Explore pop-culture, current events, hot-button topics and all things relationship-related with Pittsburgh native, editor and co-founder of twodaymag, Natalie Bencivenga.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
This year, I began my first year playing professional golf on the tour. Playing golf on tour can be a lonely experience. One thing many people don't realize is how isolated the tour is from the real world. When you are gone two to three weeks at a time, maintaining relationships at home can seem impossible. I worried when I started playing professionally how I would create a sense of normalcy on the road, and if I would have meaningful friendships.
Being a student of the University of Pittsburgh, you would think that I would know more about the bomb threat investigation that has made national news rather than someone who was not at all affiliated with the University.
Unfortunately, you’d be wrong.
When seeking information about these unsettling threats, I turn to online news sites in order to get information about the investigation. The University seldom updates us on the progress of the investigation directly. The only information we are privy to is when the bomb threats happen and where so we know to evacuate. We also receive the occasional new email about the measures that the University is taking to deal with the problem and to, as they say, ensure our safety.
It’s no secret that transgender people are perhaps the most commonly mocked members of our society. I believe this because they are terribly misunderstood.
This has been very aptly demonstrated in the recent firestorm over Canadian beauty queen Jenna Talackova’s expulsion from and then re-admittance to the Miss Universe pageant on the grounds that she was not born a female, despite the fact that she knew that at the age of four that she was a girl trapped in a boy’s body, began hormone therapy at the age of 14, and surgically changed her gender four years ago at 19.
Some people are upset she was expelled in the first place, others were upset she was allowed back in. She was originally expelled for not being a “natural born” woman, but after a little discussion with GLAAD, she was allowed back into the competition.
The very terminology sends people into a tizzy. What does transgender mean? What does it entail? Is she really a woman? Can a person be both a woman and transgender? Can we still find her attractive? Is she really a him because she was born a him?
Last week I was chatting with my father who is a golf professional, and he was telling me about how he used to get so upset with himself on the golf course. His mother had introduced him to the game while living in Mexico, and he had just started playing competitively. He walked off the course one day after playing and went home and started complaining to his mom about all the bad shots he hit. Nothing went right out there and he couldn't get over all the mistakes he made. Mama Cuy looked him and said, "Whenever I hear you talk about your rounds you only remember the bad shots. When I play, I remember the good shots because I hit so few of them."
When my father told me this story, it reminded me of how often I remember the good shots I hit on the golf course. It usually plays out like this: "I played well today, except I missed that three footer for birdie, and then I missed the green on the next hole, and then I missed another birdie putt."
All negative.
So your new relationship is moving right along just in time for a spring vacay. Yes! Or maybe you and your single pals are so over the dating scene you decide to get out of town for a little R & R, or perhaps a little mischief too! Simple etiquette can ensure when you are on holiday that you and everyone you are with have a great time. Here are five simple tips for vacationing together.
I generally prefer to stay out of explicitly political arguments on this blog. I find that they are usually one sided, circular, and self-serving considering I get to preach and there is no way the reader can argue with me within the text.
This is why I usually stick to vaguely humorous commentary about the Kardashian family’s shenanigans.
However, there are some subjects that I do feel comfortable talking about. Because frankly, in my extremely humble opinion, I believe that there are some subjects that have little other basis in modern politics and political parties—but despite this, they are given extremely strict political connotations.
Two main topics being gay marriage and contraception.
What have we done America?
Nicole Polizzi, better known as “Snooki,” is a Chilean-born guidette meatball who has previously appeared on MTV’s much discussed reality television show, The Jersey Shore.
In case you are unfamiliar, The Jersey Shore is, what I believe, to be an elaborate test on planet Earth’s tolerance for talentless narcissists, that was created by aliens from another planet who infiltrated MTV posing as that cool new-aged European producer, to see if we are capable of understanding and accepting complex truths about the universe and our place in it.
And for the record; we have failed miserably. The aliens are so frightened that they’ve gone back their home planet, and will most definitely go to their local space bar to do their best to repress us from their abnormally large frontal lobes via zero gravity enhanced Jell-O shots.
Ever look in the mirror and say, “You are such an idiot!” We’ve probably all had those moments, tearing ourselves down piece by piece.
Being nice to myself is a constant struggle. I get upset when I get lost. When I forget to run an errand I call myself a dummy. If I miss a make-able putt in a tournament, I feel like a downright loser.
After playing in a golf tournament a couple of weeks ago, a friend listened to me berate myself for a good ten minutes. I had had a terrible tournament and felt in that moment that I was the most stupid and horrible person to walk the face of the planet.
After I was done beating myself up, my friend said, “You would never talk to your friends the way you talk to yourself.”
I love politics. Nothing gets my blood more riled up than arguing with people over their skewed political views and proving just how right I am about everything.
But watching the political discourse taking place right now saddens me. I think the poison in political discussion today is so toxic that people just don’t bother to listen to one another anymore. This may be a big reason why so many people have such a hard time building positive relationships. We can’t relate to people we can’t hear. Or, to people we choose not to hear.
People are chastised for holding certain beliefs when we live in a country that is supposed to be open and accepting of the views of others. There lies a bitterness between liberals and conservatives that I don’t understand. Society automatically assumes that if a person holds a view not in line with theirs, he or she must be crazy or stupid. I know liberals who simply cannot be friends with conservatives and vice versa.
Forgive and forget. That is what we are taught to do from a very young age.
It’s supposed to be what is best for us. Once you forgive someone, you do your best to forget what they have done so that you can get on with your life. But sometimes, this advice appears to not be prudent or wise—especially when it comes to relationships. Sometimes, you really shouldn’t forget.
When singer Chris Brown first came on the scene, he was a very promising young talent. With his boyish features, incredible aptitude for performing, and pop-friendly radio hits, some were hailing him as the next “big thing.”
Then, as we all can recall, he physically assaulted Rihanna after the Grammy awards in 2009. After the incident, Brown’s skyrocketing career took a temporary nose dive.
In the days and weeks to come, we’ll probably learn what caused the death of singer Whitney Houston. Given her long, tumultuous relationship with drugs, many people have already reached their own conclusions.
Whitney Houston is certainly not the first female pop star to lose her battle with drug addiction, if that is what killed her. Within the past year, other women with unmistakable talent and amazing voices have died; Amy Winehouse at the young age of 27, and Etta James at age 73.
I have cracked. I have been broken. I have crumbled under the temptation.
Judge me. I understand. After all, it’s evident that I have a problem. I am, in fact, writing once more, despite promising myself that I would never again tread down this road, about a Miss Kimberly Kardashian. And as I walk this path, cold and alone, tripping over broken road signs entirely composed out of fake nails and self-indulgence, I wonder how I could have fallen this far once again.
But here I am. And here I shall blog.
Every time I pick up a magazine or to an online news source, there is always some health expert who is trying to recommend to you things to do that supposedly help elevate your mood during the long winter. The reason is obvious; in these ever gray east coast winters, one begins to feel a certain sense of lethargy and malaise. This made me feel like providing my own set of rules to help beat back those dastardly winter blues.
If running away to somewhere warm is not an option for you, please allow me to suggest a few alternatives to try. But because I’m realistic, and understand that people are busy/tired/unmotivated to try some of those alternatives, I have also supplied alternatives to those alternatives. Please enjoy.
Well, my dear friends, award season is finally upon us.
With it comes the glamor, the pageantry, the decadence, and in some cases, the mind numbing, nausea-inducing irritation that comes with viewing the endless barrage of red carpet coverage; and let’s not forget the numerous awkward conversations between Ryan Seacrest and Scarlet Johansson’s breasts.
Ryan, we know she has massive knockers. After all, they are in large part responsible for the majority of acting jobs she has acquired throughout the years. She knows it. We know it. Everyone knows it. You don’t need to draw attention to it by talking directly into her chest. Contain yourself. I mean, for Christ’s sake, you are just about the most licentious metrosexual man on television, with exception to the boys of the Jersey Shore.