"If I clean this toilet I can have a beer tonight."

I’m constantly amazed at how challenging it is to be an adult. It’s like everyday there’s something new I have to do that won’t get taken care of unless I actually take the initiative to do it.

I’ve basically had to turn into a parent for myself in order to get anything done. I remind myself to do things repeatably even though I heard myself the first time, I nag myself incessantly to do gross chores around the apartment, and I even discipline and reward myself with a behavior chart I keep on the fridge. Five gold stars mean I can go out for happy hour on Friday.

I’ve recently put myself in time-out (spent all day on the couch watching whatever Sandra Bullock movie TBS plays) for breaking curfew and I’ve lectured myself about not taking vitamins when I started sniffling last week. I’m at the point that I think my actual mother feels left out when she calls because I’ve already covered her territory. She calls expecting an opportunity to nurture (tell me what to do) and instead she gets a co-parent complaining about misbehavior and paying the cable bill on time.

While I’ve enjoyed being a parent to myself and ending each night with a warm glass of milk and Goodnight Moon, I’ve started to wonder when I will transition from being a faux-adult to being a real one. Read More »

So that time of year is creeping up on us. The time when we must throw some clothes into duffel, fill the rest of the bag with dirty laundry, kiss our roommate and our bottle of vodka goodbye, and head home for fall break.

Yes, there are many up-sides to this little trip: we get a break from all the homework, we get to eat something other then cafeteria mystery meat for a change, and we get to curl up with Scruffy on the couch for a couple of days.

But with the comfort of being home comes a few downers as well. And I’m not talking about being woken up at 9am on a Saturday or having to empty the dishwasher. It’s those little comments from mom and dad that really get under your skin. And no matter how hard you try to be nice, you just can’t help but snap, say something mean and beeline to the car/airport (clean clothes and leftovers in hand, obvi) as soon as humanly possible.

Here are a few of the worst offenders:

“Honey, your pants look a little tight”
Yes mom, I realize that drinking 5 days out of the week and eating delivery pizza has done a number on my waistline. Am I happy about it? No. Do I know it is there? Yes. Is it helping that you pinch the muffin top and poke the underarm flab? Absolutely not!

“Have you found a nice boy yet?”
If by “nice” you mean “a tall pre-med student who considers hanging out in the library fun,” then no, dad, I have not found your ideal son-in-law quite yet. But I have hooked up with a couple of the guys on the football team who can barely form coherent sentences but have 8-pack stomachs you can bounce a quarter off of, if that counts for anything. Read More »

Oh October Cosmo, how you make me lust for the crisp weather and Fall fashions you print on each page (that I won’t get to experience until mid-October down here in good ol’ humid-ass Florida). I can’t wait to make Katie Lee Joel’s ridiculously scrumptious looking bread pudding, and I found your expose on why Audrina is the new Heidi intellectually stimulating.

Your interview with Megan Fox had me admiring her acting talents (who could forget her as whats-her-name in that one Lindsay Lohan movie ), and getting annoyed with her while she pretended not to know she’s hot. I was beginning to worry about finding material for this month’s Cosmo Says! Then I turned to page 72, so that relationship expert Matt Titus could explain to me “Why He Calls You a Nag When You’re Not.”

Cosmo Says: Because his Mom told him what to do for 18 years, every man will resent doing what their wife or girlfriend asks them to do out of the fear that they will revert back to childhood.

Kari Says: Seriously? I understand that this article is meant to make me LOL (which it did, but I was laughing at it, not with it), however I tend to disagree. It’s one thing when Cosmo’s ladies grossly over-generalize the male population, but dude—you’re throwing your own kind under the bus here! Scientific polling of actual guys (a frat-tastic sophomore and two first year med students) shows that this is BS: guys don’t have a problem doing favors for their s.o.’s (and it doesn’t remind them of their adolescent chore-list).

Cosmo Says: Men know that calling you a nag is hitting way below the belt and will send you straight into mid-life crisis mode.

Kari Says: I don’t care if you call me a nag, but you’re going to keep hearing me repeat myself until you actually do the simple task that I asked of you. Come on, you have to already know this! Read More »

Happy Post-Easter-Monday! I don’t know about you, but I hit the snooze button 5 times this morning before I could get my ass out of bed. 12 hours of Peeps, Cadbury Eggs and Jelly Beans had me on a serious sugar high last night (I went to the campus gym at 11:30…for real), but left me in some sort of diabetic coma this morning. And heading back to class after a long weekend?

Yeah right.

The only thing that really got me moving out of bed was a little hair of the dog that bit me… in the form of an Easter Egg filled with Starbursts that I found under my pillow. Thanks, roomie!

Anyways, a long weekend at home with the family was pretty tubular (yeah, I’m trying to bring that word back), but there are just some things about going home that are less than rad (yup, trying to bring that one back, too!): Read More »