Hi. My Name is Tina, and I'm a Googler.

My fave hobby du jour? Googling. I google my friends, my worst enemies, weirdos, crushes, everybody. You'd be surprised. Everyone I google, shows up somewhere. Whether it's that spelling bee you won in the second grade or a 5K you ran and came in 46th place—it's there, and the world knows about it. So does Smithers.

I even Google myself. And the worst part? The VERY first item that pops up is a personal question I thought I'd posted anonymously. Considering I don't exactly have an older female to talk to except ultra-conservative Grandma, and my friends didn't know shit, I decided to ask an OBGYN about a personal concern. (There are sites for that, you know. There are sites for everything. How did we even get by when all we had was Encyclopedia Britannica?) Because you'd most likely Google me after reading this, here was my "concern":

From: Tina S. (anonymous@obgyn.net)
Feb. 2, 2002
I have been taking Alesse-28 for the past 5 months to regulate my periods. In the past month I have become sexually active for the first time. I take my pills like I am supposed to every morning, but I frequently notice "spotting," where I bleed in between my mentsrual cycle. My roommate says this is common with this brand of birth control. This is annoying. Is this true? What can I do to reduce it? I only want my period once a month. Not any more!

Fuck me. Now the whole world knows when I lost my little cherry. When I found this out about a year ago, I contacted the site and requested that they take my name off. They never did. Next time, I'll stick to real doctors.

But about my Googling addiction, do you guys ever do this? Am I a psycho people-stalker? Leave your comments, please!

PS There's also another Tina S.! She runs marathons in Las Vegas and is a janitor for a Christian church. Cool.

A Whole New World

So I think I might move to the trendy town of Hoboken, NJ. For you non-New Yorkers, it's a beautiful, college-esque tiny town right on the river (with coblestone streets!) outside the city. It's only one-square mile, so I don't need a car. After looking at over-priced shit holes on the Upper West Side yesterday, I think this'll be a good decision. No smelly trash on the sidewalks. No toothless people begging for quarters. No rude Asians who work at bodegas selling over-priced, wilting daisies. No man in purple velvet tuxedo begging for my lukewarm, have drunk bottle of water and then demanding that I be his new BFF. (Got that one today... weird.) But if I miss it, NY's only a short subway ride away. Now onto bigger and better things—beer-drinking frat boys. A whole town full.

Living in the Ghetto Can Be a Good Thing

Living in the slums of Brooklyn totally has its advantages. I was taking out the trash last night, when my front door slammed shut behind me. My old ghetto house consists of three apartments, but everyone was out for the night. No keys, no phone, no jacket. It was just me, Sam the homeless cat, and the beginnings of a rain shower. There was no way to get in the windows on the ground level. I went around the side of the house, stood on a bucket and tried to pry open the window there. When the window damn near chopped off my fingers, I realized it wasn't a good idea.

So I headed down to the bar on the corner. I yelled over the blaring country music, "You gotta a phone book?" The bartender who was missing two front teeth said, "Yeah." I explained my predicament, and a Puero Rican man wearing lots of gold bling offered to try to break in. "I grew up in Brooklyn," he said. "I know how to do it."

So we wandered down to 409 Marlborough Road, and he broke his credit card in my door. (It's a dead bolt darling, 'fraid a credit card just ain't strong enough.) So he pulls a screwdriver out of his pocket and attempts to pry off part of the door that's blocking the latch. It works! And then he's cool enough to nail the strip back on—no one ever has to know. All I have to say is that I'm glad I'm moving to the slums of Manhattan.

Thoughts on Therapy

Today's a slow day. So I have a therapist. She's really cool. It's like having a friend who listens to you, who tells you you're not crazy and who gives you a tissue if you cry—only for $125 an hour. Funny, that's what all my friends already do. But she does help me see things in a new light, so my sanity's worth it. Three things to work on this week:

1. Be a minimalist. It means that when I do interviews, talk to friends, and express my innermost thoughts to boys I dig, I should say less. I tend to ramble, and that's no surprise. Apparently, this makes me look as if I have little confidence, b/c I'm constantly making up for something stupid I just said, in turn, making it a bigger deal than it really was. Damn, she's good.

2. Say "Thank you." When someone says my skirt is uber-cute, it's better that I say "thank you," and not "Yeah right, it makes me look fat."

3. Limit my alcoholic intake. This makes my love handles large. It makes me stupid. It makes me get kicked out of New York nightclubs and wonder why ghetto boys call me at 5 a.m. Yeah, she's got a point.

Cell Phone Revelations

I love how your cell phone can reveal all about a drunken night, especially if you tend to forget minor details like weird boys in train stations. So last night I went to d.b.a. with Courtney for Eliza's b-day. I def forgot my ID, so I had to traipse back to Brooklyn, therefore, taking two hours out of my night. So I drank a Dasani bottle full of boxed wine on the trip back, so as not to lag behind my peers in all their drunken glory.

Text Messages:
From Courtney, 11:06 p.m. HO. I WANT BEER PONG!
From Courtney, 11:41 p.m. UR FUNNY! PONG!

Recent Calls:
11:26 p.m. Michelle to me.
Midnight. Curtis to me.
12:44 a.m. Me to Neil.
3:19 a.m. Me to Curtis. No answer.
3:52 a.m. Me to Joe Cell. No answer.
5:17 a.m. 347-615-XXXX to me. Missed call.

Voicemail:
5:17 a.m. "Yo Tina, this is Ky from the train station. You were pretty hammered. Anyway, I was wondering if you'd want to get some bloody marys at a bar on Sunday—if you're not too hungover. It'll be fresh. Call me. Peace out."

Ha. So needless to say, Courtney and I went to The Big Easy around 1 a.m., where I proceeded to kick some ass at a game of beer pong. A big bearded man bought me an Irish car bomb, which is about where things get fuzzy. It was at this point where I launched into my drunk dialing frenzy and then met Ky, apparently. Why can't I just say no when a stupid ghetto boy asks for my digits? Life would be much easier. Because he definitely called me again an hour ago from a different phone number (Trying to trick me! Jerk.) and told me about a really fresh party in the city this Friday. No thanks, Ky. You're just not fresh enough for my flavor.

Stanley Strikes Out

Funny story: So last weekend I'm at this upper-Eastside nightclub with my girls. We're taking shots, attempting to dance to whatever horrid music they were playing, when I spot the DJ booth in the corner, unattended. My "Slave 4 U" Britney request had gone ignored, and Prince is not my thing. So I climb up the ladder to the booth, put on the headphones and attempt to decipher the buttons and switches. In my head I'm thinking, now how can I switch the music from whatever shit they're playing to Britney Spears without anyone noticing? It seemed perfectly logical at the time. I press an important-looking red button and BAM! The music stops, and everyone pauses mid-dance move and stares up at the DJ booth. Face flushed and jaw dropped, I frantically throw off the headphones and scurry down the ladder. Too late. Two bouncers grabbed me by each arm and escorted me out as I cried, "But I just wanted to hear Britney Spearssss!" They weren't having it. And so I got kicked out of a New York nightclub. In the words of Shaggy: It wasn't me. It was Stanley.

Life's Simplest Things Can Grant Total Inspiration

So my co-worker has one of those cool tear-off-the-day desk calendars, and today's message is this:

Otis Campbell in the House
My friend Jamie quite drinking a year ago to avoid all of the extremely embarrassing things she had done in public when her alter personality, Otis Campbell, took over. One time she was dancing at a bar, got too close to the stage, and fell into the drum set, completely destroying it. Another time, she went to a party at her Danish then-boyfriends parents' house and yelled to the other Danish guests, "Shmorgedy borgedy norgedy! This is America, people, so speak English!"

Ha! Unfortunately, that could easily be a Tina moment. Perhaps I should give my alcohol-induced alter ego a name, so as not to take full responsibility for my retarded-while-inebriated actions. I think I'll name him Stanley. (Of course my inner drunkie is a boy—boys are stupider than girls.) That way, if I'm acting silly, stupid or slutty, I can just blame it on Stanley. What, someone ate the last of your chocolate cake? Oh, that was just Stanley. He's sorry.