About a month ago I made two new friends while running around in my underwear through a warehouse filled with vintage dresses. I’d tell you that it’s not what it sounds like, but really? It’s exactly what it sounds like.

Not surprisingly, shopping at Shareen Vintage is one of my favorite activities. If you live in LA or NYC, you should stop reading this post, grab your credit card, and head over there right now. If you live anywhere else, then all I can say is that I’m truly sorry that you’re missing out and I promise to shop there in your honor next time.

Now, to understand Shareen Vintage, just picture an enormous warehouse in the middle of a random street, with a “no boys allowed” sign posted in the front, and row upon row of vintage dresses lining the walls inside. Seriously, it’s like a sea of rainbow amazingness that dates back to at least the 1920s, sitting there all glamorous and shit, just begging you to try everything on. There aren’t any changing rooms, so you just strip down wherever you want and try on one pretty dress after another. In fact, you’ll try on more pretty dresses than you can count, because everyone who works there is as helpful as they are maddeningly adorable, and as they bring you an unlimited amount of dresses you’ll realize that their helpfulness is even enough to distract you from the fact that you’d give up one of your kidneys in exchange for their effortlessly cute & stylish ways.

[No? Just me?]

So anyway, about a month ago I went down to Shareen Vintage to find a dress for the Bloggers in Sin City Mad Men party, and I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I probably tried on every dress they had that even remotely fit that style. Luckily, there were a few other girls there who were searching for Man Men-esque dresses of their own (to wear on an episode of their interactive online cooking show, Cinema & Spice, that creates TV & movie inspired recipes), so it was really just one big 50s & 60s strip fest with dresses being passed back and forth until we each found the perfect one. And by “perfect” I mean “except for the fact that it’s a few inches too short and will totally make me a Vegas labia flasher if I bend over or make sudden movements or take overly deep breaths,” but who has time to worry about details like that??

Which is to say: I bought the dress. I mean, of course, right? What’s a little exposed labia in the name of fashion? (JUST KIDDING, MOM. WELL, KIND OF. THE DRESS REALLY IS TOO SHORT BUT TONIGHT I BOUGHT BRIGHT ORANGE BOY SHORT UNDERWEAR AT TARGET SO NOW EVERYONE WHO SEES UP MY DRESS WILL JUST SEE A FLASH OF BRIGHT ORANGE INSTEAD. SEE, MOM? I DO HAVE STANDARDS.)

While I was looking for the boy shorts at Target, though, I started thinking about how weird vintage clothes really are. Like, this dress was made, owned, and worn in the actual 1960s. And because people weren’t magically shorter in the 60s, I’m pretty sure the previous owner of this dress had an equally frustrating labia exposure issue. I mean, did they even make boy short underwear back then? If not, did Original Dress Owner give someone an accidental peep show? Did the peep-ee like what he saw? DID SOMEONE WHO MIGHT NOW BE OLD ENOUGH TO BE MY GRANDMOTHER HAVE SEX WHILE WEARING A DRESS I JUST PACKED FOR A WEEKEND IN LAS VEGAS??

Like I said, vintage clothes are weird, man.

But wait, back to Vegas and Bloggers in Sin City for a second. I honestly can’t believe it kicks off this Thursday. I’m driving to Vegas tomorrow morning, and after months and months (AND MONTHS) of planning, it’s just now starting to sink in that I’ll have four whole days to spend with 59 other bloggers who are flying in from all across North America to tackle-hug each other in person. Even though this is the fourth annual BiSC event I’ve hosted, the magic hasn’t worn off. I’m continuously blown away by how belligerently amazing the attendees and sponsors are, and I really hope that anyone who wasn’t able to make it this year can grab a spot at next year’s 5th anniversary event. I even promise to get my exposed labia under control by then.

Or rather, I at least promise not to use the word “labia” 6 times in one post right before you’re about to fly to Vegas to meet me for the first time. That’s probably not the best first impression.

Labia

Shit, 7 times.

(I MISS YOU TOO, MOM.)

Do you ever look at the calendar and think about the unbelievably fast passage of time and wonder, “Whaaaat? How?” Yeah, I’ve been having that reaction all week, because somehow an entire year has gone by and this Tuesday was my sober-versary, which means I haven’t had alcohol in over three hundred and sixty five days.

A few years ago, if you would have told me that this is the path my life would take, I would have looked at you like you had thirteen eyes. I would have shaken my head and declared, “Nope, never.” But, just as our mothers warned us, never say never, right? Because truly, this would have been the biggest “never” of all. I “never” would have quit drinking. Not me, not the girl who hosted all the happy hours and cocktail parties. Who drank bottles and bottles of wine with her friends. Who was notorious for spontaneously getting drunk on patios in the middle of the day. Nope, not her. She could “never” do this.

And yet…

When I first found out that alcohol was the cause of my maddening 6-year run of insomnia, I was relieved. After all the doctors and all the sleeping medications and all the attempted “cures,” I finally had an answer. No alcohol, no insomnia – simple as that. And at first, sleeping for 7 or 8 hours at a time felt like the most delicious gift I’d ever been given. I’d wake up every day and think, “Is this how normal people feel?” and wonder why everyone else wasn’t running around curing cancer and solving all the world’s problems with this giant surplus of energy. But, like everything else that’s shiny and new, sleeping through the night quickly became my regular routine and soon I wasn’t quite so appreciative of my nocturnal gift.

Around the time that sleeping became my norm, I started to lose my mind a little bit. My mind, and my identity. I had chosen sobriety as a means to an end, but I hadn’t given any thought to all the little strongholds that alcohol had on my life and the fact that I’d have to deal with each and every one of them. For the next six months, I tried to make sense of my feelings and of who I was without alcohol. Was I still as fun? As outgoing? As interesting? I had to relearn social behaviors – sober – and I had to come to terms with the fact that I was the only person I knew who was making this choice. I also had to accept that my 6-year coping mechanism was gone, and acknowledge for the first time that quitting drinking wasn’t just “an easy thing to do because it meant I got sleep in exchange.” Worth it? Yes. Easy? Not at all.

For those first six months, I still treated what I was doing like an experiment. In the back of my mind, I assumed I’d be able to start drinking again someday, and I told myself that this period of alcohol abstinence was temporary. Sometime between that six month point and now, though, I’ve come to realize that that’s not true. I’m not just giving up alcohol for a little while, I’m giving it up forever. If this was just about sleeping, I wouldn’t be so sure. But it’s not. It’s about the realization I had a few months ago that almost every bad decision I’ve ever made has been fueled by alcohol. And fuck, I’ve made a lot of bad decisions. I’ve done a lot of messed up things that could have hurt a lot of people if I wasn’t as good at secrecy as I was at drinking all the drinks, and I’m not okay with that. I’ve gotten myself into some pretty dangerous situations, and I’m not okay with that, either. Do I blame alcohol? Yes, no, kind of. I don’t know. I think people are still responsible for how they act when they’ve been drinking, especially since they chose to drink in the first place, but I also know that we often make mind-bendingly stupid intoxicated decisions that we’d never make in the crystal light of a sober morning. One look at my sloppy, drunken track record is all it takes to prove that.

Now, though, my entire life is a crystal-bright sober morning. I’m finally free of the cycle of self-destructive behavior followed by massive guilt followed by drinking again as an escape from that guilt, and overall I feel amazing. Not to mention that I’m pretty much well-rested all the time, and as I’ve thankfully been able to learn firsthand, sleep really does make everything better.

I’m still deeply troubled by some of my past decisions, but I’m working on that. A few days ago, on the phone with the person who – other than me – was undoubtedly the most impacted by my bad drunken choices, I finally asked the question that’s been on my mind all year.

“Did I completely fuck you up? I mean, do you look back on those years and feel like I ruined your life?”

He thought for a moment. “No,” he said carefully. “But those last few months, at the end, those were pretty awful.”

“Yeah,” I responded gently. “For me, too.”

And that was that. Because, as much as we might want to, we can’t change what we can’t change. Even with all of my newfound clarity, I can’t go back and undrink and undo and wrap the past up with a pretty little bow. All I can do, really, is be grateful for my insomnia-inducing allergy to alcohol that caused me to take the infamous road-less-traveled and wind up here, three hundred and sixty five days later, finally making decisions that won’t lead to future conversations about whether or not I’ve ruined someone else’s life. And from where I’m sitting, that feels like an enormous amount of progress.

Can you believe I’ve gone almost 27 years without reading erotica? Oh well, don’t worry, that shit has been more than remedied because I just took down all 1500+ pages of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy in, like, A WEEK.

And just in time, too, because I feel like everywhere I turn, someone else is talking about these books. From casual mentions on Twitter to serious editorials detailing how contemporary women fantasize about being sexually dominated, people everywhere have been whipped into a frenzy over these deliciously smutty novels. Now, I’m not going to get into the overly analytical side of things, because frankly I don’t give a shit about whether contemporary women want to be sexually dominated or not. All I know is that these books are like addictive sex candy and once you start, you fall into the deep hole of obsession that has you staying up way past your bedtime because you “just have to read one more chapter,” except one more chapter turns into ALL THE CHAPTERS because fuuuuuck, these books.

Initially, I ordered the first one out of curiosity. I was deep in my post-Twilight depression, desperate for something else to read, and I kept hearing whispers about Fifty Shades of Grey and how it was originally written as Twilight fan fiction, with the two main characters based loosely off Edward & Bella. Now, if you’re sitting there thinking that I should have better things to do with my time than chase down a dirty version of Edward & Bella, I honestly don’t know what to say to you other than dude, YOU DON’T KNOW ME AT ALL.

So, I read the first book. And let me tell you, it’s absurdly hot. And I mean, you can see the similarities to Edward & Bella, but they only go so far. This is definitely its own inescapably seductive book, and as soon as I finished it I jumped on Amazon and ordered the other two. I then spent the rest of the day lost in thought about where the first book left off, wondering where it was headed, fantasizing about what I wanted to happen to these two new characters that I was suddenly obsessed with.

At Target later that day, still obsessively thinking about the delicious smut, I suddenly found myself in the book section, staring hungrily at the two books I had just ordered on Amazon, wondering if it was too late to cancel my order and buy them here instead.

“Calm down, Nicole,” I thought. “You can wait a few days to get the books in the mail.”

Oh, inner voice, how little you know me. In fact, why I ever thought I’d be able to wait in the first place is a mystery. Clearly I should have been standing outside Target the second they opened, credit card in hand, demanding that someone fetch me parts 2 & 3 of my smutty addiction.

Which is how I found myself back at home, two books richer, trying unsuccessfully to cancel an Amazon order that had already been processed. When I told James Bond the story later that night, he – unlike my misguided inner voice – wasn’t at all surprised. “That’s standard Nicole procedure,” he said. And, like always, he was right.

So then, seeing as how my impatience meant I had extra copies of Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, I figured that the only logical next step was to order an extra copy of Fifty Shades of Grey as well, and then give the trilogy to one of you guys. (If you want them, just let me know in the comments and I’ll pick someone to send them off to next week!) Because really, these are the kinds of books you’ll force on your friends just so you have someone to discuss them with. I’ve already done that to 4 people, and my copies of the books are currently making their way through a handful of peer-pressured friends.

I mean, friends don’t let friends miss out on wildly inappropriate and sexually explicit novels, right? Isn’t that how the saying goes?

[Update: the smutty smut book winner is... @norahcarroll!]

When I went home for her birthday earlier this month, my mother’s only request was that I spend a few hours teaching her how to use Facebook.

“I need help,” she said. “I think cousin Scott is spying on me.”

“You what? What are you saying?”

“Well, we were talking on instant message this morning and, as he was signing off, he said he was going to let me get back to writing my thank yous. But, how does he know I’m thanking people for wishing me a happy birthday on Facebook??”

“Uh, because almost everything you do on Facebook is public?”

“What?? But I’m writing on my own wall! I’m just responding to people who wrote me happy birthday notes. This has nothing to do with Scott. Scott doesn’t know Deb from church.”

Needless to say, it was an exceptionally long afternoon. I’d be right in the middle of explaining how to share a photo or like a comment when something else would catch her attention and she’d be all, “Ooo, what’s that! And that!” and start clicking away somewhere else. I had to remind myself to take slow deep breaths and not snap at her, because I mean, how terrible and impatient am I that I can’t take ONE HOUR to teach my mother how to use Facebook after she spent ACTUAL YEARS teaching me how to speak words and eat food and basically do everything ever?!

The best part, though, was when I tried to explain to her that she needs to have a profile picture. I was like, “Ma, no one is going to take you seriously without a profile picture. It makes you look very spammy.” And she’s all, “Spam? Like the packaged meat?” I shook my head, “No, not packaged – oh, never mind. Listen, you need a profile picture. Don’t you have any pictures on your computer?” And she’s all, “I don’t know how to get a picture into the computer. Is there a slot for that, like how I insert a CD?”

I stared at her for a long time after that, trying to figure out the best next step that would a) get her a profile picture and b) not end with me yelling and making her cry.

I sighed. “Why don’t we just go outside and I’ll take a picture on my phone and upload it for you?”

“What? Now?? I can’t have my picture taken when I look like this! Why can’t you just use an old one – you know, from when I was hot.”

“Ma,” I sighed, “if you let me put up a current picture of you, I’ll create an entire photo album titled, ‘Look How Hot I Was’ and fill it with all of your favorite pictures.”

Her eyes lit up like neon saucers after that, and even though I had said it as a joke, my mother thought this was the best idea she’d ever heard. I shouldn’t have been surprised, not from a woman who used to carry around a photo from when she was in her twenties and ask everyone – my high school boyfriend, strangers at the bookstore, etc. – if they “wanted to see a picture of her when she was hot.”

Well, after that, teaching her how to use Facebook was a dream. She was so focused by the dangling carrot of this upcoming photo album, and I promised her that if she brings her old photos to LA when she and my dad come in June, I’ll scan them and put the photo album together.

When my dad got home later that night, she smugly told him that she now understood Facebook better than he did, and that there was soon going to be a photo album of pictures from when she was hot. He stared at her, standing in the middle of the kitchen in just her long night shirt, her hands hidden in the elbow length rubber gloves she wears after she covers her fingers in baby oil to stop her skin from cracking in the dry heat, and started laughing hysterically. He looks at her and goes, “Well, we could always take a picture of you right now to use as a ‘before and after’ for your photo album.”

She glared up at him, raised one gloved hand, and said, “Guess which finger I’m holding up for you right now, Alvin. I’ll give you a hint, it’s not the one with my wedding ring on it.”

Well, let’s see. I haven’t blogged about my vagina in a while, so I figure that now is as good a time as any to get back to that for a second.

(HI MOM! HOW WAS CHURCH YESTERDAY??)

So, here’s the deal. I recently joined up with Lucky Bloke for Mission: Great Sex! – a one-of-a-kind global condom review initiative where men and women in every possible demographic will test and (anonymously) review the world’s finest condoms.

When I first heard about this, I was all, “Uh, dude, I already have plenty of condoms.” But Melissa, the founder of LuckyBloke.com, was like, “Did you know that there are actually three different sizes of condoms and that guys can figure out their perfect size using an empty toilet paper roll?” And I was all, “What do you mean three sizes? Aren’t there just, like, regular condoms and then those magnum condoms?” And Melissa was like, “Aw, sweetie…” and then she educated the hell out of me about all things condom. Which was awesome. (THANKS, MELISSA!)

Even better than the personal education and the fact that Lucky Bloke offers everything from one-time purchases to monthly condom subscription services (with 10% of sales going to humanitarian causes!), is what she’s offering with Mission: Great Sex! If you’re selected, you’ll get to participate in the most comprehensive condom review in history, helping Lucky Bloke to determine which condoms really are superior to all the rest.

If you want to apply to be spoiled by the condom fairies at Lucky Bloke, just click here and mention that you came by way of this blog so they know you’re ready to offer up some bullshit-free opinions about latex love. Ooo, and if you’re selected you have to let me know so we can gossip about our favorite condoms – unless you think that’s weird, in which case, uh, I was obviously joking.

::shifty side-eye::

But wait! There’s more! Well, not more about condoms since we already covered the condom thing, but like, more random news about my life in general. Most importantly, I finished the final Twilight audiobook and had to deal with the horrible first-world-teenage-girl-esque problems of desperately missing Edward and having ALL THE DEPRESSIVE SADS. Seriously, you guys, I’m so distraught that there’s no more Twilight. What the fuck are you doing, Stephanie Meyer?? FINISH MIDNIGHT SUN, PUBLISH IT, AND THEN GET TO WORK ON WRITING THE OTHER THREE BOOKS FROM EDWARD’S PERSPECTIVE BEFORE I LOSE MY ACTUAL FUCKING MIND. I mean, c’mon, is that too much to ask?!

Then, in the midst of grieving the loss of Twilight in my life, I cut 8 inches off my hair & dyed it dark red. (WHAT? Don’t look at me like that. Drastic haircuts are a good way to manage the grieving process. HAS FELICITY TAUGHT US NOTHING??)

After chopping all my hair off, I added two new pages to my blog: one where I’ll be posting my favorite comments and one filled with links to books & articles I love from around the web. Then, I sent out my first Runner’s Brain newsletter (!!!!), made a lot of bad food choices (GIVING UP SUGAR IS SO HAAAARRRDDD), and re-watched an embarrassing impressive amount of Dawson’s Creek on DVD, a show I’m somehow totally hooked on again even though it’s so mother angst-ing terrible that I spend half of every episode cringing and the other half wanting to stab Dawson in the throat with an ironically sawed-off VHS tape.

Also, I spent 5 days in Arizona for my mother’s birthday where I learned that she’s deep into her self-described “purple period,” a phase in which her nails are constantly a dark, sparkly shade of lavender and her outfits/accessories aren’t too far behind.

Sigh.

PLEASE TELL ME THIS HELPS YOU TO UNDERSTAND WHY I AM TWO DEGREES AWAY FROM CRAZY AT ALL TIMES.

PS – How did we go from the very adult & responsible topic of condoms to the belligerently adolescent yelling about Twilight, Felicity, and Dawson’s Creek? What the fucking fuck is happening to me?!

“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.” – Jordan Belfort

In May of 2011, I decided I wanted to be an endurance runner. I had never played sports or done any kind of regular exercise, and I wasn’t able to run for more than two minutes without taking a walk break. Five months later, I completed my first half marathon. Four months after that, I completed my second half marathon. Now, I have three half marathons scheduled between May and August and I’m gunning for my first full marathon this fall.

Yeah, I’m totally hooked.

The accomplishment feels great, the endorphins feel even better, but the very best part of being a runner is the community. So many of you have reached out to me to say, “Hey! I’m training for a race, too!” and I’ve loved swapping tips and commiserating over our challenges and struggles. I get emails all the time from people who are new to running and have lots of questions, or people who like the idea of running, but aren’t sure where to begin.

And so, over the past few months, I’ve been putting together the puzzle pieces of a premium behind-the-scenes, this-is-what-I’m-doing-as-a-runner, welcome-to-the-inside-of-my-brain newsletter called Runner’s Brain.

Today, Runner’s Brain is live and filled with all the juiciest details of the steps I’m taking to succeed as a runner. For just $12 per month, you’ll get access to an exclusive weekly newsletter (yes, every single week!) where you’ll learn exactly what I’m doing/struggling with/learning as a runner. And, at the end of each newsletter, I’ll give you a weekly action step: one thing for you to work on in the coming week to keep you motivated and accountable as you train to reach your individual goals.

Still wondering if Runner’s Brain is right for you? Well, it’s perfect for you if:

• you’re currently training for a race of any level
• you’ve never completed a race before, but you’d love to run a 5K (or more!) by the end of the year
• you want to hear shockingly honest weekly accounts of what it’s like to be a runner (good, bad, and ugly – no sugar coating, no bullshit)
• you’re craving weekly motivation to keep you on track
• you want to meet other runners (yep, there will soon be a big community component to Runner’s Brain!)

Does that sound like you? If so, click here to sign up. It’s just $12 per month, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Oooh, and as soon as you sign up you’ll get a welcome letter that gives you immediate access to the training plan I used for my first half marathon! You’ll also be geared up to receive this Sunday’s newsletter, where I’ll let you in on a secret I just learned for how 20 minutes is all you need to find your true source of motivation as a runner.

All that – and so much more! – for just $12 per month.

So, who’s ready to climb inside my runner’s brain? It’s a little nuts in here, but I promise you’re about to get a serious jolt of fun & inspiration that’ll have you well on your way to making all of your running dreams come true.

It all starts here.

So, yeah, I basically spent the entire weekend recovering from Bad Mood Friday. It all started first thing that morning, when I got up so far on the wrong side of the bed that you’d think the bed had been moved to hell in the middle of the night. And, you know, maybe it was. That would explain a lot, actually.

Nothing was wrong – not really. It’s not like I was actually upset about anything in particular, it was just one of those days. You know, the kind where everything is infuriating and all you want to do is lay on the floor and hide because you’re thinking, “HATE ALL THE PEOPLE AND ALL THE THINGS FOREVER AND EVER NO MATTER WHAT.”

It’s a good, healthy mental space to be in, I’ll tell ya.

The worst part about it, though, is that OF COURSE that would be the day I wind up comparing myself to everyone else and feeling like shit about my whole entire life. Yep, my whole entire life. YOU SEE? I HAZ ALL THE DRAMATIC FEELINGS. Have you ever had those moments, though? Where you’re reading someone else’s blog or going through their career achievements and feeling all of the raging jealousies? Where you’re all, “This person wrote a book and that person is profiled in The New York Times and that person over there was just asked to speak at a prestigious conference and that company just got bought for 200 million dollars and holy shit I haven’t written a book or been asked to speak anywhere and I don’t even read The New York Times and I’m not entirely sure I could accurately count to 200 million and therefore I fail at life and am a completely worthless human. HOORAY!”

Yeah, Friday was the day of the raging jealousies. And like, the worst part is that I know these types of life-to-life comparisons are useless. I’ve written about this before, about the fact that we truly have no idea what’s going on behind the public internet showing of someone else’s life, and yet it’s so easy to compare the inner workings of our own lives to the often carefully constructed view of everyone else’s. Those feelings are normal, though, and I have to assume that, no matter how emotionally/mentally/spiritually stable you are, sometimes you slip into crazy comparison mode and kick up a whirlwind frenzy of jealousy inside your head.

The real issue, then, isn’t whether or not you compare your life to someone else’s, because that’s totally inevitable from time to time. The real issue is how you handle it. Do you stay up until 3am watching sad episodes of Grey’s Anatomy in the dark and thinking about how everyone else is loved and how you’ll be alone for the rest of your life? Been there. Do you eat ice cream and cry after deciding that everything you’re working on is pointless because you’ll never be as successful as x person? Done that. And then comes the best part. You know, that part while you’re in the midst of being terribly upset about the “failures” of your own life and then you start giving yourself a hard time about comparing yourself to other people in the first place. You’re all, “STOP IT! OBSESSING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE’S LIVES ISN’T GOING TO HELP YOU LIVE YOUR OWN.” So then on top of feeling sad and discouraged, you’re also feeling guilty because you’re fucking YELLING AT YOURSELF.

It’s an awesome cycle, huh?

But, this weekend I had a mini breakthrough. (THANK GOD FOR MINI BREAKTHROUGHS!) I realized that, sure, while blindly comparing yourself to other people makes for an emotional train wreck, there’s actually some good that can come from the raging jealousies if you’re able to get to the heart of what’s really going on.

With this in mind, I sat down and created a Raging Jealousies List. I wrote out the handful of people who I most often find myself playing the comparison game with, and then I wrote down why I’m jealous of each one of them. That’s the key, I think, to look at the “why” instead of the “what.” Knowing what you’re jealous of is helpful, but knowing why you want it – what it would mean to you to achieve something similar – is infinitely more useful. My Raging Jealousies List helped to show me where my otherwise out-of-the-blue feelings were coming from and, most importantly, it allowed me to see which jealousies were the result of real things I wanted to pursue and which jealousies were just based on my needy little ego. After making the list, I was able to go back through it and cross off a bunch of stuff that I realized I don’t actually want (or at least, don’t want right now), and fuck, that was absurdly freeing.

At the end of it, I was left with 6 different jealousies that actually resonated with me (as opposed to the, ahem, TWENTY EIGHT that I started with), and now I actually feel like I can get to work on moving those 6 things from my jealousies list to my “shit that’s just a normal part of my life” list. And I mean, it’s a whole new day and a whole new week and a whole new month, so it should be as good a time as any to start making some effing dreams come true, right?

COME ON, APRIL. LET’S DO THIS.

The other day I realized that, come July, I will have been blogging for 5 years. FIVE YEARS. You guys, that’s the age of a kindergarten child. Can you believe that? MY BLOG IS ABOUT TO HAVE ITS FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN! GOLDFISH CRACKERS AND FINGER PAINTING FOR EVERYONE!

It’s insane to me that I’ve been sharing my life online for the past five years, and it’s even more insane to think that some of you have been with me that entire time. I mean, the internet is weird, right? Like, we have so much access to each other, and there are so many blogs I’ve read and loved for years and years, and yet I’ve never met or even talked to most of the people behind the avatars. I’ve met some of you, of course, through Bloggers in Sin City and tweetups and random trips around the country, but there are still so many people whose online lives I’m a part of but whose voices I’ve never even heard.

Which brings me to my main point: Isn’t it strange that we have no idea what each other’s voices sound like? I don’t know about you, but I love having a voice and a face to put together with the words on a blog, and I find that I enjoy reading someone’s writing so much more when I can actually hear their voice inside my head.

That’s what I like most about audiobooks and spoken word poetry, I think. There’s an added element of personality that comes from being read to, and I’ve been thinking about how much fun it would be to start a spin-off of this in the blog world. Not spoken word poetry, per se, but how about Spoken Word Bloggery? A chance to go back through your archives, pick a post, record yourself reading it aloud, and then share it on your blog. Man, I’d love if people did that.

But seriously, you guys, LET’S DO THAT. I know, I know, you don’t like the sound of your own voice. Guess what? ME EITHER. Guess what again? NO ONE ELSE EVEN NOTICES THE WEIRD SHIT YOU’RE INSECURE ABOUT BECAUSE THEY’RE TOO BUSY BEING INSECURE ABOUT THEIR OWN SHIT.

Got it? Good.

And, now that we’ve covered that, I’ll even go first by publishing an audio recording of a post I wrote back in January 2011 about my ridiculous mother and her ridiculous funeral demands:

OKAY. WHO’S NEXT?

When I first tried to explain Paper’d to my mother, a woman who doesn’t have an iPhone and doesn’t even know that iTunes exists in the first place, I was like, “I don’t know how to be more clear than that, ma, it’s a wallpaper app.” And she was all, “What do you mean by ‘wallpaper?’ Like, the wallpaper in the living room? Does your touch-ey screen phone connect to my living room?” And I’m like, “Seriously? You don’t even have wallpaper in your living room.” And she’s all, “I could have wallpaper in my living room.” And I’m like, “We’re not making much progress here, are we?”

And yet, she and my dad called every day last week to see how many people had downloaded my “living room wallpaper phone thing.”

“We just hit 70,000 downloads,” I told her this afternoon.

“SEVENTY THOUSAND??” she cried.

Yep. Seventy. Thousand.

And honestly, I haven’t even begun to wrap my head around the fact that seventy thousand people are using something that Jamie and I created. SEVENTY THOUSAND PEOPLE. That’s 29 times the size of my high school. It’s almost four times the seating capacity of a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden. It’s almost twice the size of the entire population of Monaco.

WE HAVE MORE PEOPLE THAN THE ENTIRE PRINCIPALITY OF MONACO. Of course, Monaco has Monte Carlo and the French Riviera so I guess we’ll call that a wash, BUT STILL.

The craziest part is that the app has only been available for 7 days. 7 days! Our app baby is just one week old, and it’s already been featured as a New & Noteworthy app on the App Store. THAT’S CRAZY TALK, PEOPLE. And to say that these past seven days have been wrought with emotion would be an understatement on par with saying that Ryan Gosling is “sort of good looking if you squint your eyes at him from far away.” Seriously, I can’t even begin to explain the intense emotions Jamie and I have felt since launching our app. It’s been unbelievably exciting, but with all the excitement comes all the fear and all the insecurities and all the overwhelming anxiety and nausea. Yep, nausea. Word of warning: launching an iPhone app will make you sick to your stomach. It’s just, I don’t know, we spent two full years working on this app, and when something that represents so much of your time and creative energy goes out into the world, it’s a little maddening. Especially since we’re able to get such immediate feedback through social media and App Store reviews. Ooooh, the App Store reviews. That’s been humbling. Humbling in a good way because of how many people clearly love the app, but also humbling in a tough way because there are definitely people out there who don’t love it so much, and we have to learn to roll with that type of feedback, too.

But hey, guess what? No matter what you create, there are going to be people out there who hate it. And that’s okay. Do you hear that, self? YOU CAN NEVER PLEASE EVERYONE AND IT’S OKAY IF PEOPLE LEAVE BAD REVIEWS. BAD REVIEWS DON’T MEAN YOU’RE A BAD HUMAN. THE SUCCESS OF THIS APP DOESN’T DEFINE YOU. SEE ALSO: STOP REFRESHING YOUR APP STORE PAGE.

Yeaaah, it’s been a long seven days, haha. My favorite are the people who leave reviews that have nothing to do with the actual purpose of the app. Like the person who’s all, “This doesn’t let me make my own wallpapers – 1 star out of 5” even though Paper’d is clearly not a create-your-own-wallpaper app. And the people who are like, “I can’t believe I have to pay for some of the collections! I don’t want to pay for any of the collections! This is lame and you suck – 1 star!” Even though we couldn’t have been any clearer about the fact that some wallpaper collections are free, and some aren’t. And yet, those reviews are weighted exactly the same as the ones written by people whose opinions are helpful – good or bad – and that’s what gets me crazy. Like, someone could go to our App Store page and be all, “THIS APP DOESN’T ALLOW ME TO SUNBATHE NUDE ON A SOUTH AMERICAN BEACH – 1 star!” and it would factor into our overall ranking with equal consideration.

Which is to say that, yeah, I’ve been having All The Feelings lately. Talk about my 2012 goal to “do uncomfortable shit,” though. Man, if nothing else, I’m nailing that. Also, launching Paper’d has also shown me (again!) how unbelievable you guys are, and I can’t thank you enough for all of your support. Reading your excited tweets and comments has been the highlight of this experience for me, and getting to see photos of which wallpapers you’re downloading makes me so happy I could scream. Your honest feedback is incredibly helpful, and I’d love to hear any suggestions you guys have for upcoming wallpaper collections, additional app features, or anything else! And, of course, if you’re having fun with the app and are able to take a few seconds to rate it in the App Store, you’ll definitely earn a hundred gratitude points. (That’s gotta be enough to cancel out at least one dumb thing you did back in college, right? Isn’t that how karma works??)

And hey, while I’m asking you for stuff (LOOK AT ME GO, I’M SO NEEDY!), I’m also going to ask you to tell me what you’ve been working on lately. Launching Paper’d – a project we labored over for so long – has made me insanely curious about other people’s projects, and I’d love to know what you’re working on/finishing up/thinking about right now. I’d especially love to know if there’s a way I can support you, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a big project or a small project, a fully formed idea or just an “eff, wouldn’t that be awesome?” thought nugget, I still want to know!

So, psst, that’s your cue. Don’t be shy. Spill it, baby.

**
{Quick note: To all the lovely people who commented on this post but whose comments are now totally MIA, don’t worry, I read them! I switched hosts and there was a little comment-eating hiccup. Sorry, guys!}

Two years ago, Jamie and I set out to create an iPhone wallpaper app for people with great taste. People who are clever, funny, outspoken, and creative. People who thrive on expressing who they are and what they love. People like you.

Today, I’m belligerently excited to share the news that our multi-year labor of design love is now a reality, and our app, Paper’d, is available (for free!) in the App Store!!

If you’re concerned about that very loud noise you just heard, don’t worry, IT WAS JUST MY HEART EXPLODING WITH EXCITEMENT AND PRIDE. Seriously, I’ve never been this proud of anything before, never been so awed to work with someone as talented as Jamie, and in the past week I’ve successfully managed to experience every possible emotion on the spectrum of Feelings A Human Being Can Feel. In any given millisecond I manage to shoot from THE MOST EXCITED EVER to THE MOST NERVOUS EVER to THE MOST ANXIOUS EVER to THE MOST HOPEFUL EVER, and back again. This has caused a lot of sleeplessness and a lot of frantic texts between Jamie and I that read more or less like this:

dlfgjfglkhjfglhkjdglskjfgdlfgd

More than anything, though, I keep catching myself thinking stuff like, “THIS IS REAL. WE DID IT. THIS IS ACTUALLY MOTHER EFFING HAPPENING.” And then I text Jamie again and collapse onto the floor.

There’s so much more I want to tell you about Paper’d – especially about the backstory of how it came to be – but the killer article & infographic that was just published about us on Mashable says that better than I ever could, so I’ll just link you there instead.

(PS – YOU GUYS, WE’RE FEATURED ON MASHABLE! BAHH! HERE COME ALL THE FEELINGS ALL OVER AGAIN.)

These past few months, I’ve thought a lot about how I would feel on launch day. I thought I understood the height of my excitement and figured I could predict the delicious combination of anticipation and relief, but it turns out I was wrong. Because today, right now, in this moment, I’m more on fire than I’ve ever been. And strangely, it’s not about the fact that the app is live, and it’s not even about the fact that a tiny little photo of me is featured on mashable.com, which is something my mother can appreciate even though she doesn’t understand phones or email or how to turn a DVD player on and off. No, the most exciting part is knowing that now, after hearing me talk about it for so damn long, YOU can finally download the app. And ohmygodddd, I can’t wait to hear what you think!

You guys were on my mind during every single step of this long process, “Will they like this? What about this? Would that be better?” over and over again to create a finished product that screams of fun, inspiration, and high-end design. And you guys? We did it. We created something that I absolutely can’t wait for you to play with, which brings me to a question: Will you do me a favor? As soon as you download the app, would you mind taking a few minutes to let us know what you think? We can’t wait to hear your feedback, and we know that the success of this app is completely dependent on our community of users (that’s you guys!), so we’d love for you to help us spread the word about Paper’d in any/all of the following ways:

1. Rate the app in the App Store (this is super important, since high ratings are one of the key ways to get noticed by Apple).

2. Tweet the download link, http://get.paperdapp.com, along with our Twitter handle, @paperdapp.

3. Post the above download link on Facebook and then come on over and join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/paperdapp. (Spoiler alert: We’ll be giving away one custom wallpaper collection each month to a randomly selected Facebook fan!)

4. Whip out your iPhone/iPod Touch and show the app to every single person in your life. Yes, even your boss. And your grandma. And your gynecologist. (What? Gynecologists have wallpaper needs, too, you know.)

While you’re sharing all the Paper’d love, we give you full permission to be at least a 17 on the scale from 1 to Totally Obnoxious. Suggested things to yell at your friends & family & vagina doctors include, “DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE BEST APP IN THE HISTORY OF APPS?” and “DUDE, I BET MY WALLPAPER IS BETTER THAN YOUR WALLPAPER.”

And hey, maybe if we all yell loudly enough, we’ll get Apple’s attention and they’ll be like, “Damn, we need to feature this app on our homepage.” Then, when that happens, you’ll hear another very loud sound. But don’t be alarmed, it’s just Jamie and I jumping up and down until we pass out in a fit of bliss & gratitude for every single one of you who helped to make our dream come true.

**
{Quick note: To all the lovely people who commented on this post but whose comments are now totally MIA, don’t worry, I read them! I switched hosts and there was a little comment-eating hiccup. Sorry, guys!}