???

Man, I do not understand relationships at all. Actually, I guess its really the process of getting into a relationship that I don't really understand. And this post just proves it, because it is a hot damn mess. It was originally a lot worse, but I attempted to organize it. Fasten your seat belts.

1. How people get in relationships in the first place. 

http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/Confused.jpg

I think its because I haven't had a boyfriend since high school, but I am still really confused as to how people actually meet each other and get into relationships. Maybe I'm just never in the right place at the right time, but the only people who seem to ever be around me are not exactly boyfriend material. One only has to go on my Facebook page to see stories of all the goddamn creepers who want to play friendship with me. I never sit next to the hottie on the airplane, and the only hot people who were in any of my classes at school were usually douchey frat boys. Or I get the charmers who tell me that I would be so much prettier if I smiled more (it is not my fault that I have resting bitch face). Then there are the people who are like "oh yeah I met my significant other at work". Well take it from someone who knows, that shit can get real awkward real quick. Also online dating really sketches me out. I meet enough weirdos in my daily life, I can only imagine what would happen if I was trying to meet people on the world wide web. My prom date is in jail for murder, guaranteed I'd end up meeting up with some sort of crazy person. So how do you go about meeting people?!

2. People who are constantly in relationships
Do these people just have people on standby for when their current relationships don't work out? "Hey good looking person, I too am good looking. I'm with this person right now, but if it goes kaput, Imma hit you up. Then we can be a good looking couple". Then the other person is just like "word. Just let me know, I'll totally date you". Is that how it works?! There are people who are seriously never single, and I just don't get it. I can't even figure out how to get a casual boyfriend, and I have so many friends who are like "oh yeah, I've had like three serious relationships in my life". WHAT. HOW DO YOU EVEN MEET THAT MANY PEOPLE THAT YOU HAVE A CONNECTION WITH?!!? Of course, maybe it would help if I actually talked to people instead of being like "oh that guy is super good looking and I haven't brushed my hair in 3 days. Anybody want to go and get some nachos?". I'm also a little bit worried about these people, because I think you should be single for a second. You have to learn to be happy as a single person, not as half of a couple. If anybody needs advice in this area, I've got your back.

3. The unwritten rules of the game
You know that saying "don't hate the player, hate the game"? I don't even understand how a person actually becomes a player in the fucking game. How do people know this stuff?! Like how long you're supposed to wait to talk to someone again after you hang out with them, whether it looks more desperate to call versus text, whether or not you should kiss them goodnight, this shit is exhausting. And there are people who just seem to be so good at it. Also this whole deal about how you're supposed to seem like you don't care. I never get it right. Usually I'm a little too pro status, and then I have to be like "oh no wait, I really do care, I promise!!". Having to act like you're not excited when you're texting is hard too. You know what I'm talking about, you say something like "yeah we should definitely hang out again" when really you just want to be like "HANG OUT WITH ME SO I CAN MAKE OUT WITH YOUR FACE". Then there's all of the articles in Cosmo that are trying to explain the best ways to make a dude want to date you and its all just so confusing. It really doesn't help that when I encounter a good looking person of the opposite sex, my brain decides that the best plan for success is to resort back to 13 year old Hannah. I'm so awkward its painful.

5. Sexting
I'm pretty good at writing, but I am the worst at sexting. Mostly because I think its super awkward and I don't quite see the point of it. I never know what to say, and then I just feel so stupid. Plus I think that sending naked pictures to someone is the dumbest thing in the entire world. I don't know who is going to see them besides that other person. Yeah you can try to keep them a secret, I've had so many people be like "OMG LOOK AT THIS PICTURE ________ JUST SENT ME!" And Snapchat is no different. Those pictures have to get stored somewhere, right? I don't want some rando looking at my boobs. Seriously guys, just stop sending naked pictures to people. Sorry, I got a little distracted for a second. But for real, when did sexting become a thing? I do have to say, 10 points to whomever coined the term "sexting". Absolute genius on their part. My apologies to the last poor soul who attempted to sext me, because I had to be like "yo I don't have time for your scandalous shit, I'm trying to fill out a coaches test that I forgot about".

UGH. Its just going to be me and my beta fish fo life.

Hannah gets a fish.

"Everybody that I know is getting married, and I'm thinking about getting a fish." 

I said these exact words yesterday while talking to one of my supervisors and a couple of my coworkers about the fact that we're at the age where a lot of people are getting married, and Facebook tends to be flooded with pictures of engagement rings and babies. Sometimes both, depending on the person. 

Normally I'm pretty content with not having my shit together. Its nothing new for me, I've never been a planner. But every once in a while, I really sit down and evaluate my life, and then I sort of panic. This week has been one of those times. Facebook (really, at this point you'd think I would just delete it so I could feel better about my life, but then who would I share my funny stories with???) has just been bursting at the seams with people making announcements of career and life achievements, and for some reason I freaked out. Luckily I was not alone in this, because my roommate was feeling the exact same way, so we had some fun roomie bonding of "hey let's sit on your bed and talk about how we're not doing anything with our lives". It was super fun, I'm sure you're all really jealous. The funniest part of the whole thing is that for the first time since college, both of my parents are actually really amped with my life choices. They think that Portland is just the greatest place in the whole wide world, and could not be more proud of their sweet Hannah. Seriously, my mom pretty much wrote that last bit in her birthday card. This freaks me out a lot. Are they actually proud of me, or have they just given up on all of their career aspirations for me and are just excited that I'm able to pay rent and keep myself fed??? My mom recently had to bail me out a little when I had to get two new debit cards in two weeks (soooooooo stupid), so I have not been feeling very adult like. 

Today was different. I woke up this morning and was like "I am a goddamn adult. I eat oatmeal for breakfast, I pay bills on time, I can totally be responsible for another life. Today I am going to buy a fish". Now for some people this might not be that big of a deal, but it is for me. When I was 19, I got a surge of domestic responsibility, and I went and bought a frog. I named him Reptar, and we lived happily for about a month, until he suddenly died and left me with a broken heart and a terrarium full of crickets. This was really upsetting. Then we had a string of ugly fish deaths in the Vieja (one got electrocuted, three were sort of forgotten about) and I was pretty nervous to be responsible for the life of something other than myself. But today I did it. I finally took the plunge and bought myself a pet fish. I got the fish, I got the bowl, I got the drops to make sure the chlorine in the water won't kill him, I even got him a ninja turtle figurine to make his fishbowl look extra badass. 

.......Then I got home and realized that I had forgotten to buy any fish food. 

Leonardo in all of his glory. 

A letter to my debit card

Dear debit card,

I'm sorry that you had to die an incredibly tragic death after only a week due to my stupidity and selective listening. I truly thought that we were destined for a long and happy life together, full of trips to Starbucks and other adventures of the financially inept. You were just a little nugget trying to do your best, and I let you be eaten by an ATM. I hope you know how badly my heart hurt when I heard the words "automatically destroyed". Ugh, simply writing the words brings a stab of pain. Our time together was brief, but it was true. Fourth of July was fun, and you purchased my groceries at New Seasons yesterday like the goddamn champion that you were.

Rest assured that you will not be forgotten, because "that one time that Hannah had to get two new debit cards in two weeks" will certainly go down in history as one of the dumbest things that I have ever done. I hope the universe chooses to avenge your death and the death of the card before you by making the guy in Turkey slam his shin into every coffee table he passes, not notice he is out of toilet paper until after he poops, and always be stuck next to the smelliest person on public transportation.

Goodbye, sweet friend.

Love,
Hannah

The Waypost: where everybody knows your name

The Waypost is a bar that's about a block from my house, and it is hipster to the core. Seriously, think of the most hipster place that you've ever been in your life, then multiply it by 750 and that's the Waypost. Weirdly enough, I love it. I think its because its also one of the weirdest places I've ever been. Its really tiny, and apparently the owner is from Arizona, so it looks like it would fit right in if it were in Tucson. You never know what you're going to find at this place, and here are the experiences that Paulina and I have had there so far.

"Umm...do you think they'll still serve us tea?"  
We started off on the appropriately weird note for this place. Both Paulina and I were under the impression that it was a coffee shop that was open really late, so one night we were both like "oh hey I really want some tea and a cookie but its like 10 pm, want to go check out that Waypost place?" And since we were just going to get some late night tea, we did not feel the need to dress up. Paulina was wearing leggings and a sweatshirt, and I was in sweats. We get there and SURPRISE, its a bar. Like full on crowded bar scene filled with people drinking alcoholic beverages while wearing their hipster best. Both Paulina and I just stood there so awkwardly in our pajamas trying to figure out where we had gone wrong in our lives. The bartender thought this was the funniest thing in the entire world and still made us tea. We drank our tea at a little table that had a drawer in it, and the drawer was filled with all sorts of bar doodles from the hipsters who came before us, which was pretty cool. One person wrote a really long letter that I'm pretty sure was supposed to be super profound, but their handwriting was not great. We found some pens and decided to leave our mark. I drew a dinosaur (obviously) and Paulina tried to write a love letter to her soulmate, but unfortunately her pen ran out of ink.

The poetry slam 
Another night, Paulina got super amped on us going out and doing activities, and I was not feeling it at all. Finally I agreed to grab a beer at the Waypost, on the condition that I wasn't actually going to change out of my sweats. So we go, and we walk into a full on slam poetry situation. Paulina couldn't deal, and walked out immediately laughing her ass off. I went after her and was like "no. You dragged me out of bed for this, we are having a beer". The lady kept slamming her poetry, and we tried so hard to follow but we couldn't. Apparently some of her poems were really funny, but honestly we had no idea what was happening. I don't think we're deep enough for hipster slam poetry. The bartender who served us tea was also there, and he remembered our names. Unfortunately for him, I called him Brian even though his name is Antonio.

This sums up how thrilled I was to go out that night.

Hipster friends 
Before this night, every time Paulina and I have gone to the Waypost, we have made absolutely no effort to make any new friends. We never wear anything besides workout stuff (or sweats in my case) and we usually sit in the front area and eat our nachos and drink our beer in a very anti-social manner while making fun of all the hipsters around us. We're those girls who don't talk to anyone but each other and the bartenders. One night we decided to change all of that. We made efforts to wear hipster things (I wore my thick rimmed glasses, we both wore plaid) and we went to go and see what was happening. There was a band playing, the bartender remembered our names, we got some beer, we were ready for friendship. Unfortunately, friendship wasn't ready for us. Not a single person talked to us the entire time we were there. At one point we were sitting at a table and literally every single person was on the opposite side of the room from us. This was a little bit devastating, but luckily the band started playing songs on ukeleles and that made everything better. As we were leaving, this super badass looking girl started talking to us about how she had hitchhiked her way to Portland and had been sleeping under bridges. We kept our cool while we were talking to her, but as soon as we walked away both of us were like "OH MY GOD SOMEONE ACTUALLY SPOKE TO US!!!!!!!!!" It was a big moment, because apparently Paulina and I are 13.

Brunch 
The Waypost serves brunch on the weekends, and it has saved our lives a time or two (or a lot) when we've either gone out the night before or are just too lazy/haven't bought groceries and don't want to make breakfast. Most of the time its pretty standard: we wake up a tad hungover/Paulina drags me out of bed around 10:30, Paulina puts on real clothes, I stay in whatever I happen to be wearing, we drag ourselves the block and a half down the street and then sit down to a delicious breakfast. I broke the routine a little bit after the Pants off/Dance off party (see previous blog post if you don't know what I'm talking about) when I woke up more hungover than I have been in a good long minute. It was one of those hangovers where you have to lay in bed for a couple of hours regretting all of your previous life choices while trying to evolve into an actual human being. I kind of thought I was dead, but I finally managed to stumble down the street around 2:30 pm (brunch is served until 3 pm) because I figured that eating something would make me feel better. I was wrong. I ordered my food and sat down, and everything was just too much to deal with. The walls were too bright, the music was too loud, I was too hot, and I took exactly one bite of my breakfast and was like I am going to vomit. I went back to the bar and had to explain to the bartender that I had greatly underestimated the dire situation of my hangover and that I needed a to-go box at that exact moment because I really wasn't going to make it. She laughed at me and got me the box, and I made it home.

In case you couldn't tell, if you come to visit we will go to the Waypost more than once. Its magical.