Ashley Jillian

Denial in the world of the moving is one thing, but denial in the age of the Internet is a total different lady. And by lady, I specifically mean my mother. Though I’ve always suspected it, this weekend I explicitly found out my mom reads my blog.

Geeks only paragraph: I feel like Peter Wiggin when his parents told him they knew he was Locke the whole time, except way lower stakes. 

It should be known that my mom is amazing, and super supportive of everything I do. In case you wanted to know her feedback, she likes my writing, but she wishes I wouldn’t curse so much. She also thinks it’s just about the coolest thing in the world that Chris Kattan tweeted at me, but she is probably less pleased that even that transaction involved talk of cursing.

Geeks only paragraph: Email me if you want a specific formula to get people of Chris Kattan-level fame to tweet back at you. I got theories.

My comedy friends have this conversation all the time — how competent are our parents at the Internet? My parents text, but they don’t have Facebook or Twitter,  and most tellingly, they both still actively use their AOL accounts. So cute! The general concensus is that we aren’t going to let it inhibit us, and we aren’t going to make YOLO jokes about it. We will, however, make jokes about Zac Efron’s tatttoo.

The Internet is the world’s biggest stage, so anyone pursuing comedy really has to be comfortable knowing that everyone they have ever known might be watching or reading. It’s not something that I personally let inhibit me because I feel like I am true to myself both in person and on the Internet. Then there is that whole awkward thing of wondering if our future children will ever find our content, and whether they’ll think it as quaint as having an AOL email address in 2012. Future kids, I DGAF, embrace that phrase, bring it to elementary school.

What follows is a letter for parents of comedians:

Congrats, your child is smart and provides a great good to society*! They’ll make people’s lives rich with laughter, and they will also inspire a lot of groaning at bad jokes, but they can handle that.

*unless you’re Dane Cook’s parents

Geeks only paragraph: I am pretty sure there is a tangible correlation with being unfollowed by those porn spambots on Twitter and making Dane Cook jokes. Also, fuck Dane Cook. 

Hugs///

Ashley @alltidashley

Also mom, you don’t have to check my blog twice a week, if you hit the subscribe button on the top right, my posts will be sent to your AOL account. Love you!

Sat in on a friend’s podcast this week, it can be found here: Philistine Radio 

I put a shows page up last week, something I probably should have done awhile ago. I’ll try to keep it updated real good. 

p.s. I do all this other stuff, but humor writing is my favorite form of comedy. Oh, and also sassy tweets for when I’m feeling like comedy junk food. 

Yo E-Friends,

Whenever I am having a bad day, it reminds me of the time I was having a bad day at Disneyland and Daniel Powter showed up and sang that Bad Day song, and that redirects my thinking to how weird my life is.

Rebecca wishes this were a story about a first love, and it is, but only in that it’s the story of making the first friend she ever successfully took a non-awkward platonic nap with. If you aren’t in the know, platonic naps — almost always awkward. It’s a friendship step that comes well after sitting on the same side of the table at restaurants, and just before sharing a dressing room at Nordstrom.

Writing has been Rebecca’s thing since high school, and she was thankful for it because her confidence in her math skills never recovered from failing long division in 4th-grade. She was an engaging features writer and she loved the attention of being good at something, and bragging to her friends about how she’ll be writing for The Atlantic by age 25. Rebecca also loved pushing  boundaries and was able to successfully pitch stories like a point-counterpoint on Cricket the sport v. Cricket the bug. Needless to say, she was totally stoked when her high school journalism teacher nominated her for journalism camp.

The first day journalism camp at NorthWestern can be described as a swamp of hormones, hipsters and college-resume builders. During the first ice breaker, a kid named Sam from Ohio claimed to have the largest bacne pimple of all time, Rebecca’s first thought was that Sam’s claim was awfully hard to substantiate with evidence,  her second was that it was disgusting and way way TMI.

Miles came a few hours late because his flight from JFK had been delayed, and if he were being entirely honest, he would have been a bit late regardless because he loves to make big entrances and brag about being from New York City. Rebecca was absolutely infatuated and aroused, in addition to being pretty ecstatic about Miles showing no signs of bacne.

Always a bit of a schemer, Rebecca suggested that the next ice breaker be trust falls.  She had to put on her best acting face because she didn’t give a fuck about trust falls, but she loved the idea of being able to tell her friends that she literally fell into the arms of her husband on the first night they met.

At the end of the evening Rebecca offered to fill Miles in on what he missed, when she got to part about Sam and his bacne Miles gagged and said, “that’s epically gross, and a shame because he’s kind of hot in that mid-west boyfriend for the summer kind of way.” Rebecca lost a love and gained someone cool to shit talk with, which in her opinion is the second-best thing.

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note: this is not meant to be a standalone piece, rather it’s the first page of a first draft of book chapter disguised as a short story

Hi friends,

I just wanted to super thank you for being so supportive of everything I do. As a bit of an introvert, it truly astounds me to find so many people that can relate to my short stories AND understand my sense of humor. You fucking rule hardcore, and I like you a lot.

Last August, I officially started pursuing comedy and humor writing. I’ve made some of the best friends I’ll ever have, grown massive crushes on people I’m too shy to talk to and eaten a lot of leftover coleslaw for dinner because that’s the level of poor I am. Also, coleslaw fucking rules hardcore.

While it’s been one of the best years of my life, it’s also been the most emotionally and physically exhausting. Doing comedy stuff 4-7 nights a week on top of working full-time and writing my book is insane. I am, in a way, fortunate enough to be the kind of person who needs to be hyper-productive, but sometimes that can run my whole life into the ground. For the last four months I have been getting by on five-hours of sleep a night and two Americanos a day. I’ve been living in the duality of having a great time being poor and young and pursuing a dream, but also being totally exhausted and living in a bit of haze. I took the past week off to sleep, watch the second season of Downton Abbey (holy shit), and evaluate what I’m doing with my life. The answer is yes, working my butt off is totally worth it, I just need to get an average of one hour more of sleep a night and neglect my non-comedy friends less.

Also, know that this isn’t a post made because I want to be lauded for living this lifestyle. It’s as selfish and shallow as any other type of life, just a whole lot more fun and highly relevant to my interest of living the simple life. Not the Paris Hilton kind, though Paris Hilton’s My British BFF is probably in my top ten reality shows of all time. Plus, the show itself is still simple because I can watch it for free, online — in bed.

Some of you have nominated me for those awards that go around these parts, which is super sweet, but I don’t really believe in awards and my inner-Berkeleyan won’t budge on that. Though, my inner-Berkeleyan is OK with reality television watching and occasional red meat eating.

I’m thankful that I’ve reached just the level of minor Internet fame that I am invited to birthday parties of people I haven’t seen in 10-years via Facebook. But I am mostly thankful for you, because knowing that every time I write something it goes out to 1,900+ people fucking rules, hardcore.

Hugs///

Ashley

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I am assuming that this is what goes on in Modelland .

Today my high school best friend and I met one of our personal heros. 4/28/12. Hope y’all are having a great weekend!

Rebecca’s love for Oprah stemmed back to childhood days playing sick to watch the Big O’s show at 3 pm (and to watch Maury at 11 AM, something she is neither more nor less proud of). She counts the last year of the Oprah show among the worst of her 26 years of life. Well, in her words it was the “world’s worst year ever,” but she’s a known exaggerator. It was to her great chagrin when Oprah announced her  plans for the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls — Rebecca was five years too old, a McMansion too rich and an African citizenship short of being able to attend.

Rebecca sat in the middle of her walk-in closet and schemed and schemed for a way to get a foot in. She also cried a little and ungracefully wiped her tears  with a mismonogramed handkerchief because life is “so unfair” and “everything sucks.”  Her diplomatic mother told Rebecca to shut up and donate half her allowance to the school, maybe get a square tile monogrammed with her name on it on the school’s floor. Rebecca responded by holding out her snotty handkerchief and pompously shouting, “What’s the point? They will spell my name wrong anyway and Oprah will never be able to thank me on Twitter.”

Oprah fans spend their whole lives waiting for three things: new Toni Morrison books, an invitation to Oprah’s Black and White ball, and the ever evasive “a-ha” moment. Rebecca gives herself bonus points for having her “a-ha” moment involve Oprah herself, for it involving designer shoes, and also a little bit for it helping girls in Africa, even if she was “totally fucking jealous” of them. The day Oprah discovered she wore a size 11 show instead of  size 10, was the day Rebecca’s life changed, and maybe also the lives of a couple African girls who would get the proceeds. But what are 100 page count notebooks when she could have Jimmy Choo sling backs that had all of Oprah’s rawest and perhaps most pungent inspirational juices absorbed into the soles.

The shoes cost a lot closer to half of Rebecca’s yearly allowance, but when money can buy inspiration, you can wait until Christmas to get a new iPad.

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to be continued

What’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you?

Mine is probably the time I was personally invited to an end of the world party by Phillip Garrido.