. But it's not just about what the world wants. It's about what you want. Apply yourself to you, kid. It's your body and it's your life. You've got only got one of each. (That was almost YOLO…almost.)

5. To bring or put into operation or practical use.

Unless you're a solipsist, you know the world mostly exists outside your own mind. It's a rat race, a dog-eat-dog kinda game, and if you don't step outside your bubble, the world will keep spinning without you. Chances are, you've got a lot of interesting thoughts in your head, but unless you take them from the intangible to the tangible, they won't get you anywhere. Bring yourself and your great ideas down from the clouds and onto the ground and you'll be surprised where they'll take you.
It's scary. Rejection and failure are scary. But I heard this great quote once, about how life is a series of decisions that narrow down your options. And not making the decisions? That's a decision, too. So whether or not you decide, your options keep narrowing.
Which is it going to be? Are you going to choose? Or are you going to let the world choose for you?