New town, familiar problems. According to my Google Image search, “college” is 90% buildings, 9.95% girls with low self-esteem in tiny panties, and .05% a family comedy starring the Disney chick from That’s So Raven. Something is seriously wrong with college.

Recently, I moved about three hours north from my hometown. Let’s pretend that that’s why I haven’t updated the site in a couple of months, shall we? Much as I loved living in the same place I grew up, in an apartment that perpetually smelled like mold, where my downstairs neighbors believed that we played bongos all night and that a black man lived on the roof across the street; as much as I enjoyed taking the bus every day to work at a bookstore where I had customers tell me they didn’t like to read (how is that even possible), or who would describe their intestinal problem to me in excruciating detail so I could help them find a book on it, or where homeless people would bathe in our restroom and sleep overnight in our biographies section…as much as I loved all that, it was time for bigger things. Bigger things like graduate school. So, Sean and I have moved to a university town.

Now, I know I may act like an ass-kicking, name-taking, F-bomb-dropping, ‘80s-romancing snarkalicious machine. But the truth is that, aside from all of those things (which I so totally am), I also have a sensitive side. A nougaty middle. An advanced ventrial stratium. I’m just a warm, fuzzy, cuddly bear—who will also be judging you for your lack of proper punctuation and insufficient handwashing.

So, one of these “feelings” I have (that is a really weird word, when you think about it; it makes me think that every emotion is a tiny feeling creature hopping around the world for you to scoop up. Oh, my God, I just invented a Facebook app. Shoot me) is insecurity. I have it in big, whopping, delicious doses. So I’m in Mensa? But my hair looks terrible today and these pants don’t fit! And our new hometown is bringing this out hardcore.*
*Which is NOT to say, please send me comments about how I’m cute. If I wanted to fish for compliments on the Internet, I would go on WoW and pretend to be a teenage boy pretending to be a hot college girl. Laugh at me instead.

Perhaps it would help if I told you what I looked like (when I’m not a zombie). From the front, I’m kind of a little hottie. Well, I’m using the term “hottie” rather loosely. I wouldn’t know what to do with makeup if Max Factor himself kidnapped me, my idea of formal wear is “involves buttons,” and I was once complimented by an older gentleman on having a hairstyle like the Amish. I don’t have “ironic” Playboy bunny pajamas/underwear/tattoos, or a desire to be on Girls Gone Wild, which I think is part of the dictionary definition of “hottie.” I’m not THAT insecure.

Also, I shouldn’t call myself “little.” There is nothing “little” about a 6’4” woman who has limbs like Twizzlers and the inexplicable ability to dead-lift and carry smaller female friends. And I have the gait of a giraffe-ostrich hybrid left to die in the parking lot of a research laboratory. I’m so clumsy and inflexible, when I do the Downward Dog, people think I’m drowning. But I have some good features. I have excellent hygiene, and I can occasionally distract others from my obvious genetic failings via the use of props, such as Tina Fey glasses and colorful tee shirts.

And that’s just from the front. Seen from the side, I become so thin that I defy Euclidean angles, and from the back, you will wonder why someone dressed a dust mop in pants. I tell you all this not because I think it will endear me to you if you know that my most advanced makeup is Dr Pepper Lip Smackers, or that any chair harder than a La-Z-Boy will bruise my bony ass. That’s just depressing. No, I tell you this because I believe in Keeping It Real. Being that I’m a lily-white girl, who knows more about Arrested Development than Snoop Dogg lyrics (I do know how to do the Tootsie Roll, does that count?), I’m not quite sure what Keeping It Real means, but I think it has something to do with wearing FUBU and not getting an education. However, since I did grow up in what passed for the projects in a city where there are more souvenir stores than gas stations, I can safely say that Keeping It Real is very, very important.

I kind of forgot where I was going with this.

Oh, yeah. So, my new city doesn’t exactly bring out the best in me on the insecurity front. Don’t get me wrong—my new city is pretty nice. The houses are adorable, the streets are tree-lined, and there are always cute children on bicycles riding around the park, going to get ice cream. There are also seasons here (at least, for a California girl), so I am enjoying my first-ever real summer—today it’s almost 100 degrees out. It’s kind of like an ‘80s summer camp movie, only all my friends live hours away and it’s kind of boring, but, ya know. At least, that’s how I like to think of it, because I desperately wish I could have gone to summer camp (my kids are going to go and they’re going to like it, and they’re sure as hell going to make some priceless memories, or else they’re not coming home). The town is so charming, I keep waiting for the twins from The Shining to show up at my door, or for a Shirley Jackson-style death lottery to start up, or for reports of sewer monsters to surface.

But I’ve never lived in a university town, so I’m having a bit of a culture shock. And the thing is that with the combination of nice weather, a high standard of living, and a plethora of frats and sororities, my new city is home to a lot of…how do I say this delicately? Cosmo-reading, Sex and the City-watching, Louboutin-buying, Smirnoff-Ice-drinking, IQ-lowered, tramp-stamp-sporting bimbos.

I’m starting to think that our apartment complex is actually a halfway house for kids who’ve left the Greek scene but haven’t yet learned the skills needed to rejoin normal society. Drunk roof party at 4 AM? Woo! No. No woo. (Sean points out that I see so many breezies in part because, since I don’t have a job and I haven’t started school, my main contact with people is going to my university’s massive gym. This is true. It’s kind of a meat market. I say that even though I myself do not want to be compared to sirloin steak, but for some girls that is probably a step up from being called “the girl who looks like that other girl who threw up a lot at Trevor’s kegger.”)

These chicks aren’t your garden-variety breezies; they are an army of sorority Amazons. Only instead of cutting off one breast so that they can be better archers—because OMG, how would they fill out that cute new Hollister top they bought?—they show their Amazonian loyalty by ritualistically bleaching their hair, waxing their hoo-has, and tanning to a nice, leathery glow. (I’m pale, because my people hail from England and Germany, where there is no sun for ten months out of the year and when it does come out, they think it’s witches.) It’s hard to tell if the girls have attractive faces or not, because of both their unblinking allegiance to uniformity and their giant, butterface-hiding-sunglasses. I’m frightened.

I’m not saying there aren’t himbos here, but it’s different, and everyone knows it. Even the shallowest, most Abercrombie and Fitch-loving dude doesn’t have to spend nearly as much time or money as your average female The Hills fan does on her looks. Also, dudes get to stand around being strong and silent, throwing out the occasional gay joke or party “Woo!”; they don’t talk constantly in a high-pitched bat voice, saying mostly “Yeah, tooootally” and “Oh my GAWD! *gigglegigglebarf*.” Unlike bimbos, himbos don’t see a boys’ night out as an opportunity to take Facebook photos of themselves doing “joking” homoerotic things to each other while wearing tight clothes; they see it as an excuse for tits and beer. They do shit they want to do, however immature and morally repugnant it may be, and are confident in the knowledge that some desperate hot chick with daddy issues is going to give them a squeezer within the first five minutes of their next frat party. I’m not saying any of it is right or fair, but that’s how sexism works. Right, sexism? Hey, sexism, sorry I couldn’t take you up on that whole act-dumber-than-you-are-until-it-isn’t-an-act-and-say-that-feminism-is-icky-so-that-boys-will-like-you thing!

Aside from my obnoxiously overflowing sense of intellectual superiority, the fact remains that it’s a humbling experience to walk into kickboxing class and face an entire cheerleading squad’s worth of Barbie girls in matching Thi-Pheta-Zoidberg sorority tees. It’s not like I want to look like them, because if I did, I would just head on down to the salon and follow it up with a nice lobotomy. Nor do I want their douchey boyfriends (named Dominic/Ethan/Jake Ryan) to want me, because Lord knows I am not attracted to airheaded pretty boys who think bro comedies and Kanye West lyrics are the height of Western civilization. But there is some weird mammalian instinct that causes me to envy them for their fitness as sexual selection partners. At the very least, I wish I had the cash to buy a wardrobe full of workout pants that say “Juicy” and “Pink” on the butt (paging Dr. Freud), not that I would. I’d probably spend it all on stupid things like books and Doctor Who tee shirts.

Oh, well. Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way. If this is like an ‘80s summer camp movie, then that makes me the resourceful guy in a Hawaiian shirt and mismatched Converse who has to bring together the fat kid, the nerdy black kid, and the tomboy Asian girl (Sean, of course, would be the cool-guy party mascot named Bonesy). The breezies would be the bitchy rich-kid camp across the lake that wants to tear down our camp and put in a golf course. It’s time for pranks and a panty raid. With a little spunk, ingenuity, and a whole lot of rock ‘n’ roll, this ragtag bunch of misfits might just save the day!

Cue “Walk Like an Egyptian” and roll montage. Happy summer, everyone!