Another week has passed and I’m one week closer to graduation. In ten short days I will stand up, toss my cap in the air, and graduate in front of family, friends, professors…and a bunch of random people I don’t know.

Many of you have already taken this step. You’ve cried sentimental tears or jumped for joy as you packed up boxes and drove away from your home for the past few years. But if you have the pleasure of a quarter or trimester system you, like me, are lucky enough to have a smidgen of time left.

A lot of people have been worrying about the typical things that soon to be grads and recent grads worry about: getting a job, finding an apartment, moving, paying bills, insurance, liver recovery, taxes. I am stressed and concerned about all of these things. But I’m also stressed about some basic issues I haven’t considered until recently, like friendships.

For many grads, we’ll be moving away from the network of friends we’ve created over the past four years. For me, I will be moving clear across the country and my insecurities are rising. All my friendships are about to change and come June 14, I will be in a Long Distance (Best Friend Forever) Relationship. Read More »

My first night back in Los Angeles, after a year of living in New York, I ended up at a bar on Sunset called Coach & Horses. It was dark, dank, a jukebox kind of place. I started talking to a guy, a friend of a friend, about our jobs, favorite movies, favorite television shows. He worked in the writer’s room of a popular TV show, we were both addicted to “Top Chef,” and we agreed that the first four seasons of the “West Wing” were brilliant and far surpassed seasons five thru seven.

It was refreshing to talk to a guy who shared my interests and taste, because in New York it was hard to find someone I had anything in common with. I felt like I’d struck gold, and then I remembered: I wasn’t in New York anymore. This was Los Angeles, a city full of my kind of people.

It’s not just a myth that everyone in Los Angeles works in the entertainment industry in one capacity or another; you’re hard pressed to find someone with no industry connections. Everyone in LA seems to have a script they wrote tucked under their arm, and most would rather win an Oscar than a Nobel Peace Prize. Some might hate this, but I love it and talking to this guy at Coach & Horses felt incredibly good. Read More »

This column might be about finding love and relationships (or sometimes just a good lay), but there’s one more thing you can get out of someone from the opposite sex, and is just as difficult to achieve: friendship.

Growing up, I was daddy’s little girl. If my mom said I couldn’t have ice cream after dinner, I’d run to my dad; if my mom said I couldn’t stay out past eleven on a school night, I knew dad could be convinced. I was never really a tomboy (except for that brief period when I was five and told everyone I was a boy, but that’s not important right now…), but I always got along with guys better than I did with girls. Anyone who has seen Mean Girls and/or was picked on by other girls in high school knows why. Girls can be horrible to each other. Girls can be judgmental, catty, and sometimes just plain bitches. After being tormented by other girls all through school, I found it incredibly hard to get close to girls, and incredibly easy to get close to guys.

Sadly, something I have discovered in the post-college world I now inhabit is that it’s no longer easy to find guys to just be friends with. After you get your diploma and toss your hat up in the air, you’re thrust in to a world where everyone seems to be looking to pair up, and no one just wants to hang out and get a beer. Read More »

An older friend of mine once advised me that I should stick with my college boyfriend. I thought this was strange advice at the time. I had warned so many friends of mine upon high school graduation that sticking with their high school boyfriends was a terrible idea, so I figured the same would go for college.

Weren’t you supposed to explore your options? Date? Have fun in your twenties before settling down in your thirties? Now that I’ve graduated, I know exactly why she said it. Dating post-college is a major shock to the system.

I went on a date recently with a guy who I’d met at a poetry reading. I thought he might be a few years older than me and I was okay with that, but on the date it came to light that he was actually many, many years older than me, fourteen to be exact (that’s Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher territory). I figured I’d dated older men before, so I decided to give him a chance. We talked about jobs, our shared neighborhood haunts (we both lived in the East Village), and then the subject of past relationships came up and he told me about his ex. Read More »

Disclosure: I used to go to a liberal arts school– and when I say liberal arts school, I mean liberal arts school. This place was tiny (1500 students) and in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

I lived in an ecologically – friendly dorm, ate veggie burgers, created art out of garbage and was generally bored out of my mind. So naturally, the only thing to do was move to Texas. But that’s besides the point.

Liberal arts kids are a unique breed. Instead of being encouraged to use college as a vessel for job placement and perpetual financial security, they are left to their own devices with indirect help from people like Kant and Foucault.

Consequently, post – college, most L.A. kids drift to boring jobs with meager wages in liberal cities, subsisting only with help from their more traditionally successful benefactors (parents). But all this is, of course, just speculation. Read More »

Graduation is over. Your itchy and unflattering cap and gown are hung nicely in the back of your closet. You and your best friends huddle around your digital camera on the living room couch for the last time and look at pictures from graduation. You laugh and you cry (unless you are a guy, in which case you punch each other) as you reflect on all your great times together.

It is hard to imagine living without these awesome people.

But, you just might have to.

Everyone is now going in different directions and will soon be spread across the country starting their post college lives. Everyone will have new jobs, new friends and new people to take absurd selfies with (though this time during happy hour instead of at your house party). Sure, there is AIM, Facebook and free nights and weekends on your cell phone, but who is to say that these people won’t dump you the minute they hit the real world? Read More »

All throughout college, I didn’t have the luxury of TiVo and I certainly don’t have it here at home. My parents barely know how to use the internet, much less record television shows! Anyways, I inevitably missed out on some of my favorite tv shows because of various college commitments and figured that it was a lost cause and I would have to deal with being a whole season behind on shows like Desperate Housewives.

Well, much to my joy and surprise, I can watch every episode I missed of any show on a new website: tvlinks. This fabulous wealth of entertainment contains links to just about any show you could ever want to see. Most of the recent hot shows like Entourage and Lost are updated with the current episodes. Or, if you feel like a blast from the past, check out the links to shows like Friends or Sex and the City.

Read More »

Okay, I was aware that I would have to worry about a midlife crisis somewhere down the road. But not for at least another 20 years when I would suddenly feel the need to date much younger men and buy a bright red convertible.

Apparently, I will have a life crisis sooner than I previously thought: the “Quarterlife Crisis.”

It’s a relatively recent phenomenon that is now recognized by many therapists and professionals in the mental health field, and refers to the years out of college when reality sets in. Technically, it is “a period of anxiety, uncertainty and inner turmoil that often accompanies the transition to adulthood.”

Awesome, can’t wait. Basically, young, twentysomethings realize that their entry level jobs suck and that a successful career isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Ahhh, please don’t make me graduate on Sunday! I don’t want to deal with life, especially this new crisis that I will apparently go through. Read More »