basic bro.

In a world where I have to be constantly aware of my basic bitch litmus results, I think it's unfair that women are the only ones under such harsh scrutiny.


I recently went out with a man who chose our first date to tell me about the Asian chick he once dated who got off on giving him a colonic.  I don't consider myself a prude, but I would categorize myself a prudent woman - a woman who would probably see this story as a red flag.  But he had bought me guacamole on this date, so I was a little distracted.  

And just like that, with the exotic thrill of experiencing avocados in Brooklyn, our 2 month courtship began.  He seemed like a level-headed human.  He seemed like someone who could fix your radiator given a few tools; or at least someone who has enough money in the bank and good sense to call a heating professional to look at it.  He probably does his own taxes instead of schlepping to H&R Block because, unlike you, the thought of facing government forms on his own doesn't make him queasy.  He was charming in that highly curated Instagram way; where everything out of his mouth on further inspection was the perfectly quippy caption for an ironic photo. He was thoughtful; like I said the man had enough foresight to feed me guacamole on our first date and not argue when I slapped his hand away the moment it approached the bowl.  It had been so long since I had felt a connection with anyone that I didn't know how to handle being swept off my feet by his cable tv and comfortable sectional. But being in a pseudo relationship with this man had me questioning everything: I have to shave my legs FOUR times a week now? Am I drunk enough for this? and Is he sober enough for...anything? ever?

His antics compounded with the pop culture spike in calling every girl you know on IG and IRL a basic bitch, I realized I was dating the basic bitch of the male species: the bro.

The bro can sneak up on you.  You may try and rationalize that his amazing apartment in a prime location and his highly respected job disqualify him from bro status, but you would be a fool, dear girl.  Below I've compiled the top 5 key ways you know you're dating a bro based on my personal experience.

1. The Bro cares about his social following above all else.  Above his own mother?  Well no, not if she's the 11th liker on a photo - the catalyst in making the names disappear and taking away the need for him to do it himself or deleting the photo for being an absolute failure of a captured moment.  Social Media is realer than real life.  It's also more important.  

2. The Bro will create is his own hashtag.  Oftentimes this is most efficiently achieved by mashing together his own name and the current season - which he will assign to his own photos and claim he's trending.  This also allows him to peruse old pictures at his leisure and admire how flattering the Lo-Fi filter was on his complexion in the springtime light.  He will also verbally declare this hashtag during actual moments in life as they're happening despite the fact that only those around him were actual witness.

3. A Bro will likely attempt to distance himself from any Bro tendencies by drinking rose instead of beer or Jameson.  But don't worry, he'll get just as wasted on pink wine as he would hard liquor.  You'll still get to carry him out of the bar and stuff him in a cab as he makes racists comments to your driver while simultaneously professing his undying love for you after 3 weeks of knowing each other's last names.  It's a win-win-win.

4.  The Bro loves a tank.  In fact, The Bro cares very much about fashion; albeit misguided fashion.  He takes pride in his wardrobe; safely storing his weed patterned hi-tops in the original box after returning from a rave.

5.  The Bro will always know he's the best looking one in the relationship.  Whether or not he drunkenly yells this at you at a crowded party, he'll always believe it as deeply as his shallow soul allows.

I think it's important for every woman to date at least one Bro in her lifetime.  It provides some much needed perspective on what you ACTUALLY want from a partner in life.  It also makes you feel like a true winner for things as complex as your sobriety, your grasp on reality in general, and your ability to feel feelings such as compassion for other breathing organisms.

Jobless in New York

Two weeks ago I lost my job.  This is a chronical of the events proceeding.

As a woman of protocols, rules and regulations, I was shocked to find myself without a how-to-survive-losing-your-job guide tailored just for me; featuring a cover with the most flattering photo of my face on record (filtered in Valencia because who has time to look good in reality) and a fold out map with a "Skells, You Are Here" indicator and corresponding detailed turn-by-turn directions to blissful success given by the voice of a young Mel Gibson.

But even while employed, my life was anything but pulled together.  Sure, I had a steady, dependable, 9am-5pm turned 8am-10pm turned Wait, People LEAVE Their Jobs? job.  But I also had a pile of laundry that slowly had become one giant patchwork area rug, a stack of ConEd bills so high it's amazing I had running water, and the tendency to break out in hives at the thought of finding time to buy toilet paper en masse.  A break from the rat race gave me a sense of calm and an opportunity to "figure it out" - a phrase that has since become some sort of sick mantra.  I've mumbled it to myself while scouring new locations to live and new employment opportunities - like I'm Madonna reinventing myself for the next album.  I've screamed it at my mother on the phone during her daily cross examination of my "plan" - meant to be helpful, while really just stress-eating inducing.  I've confidently declared it to friends at dinner over pitying looks after which they offer to foot the bill.  I've said it so many times that it's taken on a life of it's own. It's become it's own entity.  Figuring It Out.  It's a mythological creature I've invented.  It's a weird theatrical play that I'm starring in with no memory of my lines. Figuring it out has translated to mean to me anything but what I imagine it's intended to mean.  Figuring it out is what has happened below:

My first reaction upon losing my job was to turn to Google.  I Googled variations on: "WWJD...if he were a 25 year old unemployed Brooklynite with a dog and an addiction to eating to support?" and "If I run away to South Carolina, will Ryan Gosling build me a house and grow an obnoxiously long hipster beard and take me on canoe rides?" and "No but seriously, Google. I need answers."  After wiping my search history I threw myself into performing rigorous maintenance and upkeep of my apartment to take my mind off it all. Since I'm anything but a homemaker and would store my sweaters in the oven if my roommates didn't have a weird habit of baking, most specifically "maintenance" and "upkeep" consisted of Swiffering some surfaces chosen at random while wearing a sweatshirt as a dress with a glass of wine in hand at 3pm on a Tuesday. The worst part of the outside world is the necessity for pants. And being consistently sober.  So I capitalized on the fact that neither of these applied during my first day of unemployment. Catching myself in the reflection of my wine bottle, I wondered if this officially made me an alcoholic - only to realize if it DID make me an alcoholic, that would at least be a full time position in life; something I currently lacked.  

After surviving my first day with no purpose, I decided to take a look at the state of my finances. The harsh metaphor of my bank account as a rapidly depleting well with no source of replenishment and no rain clouds in sight sparked in me the inverse of a normal, responsible person's reaction.  I went on a spending spree, buying items so unrelated and out of character that I can only blame the 5 stages of grief:  Denial, Desperation, Boredom, Day-Drinking, Soul Cycle.  I bought a giant soy candle that makes my Brooklyn apartment smell like an expensive lumberjack in a Ralph Lauren commercial.  I paid $45 to go into a dark room and mount a stationary bike in the middle of the freakin day just to pedal to Taylor Swift songs on beat alongside women with rocks on their fingers the size of my eyeball.  I ate $12 granola outside at a cafe while I paged through my new coffee table book about panthers.   Did I mention I don't own a coffee table?  Or a couch?  And lastly, I started to fall in love.

They say love arrives at your doorstep when you least expect it.  I say love arrives at your doorstep in complicated packaging after a strange man in an ugly brown uniform knocks on your door scaring the shit out of your SWF self in the middle of the day.  You break a nail trying to open the damn thing only to find out it was supposed to go to your neighbors' house. 

But it was dropped to me nonetheless, and it was the happiest thing to happen to me in a very long time.  Here was this beautiful man who served as a beautiful distraction from all the confusion I was weeding through. He gave me confidence and unbiased clarity.  He believed in me when I was inwardly weary. I was so accustomed to knowing it all - to putting trust into my career and myself, and here I was without a career and slowly investing trust into someone else.  And it scared me.  They'll tell you that love will come when you're not looking for it, but they won't tell you what to do with it when it's there.  They won't tell you the messy, complicated bits when there are more questions than answers and more fantasy than reality.  There's noway of knowing if the risk will be worth it.  And even though this particular package wasn't mine, and even though maybe it wasn't Love with a capital "L", or really love at all, I'm so lucky it was mine for awhile.

So I'm still figuring it out - in my own way.  So far I HAVE figured out that you're going to get derailed sometimes and it's okay to have no idea what's next - it's actually damn liberating.  And if you're lucky enough, you'll meet someone at the right time who believes it when you don't.  

I've also figured out that if you keep registering for Netflix under different email addresses, you can get quite a few months of free trials, peanut butter and jelly is a perfectly acceptable meal, and everything is going to be just fine.

The Best Thing To Ever Happen to You

A psychic recently told me I wouldn't meet my soulmate for another 2 years.  That's another 365 days x2 of drinking IPAs out of cans at bars alone like I am currently.  I'm not great at math, but I know that's a lot of complex carbs.

So in this waiting period - while I'm in between an actual-person-relationship and whatever I'm doing right now (being a disorganized mess, a broke lush, a dog lady, etc.) I've decided that I should embrace my one actual defining quality.  Single.  In light of this, below you'll find the top 5-ish reasons why being single is The Best Thing To Ever Happen to You.

1. You don't have this whole other friend group that belongs to your boyfriend that you have to pretend to like.

     What's worse than being on the outside of inside jokes?  Of talk of football stats (if you've REALLY got the wrong dude), or of the frat days (if you should give up on your taste altogether and pick up a pamphlet at the closest nunnery).  Being single means getting to create your OWN inside jokes with people like Liz Lemon and Tom Haverford.

2. You can chick out hard any time you want.  Endless Bravo.  So much Alanis. Boxed wine and 80's movies.  Googling Ryan Gosling gifs BECAUSE YOU CAN.

3. You don't have some huge human taking up all your sleeping space.

         I love my pillows and my leg room and having fitful dreams just for the hell of it.  I also cannot sleep when someone is breathing next to me.  It has nothing to do with the fear of sleep flatulants. Or snoring.  (I'm a lady, therefore I know as fact neither of these is applicable for me).  Maybe it's the excess CO2 being blown in my face? Maybe it's their dreams watching mine?  I don't yet know, but I do know that I can't deal with having bags under my eyes just because some dude wants to be the little spoon.

3.5. You can keep really useful shit in your bed. Like a jar of peanut butter, your iHome, hair care supplies, your dog, assorted beverages (see #2), pepper spray, a Chia pet.

        Selectively ignore the fact that in your singledom no one is petting your "Chia".

4. If you want to get fat you're totally allowed.  There's no boyfriend to question your new nooks and crannies.

      Eat your feelings.  Drink your weekly calories in one night and then consume your weight in Van Leewan's ice cream.  Good things exist for indulging and I'm not about to sacrifice any of it.

5. Lastly, and more importantly, you can taste test as many men in this all you can eat buffet city as you want.  Dig in, ladies.

Pressed for Juice

In my opinion, humanity can be divided into 2 parts: those who drink Juice Press and those who don't.  The former of course being the woman who has a private yoga instruction in her Soho loft every morning after the nanny takes the newborn offspring to the park to learn Mandarin.  And the latter being anyone I have an ounce of desire to know.

And then something cursed happened.  I was given a Juice Press gift card from one of my male coworkers during a Secret Santa exchange. It was a seemingly harmless gift - the kind of gift that an overworked, single, 20 something year old male gives after recuperating from shell shock having been burdened with picking out a $25 Christmas surprise for a chick he barely knows in his office.  He wasn't even present for the gift exchange, so when a girl in my department handed me the little plastic card, she explained to me Joaquin's* nervous debate over whether giving me a yoga mat would imply I need to elongate my limbs and drop a few - or if gifting body lotion insinuated some perverse fantasy involving him rubbing it on me.  And so he settled on juice.  Because what lady do you know DOESN'T love to starve herself silly on liquid?  I mean, chicks man, amirite?  For the record, a Clay Aiken's Greatest Hits compact disk box set would have been a blessing compared to the havoc that damn gift card released on my life.

*Name has been changed to protect the poor dude's privacy, while maintaining historical accuracy surrounding the lofty and oft-times unpronounceable names of people in my work environment.  For no apparent reason I've yet to ascertain.  And still here I am - a sore thumb Caitlin in a sea of Guinevere's.

I innocently stepped foot in Juice Press for the first time in early January and pretended to look for my usual kale mixture of choice among the intimidating selection of options stocked in the fridge.  I was tempted to rattle off a list of maladies to the chick at the counter to ensure I chose wisely - I have super dry elbows, my dog doesn't listen to me, and I really like rom coms...which of these $17 bottles of liquid vegetables will make me a princess? 

Instead I opted for something a little more my speed - a smoothie mainly comprised of cold press coffee.  As I'm already an over-caffeinated wreck, I briefly wondered if I was abusing the point of the health store, but took a little pride that I wasn't the stick thin dude in front of me spending $170 on various snot-green concoctions that he'd most likely live off for 2 weeks.  I also took pride that I wasn't dating him, although he and I exchanged glances as he was leaving. In this moment a wave of mutual understanding washed over us: he was much cooler than I in that environmentally aware, wood carving, clean colon way that my preservative-riddled, styrofoam cup using self could never understand. Regardless, I spent the next hour and a half sipping on my smoothie - very much aware that every gulp costed me roughly $1.17; making me hell bent on expanding the elapsed time-to-sip ratio in order to get my money's worth. 

Since then my gift card has run out of money, and I'm still sneaking off to Juice Press more times than I'd care to share.  I sit at my desk wondering why the plastic cup containing my Yoga Karma Relax Detox Rejuvenating Vital Raw Coconut Life Force Smoothie isn't plated in solid gold for what I shelled out for it.  I look at my bank account and wonder if I have enough to pay my rent this month.  I close my eyes and see Skinny Green Juice Cleanse Man glaring at me. And yet, I can't stop.  The whisper of a woman behind the counter this morning even said "hello" to me - a nicety she usually reserves only for those carrying yoga mats in the store.  

But you know what?  As I washed down the organic drink with a few dozen french fries and a mayonnaise soaked turkey burger this afternoon, I swear I heard my colon whisper, "you're a princess".

Aunt Skelly had a Date

I went on a date tonight.  Your Aunt Skelly went on a real live date with a breathing man who asked her.  I laughed at the right moments, I answered questions in a witty yet still self-depricatingly human way....and all in all if I were to be given a grade by the dean of dates, I sure as hell would have made his list and passed with flying colors.  And ya know what??? It was freakin exhausting- and by the way...it's only 11:22 PM.  I am 25 years old and I should feel young and carefree. I should probably be dancing on a bar somewhere or exiting a cab with my beaver hanging out for all of the Meatpacking District to accidentally glimpse.  I shouldn't have to even answer to a dean of dates...I should BE the dean of dates.  But I can't.

It's kinda how I feel on New Years Eve - making it the worst night of the year.  I'm not here to ramble about the usual complaints like the clusterfuck in any given city or the debacle over who you are gonna press your mouth against at midnight because you're single and everyone at the party is taken or gay.  I don't like New Years Eve for the same reasons I don't like Friday and Saturday nights.  I'd rather be in my bed with a Manbooker Prize-winning novel and a bag of M&Ms.  I'd rather be watching an ironic cartoon in my flannel pajamas, but yet I feel pressure.  I don't want to be a sex kitten at a club competing for the guidos' attention.  I can't stand first dates with men who picked me up at an underground hipster bar named "Home Sweet Home" ...a place that looks more like the den of the guy from Silence of the Lambs than a place to get buzzed with over-privileged 20-somethings.  And YET. Sometimes...most times...I feel totally alone in my anti - young-fun-time sentiments.  I just want to be 79 years old so I can watch Boy Meets World re-runs in peace and not feel guilty for wasting my perky breasts and small wrists on a gallon of ice cream and Ben Savage in all his 11 year-old prime.  I AM A SQUARE. Maybe next time I'm tempted to accept an invitation to an overpriced bar with a man I met while ironically dancing to the hits of the 80s like they are our jam...like we can actually remember rocking out to them while pooping our diapers and teething...maybe I'll be more inclined to be myself and tell him no.  Tell him that I like my retainer too much and I have to take my fish oil pills by 11 -- that I'm halfway through Season 2 of Bob's Burgers and even though I watched season 3 first, I'm still super invested and super busy.

btw...if you're reading this and any of the above sounds remotely attractive to you...hit me up.  I have a fantastic list on goodreads.com we can chat about and a Hulu Plus membership I mooch from my homosexual ex-boyfriend.

Woof.

I felt a little stuck a few months ago.  So I adopted a dog like any normal, level-headed broke chick living on the ghetto side of Greenpoint, Brooklyn would do.  What would my oversized frames and fixie bike be without a French Bulldog?  Except I wear oversized glasses because I have chronic dry eye - a super sexy disease that always seems to come up on first dates between my glass of What's Your Cheapest White Wine and the local fried organic artisan grass-fed jalapeno appetizer (welcome to Williamsburg).  I also don't own a bike, but I'll sometimes pretend like I do while I shoot the shit with the chain smoking hipsters outside my office - commiserating about how awful the weather is for riding conditions.  I'm actually terrified of getting hit by a car or tipping over at a stop light or eating shit in front of real cyclists - and you know that matching elbow and knee pads would ruin my street cred. The closest I've been to a bike in the city is my ex's.  He would wear his fancy lock around his waist while he walked it around like a prized fucking poodle.  He neglected to tell me it got stolen 6 months post-purchase, and when one night I suggested he cruise over on his 2-wheeled companion - unaware it was under Amber Alert - he called me an asshole.  After I offered to put up signs with a reward he decidedly didn't speak to me for 3 days.  This is the same man who posted a photo on Instagram of the rare designer label in his $1,500 sweater using a Lo-Fi filter with the caption, "gotta stay warm somehow".  Don't worry, projectile vomiting is a normal side effect.

When this terrible excuse for a human left my life, I turned to a dog.  I've always had a connection with dogs.  I've talked to more dogs on the streets of this city than humans, and I can say with eloquent conviction that dogs are my spirit animal, our celestial stars align and like they just get me, man.

I met a pup on the euthanasia list at Animal Control, took it under the pretense of fostering, realized I was delusional to think I'd be able to give away a face and tail like that, and officially adopted him.  I'm impetuous and impatient and I crave instant gratification.  I blame my millennial affliction.  And Snapchat.  But it brought me to Leo.  And Leo is great.  Sure he's left his dainty poops on my kitchen floor more times than Jason Derulo starts his songs by singing his own name, he's broken dishes, and he sneaks gum out of my purse like a crazed minty fresh junkie (I just need my chews, bro) - but in the midst of insanity he keeps me sane.  He keeps my mind off the shit-soaked city that's lurking beyond my third floor walk up, waiting to rob me blind of my money and my happiness.  He's a little ray of sunshine in my life of a-poor-excuse-for-a-hipster-that-doesn't-actually-want-to-be-a-hipster-on-second-thought.

And I'm WAY less hungover now that I have a living, breathing [pooping] thing relying on me.  So here's to my dog in the city.  You should come hang out with him sometime and talk him out of getting his own Instagram despite my raging disapproval.  Which reminds me that you should also come hang out because it's been a solid 2 weeks since I've had interaction with anyone other than a dog.