Snowball’s preferred spot during tapings - under the couch!
In theory, there’s mistletoe over Meghan’s head.
In reality, there’s a boom mike and giant lights.
One of my (early) Christmas presents to the girls was matching snowflake PJs. Only $10 each at Target!! And actually, they’re ridiculously soft.
Yeah, yeah, I know it’s tacky to tell how much you spent, but given the economy … it’s more of an inspirational tale.
Being the Snow Fairy amongst us, I styled all of our holiday episodes. Mary said it looked like a Mariah Carey Christmas video threw up in here.
Okay, she didn’t really say that. But she thought it.
If you don’t get this photo, you didn’t watch TMIweekly yesterday!
That’s okay. YOU STILL HAVE TIME GO NOW GOGOGO!
And read Harrison-the-Intern’s brilliant bacon blog post, while you’re at it.
- Me: Women trying to maintain friendships with their shitty exes are like investors reluctant to sell their worthless stocks at a loss.
- Mary: Well, I just bought big or long or tall or whatever and I got screwed.
To end the night on a sweet note, here’s a photo of Miss Snowball from almost exactly five years ago, in my senior dorm room (for Georgetowners, that would be Nevils).
PS. No, dogs were definitively NOT allowed in on-campus housing, but like so many other times in my life, I thought, “Rules SCHMOOLS!” and carried on. I do feel badly for the carpets (errrr, puppy potty training is hard!), but then again, my Y-chromosome classmates regularly punched enormous holes in the walls, so I felt that a 3 pound puppy should be the least of the dorm adviser’s concerns. And Lilly only played beer pong once!
Reader Email: "If I had put my thoughts and dreams on a public forum I would have been slaughtered."
The below email inspired me, and it will probably inspire you.
Before you read, please know that if a few curmudgeonly naysayers could make me back down from what I wanted to do, then I’d still be in the corner hiding from when I got kicked off of the radio station as a sophomore in high school. (For playing “Let’s Talk about Sex.” In case you were wondering.)
People whose dreams have been silenced sometimes attempt to make themselves feel better by denigrating yours. Show me a happy person who pees on people’s parades! Who insults when others are excited! Who always points out flaws: why it can’t work, why it shouldn’t work, why you won’t succeed, why you’ll never make it!! Can’t find one? Exactly. Happy people - content people (because even those of us who describe ourselves as “generally happy” have moments of morosity. Which isn’t a word, but it totally should be.) - don’t need to tear others down to feel good.
Oh jesus, I sound like a motherf—king episode of Sesame Street. Whatever. The point is - we’re better than this. All of us. Every one of us. We’re better than bitchily laundry listing each others’ issues - especially when those issues (being impulsive? being excited? liking Gossip Girl?) don’t hurt anyone else.
To this point, a small tangent: You might have noticed, I’m not a negative person. I doubt you’d find a single human being who would describe me as “mean” - although lord knows, I’m not always the easiest person with whom to work/interact/befriend, and I consistently unintentionally offend people - I rarely, if ever, do something to hurt someone else intentionally. THAT SAID, I was online the other day, and I watched this show. Not important which one, but suffice it to say, I experienced a visceral reaction - and I wanted. so. badly. to write a nasty, anonymous comment underneath. SO BADLY! I could feel it! Like a cupcake staring at me, willing me to come and just-have-one-bite-you-know-you-want-to.
But then I stopped and asked myself three questions:
1) “What good could this POSSIBLY achieve?” (answer: none)
2) “Will I really make myself feel better by tearing these people down?” (answer: no)
3) “Wouldn’t it just make more sense, if this is bothering me so much, to not look at it anymore, and instead look at something which makes me feel pleasant?” (answer: obviously)
[**Now if I only had this same logic with men who bother me.]
And so that is exactly what I did. I clicked the little red circle at the top of my Firefox browser and *swish*, the insult-cupcake I wanted to leave SO BADLY just disappeared.
Because you know what? I’m better than that. I couldn’t abide an action that I would disapprove of someone else doing. And most importantly - I couldn’t respect myself if I were the type of person who spewed that kind of crap into the world.
Don’t get me wrong, I make a hell of a lot of mistakes. But joining the sordid ranks of sullen, cranky, useless anonymous internet bitches? I can proudly say I haven’t, I didn’t, and I won’t.
And, now that I’ve said rambled my piece, for the inspiring email …
From: [redacted]
Date: December 1, 2008 10:19:12 PM EST
To: “Julia Allison” <julia@nonsociety.com>
Subject: don’t give up on harvard!There is no need for me to preface this with the obvious and point out that every thing you ponder is going to provoke the most ridiculous backlash due to the publicity that you subject yourself to. So I will skip that and instead I will tell you a little bit about my harvard journey and why I think that you shouldn’t give up your dreams just because people tell you that you aren’t being realistic or that your dreams don’t mesh with such person’s concept of reality.
When I applied to law school, I was working in a small nonprofit. I was a social science major in undergrad, and I knew nothing about the legal field. Although I had good grades in college, my school was a small regional school with a poor academic reputation. I had never known a lawyer personally, and I assumed that all lawyers were annoying and sleazy. I didn’t even know how many years law school was, how much it cost, what starting salaries were for lawyers, or anything else. I just knew that I was sick of my job and was making no money and needed to find something else to do with my life. A friend was taking the december LSAT (the last possible one to take and still apply for the next fall), and so I signed up on a whim and decided to give it a shot. I took off a few half days from work to study. I was confident because I always did well on testing. In fact, my SAT scores were almost identical to yours. Math was always my weakest point (when I took the GMAT a few years before, my math score was in the 63 percentile, bringing my overall score down to a 700), so the absence of any math on the LSAT excited me. Luckily, I did very well on the LSAt and got into every law school I applied to, including harvard. I LOVED every minute at HLS, and I am no very happy in my job. I can’t ever imagine myself doing anything else.
Why am I telling you all this? Because, if I had put my thoughts and dreams on a public forum I would have been slaughtered. I had no clue about law school, the legal world, etc. I had never stepped foot in a law firm. I didn’t know about the socratic method. I didn’t even know what lawyers did. I had a lot of family obligations to balance out. I applied at the last possible time. Yet, I applied to HLS and was accepted and successful there. I find that certain people can be very catty and protective of the aura that their school experience imparts on them to outsiders. And, anyone who tells you that school is so hard you won’t have time for anything else is an idiot. School is as hard and as time consuming as you want it to be. You seem smart and you are a hard worker, so if you wanted to go and run a business on the side I wouldn’t rule it out.
For example. This was after I said I thought business school could be fun.
Here’s a crazy proposition: I think most of life should be fun.
OH MY GOD. CAN YOU BELIEVE MY NERVE?!?!
To think, whatever we choose to do, we should enjoy a vast majority of it.
It’s shocking, but yes, I do believe you can make just about anything an interesting or engaging experience with the right attitude.
PS. I haven’t had botox! Yet. But I certainly plan on it when the time comes. :) hehehe
Reader Email: "Business school, for people who love learning, IS fun!"
From: [redacted - girl]
Date: December 1, 2008 11:53:58 PM EST
To: Julia Allison <julia@juliaallison.com>
Subject: You belong in B-school!
You need to! Show those jerkfaces!!
I won’t lie - the GMAT sucks. It contains math that you haven’t thought about since high school and English grammar rules you’ve never heard before. I’ve taken it once already, didn’t get scores high enough to get into my dream schools, so now I am enrolled in a Princeton Review class and taking it again in a few weeks. Wish me luck!
However… lots of people don’t have a hard time with the GMAT. My boyfriend, for example, studied for one week and got a 760. Then, he successfully networked his way into University of Washington b-school one week before class started. Don’t let those deadlines rule your decision! There are always ways around it. Oh, and he just graduated from b-school and always says that business school was the most “fun” he’s ever had. Business school, for people who love learning, IS fun! That is half the reason I want to go. :)
