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I’m not going to tell you that you need to just accept everything about yourself; my hair is something that makes me feel bad, and so I’ve taken steps to do something about it. But I am going to tell you that addressing things is better than repressing them. I had to confront my nightmare in order to get out of it.
We opted to stay late: just four guys, two bottles of champagne, and a whole lot of baby oil. When people ask when our bond really formed, we can easily point to that night. You get tipsy and oil up a coworker’s butt, you become best friends real fast.
Finally, it helps to remember that everyone is going through the same things you are. WE ARE ALL FAKING IT. Everyone is terrified in their own way. Also: 99 percent of the time no one can tell that you’re faking it or are terrified. We always think everyone is staring or laughing at us, but the truth is they’re dealing with their own nonsense. Ain’t nobody got time for you. In fact, it’s pretty self-centered to think anybody has got time for you. Long story short: fake it till you make it and fail like no one is watching.
The weight of wanting to change is heavy, and instead of it fueling dramatic life reform, it usually ends up serving as fodder for self-loathing and doubling down on counterproductive behaviors. I cover up the bad feelings with even worse habits.
The only thing harder than willing yourself to get up off the couch is manifesting a fundamental upheaval of life habits, and that’s true even when you know it’s imperative to your overall health and happiness.
*Remember that eating vegan is not an “all or nothing” proposition. Focus on progress over perfection. Chill the fuck out! Even vodka is vegan. Let’s do a shot.
I shudder looking back at old photos. But, sure, let’s print them in a book to exist forever and ever. Great.
I love the outfit. I don’t believe you in it, but I love it. You don’t believe me in it? This is queer culture, this is a gay man’s outfit. Which I love. I’m all about that. I’m not allowed to wear it? I don’t think you should not wear it. It’s just, it’s very gay. Which I love. I’m all about that gay life. But this is the least believable I’ve seen you in an outfit. Stepping out of your fashion comfort zones is great. But in the end, it’s also identifying where you want to go with your fashion and how it expresses the real Ned. Right? ’Cause fashion is only what you make of it. Style is your
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I was in one season of basketball, and was painfully aware of how unskilled I was compared to the bigger kids. My dad pulled me aside and said, “Quitting something you’re bad at only makes you less of a waste of time, so don’t be ashamed.”
Love, to me, could be a performative act, and it could easily be fallen out of just as easily as couples dive into it. I attend friends’ weddings and am moved by the romance and the ceremony, but never have I believed that a pair’s ties are invulnerable. Shit happens. People change. Bravo to those success stories, few and far between, blissful in their geriatric years—but I’m not banking on it.
Growing up, I had a totally twisted view of intimacy. I imagined falling in love as the whirlwind of meeting someone new, the fireworks of your first kiss, the thrill of getting to know each other, and the electric nausea of saying “I love you” for the first time. But now that I’ve been in a relationship, I realize those moments aren’t love at all. Love—actual love—is made up of a million “unromantic” milestones, like the first time you ask the other to pop that pimple on your back, or when you debate for days over what color bedsheets to buy. Love isn’t the first time your eyes meet across
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I think back to my fears of moving in together, my anxieties of not being ready for marriage or having children . . . of not being the man she deserves. But ultimately, it just requires dedication and belief. Dedication to her—putting her needs before my own and loving her always through ups and downs, when I’m being stupid and the (very) rare occasions when she’s wrong. And belief—belief that I am valid, that I’m worthy of being loved, and that there’s a reason she’s with me to begin with, that it’s not just some mistake.
Once when we were kids, my sister kept telling me that I was, in fact, dead, and was a dumb-ass ghost who didn’t realize he was dead. My mother, rolling her eyes, told me to tell her that she was a liar, and several minutes later I came back crying even harder because my sister then told me that she would kill herself so that she could become a spirit and then murder me in the ghost world, and started chasing me with a kitchen knife. This was one of our nice fights.
We get along famously now, and although she has a high-powered job, beautiful home, indecorous sense of humor, and a chill husband, she draws the line at children. Both of my sisters, to drive a point home about my family, find the idea of having kids to be unnecessary, wasteful, and just plain gross—and if you feel compelled to do that thing where your voice gets higher and you plead, “But like that’s what every woman says until they have kids,” my sisters will laugh at you, find the nearest child, and punch it in the head to prove their point.
Author Henry David Thoreau was known for his philosophies of self-reliance, solitude, simple living, and independence, which he famously developed while living by himself for two years at Walden Pond. What he left out of his book was that he would often dip into town so that his mom could do his fucking laundry.
My older sister and I hold on to each other, a sight for anyone who knew us growing up, since we didn’t properly hug until we were both in college. Today it’s not that awful, especially since we still find ways to make it riotous. “Your boobs feel gross,” I retort. She lets go of me. “Thanks, your face is ugly.” Ah, family. Some things never change.
