Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend!

The older I get, the more I regard my twenties with shame and embarrassment. I know this is not the goal and I actively try to have compassion for the idiot I was, but it’s not easy. I was entitled, arrogant, defensive, petty, and I didn’t groom my pubic hair. That alone is not really a big deal but the thing is, for whatever reason, I didn’t realize that everyone else was weed wacking. Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend! is a reader-supported publication.

Last night I took my nine-year-old to see The Phantom of the Opera at the Pantages. I was hoping it would resonate with him in the same electrifying way it did for me when I saw it at fifteen. I immediately needed to see it a bunch of more times or I would simply wither away and die. Does it hold up all these years later, I wondered, as the stage filled with mist and candelabras and the orchestra pit pumped out melodramatic 80s synth pop? For me it was a resounding YES.

When I finally got pregnant at 41, after my husband and I did two grueling years of IVF and countless procedures to whip my uncooperative reproductive system into shape, there was a part of me that still imagined myself as a teenager. “Such a shame, pregnant at 41 with her whole life ahead of her,” I thought to myself, dramatically, as I dropped a pile of pregnancy tests on the conveyer belt at CVS. Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend! is a reader-supported publication.

Overall, my time on ACS was positive. The unfortunate ending has not colored the whole experience. That being said, I do have some regrets. To be honest, I have regrets covering all of my years on this earth, which at this point are many. I long to be one of those no regrets kinda people, whom I deep down suspect are maybe kinda dumb, but it’s just not in the cards for me. Speaking of longing to be a different kind of person, I recently sat through the lengthiest dance recital in the world.

I recently went through boxes of old schoolwork my mom had kept in the garage. Unlike the system I use with my kids’ endless papers which is to have no system, my mom kept it pretty organized. She was a hoarder with a plan! What a journey I went on: from reading my grade school papers and admiring my precociousness to reading my college essays and wishing I could be liquified and poured down the garbage disposal. Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend! is a reader-supported publication.

This is a Substack post in which I talk about what’s going on with my Substack and while it’s been burbling up for awhile, I’ve just smushed it back down because it was drummed into me that writing about writing is awful. Indulgent. Navel-gazing. Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I’m filled with a horrendous thought, technically an horrendous thought. It’s that life is passing me by, my kids are growing up, and instead of being present for them I am wasting my time refreshing meaningless apps and pursuing meaningless pursuits. And at the end of my life I will regret the way I spent most of it. I will wish I had been a more present parent, I will wish I savored each day. I will wish I had spent more time living and less time lying in bed with a heat pad on my midsection.

I remember realizing my nose wasn’t exactly small when I was in my early teens. I felt betrayed. The family line was that I was BEAUTIFUL, I was just overweight—a message that led to a lifetime of disordered eating and a messed up relationship with my body that I’m still untangling—but here was proof that in addition to being big-boned I was also big-nosed? Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend! is a reader-supported publication.

My first live Adam Carolla show was a heady affair. When I began the gig as newsgirl I don’t know that we would be doing live shows. I was aware there had been a live show at the Playboy Mansion, a place I’ve been quarce times myself which is a story for another day, but I thought of that as an anomaly. An offshoot of the radio show. Wait, you are likely thinking, did this bitch just say quarce? Is that even a word? Yes I fucking did and no it’s fucking not unfortunately.

It's not exactly hummers galore A number of birds visit my backyard. While I always kinda suspected I had what it takes to make me popular with birds, now I have scientific proof. Since Christmas, we’ve had a bird feeder with a camera in it that sends me alerts every time a bird shows up. And by the way, it’s not just like “10:34 am: bird” or anything quite so prosaic. It tells you what kind of bird and it even gives you video. Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend! is a reader-supported publication.