Essa Alroc's Blog, page 11

Your Unflattering Horoscope

I’ll admit it, I read my horoscope. Despite the way some people sneer at them, I think that there is a certain amount of science that goes into astrology. If you really think about it, we are nothing more than cells in a constant state of motion. The positioning of the other planets in our solar system has a direct impact on the gravitational pull of our planet. So who’s to say that those very specific changes in gravitational pull couldn’t have a direct effect on our cells that are already constantly in motion?

I never rule anything out until I see some direct scientific evidence that it isn’t true. That has made me more open minded than an incredibly scientific person, and a shitload smarter than a staunchly religious person. And I think there is something to be said for astrology.

For example, I am a Gemini. One of the things that defines Gemini’s (aside from being incredibly charming and attractive…can’t argue with that) is that fact that we have massively conflicting internal personalities. Our sign is the twins, meaning that we have a habit of being two people in one body. I would generally consider that bullshit, but it fits.

Especially considering my bipolar diagnosis. That is the general reason that on one day, you’re getting jokes about me wandering through a convenience store stoned, and on another, you’re reading a post that sounds suspiciously like my suicide note.  No joke, I mood swing faster than a menopausal woman on steroids.

The problem with horoscopes is that they are too optimistic. They never really point out flaws or warn you of horrible things. Instead, every day is allegedly going to be the best, most productive day of your life. I think if horoscopes threw in a bit more warning, we would all take them a lot more seriously.

So I’ve taken what I know of astrology, and rewritten all of your star signs in a much more realistic way. Enjoy.

 

Aries – March 21st – April 19th           

You are a pain in the ass. For some unknown reason, you always have this ridiculous need to be in charge. You can ruin any event, simply by trying to organize it to death. You are the asshole at the beach party who makes everyone play Frisbee, when we all just want to lay on beach blankets and drink beers.

This week, you will be annoyed at work and become convinced that everyone who works with you is an idiot. You will take on a project that is far too big for you to handle and work an 80 hour week in order to get it done. Then, you will present it proudly to your boss. He will praise you for about 30 orgasmic seconds…and then give the promotion you wanted to his son.

Taurus – April 20th – May 20th

You are a sleazy slime ball of a human being who wants all the rewards with none of the work.  Your ambition far outweighs your intelligence and the only thing you are really good at is manipulating people. Of all people you admire, Bernie Madoff is number 1.

This week, you will get that call from the FCC that you have been dreading. You will hire an equally sleazy attorney, who is also a Taurus, to get you off from all charges. You will learn nothing from your arrest and continue to scam people for the rest of your life until someone shanks you while you’re doing a 60 day stint in jail for a pyramid scheme.

Gemini – May 21st – June 21st

You are a charming borderline sociopath who abuses drugs and alcohol to an extreme. Throughout your life, you will randomly flip out on people and then brush it off while claiming ‘I’m an artist so I’m supposed to be emotional’ without ever producing anything that would remotely qualify as art.

This week, you will drink heavily, get into a fight with a stranger, spend three days in bed considering suicide, and then eventually just drink some more. You will get nothing accomplished and the air you breathe will be wasted.

Cancer – June 22nd – July 22nd

You are an incredibly judgmental asshole. You are terrified of taking risks, so you look down on anyone else who takes risks out of pure jealousy. Most likely, you work in a menial middle management job, where you believe that you are far too good to work, but where you will remain because you don’t have the balls to fight for a better position.

This week, someone will cut you off in traffic. You will flip them off and momentarily be pleased with yourself. Then, you will pull up next to them at a red light and avoid eye contact while you pretend to be checking your phone.

Leo – July 23rd – August 22nd

You are as desperate for attention as a scurvy sailor is desperate for vitamin C. You put lot of focus on your looks and make no effort to develop yourself as a human being. In short, you are an empty package.

This week, you will sleep with someone wealthier than you in an attempt to get yourself a ‘sugar partner.” They will almost immediately realize how shallow you are and write you off as a ‘pump and dump’ instead. You will spend the next few months stalking them on Facebook and complaining to your friends ‘look who s/he is seeing now. I am so much better looking than them.” You will never get that there is more to life than looks and will probably die alone.

Virgo – August 23rd – September 22nd

You have standards so high, you are almost guaranteed to die alone. Your borderline obsessive compulsive disorder makes you a nightmare to live with, so you are a loner. You are also incredibly prudish and consider the act of sex a disgusting exchange of bodily fluids that you refuse to participate in.

You will spend this week continuously cleaning your bathroom floor, as you swear to god you can ‘hear the germs moving around in there.” You will meet your soul mate, and then write them off because their second toe is just a little bit longer than their big toe and that creeps you out.

Libra – September 23rd – October 23rd             

You are the pacifist that gives all pacifists a bad name. You avoid conflict at every given opportunity and are so desperate to see that everyone is happy, that you often write off your own happiness. In short, you suck at life.

This week, you will let at least 10 strangers skip you in line at the grocery store. You will give a cheerful wave to the guy who cut you off in traffic and you will let that friend who never pays you back borrow money…again.

Scorpio – October 24th – November 21st

You are a grumpy motherfucker who is barely tolerable as a human being. You regularly and completely unapologetically use racial slurs and you look forward to the apocalypse, because you hate people and just want all of them to die.

This week, you will write several angry letters to the government that will go unanswered. You will complain about every generation but yours. If you are in Florida, you will probably shoot a black teenager.

Sagittarius – November 22nd – December 21st               

You are obnoxiously optimistic, to the point where you make most of your friends sick. You spout off about things like ‘true love’ and ‘happily ever after’ while completely ignoring every thing that is wrong with the world. You are a child in an adult’s body and may very possibly have Downs Syndrome.

This week, you will knit your cat a sweater while singing a pop song from the latest Disney star. You will be verbally abused by a cashier at a Wendy’s but continue smiling, because all people are deep down good. You will continue thinking that until someone stabs you to death at an ATM, for the $20 you just took out so you could donate to Saint Jude’s Children’s Hospital.

Capricorn – December 22nd – January 19th

You work an 80 hour work week, despite the fact that your boss never notices. As far as you’re concerned, idle hands are the devils playthings and you make a point of being constantly busy. You sleep less than 5 hours a night and feel guilty just for sitting down.

This week, you will develop an adderal habit, after you realize it helps you avoid all those obnoxious ‘sleeping habits.’ You will take on several incredibly large projects at work and will stay up for 130 hours straight to complete them. Eventually, you will snap and beat a hooker to death with your shoe.

Aquarius – January 20th – February 18th

You are a dirty hippie who probably makes their own granola. Most likely, you drive a Prius and expect everyone to congratulate you for that fact. You make a point of reminding everyone that you were against the war in Iraq, despite the fact that you were actually for it at the time.

This week, you will get into a political argument with someone and lose, because all your political information comes from the Daily Show. You will make up for that by supporting any movement that is trendy, and by standing outside of Publix grocery stores, demanding that innocent shoppers sign you petition.

Pisces – February 19th – March 20th

You just want people to love you, which is why you often become the advice giving friend in any relationship. You are incredibly sensitive and cry way more than most people should. People like you, they listen to you, but they don’t respect you.

This week, you will give advice to one of your long time crushes. That long time crush will use that advice to get into a relationship with another person, despite the fact that you desperately hoped it would make them love you. But they don’t; they just want a smoking hot Leo. They will never appreciate you and you will eventually settle for someone much less attractive than you. Together, you will open a marijuana farm in Humboldt County.

 

Life – An Exercise in Futility

The other night was a lot like any night for me. I couldn’t get to sleep. See, I am one of those people who likes to save all my worries for bed time. Most of the time, my worries are simple and stupid, kinda like this. 

Essa lays down in bed. She scratches her boob. “Is this lump on my nipple a pimple? Or is it a cancerous tumor? Holy shit, it’s the beginning of a nipple hair! Fuck, I’m never getting laid again. What dude wants a girl with nipple hair? Sure, I can pluck it, but I’ll always know it was there….”

But the other night, my thoughts turned a lot more serious. Every year of my life has passed faster than the last despite the fact that they all feel the same. I’ve finally reached that age where you actually start to notice your age. I’ve finally reached the point where it feels like the clock is ticking down, rather than ticking up. I’ve finally reached the age where I realize that it ends.

To me, death has always been an abstract matter. Sure it happens to other people. Hell, it happens every single day. But it was never something I considered for myself. Much like the color orange, hip pockets and ruffles, I never thought that death was something that fit me.

But it’s going to happen, either tomorrow when I get run over by a car in the parking lot, or sixty years from now, when I die during a coke fueled orgy with a bunch of man whores.

When I think about dying, I get mad. Why the fuck am I trying so hard? Why do I care about my weight, how much I drink, how much I smoke, what I do for a living? It’s all going to end anyway.  Someday, I am going to disappear from this world like I never existed. That alone is enough to make me wonder why the hell I get out of bed every day.

My recent preoccupation with death drives most of my friends crazy, especially the older ones. “You’re still so young. You have years ahead of you.”

I wonder if John Ritter’s friends said the same thing to him. “Stop thinking about the end, John. You have 50 years left in you easy. ‘8 Simple Rules’ just got picked up for another season….”

And pop went the aneurism.

Life isn’t fair. The fact that death happens at all proves that. You can spend your entire life building something, or you can spend your entire life doing nothing; either way, you wind up the same.

Organic matter.

This is the reason that I have always stayed away from atheism, despite being staunchly anti-religious.  The last thing that I want to consider is that if I die, it’s just all over. I need to know that something more happens. That it doesn’t just all stop. I need to believe that somehow, someway, my end isn’t actually my end, but an entirely new beginning.

Because the sad fact is, if the atheists are right, my life has been an exercise in complete futility. Sure, it was a good way to waste some time, but I’m not that important. If there is no higher purpose, nothing I did ever really mattered.

If the atheists are right, I am the human equivalent of a game of ‘Fruit Ninja’.

I really don’t want to believe that. I’ll be honest. If I died tonight, the world wouldn’t change that much. Sure, some people would be sad for a bit, but then, I’d turn into a sanctified memory. The people who were reading this post after my death might find me a bit more fascinating because I was dead, but that still wouldn’t make anything I did matter.  

My dog would find someone else to follow around the house. My readers would find another blogger to follow. The books that I wrote would be worth more and someone would hire a ghostwriter to finish off the rest, like what they did with VC Andrews. My death wouldn’t give me permanent fame. I am midlist at best. People don’t remember midlist commercial fiction authors. They remember best sellers. There is really nothing about me that would be that memorable. I am neither a particularly good person, or a particularly bad person. I’m just Essa, living somewhere in the middle. The perpetual fence sitter.

Despite being a significantly better person, I would matter less than Joe Valachi or Jeffrey Dahmer. My name would never be famous or infamous. It would just disappear.

And the fact that the end is as inevitable as a hanging pendulum makes me wonder “should I have been braver?” Have I been ballsy enough? Should I have quit that job sooner? Should I have bitch slapped that girl who cut me in line like I wanted to? Should I have had more kids? Should I have gotten married?

Should I have kept up that old meth habit?

The end is nigh, people. This depressing post isn’t just true for me. It’s true for all of us. Life is nothing more than an exercise in futility. When you’re lying on your death bed, if you failed to say everything you wanted to say or do everything you wanted to do, you will have regrets.

If the atheists are right, then my best possible goal is no regrets. So let me say a few things I have been dying to say, but have avoided saying, simply out of some outdated feeling of decorum;

Most of the people I have known who have quit smoking would have been better off sticking to the habit. Seriously, I would have rather you all stayed thin, happy people rather than turned into fat, judgmental bitches.
Most men have no idea what they’re doing in bed and I have no idea why you all can’t find the clitoris. It’s a giant pink button in the center of the vagina. It couldn’t be more findable if it had neon arrows pointing at it. The only orgasms I’ve ever had have been 100% relating to something I did. If you’re reading this and you slept with me, know that I was faking it so you would leave me alone and I could go to sleep.
On another note, I lose all interest in a man the second I sleep with him. Not sure if it’s due to the lack of orgasms or some deeper psychological issue.
Dr. Smith, I lied about how much I drink. When I checked off ‘4 drinks a month’ it should have been ‘4 drinks a day.’
If we are friends, know that at one point, I was almost 100% sure that you were retarded due to something you said or did but said nothing out of politeness
If you are one of my female friends, know that I am 100% sure you talk about me in an incredibly unflattering way behind my back. Rest assured, I am not offended…because I do the same thing to you. It’s just part of being a girl.
Dark haired dude that I used to work with, I’m pretty sure we were soul mates, which is a rare statement for me. Feelings, emotion and the idea that my life could ever potentially be a harlequin novel makes me flinch…which is probably why I was such a cunt to you. It is so much easier to reject someone in advance than wait for them to reject you. It was a bitch move on my part and the biggest regret of my life. Rest assured, you got off easy. I’m a fucking train wreck anyway and you were too good for me.
Marijuana made the majority of my life tolerable. Even when you thought I wasn’t stoned…I was.  
I am fully aware that I would have made a fantastic lesbian, but I’m not. Aside from the few occasional same sex dalliances, I much prefer the fruit of the banana to the fruit of the fig.

Life is short, life is cruel and life is fleeting. But it is also beautiful. My recent obsession will go away and I will go back to giving you all tips on how to buy weed on the internet, but rest assured, I haven’t forgotten the lesson. Say what you want to say now. Live how you want to live now. If the atheists are right, you don’t get another chance.

And Fruit Ninja is an AWESOME game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fuck Forms

Today, I saw an article about a Pennsylvania couple that was charged with contempt for filling out jury forms filled with sarcasm and profanity. While most people were attacking the couple, all I could say was ‘more power to them’.

Finest quote in this form? “You can’t have an education when your grey matter is in a Dyson.” Truer words have never been spoken.

Who among us isn’t sick of filling out forms? Who among us isn’t sick of people giving us pages and pages of incredibly personal questions to answer with no regards for our privacy or our time?

Everyone I make an appointment with does not need to know my employment history, my PCP, my middle name or if I am white, black, Asian, Latino or ‘other’ (because there are only 5 kinds). When I go to my doctor, she doesn’t need my full employment history, unless that history includes working in a coal mine and my diagnosis might be pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. (round of applause for Essa, for finding a way to put the longest existing English word into a sentence)

I say rock on Pennsylvania smart asses. Jury selection forms are nothing more than gathered data designed to allow some slime ball attorney to stack a jury and get their dirt bag client off on a technicality anyway. As far as I’m concerned, the courts don’t need to know my employment. They don’t need to know my financial history and they don’t need to know if I’ve ever been convicted of a crime. Because I’m not the motherfucker on trial.

You want me on your jury, fuck your forms. You only need to know two things. You need to know my name and you need to know that my ass is small enough to fit into one of those horrible wooden jury chairs at the court house.

Forms are ruining society. They are what people give you when they don’t know what else to do. You lost your luggage at the airport? Fill out a form. The doctor is 45 minutes late for your appointment? Fill out a form. The cops beat you within an inch of your life during a standard nonviolent arrest and you want to complain? Fill out a form.

I hate forms.

A few months ago, my son brought a form home from school. On one side was a bunch of requested information. On the other side was a request for the exact same god damn information.  Apparently, someone in my kid’s guidance office can’t be bothered with the lofty task of turning over a piece of paper.  I marked it ‘see other side, idiot’ and haven’t heard back since.

Which only goes to prove that no one reads those fucking things.

Yes, I am aware that sitting on a jury is a civic responsibility. That is why I don’t vote, to avoid civic responsibility. But filling out forms is not a civic responsibility. It’s a nuisance and a big one at that. So props to the Pennsylvania couple for telling it like it is.

In their honor, if I am ever forced to fill out a jury selection form, I will make a point of making it twice…no triple…as offensive as theirs was.

Because it is my duty as a patriotic America to exercise my freedom of speech…whether out loud, in a blog post, or via form.

God bless America.

A Few Diet Observations

I’m about 10 pounds down from when I started dieting a couple of weeks ago. Hardly a miracle cure though. I imagine much of it was alcohol bloat. In the past few weeks, I’ve learned a few things about dieting that I would like to share with you all.

Always pass on diet aids that come with baby wipes.

If the diet recommends that you carry a spare change of pants and a package of baby wipes, expect to be in a world of hurt. When that recommendation comes along, you really need to assess your priorities. For me, the decision to avoid Alloy was simply because I’d rather be a regular overweight girl, than a skinny chick who regularly shits herself.

If it’s called a ‘cleanse’ it’s actually a form of controlled anorexia

Fruit ‘cleanse’, berry ‘cleanse, master ‘cleanse’ all mean one thing. By the end of the first day, when you chew your nails out of continued edgy frustration, you will consider eating one of your fingers. Most of these cleansers include either diuretics or laxatives, meaning that when you go to the bathroom, you will have absolutely no idea which side will be doing all the work.

You should always stick to the recommended amount of pills when on medication

Otherwise, prepare to have this internal discussion when you go to bed at night.

Emotional brain: Wow, my heart sure is beating fast

Logical brain: it’s just the stimulants

Emotional brain: or a heart attack…

Logical brain: if you were having a heart attack, you would be having sharp stabbing pain in your right arm.

Emotional brain: Now that you said that, I’m definitely having stabbing pain in both my arms. What does that mean?

Logical brain: I’m not sure. Let’s get up and Google it.

Emotional brain: OK. I’ll put 911 on standby just in case.

Alcohol only counts if you keep it down

Alcohol is tricky and is the exact reason that I gained weight. See, you gain weight when your body stores something like calories or fat. But your body is incapable of storing booze. Because of that, whenever you drink, the alcohol you drink gets priority in the burning of calories. If you eat after that, any food that is above your necessary daily intake of calories gets stored as fat. My heavy drinking habit created the perfect storm of weight gain.

This same inability to store alcohol can also work to your benefit. Once you drink too much, your body starts rejecting (i.e. projectile vomiting it) instead. As an added benefit, the hangover that follows will keep you from eating or drinking most of the next day.

I consider hangovers God’s personal diet plan.

I will not jog again until an ass-bra is created.

Two sports bras is more than enough to keep my chest from bouncing around as I run down the street. It keeps me from distracting Florida motorists and causing more than one car crash. But that doesn’t help those driving behind me.

There is no amount of lycra that I can comfortable wear while running, that will keep my ass cheeks from bouncing like two overfilled volley balls. I have gotten more cat calls from dudes who like junk in the trunk than any woman should be forced to endure. Until the ass bra is created, I will save myself the humiliation and stick to the safety of the elliptical trainer.

So far, the diet is going well. As long as my ‘get high and go to the gym’ method continues to work, I should happily be sporting a one piece bathing suit with a mom skirt come spring.

Footprints 2 – Return of the Messiah

One night, I dreamed that I was walking along the beach with a hippy in a white dress and sandals.

I didn’t think this dream strange, because I frequently dream of men in dresses.

What struck me as strange were the footprints in the sand and the fact that scenes from my life were playing in the sky.

Including the one from the Love Parade in 1999, where I did that horrible thing to a microphone on a float.

I keep my head down and pray no one notices it was me.

Jesus answers my prayer, “Everyone knows it was you. The birthmark on your ass is unmistakable.”

I glare at him. “Thanks for that, by the way.” I look behind us. “What’s with the footprints?”

The numbering of the footprints is strange. Sometimes, there is one set of prints, other times there are two. Under the scene of me from the 1999 Love Parade, there are about 50 sets of prints.

Jesus smiles and places a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Sometimes we walked together. Sometimes I carried you. Sometimes I abandoned you out of pure embarrassment.” He gestures to the 1999 scene. “Sometimes, what you were doing drew a crowd.”

“I hate this beach.” I look off into the distance. “Are those drag marks?”

Jesus rubs his neck nervously. “Yeah, you sorta tripped over one of those hissing turtles and hit your head on a rock. Then the turtle bit you and you got stabbed with a syringe full of Demerol, so I had to drag you for a bit.” Jesus surveys the ground. “There sure are a lot more syringes on the beach as compared to the last time I did this.”

I look up into the sky to see the results of my hepatitis test. “Negative.” I let out a whoosh of relief. “Thank God.”

“You’re welcome.” Jesus is smug.

“Don’t get cocky. You’re the one who got me stabbed with the needle by dragging me through the slums of Daytona at 2 am. Why are we here?

Jesus gestures behind us. “For the symbolism…and the need for footprints.” We both admire the footprints. “Can’t really do it at WalMart, you know? Plus, WalMart is Satan’s domain. Ironically, he prefers the frozen food section.”

“Valid point.” I agree. “So I guess the moral of this story is that you are kind of like a benevolent stalker.”

“Sounds about right.”

“So you watch me all the time?”

“Well, not all the time. You’re not a very interesting person. I mainly only tune in when you’re doing something interesting.” Jesus stops on the beach, winded. “Wow, I am really out of shape.”

“Same.” I turn towards the lights lining the strip. “You know, we could probably do this in a bar instead. Create a much more interesting fable, called “The Time Essa and the Messiah got Drunk and Passed out on the Beach.” I look at Jesus hopefully. “Can you still do that water to wine thing?”

Jesus shakes his head. “No, but I could go for a Mojito.”

“Sounds good to me.”

We stumble up the short incline into a ocean side bar and our footprints get washed away by the surf.

 

 

 

 

Why Questing Movies Can’t Have Technology

I’ve been watching Legend of the Seeker a lot lately (short lived series and you must be a nerd like me to even be aware of its existence). One thing I noticed is that whenever there is a questing movie, whether it be in the future, an alternate reality, or some distant dystopian universe, the people all live like they’re in the 1800s.

Then I realized that is because modern technology would ruin any quest before it even started. So I decided to write my own terrible, modern day questing story. Enjoy.

A Questing Story with Modern Day Technology – an Essa Alroc Production

A grey mist rolled in over the empty, smoldering ravine. For as long as Aveylyeen the white mage, could remember, the Ravine of Perpetual Suffering was a place people avoided, rather than chose to gather. Today would be different though, because today, they were meeting to discuss the quest of the Siren Stone; a stone that was said to emit a frequency that would make any army its slave.

All together, there were 4 of them. Aveylyeen the white, mage of knowledge and purity, Reaile the green, mage of nature and endurance and Keddra the red, mage of lust and courage. Only one of their quartet was still missing.

Essa the black, mage of technology and convenient plot twists.

Suddenly, the roar of a powerful dragon could be heard. All three mages turned their attention to the sound. There was Essa the black, pulling her Dodge into a parking spot between the Ravine of Perpetual Suffering and the Waffle House on International Drive.

Essa walked up checking her iPhone. “Yeah, someone texted me about a quest?”

Aveylyeen nodded sagely. “We are to seek out the Siren Stone and destroy it. The stone holds far too much power for one man. Its magic comes with a price that will lead to the end of the world.”

“The only problem is that the stone hasn’t been seen in centuries.”  Keddra added on. “Finding it is certain to be an exciting journey filled with much adventure and danger. We will have to search the Forbidden Valley, along the borders of icy snow desserts of Engledale, through the perilous poison bat caves of Angelee and finally, we must sail the treacherous seas of the Ocean of Perdition.”

Reaile nodded in agreement. “Along the way, we will probably run into Lord Aderbane, an evil wizard with an army of minions, who wants the stone all to himself. This is why we must begin our journey to find this stone, right away, before it falls into the wrong hands. The sake of the world rests on our ability to find and destroy the Siren Stone.”

“Found it,” Essa the black responded, from where she was bent over her iPhone. She flipped the phone around so the other mages could see her display. “It was on Ebay. There was someone who was bidding on it too, but I just clicked the “buy it now” option.” She looked up at the bemused group of mages. “Are you guys willing to kick in for overnight deliver?”

Reaile looked down at the ground. “We’re a little short,” she said apologetically.

Essa rolled her eyes. “I figured as much.” She clicked purchase and the Siren Stone was on its way. “Now, about destroying this thing…”

Aveylyeen’s eyes filled with worry. “For that, we will need to use the hottest lava of the Volcano of the Infernos. The journey there will take us through the yellow road of Hepatitis Highway, along the shores of the Rabid Lake, where we must do battle with a powerful dragon to be granted access to the…”

“Couldn’t I just pop this thing in the microwave?” Essa interrupted.

Aveylyeen tilted her head, considering the question. “I suppose that would work too.”

“Cool,” Essa put her cell phone away. “Then I’ll wait for FedEx to deliver the Siren Stone and I’ll stick it in the microwave.”

The other mages looked at each other in confusion. “Should it really be this easy?”

Essa shrugged. “Crisis averted thanks to modern technology. What do you guys want to do with the remaining 180 pages?”

The mages conferred. “Get drunk and play twister.”

“You read my mind.”

My Life is a Yo-Yo Diet

I saw a picture of myself recently and I was surprised to see how much weight I had put on. I did all the self denial stuff we all do when we see a picture of ourselves looking chubby.

“I was just bloated.”

“The camera adds ten pounds”

“It was the way I was standing.”

I almost convinced myself all that was true, but then I stepped on the scale. Nope, verifiable fact that I have gained weight. While it’s not a ton, I generally like to cut these things off at the pass. You know, before I turn into one of those giant ladies who has to be cut out of her house so she can appear on a Doctor Phil episode about morbid obesity.

So it’s back to dieting. I love fad diets. I’ve tried everything in the interest of loosing weight quickly. You would be amazed at the things I have put in my mouth (and I’m not just talking Spring Break 2001). I’ve tried shakes, cotton balls, diet pills, diet bars and everything in between. The worst I have tried to date was “The Master Cleanse”

Who knew this was a recipe for a slow, painful death?

I made it one day. The day starts out by drinking 3 quarts of salt water. It ends with you laying on your bathroom floor, praying for a quick death.

Slim Fast was useless. It was only after the first day that I realized it was just a clever way to starve myself.

You know what I miss is Fen-Phen and Ephedra based diet pills. Now those fucking things got the job done! Swear to god, after I had my kid, I dropped like 80 pounds in a month. The hallucinations were pretty friggen sweet too. Who cares if I can’t use my left arm anymore?

Unfortunately, as I don’t have access to heart damaging stimulants, I will have to do this the old fashioned way.

Switch from beer to weed and start going to the gym.

You ever been on a treadmill stoned? It really is a mind altering experience. After a few minutes on the thing, you start philosophizing about how it’s really a metaphor for the way the world works. How we all think we’re constantly moving, but we never really get further than where we started. How everything, even time, is an illusion.

 

Before you know it, you’ve been on the thing for forty five minutes and you haven’t even broken a sweat. And then you go over to the Stairmaster, and you have the exact same thought, but you think it’s totally new, because you forgot what you were thinking about on the treadmill.

I lost about 20 pounds in two months just doing that. I’m patenting it as “Distracted Dieting – the Essa Alroc Guide to a Better You.” Weed not included.

I’ve been yo-yo dieting my entire life. I’ve gotten the lectures from doctors about how it’s dangerous to lose 20 pounds in a month, but I keep doing it. Healthy eating and regular exercise is boring.

My life is a series of binges.

 

 

A Look Back on Your Life as an Algorithm

The Facebook nostalgia video has officially gone viral. It’s called the ‘look back’ and it is designed to tell you what was really important in your life thanks to how many of your friends halfheartedly liked something.

Of course, because the vast majority of my friends are idiots, my video is nothing more than a pile of loud garbage. Generally, the drunker I am when I post a status update, the more people like it. Despite writing approximately 5,000 articles for various news outlets, publishing 3 books, raising a kid, changing careers, getting my masters degree and all the other life changing things I have done, this is apparently the most important thing I have had to say in the past 10 years.

I genuinely hate my Facebook page. As far as I can tell, it’s nothing more than a digital exercise in rejection. Even someone as together as me gets a little bit hurt when I post something that I think is pure genius, and no one likes it. When someone does like it, I think that they only clicked like in order to get me to go to their page and like something they made. I can’t help it, it’s pure psychology.

So I’ve decided to fix the problem by encrypting all of my Facebook status messages using PGP.

 

Now, I will truly know who actually cares what I am posting, as these people will be forced to spend 15 minutes hunting down my public key, and then another 5 decrypting it. In addition, I will only respond to comments that have also been encrypted using PGP.

As an awesome side effect, it will ensure that any future ‘look back’ videos created on my behalf come out as pure gibberish.

**In case you were wondering, this encrypted message says “haha fuckers, good luck making a video about this.” A valuable resource put to good use just to piss off my Facebook friends. I truly do have far too much time on my hands.***  

 

 

Getting Fired in Freelancing

Sorry people, I just need to rant. As this is my online diary, this is the only place to do it.

Today I got a message, completely out of the blue, from a client I worked with for years, accusing me of being ‘unenthusiastic’ about her project. This was a client that I spent years working for, who hired me for 8 hours a week, and for whom I actually worked about twenty hours a week.

Freelancing can be an amazingly frustrating business.

See, I’m considered a ‘subject matter expert’ in something called search engine optimization. As a result, people expect miracles when they contact me. They expect me to make their sales go through the roof with a few clicks of a meta description and a few additional keywords.

I used to be able to buy these at the Jersey Shore for $12. But you can get yours for the low low price of $180.

Here’s the real deal people; I am only as good as your product is. For example, the chick who just fired me, she ran a jewelry website. I SEOd the hell out of that website. I fixed product descriptions, I updated blogs, I hired people for writing the site, and I fired people who didn’t meet the standard. I did everything I could, but there was one thing I couldn’t fix.

The fact that the jewelry she was selling was ugly as sin. I mean Jesus, when did people start thinking ‘handmade’ equals quality? My dog just took a poop on her doggy pad. If I picked up those poops (no way, I’m making my kid do it) and shoved a couple of fucking fish hooks in them, I could sell that on Etsy as ‘handmade’. That doesn’t mean anyone on the fucking planet would be willing to wear them.

And not only was this shit ugly, it was fucking expensive. Now, I have an MBA in business marketing, but  don’t need it to figure out this equation.

Ugly as sin + Incredibly expensive=no damn sales

Luckily, this is one of my early clients. When I started working, I charged about $12 for my work because I seriously undervalued myself. In short, this lady was paying me $100 per week for work that I charge most of my clients $540 per week for.

So you can see how entirely heartbroken I am about the loss of her business.

Is it bad form to bitch about a client on the internet? Probably so, but I don’t care. Because when someone undervalues the people that work for them so much that they wind up cutting off their own business, they also become the kind of people that fade into obscurity pretty damn quick. I.e. she has no following and I have a following in the 6 figure range. Simply stated, I’m an internet celebrity and nobody cares what she thinks.

So fuck you, former client. If you’re reading this now, you know who you are and you finally know what I think of your chintzy, shitty jewelry. How the fuck can you expect me to be passionate about your disposable product when you treat me like I’m disposable?

Smoking – A Star Crossed Love Story that Kicks ‘Labor Day’s’ Ass

I hate being a smoker. I hate waking up in the morning and wheezing. I hate looking at every canker sore that I get and comparing them to mouth cancer photos on the internet. I hate the waste of money, the waste of time and the way I always smell like an ashtray.

But once upon a time, me and cigarettes were in love.

It all started when I was 11. The guidance counselor pulled us all out of class into the gymcafetorium (it’s gym+café+auditorium in white trash speak, for my fancy readers). We watched a video about the dangers of smoking. In that video was a section on why people smoked in the first place.

One of the ladies in that video said she smoked to stay thin.

“Thin?” My pudgy 11 year old self thought. “I could be thin?” At the time, I was an outcast. Overweight, bad teeth, worse clothes and a complexion that resembled the greasiest thin sliced pizza in New York. Anything that could magically make me prettier was considered a blessing, no matter the danger.

That night, I swiped the first cigarette I ever smoked from my father. It was a GPC, (aka Generic Price Cigarette) regular. It tasted like ass and it make me vomit.

But after the vomiting came this amazing feeling of euphoria. It was the first time I’d ever caught a buzz on something and it would be a feeling I would chase for the rest of my life.

I kept smoking and a few months passed in a haze. Before I knew it, I’d lost 20 pounds and my greasy skin had dried out from the nicotine.

I went from being hideous to marginally attractive overnight.

After a while, it was impossible to keep stealing cigarettes from my dad, so I started buying them at a store with very lose age restrictions. One day, I was stomping out of the store when the coolest chick in school saw me packing a new pack of smokes.

“You smoke? That’s cool.”

I had no idea it was cool too! I thought I was just trying to stay skinny. Soon, me and the rest of the bad assed 12 year olds were heading off to ‘the trail’ on a daily basis to smoke cigarettes and bitch about our parents,

I had to keep up the cool persona. My dad’s cigarettes weren’t enough and the dude who used to sell them to me got fired. So I started stealing them.

I remember the first time I stole a pack of smokes. This was back when they kept them in the isles, as opposed to behind the register. I stole that first pack and all the blood rushed to my head. I was sure I was going to pass out right in the doorway. My hands were shaking so bad I could barely get them in my pocket.

But I did. That first theft increased my confidence. Soon, I was stealing 4 or 5 packs a day and selling them to the kids at school. I became the go to chick when you needed a nicotine fix for those under 18.

In short, cigarettes turned me from an overweight misfit to a marginally attractive badass with some badass skills. If it weren’t for cigarettes, I would have never developed a little skill called confidence. Hell, I’d probably be some 33 year old overweight loser working in a convenience store getting yelled at by a boss with an associate’s degree.

Cigarettes didn’t just get me physically addicted; they got me emotionally addicted. They define who I am today.

Need a break from daily life? Go have a cigarette. Got into a fight with an idiot? Go have a cigarette. Conversation making you uncomfortable? Go have a cigarette.

Hell, I even use it now as a negotiating tactic.

“We’re only willing to pay 30 cents a word. “

“I charge 50.”

“We can find someone else…” the threat, that should hang in the air and make me uncomfortable is null an void because I no longer care about making the deal. I just want to get outside to smoke.

“That’s cool.” I reach into my back pocket and smile as my full pack reassures me. “You need to do what you need to do.” I race out the door, ignoring their protests, as my nicotine craving calls to me.

10 minutes later as I’m chain smoking a 305 menthol on the sidewalk in front of the building, I get a text. They’ll pay my rate.

My cigarette tells me to up my rate to 60 cents a word, because they wasted my time.

Smoking made me. It made me brave. It gave me confidence and it made me do things that I never thought I’d be capable of doing. When I started freelance writing, 30 cents a word was an offer I would have jumped at. But my cigarettes know me better than that and they know that I deserve more. If it wasn’t for smoking, I wouldn’t have the friends I have today. I wouldn’t have done half the ballsy things I do. I wouldn’t be me.

I’d probably be some sad, overweight WalMart cashier who never got to experience the joy of telling a boss to go fuck themselves.

Smoking is more than a hobby. It is a life calling. It is a definable attribute. Just like I have blue eyes, just like I serve angry quips and cynicism, just like I have balls the size of watermelons, I am a smoker. It is part of who I am. It is not just some nasty habit. It is me.

So understand that asking me to quit smoking is like asking me to give up a part of myself.

I heard once that smoking is 1000 times more addictive than heroin. Now, I’ve tried heroin and I have to admit, I didn’t find it addictive at all. I found it nauseating. But that is because heroin is physically addictive. I can avoid physical addiction easily. Hell, I haven’t eaten solid food for four days now.

But smoking is an emotional addiction. It isn’t just something I do. It is part of me. It played a huge part in making me who I am.

And turning my back on it now feels a hell of a lot like a betrayal.