chloemill

[chloemill]

On threesomes, tacos and The Office

Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? (-me, every single goddamn blog I write) I’m not going to wax poetic on my lack of motivation because, well, I do that every single post and also every single day in the prison of my own mind BUT! Here I am. Let’s just get on with it.

As most of you know, I am single. [thunderous applause from the crowd] please… please, thank you so much, please let me finish. After a solid consecutive five-ish years spent in back-to-back relationships, before which I’d been a crippingly insecure college student content to desperately make out with whatever pasty and emotionally stunted upperclassman would squeeze my boob, I’d never really dipped my toes into the dating app world until the last seven months or so. And I have to say: I am… well? I’m disgusted. It’s no secret that women on the apps match with exponentially more men than the other way around, and given what I’ve seen of men’s profiles, it’s not hard to see why. Men are out here in the virtual streets acting like goddamn buffoons and still expecting sex to be bestowed upon them. It’s a travesty, and nevertheless, it persists. It’s often said you need to be the change you wish to see in the world. So I’ve decided to take matter into my own hands. I present to you: my definitive list of dating app pet peeves.

- The Office quotes. I have to get it out of the way first, or it’ll gnaw at my soul. We all love The Office. It’s one of the greatest comedies of all time. So great that every fucking idiot this side of the Mississippi lists it as one of their top three TV shows. Cut it the fuck out. No mention of it! No “assistant to the regional manager”, no “looking for the Pam to my Jim”, no “Employed at: Dunder Mifflin”, please, for the love of God, shut the fuck up. At this point I’d honestly rather see a blurry, unhygienic and unsolicited dick pic than read “Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica” in some mediocre looking Brayden’s profile. Oh, and if you think you’re off the hook because you quoted Parks and Rec instead? You’re fucking not, Tanner. Watch another show.

- “Kid not mine!!!!!!” Yes, my instinct was that a 24-year-old named Brett on a dating app created for the primary purpose of fucking strangers was going to upload a picture of his infant child as his main photo for which to attract female mates. I’m glad you clarified

- Grown, of age, adult, matured, human men using Snapchat filters and/or boomerangs. This might be the biggest one of all, and that’s saying something. A photo of a man with an artificially round cherub face and giant virtual sparkly anime eyes or, even worse, a squinty boomerang trying desperately to accentuate his weak jawline… sends a chill down the spine. I hate to perpetuate gender roles, but I feel I’m justified in saying straight men aren’t allowed to use Snapchat filters. And boomerangs are only for hot girls making kissy faces and clinking their drinks together - at this point, it’s basically cultural appropriation to use them if you don’t fit that profile. Please, I beg of you, summon a shred of goddamn dignity from the depths of your broken soul and delete the boomerang.

- Jumping off of that last one: emoji use. Again, I mean, I hate to impose the confines of traditional masculinity on anyone, but the monkey-covering-his-eyes emoji has never helped anyone seal the deal. I mean that.

- “Not looking for anything serious” Chad, you have the Macklemore haircut and are wearing American flag swim trunks. I promise you, no one assumed you were looking for something serious

- Mentioning tacos/pizza/[insert delicious and popular food item here]. Look, I am a feminist, and in the spirit of equality I must point out that women pioneered this trend and still perpetuate it heavily - a pattern sociologists have termed the “touch my butt and feed me tacos phenomenon”. However, men have latched onto it in what I can only assume is an eleventh-hour attempt to draw in this demo. Please cease and desist. Everyone likes tacos, Caleb

- The other day I saw a guy on Hinge say his ideal dinner guest was Peter Kavinsky and I’ve never seen anyone else say that but honestly fuck you dude. Fuck you

- When guys are trying to stay anonymous and post a low-quality shirtless torso pic without showing their face…? Has anyone ever actually swiped right on that? I kind of respect the blind confidence, but still.

- ”[insert height here]… because I’ve been told it matters” stop with the qualifier, just tell us how tall you are and go, you coward. Honestly, I think the ideal male dating app profile for me is just 3 grainy vaguely attractive pictures and “6’3” as a bio.

- “In town for the weekend… show me around?” Firstly, that sounds absolutely harrowing. Secondly, I’d respect you more if you just said “in NYC for 24 hours and trying to get it in” than pretend like you’re searching for Sacajawea to show you the new world. It’s NYC. Google it

- Any of the following descriptors: easygoing, laid-back, outgoing, “loves travel/fine dining/yoga/hiking/Netflix/some other generic hobby white people like to talk about”, intelligent, chill, fun, low-key, “up for whatever”, hard-working, humble, etc. These are not bad qualities per se, but anyone who describes themselves as such is 110% guaranteed to be deeply boring.

- I was just swiping to find some more overused descriptive phrases and someone’s bio was “the Earth is cylindrical”… you have my attention, sir

- Guys with accents specifying in their profile that they have an accent. I cannot tell you what an enormous boner killer this is. Do you know what’s a huge turn ON? Being into a guy and then meeting him for the first time and realizing he has a sexy ass accent. You know what’s not a huge turn on? A random English dude you didn’t match with leaving you a 45-second Instagram voice DM (this is a thing somehow) in which he hits on you and then goes “oh… and yeah… I have an accent. Crazy, isn’t it?” Yes, this really happened. Still accepting thoughts and prayers.

- Couples looking for threesomes. This is a delicate process and making a joint profile with “she’s bicurious. He’s straight. We both like kissing girls. Looking for someone to explore with :)” is not only cringeworthy as all motherfuck, but completely ineffective. Listen, I get it. I get that after four years, Tommy and Kayleigh are trying to spice things up. Order a pair of fuzzy handcuffs on Amazon and leave me the hell out of it. Also - every single one of these couples has a very… wide male/female attractiveness margin. Kayleigh can hit me up on her own.

I’m going to stop here because I’m just making myself depressed at this point. It’s really a jungle out there. The truth of it is we’re all braver than the goddamn troops every time we swipe, and I salute each of you out there in the trenches with me. May your monkey emojis be infrequent and your threesome requests be infrequent-er! If worse comes to worse, there’s always arranged marriage.

[chloemill]

On my dog

Happy Friday everyone! My dog died today and I am sad.

Kind of distressing that the death of a beloved pet is the only thing that can motivate me to make words come out of my fingers but you know, what’re you gonna do. I really and truly wake up every morning with the intent to write, but then my brain does that thing where I have so many ideas I’ve been thinking about for so long that it kind of laps itself and all of a sudden has literally not a single idea whatsoever… so I just don’t write anything at all. Ain’t life grand! But anyway. My dog died today. His name was Max. Just started tearing up typing the word “was” instead of “is” so now we’re REALLY cooking with gas baby!

He didn’t actually die of his own volition, we put him down, but I believe I am correct in saying that still counts as dying. I don’t think he ever would’ve done it on his own, actually. It was his time but had to help him out, like Harry Potter giving Dobby the fucking sock or whatever it was. Alright, yes of course I know it was a sock but I added “or whatever it was” to maintain the air of humorous nonchalance to which we have all become accustomed. Back to the point, he was very, very old. Almost twenty, or twenty on the nose, or fuckin 37, we didn’t know exactly. We adopted him when I was in the fifth grade and my sister was in first, and we were whatever ages you are in the fifth and first grade (why is it literally impossible for me to remember what age I was in any given grade/year without googling it? Time, like math, is fake.) He was a few years old already at that point. We had to drive an hour or so away to meet him and pick him up from the rescue, and on the way back we went through a tunnel. My sister and I always did that dumb “hold your breath and make a wish” thing in tunnels. I think you also had to blurt out a color and an animal upon exiting the tunnel in order for the wish to come true? Why are kids so weird? Anyway, we were holding our breath and making a wish driving through the tunnel and my sister said “I don’t have anything to wish for anymore” because she was so happy we got a dog. I remember this so clearly because it was fucking adorable but also because I was a little asshole and thinking to myself “SPEAK FOR YOURSELF” because I had plenty of wishes - important goals to achieve like being Elphaba in Wicked and growing boobs. (I’m one for two on this so far and I expect it will remain that way.)

I’m not really sure what the point of this post is and it’s possible I am completely incoherent BUT! I will press on anyway. I had myself a nice cry on the A train home last night when my mom told me about Max. One of the absolute best parts of living in New York City is the ability to cry truly anywhere, and not a soul around gives a shit. That sounds like a bad thing, but it’s rather freeing. Once the day after a breakup I went into a CVS wearing sunglasses indoors with tears streaming down my face and the cashier was like “hey, how’s it going!” and I was like “[sobbing profusely] great! and yourself?” and we just carried on the transaction completely normally. The complete absence of fucks given is a comfort. I have cried a LOT about this dog dying and it’s funny, because I love dogs now, but as a kid I didn’t give… that much of a shit about Max, and vice versa. Which sounds awful, but I don’t mean it that way. We were bros, and I loved him, we just weren’t super duper attached at the hip or anything. The older I got, especially after I moved out, the more attached I became. I guess it probably has something to do with desperately clutching onto my lost childhood or whatever. When you’re a kid you just kind of assume things and people are going to last forever, and then you very quickly realize they’re not, and start scrambling to make up for lost time but it’s kind of too late huh?

Honestly, it felt pretty good to cry about something this cut-and-dry Sad™. Everyone understands why you’re sad if your fucking dog dies; even if they’ve never had a pet before, it’s pretty universally understood, and people cut you some slack. It’s nice to be able to focus on This One Reason Why I’m Sad instead of being sad and not really having a reason, because then no one really gives a fuck and you have to function anyway. I mean, people like your mom and your best friend give a fuck but in this context “No One” represents, like… capitalism… and shit. Given the option, I’ll take embarrassing-ugly-crying sad over can’t-really-feel-anything-at-all sad any day of the week. When you’re ugly-crying-sad you know it’s going to go away eventually, it’s gotta stop. When you’re numb sad you could probably go on forever that way, and some people don’t even get that far. I would like to talk about my dead dog with my therapist, but I can’t afford one, and for some reason the only ones my insurance covers are in substance abuse centers and I’m not there yet.

FUCK this is a pick-me-up of a post!!!!!!!! Spring has sprung!

I know most people don’t get to hang out with their childhood pet until they’re 26, almost 27 years of age so I really am lucky. That just reminded me of another solid NYC crying in public moment - I started crying on my birthday last year on the 1 train because I officially became closer to 30 than I am to 20 and for some reason that made me want to fling myself into the Hudson and start a new life amongst the merfolk. It’s probably less about the age and more about the fact that I’ve accomplished [checks notes] nothing but this post isn’t about me, it’s about my dog. Who, per my last email, is not alive anymore.

In the last few years of his life Max was definitely showing his age, but really didn’t have any health problems, apart from being deaf as hell. And honestly, who hears these days amirite? He couldn’t really jump on the couch anymore, or run up the stairs like he used to, but he still waddled around and cuddled and would even play tug of war with you until the last year or so. Even though he was doing okay, every time I visited home the last couple of years, I would take a picture of the two of us the day I left again for New York. Every visit I was paranoid it would be the last time I ever saw him, and I wanted to remember it. The last time I was home was last Christmas (© Wham!) and I forgot to take the picture. I remembered when we were in the car, but we were already like three-quarters of the way to the airport and also I had PTSD from a different time we were driving to the airport and I forgot my makeup bag and OBVIOUSLY I couldn’t go back to NYC without all my makeup and we had to turn the car around and I Never Heard The Gosh Darn End Of It so I didn’t say anything. Anyway, I forgot to take the picture and that ended up being the last time I ever saw him. I feel guilty and I guess that’s silly. I already have an exorbitant amount of selfies with him, and more to the point, he was a dog so he wasn’t losing any sleep over it. And now he’s gone, so even if he was, he isn’t anymore.

[chloemill]

On what I’ve been up to the last nine years

I have always been obsessed with food. It seems silly, honestly, to be obsessed with something that’s a basic human necessity. Food, water, shelter. Too bad there aren’t water disorders or I’d be all over that. Alcoholism, I guess, is a liquid-based disorder? This is getting dark quickly but I guess we should all know what we’re getting into with this one, shouldn’t we.

So, yeah, I’ve always been obsessed with food. I have alarmingly clear memories of food from childhood, and the sad(dest) part is most of it’s not even real fucking food, it’s like, cartoon food. I could probably describe every illustration from the Berenstain Bears installment where the dad bear and the kid bears randomly decide to go balls to the fucking wall and just mainline junk food until the mom bear is like “what the fuck is going on here” and gives them all apples or some shit and then everyone chills the fuck out. The pizza in A Goofy Movie when Goofy and Max randomly stop at a themed motel and the kids eat pizza while Goofy and Pete share what I remember to be a vaguely sexual moment in the hot tub? (There was definitely at LEAST a questionable power dynamic at play.) The kid at school whose weird helicopter mom came at lunch and hand-delivered her McDonald’s nuggets to the playground. Bake sales in the second grade - the cookies and brownies and “nachos” that were just round Tostitos with that terrifying and delicious fake cheese sauce that still honestly casts a spell twenty years later. It wasn’t quite normal, but as a kid, I didn’t think twice. When your parents are feeding you and your brain is the size of a baseball, you just kind of roll with the punches and settle for buying as much crap as possible at the bake sale with the two bucks your mom gave you. Shortly after I finished elementary school, actually, I think they stopped having bake sales as fundraisers because the school was trying to promote healthy eating. Go figure.

In high school we were allowed to go off campus for lunch and once or twice a week my sainted mother would give me money to buy lunch. It very rapidly became the bi-weekly Let’s See How Much Shit We Can Stuff In Our Body For Ten Dollars Challenge, but that’s not at all uncommon for high schoolers. At home we ate healthily, and I have a pretty fast metabolism thanks to my Slenderman of a father so I was more or less the size of a pencil for first few years of school. We’re talking, like, size double zero at Hollister. I actually used to peel the 00 size stickers off my low rise (!!!) jeans whenever I’d get a new pair and stick them on the side of my desk in my bedroom, which, as I became a normal-sized adult with not-normal-sized body image problems, morphed into a very creative form of self-inflicted psychological torment. I have some journal entries from the first few years of high school with “diet and workout plans”, but in teenage girl fashion, most of them were quickly forgotten about or amended with “forgot and ate mac and cheese today - whoops!” Stupid teenage shit. It’s actually kind of hilarious reading it back now until I remember how spectacularly fucked up everything got. ANYWAY!

My first real memory of hating my body was on a school trip to Scotland my junior year. I was fully indoctrinated into the cult of high school musical theatre and we were performing at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, which was an incredibly cool experience that I absolutely did NOT take full advantage of and instead did shit like drink way too much rum (fucking RUM because apparently I was a character in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise), try to climb out the window of the dorms we were staying in to go see my boyfriend in his building, quickly remember I was on like the fucking fourth floor, throw up all over the carpet of my room and then pass out. My room smelled like puke the rest of the trip but that, though tragic in its own right, is not the point of this anecdote. Being both across the pond and left to my own devices, I was eating nothing but beige-colored fried food to the point that I’m certain ketchup and fruit juice used solely as a mixer for alcohol were the only things saving me from full-blown scurvy. My clothes felt tight, and not in the 2010s way that everything was tight, but bad tight. My stomach poked out of my jeans in a way that my stomach wasn’t supposed to poke out of my jeans. Keep in mind - I was probably a size 0 instead of 00 at this point, and most of this change was just a product of being sixteen instead of fourteen and growing, but to me it felt ominous in a way I didn’t know how to explain. During a group trip to some Scottish landmark or another (see how much attention I paid to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity my parents spent their hard-earned money to give me?) I remember sitting next to my close friend on the bus as we pulled over to stop for food. I was having relationship trouble with the aforementioned boyfriend, one of the first of many Musical Theatre Straight Boys™ that I would lose my fucking mind over, and I was getting emotional - more emotional than I expected. I realized something else was bothering me, and I turned to her and said “On top of everything else, I just feel… fat. I know I’m not fat, but I’m fat, like, for me.”

Two things here: first and foremost, yes, for that I know I am now the recipient of the Most Annoying Sentence Ever Spoken Aloud award and will provide the mailing address for my trophy at a later date. Second, I said that over ten years ago, and I remember it so clearly that I’m entirely sure that’s exactly what I said, verbatim. We got off the bus, and I walked into the restaurant and, after scanning the menu desperately trying to convince myself I should order something “healthy”, I ordered large steak fries and got back on the bus. I think this was the first time I ever really, consciously used food as a coping mechanism - the first time something small but powerful snapped in my head that told me fuck it - who the fuck cares? You’ve done enough damage already, what’s the point of stopping now?

High school ended, I graduated and we sang “Journey On” from Ragtime at the ceremony (baffling choice but the school was doing Ragtime next year and wanted to squeeze a promo out), I got into several of my top-choice musical theatre colleges and was so excited to go to the one I picked, which, you’ll be charmed to hear, was the absolute worst choice I could’ve made. I was 18 and a little bigger now, firmly in size 0/2 instead of 00 territory, had maybe graduated to a 32B bra instead of A, but still very thin by most standards. This was my first summer as a Very Online Person - I would stay up tlil probably 3 or 4 AM most nights blogging and watching Harry Potter movies for the umpteenth time. Because the rest of my family was, how do I put it, fucking normal, they’d go to bed at 11 or whenever and I’d be up alone for hours on the  computer. This is when I started bingeing. We didn’t really keep junk food in my house, nothing legit like Cheetos or Ben and Jerry’s or whatever, but we did have sugar cereal and reduced-fat Oreos and cheese and the occasional box of Triscuts. It became a nightly ritual for me - I’d wait for everyone to go to bed, then tiptoe in to the kitchen and, though I’d eaten dinner hours earlier, start eating again. Stacks of Oreos, multiple bowls of cereal, shredded cheese out of the bag. After a while my mom heard me banging around in the kitchen and told me (in so many words) to shut the fuck up, so my methods changed. I’d bring the box of cereal - Rice Krispies or Cocoa Puffs or whatever - a bowl, and a carton of milk into the bathroom with me. I’d run the sink and open the box and pour the cereal with the water running so no one would hear, and then I’d creep back out to the couch and eat it. Box of Oreos into the bathroom, water on, peel open the plastic, take out the biggest stack I thought I could with no one noticing, eat. Three or four granola bars into the bathroom, water on, wrappers off and hidden behind my bed or the couch or wherever, eat. Rinse and repeat.

I didn’t really know what binge eating was at this point, and some tiny, dark part of my brain buried way in the back told me that this wasn’t normal and it wasn’t good, but I pushed it away because of course I did. I did a few Google searches about it and came across the term “binge eating disorder” but was convinced that could never be me. This was just a thing, just a thing I was doing, and it would go away at the end of the summer when I went away to college because that’s when life was actually starting and it was going to be awesome and I wasn’t going to let this - whatever this was - fuck that up.

But I did, in fact, fuck it up. I fucked it up fast and hard (that’s what she said, ok back to being depressing) and college was not awesome, it was difficult and painful and I was drowning in something I had absolutely no chance of controlling on my own. I accepted very quickly that this thing I was doing had a name, and it was binge eating disorder, and I was all in. I gained weight - not a ton, maybe twenty pounds, and I was never actually overweight, but to me that didn’t matter. I hated how I looked. I overdrew my bank account spending money my mom gave me for groceries on binge food. I spent hours alone in the dining hall eating till I felt physically ill and sometimes threw up involuntarily because my body couldn’t handle what I was doing. One time I stood in the bathroom of my dorm and drank mustard mixed with warm water because I read online that makes you puke and I was so full I wanted to die (it didn’t work, please for the love of GOD don’t drink mustard water or, for that matter, anything else for the express purpose of making yourself vomit). I cancelled plans with friends and skipped classes to stay in and binge, or because I’d binged already that day and could barely move. I stole food from roommates, convincing myself no one would notice, even though of course they fucking noticed. I hid food and packaging and wrappers under my bed, in my closet, in my backpack, wherever I could because I didn’t want anyone to catch on. Lied about why I needed money so my parents would send me some and I could buy more shit. I ate stale food, food from the trash, once I literally ate straight up chocolate sauce (mustard water and chocolate sauce: 10 out of 10 doctors recommend!) because I had nothing else. Waking up for 8 AM ballet classes and seeing my body in a leotard under fluorescent lighting felt like a form of torture Dick Cheney might think was a little too harsh. I saw a therapist over the summers and ate with my parents at home, and things got better, and then I’d go back to school and everything would unravel again. I’m still kind of shocked I made it through.

I’ve been done with school and living in the city for five years now, and I can honestly say that things are better. I mean, not “better”, in the sense that this chapter of the book is still pretty fucking open. But I’m better at dealing with it. The majority of the time now, I eat normally. I still binge, sometimes a lot and sometimes a little, but I carry on and try again the next day. I don’t really restrict to make up for binges anymore. I can eat some foods now that used to send me straight into Eatin’ Town USA, like cheese and bread and maybe even Oreos sometimes. I started enjoying working out, not just logging time on the treadmill as a punishment and feeling like Jean Valjean in the opening number of Les Mis (look down look down you’RE HERE UNTIL YOU DI-IE). 

To be honest, I think I’m writing this mostly because the last couple months have been hard. I’ve fallen into some old stupid shitty habits, and I’ve been plugging along like normal and trying to claw myself out. But it’s not quite working like it normally does, and I don’t know why. I know I’ll make it through, because I always have, and what other option is there? But some days lately, I feel like twenty-year-old me, sobbing (very theatrically, natch) on the floor of my apartment because I should be over this by now - how am I not over this by now? This is my ninth year as a binge eater. Almost a decade! Far and away my longest and most committed relationship. When I hit 10 years strong, I should take myself out to a fancy restaurant or something but I don’t know what I’d order.

When I tell people this, I usually get some kind of “I had no idea”/“I’m sorry I didn’t notice”/“I would’ve never guessed” and the truth is that I didn’t, and still don’t, want anyone to notice. Of course I don’t. You don’t hide candy wrappers and empty pizza boxes in your closet with your winter boots because you want people to notice. It’s a very strange and secretive brand of shame that binge eating disorder brings and no one really get it unless they get it, and that’s not something I’d wish on anyone. (Okay, honestly, I’d wish it on some people, like it’s hard as hell but some people suck ass and probably deserve it? Anyway.) As I’ve grown up, I’ve started talking about this more and more. The first time I went public with all of this shit - I think I made a dramatic Instagram post a few years ago whilst day drunk during National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (absolutely incredible and Very Me start to a sentence) - I was shocked at how many people reached out to me privately and were like, hey, me too, and thank you for saying something. I’m still ashamed, but I’m trying not to be, and the more I talk about it the less alone I feel. “There are dozens of us! DOZENS!”

I guess one nice thing about this whole stupid nightmare is it’s kind of a reason why I am who I am. Not the only reason, but still. I started using jokes to cope with this while I was in school, and my sense of humor, whatever the fuck it is today, grew out of that. Except now I don’t joke about this stupid shit because I’m in denial, I do it because it’s real and I’m staring it in the face and it’s not going away, and the absurdity of something so excruciatingly difficult yet so entirely in my control gets fucking terrifying. I guess laughing at it makes it seem small.

[chloemill]

On jury duty, a Tinder date and what’s in my coat pocket

GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM/BALTIMORE/AMERICA depending on your taste in entertainment!

It has been, honestly, a fucking eternity since I last wrote and by that I mean about two years maybe? I don’t know how any of us POSSIBLY carried on that long without hearing my bullshit thoughts in a long-form medium. I did okay because lucky for me, I get to hear said thoughts running through my head 24 fucking 7, which is why I have emotional problems best addressed with a mental health professional - BUT! We beat on, blogs against the current

Seeing as I just rolled back into town, I’ll give a brief State of the Union: I work in fitness now, which is, as you might’ve guessed, an absolutely thrilling environment for someone extremely fraught with body image issues! Just kidding.* It’s going rather well, I think. I waited tables for three plus years, and those of you who have ever interacted with me for more than 30 seconds are probably aware that I am... shall we say... not the right fit for the profession. I’m pretty good at turning it on and pretending like I give a shit (I have a very expensive degree in the theatrical arts to prove it) up to a point. But then people start acting like assholes and my tolerance level for that tomfoolery is subzero, so I really can’t be messing around in in the restaurant industry anymore. I’m pretty sure they don’t miss me, either, though.

More life updates - I am single now which, of course, means I have been on Tinder and as the prophet Troye Sivan once said, My My My! do I have thoughts on that. I’m thinking actually that maybe I should do a full post on it? Yes? Later? Tell me if I should so I actually do it because we all know I can’t motivate myself to type anything longer than 280 characters. Names and pictures will be blocked out to protect the innocent BUT, as a teaser, I will tell you briefly about one date I went on a few months ago. We had a perfectly lovely time getting drinks and chatting and I was like wow what a grand old time that was! The next day I went back to his profile to stalk him a little more and saw that, in the twelve hours since last we saw each other, HE ADDED “Still looking for someone that meets my high standards!” TO HIS BIO and proceeded to (unsuccessfully) hit me up for sex three (3) nights in a row. Naturally, I ghosted him because 1. k and 2. …���..k? He is currently a law student at a very Prestigious™ school so hopefully he can meet a maiden fair in those hallowed halls that meets these elevated standards. Apparently the bar was set a little lower for after-hours activities, but everyone’s gotta compromise somewhere I guess

NOW THAT THE UPDATES ARE OVER, it’s only fair that I tell you about my day. Those of you who are following along on Twitter (colloquially known as The Hellsite) might already know that I am currently being a beacon of truth, power and JUSTICE at jury duty. This, somewhat embarrassingly, was my fourth, count ‘em FOURTH summons. My first, which I think was in 2017?, I postponed because I was out of town. The second - which honestly I was planning to not mention until about thirty seconds ago when I decided, fuck it - I straight up forgot about until I found the paper a few months after the date and was like “hm, surely this isn’t bad enough to warrant jail?” and forgot about it again. The third I postponed yet again because my parents were in town and didn’t they deserve the pleasure of their eldest daughter’s company for a few goddamned days, after all they’ve done for me? And then the great city of New York sent me a letter in the mail saying “get your negligent ass down here and schedule a time in person or we are going to smack you down HARD with the hand of the law” (I have loosely paraphrased but this was the gist).

So in maybe November-ish, I went downtown, straight up terrified I was going to get fined or in trouble somehow or something, but they just politely let me pick a day to serve and were like ok, see you then, loser! Frankly, the most significant thing about that day was going through the metal detector on my way in. They don’t make you take your coat off (nice!) but you do have to empty your coat pockets (boo!) but I didn’t have anything in my pockets (nice!) so I started walking through. Just before I did, though, the security guard asked me to check my pockets one more time, and as I am a Woman Of The Law now, I obliged. Turns out there was something small in my pocket, felt kinda like paper but I figured hey, may as well take it out just in case! Reader, I wish I was joking when I tell you I pulled a goddamn (unused) at-home UTI testing strip out of my pocket in front of God and everyone. I don’t know why I had it in my pocket and I don’t know how long it had been there, but there it was, plain as fucking day and marked in BIG OL’ LETTERS for the world to read. To make matters worse, they’d already sent my bag through the x-ray, so I had nowhere to stash it. With what I can only assume was primal, animalistic terror in my eyes, I scanned the area for a trash can, but found nothing. So I was forced to gingerly place my UTI testing strip in this poor security guard’s hand - a man just trying to make an honest living, who asked for none of this - and the eye contact we made was some I won’t soon forget.

Needless to say, today I TRIPLE checked my coat pockets (one check for every jury duty summons I rebuffed, how apropos!) before walking through the x-ray and we thankfully, we suffered no similar surprises. I have been in this room for about five hours, plus an unnecessarily long lunch break. Highlights include, but are not limited to:

1. The EXTREMELY early 2000s video they make you watch explaining how a courtroom works, featuring many actors saying things like “No further questions, your honor.” and “The jury has reached a verdict!” and “We are showing you this because you are all idiots and you can do absolutely fucking nothing about it”

2. The man next to me who is snoring loudly. I hope wherever he is right now, it’s peaceful

3. The minor lap dance I recently gave said sleeping man next to me whilst trying to climb over him to walk to the water fountain without waking him up (fortunately or, depending how you feel about me, unfortunately for him he didn’t wake up)

4. An elder several rows in front of me who keeps hacking so loudly I want to escort him to the nearest urgent care :(

5. The first hour of waiting, when I, scrolling Twitter, clicked a video of those stupid fucking Covington Catholic school boys without realizing my volume was all fucking way up and a muffled “IT’S NOT RAPE IF YOU LIKE IT” played from my phone in this silent ass room for all my fellow Americans to hear. Sorry guys

6. Had a nice salad a little bit ago

7. Wrote this

8. Only a couple hours left!

9. But they haven’t called a SINGLE name which probably means I’ll have to come back tomorrow :(

10. I’ve forgotten what the original premise of this list was so it’s time to stop

If I’m stuck here again tomorrow all day in this dry ass dusty ass room that makes my eyes hurt, I will surely post again. If they have mercy and release me, well, let’s hope I’ll post again because honestly it took two years to get to this point and it took being trapped in the same room for six hours for me to crank this out. Till next time - take care of yourselves, fuck those MAGA kids and please remember to check your pockets before you approach a metal detector

*I am not kidding

[chloemill]

On me, the hidden gem of New York City’s theatre scene, getting my big break at a Beauty and the Beast open call

Now that I have your attention, hi. 

I am back! (For now. No promises.)

Anyone who’s wondering what I’ve been up to lately, the answer is: pretty much the same bullshit as always. Complaining about things that are completely within my control, getting drunk and starting fights with loved ones, spilling things on new articles of clothing, etc. etc. But being that February is almost upon us, I thought I would touch on the dark, foreboding cloud of horror and doom that’s weighing over all of our heads…

AUDITION SEASON!!!!!!!

(Incapable of even typing those two words without an overly dramatic shudder)

I’m trying to go on auditions this year and, you know, use the degree that has me thousands of dollars in debt (because my stupid parents “believed in me” and “supported my gift.”) I figured I would document this audition season in writing in an attempt to release into the universe some of the pain and suffering that this bullshit brings.

As I’m sure all of you are aware, I am not a member of Actor’s Equity.*** This means I am forced to attend open calls, which is a nice way of saying cattle call, which is a nice way of saying “your entire day is shot to hell, peasants!” Anyone that you see pretending to be enthusiastic about this type of audition is either A) drugged, B) just got dumped and trying to look like they have their shit together, or C) an alien.

Being non-equity in general is, to put it politely, not great. A brief example: last year, I accompanied An Equity Member (I know… we’re allowed to associate with them on our own time! It’s really progressive) on a trip to the Equity building because he wanted to sign up for an audition. Instead of simply allowing me to enter the “Equity” portion of the building while he wrote his name on the list, I had to wait outside with my nose pressed up against the glass and stare inside until he left and reentered the realm of the non-gifted (excuse me - non-union.) What the fuck is the point of this? Are they concerned that if they let a non-equity actor in the equity-only part of the building, we’ll start running around waving a flag with a picture of a 1.5 inch Dansko character shoe screaming “VIVA LA REVOLUCION?” But I digress.

So this past week I decided to head to Pearl for an audition. I was actually planning on a attending a cruise ship call, but there happened to be a Beauty and the Beast non-eq tour call that same day, so it seemed appropriate to kill two birds with one stone. When my alarm went off at 6 AM, I grabbed my phone and checked online to see if anyone had started a list of names for the audition yet. And oh boy. Had they. The list had indeed begun, and there was not ten, not twenty, but FIFTY-FOUR NAMES on this Beauty and the Beast audition list BEFORE 6:30 AM! Yes. 6:30 AM. 54 names. Closer to 100 names than 0 names. At 6:30 AM. Before 7 AM. 54 names. It truly fucking blows my mind that people think it is worth their time to arrive at an audition a solid two, two-and-a-half hours before the sun rises (and three hours before the studios open) to put their name on a list for the “privilege” to sing EIGHT FUCKING BARS of music. For anyone who’s unclear, eight bars is not enough time to have fun in an audition. It’s not enough time to display any real kind of personality, or comedy, or *~have a journey~*, or *~**~end in a different place than you started**~*. It’s literally enough time for the people auditioning you to determine how hot you are and then hear you sing either 10 fast notes or 1 really long note and tell you yes or no. So what I’m getting at here is… it’s a really awesome time! Everyone should try it!

Once I’m actually in the room for any given audition, my time is spent either:

1. Hiding from people I don’t like

2. Making accidental eye contact with people I don’t like and knowing that they saw me but hiding from them anyway

3. Speaking to people I actually do like (rare but does happen)

4. Thinking “am I the only one in this room eating a snack right now? Yep. I’m the only one eating. There must be like, fifty-plus people in this room and I’m the only one eating.”

5. “Definitely still finishing this Luna bar though.”

6. “Should grab a bag of nuts from the vending machine, too.”

7. “You know. For protein.”

8. Reapplying lipstick

9. Removing lipstick because a bold lip and a bold eye makes me look like a trampy clown

10. Re-listening to Serial episodes #JayDidIt

11. Actually preparing for the audition (also rare, does not always happen)

The most interesting thing about this whole phenomenon is that by the time all this stuff is over and I actually get into the audition room, it goes by so quickly and I’m so fucking glad to be in there that I pretty much black out and have no perception of how I actually did. I could walk into the room and perform the entirety of Wicked as a one-woman show using only a heady mix and I would still leave going “hm……….. yeah……………… I think that was good. That was pretty good.”

Till next time. See you guys at Pearl. 

***All grievances on this matter or petitions may be sent to the Actor’s Equity Association, 165 West 46th Street, New York, New York, 10036. Equity members only because all mail sent by non-eqs is filtered directly into a trash bin. I know. They don’t even recycle it you guys

[chloemill]

On Smirnoff ices, creepy religious dudes, and saving the bees

Hey, party people!

So it's probably time for me to bring this back, considering it's been a fucking year since I last posted (?!?!?!) It's a real testament to my character that I can't even fucking commit to BLOGGING in the long term, but I accept myself for what I am - a piece of shit.

Yes, I'm a miserable piece of shit, and nothing brings me more pleasure than talking about the many, MANY things I hate for no reason. Positivity is fine I guess, and I suppose it "changes people's lives" and "makes them appreciate the little things" and "affects everyone for the better," but let's face facts - it's fucking boring as hell and it's way more fun to hate shit. In fact, my entire worldview/personal brand revolves around it. Thusly, on this, my most triumphant return to blogging, I give you a list of Four Things I'm Hating This Week. I hope to make it a regular thing, but don’t count on it, because I haven’t kept a promise since like 2005 and don’t intend to start now.

So, without further ado -

FOUR THINGS I'M HATING THIS WEEK

4. WHITE GUY COMEDIANS ON TWITTER

I can't be alone in this. You know the type I'm talking about, right? Their profile picture usually uses the toaster filter and they're wearing sunglasses, and the first sentence in their bio is that they write for Conan/Fallon/SNL/whatever and they think they're a pussy magnet because they've achieved a mild amount of success and have had sex with more than 3 women. And all that, I can excuse - yes, even the toaster filter* - but what I can't excuse is their sad attempts at *~*~TWEET COMEDY~*~* that usually boil down to making fun of white girls for liking Starbucks or wearing Uggs or something. There is one white dude tweeter I hate follow (and, as the prophet Drake once said, If You're Reading This It's Too Late - you're probably the white dude tweeter I'm talking about) who makes at LEAST six "girls are stupid" jokes per hour and it's just… so tired. Firstly, those jokes were GREAT in 2006. Secondly, is someone that looks like a sad, strange, post-puberty Michael Cera really in a position to be making fun of anyone, let alone a grown woman enjoying a Frappuccino whilst wearing some comfortable footwear? Fuck off, dude.

3. JOSH DUGGAR

Had premarital sex? Got an abortion? Gay, mayhaps? You're goin' straight to hell, but Josh Duggar's still got an "admit one" to heaven because he APOLOGIZED for molesting five little girls. Additionally - I have heard WAY too many people using the "he was only fourteen!" line to excuse this behavior. EXACTLY - he was fourteen fucking years old! Don't get me wrong, at fourteen I was no genius - my hobbies included drinking Smirnoff ices in my high school bathroom and pretending I liked smoking weed - but I sure as shit knew that it wasn't kosher to touch a five year old inappropriately. I know hating on Josh Duggar this week isn’t exactly groundbreaking shit, but I had to include him because it’s just so fun to shit on conservative hyperreligious creep freaks. Brings a tear to my eye, truly does.

2. THE OLD LADY ON THE SIDEWALK AT 23RD AND 7TH LAST WEEK WHO YELLED AT ME TO LOOK UP FROM MY PHONE EVEN THOUGH I WASN'T EVEN ANYWHERE CLOSE TO BUMPING INTO HER LIKE WHY WOULD YOU YELL AT ME I WAS THREE FEET AWAY FROM YOU THERE WAS HONESTLY NO FUCKING REASON TO YELL

Like, why did you yell?

1. FARMER'S MARKETS

If I ever run for president, trust that my platform will center on anti-farmer's market-ism. There is NOTHING more annoying in this fucking world than farmer's markets. And I'm not sure who's worse - the 15,000 douchebags with clipboards that mill around trying to get you to sign their Save The Bumblebees Of Upstate New York petition, the people that sell organic grass fed humanely milked emotionally supported goat products, or the assholes that buy them and post pictures to social media with "farmer's market haul!!!!!!!!!! #eatclean #organic #farmersmarket #goat" as the caption. When I'm forced to walk through a farmer's market, I like to close my eyes and tell myself "don't worry, there's no way hell is gonna be any worse than this." However, I don't recommend keeping your eyes closed for too long at a farmer's market because there's a high probability you'll bump into a stupid smelly mid-20s white guy with dreads named Hudson who just got out of his yogilates class and now wants to pick up some organic vegan marinara sauce for nine dollars instead of just going to the store and fucking making it himself. MAKE IT YOURSELF, HUDSON!!!!! MAKE IT YOURSELF!!!!!!

That's enough for one post, I'm feeling a little faint. Enjoy the rest of your week! We will all die one day. Xo

[chloemill]

I know I never reblog on here but this is FAR too important to ignore

when there’s no more wine at a party

[chloemill]

On the Hawaiian state goose, ski school, and stoners named Chad

Howdy, all. I have a day off work today (thanks for the Thursday off, retail! You know how many people are interested when you say "hey, I have work off tomorrow, wanna go party on a Wednesday night?!" Literally fucking no one) so I thought I would be productive (?) and write a blog post in between the inevitable Orange Is The New Black episode.

So next Saturday I'm going home to visit San Francisco for a week. I'm INCREDIBLY excited because, like any well-adjusted adult, I glorify my hometown to an irrational extent and harbor an undying and deeply sad nostalgia for my childhood, long since past. Things will never be that simple again. Sometimes it's like what's the point of it all, you know? 

Ok, moving on!

In honor of this glorious week-long vacation (I almost just spelled "vacation" as "vication" and had to eyeball it for a second to make sure it was wrong. Holy shit), I decided to take you, my faithful readers, on a special visual journey through my favorite, and most uncomfortable, childhood moments. Come along!

***TRIGGER WARNING***: Unsightly childhood pictures of me that include but are not limited to: Limited Too clothing, pink tinted sunglasses, and pastel blue visors. If any of the aforementioned put you at risk - please, take caution and do not read on. 

Photo Number 1: A Cautionary Tale

This gem was taken of me on a winter break vacation to Tahoe. As you may have gleaned from my spectacular outfit and the mural behind me (I'm 99% sure that those are skiing kangaroos to the left of my head, but don't take my word for it), I was about to participate in... skiing lessons. 

Skiing is one of those things that seems really effortless and fun but is... it's just... it is not. It is not that. Before we got on the mini ski lift to take us up the mini hill, they told us one golden rule: "If you lose your balance and fall off the ski lift, let go and roll to the side. Do not under any circumstances hang on to the ski lift". So naturally, on my first time up the hill, I fell off the ski lift, and like any logical young lady wearing a scrunchie and pink sunglasses would do, I HUNG ON FOR DEAR LIFE and let the fucking ski lift drag my limp body, with skis attached, through the snow and up the hill while everyone watched. It was easily one of my top 10 most embarrassing moments - just up until that point, I racked up waaaay more later - and it could've been easily avoided if I just would have followed fucking instructions and let go. Which, now that I think about it, is a sentence that can probably be applied to many situations throughout my 22 years. Next.

Photo 2: A Cry For Help

This is a picture that I have instagrammed at LEAST twice, only to delete ten seconds later because it was just too fucking humiliating to release to the public. This is Halloween of eighth grade, the real Dark Ages of my adolescence. I'm not sure what's sadder - my pose, attempt at red lipstick application, or the fact that this costume was a child's large and I fit into it (R.I.P. to the naturally waifish, underfed aesthetic I had going until senior year of high school when I developed the metabolism of a silverback gorilla). I'd also like to call attention to my bob haircut, an oft-forgotten look that I reprised later in high school when I was sad about a breakup and thought that getting the same haircut as my mom would somehow remedy that sadness. (For those of you who do not know, the hair looks decidedly better on my mom)

Also sad - this was my last year being cute and normal before I decided I wanted boys to like me/succumbed to the patriarchy and transitioned into "sexy" Halloween costumes. I was a slutty bumblebee the next year for Halloween. How can a bumblebee be slutty? I literally could not fucking tell you

Photo 3: ???????

This is one of me in Hawaii, pointing to a sign about the Hawaiian state bird. This one isn't really that funny - I'm more curious. I'm wondering how, in beautiful Hawaii - a land covered in volcanoes, beaches, and rich island history - we managed to take a picture of me standing by a metal sign in front of terrain that is what I imagine the side of a highway in Nebraska might look like. 

Also this was a phase in which I really enjoyed visors and tucking my shirt into my jean shorts. I'm going to take a short break now to rest, because that last sentence was really difficult for me to type. Brings up a lot of hard shit.

Ok, I'm better

Photo 4: Future Musical Theatre Majors Of America

Ah, the Stanford sweatshirt. I'm wearing it because my grandpa went there, not because I had any hope of becoming an intellectual. 

This one's significant only because I look like a slightly undeveloped teenage boy named Chad or Mitch that lives in Chico and sells weed out of his mom's garage. And probably drives, like, a scooter around because he tried to learn to skateboard and couldn't do it.

God. Camouflage pants??? Really?????? WHO LET ME OUT OF THE HOUSE I should've been banished into that trailer until I learned more about the world

Photo 5: The Grand Finale

This photograph is proof that the world runs to chaos.

My heel pop. My hand gently yet uncomfortably placed on my sister's shoulder. My head-to-toe Limited Too outfit. My insanely large charm bracelet (how did I get anything accomplished with that thing attached to me?) My blue choker made of tiny puka shells. The SIZE OF MY FEET (???????) Abby's premature Miley Cyrus hair. The "Softball" shirt (just the word "softball". Nothing else needed. The word alone was enough.) 

This picture has me pondering a lot of deep existential questions surrounding my past, so I need to go address that for a while.

See you guys next week

[chloemill]

On old ladies, the guy next to me at Starbucks, and 1 Saturday Morning

Good evening and welcome to another episode of Chloe Is In Starbucks Blogging Because My Apartment Has No Wifi And I'm Going Insane! I'm your host, Chloe Miller. Joining us tonight as a very special guest is my good friend and colleague, Guy Next To Me Who Openly Scoffed And Rolled His Eyes When I Asked Him To Move His Backpack Off The Only Remaining Empty Seat In The Room! We'll hear more from him later, when he chronicles our interaction on his men's rights activism forum. But first -

 I turned 22 last week (those of you who attended Taylor and my joint birthday party know this, as you witnessed me gliding from place to place in a drunken trance. You know when you're really drunk and you just feel yourself floating around like Casper the Wasted Ghost but don't really know why or how you got there? That was me on my birthday.) BUT it was a grand time, and it inspired me to write the following list, which I hope you all enjoy and hold me to -

Twenty-Two Things I Hope To Accomplish In My Twenty-Second Year On Earth

1. Buy (and hang) real curtains in my bedroom, in lieu of hanging a bath towel over my window with push pins whenever my neighbors' lights are on. (Yes, I actually did this for literally FIVE MONTHS instead of spending thirty dollars for curtains at Bed Bath and Beyond like a normal human being. I'm so sorry to everyone I've let down)

2. Learn to have minor disagreements with my boyfriend without eventually yelling "IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE WITH ME, JUST SAY IT!!!" (previous topics of conversation in which I have dropped this line include, but are not limited to: feminism, street safety, his iMessage not working, me having to mail an overnight letter to my dad, me having no money in my bank account, race relations, pizza)

3. do Pilates (I guess? Idk)

4. Find an internship or something of the like and finally begin separating myself from my three-year, on-and-off abusive relationship with Gap Inc.

5. In the meantime, pay enough attention/put enough effort into my current retail job as to not cheerily ask the same customer "hi, how ya doin'?!" four times so she gets annoyed and/or disturbed and leaves

6. Not get morally offended when I have to give up my seat on the subway to old ladies (I'm really debating long and hard on whether or not to post this one. It's really a "maybe". I mean, if you're reading this blog you know I'm a bad person, but do you know I'm THIS bad of a person? Because I really do get annoyed by this, daily. And the worst is when a chick who's like, fifty years old and completely able-bodied expects me to give up my seat just because she's got a few years on me. Like??? No????? You think you have seat priority because you were born in the Don Draper era and now shop exclusively at Chico's? Well, I FOUGHT FOR THIS SEAT! I live UPTOWN! UPTOWN!!!!!!!!!!) 

7. Give to multiple charities

8. Jk

9. Not "jk" because I hate charities but "jk" because my I got outraged this morning on the train when I discovered I had $1.50 on my debit card instead of the $4.50 I thought I had

10. All's well that ends well, though! My mom put 5 bucks in my account for coffee AND I made it to work on time

11. I'm sorry but the man behind me at Starbucks is embarking on a passionate speech about how much he "loves his wife's laffy taffy" and "can't wait to get some laffy taffy tonight"??????????????? Send help

13. Another goal: get wifi in my apartment 

14. Be nicer to people that aren't my close friends (this one is a stretch)

15. Learn how to make conversation with people I don't know at social gatherings (literally NEVER going to happen I just put this in as a courtesy to myself)

16. Blog at least once a week

17. World peace

18. But honestly, if I can accomplish blogging at least once a week, I DOUBT world peace is that far off 

19. 9:51 PM is probably too late to be in a Starbucks, especially since I was too cheap to buy a drink and just got a gluten-free granola bar

20. A tall hot tea at starbucks is OVER TWO DOLLARS NOW. The smallest size!!!!! $2.25 for dirty leaf water!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fucking incredible

21. I apologize for any spelling, grammar, or continuity errors I may have made in this post, but as I've been writing I've also been reading "Ranking The Characters On 'Recess' By How Fun They Would Actually Be To Hang Out With At Recess" on hard-hitting journalism hub Buzzfeed and I'm disgusted to learn that Spinelli, by far the best character, is only NUMBER SIX and ranks behind that random bitch who's always on the swing set? Fuck her 

22. I promise I don't watch Recess anymore because I'm An Adult but no one front and pretend like they weren't watching Disney's One Saturday Morning (unless you're one of those douchey *~my family didn't have cable we read books~* kids. Like, ok, I READ BOOKS TOO. I have Harry Potter quotes permanently written on my body. I fucking liked cartoons. Get out of my face)

*BONUS* 23. I really do want world peace

[chloemill]

On apartment hunting, chardonnay, and Canadians

Hello, friends and neighbors! I've been MIA for no reason but I'm going to blame it on graduation and school ending and blah blah. I'll have to recap the hearty goodness that was grad weekend in a different post, but suffice to say I spent most of the weekend drunk from chardonnay and made a lot of toasts like someone's great aunt Mildred

Moving forward - Bailey and I recently put a deposit down on *~*~*~*~our first real NYC apartment~*~*~*~*! As you may or may not have heard, my current sublet is so shitty it literally makes the tenements of the 19th century look like Kim Kardashian's beach house, so I'm very excited to move out. (For the record, I've never seen Kim's beach house, but I assume she has a fleet of them)

We spent two of the most insanely painful/frustrating days OF MY ENTIRE TWENTY-ONE (almost 22 my birthday's May 31 ayyyy lmao) YEARS OF LIFE hunting for apartments without a broker. I have honestly never been in so many sketchy and generally absurd situations in a two-day time period, and I spent three years in Syracuse so I know what I'm talking about when it comes to sketchy and generally absurd situations. Annoyingly verbose as I am, I truly cannot find the words to describe how nauseating this process was. But I'm going to try anyway, because it's me.

We started out meeting an agent at a building on 173rd, located to a charming tire shop that was probably a front for some kind of human trafficking situation. We had some trouble locating the apartment at first, seeing only a terrifying, boarded-up building with permits posted everywhere and a barely-functional front door. It took us a few minutes to realize that this was not an exact replica of Disney's Haunted Mansion but was actually our first potential home. Two women came to let us in and showed us the place.

It was alright on the inside, apart from one of the bedrooms being the size of an almond and the floor being covered with a pleasant film of dust, dirt and general filth. We pressed on to apartment #2 with the agent(s), this time by car! One of the women let us in and we took off. Over the span of this ten-minute car ride, we learned that this woman was not, in fact, a second agent, but just another random person checking out the apartment. So we'd just gotten into the car of a total stranger on the streets of New York City. Neat!

A few apartments later and we still weren't satisfied, so we did some more research and called a few places we found online. (This makes us out to be semi-responsible people. Keep in mind we were in a bar at 5 PM on a Tuesday when we were making these calls) A guy responded and told us we should meet at his office in midtown and he'd show us a few places.

We met there the next day, clad in our finest hungover leggings and hoodies, only to find ourselves in a broker office that was basically what a really well-funded community theatre production of Glengarry Glen Ross might look like. The guy's name was Rio, and because I trust anyone named after a Brazilian city and/or a Vegas resort, we stuck around to let him show us a few spots.

Rio was actually pretty on-the-ball and seemed like he had some nice places to show us - some with furniture included! Sounded like a sweet deal. Ah, but then! Rio was apparently too much of a hot shot to actually show us the places himself, so he called in his assistant. I cannot for the life of me remember his name. It started with a "Z" and sounded kind of like "Jeff", so I'm going to assume his name was "Zeff" and am also going to assume he's a robot alien because his name is fucking Zeff. This kid literally looked around 14 years old and was from Canada. We were literally being led around the streets of Harlem by a pre-pubescent Canadian. What a time to be alive

All the apartments that the sprightly Canadian showed us featured one real bedroom and one bed with half a wall built around it. They also showcased some furniture we'd get to keep, which included dressers covered in bugs, broken mirrors, and mattresses that someone has definitely died and/or transmitted disease on. He concluded the grand showing by leading us to a ONE-BEDROOM apartment and trying nobly to convince us that we'd enjoy sharing a room. Needless to say, we left soon after. Canada has us beat in the healthcare department but their broker skills are less than exemplary.

I'm going to spare you the rest because 1. it's long and 2. I'm lazy, but after a few more hours of trudging up hills drenched in sweat, navigating east 145th street alone searching in vain for a Starbucks, me passive-aggressively yelling while half-crying at a poor property manager's assistant in a cab (sorry gurl), and a lot of dejected rides on the C train, we ended up finding and GETTING APPROVED FOR our dream apartment! By "dream apartment" I mean it's newly renovated and has laundry in the building. That's kind of my dream for now. I'll revise it later after I make my millions

So, for all you non-believers out there: it IS possible to find an apartment in NYC without a broker. I would rather chop off my own fingertips, fashion them into handmade earrings, and sell them on Etsy than do it again, but it's possible! Just like Whitney Houston and Brandy told us in their seminal 1997 television production of "Cinderella". Believe In Your Dreams!

[chloemill]

On free cameras, NYC and not giving a shit

Greetings, earthlings 

I'm still alive (but barely breeeeathing) and have just been too busy to write a post.*

As literally everyone that reads this blog knows, I moved to New York City a little over two months ago. And I hate anyone and everyone who uses the phrase "emotional roller coaster", but it's been a MOTHAFUCKIN EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTER. There are times when I'm the happiest I've ever been (this is usually when I'm eating pizza but also sometimes when I'm seeing Broadway shows and bullshit like that) and there are also times when I'm wasted off Trader Joe's wine (2.99 a bottle!!!!!!!!!!!! God is real) and sobbing about how someone puked on the D train right next to me and I'm tired and fat and untalented and my apartment is the size of a chickpea and I have no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life.

I'll leave you to decide which of those two emotions occurs more often.

But anyway, yes, I live in New York now and it has been a pretty wild adjustment. An NYC fact of life that many people find daunting - but I deeply enjoy - is that no one gives a shit about you. No one gives a shit! You can literally walk down the street performing "Brigadoon" as a one-woman show and no one will give a shit. And they'll probably be like, "pretty nice, you're flat on the high G and spot your head during the fouette section in the dance break". I'm at the point now where I just rehearse full monologues or scenes by myself on the train because no one fucking gives a shit. I love it. Because I never fucking give a shit

For example: today, for reasons known only to God himself, Fed Ex just dumped a massive truckful of old Nikon cameras, camera equipment, film, and stuff like that into a big dumpster around Herald Square. And literally everyone within a 5 mile radius RAN to the dumpster, 10 or 15 brave souls climbed into it, and just started throwing fuckin cameras and camera cases and film and shit to people on the street. It was literally raining old boxes of cameras from 1993 and everyone was running around screaming like OVER HERE!!!!! GIVE ME A CAMERA!!!! OVER HERE!!!!! One guy that was driving a passing delivery truck literally stopped traffic on a one-way street to get out of his truck, jump into this random ass dumpster, and take like 15 cameras. Naturally, I ran over too but I was too passive to actually try to grab one of my own so I just stood there by myself and was like what the fuck is happening

I wish there was a punch line to this story but there isn't. I think the image of me standing by myself in the thick of a Game of Thrones-esque battle for 1993 Nikon cameras is punch line enough

So I'm gonna because I need to translate the vowel ladder into a Greek accent.

......I'm really ready to get my BFA and get the fuck out of dodge if you haven't noticed

Toodles!

*This is completely false. I have had ample time to post, but instead spent that time drinking, crying, eating McDonald's, or a sensual combination of the three

[chloemill]

Except he stole all these from my twitter

(Don't get mad at the person that posted these it's not her fault!! She didn't know he stole them from me)

That being said, just another example of the patriarchy attempting to steal what rightfully belongs to womankind

Here they are in their original glory

Honestly bro, the LEAST you could've done was paraphrase considering the fact that I don't even know who in the fresh hell you are

Except, they probably wouldn't have been funny were they not in their truest form

Something tells me Taylor Johnstone isn't going to accept the friend request I sent him yesterday :(

moment of silence for this guy’s status updates

[chloemill]

On The Other Woman, slutty plumbers, and Elle Woods's car

Happy holidays to you all! To spread some cheer and good will, I'm going to write about things that I hate.

Which is, you know, all I ever write about anyway but that's beside the point

The other day I was fortunate enough to come across the trailer for what is sure to be a compelling, profound gem of a film, "The Other Woman". By "come across", I mean "my bf showed it to me because he knew it would send me into a feministy rage." 

Now, from the title alone, you may assume this cinematic adventure is another stupid, sexist comedy romp that features a bunch of dumb, conventionally attractive white women all dating the same guy, not realizing that he's two-timing all of them. When they do realize he's a douche, they all band together to bring him down and in the process of doing so, all become the best of friends and realize the strength of their GiiiRRRRL POWER!!!

And if you did, in fact, assume that, you're 100% correct because that's all there is to this dumbass movie 

To prevent anyone from having to suffer through the trailer, I have taken it upon myself to break it down for you all. 

So, Cameron Diaz (idk what her character's name is sry) is dating a super cute gr8 guy who works somewhere that requires daily suit-wearing and pays enough for him to be able to afford this pastel blue convertible.

(Side note: Elle Woods had a pastel blue convertible. Your man has the same car as Elle Woods and you don't have at least a COUPLE questions? Open your eyes girl)

(Side side note: I have been informed this is actually a very expensive car. I don't give a shit because it's still fucking baby blue)

Oh and before I forget, Nicki Minaj is in it, filling the age-old position of Wisecracking Funny Voice Of Reason Friend. I like to think I'm this friend in real life, but my wisecracks-to-reason ratio is like 10000000000:1 

This is exactly what my face looked like the first time I saw this trailer

So anyway, their relationship is seemingly perfect and then he has to... go to Connecticut for a few days... because... a pipe burst in his apartment.

1. What

2. Literally what

But okay, he goes off to Connecticut, whatever, and she decides to surprise him and shows up at his house dressed in a slutty plumber costume.

(Yes, a slutty plumber costume. Idk)

And, quelle surprise, his wife opens the door. Who's also super hot. Who happens to be Leslie Mann

Honestly, it makes me a little sad that Leslie Mann is involved w/this shitshow of a movie because she's basically my idol. Hilarious, total babe, good hair, married to a writer/director that casts her in all of his shit... this bitch is the whole package but that's beside the point

So, instead of hating each other, they become SUPER AWESOME BEST FRIENDS AND DECIDE TO BAND TOGETHER TO BRING DOWN THEIR DOUCHEBAG HUSBAND/BF 

Here we see women in their natural habitat, doing each other's hair, drinking cosmos, and sitting in a goddamn fucking closet because they cannot resist the gravitational pull of a wall of shoes

So they somehow find time between mimosas and selecting the perfect burgundy nail color (I prefer "Visions of Love" by OPI), they somehow discover that their dirtbag husband/boyfriend is seeing yet ANOTHER girl! And guess who it is?

I know you were just staring at her nipples you fucking deviant

Yeah, it's fucking Kate Upton. Seriously? You're dating Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, and Kate Upton and you're not satisfied with just one of them? I know that at this point, the female audience is supposed to be like "OMGGGG WHAT A SCUMBAGGGGGGG", but I think this guy might have a serious mental disorder or need some kind of rehab because honestly what the hell bro

Naturally, Kate is sOOOooooOOO crushed to hear her man is unfaithful and agrees to work with the other *~empowered ladiez~* to take down their mutual significant other

I will withhold commentary on Kate's acting skills, because I am a kindhearted soul and supportive of my fellow women. Also are they in a graveyard wtf

They devise some kind of "Mean Girls"-esque plan to take him down, that involves sneaking female hormones into his morning juice, getting him fired from his job, blah blah blah. They also go on lots of madcap spying adventures wearing cute outfits.

A little confused re: why no one questioned three people at a hotel pool holding binoculars, but ok. Also why do Kate and Leslie have bigass African safai binoculars and Cameron has, like, opera glasses

At the very end of the trailer they throw in the fact that Leslie Mann's character has a hot brother that Cameron Diaz's character is 110% going to end up with because rom coms

Hey girl, after you finish staring at my piecing blue eyes and perfect amount of scruff, what do you say we go have a picnic in the park, drink white wine out of mason jars and talk about our emotional problems?

That's where the trailer ends. We all know that Cameron is gonna end up with hot brother, Leslie is going to realize she needs to take some time to """work on herself""" and divorce the husband, and Kate Upton is... idk... she can do whatever, she's Kate Upton she'll be fine

So what did we learn today, class? That's right! Women are only allowed to have conflict if it revolves around a man. If you need me, I'll be over here watching Bridesmaids 129140 times in a row and lamenting our solid position as the weaker sex

Also I really really love the Pitbull/Ke$ha song that they play at the end and it's embarrassing :(  

And finally, after all that, can I just point out that this exact fucking movie was made in 2006 and I was soooooooooo into it back then

(Brittany Snow's knee-length floral skirt/peasant top combo and more importantly ASHANTI'S CROP TOP were definitely worth the humiliation of making a "John Tucker Must Die" google search.)

And with that, I'll leave you all for a few days. Please enjoy your holidays and think of me when you get too wine drunk and ruin the family Christmas picture! 

[chloemill]

On classy Christmases, future bike cops, and my last semester in Syracuse

First and foremost, I am alive and although I have not been blogging for the past 3 months, I've been thinking about it. 

I had a lot of pumpkin spice lattes to drink and I experimented with like three new shampoos and conditioners so ex-fucking-scuse me for not having time to blog, but anyway

This is my last week (on campus) at Syracuse and of course I'm acting like I'm leaving my wife and kids to go serve in 'Nam. I'm not gonna lie and say that the last three years have been a cake walk, or even pleasant whatsoever, but they were definitely worth something…? Right? Maybe? Hopefully oh my god I'm in debt I'm in so much debt you guys 

But honestly, college has been a series of usually entertaining, sometimes horribly embarrassing and/or regrettable mistakes and I think that's the way it usually is. I've made some pretty impressive fuck-ups and I won't soon forget any of them (believe me I've fucking tried but they're burned into my memory like a curling iron burn that everyone thinks is a hickey but nope I actually fucking burned myself with a curling iron) 

There was the time I drove home from a party dressed as Dobby the house elf and ordered Domino's on the way home. I learned that night that I'm a horrible fucking driver and should never, under any circumstances, be allowed behind the wheel (least of all in a fucking Harry Potter costume) but pizza was enough motivation to overcome all of that. Power of the human mind. Science is amazing

There was also the time a friend - name withheld to protect the innocent - and I were driving home from a party and ordered Domino's but we were so hungry (read: drunk) that we stopped to get Taco Bell on the way. But Domino's called to say they were there as we were on the way back from Taco Bell,so we had to rush our asses home and pick up the pizza right as we walked into our dorm. They say that the walk of shame takes place after a one-night stand but after that night, I maintain that the walk of shame occurs on your way to the Domino's delivery guy when you know damn well you just wolfed down a crunchwrap supreme

Then there was the time freshman year I got decidedly un-classy at the annual Classy Christmas party and was sitting on the front steps of the house with my head between my legs as a very kind, and drunk, senior remind me that "everybody pukes! It's just like that kid's book, Everybody Poops, except it's everybody pukes!"

Looking back, that comment was real as hell

And I can't forget the time I got written up for drinking while visiting a freshman dorm in the first week of my sophomore year, an experience both humiliating and amusing. I walked out of the room, holding a red cup full of vodka and Coke, (k also what the fuck who drinks vodka and Coke) only to find myself face-to-face with two RAs. They were both definitely my age and instead of being the cool RAs that were like "nah man u good u good", they asked me what was in the cup. Being the quick-witted and sharp-tongued young lady that I am, I responded: "uhhhhhhhhhhh… vodka and Coke." I was then written up, but instead of just writing me up and sending me on my way, I actually got a lecture on drinking from these two douches my own goddamn age (I swear to god, this kind of RA grows up to be the kind of cops that have to ride around on bikes. And then they compensate for not being cool enough for a cop car or motorcycle by being extra douchey. DOWN WITH THE MAN!!!!!!!!!).

Additionally: as punishment for the write-up, I had to write an essay repenting for my sins about how alcohol would hinder my college career. Because I'm a little shit, I titled it "ALCOHOL SUX JK IT ROX" and planned to change the title before I sent it off to whatever authority figure was supposed to read it. Except I forgot to change the title. And sent it off as it was. So my essay about the negative effects of alcohol on my life was titled "ALCOHOL SUX JK IT ROX"

If you've read this far, you might be thinking, "but Chloe, this makes it sound like your college experience was solely comprised of weird, slightly-funny-but-mostly-just-uncomfortable moments spawned by your alcohol intake! Surely it was deeper than that?" And your answer, my friend, is nope it wasn't deeper than that that's literally it that's all it was

Just kidding. It wasn't all bad. I've fucked up a lot of times in the past three years and most of it was my fault, but I've also met friends that have stuck by me through every stupid, shitty, "literally what the fuck is wrong with you" choice I've made, a roommate who I'd give a limb for, and a boyfriend who's the only person to routinely out-snark me and is also the best thing to happen to me in a while (and that is the closest I will ever come to showing true emotion publicly and you will forget you ever fucking read it, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind style). I never would have met any of those people if I hadn't come here. And I guess stuff like that is worth all the drama, and the setbacks, and the many horrendous semesters of dealing with the drama department. It might even be worth the student loans.

Okay, maybe not the student loans.

Also I wish I could still drink fourloko like I could in 2010

[chloemill]

This blog returns tomorrow aren't you just goddamn THRILLED

[chloemill]

On Megabus, twizzlers, and gang violence

This past weekend I had the immense displeasure of taking Megabus from Syracuse to NYC and back. Only those of you that have experienced travel with this company can understand the distinct brand of disgust and frustration it consistently brings, but meh. A round trip ticket costs about as much as like, a really nice bottle of wine or a really regrettable Chipotle order so it's sort of the best option for a StArViNg ArTiSt such as myself (I paid for an iced coffee with my laundry quarters yesterday, to give you an idea of both my financial stability and my maturity level)

The ride down to the city went reasonably well, I think. My only qualms were 1. I used my bag as a pillow and smashed my chocolate peppermint Luna bar with my head - both tragic and embarrassing - and 2. I spilled Diet Coke on my dress and had to fan myself for 20 minutes like a Southern belle getting worked up over the power of The Lord during a particularly moving service

Both of which, I guess, were not so much Megabus's fault as my own inability to handle food and drink items. Moving on

So, I get to the city only slightly mentally unhinged, the weekend was fun, blah blah blah, Sunday rolls around and I have to leave. The night before had been one of those "it feels like a perfect nightttt to drink like Johnny Depp's character in Pirates of the Caribbean even though I'm a lame white girl and can't finish half a glass of Chardonnay without texting half my contacts and drunk dialing my mom" nights (you know what I mean? No? Nobody? Yeah me either haha) so I was more than a little hungover and NOT in the mood for public transportation. Be that as it may, I got on the bus anyway and mentally prepared myself for a solid 5 hours of shitty wifi and Taylor Swift songs

About forty minutes in, we're somewhere in New Jersey and the driver pulls into a gas station. Foolish, young and naive, I assumed he had to pee or something and didn't think much of it until he comes on the intercom (is that the right word? I feel like intercoms are only used in Disney Channel shows about middle schools) and announces that we'd had a "minor accident" in which the rear view mirror of the bus had "fallen off" and we were going to have to wait "momentarily" for a replacement and that it shouldn't be longer than "an hour or and hour and a half" 

Alright.

Under normal circumstances, the phrase "minor accident" implies we, I don't know, made contact with another vehicle or a road sign or SOMETHING

In this particular happenstance, the phrase "minor accident" means "this bus was handcrafted by a drunk metalsmith in the year 1901 and is therefore so shitty that the fucking mirror flew off unassisted"

I'm getting the feeling that I used FAR too many quotation marks in this last bit but too late to turn back now I suppose

Similarly, "momentarily" gives off the impression that we'd only be waiting for a few moments, not hours, but mmkay

""""""""""a few more quotes for good measure""""""""""

Hour one goes by. Everyone's pissy, but nothing too out of hand. I'm already regretting both not bringing a book AND maxing out my iPhone data in the first week of the bill cycle, but I'm remaining the strong, independent woman I am

Hour TWO goes by and things are starting to get a little rambunctious. The girls a few rows behind me have bonded and are discussing their boyfriends, who just happen to be members of opposing gangs (only on Megabus. Only on fucking Megabus in New York). A man at the front of the bus is loudly proclaiming how he's had a horrible day and is "just waiting for someone to side-eye him the wrong way so he can crack some skulls" (.......................) 

Hour three rolls around and things start to get... for lack of a better term... ratchet as hell. 

This was the point in the wait where I went DAMN IT ALL TO HELL and bought a king size pack of Twizzlers from the gas station so you know things were looking grim

One of the girls with the gang boyfriends is rather angrily declaring how "I'm gonna twerk! I'm just gonna twerk up in this bitch!" (would that help? Maybe? Worth a shot?) Multiple others are grumbling about how they have work in the morning. I sort of wanted to join in and say "YEAH! I HAVE 8:25 AM BALLET! FUCK!" but I thought maybe that would shift the anger of the group from Megabus towards me so I held off on that

Finally, after three and a half goddamn hours, the mechanic figures it out and reattaches the mirror. The entire double decker bus literally ERUPTS in roaring applause (I closed my eyes for a sec and imagined it was my Broadway debut in order to lift my spirits) and we beat on, boats against the current, back to fucking Syracuse. Where I am now. Reliving this horrid experience all over again for the sake of my blog

To finish, I'd like to let you all know that as all this was happening in real time I took notes on the back of a napkin like the fucking J.K. Rowling of Megabus so I could write about it later

And I'd also like to say that I am never, ever in my life, taking Megabus again.

Except they promised us free tickets so... I'll bring my own rear view mirror next time

[chloemill]

On mom texts, college parties, and how to spell "triathlon"

This post comes to you as a direct result of my mother shaming me into writing by pointing out both:

1. my abundance of free time, and

2. the fact that my occupied time is spent in dance class because LOL musical theater majorrrrrrrrrr I love Wicked

Observe:

You should also note that this text was in response to me asking "how do you feel about those Steven Madden loafers with the studs on them?" because that is the path my life has taken

ANYWAY - it's officially my last year of college, which a little scary (sort of because I'm nervous about real life, but mostly because I have a really big head and I'm worried about the graduation cap thing fitting on it). Mostly I'm just happy I made it to my fourth year without flinging myself out a window or, more realistically, OD-ing on Dominos at 4 AM. There have been some close calls. I'm looking at you, @macandcheesepastabreadbowls 

As you can imagine, my senior year schedule is filled to the brim with scholarly undertakings:

- Ballet (ha)

- Tap (haha)

- Wine appreciation (hahahahahah)

- Human sexuality (idk I needed one more academic)

- and stuff

I'm making some big changes already in preparation for my entrance into real adulthood - I decided to take my Newsies poster off the wall and decided to make an effort to eat more salads on weekdays - so things are going pretty great over here

But besides that thrilling update, not much to report. As is custom, the first couple parties of the year have been exhausting. There are only so many times one can give a sweaty, drunk hug (usually a hug, sometimes people try and do the double cheek kiss thing and it's like okay Marie Antoinette we're at a college party let's simmer down) and say something like "oh my GODDDDDD I missed you so much you look SO skinny have you been watching Orange Is The New Black sooo obsessed with it aren't you happy pumpkin spice lattes are back at Starbucks ME TOO anyway text meee let's hang out and get dinner haha jk we're never going to do that, literally never, not even once okay I love youuu go back to dry humping that random freshman on the dance floor"

Or something like that.

Syracuse weather at present feels a bit like being inside someone's disgustingly sweaty workout shoe directly after a triathlon (okay- just had to google how to spell that, what the fuck? Shouldn't there be a second "A" in there somewhere? Can you tell I only take classes that are centered around Bob Fosse) and it's killing me softly. I fully realize that the second it gets chilly I'm going to be like "goodbye sun :( summertime sadness</3" but, you know what, fuck it. My room feels like a sauna and not the cool fancy health club kind, like a gross creepy one at a gym that costs $15 a month and has treadmills from 1974

All that being said, I'm going to go take an icy shower and pray that the humidity doesn't make my hair dry like Lady Gaga's at the VMAs.

Closing thought: do you ever write something and then read it back to yourself and think "wow, I literally accomplished nothing with that. There is nothing in what I just wrote that is new or exciting. The world is exactly the same now as it was before I wrote that"? Because that just happened to me.

Time to post it