February 2012
15 posts
So apparently I have to stop reading The New York Times.
-Mallory
This is an email my aunt sent to my sister and a young gentleman she is setting my sister up with.
This is not a joke. Although my sister and I wish it was.
OK…I’m emailing both of you.. I hope you will find time to meet each other. I was with [boy]’s mom this week at [our extended family’s vacation home in FL] and I mentioned fixing up my perfect niece. And...
What would you consider your “break” in terms of acting work? In 1990, December, I auditioned for [the musical] City of Angels. And I remember 6 months before that I’d said if I can’t get a job I’m going to leave and move to Seattle. You know, I just decided that I’d given it 10 years and that was enough.
Why Seattle? Well, I loved [New York] City – I had never ever decided to leave before...
Hey friends! HNTDYT is expanding off-line and into the real world. We’re putting together a live show and we would love for your experiences to be a part of it. Send us your stories, your anecdotes, anything you have to share about how not to do your twenties. Don’t worry about it being polished, we’re looking for anything and everything. You can find us at hntdyt@gmail.com -...
My friend recently shared this letter she sent to Amtrak with me and I wanted to share it with you. Enjoy.
-Mallory
Dear Amtrak,
I’m a resident of [Major East Coast City], and I had been seeing a man in New York City. We had primarily been using the bus to travel back and forth, as we both work in [a low-paying not-for-profit field] and this was more cost-effective. Unfortunately, this...
Joel: I don’t see anything I don’t like about you. Clementine: But you will! But you will. And I’ll get bored with you and feel trapped, because that’s what happens with me. Joel: Okay. Clementine: Okay. Joel: Okay.
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
-Mallory
another thing you need in your twenties
A best friend who will stay facebook friends with your exes after you defriend them in anger. This is important so that she can let you know when he gets engaged and send you pictures of his ugly fiancee.
Happy Valentine’s Day, ps.
-Mallory
I work out every morning. One of my best friends has a serious they-are-basically-married-already boyfriend and she always says that once I am in a similar situation, I will stop working out entirely. To this, I defiantly cry “bullshit” each and every time and not just because woe to the dude who wants to spend time with me if I’m without the mood enhancing effects of my yoga...
your twenties in song
Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long And wouldn’t it be nice to live together In the kind of world where we belong
You know it’s gonna make it that much better When we can say goodnight and stay together
Wouldn’t it be nice….
-“Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” The Beach Boys
-Mallory
Dating websites have a pretty limited pool of data to draw on, and it turns out that you can’t really work out a relationship’s long-term potential based on hair color, shared love of Chinese food, complementary tastes in mid-70s folk music or even a mutual love of Star Trek. Instead, the researchers point out that the most important insights in predicting long-term romantic...
on behalf of all twentysomethings in theater
Dear Mom & Dad,
I am glad you enjoyed “Smash” last night on NBC/stayed up past 10pm for the first time in three years.
However, the only way in which this show resembles my life is that I often wear mens’ shirts. And not in a sexy, happy-birthday-mister-president sort of way, but in a seen-annie-hall-too-many-times sort of way.
But thanks for taking an active interest...
we are still accepting whatever stories you may want to share: hntdyt@gmail.com
(three posts in one day and two involve gchat! can you tell I’m working an office job today?)
-Mallory
gchat wisdom
-Mallory
“Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to...
As students in fancy MFA programs, The Great MFA Debate is one Jessi and I have regularly. Except it usually goes like this:
One of Us: My degree is stupid. I should go to law school. The Other One: You’d hate law school. The First One: Yeah, you’re right.
The roles we play are interchangeable, but the dialogue stays the same. So it may be worth reading somebody else’s take...
January 2012
15 posts
I’m sorry, I’ve been super busy lately, so I don’t have the time right now to write a full essay about how incredibly ridiculous this is. Just know if I were to write something, it would definitely involve the words, “absurd,” “embarrassing,” and something about how there is officially no more styles in the Sunday Styles section.
But seriously, guys,...
Friends
Romans! Countrymen! Twenty-Somethings who haven’t given up hope! We need your help!
Send us your stories about your own failed experiments at dating, sex, employment and life. We’ll publish them here under your name, and they might also be included in a book! (More on that later). We need your questions, your anecdotes, your advice, and general reflections on all the things you tend...
Today, my high school/college boyfriend got engaged, but it’s okay because also today, a hobo told me I have nice legs.
-Mallory
I think this is a How To that pretty much everybody needs at some point.
-Mallory
Things I Used to Think Mattered That I’m Pretty Sure Don’t Matter Anymore:
1. My SAT scores. 2. My AP scores. 3. What my senior quote was going to be, as it would define me FOREVER. 4. If Boyz II Men would ever get back together.
-Mallory
Look, I’ll be honest, I’ve been cranky with Thought Catalog since their New Year’s Resolutions for a twentysomething ended up in my facebook newsfeed more than ours did (screw you, supposed facebook friends of mine!), but it seemed like I sort of had to share their take on What Twentysomethings Want. Some I agree with, some I don’t, but it’s still worth a read while...
Because now, thanks to technology and everybody being huge pussies about everything, it doesn’t matter if you have skills or training or years of experience. You can do it. You can do anything!
-Mallory
Goethe on Being in Your Twenties
“We are so made that we compare everything with ourselves and ourselves with everything. Therefore, our fortune or misfortune depends on the objects and persons to which we compare ourselves; and for that reason nothing is more dangerous than solitude. Our imagination, by its nature inclined to exalt itself, and nourished by the fantastic imagery of poetry, creates a series of beings of which we...
This is possibly the best news ever since Jessica got her period.
-Mallory
“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited.” - Sylvia Plath
-Mallory
This ad almost made me vomit my morning oatmeal.
-Mallory
Occasionally I am prone to momentary bouts of intelligence/fabulous advice.
But also:
-Mallory
“He lived in a social landscape with astonishingly few guardrails. Some days he felt as though he was waiting for a set of opinions, habits, and goals to harden in his mind. The social critic Michael Barone argues that the United States produces moderately impressive twenty-year-olds but very impressive thirty-year-olds. He says that the hard pressures and choices that hit people during...
Here’s a fun tip for the new year:
If you had a horrible breakup with somebody three years ago and haven’t spoken to them since and you now live in different countries, don’t gchat her to see if she’d be into watching you jerk off because you can’t sleep and you thought that might help.
She’s not. And it won’t.
-Mallory
twentysomething new year's resolutions for a...
1. Get a job. 2. Be brave. 3. Care less about looking stupid. 4. Stop trying to see if a diet of frozen yogurt and coffee can sustain human life. It can’t. 5. Spend a little less time with Netflix Instant and a little more time with actual people. 6. Stop playing Words with Friends so much!!! 7. Finish things I start. 8. Travel more. 9. Be generous. 10. Try not to fight so hard against...
December 2011
22 posts
“I’ve been struggling with using the word ‘carousel’ because I keep thinking ‘merry’ is the right word: merry-go-round. and I don’t want to sound too silly or pretentious about this, but, you know, I love being in Paris. I love working at Louis Vuitton. I love fashion. That’s why I do it. Nobody’s forcing me to do this. And nobody forces...
“What truth? You see where truth is and where untruth is, but I seem to have lost my sight and see nothing. You boldly settle all important questions, but tell me, dear, isn’t it because you’re young? Because you haven’t had time to suffer until you settled a single one of your questions? You boldly look forward… Isn’t it because you cannot foresee or expect...
It seems that every time I glance at a newstand this time of year, another magazine cover is trying to tell me how to live my life. This is true most of the year (see: Jessi’s awesome piece from The Hairpin), but, in January, the month of making and breaking resolutions, is gets even worse. It seems every airbrushed lady in Hollywood wants to help me make over my life, my face, my hair, my...
my great aunt: well, you’re an adult now! me: I’m a grad student. that’s several notches below adult.
Twenty one years ago, my grandparents bought a house in a southern Florida suburb and every December since then, my entire family on my mother’s side descends upon this house like a flock of chatty and extremely sporty locusts. It is a weeklong living and breathing...
Basically, I realized, I was living in that awful stage of life from the age of twenty-six to thirty-seven known as stupidity. It’s when you don’t know anything, not even as much as you did when you were younger, and you don’t even have a philosophy about all the things you don’t know, the way you did when you were twenty or would again when you were thirty-eight....
via email Mallory: you know what’s a great movie? “first wives club.” no idea why I’m watching it but damn if it isn’t entertaining. Jessi: AND DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO/ AND DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO SAYYYYYY All five of my top five favorite movies in 6th grade were that movie.
Dear Jessi,
Thank you for always understanding me, thank you for being the...
Drunk Brazilian
I got a drunk Brazilian today! I hope this doesn’t make you judge me, or think less of me as a woman. If it makes you feel better, I only get waxed as often as I can afford it, which on my current graduate school stipend, works out to about four times a year. (Meanwhile, if you are looking for a place to get your own drunk Brazilian, and you live in LA, check this out).
THAT SAID -...
You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship. Because here’s something else that’s true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of...
your twenties in song.
Meanwhile…. It’s a rip in the bustle and a rustle in the hay And I’ll pitch the quick fantastic, With flings of confetti and my petticoats away up high. It’s a very short way from the fling that’s for fun To the thigh pressing under the table. It’s a very short day till you’re stuck with just one Or it has to be done on the sly. In the meanwhile, ...
“Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, nature – all are lottery tickets for creativity. Scratch away at them and you’ll find out how big a prize you’ve won.”
― Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life
(I can’t even begin to tell you how obsessed I am with this book and I’m not even done with it yet.)
-Mallory
Things I Have Been Told in Spin Class That I Am Beginning to Suspect Are Untrue: 1. I am strong. 2. I am sexy. 3. This is why I got up this morning. 4. If I can do this, I can do anything. 5. Nothing a little Britney Spears won’t help!
-Mallory
“February 18, 1969
Dear Mom,
It seems like you were just here. How did it go by so fast? Isn’t Woody hilarious? Did you really like the play? I couldn’t exactly tell. Woody does a lot of let’s just say unusual things onstage, things you wouldn’t think a person of his stature would do. Last night, in the middle of a scene, he started impersonating James Earl Jones...
me: Hi, I ordered three books online and I received two of the three, but instead of the third book, I got a different book that I didn’t order. Barnes & Noble help phone: You received three books you didn’t order? me: No, I ordered three books for adults and instead of three books for adults, I received two books for adults, the two books I ordered, and instead of the third book I...
“Reality is a sound, you have to tune in to it not just keep yelling.”
- Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red
Amid relentless talk about unemployment, little is said of the impact on the nation’s future of a generation convinced that the workplace has little use for it. This generation must regain its confidence if we are to remain the birthplace of ideas, products and services that shape the world.
True story, Robert W. Goldfarb.
-Mallory
Jessi & I are in finals… So apologies in advance for disappearing. But feel free to email us for advice, even on things we know nothing about like personal finances (ask your parents to look for your childhood piggy bank) and getting stains out of silk (don’t wear silk).
-Mallory
“I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copybooks; and I make so many beginnings there never will be an end.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
-Mallory
“People know what they want because they know what other people want.” - Theodor Adorno
-Mallory
This is one of my favorite days. I think probably because it is the grown up equivalent of getting those awesome Scholastic book club catalogs. Book Fair Day was always the best day of elementary school, which is probably why I currently live alone in an apartment strewn with newspapers and shoes (or, as I like to call it, Homeless Lady Chic).
-Mallory
