Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping.

-Bo Derek

I'm severely annoyed with my parents. My eyes are rolling so hard that they're threatening to roll right out of their sockets. My hand is gripping my purse so hard my knuckles are turning white. Finally, they let me go, I turn on my heels and leave them as quickly as I can, fuming all the way. I'm in a terrible mood, but suddenly...

There it is, my little piece of heaven. My sweet, sugarless indulgence: paradise. FOREVER 21 all caps, I'm all smiles. Everything is white, the windows are twinkling, the walls seem to sparkle. I walk inside and the mannequins, adorned in their lovely tresses, seem to smile and welcome me. The store gleams and glows and I ahh and ooh, and immediately my irritation melts away and an intoxicating calm satisfaction takes its place.

Information overload. This is what this is. I'm running my hands through all sorts of colors and fabrics. Blacks and whites and blues and pinks. Velvet, leather, denim, silk. Shoes, shirts, dresses, pants, jackets, underwear, jewelry. Ruffles, flowers, lace, pins.

It's all beautiful and it's all beckoning to me.

I could almost say I'm feeling giddy. I start loading up with clothing to try on. All sorts. My arms grow heavier as I make my way through the store.

I finally make it to the dressing room, and I take a moment to look at the small mountain that I'm straining to hold up.

I try on everything and all the clothing makes me feel pretty and poised and sophisticated and I just want it alllll.

I blow through 130 dollars ten times faster than it took me to make 130 dollars.

Shit.

Step One: Admit You Have A Problem

At the beginning of the year, I found that there was barely any time to do anything. I'd go home, spend some time relaxing by browsing the internet, fit some homework in, and it felt like that was all. I wasn't in any extra curricular activities at that time, so I figured time shouldn't be an issue. What was I doing between 3:10 and 10:00 that took up so much time?


Well, as soon as the problem went away, I figured out what it was. Facebook. Hours can be passed doing, literally, nothing at all on Facebook.

And only until I was without a Facebook did I realize how much we incorporate it into our daily lives on and off the computer.

Examples of bits of information:

"So I checked their Facebook page and it said that she wasn't in a relationship...omg, did they break up?"

"Yeah, I saw their pictures on Facebook. They didn't even invite me."

"She's Catholic, it says so on her Facebook."

"He changed his orientation to bisexual on Facebook."

"I love that song. I had it as my Facebook status a couple weeks ago."

"So last night I was Facebook creepin'..."

"He doesn't have good taste in music...did you see his Facebook page?"

"Tag me!"

Etc, etc, etc.



Now, not only do I have a lot of extra time on my hands, but I also feel completely out of the loop a lot of the time. I don't know what everyone's up to on the weekends because I can't see anybody's Facebook pictures. All the big news people hear about via Facebook, well, I'm always the last to know.

When I first had to close my account I was devastated. I was so sure that life without a Facebook was hardly a life at all. I moped, I pouted, I fumed, and still my parents did not relent.

No Facebook, they said. And that's that.

Well, my world was basically crumbling and windows were breaking and my feet couldn't feel the floor, and a hollow ringing filled my ears. Not to mention my knees went completely knumb.

Okayyyy, maybe that's a little dramatic, my knees didn't actually go numb. But, that's besides the point. The point is this tragic event was extremely significant to such a sociable girl as myself.

As days past, the withdrawal symptoms reduced. Three weeks passed and I could actually listen people talk about Facebook without bursting into tears. It was a definite improvement my online management therapist would always remind me. I was headed in the right direction.

I caved. I'm ashamed to say. I reopened my account and I creeped and creeped until Facebook was all that I could think of. My mind was just a bottomless pond of Facebook droplets.

I'm clean now. After months of trying to overcome such a consuming addiction, I can now say that I am done. No Facebook for me, no thank you.

And in the end the struggle was worth it. I made a good choice, and I'm proud of myself. And maybe my strength and my story will be inspiration enough to help somebody else make the same choice.

"Harry was a great cop here in Miami. He taught me how to think like one; he taught me how to cover my tracks. I'm a very neat monster."

Lately, I've been holed up in my room even more so than usual. Doing nothing but watching Dexter.

12:30 AM, Sunday night, or rather, Monday morning, homework's undone, tests not studied for, room not cleaned, and I'm glued to my computer screen watching Dexter.

Dexter is a show that centers around a forensics blood spatter analysist who works for the Miami Police Department. He encounters all sorts of usual cases, and he's basically a genius. He comes off as this easy going, gentle guy who's a great boyfriend and an awesome brother.

It has the whole world fooled, it seems.

The twist: he's a serial killer, but the best part is, he doesn't kill just anyone. He focuses on those who deserves it. People who've killed in the past who are likely to kill again. He rids society of its worst. He's charming , though, as apathetic as he is, he's still charismatic and amiable. No one catches on, no one suspects his box of slides tucked away in his sunny apartment. Slides each containing a single drop of blood. Blood from each of his victims, which he collects as trophies. He hides them in his air conditioner; refrigerated, hidden, while still easily accessible.

He's also a sociopath. Antisocial personality disorder. He has no feelings towards others, he doesn't feel the difference between right and wrong. He knows what that difference is, he just doesn't have the intrinsic motivations most others have. When we're given his background through out the first season, we learn that he has strong, inexplicable urges to kill. He does the best he can and channels those drives towards those who would do the world a favor gone.

Basically, no conscience. Basically, no heart.

He has to live by a code his adoptive father, Harry, taught him. Rule #1, he's taught, don't get caught. Rule #2, make sure the victim deserves it. It's the foundation by which he lives his life. Laws and guidelines that were pounded into his head by Harry, who was also a policeman.

The shows unlike any I've seen before. You find yourself rooting for this bad guy, who's not quite all bad. Somehow, anybody who finds anything out, winds up, conveniently, missing or dead. However, the show manages to do this in such a way that their deaths make sense, they don't seem to be unrealistic or forced.

It's an amazing show. At least one of the best, if not the best show I've ever followed, and I'm terrible at following shows.

It's one that keeps you thinking the whole way through, but it's not terribly hard to follow.

I have yet to encounter anybody who's watched it and didn't love it.

"Can we talk?"

In today's society there are certain rules and guidelines that everybody must abide by. Norms, socially accepted behavior, conformity. If you don't follow them, you're a weirdo, an outcast, undesirable.

One thing that I've been dealing with more and more with lately is the lack of confrontation. Now, let me clarify, I don't particularly like confronting people about things because that means there's something negative you actually need to talk about. I don't like making a big deal of things, either, but I'm the kind of person where, if something's wrong, I can't help but try to fix things or smooth it out. I want to communicate, but I'm finding that, for most people, that's not necessarily the case.

One thing I can't stand, that completely just confuses and befuddles, and buddoozles me is why, when somebody's at odds with somebody else, they choose to talk about it to everyone else besides the person who it actually concerns.

It's just high school, people tell me, or, it's just life. And I'm finding that for the most part, it basically applies to everyone. Most people hate and completely avoid confrontation. I'm not talking about violent, intrusive, aggressive confrontation. I'm talking about the more mature kind, where people sit down and talk things through, compromise. But I face up to it. Communication's the key, everybody says, but to me it seems, that the older you get, the less words have meaning. There was an acting piece for speech team, and one bit of wisdom that stuck with me: Adult conversation: who can talk the most but say the least.

How tragically accurate.

If you notice, in movies, or on TV shows, they'll always show the characters brazenly approach each other about the most trivial things. They're blunt and forward and they make it seem so common and so easy, but really, it's not like that at all. It's not easy, and it's not common. I really don't know anybody who does this. I've never encountered somebody who'll face me first about a problem. I'll mention something and they'll admit to noticing it, but, and I guess I'm just making assumptions here, they ignore it, hoping that it'll somehow go away.

That's not how it ever works out. It just grows and grows until it's a big elephant in the room, and it seems to be taking up all the space so every conversation feels tight and forced.

But I've realized it's not a good thing to do. I've found that if both people are willing to talk about it, it works out, but if one person exerts no effort, it falls flat and becomes excruciatingly awkward.

And that's one unwritten, unnerving rule society unknowingly seems to adhere to.

“Humor helps us to think out of the box. The average child laughs about 400 times per day, the average adult laughs only 15 times per day...

...What happened to the other 385 laughs?"

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Such a cliche question, that it's almost been trademarked. I, personally, don't mind that question because I've known what I want to do since as far back as I can remember. Even in kindergarten, when I'd firmly tell the teacher that when I grew up I was going to be a clown, not one of those fake clowns, I'd tell her, but a real wholesome clown. I also had on my list that I was going to be a figure skater, a doctor, a gymnast, a lawyer, and a teacher.

Then my teacher, with a smile on her face, would ask me how I was going to operate on patients with a big red nose.

I quickly dropped those plans. The point is, my aspirations to be a lawyer have always been somewhere in the mix, and as those other occupations dropped away I was left with that.

That's what I want to do when I grow up. Who I want to be is something completely different.

We've all, every one of us, has had that teacher, sub, uncle, counselor or friend's parent whose coolness has completely touched us. Their ability to laugh off something that any other adult would freak over or give us some "knucks" when we told a really good joke caught our attention. Their chill factor is what makes them so amiable.

That's who I want to be. I want to be somebody who's at ease and relaxed. People who're a party. Uptight adults scare me. Well, they don't frighten me, per se, but they're just an absolute bore to be around.

Take for example, my mother. God knows I love that woman, but she can sometimes be a bit too strict when it comes to hygiene, cleanliness, and organization. I try to explain to her that part of being a teenager is having a messy room, but no matter what I say she still feels like I should abide by her standards of neatness.

One of my friends's parents is probably one of the coolest adults I know. Actually, probably THE coolest. They both share the same interests in music, they go to concerts and shows together, and she and her father both love Urban Outfitters, and will oftentimes go shopping together. Sometimes I'll call her up and ask her to go out some weekend, and she'll decline saying that she's hanging out with her folks.

I know many people who'd say that kind of lax parenting isn't good for a child. In fact, I'd say just the opposite. Her being my only example, doesn't exactly make this scientific, but she's one of those genuine good kids. Her reasoning for getting in trouble isn't that she's afraid she'll get caught, but it's that she knows something's wrong, or she knows that she'll really disappoint her parents.

That's what I want to be, not just when I grow up, but obviously in general. Somebody who's easy to relate to, knows how to have a good time, and is an all around liked person.

“Fashion fades, only style remains the same.”

-Coco Chanel

Why can't I live in the 60's? Or at least dress like I do. Every single aspect of that era attracts me. The music, the fashion, the lifestyle. In every part of the nation, in every year of the era. From the early 60's to the late 60's. From Boston to Haight Street. From Francoise Hardy to Simon & Garfunkel. Even the literature was good.

From folk, to rock, to jazz, I have yet to hear some music from the 60's that I don't like. Well, actually, I take that back. I'm not all the fond of The Who. Their music's a little too pretentious for me, and I can never quite get into their songs.

I love The Supremes. A group of three female singers of the early 60's. Their sound's straight from Motown, and yet is classy in a way that I could easily imagine dancing to Stoned Love in any high end dance joint.

I also love the easy anthem songs, like San Fransisco by Scott Mckenzie and Twelve Thirty by the Mama's and the Papa's. And of course, who doesn't love the Beatles?

And how bout that fashion? Hm? The 60's took the best from the 40's and 50's and incorporated it into their every day wear. They had such a classy flair.

The 60's gave birth to skinny jeans. They were introduced by Audrey Hepburn in the pants that she wore for Funny Face (my personal favorite Hepburn movie). Now, although it's a fad that's begun fading, they've become a popular thing again. They also brought about the mini skirt. Throughout history skirts have always been acceptable below or at the knee, and then BANG. The mini skirt. There's never been a time since then where there hasn't been some sort of an acceptable mini.

Now, I don't know too much about fashion in general, but I do know that what I've seen I have from the 60's I've really liked. I almost wish fashion would have just stopped its progression since then.

"Dream like you'll live forever, live like you'll die tomorrow."

-James Dean

Teens are stereotyped. Everybody has some sort of conception, or depending on who you talk to, misconception about teens. Don't tell me you've never heard an adult sigh, and say "Oh, teenagers."

We're known for our parties, sex, and contraband. I don't know anybody my age who's never lied to their parents about one thing or another. It's inevitable, really.

But, really, I think teens really do deserve all the flack that's thrown at us. Ask yourself this, do you have enough fingers and toes to count all the people you know, under the age of 18, who've either drank or done drugs?

Personally, I can't.

It's pretty crazy, really. We can't accept good clean fun. We've gotta dirty it up.

But is that little bit of thrilling fun really worth the unavoidable consequences?

Many times in our life have we been constantly reminded of what will happen to our lungs, our brain, our appearances if we flood our system with these gross chemicals.

Athletes can't, or rather shouldn't, do it because they've got their lungs and breathing to think about. Singers can't afford to dry out their vocal chords. Brainy kids need to keep up their thinking abilities, which diminish from use of narcotics.

Schools bring in doctors and scientists to tell us all about these dangers. Counselors who've worked with screwed up kids will come in and share their stories. Sometimes, those kids themselves will be convinced to talk to us and try to sway us from following in their own tragically mislead footsteps.

Only, maybe not in so many words.

Really. After all they show us, I sit in my seat and think, how can some people be so stupid as to ignore all this evidence and go on with their recklessness? Why when you know you could damning yourself to emotional, physical, and mental problems would you go ahead with this?

When you smoke marijuana you're inhaling over 400 chemicals, many of which are carcinogenic, which means cancer causing. It's also found that pot smokers are more likely to become suicidal and have anxiety issues than people who don't use the drug. Schizophrenics should be especially careful, as the drug can increase psychotic symptoms.

Weed can also cause increased heart rate and paranoia among its users.

We've all seen pictures of blackened, burned-looking lungs. We've been shown pictures of livers that have been mutilated by over consumption of alcohol. We know that all this may very well be the consequences of a reckless lifestyle, and yet, we ignore these specialists, statistics, and testimonials and we dive right into it all.

We should do what they tell us, guys. We should follow the rules and guidelines they've set down for us. Is that little bit of fun worth cancer and all that other gross stuff? Hm?

The answer is no. We've gotta be smart kids and we've gotta be good kids. Let's join together and make this goal a reality!

This lady through her extensive abuse of cocaine, fucked herself up.