Guest Blog: Blackberries to Apples

What first attracted me to the blog Blackberries to Apples, was the witty title. The name provoked images of a sassy big city gal who career'd it by day and blogged by night. I peeked into the blog to find exactly that- a smart, funny, confident writer living and working in NYC. Her tales of being a twenty-something in one of the greatest cities in the world always keeps me wanting to hear more. That is why I was delighted when she suggested we do a blog swap.

We exchanged emails and immediately knew what we were going to talk about: relationships and the weird shit that comes with them. When I read her post, I could instantly relate to it, and I think you will too.

I'm honored to present the true tales of Ms. M....

(P.S. check out my post over at her blog)

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We hold this truth to be self-evident: Relationships are fucking bizarre

I've been on this planet for like 24 years now, and I feel like I haven't learned very much. I mean, I've definitely learned some things. Don't touch an open flame. Don't put your tongue on things that are frozen. Don't go on second dates with guys who regularly use the word "jibe." You know, shit like that. Other than that, what I like to refer to as lifestuff seems mostly nebulous. Except for one truth I've found to be universally, um, true: relationships are fucking bizarre.

I've had three "serious" relationships in my life, and each one has been fucking bizarre in its own special ways. I mean, first of all, the whole construct of "being with someone" is bizarre. You meet a person. For some unknown reason, you decide you "like" him or her. You start "dating" or whatever. Then you make your liking of said person "official" by spending most of your time - a good bit of it naked, WTF - exclusively with said person. And then, once you're past excitingnakedstage you spend all the rest of your time trying to ignore, move past, or accept all the things you can't fucking stand about that person. I'm not bitter. I'm just keeping it real.

Even more bizarre than the experience of being intimate with another human being is the experience of looking back on the relationship after you've ended it. My first serious relationship started in high school - when I was, ummm, 15 years old - and ended soon after my 21st birthday. My second relationship began when I was 21 and ended when I was 22. My third and most recent relationship began when I was 22 and ended when I was 23. So, basically, I've been in a relationship of some sort every year for the past eight years. Looking back on it all, I would say that I've had mild to moderate success with my break-ups; this is evidenced by the fact that I no longer stay in contact with any of my exes. That means I'm either 0 for 3 or 3 for 3, depending on how you choose to look at it. Of course, I choose the latter.

It also means that I have no hesitation airing some of the weirdest habits my exes had - you know, just as evidence for the ultimately bizarre nature of relationships. The reason relationships are so bizarre is that when you're in them, your brain warps like the very fabric of spacetime, and you don't think bizarre things that the other person does are, in fact, bizarre. But when you're out of the relationship, you will inevitably have a moment when you look back and realize, "Holy shit. That was so fucking weird, but it seemed so fucking normal at the time." Now is one of those moments.

A List of Fucking Weird Things My Exes Did, In No Particular Order*

Played the didgeridoo
Had an irrational dislike/fear of bodily fluids (yes, including those bodily fluids)
Had a drawer full of adult toys
Abhorred the word "goddamn"
Owned snakes (yes, plural)
Took up "bouldering," which is just rock climbing for insane people opposed to things like ropes and harnesses
Voted Republican
Worked at Cracker Barrel
Claimed to have a life goal of owning a Venus Fly Trap (OK, not gonna lie, this is weird, but also fucking awesome)
Lit a match after going number 2
Played the didgeridoo
Came thisclose to voting for Ralph Nader
Talked to me in explicit detail about sex with his ex
Owned and used nipple clamps
Built his own computers (PCs, WTF?)
Went to bed at precisely the same time every night
Went through an aquarium/fish phase
Purchased lingerie and claimed it was truthfully, honestly a selfless gift for me
Refused to drink alcohol until he was 21
Got irrationally upset when I made meaningless observational statements about surroundings (Me: "This room is small." Him: "What, this room just isn't good enough for you?!?!" True story.)
Made inappropriate moany noises when he saw SUV ads in magazines
Did not know/had never heard the Applebottom Jeans song. You know the one. You know it.
Had a genital piercing
Wore only women's jeans**
Read the entire Twilight series, which is somewhere close to an entire week of life that will never be returned
Worked in a legit pet store for, like, more than a few months
Referred to an $800 tattoo as an "investment"
Referred to said investment as "hahahahahahaha"
Went through a "bonsai tree" stage
May or may not have owned a lizard or a frog or something at some point
Pretended to be gay while selling clothing to women at his retail job
PLAYED THE FUCKING DIDGERIDOO Y'ALL

*For fun and fairness, I added - at random - some of the fucking weird things yours truly did whilst in said relationships
**I swear to God, this is not one of mine, which is why it definitely deserves a place in the top three fucking bizarre things on this list

Obituary Birthday

The blogging community can be a gigantic ass kiss fest at times, but there is one blog that has stayed for me, and for many others, one of the best pieces of writing out there.

The very first blog that caught my attention when I dove nose first into the blogging world (is there another freakin' word for "blog"? Cripes! I've used it four times already!), was My Soul is a Butterfly, written by the enigmatic Hannah Miet. I still remember the first line that reeled me in. Hannah was describing her inability to connect with the book, "Loose Girl: Memoirs of Promiscuity":

"All I'm saying is that I can't masturbate to your lack of father figure. And I like masturbating to books."

I was hooked. Not only was this writer alluring, but she was smart and witty. She referenced Ernest Hemingway and talked about things most girls are afraid to suggest. A young and beautiful Woody Allen, walking the streets of New York commentating on all the quirk and poetry of the world.

Hannah, for this I hate you.

She also is the author of one of the best blogs post I've ever read.

Enough fucking talking. It's with great honor that Hannah is guest posting on my blog today.

P.S. Check out my post over at Hannah's

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Obituary Birthday by Hannah Miet

Sometimes I search my Gmail archives for clues. Evidence in sentence form. I excavate my bedroom for scraps of discarded paper. Shopping lists that may unlock my mystery.

It doesn’t work, of course. There is no narrative. I don’t find out why I did or did not love. I don’t find out where I was, or where I am.

I find an email to myself that only says “hipster circus, golf mag, rent check.”

500 saved job openings.

“Banksy’s Playlist for Curly American Enlightenment.”

Shopping list for a spectacular dinner I was too lazy to cook.

Apartment in Harlem: 420 Friendly: $900/month.

“I want to make love to your soul.”

Bonnaroo Music Festival Ticket Confirmation.

“Hire me. I have a flower in my hair.”

Open bar Obama. Don’t forget the red dress.

“Panda, call home, it’s been months.”

When I die, they may say that my life was in shambles. That I lived in squalor, or had many lovers and died lonely. My ghost will be unable to write a blog post saying “No guys, you’ve got it all wrong. I was happy.”

I hope my apartment is clean when I die. I hope there aren’t lists that say “Champagne, toothbrush, enema.” I hope I don’t go gently into that good night with my vibrator in hand reading a dirty French novel or watching Naughty Bookworms.

Then again, that’d be better than Alzheimer’s.

Maybe they will figure it all out better than I can (whoever “they” are). Fill in the blanks with the glue of time. String together images to make a motion picture, or at least an absurdist poem. They will say “She sang at Carnegie Hall” and “She kissed a married man” and both of these things will make perfect sense on the same page.

Someone I am quite fond of recently told me to turn to obituaries for examples of short, concise prose. I signed up for a daily obituary email, since such a thing, and pretty much everything, exists on the internet. I didn’t expect to find them so fascinating, and precisely for the fact they are so concise: an entire, messy, human summed up in a narrative.

I’ve always wondered what my obituary will look like. I wondered this in middle school, when a teacher made us write one positive adjective for each of our classmates and submit them all anonymously on scraps of paper. She read them all out loud. There were 24 students in the class. 20 of the strips of paper allotted to me said the word “nice.” One said “helpful,” most likely written by someone who cheated off me, one said “pretty,” most likely written by the one boy who noticed my breasts were growing faster than most, and one said “cool hair,” clearly written by an idiot who didn’t understand the concept of an adjective. I remember thinking that my obituary would be pretty boring.

“Hannah Miet was a loving daughter. Apparently nice, good to cheat off of, vaguely pretty. Idiots thought her hair was cool.”

11 years later, People still tell me I’m “nice.” They also tell me I’m “crazy,” occasionally with the addition “in the good way.” Since then, I’ve had over 15 jobs (one of which vaguely involved watching people have sex), danced awkwardly in and out of bedrooms and friendships and haphazard living arrangements; I’ve fallen for a stranger I’ve never met; I’ve shared champagne with the cinematic hero of my childhood; An ex once dumped the contents of my purse, as well as my shoes, down a 23 flight stairwell and broke my vibrator; I’m not sure my original obituary leaves room for these kind of memories and realities.

I need a Sherlock Holmes.

I am lost.

Barely two weeks after I signed up for the daily obituaries, I had a conversation with a stranger at a journalism conference. Obligatory small talk led me to the knowledge that, up until recently, his job was to write obituaries for a Baltimore paper.

“How did you stumble into that?” I asked, avoiding the urge to beg him to investigate my life and write mine.

“I just did.”

“Did you like it?”

“I did. But I wanted to be out reporting. Half of my time was spent searching the phrase ‘dies at’ on Google for leads.”

“Really? So it wasn’t interesting?”

“Rarely. Very rarely, the person was interesting. Sometimes, that didn’t make much of a difference. We’re all sons or daughters to someone, you know?”

“The interesting stuff is unwritten…”

“Exactly. Or at least, it doesn’t fit the storyboard.”