Every January, two people who don’t get along have an obligation to get together — The Person You Actually Are and The Person You Would Like to Be.

These two versions of yourself are forced to meet for a proverbial cup of coffee to discuss your future soon after Jan. 1, while your head is still throbbing, your mouth is foaming and your New Years dress smells like a mixture of regurgitated champagne, cheap perfume and sausage, for some reason.

These two people aren’t all that different—they look the same—except one is thinner and never gets dry skin or a bad haircut. For that reason, The Person You Actually Are is envious and shoulders resentment. But these two have some business and must discuss resolutions.

My two nemeses get together for an existential meeting at a deserted diner. I was sitting cross-legged in a Badgers hoody when in waltzed The Person I Would Like to Be. She’s 4 inches taller, walks with sheer grace despite bitchin’ high heels and, most importantly, she has never dated a guy who carries a wallet made out of duct tape.

    The Holidays are a time for tradition, for family, for your traditional family that probably drives you insane. It’s a three-week marathon of family get togethers, food fests of appetizers, drinks, dinners and pies, which results in having to find your fat pants.

    I’ve never brought home a member of the opposite sex home for the Holidays. I’m not sure whether that’s because I usually have no one in my life worth bringing anywhere except to pizza stands and my bed, only after several strong whiskey sours and a severe lack of sex. But could it be that I’m just scared that the same old lady who wore leather pants to last years Christmas will bring ‘em back for round two? Do I fear my cousin Joey’s racist remarks will ruin any chance I have with the new liberal guy I occasionally force myself to call even when I’m sober? Will the fact that my mom often discusses the size of her breasts with her cousin’s husband cause to me to be alone forever?

    I’m much too certain the answer is yes.

    I love my family , but the fact is, we’re a weird group of people. In order to make it through a consecutive 48-hours with them for Jesus’s Birthday Extravaganza, I’ve put together an extensive survival kit that’s sure to help me endure conversations awkward drunken third cousins, and  reduce the stench coming from the Old People table.

The Essentials
 

1)    No Doze

Everybody has someone in their family that just doesn’t know when to stop drinking, and starts to fall asleep. My second cousin, who we call Buster, (I’m not even sure I could tell you his actual name) is in his late forties and owns a recording studio. He parties like he’s in his 6th year of college back in the 70’s on another acid trip. He’s had the same girlfriend since I can remember because marriage and anything that gets in-between his psychedelic adult existence is not groovy. The thing is when Buster’s girlfriend gets too drunk she doesn’t shut the fuck up, and you’re stuck talking to her while she goes on for two hours about illegal prostitution that goes on in Costa Rica, how she loves and knows the prostitutes that hang out in Buster’s bar, but feels bad for them.  This leads to her thesis on Women’s rights and sleepy droopy eyes. All she needs is a couple of NO DOZE and the encouragement to ask Buster if he’s finally got her that diamond ring.

 
    The end of the semester is a cocktease: she dangles herself in front of you in her little black dress, calls out to you with her perfect cleavage and red-lacquered lips “Come and get me, bitch,” she demands.  You get all excited, but you know you can’t have her — not yet anyway.

    There are finals and papers that must be completed before you can grasp the comfort that is Winter break: the TV watching pantless marathon. The stuffing of your previously ramen-only stomach with real food. The comfort of a certain grammar school crush ending up in your bed at bar time. It’s all too amazing until you realize you’re at your parent’s house.

    While most finals require the average student to simply show up and stuff everything they can remember into a little blue book, some professors are exceedingly cruel, and actually make you write a paper. A paper is impossible to write when the little whore that is a long break is taunting you. It would be easier to simply show up to a room, even at 7:45 in the morning, and vomit up a semester worth of knowledge rather than to actually come up with a paper topic, a thesis, and a clear and concise argument. I’d rather clearly and concisely take a dump.

    As a journalism major and a smartass, I am an accomplished bullshitter, and hope to lend my paper-writing expertise to those students (ahem, freshman) who are having trouble coming up with ideas from their final papers for that class they never should have taken in the first place:

“If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.” My dad usually mutters this phrase under his breath while shuffling through bills, and I have taken my dad’s favorite saying to heart because it completely describes my love life.

Every time I meet someone remotely attractive, interesting or even just not repulsive, cosmic forces cock-block me. Just last week I was at a friend’s, talking to this guy, when out of the blue, he threw up near my killer new suede boots. Maybe it’s the razor blades I sometimes find in my Reeses or my dangerous high heels and fishnet tights, but Halloween always seems to be particularly unlucky for me. My freshman year Halloween perfectly illustrates my horrible luck with the opposite sex, and also the hilarity that’s often coupled with it.

Back in 2005, I went to this Halloween party hosted by a guy dressed as Scanner Dan, a famous nasty homeless man who lurks on State Street, the main drag in Madison. He has a bizare purpley rash on his head where his hair should be, a police scanner that he talks into whenever he’s not screaming lewd things to sorotity girls, commenting on the fatness of their ass in their lettered leggings.  I was dancing with the faux Dan, rubbing his large fake descending belly, until I saw a large yellow bear in my peripheral vision. And there he was standing in the kitchen, clenching a red cup of full of kegged Natty Light: my Pooh Bear.

Curly swirls of dark hair peeked out from under his honey colored ears. I found his ability to exude sex appeal while wearing a furry child-sized costume quite impressive. I wanted to lick his face.

Pooh Bear’s cousin lived in my dorm, and introduced us. Soon, I had Pooh Bear eating from the palm of my hand and biting my earlobe. It was easy—after all, I was dressed as a catholic schoolgirl (original, right?). Plus, Pooh Bear seemed to have a thing for funny, self-deprecating girls who dress like hookers.