BLAH Magazine’s Spring Issue: Let’s Get Equi-Noxious
by Katherine Carlson
Dear BLAH Girls,
The response to our first issue was overwhelming. And not in a good way! See, this is why we usually avoid doing stuff: doing nothing ensures a perfect record of non-failure.
But anyway, we’ve gone and done a thing, so it’s all downhill from here. If you do read on, I recommend opening a tutorial on how to make your hair do beachy waves in a separate browser window and toggling back and forth — at least that way you’ll learn something.
Or not. Do what you want. If you need me I’ll be searching for errant Teddy Grahams lodged between the couch cushions.
— Your editor
Sunlight and Other Horrors
Haven’t you been through enough? Waking up every day, breathing in and out, sometimes interacting with others, and now the sun is shining? Don’t worry: maintaining your BLAH attitude on a sunny afternoon will be no problem with just a little planning. If you have a job, quit. This will dramatically reduce the amount of time you have to be outdoors. If your job does not require you to leave your home, maybe also consider quitting. If you have no job, nice work! Tell your mom to buy blackout shades or move into the basement. In the event of no basement, berate your mom. She knows what she did.
Spring Fashion: The Nautical Look
Your white pants and horizontal stripes can spring right up my butt.
Who Thought Pastels Were a Good Idea?
Welcome to Beauty Corner, in which that so-called “universal shade” of blush is not going to work on you. Go ahead and save yourself the $35, unless you already bought it during one of your post-happy hour trips to Sephora, which you did. Right! Wrap it back up and give it to your tween cousin for her birthday.
Career Advice
Ben from marketing has a girlfriend. Everyone at work knows but you.
Sex Tips for the Unloveable
It’s been a second since you got it in. Follow our foolproof plan for satisfaction:
1) Go to a place that serves alcohol.
2) Dramatically lower your standards.
3) Wake up alone in your own bed to a text message from your best friend demanding to be reimbursed for the cab she dumped you into last night when you had too many Manhattans, started screaming “Men can’t handle a woman who drinks brown liquor!” and fell out of your booth.
4) Open the browser on your phone and Google “Michael Fassbender shirtless.” Try to find a still from that scene in the movie Fishbowl where he’s wearing a pair of perfectly torn jeans and nothing else. You know, those jeans that are like seriously cupping his ass in a way that makes you want to do terrible, disgusting things to him.
5) Masturbate.
6) Go back to sleep.
Stuff That Is Not Worth It
Meditation; making your own yogurt; stretching; getting back out there; gratitude journals; giving up sugar for a while; book clubs; being happy for other people’s success; fresh-pressed juice; getting up early to write/exercise/do anything; celebrating your spirit; giving back; organic cotton underwear; not drinking; any combination of eating, praying and/or loving; the Tuscan sun; grooves and the getting back thereof; chia seeds.
Entertaining in the Garden
You know what’s entertaining about gardens? Nothing.
Go back inside where there’s TV and you’re not required to wear pants. And tell those people to leave.
Numerology
NUMBER OF RED FLAGS IN YOUR LAST RELATIONSHIP: Depends on who you ask, you or your therapist. She can be so smug sometimes. NUMBER OF SERVINGS IN A SLEEVE OF RITZ CRACKERS: Two if it’s a snack, one if it’s dinner. NUMBER OF TIMES YOU’VE GOOGLED YOUR EX’S NEW GIRLFRIEND: Don’t know her name. Fine, 37. NUMBER OF TIMES YOU’VE REFERENCED THE BOOK CODEPENDENT NO MORE IN CONVERSATION: Have you read it? Just read it. NUMBER OF VIABLE EGGS LEFT IN YOUR OVARIES: Probably none. Which, let’s face it, is for the best. Remember when you tried to grow rosemary on the fire escape? Disastrous. Although the pigeons seem to appreciate their lovely glazed terracotta toilet. NUMBER OF FAILURES FOR WHICH YOUR CODEPENDENT FAMILY DYNAMIC IS TO BLAME: All of them.
Get a BLAH Body for Summer
If you are depressed enough, all food tastes like cotton balls!
Previously: Issue One
Katherine Carlson is a writer and teacher in New York.
