Happy October love bugs! Not only is it the first of October which means it brings us that much closer to Halloween but, it’s also Thursday! Now knowing that everyone will most likely be out and about on the bar scene this evening, I wanted to address a certain phenomenon that seems to be a universal crutch for all millennial’s. This existential crisis I speak of is, what I like to call the 2AM Toss-Up.

The 2AM Toss-Up is that text message you get from either boy or girl at an ungodly time in the middle of the night (usually around 2AM) to “chill”. I wanted to bring this up today because it’s something that I have a lot of experience with. I am a girl who is known to enjoy her nights out, and rarely completes her night once she gets home. Not to say that I am some turbo slut that is looking for naughty things to do in the wee hours of the morning. Once I get home I just tend to not be sufficiently tired, so I reach out to my other night owls. This has been a habit of mine for so long that I really never thought anything was wrong with it, but I was wrong.

I never thought the 2AM Toss-Up was a bad thing until guys started texting me at the hours I was texting them; but they wanted something a little bit different than some friendly company and a couple laughs. To me “Narcos and hang” has the same effect as “Netflix and Chill”. Which we all know is the universal language for sex and no phone call in the morning. Yes, it might seem as if I’m throwing a mega double standard out there, but please let me explain. I now know that it is disrespectful to expect any of my guy friends to roll out of bed and show up wherever I am for selfish reasons. I know that because it has now been done to me and I don’t like it one bit.

I like to really stick to the belief that no matter guy or girl we should all have a certain level of equal respect for each other. With that being said I am now going to make a more than concerted effort to respect people in the early morning hours. I know that I didn’t enjoy constantly receiving messages at that hour, so I no longer want to put that unto others. Our generation has a wild lack of respect for one and other, and yes I know late night rendezvous are fun but compromising your self respect is not. Let us all try to start this exciting new month with some new habits, and leave the old ones in September where they belong.

So after much debate and wonder whether to take the big step or not, I finally made a decision. It was time to get a dog! After loosing Gidget a year and a half ago, I was finally ready to open my heart again. Instead of this new pet looking to my parents as its owner, I wanted to be the primary caretake. Now anyone who knows me personally would never pin me as the primary caretaker of ANYTHING, but I felt like I was up for the challenge!

After a 2 minute stroll through the Humane Society kennels our eyes met. There was a little black mutt behind the fence that I knew had to be mine. Once we looked at each other it was all consuming love. Her sign read that her name was “Ruffles”, so Ruffles was the first name I wrote down to request a private visit with. We continued our walk through the kennels and wrote a couple other dogs down to visit with, but I had no interest in any other dog. Once we were about to turn our paper in I started crossing dog’s names off the list, I only had eyes for Ruffles and I’m pretty sure she felt the same way.

As I took my numbered ticket and waited in the lobby to meet my future baby-girl, my palms were sweating and I started to pace. I even had to go outside a couple of times for a cigarette. The nerves were building because as I was pacing I was listening to the dogs other families picked to have interviews with. The most popular name being tossed around was Ruffles. I soon realized I wasn’t the only Ruffles love struck human…but, I love nothing more than a good old fashion competition. I made sure we were the first people at the Humane Society that Saturday morning, which means we were the first people to request and interview with Ruffles.

Number 138 came flashing in red lights, I glanced at my ticket and I knew it was time to finally meet my little girl. From the moment the dog handler put her down it was a total love fest, I immediately started crying and knew Ruffles was mine. After a thousand selfies and a donation to the Humane Society, Ruffles no longer lived in kennel six. Shortly after coming home, I realized she really didn’t know her name so I changed it. My little girls name is now Sookie T. Bone Fellner, she weighs in at 10.5 pounds, and loves sitting in the backyard listening to Snoop Dogg. Consider this her birth announcement, and also stop by http://www.humanesociety.org you might just fall in love!

Dear Everyone Trying To Make It,

You are not alone. Do not quit. Whatever your dreams are, do not stop until you exceed them. No matter how bad your day is, never lose sight of your goals. Quiet the haters, they don’t exist. Breathe…take a moment for yourself to recognize why you’re hustling. Embrace the struggle and admire the hustle. Without the struggle and hustle what you are doing has no history, present, or future. No matter how much blood, sweat, and tears; never lose sight of your end game. Put  your mind, body, and spirit in the same exact spot as it was when you recognized your dreams. Hold onto that moment, refuse to let it go. If you’re a writer, keep writing whether you think its shit or genius. If you are a rapper keep spitting, no bar is too weak. If you are a DJ keep producing, no creative product from yourself is ever wasted. If you hustle your 9 to five, keep your nose to the grindstone and put in that overtime. We are all on the same team here, success is the motive, goal, and lifestyle we all want. No more trashing each other, no more putting people down, no more judging others aspirations; it’s time for us to come together. Everyone thinks success is about self-development, but I can tell you there are more ingredients than one. Hustle till you can’t work anymore. Write till your fingers bleed. Create until the well that is your mind is tapped. We are all lucky enough to live in this magnificent land of plenty, it’s time for us to reap the possibilities. Anything is possible as long as you can envision yourself doing it. If you can’t imagine your own success, try harder. Do not let the land of opportunity go to waste. You are only as strong as your support system. You are only limited by your own demons. You set your own limits, you block your own ideas, you are responsible for yourself; it’s time to wake up. We must exceed our dreams, we must crush our goals; with “we” being the operative word, let’s do it together. It’s time to support your fellow hustler, together we can all make it in America. Put your money where your mouth is and shatter the expectations you have set for yourself, I’ll see you at the bank. 

Sincerely,

A Very Driven Struggling Writer <3

A.K.A Alexis Lee

Late night hump day is here people, and I picked the horniest hump day of them all to drop some knowledge on your asses. Once again this week, I am coming to you at a strange and unpredictable time, but when the inspiration Siren sings, you must swim (If you guy’s didn’t see the last installment of Pirates Of The Caribbean, then just exit stage left). The topic tonight is the ever so gentle swipe, to either right or left direction, that could determine the warmth and population of your bed. Yes ladies and gentlemen, we are finally gonna get down with some Tinder/Jswipe funk.

After putting up a very strong steel reinforced front of never getting into a dating app, today came and I caved. Out of all of my friends, guys and girls alike; I was the only one who had not jumped on the dating app crazy train. While intensive convincing, and seeing all of my friends on a constant circulation of dates, my will wore thin…like lambskin thin, I caved. Tinder was a little bit too deep of a pool for me, so like the nice Hebrew School Girl I never was, I opted for Jswipe. Viewing Tinder as Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window (If you didn’t catch the Hitchcock reference it’s okay…IMDB it) gave me a more than clear birds eye view that it was a little too aggressive for my already “Pre-Tinder-Hater” attitude.

So Jswipe it was, downloaded on my dating app virgin IPhone6 (I hope her first time was special). First I had to construct the perfect profile. It wasn’t so much me trying to impress guys, more of me being a competitive psychopath. I said to myself, “Hey self, it’s bad enough you’re doing this…but you may as well be the best at it”. With that “can do” attitude, out came every hot bikini pic that has ever been taken of me. Once I was satisfied with the boob to butt ratio’s in each picture, off I was steady swiping. At first you are timid, every line of the profile matters, every background of every picture tells a story, and with every swipe right or left you realize you are playing g-d.

I started to get extremely confident and began swiping until my right index finger grew callous. I never realized how intoxicating it is to be sitting at home, doing the work of mother nature. I noticed sitting on the couch, choosing through an endless library of boys could possibly become a hobby. I went from collecting Pokemon cards to South Florida’s “nice Jewish boy” population. It really is a constant affirmation to yourself to be matched every few seconds with another attractive person. I know I will be famously judged for this, but I am just speaking the truth here. I now very clearly understand why everyone has been doing this for so long. I will no longer judge or criticize anyone who uses a dating app, because I finally get it. If you’re feeling down just remember, all it takes is a couple swipes of the index finger to remember just how fucking awesome you are. So, with all that being said add me to the Cyber Slut and Wireless Wench roster this season!

A bright and early good morning to all of my readers! Clearly it’s a little unusual for me to be posting so early in the morning, but I didn’t get much sleep last night. Come to think of it, ever since I turned 25 my sleep cycle has decided to stop working. It seems to me that every night I really only get a decent three hours of uninterrupted sleep. Gone are the days of 12 hours of sleep comas…I traded my youthful sleep cycle of endless rest for the sleep cycle of a Marine that is constantly on high alert. I’ve talked to a lot of my peers and I was thankful to hear that they experience the same terrible sleep cycle as myself.

So what I would like to know is, what changes in our 20’s that makes it impossible for us Millenials to get a full nights sleep? I think there are some obvious reasons right off the bat that effect our sleep cycles, but I also think there are some strange hidden anxieties we all bear. Obviously when you are in your 20’s you have a significantly higher stress level. We aren’t teenagers anymore and with the shedding of our immature skin, we all inherited something called stress. When we were all younger we would marvel at our parents for waking up at the crack of dawn…now I have that same amount of wonder concerning my own early wakeup time. We are finally getting a taste of what the generations before us have been dealing with.

Shockingly being in your 20’s isn’t as glamorous as I thought it was going to be. My 20’s have taught me that no matter how tired I am, I probably won’t be able to fall asleep because I’m worried about something. Being in my 20’s has also taught me that I can fully function on three hours of rest. At least my body has adjusted to this strange new sleeping habit, but I do really miss the days when I could knock out at any given time.

I have tried every single remedy in the book to end my little sleeping issue. I have tried the sleep inducing teas, I have turned my phone on silent, I have tried to tire myself out before laying down. With all of my trial and error put aside, I think I have cracked the code on sleep. I think all you really need to do to get a goodnights sleep is to turn the volume down on your brain. Whether work is stressing you out, or your waiting for a text from someone, or drama is on your mind; when you lay in your bed you need to just lower the noise. The moment your head hits your pillow you should acknowledge that the day is over and what’s done is done.

You can’t help, change, or alter anything from the previous day because it’s over. Millenials have a really hard time accepting things for what they are, we grew up in a society obsessed with instant gratification and change. When it’s time for sleep you have to kick it old school and give up your power. Laying in bed staying awake will only make your tomorrow more difficult. In a society focused on efficiency, exhaustion is just a hindrance. The moment you can understand that you can’t help what has already happened, I promise you will find your rest. I hope everyone has a great day, and an even better sleep tonight!