I'm a genie in a bottle you gotta distract me the right way

I used to think the hardest thing in the world was walking in sling-backs until I realized the hardest thing in the world is getting myself away from my boyfriend long enough to make a video. 

I think I finally understand why Yoko is blamed for the Beatles breakup. Not that it's all her fault, but, John couldn't just be like, "look, babe, I haven't uploaded a Youtube video in weeks and I have a new wig I still need to try out and it's really hard creating a character for it when you're giving me massages all the time," because she'd be like, "it's cool, dude, I totally get it, I'll go to the other room," and he'd be like, "f'ing finally," and then he'd stare at his computer and take a photobooth selfie and delete it immediately and try to film himself dancing but feel embarrassed and crawl around on the floor and sit in a corner and hug his knees and start crying until he couldn't see through the tears and crawl to the other room and be all, "why are you so far away, I love you and hate myself," and she'd be like, "I was waiting for you to say that, and by the way, I checked what's left of your blog and you've lost a thousand more followers in the past ten minutes."

Here's my plan for trying to get my man to help me help myself not fall off the face of the internet:

DISTRACT YOUR BOYFRIEND SO YOU CAN DO THINGS TO DISTRACT YOURSELF FROM THE FACT THAT YOU AREN'T FAMOUS YET

1) Sleep
Naps can last for hours so you can have plenty of time to wonder where your creativity went while he can  rest his spirit and refresh his mind. After a nap today my boyfriend said, "I'll love you forever, while you're young."

2) Toys
Ew, not those, this is a family-friendly blog and by that I don't mean the kind that involves people doing things that make families. Ok, he actually bought me this camera but I let him pretend that it's his sometimes #bestgf

3) Food
Take your boyfriend out and by that I mean let him take you out so he can stare at his phone the whole time while you push your salad around while deciding what to title that book you've told everyone about but haven't started ~actually~ writing yet. 

4) Play
And by that I mean let him punch you sometimes because that means he loves you. 

GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (FOREVER)

(I wrote about living with my BF for VICE Italy)

“You have an IRL life now.”  

My friend comforts me as I agonize over my dwindling online presence (I haven’t updated my blog in weeks and haven’t re-tweeted Amanda Bynes in days). She assures me it’s good that I’m not “all over the web” anymore because that makes me seem “mysterious.”

I hate mystery. Secrets are for prudes and pedophiles. There’s no point to doing anything unless you tell everyone about it. Over-sharing would be my middle name if I didn’t already have a hyphenated last name aka the one thing preventing me from getting famous since I eliminated the only alternative (being brunette). But things have changed for me recently and I’m finding myself seeing the good side of mystery.

My boyfriend and I met three months ago. We said “I love you” the first week and by the second decided I should leave Milan to live with him in San Francisco, where I am now. Yes, we’re moving fast but only because we’re romantic and spontaneous, or as my therapist would say, “dumb.” (And by “therapist” I mean cat, because I can’t afford a therapist, and by “cat” I mean that guy who sells crack on my street, because cats can’t go out in this city and I refuse to keep prisoners).

Living with a boyfriend makes life nicer-if he’s nice. Mine gets me coffee when I’m too busy painting my nails working to do it myself and has no problem carrying a broken organ I found on the street in the middle of the night up three flights of stairs and into our bedroom (I’m a Strong Independent Woman and I can let him do everything for me if I want). If you’re nice, living with him will subject you to annoyances, like having to run outside to fart or staying up all night Google-searching makeup that’s safe to sleep in (it exist, and I’ll get to that later). But nice or not and no matter how charming he is when he burps in your face and regardless of how stunning y’all look hugging through Instagram filters, living together peacefully takes patience and wisdom and I don’t have either of those, but I do have this list:

HOW TO LIVE WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND WITHOUT RUINING LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING

1) Space

Quentin Crisp wrote in How to Have a Lifestyle that nothing crashes your style quite like having a roommate, especially if that roommate is your partner. I always hoped I’d end up living alone because I thought I’d always be alone. Everyone else did, too! Recently a girl wrote me, “you having a boyfriend is one of the horsemen of the apocalypse.” (It’s true, and the end is near). Needless to say, I had my doubts about co-habitation. Sharing rooms in college was terrible and having flat-mates was far from fabulous. But now I know that’s only because I didn’t love the people I was living with, and therefore couldn’t love their stuff! Sure, I died a little when I pushed my dresses against his vests. But when organizing shared space, creativity goes a long way, and by “creativity” I mean hiding his things under the bed when he’s sleeping.

2) Grooming

Today my boyfriend sent a picture of me to his mother, with the caption, “finally, without makeup.” I was wearing concealer, powder, blush and mascara. Men don’t know what we go through to look good and they don’t want to know what we go through to look “acceptable.” Men want women to be creatures of mystery. You must always keep them guessing how your eyebrows stay in a Nike swoosh, how your mustache disappeared and where your dick went. Obviously, they should never see you without makeup on. If you aren’t willing to go to the bathroom and put on your face and come back to bed before your boyfriend wakes up, (this isn’t hard, boyfriends sleep all day), I suggest you try this over-night makeup, or learn how to sleep in the tub.

3) Romance

There’s a fine line between kinky and lazy. There’s a big difference between “I want to watch you pee” and “I left the bathroom door open.” Becoming too comfortable with your boyfriend can lead to boredom, which can lead to cheating, which can lead to, “he just walked into the knife!” Living in Italy taught me that all men cheat, so to keep yours satisfied you must pretend to be a different person each day. I know I’m doing it right when he says things like, “you’re so lovable when you aren’t crazy.” 

4) Fights

People say the best part about fighting is the makeup sex, and I’m like, are you kidding? The best part about fighting is crying in the shower so loud that he tries to kick down the door and you call the police but the water breaks your iPhone so you demand that he buys you a new one. Ok, that hasn’t happened yet. So far my boyfriend and I have only bickered about little things like sexist jokes (never funny) or fake pregnancies (always funny). But I know we’ll have huge fights eventually and then I can yell things like, “I left Italy for you!” *throws dish*  to which he’ll respond, “that’s the best thing I’ve ever done for you!” *punches wall* to which I’ll respond, “the best thing you can do for me is leave before I jump out the window!” *faints* Speaking of suicide, last week I posted a selfie on Instagram with the caption, “my boyfriend isn’t paying attention to me so I’m going to drown myself.” It worked wonders.

5) Chores

I’ve had all-male roommates for the past few years and aside from pee on the toilet seat and the meat-related messes (why are men always cooking meat?) it was surprisingly cool! I felt maternal towards the girls they’d bring over when I’d let them use my tampons and safe when I’d bring home strange men. Probably because of that time a dude tried to break in and the boys yelled at him and called the police while I locked myself in my room and wondered how much it would hurt to jump onto my neighbor’s balcony (I’m not saying women are too weak to fight, just smart enough to avoid it). Anyway, boys are messy but they’re also boys, meaning if you yell at them they’ll feel like their mother is yelling at them so they’ll do whatever you’re asking (and if it’s your boyfriend you’re yelling at he’ll do it fast, knowing he’ll get a bj).

6) Friends

We all know that girl who moved in with her possessive boyfriend who made her hang out only with him or his friends all the time so she never went out and ignored all her friends’ calls because she was too embarrassed to let them see what she’d become (someone who wears an apron un-ironically) so by time the dude left her, she had no friends and nowhere to crash. Don’t let this be you! When you leave your friends for your boyfriend he should leave his friends for you too so eventually all y’all have is each other (and his hidden stuff under the bed). Co-dependency is more binding than a pre-nuptial.

7) Work

Don’t let your boyfriend distract you from what’s important, which is publishing your best-selling novel (Lady Gaga fan-fiction). Today my boyfriend wasn’t letting me concentrate on my writing (I could hear him breathing-how rude) so I sent him out for coffee and he brought me that and a paper bag. Inside the bag was a bottle with the label, “Skinny Girl Margarita.” I asked him what it was and said, “you love margaritas and hate calories so this can be a treat when you need a break from writing.” It was what my therapist would call a “breakthrough.”

9021ho

Life is hard sometimes, like when your boyfriend makes you do annoying things like move to San Francisco and go to Los Angeles and be outside and do stuff IRL with IRL people when all you really want is to feel the warmth of your laptop on your crotch.  



No, I didn't become a celebrity but I did meet Lindsay Lohan and now she won't stop sexting me so I blocked her but then I remembered that she owes me a bunch of money and I need to get a hold of her but I don't know how? 

Anyway I'll be more ~present~ from now on-it just took me a while to find good wifi spots and excuses to avoid fully participating in my relationship :) 

PS: Please make me famous soon this isn't fun anymore. 
PPS: I'm #serious.
PPSS: I'll send you my hair.
PPSSS: No I won't I'm trying to grow it out #sorry
PPPSSS: 8==D~~

CROATIAN SENSATIONS

I wrote about Croatia entering the EU for VICE Italy

Croatia finally entered the EU last week (the week I left Europe #convenient) and I know what you’re thinking: “we don’t need any more prostitutes here!” And that’s offensive, because we always need more prostitutes. So don’t be negative-think of Croatia entering the EU as a new roommate moving into the apartment you’re already sharing with the French asshole, the dirty Spaniard and drunk British dude.

Croatia is the broke roommate who eats your food and wears your clothes without asking. She’s the one who smokes inside after promising she’d quit and the one who causes drama by letting her abusive ex-boyfriend (Serbia) come over after midnight. She embarrasses you by showing up to the party in Juicy sweatpants and then gets you kicked out of the party for bringing a gun. She’s the one you can’t trust to keep a promise or a secret but she’s so beautiful you don’t even care (until she steals your boyfriend).

Even if your new roommate might “borrow” your car or “misplace” your jewelry, she’s not all bad. My shittiest roommates taught me the most important lessons, like, always lock your bedroom door before going out if you want to see your favorite leggings again and turn your lights off before masturbating because nobody knocks anymore.

Ten Things Italians Can Learn From Croatian Roommates

1) Hold Your Liquor

Everyone in Milan thought I had a drinking problem when they were the ones with the problem-not knowing how to drink! Italians can easily have a bottle of wine for lunch but give them more than a Negroni before dinner and they’re calling their mommy for a ride home. The only problem Croatians have with alcohol is when they don’t have enough alcohol or when they walk home from the bar during winter and fall asleep in the snow and die-but one can argue if that’s even a problem.

2) Rise and Shine

Italians don’t eat breakfast, (a brioche isn’t breakfast), probably because they’re still full from the enormous dinner they ate at midnight. Croatians make the most of breakfast because by dinner-time they’ve already spent all their money on illegal slot machines. Your Croatian roommate will cook you a hangover-curing breakfast (you’re hung-over because you don’t know how to drink) so delicious you won’t even care that the main ingredients are rats and gunpowder.

3) One Big Room Full of Bad Bitches

People think Croatian women are just passive putas who will screw anyone for an American passport, and that’s not true! First of all, there’s nothing passive about beating our kids. Secondly, why would we screw for a passport when we can kill for it? Jokes aside, Croatian girls are the toughest I know and though I grew up in America, my summers in Croatia made me the Strong Feminist I am. There my cousins taught me about #slutpride and my grandmothers taught me that it doesn’t matter who you marry because you’ll be disappointed anyway.

4) Dress to Impress

When I first came to Milan I didn’t know anybody (or how to communicate with them) so when I saw a Croatian at a club one fateful night (I knew he was Croatian because he was the only boy above 1.5 meters) I approached him and he told me he knew I was Croatian because I was the only girl wearing a shitty jacket in January. Over vodka we agreed that though we’re freezing to death, there’s no point to buying coats since “it will get warm in four months.”

5) Family Matters

Italians are famously family-oriented (*cough* mafia *cough*) but Croatians stay even closer to our relatives since we can never afford to move out. On the rare occasions we are away, we stay connected. I talk to my mom on the phone ten times a day, which seemed excessive to my boyfriend until he realized it takes a lot of time to organize crime.

6) Penny Pinchers

When you’re notoriously poor nobody expects you to help pay for the internet bill or the taxi ride home or the morning-after pill because everyone knows you’ve been starving for a month to afford last season’s Levi’s.

7) Workin’ on My Shit

Italians think it’s cool to cut corners at work-that’s why y’all have daily strikes and ten hour lunch breaks. Croatians prefer to avoid work completely. The most popular retirement age is 30 and the most popular reasons are “disability” (beer belly) or “veteran” (served the required two years in the army).  

8) The Early Bird Gets The Worm

I always hated that Italians go to aperitivo at seven, dinner at eleven and to the club at one-it’s exhausting and unnecessary. Croatians eat their largest meal at four, go to the bar at six and come home pleasantly wasted by midnight. If you get a little hungry in-between you go out and get a mayonnaise sandwich, which gives you an excuse to have sex in the park (which brings me to my next point).

9) Love is in the Air Everywhere I Look Around

Most Croatians don’t get our own apartments until we’re in our  thirties so if we want to have sex with someone, we’re creative! Croatia is where one learns to screw against cars, in public bathrooms, under bridges and behind park benches. But don’t mistake the excitement for love-Croatians don’t say “volim te” unless we’re wasted, which is all the time.  

10) How to play soccer.

STAR SPANGLED SAUSAGE

I'M THE VOICE-OVER OF MY GENERATION

I'm the voice of Just Cavalli's new campaign so as soon as Disney's ready for me to star in their next cartoon as the Strong Female Lead so am I.

MEET DA PARENTS

(I wrote about meeting the parents for VICE Italy)

My boyfriend is meeting my parents this week, and I’m worried. Not because I’m afraid they won’t like him but because I don’t want them to like him more than his parents like me (relationships are a competition). Boys’ parents usually hate me because they think I “behave badly” but let me clarify that’s only because they treat me badly. Parents are always doing annoying shit like offering me me food I can’t eat (Gwyneth Paltrow told me I was allergic to gluten in a dream once) and asking what I want to do with my life (if Halle Berry could be model/actresses I can be a comedian/stripper) and giving me old “necklaces” their “grandmother used to wear” (cursing me for eternity).

Sometimes I think past relationships would have lasted longer had I never met the parents. Sometimes I wonder if I should have slowed things down before they got out of hand. Sometimes I wish I could think before speaking or showing someone’s father my tan lines. Sometimes I hope to host a reality show about extreme weight-loss with Miley Cyrus. Sometimes I know the only way to make big decisions is with a quiz.

ARE YOU READY TO MEET THE PARENTS?

1) Manners:

My boyfriend always complains when I put my elbows on the dinner table and I always ask him how else am I supposed to steal food from the person next to me when they aren’t looking? Do you know how much time it takes to lift an arm from under the table when it’s so heavy with that huge diamond ring you’ll buy me? How do y’all sit at a dinner table?

A) Hands elegantly rested near silverware, napkin in lap and back straight.

B) Hands under the table and eyes down because I’m sexting your cousin.

C) Crawling under the table looking for my lost Xanax contact lens.

Correct answer: C: you’ll need Xanax to put yourself to sleep before your boyfriend can try to have sex with you because he still doesn’t understand that girls don’t enjoy being naked or touched while naked after a big meal. If I wanted to have sex with a pregnant belly I wouldn’t have ever taken that Plan B pill those ten times.

(If you answered B you don’t know how to sext without looking and are therefore too old to be reading this and if you answered A you’re a liar).

2) Emergency:

What do you do if you’re in a tiny apartment with a thousand Sicilians celebrating your boyfriend’s sister’s wedding and they’ve been feeding you “fish” and your stomach suddenly sounds like Lady Gaga’s next album so you run to the only bathroom in the place and explode into the toilet (Kanye’s latest album) but it won’t flush because that summer the mafia stole the water (#truestory #iloveitaly) and everyone in the kitchen is waiting for you?

A) Flush the old-fashioned way, via a bucket of water.

B) Discretely ask his mother for help while discretely slipping her a twenty.

C) Strut back to the kitchen like a #diva and pretend it didn’t happen.

Correct answer: D: throw yourself out the window.

(If you answered any of the above you’re as dumb as I was three years ago).

3) PDA:

How affectionate are you with your lover? How do y’all act in public?

A) Hold hands and kiss so basic bitches back off *flips hair* *sharpens knife*

B) Hold each other’s waists because one of y’all has hand-sweating problems.

C) Public enemas.

Correct answer: B: once my boyfriend was like, “why are your hands so sweaty?” and I was like, “because I’m nervous,” and he was like, “why are you nervous?” and I was like, “you’re driving too fast,” and he was like, “what?” and I was like, “you’re going to crash the car and I will die and you’ll have to live with that guilt for the rest of your life,” and he was like, “we aren’t in a car.”

(If you answered A or C you’re probably gay and won’t ever meet the parents anyway because they’ve shunned you).

4) Issues:

People say you shouldn’t mention “controversial” topics like religion or politics when meeting future in-laws but I think it’s really important to stress how you feel so they understand Who You Are and that the wedding won’t be in a church. That being said, just because you read Guns, Germs & Steel in high school doesn’t mean you know what Obama eats for breakfast. Discuss only what you know, like communist rations in Yugoslavia and exorcisms in the Appalachians. What do you believe in?

A) Lady Gaga performing the National Anthem for Gay Pride last week.

B) The Zombie Apocalypse.

C) Yeezus.

Correct answer: A: if you can watch that without crying you either don’t have feelings and/or are too jealous of her new hair color to think about anything else.

(If you answered B you should quit your Urban Outfitters job before it ruins your life and if you answered C you haven’t heard the album yet).

5) Substance:

My dad made my college boyfriend drink three types of Croatian liquor in front of him without “making a face” before he’d accept him. The boy “made a face” after the second one and I dumped him soon after. Your drink of choice is:

A) Wine

B) Beer

C) Liquor

Correct answer:  All of the above. The first thing the last parents I met said about me was, “she drinks too much,” which means they know my boyfriend is lucky to have me because I’m lucky to still be alive. 

(If you answered A you’re a pussy, if you answered B you’re an asshole and if you answered C you’re my father).

6) Style:

How you dress says everything about you and how far you’re willing to go to impress people you hate. What’s your look?

A) Slutty Gardener

B) Brothel Stylist

C) Truck Stop Diva

Correct answer: B: Look sexy enough to attract the father while appearing miserably uncomfortable enough to convince the mother you’re ready for the constant pain that is matrimony and motherhood.

(If you answered A never trust a hippy and if you answered C you’re Lana Del Rey and I’m honored you’re reading this).

7) Humor:

Things I say often: “My diet starts tomorrow” and “I don’t know what I said, but I know it was funny.” Are you LOLZ?

A) The only funny thing about me is my face.

B) The only funny thing about me is my eating disorder.

C) The only funny thing about me is everything.

Correct answer: it depends-parents love funny boyfriends (he’ll “lighten difficult times” with humor, like when his wife dies in the delivery room because he forgot to bring her heroin) but they hate funny girlfriends (they know she’ll teach their grandchildren penis jokes if she survives their delivery).

8) Ambition:

The parents liked me until they found my VICE columns, which is understandable, because I wouldn’t want my son dating someone more famous than him, either. What will you do with your life?

A) Replace Dolce&Gabbana after they go to prison.

B) Write a memoir about my time with Berlusconi.

C) Bring back fishnets as acceptable legwear. 

Correct Answer: are y’all still here? Sorry, my cats are demanding my attention and I’ve got to go.

PS: If you answered more than 5 of these correctly or if you answered less than two incorrectly or if you answered none of these at all or if you were actually just looking for the new Jonas Brothers music video and don’t know why you’re here, you’re ready to meet the parents.