Alexandra and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Life.

How to Behave on National Television.

2009-03-19T22:47:13Z

This should actually be called How NOT to Behave on National Television. Because I have some pretty good insight into that.

If you ever find yourself on cable television...oh, say, like MTV... there are certain basic rules of etiquette by which one should usually abide.

I'm only going to discuss one of these rules, which I believe to be most important.

Rule Number One:

Do not, under any circumstances, creep out or alarm the host (or in this case, MTV vee-jay Damien Fahey) in any way.

Your general demeanor may be off-putting and prone towards general creepiness. This is a fact you simply cannot help. However, there is no need to actively say or do things to make others, music television hosts in particular, uncomfortable.

It is unnecessary and irresponsible.

When I was a senior in high school it seems I was always doing things that were unnecessary and irresponsible. From time to time, I still do.

In this particular incident, a group of friends and I found ourselves as guests on MTV's (now-defunct) Total Request Live. TRL to those Gen-X'ers out there.

On a side note, I am baffled by how long they allowed this show to run. If you can believe it, it was actually more tedious to be on the show than it was to watch it. Which just might account for my odd behavior that fateful afternoon.

Sitting in my designated seat, just another teenage girl in a room filled with other giggly teen girls (and the occasional sexually-confused teen boy) I suddenly found a mic thrust in my face.

I looked up into Damien's preternaturally tanned face, momentarily distracted by his painstakingly coiffed hair (each spike lovingly crafted with the finest gel mtv had on stock) and realized that he was speaking directly to me.

"Um...what?", I queried, feeling the jealous eyes of every other teenybopper in the room zero in on my blank face.

Smiling charmingly, my man Damien repeated his question.

"Did anyone ever tell you that you look just like Michelle Branch?", he asked.

I bear little to no resemblance to Michelle Branch, though I suppose we do both have dark brown hair. And we are female. Suffice it to say, I really thought he was reaching a bit here.

- The real Michelle Branch

The real Alex Cavallo -

To this day, I do not know what compelled me to say what I said next.

Speaking confidently into the mic, with the air of a seasoned TRL guest or perhaps an actual pop-folk singing pop star, I said:

"I AM Michelle Branch."

I most certainly am not Michelle Branch. Never have been. But you could have fooled the entire mtv-watching audience with the authority with which I told Damien I was.

In what must have been the closest vee-jay Damien ever came to finding himself completely speechless in front of a live audience, he paused. Looking at me with something akin to wonder but likely more closely related to genuine fear, he nodded slowly.

"Ooo kay.", he muttered.

And that was it. The closest I have ever come to fame. My fifteen minutes amounted to not much more than 15 seconds. Over as quickly as it began.

But I, and perhaps one-time TRL vee-jay Damien Fahey, will never forget.

How to Make New Friends

2009-03-18T20:27:02Z

Making friends is hard. Thinking of things to say, questions to ask. Then you actually have to pretend to care about said new friend's major/boyfriend/cirrhosis. It's stressful.

I suggest a less conventional approach to building your social network. It's tried and true.

Ok, it is seldom tried and even less frequently true, but in a few isolated cases I have managed to form a life-long friendship using these tactics:

1) When you enter a new highschool as a freshman, and you find yourself on the soccer field (at practice or otherwise) the coach (or a passerby) may ask you to choose partners.

Approach the girl standing nearest to you who also looks uncomfortable and dangerously close to tears. She will probably have freckles.

Ask her if she would like to see your Rat Face.

She'll want to. Or at least she will be so taken aback and genuinely creeped out that she will have no choice but to say "yes, please." (The key here is actually having a Rat Face to demonstrate for your new pal. I've perfected my own rodent expression through years of strenuous training. You may find that a different species of animal is more suited to your own facial structure.)

Along with now having a partner to practice headers with you have now made a Friend For Life.

2) Animal face performance art won't work with everyone. Sometime physical assault is the key.

Try this. When its raining outside and you find yourself without an umbrella scan campus for a semi-familiar face. This will be a person with whom you share a general social circle and are on a first-name basis with. You are not, however, good friends. Or friends at all really.

Once you've found the object of your platonic desire you can make your move. It will start to happen very quickly once you've initiated contact. Ask this unsuspecting target if they will give you their umbrella. (Note: not share, you are attempting to appropriate their property.)

Inevitably, you will be refused. Allow them to walk away. Then, with the speed and grace of a rabid gazelle, race up behind them and kick them soundly in the ass. In the ass.

(It is important to stress, at this point, that they will not immediately declare their undying friendship and loyalty to you. Instead they will probably call you a Freak and demand to know just what the hell is WRONG with you anyway. No matter, it is all part of the Master Plan.)

From here on out your new friend will call you a Freak. Every day. Soon enough, everyone else you know will too. Freak will become "Freakface" and you will find yourself regretting your actions. However, there will come day that you find you rather enjoy the nickname.

Eventually, you and your new best friend will have choreographed an entire Freak Dance complete with music and lyrics. You will call them Freakmaster. And you will be friends for life.

Of course, this plan is risky. It has been known to backfire. Not everyone finds round-house kicks to the pants endearing.

3) This last method is most controversial. However, the recipient of this particular trick appointed me as maid of honor at her wedding. I take this to mean we are friends.

When you're on a school bus (this tactic can also be excecuted on any mode of transportation. A greyhound bus. A train. An escalator.) strike up a conversation with your neighbor across the aisle. (If you're on a school bus you will most likely chat about who you hope to get for 6th grade next fall. That sort of thing.)

After a few minutes of conversation, collapse against the window and pretend to have passed out. Mid-sentence. At first, your new friend will be alarmed. She will think you have a serious medical condition. Just as she rises to alert the driver, however, you jolt awake. You continue talking as if nothing at all has occurred.

Repeat above manuever every 5 minutes or so until you have reached your stop. She no longer thinks you have a physical condition. She thinks you are absolutely nuts.

However, she is hooked. The old Feigning Narcolepsy trick works every. damn. time.

So there you have it. It's not so hard to make new friends, as long as you have a few tricks up your sleeve.

I wouldn't recommend attempting any of the above on potential love inerests, however. They tend to have the reverse effect in those cases.

Not that I know from experience.

So I Dated An Axe Murderer....Sort Of.

2009-03-18T19:38:44Z

It was a dark and stormy night....

Well, it was dark. Because it was night. The forecast was actually completely clear but c'mon, allow me some artistic license here.

So. I am alone in my apartment. Anxiously awaiting the arrival of my male escort.

Get your mind out of the gutter...I was waiting for this dude who works for my mom's vet school roommate to come pick me up and drive me to said former roommate's house for a lovely family dinner.

I suppose I should insert a back story right about now.

I had just transferred to SUNY Albany in my 3rd year of college and my mother' s best friend and ex-cohabitant from Cornell happened to live in a suburb just outside the city.

My mother is also intensely overprotective and wanted to be sure I was acquainted with a responsible parent/guardian type should things go south in the student ghetto in which I now lived.

(Her fears weren't completely unfounded. Muggings occurred on a weekly basis. My friend was attacked by a small gang. And by small I mean they were all under the age of 8. Mini gang-bangers. No artistic license necessary here, this actually happened. These kids threw sticks at her and drew blood.)

So yea, anyway, I was off to dinner to meet my mother's Albany understudy.

He drove up in a (now infamous) yellow jeep wrangler. He was tall, dark and handsome.

Ok, ok, he was tall and dark. But he really wasn't my type. Call it my sixth sense about dubious characters.

We exchanged the typical I don't know you and you don't know me but this sure feels like a set-up type of pleasantries and we were off. Dinner was uneventful. We ate chicken and salad. Many Corona Lights were imbibed. All the better to put me at ease I suppose.

My mother's friend was quite lovely. I made it home. Alive. Slightly inebriated, but alive.

Time for another back story.

This guy was living with my mom's friend because his parents had recently been attacked by an axe murderer. Literally. Again, throw artistic license out the Jeep Wrangler window because I CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP.

His parents were attacked with the business end of an axe just months earlier. His father was killed and his mother was seriously injured. As in she was in a coma, required extensive facial reconstructive surgery and retained absolutely no recollection of the entire unthinkable incident.

His employer, Mom's friend, took him in. He was being investigated for the crime but she believed him to be one hundred percent no question innocent.

Subsequently, so did I.

A few weeks later this unfortunate young man sat across from me at my 21st birthday dinner celebration. (Mom invited him, like I said I wasn't feeling any sparks here.)

A few months after that he was sentenced to Life in Prison for the brutal murder of his father after irrefutable evidence surfaced fingering him for the crime.

He. Was. An. Axe Murderer.

And you wonder why I don't let my mom set me up on any blind dates.

Plus, you know, I dig piercings and tattoos and she likes guys in polo shirts and loafers.

I also like being alive.

Sometimes Dogs Drink Out of the Toilet. But I Never Do.

2009-03-04T21:20:27Z

Seriously, I hardly even drink water. And when I do crave some H2O I go for the Britta.

Toilets are for business. Everyone knows that.

It would seem, however, that my friends doubt the veracity of that statement. They maintain that I DON'T know that.

Allow me to elaborate.

A certain number of my friends (ok all of my friends. every last stinking one.) find it just hilaaaarious to poke fun at the things I do and say. Also things that I do not do and say.

It's a favorite pastime of my dear friends to sit around and reminisce about my past foibles. To revel in my shame and misery. I'm glad I bring them so much joy.

Anyway, one such incident particulary sticks in my craw. Mainly because it is entirely fabricated. Not that a single one of my so-called pals will concede this point. They find it much more enjoyable to both believe and perpetuate this incredible untruth.

Well, my life so often resembles a greek tragedy its makes sense that there should be a few good myths thrown into my repertoire.

And the myth goes....

Once upon a time in Miami a group of college friends gathered to partake in spring break festivities.

The sun was hot, the people were hotter and the tequila flowed like wine.

(As did the lies, you bastards.)

They spent their days frolicking in the sun and sand, their nights drinking impossibly large blue potions, the contents of which tasted like manna from atop Mt. Olympus and instilled in them the power of Zeus himself.

All was well on heaven and earth.

Until one fateful morning one young man awoke, needing to relieve himself.

He was stunned, appalled, to encounter a girl drinking openly from the porcelain throne. Lapping away at the forbidden water as if she was at the banks of a crystal clear brook.......

Allow me to interject:

I DID NOT DRINK FROM THE BIDET.

this entire story is a myth. do not listen to the incoherent ramblings of my oldest and dearest. (particularly one Matthew who started this nonsense in the first place)

i KNOW what bidets are for. quite frankly, i find them a bit weird and don't like to use them for that purpose either but that is neither here nor there.

I did not drink from the bidet. and that's final.

To Work Or Not to Work....is that really a question?

2009-02-18T21:05:59Z

LET'S TALK JOBS....

A Job. Apparently you have to have one. The world seems to operate on this elaborate system involving the exchange of goods and services for money. So there you go. I need a job.

But here's the problem, I'm not good at jobs. The workforce and I are like two magnetic north poles. We repel.

Let me preface this by explaining that, while I may not be very good at keeping a job, I have a certain knack for finding them. In my short time as a functioning (we'll use this term loosely) member of the workforce I've had more jobs than the average person. Many more.

Allow me to clarify. Most of these "jobs" (this term is to be used more loosely still) had the shelf life of take-out sushi. Read: they didn't last much past a day and a half.

Below, I present you with an abridged list of the various jobs I have held since high school:

· Salesperson at Abercrombie & Fitch- awful place to shop. Worse place to work. Time endured: 1 afternoon.

· Salesperson at Zumiez- sold snowboards and skate shoes to pimply adolescents and their parents. Time endured: 2 weeks. Had to quit, couldn't stand extremely overbearing boss imploring me to "make friend with my customers" anymore. I don't want to chat about good charlotte and tony hawk with 15 year olds. I want to go home.

· Caterer- I found that I didn't really relish serving canapés to snotty wedding guests over my summer vacation. Also, I kept dropping trays. Time endured: about once a week for 2 months. Record time. Quit before boss caught on to just where all that missing wine was flowing. In my general direction.

· Secretary at Dermatology Practice- filing records, making appointments, that old hat. Time endured: one winter break. After which I was fired. By the doctor. MY FATHER. Apparently catching a few Z's in the filing stacks not included in job description? Very sad time for family.

· Server at Greek Restaurant- served spanakopitas and gyros for a summer. Time endured: almost an entire summer. Until I was fired. For not showing up because I was shopping. Who knew? (Side note: this disgruntled boss is the father of a close friend. Bridges: meet Alex and her can of lighter fluid).

I also once worked at Starbucks. Until my mother came in to purchase a Mochachinno prepared by her very own pride and joy. And was told that the Starbucks Corportation had never heard of me. After that, I didn't "work" there anymore. Hey, she was happily under the impression that I was gainfully employed while I spent my after-school hours at the beach. Up until then it was a win-win situation.

Trust me, this list could go on for pages. But this is a blog. So I'm keeping it concise.

Needless to say, my track record is, well, spotty.

But it can only improve from here....right? Right?

I think I'll move to Australia.

The Genesis of this Fine Blog.

2009-02-18T19:24:48Z

IT'S LIKE THE BOOK...BUT IT'S MY LIFE.

You all know the story. Alexander is having a really rough day. The worst. There's gum in his hair, his mom makes him buy really lame kicks, people on t.v. are making out and he's got dental problems. The worst.

But I think I just may have him trumped. Sure, Alexander is having a rough day...I'm having a rough life. Yea, yea, most of my own trials and tribulations are self-inflicted...perhaps even imagined.

But here's the thing. They are still happening. And they're making my life pretty hard. Hey Alexander, I'm having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad life.

It is my hope that writing this blog will serve as some sort of cathartic process, through which I can document my life's hardships and put them in perspective.

If nothing else, you'll probably feel a bit cheerier about your own life. I promise.

Traveling is Stressful.

2009-02-17T20:21:32Z

Early One Saturday Morning...

Crap! I overslept. Again. My contact lenses are plastered to my eyes, there appears to be some sort of small, woodland animal nesting in my hair and I'm pretty sure I ate a full plate of cotton balls before lapsing into a coma last night. Business as usual.

My bus to Albany is departing from South Station in 40 minutes and I really need to be on it. Problem is, the watch my parents gave me in lieu of an entire sweet 16 birthday party has gone missing. Now is NOT the time for a friendly game of hide and seek with my luxury timepiece.

What the hell. Not in the kitchen, the bedroom, the living room. Not under the couch. Not even in the litter box. I now have exactly 22 minutes to throw on clothes, pack a bag and somehow teleport myself to south station. No biggie. Except the thought of some Boston cabbie, bartender, or random homeless person sporting my watch at this very moment is sort of throwing a wrench in my best laid plans.

Am now in Full On Panic Mode. Commence the screaming, crying, flinging of household objects and general psychological breakdown that accompanies episodes of extreme stress in my life. I collapse on my bedroom floor in a pool of watch-less misery. Am now at eye-level with the half-eaten bag of Cheezits next to my bed.

Ohhh. Of course. How could i have forgotten. I always put my jewlery in bags of cheezy baked-not-fried snack products for safe-keeping after a long night of drinking. How silly of me to forget. Am relieved to find my watch intact, albiet coated with delicious real-cheddar flavor. However, I now have 17 minutes to make aforementioned bus.

No worries, with my watch safely strapped to my wrist I can do anything. And what I need to do is arrive in Albany in time for my best friend's 25th birthday. She's made it clear that there might be some unpleasant repercussions if I fail to do so.

Make it to the station with 3 minutes to spare, purchase my ticket and collapse in my seat, wheezing and sweaty, as the driver turns on the engine. Victory.

I immediately fall into the stress and alcohol-induced sleep of the dead. When I awake, 2 hours later, we are at a rest stop. In Connecticut.

I am on a bus to Manhattan. Which, if my limited grasp of geography serves me correctly, is nowhere near Albany, NY. Some quick calculations confirm that not only will I not make it in time for the party but, all told, the customarily 3.5 hour long trip to Albany will take me over 9 hours to complete.

Not to mention the extra 35 bucks I'll have to shell out at Port Authority. IN MANHATTAN.

I think I'll move to Australia.