A Wolf on Hating Her Butt

Maybe one day I will be the woman who is proud of my big white girl butt, but right now I just hate it and it's incapability to not hang out of every pair of cut-off shorts I own. And this is really just a metaphor for how I feel about life in general, so could you bare with me please?

Like, while everyone else is experiencing summer romance, I'm selling nylons like a crazy woman and dealing with Brian Krakow (My So-Called life reference. Deal.) behavior from the majority of my guy friends. All while realizing that if my birthday was tomorrow, no one would really come to my party, because they are either having a great time out of the county or we've had some sort of unspoken falling out.

I'm really sensitive, and I need a lot of love, and right now I've been dealing with my continual boredom and loneliness by leaving my laundry in a pile on my floor and sleeping in until noon. Which doesn't really do anything but make me really bummed about the fact I'm living in a constant mess, and waking up crying because I just had a nightmare where my best guy friend told me I'm crazy and he doesn't want to kick it bro status anymore.

The only scenario I am happy about is the one where Tina Fey appears in my kitchen by magic and tells me that she is my quirky fairy godmother and she's going to write a show for me and take me out for a sandwich. Until then, I'm going to just sit here and mope about my unproportionate ass.

A Wolf on Friday Night

It’s Friday night. The pinnacle of debauchery, tomfoolery, and subsequent walks of shame for twenty-somethings everywhere. Am I out at a club? Am I doing lines of coke off a model’s hips? Am I in the middle of winning a dance-off between myself and the Olsen twins?

I’ll leave it to your imagination. But it’s quite possible that I’m sitting in bed with an adult beverage and a jar of pickles. That I’m listening to both a Billy Joel record, and my drunk roommate belt out Rihanna songs from across the hall. It’s quite possible I’m wearing a pair of boxer shorts stolen from the last guy I dated, and a shirt with Marilyn Manson’s face on it. That my plans for the evening include ignoring all phone calls, text messages, and knocks at my door from the huge crowd of guys outside who are begging to take me out.

If things go as planned, I’ll be asleep by midnight and hopefully dreaming about a world where Rihanna songs don’t exist.

A Wolf on Adele

Adele speaks to me. Like, I’m pretty sure our souls are telepathically linked.

Now, I didn’t always feel this way. When her latest album came out, I was going through a very dark period in my life when I worked at an overcrowded and completely dysfunctional Starbucks. The aforementioned chain coffee shop from Hell would play Adele’s latest record hour after hour after hour, until I wanted to go on an epic rampage in which I would find the location Adele was currently at and ask her very nicely to SHUT THE EFF UP.

Also, if we are being completely honest, I believe my taste in music is superior to most other people, and I’m a snob. Not the “fat prick in plaid who overcompensates by talking about how overrated Arcade Fire is” snob, but I’m almost as disgusting. This flaw in my character is also what kept me from initially embracing such a smoky voiced goddess, as I am inclined to hate anything the mindless masses enjoy.

Yet, a few months after quitting my lowly barista gig, I began to miss Adele. I would hum the songs I’d so grudgingly been forced to listen to in my head constantly. I would wail her single,” Someone Like You,” at the top of my lungs while driving until I got strange looks from the next car over.

I gave in. I downloaded Adele’s discography. I couldn’t have made a better life choice. Not only is Adele a talented singer, but she is also a woman all other women should strive to be. In “Someone Like You,” she says she wishes nothing but the best for the scumbag who dumped her and then married some dumb skank. In “Turning Tables,” Adele lets the douche bag who is playing games with her know that she is emotionally cutting herself off. And, in “Rumor Has It,” she totally calls this dickhead guy out for dating some baby prostitute who she knows is a poor man’s version of her.

Adele doesn’t let guys walk all over her. She gets sad about heartbreak, but she handles it like a classy lady. Adele doesn’t sit outside her ex-boyfriend’s house and feel sorry for herself, in the way that say Rihanna does. She is a female role model we can all feel great about.

Next time a guy treats me badly, I’m not going to unleash my disappointment by passively-aggressively tweeting and refusing to shower. Instead, I’m putting my Adele on and walking down the street with my head held high.

A Wolf on the Importance of Guy Friends

This is why you need at least one platonic guy friend.

If you're anything like me, sometimes you get really depressed about the fact that no one wants to date you and that you are going to die alone. When this happens, it's best to run to your number one dude friend.

If he is anything like mine, he will buy you a Diet Coke and let you listen to Avril Lavigne for half an hour while you sing along at the top of your lungs. He will also give you a flannel vest and baseball hat to wear so that you may conduct aforementioned singing and dancing around his room in style. In addition, when he tries to empathize with your plight, and tells you that he has gone through the same thing, he won't be offended when you say that he has absolutely not and should probably shut the eff up.

And, when you read to him the first draft of the blog you wrote about him, he'll tell you it's really good as he folds his laundry. If your guy friend is as cool as mine, he'll most likely follow that up with, "Dude, I thought I had more cut off shirts than this!"

On a side note, if your guy friend is anything like mine, please let him know he needs to take more than three pairs of underwear on his eight day trip.

A Wolf on Whole Foods

This past week was really tough. I mean, life was getting to me. My ratio of regular meals to meals consisting of vegan donuts was embarrassing. I’d coined myself “grunge girl” due to the fact I’d been picking up the same crumpled outfit off my floor everyday and putting it on without looking in the mirror twice. My best friend, who I called on about an hourly basis, had just left for a two-month trip to Europe where she, to my horror, would be without a phone. I think my most pitiful moment, however, was the two-hour crying phone session I had with my mother in which I mostly wept about my lack of non-psychopathic male suitors.

I even thought about joining an online dating site. This is where I hang my head in shame. I was trying to convince myself I wasn’t serious about it but, deep down, I had hopes of creating a profile and, minutes later, being hit up by a sincere yet clever James Franco look-alike who wanted to take me on a bookstore adventure and, shortly after, marry me.

This is the frame of mind I was in this afternoon when I called my friend to discover he’d blown off plans with me. Yeah, I could mutter, “My life is a Shakespearean tragedy,” as I lie down on my bed and search for episodes of Felicity on the Internet. Or I could, for once in my life, take charge of my own happiness. Be an independent woman, my heart cried out to me.

So I did what any modern day Jane Austen heroine would do. I grabbed the book I was reading, a pack of cigarettes, and made a beeline for Whole Foods. In doing this, I made a critical discovery:

The cure for every overly emotional female is a trip to Whole Foods.

I mean, who needs Match.com when there is a line of rustic, tattooed hotties waiting to ring up your dinner at every register? And who needs friends when there is a wise yet sassy barista lady who is willing to give you free coffee? I ate my Naan and saffron rice, read my thrilling fantasy adventure novel, and felt pretty happy to be alive for the first time in days.

And, let me tell you, Whole Foods was just the catalyst for a whole other slew of amazing events. It was like it poured into me all sorts of good luck and positive energy. I wound up last minute working on a music video (another story in itself), and then set up an appointment for something else that will scoot along my previously nonexistent successful film career.

I’ll never complain about Whole Foods’ obscenely high prices again.

Hang my locket around your neck,

Wear my ring on your finger.

Love is invincible facing danger and death.

Passion laughs at the terror of hell.

The fire of love stops at nothing-

It sweeps everything before it.

Flood waters can't drown love,

Torrents of rain can't put it out.

-Song of Songs 8: 6-8

Lord, save me from my self-destructive habits.

Je suis seul à nouveau

"Do you ever feel that being really special means that you are going to be very lonely?" S. said on the phone to me tonight. If only, if only...everything I've ever blotted down in half-filled journals and neglected fairy tales is about little else. Perhaps it is the fate of all of us who are creative, whose hearts live in the forest, to love too much and give too much, and ache when we aren't loved and cherished as fiercely in return.

"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper the sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given your sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight."

Someday you will find yourself holding back tears amidst the cluttered racks of a dusty, darkened bookshop. An older, spectacle-wearing gentleman will sigh uneasily as he squeezes his way past, carrying a dozen titles. Your heart is so heavy, you clutch onto the Medieval History shelf and pray your knees don’t buckle beneath you. This is when it calls out to you from three hardcovers down. The book. The book you require to loosen your weary soul, and rest your troubled mind. It’s a book that, three months before, you would have immensely enjoyed and devoured. But, like all perfect and predestined things, it is at this exact moment you most need it. Wisdom revealed, innermost doubts and hopes articulated on each and every yellowed page. A book full of everything you thought you lost or buried.

If you have yet to experience this liberating moment, don’t anticipate it. Don’t rush out and look for it the next time you feel you’re slipping away from sanity. It will happen when you least expect it, when you didn’t even realize it was what you were seeking.

How to Live Like a Parisian

Wake up whenever you’d like, go to bed whenever you’d like
Make coffee, lazily put jam on your baguette
Sit on your porch and smoke, while reading Sartre
Sit on your porch and smoke, while reading anything
Think in French
Wear stripes
Wear black
Wear scarves on your head, all the better if they are Hermes
Have no money, but spend it anyways
Edith Pliaf records
Godard movies
Carry around a flask
Wander around the city and hear people murmuring,
“Oh, there goes that Mademoiselle, something about her is so

Je ne sais quoi"

mes jours, mes rêves

I'm reeling around Mercury,
Jubilating across constellations
Swimming in and out of galaxies,
"Don't ever go," I'll whisper as I shoot out
Across the stars

(but you've already gone

to be another's cartographer)

My lashes, dripping wet,

And no gravity to let new planets

Fall.

Je suis une fille perdue loup

Once upon a time my favorite word was vicissitudes.

(Do other people classify time by what their favorite word was then?)
I devoured books and organized them in piles.
These books make me nostalgic.
These books make me almost happy.
These books make me irrevocably sad.

I turned off the lights, shimmied under the feather filled duvet, and turned on my flickering book lamp. Squinted to see the words swimming in front of me, and turned each page with fervent anticipation. These were the days when no author was too long winded, no story too ambitious, and I had enough passion for the written word to finish every chapter in the space between dusk and dawn.

Now my favorite word is ineffable.

But I haven’t finished a book in months. My mind wanders all over the first page, my eyes glance up at every noise. I am bored, listless, and make it through the first half of On the Road on sheer will power alone. I would have read this books in five hours even two years ago, I remind myself with great disappointment.

Poetry I still devour, but only because I need the words themselves to make sense of things. Words are the only thing I experience, understand, grasp. Don’t ask me what effervescent, woebegone, opulent means. I can’t define words, I feel them. I see them with glassy, starlit eyes. (Ask someone what their favorite word is sometime, it will explain almost too much about who they are. Even more so if they don’t have one at all.)

Will I ever find a cure for this apathy? I press on to March, hoping that spring might awaken my book lust once more.

"Courage," the Grey Wolf said,

"It doesn't come easily,

But it's what you need.

No one should keep their ghosts as pets."

Hello, I'm Tiffany Wolf. It's my first month as a certified gypsy. I'm sad to say that I spent the first week of it in a rather pathetic bout of depression and self-loathing. When you've spent so much time as a sad person, it takes a whole lot of bravery to teach yourself to be happy.

Even moreso, when you've spent so much of your life as an unpaid actress, being forced to play a role, it takes courage to figure out what even makes you happy to begin with. But I'm determined that the words I write won't be fit for a Shakespearean tragedy, as been a common theme in all past projects.

What is making me happy on this eleventh day of February? Heart shaped earrings, bangles, Earl Grey tea from teacups, and Dolly spinning the afternoon away. Mornings spent exploring my new neighborhood, and evenings getting lost in stacks of dusty books.

But I'm not ready to give up all my somberness. As Sally Sparrow once said, "sad is happy for deep people." Poignant sadness. Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie sadness.

‎"Your skin is something that I stir into my tea
And I am watching you
and you are starry, starry, starry"

Oh, hello there.

I am Tiffany Wolf:

Gypsy

Explorer

Book Reader

Girl

Would you like to go on an adventure?