On being a girl.

Being a pretty girl in the city world.

2007-03-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

While I think I know a lot about makeup, I still often find myself completely perplexed as I wander around the makeup aisle in CVS or the cosmetics department in Bloomies. There seem to be about 1,000 different types of mascara (clump-free, curling, conditioning, oh my). So how do you know which is the best? My roommate (who ironically wears minimal makeup) recommended Paulas Choice, which is kind of like a Zagats guide to beauty products. You can search for everything from makeup to hair products. Paula reviews everything herself, complete with ratings and her own “picks.” You can also shop, get beauty advice, order samples, and search through an ingredient dictionary. The only con I found to her thorough site, is that the products can be limited and not always the most current, which is fine with me since I could probably spend hours on this site as it is.

I think this website was made for me-- A Girls Guide to City Life is like having a conversation with your girlfriends, getting insight on where to eat, shop, and hang out in whatever city you may be in. They break it down by different “girl types,” depending on your mood or venture: active girl, famished girl, fancy girl, thrifty girl, etc. They even recently reviewed my favorite Café in NYC, Grey Dog, where they are spot on with that their coffee is “the kind that really fuels a much-needed break with a friend or inspires for the next chapter in your novel.”

If you’re like me and going through Sex and the City withdrawal, check out this site from HBO, where you can live vicariously through Carrie and the girls. There’s a guide to all of the memorable places so you can reminisce or actually visit where they shopped, ate, and hung out in NYC.

Can girls and girls be friends?

2007-03-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

The age old question, "Can men and women be friends?" seems obsolete to me. Every since Billy Crystal posed that it is impossible in "Harry Met Sally," it seems that male/female friendships have risen in popularity, almost setting out to prove his theory wrong. Over a decade later, I find myself with a good mixture of people that I'm closed to are both female and male. Though, I've also found the platonic relationships that are easier to maintain (even past the middle school, high school, even college bullshit), are the ones with my guy friends.

I have had a string of many unlucky friendships and others that have just drifted apart. The thing I love about my guy friendships is that they don’t get jealous, they don’t get catty, they don’t get pissed if you didn’t call them back right away (and you can’t get pissed at them—because they’re just guys). The best friendships are the ones that you can go weeks, or even months without talking to and pick up where you left off, like not a day has gone by. In fact, I have two female friends that just ended their relationship after being best friends for eight years just because they don’t call each other anymore. I wonder if they were guys, if this would make any difference.

The thing with girl friendships, it’s the same no matter what age you may be. Let me go back to my first failed girl-friendships. I remember playing with toys in my basement with Alison and Amanda before I remember learning how to talk. I also remember that Amanda made me cry almost every time I saw her. My mother recorded in my baby book that she hit me and grabbed toys right out of my hand. Some friend. Needless to say, that friendship didn't last much past elementary school. Alison and I remain friends after many rocky years and have grown apart. Though we are bound by our pact from age ten, when we vowed that no matter what, we would be at each other’s weddings one day.

Then in high school I met Sara. I kind of felt bad for her. She wasn’t the thinnest or prettiest girl and in fact, when I started hanging out with her, girls (like Amanda) would actually say to me, “How can you be friends with her? She’s so annoying.” Though, I saw a great friend in her and by the end of 10th grade, everyone saw what I saw. Even Amanda started befriending her. She loved to shop, talk on the phone for hours and was just as boy-crazy as I was. We would page each other “911” on each other’s beepers to call back immediately with the latest news about something that happened at school that day or about our latest crush.

Soon the “911”s became real emergencies, like the time I had to leave my date at another school’s dance to have my father pick up Sara and bring her to our house, since her step-dad and mother were fighting again. Soon her family troubles got more serious and she had to live at my house for a few months. Not only were we together all the time at school, but also we were forced to go home from school together and had no time away from each other.

I didn’t realize how bad it was getting until Sara stopped talking to me. My only communication with her was when I would walk into the classroom and she would whisper something to one of our friends and giggle, and then mutter something like, “Oh crap. I hope she didn’t hear us,” and giggle some more. Pretty soon I had to switch to another table during the first period of school. Then, upon confronting her, she handed me a nasty letter that said things like I need a “new personality” and she didn’t want to be friends with me anymore. It wasn’t a post-it, but I couldn’t believe she ended our friendship with a rule-lined note!

I spent my senior year of high school with various people from various groups: the popular, the older kids that didn’t go away to college, the bad kids, the chorus dorks, and even the ones that weren’t part of a group, valuing only the friendships I had made outside of high school (probably since those didn’t have a chance to talk about me behind my back) and a few childhood friends that I held onto. I guess you could say that the ending to the movie “Mean Girls” was sadly a metaphor for this time of my life.

My older sister told me that college would be different, that people would grow up and I would find more mature friendships. She was right—to an extent. I met my freshman year roommate, Jamie. I knew I didn’t want to be friends with her from the moment I saw her unpacking her car outside my dorm and I prayed that the snobby-looking girl was not my roommate, which of course she was. She started to grow on me and immediately befriended me. We spent our first day knocking on every door on every male co-ed’s floor in the dorm to neighborly introduce ourselves. We got invited to all of the parties together and even accepted a handful of girls and guys into our group, which then became inseparable. Jamie and I even decided to live together our sophomore year in an off-campus apartment, while the rest of our group split up among the dorms.

Just a few weeks before the end of our friendship, Jamie admitted to me I was her best friend at school. I had been there for her in ways I have never been for a friend before. I cried and sat by her side while I watched paramedics keep her conscious as she convulsed from mixing drugs and alcohol at a party. I defended her when rumors spread about that incident. I once checked on her every 30 minutes for an entire night just to make sure she was still breathing because she was found passed out from drinking (with her pants down after peeing in an alley). I held her hand every time she took a pregnancy test because she wasn’t sure if she had slept with a guy or used protection the night before.

I knew she had issues, including temper problems (like the time she picked a fight with me because I was talking to my then-boyfriend on the phone in our dorm room after she had recently broken up with her boyfriend), but nothing was going to prepare me for what was to come.

Like Sara, she began to avoid me. She spent more time at her boyfriend’s and my only form of communicating with her was to leave her a message on the computer for whenever she got back. I saw she had an away message up that she “couldn’t wait” until she moved back to campus next semester (something she didn’t inform me—her roommate—of. So when I called her out on it and asked what I was going to do the following semester if she left without much notice, she replied, “You are a selfish bitch. All you think about is yourself. I don’t want to ever talk to you again.” I'm not sure what I did to upset her exactly. To this day, our mutual friends will tell me that she would come to them complaining about me but had nothing to complain about other than she hated me. I kind of laughed off the whole thing because at this point, I realized that if someone didn’t see that I put everything into a friendship and it wasn’t reciprocated, it wasn’t worth it.

For some reason she then set out to be in a full-on war with me: slamming doors in our apartment, pushing me at parties, even drunkenly shouting that I was a c-u-n-t to our mutual friends at one party. I made it a point to not say a bad thing about her to our friends and let her display her rage for no reason, which blew up in her face, as she no longer remained friends with most of them.

A year later I ran into Jamie on campus, while on the way to a party with a couple my girlfriends. She looked me up and down and mumbled, “SLUT.” And as my friends laughed at her immaturity, I laughed inside, recalling the girl I once used to comfort after a night of drinking since she woke up with her clothes off, again.

My father always told me that my mother shared this trouble with female friendships; even until the day she passed away. People that were supposed to be her “friends” would talk about her behind her back and were not there for her when she was sick. My father said the main reason for this was jealousy. She was stunning, and 5’7”, very thin, had long blonde hair, blue eyes, with a dynamic personality, so often women faulted her for this. This is why she tended to befriend men.

Like her, I find that males aren’t as competitive in friendships. They can see a friendship for what it is and just enjoy another’s company. Some male-female friendships may start out with some attraction one way or another, yet most guys will remain a true friend to you when you need them most—or at least take you out for pizza or a drink to get your mind off of things.

Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of girl friends—some of which I have known since I could barely walk, and some I met in the past few years. Though there are those few girls that you can hold dear to your heart, that you know won’t get jealous or competitive, that won’t be catty, that won’t talk about you behind your back or call you names (no matter what age you are), that won’t get mad if you don’t call them for a month, that can just be there when you need to talk or cry. Because that’s what girl friends are for.

Being a girl on Valentines Day.

2007-02-13T21:02:00.000-08:00

This shouldn't be a tough one to write about. February 14th tends to be us girls' favorite day of the year. Valentine's Day--they might as well have named it "Girls love this day" or "Guys get their lazy tushes off of the couch, turn off the sports, and take us out to dinner Day." Yet, this year for me, it is the first night before Valentine's Day that I am not anxious about. It will be just another day (maybe with better food).

Most of us don't even know why we celebrate Valentine's Day. We know there's some saint with the name Valentine. Maybe we are aware that it goes back to third century Rome where legend has it that the Emperor thought it was a better idea to have single soldiers than ones that were married off (hmm...maybe we should reinforce this more so there were more eligible bachelors). So, according to that legend, Valentine, who thought this was unjust, began marrying off couples himself. Another legend tells that Valentine was imprisoned and was in love, and before he was sentenced to death, signed his letter to his love, "your Valentine." Finally, a third legend says that a major greeting card corporation ran out of ways to sell cards during other times than Christmas or birthdays, so they created a holiday that they knew women would make sure would stick around. In any case, we make sure to celebrate--and agonize over--this holiday, year after year.

Maybe it goes back to when we were six and your Mom sent you off with a fresh batch of corny Valentines with something like a picture of a bumble bee forming a heart with its path on it, and a cleverly written pun like, "BEE mine, Valentine." The anticipation killed you as you waited for everyone in the class to come around and drop a little note into your hand-made envelope hanging off of your desk. Would he sign it "love" or just "your friend?" Would the cool kids reserve the better Valentines for you (not like a robot saying, "your wish is my command.")? Would they even remember to sign their name?? How agonizing those days were!

Then it got more serious. Flowers, chocolates, and gifts started getting involved, and not to mention dates. Your expectations expanded to the point where it had to be as perfect as a cheesy romantic comedy. It never was. I remember even the few Valentine's Days that I was fortunate to have a Valentine, turned into catastrophes. I once had an ex take me to a restaurant that he actually admitted he'd taken other girls on dates before as we were approaching the door. Last year, my friend Sara and I decided to be each other's Valentines and had a girl's night out. She ended up leaving me alone all night so she could talk to a guy so she could score free drinks.

So that's why I got to thinking, this year, there are no expectations. No rules. It's just another day in this girl's life. And maybe a nice dinner, if I'm lucky.

The real reason why girls live longer.

2006-12-17T20:21:00.001-08:00

It has been proven that the female sex generally lives a number of years longer than males. (Lucky for us). Lately, while watching guys around me get ready to go somewhere versus girls, it occurred to me, the real reason women live longer than men is because we require so much more time to get ready.

I'm no scientist (although I am the product of my rocket-scientist father), but I believe my hypothesis may be a fact. There is, on average, an hour-long ritual-like process that a female will go through until she is ready to enter the outside world. Add up all of those hours, every day, of every year, I bet it would be the equivalent to the amount of years females statistically live longer than males. Hence, we need those few more years to make up for lost prep-time.

A typical guy waits until the last possible minute to get ready before going out. He hops in the shower, cleans up, throws on whatever clean clothes he has, runs his fingers through his hair, and he's out the door.

The standard female getting ready time goes something like: shower, put on lotion, comb through hair, put in products, pick out outfit, throw clothes on bed/floor/chair, replace outfit for alternative outfit, pick out undergarments based on outfit, put on outfit, call girlfriend for opinion on outfit, change outfit again, dry hair, put on make-up, spritz on perfume, match jewelry to outfit and occasion, pick out coordinating purse, empty all contents from another purse into coordinating purse…you get the idea.

I still haven’t figured out if this theory holds true for gay/metro-sexual males. Maybe that will be a future study. Though I do know, that while it’s so much more work for us to get ready, it does pay off to be a girl.

Only a girl...

2006-10-03T13:23:00.000-07:00

Only a girl could get away with cool things like these...

This month in JANE magazine, a pretty 29 year old blonde admitted to still being a virgin. While we all poked fun of the dorky "40-Year-Old Virgin," we can only praise this girl for making it this long and remaining proud of it. It's not like there's anything wrong with the girl and already she has enough suitors to put match.com out of business, yet she's just waiting for the right one. How many guys pushing thirty can say that without a chuckle from someone?

Don't be fooled by it's girl retro design, this blog can kick ass. Its author, Pia Savage, also a fellow New Yorker, bears it all from her left-wing liberal political views to personal experiences. CourtingDestiny.com, according to the Long Island Press, was recently nominated for a Koufax Award and has amassed an audience of more than 80,000 twenty- and thirty-somethings." Watch for her upcoming memoir, which will hopefully be a compact version of her blog.

I guarantee that guys will find this just as useful, but geared towards girls, this site for city-living gives a female zagat's guide type of perspective at eating, shoping and going out in whatever city you may live in.

How amazing is this: A recent study showed that a mother's voice was more alarming to wake a child, over a fire alarm. Powerful.

Girls obsess.

2006-09-08T20:45:00.001-07:00

I saw the saddest thing today. While walking down First Avenue, I passed a pile of garbage bags, and sitting on top was a wood-framed corkboard filled with nothing but pictures of a girl with her boyfriend. There wasn’t a square inch of space on that thing that wasn’t covered by only they’re smiling faces next to each other, recording their every memory and milestone. I’m not sure what was sadder—the fact that the sign of this girl’s relationship ending was a teen-aged style collage, or the fact that it’s obvious that the owner of those memories HAD to be a girl.

When I told a guy about this sad sight I saw today, he replied, “The guy probably broke up with that chick because he thought she was psycho for being that obsessive. If that was my girlfriend, I’d tell her she was crazy.” This got me thinking about how as girls, we really do tend to obsess a bit, and especially when it comes to guys. While I don’t think most girls I know would hang a collage of photographs of only her and her boyfriend, most guys I know barely own more than one framed photograph.

Girls are the ones doodling in our notebooks as kids, “Mrs. Johnny Smith.” I recall all of the girls in my middle school knowing which girl had a crush on who, (and if they didn’t, they were determined to get it out of you), yet the guys could care less.

Even one of my best friends, L, is constantly preoccupying herself with the guy she’s been dating. Before she started dating him, she called me every time something progressed in their courting stage; such as they had a conversation that lasted longer than five minutes. She continued to note and analyze every move he made. She then started pressuring him to meet her parents before he ever called her his girlfriend. Even one of my female coworkers was analyzing her relationship at six months. She compared it to every other relationship around the office that started around the same time. Since one person said the “L” word, she worried that she was supposed to. Another relationship was getting pretty serious too, and she started reading further into her own. She told me something must be wrong with the way things were going with her boyfriend, when logically, things were just different. One day maybe I will find out if these are things guys actually obsess over, but just don’t fess up to doing.

The female population probably makes up the majority of the consumers for trashy tabloids like US Weekly and InTouch Magazines, and only because we HAVE to know who’s dating who, who got royally dumped by who, who’s now hot and available for us to daydream about, even though, of course, we don’t personally know these people. (I’m embarrassed to admit that I actually flipped through one of those left at my apartment tonight by a guest, from cover to cover. So pathetically addictive). It’s why females are the ones who are known to watch the soap operas. We NEED to know what’s going on with everyone else’s lives. It’s also probably why I’m sitting here, writing this fictional account about a tragic breakup that could be nothing more than a couple’s quarrel, or even an angry roommate. Some people may even think I’m obsessing over this topic, but I guess you can call it being a girl.

Girls obsess.

2006-09-08T20:45:00.000-07:00

I saw the saddest thing today. While walking down First Avenue, I passed a pile of garbage bags, and sitting on top was a wood-framed corkboard filled with nothing but pictures of a girl with her boyfriend. There wasn’t a square inch of space on that thing that wasn’t covered by only they’re smiling faces next to each other, recording their every memory and milestone. I’m not sure what’s sadder—the fact that the sign of this girl’s relationship ending was a teen-aged style collage, or the fact that it’s obvious that the owner of those memories HAD to be a girl.

When I told a guy about this sad sight I saw today, he replied, “The guy probably broke up with that chick because he thought she was psycho for being that obsessive. If that was my girlfriend, I’d tell her she was crazy.” This got me thinking about how as girls, we really do tend to obsess a bit, and especially when it comes to guys. While I don’t think most girls I know would hang a collage of photographs of only her and her boyfriend, most guys barely even own more than one framed photograph.

We’re the ones doodling in our notebooks as a kid, “Mrs. Johnny Smith.” I recall all of the girls in my middle school knowing which girl had a crush on who, (and if they didn’t, they were determined to get it out of you), yet the guys could care less.

Even one of my best friends, L, is constantly preoccupying herself with the guy she’s been dating. Before she started dating him, she called me every time something progressed in their courting stage; such as they had a conversation that lasted longer than five minutes. She continued to note and analyze every move he made. She then started pressuring him to meet her parents before he ever called her his girlfriend. Even one of my female coworkers was analyzing her relationship at six months. She compared it to every other relationship around the office that started around the same time. Since one person said the “L” word, she worried that she was supposed to. Another relationship was getting pretty serious too, and she started reading into her own. She told me something must be wrong with the way things were going with her boyfriend, when logically, things were just different. One day maybe I will find out if these are things guys actually obsess over, but just don’t fess up to doing.

The female population probably makes up the majority of the consumers for trashy tabloids like US Weekly and InTouch Magazines, and only because we HAVE to know who’s dating who, who got royally dumped by who, who’s now hot and available for us to daydream about, even though, of course, we don’t personally know these people. (I’m embarrassed to admit that I actually flipped through one of those left at my apartment tonight by a guest, from cover to cover. So pathetically addictive). It’s why females are the ones who are known to watch the soap operas. We NEED to know what’s going on with everyone else’s lives. It’s also probably why I’m sitting here, writing this fictional account about a tragic breakup that could be nothing more than a couple’s quarrel, or even an angry roommate. Some people may even think I’m obsessing over this topic, but I guess you can call it being a girl.

If girls ruled the world.

2006-08-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

I honestly think the world would be a better place if females ran the world, or at least our country. I’m not talking about painting everything pink, making everything “pretty,” or even designing toilet seats that don’t require men to lift the seat up and in turn, leave it up (I wish). I’m talking about dealing with other countries, making decisions, resolving conflicts. Okay, I don't want to get all “feminist” on you here, but I think I have a valid point.

Think about it; if our country had a female president in office, we probably wouldn’t be in a war. A female would find other means to deal with a disagreement among countries. Our first impulse would never be to “bomb the shit out of those guys.” We would use communication until exhaustion before using weapons. Sure, we’d probably tell the other country that “nothing’s wrong,” but you know as well as I, we always don’t mean that.

If one female leader’s country were in conflict with another female leader’s country, things would operate differently from this testosterone-driven world. Worst-case scenario wouldn’t be war. It would be that the two countries just didn’t speak to each other for a while and spread rumors about the other, around the world. Where are the casualties in that?

A female would fly across the world to calmly settle disputes. Men tend to be lazy (don’t deny it), and would be more comfortable making some speech to be broadcasted on TV from their office, to warn the other countries to cease their fighting. While I sometimes doubt that Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice is a woman, she recently proved my point by taking a trip to Lebanon and Israel to attempt to end the violence.

It is innate for the male sex to be violent. They are the hunters. They are also the ones who created weapons, boxing, and Wrestlemania. Women, by nature, are nurturing and are natural peacemakers. Contrary to what most men think, we actually don’t like to fight or even quarrel. I had a boyfriend that once started an argument with me because he believed that something was wrong with our relationship since we never fought. If he were the leader of some country, he’d probably initiate war with some poor neutral country like Canada!

Right now only 13% of the Senate is female, only one member of the president’s cabinet is a woman, and the Supreme Court is dwindling with only one female member. Maybe it’s why our “progressive” country is lagging behind. Maybe it’s why there have been so many conflicts over the years, and especially most recently. Maybe being a girl in politics isn’t a bad idea after all.

What it feels like for a girl.

2006-07-24T19:31:00.000-07:00

Since the days of Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet), to even cartoons (Olive Oyl and Popeye––and even Brutus), women have been the ones chased by the man. That’s the way it goes. Even the most unattractive or the shyest female knows what it is like to get hit on by a guy, while most guys cannot and will not comprehend this in their lifetime. They don’t know what it’s like to have someone undress you with their eyes (okay, maybe someone like Colin Farrell might). A guy would never turn down a drink from a girl. They wouldn’t have to think twice about drinking it either. The average guy will most likely go through life without a swarm of women uncomfortably surrounding them trying to pick up the lone hottie. A girl giving him a compliment would never cause him to be repulsed. That’s just not the way it goes. So when this past weekend when my boyfriend got picked up by numerous males, I eagerly and without sympathy said, “welcome to my world.”

I spent the weekend away with some co-workers at Fire Island––the part of Long Island that’s formerly known as the really gay version of the Hamptons, and more recently known as a retreat both families and those of us that can’t afford to go out in the Hamptons. To my surprise, it was more or less the same crowd as in New York City. I started to feel guilty for making fun of Boyfriend for “fitting in” with the Fire Island crowd when he said he wanted a pink shirt.

Even with Boyfriend beside me, I managed to get stares from males at the bar in Fire Island. Of course, us females are often oblivious due to the overwhelming response from men, so I was unaware until Boyfriend proudly pointed it out to. Even with a guy by my side, I’m not surprised when I’m hit on. It’s like men have this tick that makes them feel obligated to stare, mumble, even pull deep into the pick up line archive for something cheesy when a pretty girl is standing in front of them. When I’m out with my girlfriends, forget it, I swear that the bat signal goes up over Gotham to warn every man in a 50 foot radius to get their best game ready.

Maybe it’s karma, but soon the tables turned. A woman with a pixie cut hairdo grabbed Boyfriend away from the pool table to hold his face and make sure he was aware of how “adorable” he was. All I could do was laugh; it could have been worse.

Not long after this, a guy approached me. I smiled and was about to walk away until I realized he wasn’t trying to pursue me. When he started asking me questions about Boyfriend and if I was HIS girlfriend, that’s when I realized the tables had really turned. I soon stood back and left the rest to him. After four other guys surrounded him, Boyfriend was begging to leave the bar. He felt violated. He felt like a piece of meat. He felt pissed off. He finally understood what it felt like to be a girl.

What makes something "girly?"

2006-06-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

To someone that just met me, I may appear to be the girliest girl they have ever met, based on our social standards.

I live for all things feminine: shopping, decorating, primping, crying at movies, cuddling, flirting. I cross my legs and sit “politely.” I own just about every Madonna album prior to her smooching with cheesy female pop-stars on stage. I own enough shoes to cover the floor of my walk-in closet–and then some. I have read books like P.S. I Love You, The Devil Wears Prada, and Summer Sisters. I’m addicted to my digital camera, snapping photos with my friends any chance I get, hoping the next one will be myspace-worthy. I never leave my apartment without a coat of mascara. I admit to having crushes on hunky celebs such as Jake Gyllenhaal and James Franco. I own pink clothing. I will never cut my hair above shoulder length.

So what exactly makes all of this “girly” and quite not respectable for guys (other than the obvious wearing makeup and having a weakness for attractive male movie stars)? With the rise of the “Metrosexual” revolution, I’ve noticed it is more and more acceptable for men to act on these once recognized as “girly things,” yet is still taboo to discuss.

I bet if I gathered all of my male friends in a room, not one would admit to another any of their “female” tendencies. Most have admitted to me to at least liking some chick flicks. I know guys who wear clay face masks to clear their pores, guys who yearn for their first pink shirt (more than you’d think), guys who bash the TV show “Sex and the City” around other guys, but will not refuse to watch it if a girl has it on.

Most guys I know have a hair stylist they continue to go back to. Some of course, won’t admit it, while others just go to any old place that you can walk in and get a haircut for less than $20. According to Jane Magazine, 55% of men prefer to go to a barber compared to 39% who go to a hair stylist. I bet most guys are either intimidated to get a professional haircut, or scared to admit that they do something as girly as going to a hair stylist.

Today I even stumbled across a major story in the newspaper,AM New York, claiming, “hugs are the new handshake” for guys. Supposedly, thanks to TV shows like “Entourage” and the hip-hop culture, it is now acceptable for two males to embrace each other with open arms. Just a few years ago, two guys would have to grab their crotch or belch post-hug just to prove that they are manly after doing such a girly action, if doing it at all.

While I proved to have the most girlish traits and I know I was never meant to be a boy, judging by how I turned out (though, I was told I would have been named “Brian”), I can still hang with the boys. Being raised by a single father most of my life, I picked up on a thing or two. To this day, my father brags to others that when I was 12 I won a basketball foul shooting contest against all boys. In fact, I’ve always been into sports. Plus, every year for father’s day I get exactly what every father from New York wants from their daughter–Yankees tickets. While at the same time, I cannot sit through more than one ESPN Sports Center a week, let alone a day.

Like most guys take pride in, I can joke around. I can come back with witty comments to any male’s joke and impress them. I can also impress with my vast music knowledge down to who sang “Cool Like That (Rebirth of Slick)” to what’s the best song on the latest RHCP album, to even the ultimate necessity of being a male this day and age, knowing Led Zeppelin songs. Guys are often impressed with my ability to be able to guess a song on the radio with just two beats into it.

Yet for some reason, the more you read about how I can hang with the boys, the cooler I sound. Gender roles reversed, and my name was Brian, I would be considered “gay” or just a “feminine loser,” according to our social standards. Maybe the world will be a better place now that hugs among the male population is more acceptable. No one will ever know why something is considered solely a male thing or female thing. Though, one thing I know is there is nothing wrong with being a girly girl that can hang with the boys. And I like it that way.

Being a thrifty girl in an expensive world.

2006-04-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

As a twenty-something living in Manhattan, it’s not cheap. Throw in being a female into the mix, and you’re like me. Broke. As I always say, it’s more maintenance being a girl, and therefore costs more money. However, there are tricks to cutting corners and cutting costs in which many girls don’t know about and many secrets that haven’t been shared (many of which guys may want to know). Of course, you can always resort to having a guy pay for things, but where’s the fun in that?

-Get creative! When models run out of zit cream they often use toothpaste, which has the same drying effect as acne meds do. (Couldn’t tell you if the “whitening” formulas have a certain effect on your face). Also, if you can’t cover up a zit, Visine works like it does for your eyes; “it gets the red out.”

-Ask for samples! My father’s girlfriend walked into Keil’s one day and said that I wanted to try some of their products but couldn’t get to the store. They literally handed her a shopping bag full of travel-sized samples from shampoo to body wash to lotions, which we divided up and I still use. Of course when I went in to use her tactic on my own, they “ran out” and I only received one measly packet of lotion, but hey, it was something. Stores are happy to give away free samples for you to try their products and hopefully get you to come back. Though I probably take advantage of this a bit too much, especially since my favorite perfume costs $80 and I refuse to purchase it. I take monthly trips to Sephora and request samples of the perfume that I would looove to “try” and they give me a handful of vials that last about 5-10 spritzes each. Of course it works out for them since I usually end up dragging one of my friends with me to the store and they want to buy the whole store.

-Make it a double! The latest trend in face washes is disposable face cloths with the soap in them. Brilliant, yet costly. Most packs come with a only a month's supply (half, if you use them twice/day) and they usually fold out to bigger sheets, so why not cut them in half and get double the face cloths for your money. Do this with other items such as oversized cotton balls. Even if it’s something you can’t literally cut, “cut” down how much to use recommended by the product’s company, which gets you to run out of their product quicker.

-Turn to nature! Can’t afford to upkeep hair-dye? There are many inexpensive ways to subtly highlight your hair. (Leave the Kool-Aid to the kids). Lemons + hair + sun = sun-kissed blonde highlights, which Chamomile tea can freshen up brown hair.

-Get to the root of the problem! Not many people know about this and I think I disgusted my friend, Laura, when I used one in front of her, but a tongue scraper can replace all your daily purchases of breath mints, gum, mouthwash, etc. My dentist told me that I needed to stop chewing gum and handed me flat Chinese finger trap-looking plastic device. You drag the ridges of it over your tongue and you rid of things you didn’t realize that were lingering from like two meals ago.

-Find more uses out of one thing! Use bronzer as eye-shadow, eye-shadow as eye-brow pencil or wet it for eye-liner, use foundation as cover-up, use lipstick as blush, and some blushes can dual as lip gloss or eye-shadow.

-Find the bargains!
>Some places you can get a manicure cheaper during the week.
>Look for places like Bumble and Bumble, which give free haircuts one night of the week. You will have a student doing your hair, but they’re supervised by professionals and you can get a trendy cool ‘do.
>If you have the patience, stores like Century 21, Loehman’s, TJ Maxx and Marshalls you can sift through racks and racks of clothing to find designer clothing for much cheaper prices. I buy all my jeans about 1/2 of what they normally would cost.
>Sample sales are great deals if you find a good one. Try to get there early since things go fast. OR go at the very end and see if you can get a better deal since designers tend to rid of/donate any of the leftovers from the sale.

-Get dolled up the thrifty way! If you have a big event to go to, get your makeup done at a department store makeup counter. While it’s not mandatory to make a purchase, you are expected to buy something if you are happy with what she did. Some counters have a rate you can pay for a makeover without any obligations.

-Do some research! Unlike most things in life, sometimes with beauty products, you don’t have to pay more for quality. A dermatologist told me that if my sensitive eyes/skin could only handle the gentleness of Clinique, the company Almay is just a cheaper version of it. Though with eye shadow, you’re never going to get the same quality pigments as you would in a pricier product, yet they work the same.
My father did some of his own research and found out that (get this) ALL of the shampoos in a drug store are pretty much the same. However, for color-treated hair, the one shampoo that tested to keep color longest lasting was L’Oreal Color Vive.

-Shop in your friends’ closets! You’ve heard the saying, “one person’s junk is another’s treasure”. This is especially true of clothes. Some of my favorite items of my wardrobe are my sister’s old things. I even went through my father's closet and found an old Christian Dior sweater collecting dust. While he was about to donate it to Salvation Army, I snagged it remarking, "OMIGAD, do you even know who Christian Dior is??" Of course he didn't care, but neither of us would have ever known if I didn't go through his closet. When my friends and I are bored of our own wardrobes, we save money by borrowing each other’s. Sometimes just because something is new to you, it’s fresh and exciting. Plus, it does much less damage to your wallet than any other shopping spree.

Being a girl is dangerous.

2006-03-03T07:56:00.000-08:00

A close friend of mine recently went out on a Friday night with some friends in New York City. She started the night pre-gaming with some liquor and made sure to call me at 10pm to inform me she was already "waayyysted." By midnight she and her friends were out bar hopping like twenty-somethings often do. So far, it was turning out to be a great night for my friend--a "typical" night. By 2am my friend separated from her friends and was found passed out on 1st ave. By 3am I received a phone call saying my friend was in the hospital. She was lucky she ended up there.

Fortunately, nothing happened to my friend other than a major wake up call. Though other girls are not as fortunate. As most are probably aware of the recent news of a girl also in her twenties, who became an unfortunate victim of a fun night out turned dangerous--and ultimately fatal (and it's not the first time we've heard something like this in the news). While no one knows exactly what happened the night that Imette St. Guillen was raped and murdered, one can only imagine. Whether she was drugged, abducted, lured, or like my friend, incoherent because of intoxication, the fact that she was a girl made her all the more vulnerable. Plus, being visibly drunk makes her an easier target.

You probably won't see headline news of a man raped or abducted, especially from a female. It's just a shear fact that females are the more vulnerable sex. We are seen as dainty, not tough. Despite the recent surge of ass-kicking women movies (ie, Aeon Flux, Ultraviolet, etc.), it's not likely the average girl would stand a chance against the average guy.

Even in a self-defense class I recently took I could barely kick-ass. I was intimidated by some sweaty guy who had his arms around me and found myself not sure what to do in his overwhelming strength. "Hit him in the balls," the instructor yelled, but all I could do was lightly tap his cup that was protecting his manhood. When it came his turn to use the same move on me, he obviously was supposed to go easier on me because I'm a girl. That's what guys do; they go easy on the girls. WRONG. He hit me so hard in my crotch that I swear I felt my pelvic bone vibrate. This dude didn't realize his power and apologized, though he thought he "went easy on me." (And, like a typical guy, he didn't realize that while girls are not owners of nuts, YES it does still hurt like hell if you get hit down there).

While I was surprised to see a good amount of men at this self-defense class, much of the class was geared towards the females. And of course, we practiced as though our assailants would be males. If a girl like me jumped any of those guys on the street, they would probably laugh at me and my skinny arms, or drop me to the ground before I could take their wallet.

Though a self-defense class and the right moves could help a situation, sometimes a girl can be too vulnerable to do anything, like in the case of my friend who was found passed out on the street. In cases like that all you can do is take precautions. When going out, we need to make sure that someone knows where we are at all times and most importantly where we are.

Especially, as cool or genuine as a guy may seem when you meet them out, never go somewhere alone with them. I know so many girls who have gone back to a guy's dorm room or apartment because they trusted them, despite just meeting them. A family friend had a frightening experience upon meeting a man--and he didn't even invite her back to his place, just to the beach. She was vacationing in the Carribean when she was in college and went out for drinks one night. She met a good-looking guy at the bar who tried to get her to go with him to hang out on the beach. She declined and he immediately lost interest. The next morning she woke up in her hotel to find that same guy's face on the front page of the paper. He found two other girls to fall victim to his scheme, took them to his car on the beach and raped one girl and killed the other. One decision like that can cost a girl her life.

I know girls who take precaution by carrying their cell phones and pretending they're talking when they are alone and passing strange men on the street. Girls should also be aware that when listening to their ipods/headphones on the street that they can hear what's around them because this can make them an easy target as well. I personally take little precautions daily like I make sure my surroundings when I open the door to my apartment and make sure to close it behind me immediately in case a man snuck up behind me. It's almost sick how much I need to think about all the precautions I need to take (that men probably never have to think about) because being a girl, whether in college, on vacation, or in a big city, can be so dangerous.

Pick-up line of the week (Valentine's Day edition).

2006-02-17T12:56:00.000-08:00

A guy in a bar pointed to his eye, then gestured a heart with his index fingers and thumbs, and pointed to me. (literally "eye heart you").

I shook my head no. He then turned his pick up line around by pointing to me, then the heart gesture, then his eye, while making a face that implied "question mark." Needless to say this left his attempt open-ended for another "no."

While I admit this pick-up line (if you can call it that) is original and I don't know many females that have gotten picked up with sign language, let alone poor usage of it, this tactic should be left up to the hearing impaired.

Best pick-up lines of the week.

2006-02-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

and by best, I mean the worst.

-Excuse me, but are you Italian? (me: no) Really, you're not? (me: no, I have blonde hair/blue eyes). You have the facial structure of an Italian though. (me: umm ok).

-You remind me of the little sister I never had...I want to just like put you in a little box and take you home to my mom.

-Damn girl, you did very well tonight. Looking fiiiine.

How not to pick up a girl.

2006-01-29T19:18:00.001-08:00

While at a bar with some guy friends the other night, one eyed a “fat chick” and considered dancing with her for the sole purpose of impressing her hot friend. His logic was that the hot friend would think his gesture was sweet, and in turn, throw herself at the guy. (And guys say we’re the ones that play games).

This guy asked for my opinion before making his move. While I had the urge to smack him over the head because of his foolishness, I refrained and told him that this would probably not sway my decision. In truth, I might be turned off to the fact I thought he was interested in my friend, and that he didn’t have the confidence to pursue me. Also, referring to my hypothetical friend as the “fat chick” probably wouldn’t help his efforts. Needless to say, the guy did not make any attempt with either lady.

I thought about all the ineffective attempts guys have made with impressing or picking up either my friends or myself. Last weekend within a millisecond of entering a bar, a desperate male tried to pick up three of us girls at one time. “Oh I have to buy shots for all you lovely ladies.” Maybe he thought he could get three for the price of one, but it didn’t work; we denied his impulsive offer. In the same night, I also found myself a victim of one of the lamest attempts at pursuing a girl. The guy tried to swoon me with his knowledge in music, while often impressive, it does not always work—especially when you don’t know what you’re talking about. The conversation went something like this:

Dude: “This song is definitely by that guy that sings ‘We’ve Got The Funk.’”
Me: “You mean George Clinton?”
Dude: “Yea that guy.”
Me: “No, this is definitely Prince.”
Dude: “No, I don’t think so. But how about if you’re right, you have to buy me a drink.”
Me: “What? Um, that’s not even a fair bet.”
The consensus from the crowd: Prince.
And the dude walks away in shame without putting up a fight for a free drink.

It amazes me what guys will actually do to get a girl’s attention. They think one cheesy sentence to get her attention, and they’re in. My favorite corny pickup line ever used on me was a guy poetically quoting rapper Nelly, “It’s getting hot in here, [want to take] off all your clothes?”

A line that was actually used on a friend, “Do you have a boyfriend?” (No) “Can I be yours?” also failed miserably.

Then there’s the guys that honk their horn or shout from their moving car, as if we’re going to flag them down and say, “WAIT! Slow down stud, you forget to get my number!” And of course, there’s the whistle, the “woooo ooo” and the “hey baby/hottie/beautiful.” Not only are they unoriginal, but also make a guy look like a complete scumbag. A simple hello, a comment on something she’s wearing, anything seemingly genuine usually works much better.

While myself and many other females will often not hesitate to talk to a guy that they are eyeing, I must admit that we have it easy. We are the ones who get noticed, who are approached, and can turn down any attempt a guy makes. We can accept or decline an offer for a drink. We can refuse to give out a phone number. Unless you live in a place like Newcastle, England, where the women are on the ones on the prowl, snatching up any guy they want through the course of an evening, chances are that a female can stand by the bar and wait for a suitor to approach her. And that’s just another reason why I love being a girl.

Girls love clothes.

2006-01-24T21:25:00.000-08:00

It took me literally over an hour to fold and put away all my laundry last night. Yes, I hadn’t done laundry in weeks, but that just didn’t seem normal to me. My coworker, Sara, blamed it on the fact that I’m from Long Island. I blame it on the shear fact that I’m a girl.

My friend Alan agreed, saying that, indeed, the reason I own so many clothes is because I’m a girl. He asked me how long I could possibly go without needing to wash any of my clothing. My response: over a month. This shocked him. It also surprised him that I could probably go a month without repeating an outfit. While Alan isn’t one who cares about the latest fashion trends, he is a typical guy.

The typical guy rotates through a few shirts, a few pants, some for dressy occasions, some for casual. He usually owns a pair of everyday shoes, some athletic shoes, and probably around two pairs of dress shoes—one black and one brown. He generally sticks to neutral colors throughout his wardrobe such as blacks, browns, blues, grays, greens, and sometimes a surprise splash of color added to one of these neutrals.

Of course there are exceptions with males, like my father who has polo shirts in every color Ralph Lauren ever made, more button-down shirts than he even knows he has (seriously, I went through his closet and showed him), and a closet specifically designated for shoes. Then, there’s also my friend Evan, who’s known to only wear his uniform of a blue button-down shirts and khaki pants. He deemed this suitable for every occasion, until his ex intervened and introduced him to jeans.

Female fashions are a bit trickier. The typical girl must have a shirt, a pant, a skirt, a dress, a shoe for every occasion. Plus the color possibilities are endless and therefore coordinating becomes more complicated.

I can’t tell you how many times I have gotten ready with girl friends who have agonized over which shoes to wear. I always told them, guys could care less about what’s on your feet. They’ll be too busy looking at other things. To my surprise, I recently had a (straight) guy ogle a pair of cowboy boots I was wearing. In addition, many guys have been vocal about last year’s (and unfortunately trickling into this year) UGG boot trend. Guys do seem to notice, though that is not the real reason why there are 5239502 pairs of shoes in each of our closets, it’s because we need them to match each outfit.

Jeans are easy to coordinate with, yet I own over 15 pairs of jeans, believe it or not. While you may say, but a pair of jeans is a pair of jeans, I could probably justify a reason for owning each (aside from the fact that instead of dress pants, I’m lucky enough to wear jeans to work on a daily basis). You see, there are jeans that are meant to wear with specific pairs of shoes, based on where the hemline falls, i.e., “the sneaker jeans,” “the tall boots jeans,” “the jeans to tuck into boots jeans.” Of course, there are jeans that are dressier than others, and there are the jeans that make your butt look so good in. For guys, they can get away with wearing the same pair of jeans three days in a row, and no one would say a thing—until they started to smell.

Maybe I’m just justifying why I had three overstuffed laundry hampers last night. Maybe my clothes-horse ways were just inherited by my atypical fashion-conscious father, who filled more than 4 closets in his house solely with his clothing. I think I can speak for most girls when I say that there’s more to a girl getting dressed in the morning than picking out the cleanest shirt in the closet. We put thought into our outfits. We may try on eight combinations before we settle on what we walk out the door with. Like Alan said, it’s what we do, because we’re girls.

It’s expensive being a girl.

2006-01-19T17:57:00.000-08:00

“I'd much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they're the first to be rescued off sinking ships” –Gilda Radner

The other day I found myself ordering $40 worth of sale items from Victorias Secret. How could a few little pieces of cotton cut into what look like scraps on a sewing room floor cost more than what I spend weekly at the grocery store? It got me thinking; I wonder how much more us females actually spend than men. Sure, we have an innate love for spending money as a sex. However, I’m not talking about splurging on a new pair of cute heels…I’m talking about just to live on a daily basis. Things like feminine hygiene and simply making ourselves presentable to the world come at a price. Men can open up a pack of $10 Hanes underwear from WalMart, and we still will swoon over them. Have you seen cheap women’s underwear, let alone from a package? Exactly.

Men stick to what they know. A bar of soap goes a long way to them. Women, however, need a special “cleanser,” not soap, for their faces. We opt for “body wash” to clean ourselves in the shower. We choose based on “oily skin,” “dry skin,” “combination skin.” Unless a man has a sister, it’s unlikely for him to know any sort of formula to choosing a product for his skin. To men, soap is soap, gel is gel, a comb is a comb. You’ll never find a man standing in CVS comparing which hairbrush is right for their hairstyle. Could you actually picture some guy spending ten minutes in the store, pondering, “well this round brush is good for when I blow-dry my hair straight, but this one has the boar bristles. Hmm, which to buy?” No, a man grabs one of those plastic combs that cost $1 at most, since that’s what the photographer used for every yearbook photo taken from elementary school until college. It’s what they know.

And of course, living in New York City, everything is astronomically more expensive. There should be warning signs on every pharmacy/cosmetic store: Warning, you are about to pay at least $1 more for every item you purchase. It’s like an unwritten tax law.

So based on my thoughts, I came up with a list of items that females often spend per month or so, which probably would never occur to a man. So next time a man complains that he’s spending a lot of money on one lady, show him this list so he can see what it takes to be a girl.

Extra costs being a girl (per capita/monthly)*:

Sanitary products ~ $10
Mascara ~ $6
Powder/Coverup ~ $10-20
Blush/Bronzer ~ $10-20
Lip Gloss ~ $5 – 20
Pantyhose ~ $6
Hair cut ~ $20-60
Hair color/highlights/other hair treatments ~ $80-$120
Eye make-up remover ~ $5
Face wash ~ $5-10
Lotion ~ $5-10
Bikini wax ~ $20
Manicure ~ $10-40
Kleenex ~ just kidding.

=$182~355

*Please note that these are rough estimates. Some of these expenses are based on other females’ experiences, and of course many of us females often opt for a bargain, DIY, or none at all.

If being a woman is more expensive, shouldn’t we be able to write off some of our items come tax season, just for being female? (Side note – did you know a man can be covered for Viagra, but insurance companies often laugh at women who wish to be covered from birth control, claiming it is not necessary)? Though, sadly, this could never happen since it is expected of women to make these purchases—to doll herself up. But I guess that’s part of being a girl.