After reading celebraTORI, professional famous person Tori Spelling's 275-page Pinterest post about "unleashing your inner party planner to entertain friends and family," I am somewhat surprised to report that my inner party planner does, in fact, exist, and that it thinks party favors are the coolest.

But my snarky sense of skepticism also exists (and is decidedly healthier), and it smirks, rubs its fat hands together, and orders another whiskey on the rocks when it encounters suggestions such as, "You must have many desserts, and they must be displayed at all different heights."

Because let's face it: Tori is not a terribly sympathetic character. This is a woman whose tits have gotten more press time than most other architectural mishaps, from when her daddy first bought them in her 90210 days to the picture her husband Dean McDermott "accidentally" tweeted last November. She's also the kind of person who whines about an $800,000 inheritance, so perhaps it should be unsurprising that her money-saving tips include, "Sometimes it is just plain better, and sometimes even cheaper, to throw money at the problem." (Trying to sort out her logic actually gave me a tension headache.)

But hey, I needed an excuse to have my friends over, and for most people "come meet my cats and cuddle in the sun room" is not a good enough reason to make the trip across town. So I promised cocktails and appetizers, and then I set to prepping with celebraTORI as my guide.

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http://cutestuff.co

Because unemployment can be bleak, here's an unrelated but uplifting photo of a kitten with a mustache.

I have been unemployed for the past seven months. During this time I've discovered that applying for jobs feels a lot like vomiting into the Bermuda Triangle: Every day, countless resumes, applications, and cover letters -- and the hours spent working on them -- vanish without a trace, seemingly swallowed by a rift in the space-time continuum.

I learned the unfortunate truth of this conspiracy theory after I quit my job last September. My family and friends all responded to my decision to wing it by saying, "Recession, rabble, rabble, rabble." But I figured a few weeks browsing Career Builder is all it would take to land a shiny new career -- right after I took a well-deserved vacation to South Padre Island, of course. But like I said, that was more than half a year ago. Now reality has settled in, and each day I become a little less certain that I will ever again be gainfully employed.

Here are five other things I've learned about long-term unemployment.

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Streams of whiskey are flowing.

In our early to mid-20s, most of us probably experienced what is euphemistically known as a "lost weekend." These temporary nosedives into extreme excess are frequently characterized by Jager shots with PBR chasers, beer pong, public nudity, making out with strangers, and/or pooping on your ex-boyfriend's car.

Far from being frowned upon, these occasional binges have become something of a cultural rite of passage, the crazy times you'll laugh about later over dinner with your former drinking buddies when you've all grown the fuck up.

But sometimes a youthful boozer is afflicted with a chronic case of arrested development and continues haunting the same old barstool, much to the detriment of grown-up jobs and relationships. When a 30-year-old stumbles from the bar to the taco truck and drips meat and salsa down her shirt before passing out on the curb, it's no longer cute and silly; it's just tired and kind of sad.

For these reasons I have recently capped the streams of whiskey flowing into my own life and quit being such an unrepentant drunk, for once. Here are five things I've noticed.

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The Atlantic

Jaroslav Flegr knows a lot about craziness and cat ownership.

Dear Jaroslav Flegr,

The other night I went to dinner with a friend, and while she was in the restroom I ate half of her sweet potato fries and then denied it. After I left the restaurant, I backed into someone's car in the parking lot and didn't leave a note. Then I went home, bumped my elbow on the kitchen counter, and got so mad I kicked the wall, leaving a smudged, grayish footprint on the white paint. When I move out, I'll deny that too.

When I fuck up these days, I don't take responsibility for any of it. No, instead I blame the parasites dwelling in my brain, pulling my strings, the most insidious of puppet masters. And it's all because of your research, featured in the March issue of The Atlantic, that I have this fabulous new scapegoat for my delinquency. I especially like to blame Toxoplasma gondii, or Toxo for short, a parasite frequently found in cat feces that has been shown to subtly alter human behavior. For relieving me of the crushing responsibility of being a good person, I must thank you.

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On a "holiday" intended to celebrate lovers, even relatively happy and well-adjusted single people can't help but feel a little left out.

Here's a quick and easy checklist of five ways you can make the VD suck less.

5. Masturbate. Because really, when doesn't that help?

4. Have you ever been eating a sandwich at a restaurant when suddenly you felt the tug of something like floss between your teeth, and you realized there was a hair in your mouth? And it would be slightly better if you were at home and you knew it was your hair, but instead you are in public, chewing on someone else's? And it's lunch hour and the restaurant is busy, and short of sticking out your tongue and combing it with your fingertips or spitting out globs of wet bread and meat on your plate and grossing out everyone around you, there's really nothing you can do about it? You just have to resign yourself to it with dignity: "I am going to eat this hair now." Basically, treat Valentine's Day like you're eating a hairy sandwich.

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passionateaboutbaking.com

​I know it's bad form, but sometimes I still want to eat as much junk food as possible as quickly as possible. Last night, for example, while in line at the grocery store, I wanted to grab as many Kit Kats and Twizzlers as I could carry and shovel them into my face hole on the drive home. In the same way other people imagine themselves winning a marathon, I visualized myself eating a Kit Kat in three large, gooey bites, forgoing the traditional suggestion to break me off a piece.

But I averted hyperglycemic crisis by grabbing a small container of fat-free Yoplait Light yogurt with a picture of black forest cake on the front -- fluffy white frosting, chocolate sprinkles, two layers of moist, dark chocolate cake, a bright red maraschino cherry on top. And only 100 calories! And, as I discovered once I got home and dug in, the disappointing flavor of shitty frozen strawberries and artificial sweetener. I think those shriveled, red globs in there were supposed to be cherries. I also think one of those unpronounceable ingredients listed on the back means "cruel lies."

I bring this up because I'm turning 30 this year (shout-out to all my fellow 1982 babies), and while I hoped that by now I would have the proverbial black forest cake, instead I'm clinging to a tiny bucket of strawberry lies. Fortunately, it's not all bad, and we wayward rogues in our late 20s and early 30s can still trick ourselves into feeling accomplished and satisfied while we finish getting our shit together. In addition to the obvious, like traveling, doing what you love, and motorboating kitties, here are a few suggestions.

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As you strive to improve yourself in the new year, in addition to crap like running on the treadmill, not eating in bed, only wearing sweatpants at home and sometimes to the grocery store, and doing laundry more than once a month, make at least one resolution you'll actually want to keep.

Today's suggestion: Become a karaoke superstar. Never mind your friends who are learning how to cook vegan meals or make blown glass art to sell on Etsy. Instead focus on mastering these five easy steps to singing other people's songs in places where beer is sold in 24-ounce "schooners," and the food, the bathroom, and most of the other patrons are all a little bit sketchy.

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Bridesmaids: A chick flick that doesn't suck.

​After my most recent breakup, my best friends insisted we drink wine and watch Sex and the City: The Movie. I was hesitant, anticipating a steaming pile of cinematic heartbreak with the obligatory wedding on top, but I was too stricken, starving, and sleepless to fight them. More >>

When I was a kid, for Christmas I got one of those dolls whose hair sprouted from the crown of her head when you cranked her arm clockwise like a pencil sharpener. The first thing I wanted to do was give her a haircut, so once I got away from the prying eyes of Mom and Dad, I hacked off her blond ponytail with a pair of scissors. Then I rotated her arm a couple of turns, and, like magic, her hair re-grew.

Naturally I applied this same logic to my new kitten's fur and whiskers -- if I cut them off, they'd grow back immediately, right? Unfortunately that was not the case, and the poor fella spent several weeks barefaced and sporting several unsightly bald spots. (Don't worry, though: His hair and whiskers did eventually grow back, and he lived happily for 17 years. Also, my parents yelled at me.)

If only I'd read Crafting with Cat Hair: Cute Handicrafts to Make with Your Cat, Japanese author Katsori Tsutaya's step-by-step guide to turning your pets' fur balls into felt and thereby cementing your status as the crazy cat lady, I would have known that scissors are not an appropriate implement for harvesting cat hair: "When crafting with your cat, it is important to remove hair only by gentle brushing. Do not shave your cat."

This is good to know, because when the title says "handicrafts to make with your cat," it isn't just being cute. These crafts contain their DNA.

Coming up: I harvest my own cats' fur and construct some handicrafts... while drunk. On silliness!

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Andrew Currie

Her world.

Well, mine anyway.

There is no shittier companion during a late-fall funk than my Blackberry Torch.

It constantly wants to tell me if anyone has called, texted, Facebooked, Twittered, or e-mailed by flashing that little red notification light that feels like a laser boring into my brainmeat.

Even worse, though, is when Torch is dark and still, sitting always just within my line of sight. If Torch were a guy, his back would be turned and his arms crossed, and he would occasionally glance over his shoulder at me and sigh. I'd ask him what's wrong, and he'd say, "Nothing. Don't worry about it." But his vibe would be steaming like warm water on cold pavement: Fuck off, you needy bitch.

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