Poo-poo flavored popsicles and all that's irritating!

I promise to post again soon. It appears my life is a little hectic and poo-poo flavored right now. Who wants to read about that?

Here – take this stupid quiz (I know it’s gotten that bad): I lay odds we all come up pirates – RRRR!


pirates of the caribbean


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me and my pops 

Another sleepless night

Last night was another night of restlessness. I woke up to the thunder that won’t leave our city. It’s been raining here for weeks, and it doesn’t look like it will change anytime soon. The crash of lightening sounded so close that I shuddered and tried to snuggle down deeper into the sheets. I was frightened like a child watching the shadows dancing on my wall.

I miss my grandfather. I miss the way he would always tell me things straight. No frills, no innuendos, just the plain hard truth. It usually stung a little, but they were honest words. I learned to stand up tall and respect the truth for what it was and what it would do for me.

My life wasn’t surrounded by truth. It was something that lurked around corners, and was covered by my mother. She would save us from that bitter sting of the truth. We were confused, but not in pain. Eventually reality ceased to exist in that house. Our words were exchanged for others to fit a particular agenda. Your memory was altered to aid the design of another’s agenda. Our perception was a combination of cloudy facts and prescribed ideas.

I would jump out of my parent’s car and right into the lap of my grandfather. Tell me everything. Tell me about when I was born. Tell me about your parents.

He would talk to me for hours. His blue eyes would light up during the pivotal parts of the story. His brow would furrow and he’d puff on his cigar in a magnificently strong manner. His demeanor commanded respect. His character demanded honesty. At times I would ask questions too hard for him to answer. He knew the fables my parent’s spun, and would not directly reveal their lies. Instead he would tell me that my instinct was right and that something was wrong there, but that people do crazy things to try and help others.

From time to time he would expose the truth to me, regardless of my parent’s efforts to protect me. Some truths were essential to me and he knew that, and he offered those words at a heavy price. My grandmother often shamed him for going against my parents. She is a relentless woman living in a make believe world of her own.

Listening to the rain last night, my instincts were warning me of something. Something is not as it appears in my world. I can feel the lie lingering, but I can’t uncover the deception. I’m afraid of it. I feel like that little girl who wants to go back and sit in her grandfather’s lap. I yearn for the assurance that everything will be all right. I want him to remind me how strong I am. I want to hear his words telling me that I am different than the people around me, but to be thankful for that gift.

Like I said, I just miss my grandfather and it won’t stop raining.

Just a little more, baby - I'm almost there

I went shopping on my lunch break today. I was suppose to go and buy food for our company Thanksgiving lunch tomorrow, but those greedy bastards can wait. I need shoes and jeans and maybe a top and…

I wandered around the store picking up an armful of mismatched articles, and resisted picking up the one-piece leather strapless dress with more buckles than a courier bag. Yes, I was at Sluts and More – why do you ask?

I tromped into the dressing room, threw my clothes on the chair and swung around to see myself in the mirror. Not bad today. Damn, I’m kinda hot today. I think I’ll give myself a little strip tease. So off I go doing my best impression of an Anna Nicole pre-junkie-pre-fatty trash dance. Off comes the shirt and bra – after lots of twirling of course. Ta dada da da…I’m humming as I slide down my pants shaking my ass. I go to pull off my tall boot and ….and….where the hell’s the pull on the zipper? It’s at that moment, as I was bending down with my pants around my thighs that I fell and hit my head on the mirror.

“Umm, mam? Are you ok? Can I help you?” asks the 13-year-old attendant. “Oh, no – quite fine. Thanks”

Which takes me into an uncontrollable laughter at myself. So there I am naked from the top up curled over trying with all of my might to make the damn zipper go down. I don’t realize that I’m grunting, but it wasn’t budging. “Errrr – uggggg, come on…come on baby…”

“Mam, you’re sure you’ all right?”
“Yes, fine – thank you”

I take out my key chain and finally manage, after lots more grunting, to get the damn zipper down and the boot off. I am the McGuiver of women, after all. I let out a big relieved sigh and tried my clothes on, in a very humble way. Three of the workers are standing in the corner of the store laughing at me as I walk out. The odd part was is that they didn’t stop when I looked at them scornfully.

I proceed to the check out counter and wait to be rung up. Finally, one of the ugly laughers comes and says in a giggly voice, “Will that be all?”

“No – thrown in the trashy leather dress and a pair of those red panties” I smirk back.

I hope they think I’m the whore that I really am deep down inside. Can’t a girl have any fun by herself anymore?

Hold my hand in the middle of the night

It’s the phone call I made last night at 4:30 in the morning that reminds me I’m loved. I was lying in bed listening to the rain rustle the leaves on the oak outside my window and worrying about my upcoming exam.

I haven’t studied enough. I’m never going to pass. I’m going to end up doing all of this work for nothing. I should have known I couldn’t do this.

I need to pay bills and look at my finances. When was the last time I did that? I wonder if I’m late or have missed a payment on anything. I hope my credit isn’t affected.

I’ve been drinking too much. It will probably age me and I will end up looking like 50-year-old woman by Christmas. And the smoking, too. Ridiculous. When was the last time I worked out? I really need to get my life together.

Then I went back to the beginning and started in on myself about studying. I finally looked over at the clock and realized I had been at this for over an hour.

I picked up my phone and called Rojo. No answer, but then he called back a minute later. “You ok, baby?” I explained my lack of sleep, my lack of motivation, my indulgent behavior and what I mess I am. He yawned and started talking me down in his sleepy voice so far away. “You’re fine. You can do this. Take one thing at a time and don’t get scared.”

I hung up the phone and snuggled down into my pillow. The wind still billowing outside, but my thoughts were calmer. I stayed awake for a couple more hours thinking about how loved I am, and how lucky I am to have a voice on the other side of the phone in the middle of the night. Some one who knows how relentless I am on myself, but always helps me snap out of it.

I wish you all a voice on the other side of the line.

Stranger Danger

I love it when my friends are falling down in despair and pull me right into that deep dark void with them.

This weekend D was in town from Houston. D’s coming off of one of the nastiest divorces I’ve ever seen, and is doing the best he can. This can be defined as chasing women and drinking like a fish.

Friday night was comparable to a bar marathon, rather than a pub-crawl. We sauntered in and out of bars looking for women – any kind of women. Just show me one! The girls must have put out a warning, because there was not one lady in the city of Austin at any of the bars we popped into.

Saturday was spent eating and drinking beer around the house. We followed it up with a quick nap and were back on the town running from bar to bar. We actually found some girls and D found one to take home. He left the bar and went straight to her house. Around 7:30 in the morning he stumbled back home to my house.

A: Why are you home so early?
D: Because she woke me up and told me she couldn’t sleep with a stranger in her house.
A: What?
D: Turns out she couldn’t sleep because she thought of me as a stranger.
A: Did you guys have sex?
D: Yep.
A: Talk about Stranger Danger…and she’s worried about you sleeping?

Sunday we headed off for Mexican food and more cocktails. We also thought it might be nice to find our missing credit cards from the night before. We never found our credit cards, but D did find himself the owner of a new painting. D also learned the girl selling the painting at the club doesn’t come with the purchase.

Monday morning I waved as D drove off. We must have cleared $2,000 off of our group’s credit cards this weekend, with the largest tabs on Sunday night. I can barely afford a $50 tab once a week, much less this type of spending. Oh, to be young and stupid though. I wouldn’t take any of it back.

Except, well there is one thing. The next time I dry hump the Capitan Morgan’s pirate in public, the least you boys could do is snap a picture. Wonder if the Captain is worried about Stranger Danger?

Free therapy

Today I was thinking back on all my old therapists. They have so much of my money, and they’ve squandered so much of my time. I thought perhaps you all might benefit from my plight of self-discovery

Therapist #1 – I worked with this therapist in high school. My alcoholic mother sent me to her because I had anger issues. Wonder why? It couldn’t be the result of my Mom drinking all night and that my friends called her Mike Tyson for obvious reasons. No, you’re right. It’s me. Her advice, “You know how there are always several roads ahead of you. Maybe you’re at the point where your intuition is confused. Perhaps by doing the opposite of what you feel, you may find the other road has less pot holes”. Ohh, good one. Ignore your gut feelings and intuition.

Therapist #2 – I started seeing therapist #2 after my mother entered a full time treatment center and my father left her. The coordinators thought “family” therapy was a good idea. Since I was the only one living in town, family therapy boiled down to just me. I was asked to bring in my journal one day, and randomly flip through the pages and read a passage. I turned pages and ended up on a poem I wrote about drowning in my sorrows. Given the commotion in my life at the time, it’s not abnormal to me that I wrote that. My father had left, my mother was a raving lunatic in a treatment center, and I was completely alone for the first time in my life. The lady told me I needed to be in a lock down facility and treated for depression. (As a side note, none of my other therapists have ever thought I have had anything other than situational depression). I was then told I could go to work. “You’re okay to go to work, aren’t you?” I left thinking, “Yea bitch, you just told me that I can’t cope in society right now because I’m so fucked up. Work is no big deal.” Needless to say, I never went back to that therapist again.

Therapist #3 was during my college years. Her advice, “Have you considered smoking more pot”. No, but you might be on to something there. I eventually stopped going because she suggested I read, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” with a boy I had been dating for about a month. I was 22 at the time. Can you imagine what he would have thought about that one?

Therapist #4 had a giant crystal in her office. The X started going to her before I did. I was mortified to realize he thought the crystal was some type of ottoman and had been resting his feet on it during sessions. I terminated working with her because she started doing Chakra and astrological work with me. I could have dealt with those ideas on a different forum, but paying someone $150 an hour to read my chart was a little out of my league. She also decided all of my problems were due to my ADHD. Again, something no other therapist has ever brought up to me.

Therapist #5 takes the cake. Three months before the wedding, I decided I wanted to call it off. I was unable to work and I felt like I was having a complete breakdown. I saw her in a couples setting, and it was quickly determined that I needed one on one sessions because I didn’t want to have sex with my fiancé. These sessions focused on my intimacy issues, which we also discussed with the X. This lady suggested a technique called Quiet Vagina by Masters and Johnson. She tells us the fiancé has to keep an erection for 30 minutes and place his penis inside me. Neither of us can move or act on the situation. Basically you just lay in this position for 30 minutes. Needless to say, the ride home with the fiancé was deathly quiet. We never tried quiet vagina, although when it comes to mind we look at each other and say, “Shhhh – quiet vagina” and break into uncontrollable laughter. That was $150 well spent for the laughs alone. I’m still not sure how this technique would have helped, because I couldn’t even hold hands with him at the time.

Therapist #6 – Miss Suzanna. I trust her the most out of all of them. She’s extremely educated and dedicates her practice to sex therapy. Which, of course, was what I thought was wrong with me. Turns out it wasn’t, but before we figured that out Miss Suzanna came to an early hypothesis of the problem. Turns out my vagina was all wrong. Yep, wrong. Not in a physical or structural way, but in a muscle memory way. You know how when you lift weights and you train your muscles to remember that exercise? She thought that my bad sexual experiences has trained my vagina to accept all stimuli as a bad situation. Therefore, my girl was all wrong and needed to be retrained. Wow. I’m happy to say that I didn’t have to retrain my womanhood. I should really call her back and tell her that my vagina is really very happy and says “Hi”. I’ve never had a complaint, and she seems to work like a charm.

At the end of my journey, I’ve learned there is nothing wrong with me. I was just searching for a way to control my situation and fix my problems. If I thought the problem was me, I rationalized that I could just fix myself. What I learned in the end is that there’s not a damn thing wrong with me. I may not know why I feel a particular way, or react in a certain fashion, but in the end I’m just human.

So, here you go. Here’s what I learned for approximately $30,000: There doesn’t have to be anything wrong with you. Sometimes things are just the way they are.

Through everything bad...

I always knew that something was lacking in my marriage. Busy with the constant daily chores and parties at our house, I never stopped to really think about it. Everything was planned a month in advance, and there was never time for introspection.

I thought I was happy. We got a long famously, he made me laugh, and made sure fresh flowers were always in the house for me. We started planning kids in the next year, and I started a new job. We rode bikes and talked about how happy we were together. My birthday came and we threw a beautiful party and fell asleep like two old friends. No kissing, no romance, but I loved that he was there.

I met a friend out a couple of weeks later for a drink. I placed a strict curfew on myself, and met up with her downtown. When it was time to go, I walked her to the bar where her husband was drinking with friends. I walked in and greeting her hubby. They quickly walked out for a smoke and left me with one of his friends I hadn’t met before. He was tall and cocky, wearing a hideous Hawaiian shirt, and smuggling drinking a cocktail.

“What’s up?” he asked rudely.
“Nothing, who are you again” “Boy S (although he should have said Satan), and you?”
“Amanda. You know, that has to be the ugliest shirt I have ever seen” and I laughed.

It was the ugliest shirt I had ever seen, why lie? For some reason people don’t usually know how to take my rudeness and continue talking to me anyway. We left the bar and headed to another one across the street with our friends. I called my husband, “I’ll be home later than I thought. I love you”. Satan looked at me and asked if that was my husband. He then proceeded to laugh at me for checking in.

He was overwhelming in size, in volume, and his mere presence suffocated the room. At the end of the night he walked with me out to our cars. I thought he was attractive, but nothing devious came to mind. I was ready to be at home with the hubby.

He leaned over and kissed me, pushing me into the side of my car. I was shocked. I pulled away and looked up at him in amazement. “Come here” he said grabbing my hair and placing his leg in between mine so he could slightly raise me to his level. We finally stopped and I got into my car after refusing to give him my number.

I drove home in silence realizing everything was about to change. I couldn’t pretend anymore with the hubby. I hadn’t kissed him in over 4 years, and I forgot what passion was. I forgot what it was like to actually want someone without it feeling like a job or a responsibility. Sex was a duty that shamed me. I forced the act because I didn’t want my husband to feel less attractive.

I wonder what would have happened if Satan hadn’t kissed me. Would I have kids now? Would I have gone on pretending that it’s normal for married people to only have sex once a year? Would I have spent my life wondering what was wrong with me?

I also think about Satan and if knew he was changing my life by one simple action. He threw a rock in a pond creating a million ripples that he never knew about. My life forever changed. The hubby’s life forever changed. It wasn’t because of Satan. It was because he woke me up.

At the time I thought I had committed the ultimate crime by kissing that man. Today I realize it was just a small act in this huge production. The hubby and I are happier now than before. We miss one another terribly, but our souls are more at rest. Women hit on him and remind him how attractive he is; something I could never do. In return, I don’t have to pretend that I’m content without a sex life. We have a second chance at our happiness. It’s a beautiful opportunity.

Glad to be back

Do you wake up every Monday and wonder when your liver is going to pack up and move out of your body? I’m pretty sure mine is thinking about getting out before the 1st of the year. This weekend didn’t help.

I drove to Houston on Saturday donning a low cut cocktail dress and ridiculously high heels. I was suppose to wear my drinking shoes, but they just didn’t work with the rest of my outfit. The minute I pulled up and the valet opened my car door, I knew it was going to be a long night. I walked approximately 10 feet to a bar outside the door of the building, was handed a vodka tonic, and usher inside to meet 200 people strangers. Eventually I found friendly faces midst a sea of hors d'oeuvres and flowers. Welcome to a birthday party in Houston. It was over the top in every possible way.

After all the courses were served, the 20-piece band packed up, and the dancers were done performing we headed out to a club. We were bumped and pushed into a VIP room and handed shots. People started leaving for “the bathroom” in droves. They would come back, take a sip of their drink, and head back to the bathroom again. I found refuge on a huge couch with the company of a Jack and coke. It’s hard staying awake when you’re one of the few people in the crowd who doesn’t partake in party favors.

At 2:00 am we were pushed into cars and driven to someone’s house for an after hours party. By this point I had consumed roughly 10 drinks and was sitting in a courtyard talking to a friend who was also running to the bathroom every 5 minutes. On one of her excursions a man came up and sat next to me. The conversation went something like this:

Guy: Hey you’re Amanda, right?
Me: Yup (I’m digging in my pocket searching for cookies I stole at the party earlier in the night)
G: You want to get out of here
M: I’m fine (I’m eating my cookie trying to sober up)
G: You sure? It’s only 5:30
M: Where are we going to go at 5:30 in the morning?
G: You’re kidding right?
M: Oh, got ya. No, I’m fine here
G: I make a lot of money
M: I make enough on my own
G: I drive Mercedes blah blah blah
M: I don’t know anything about cars
G: You’re kind of a bitch, aren’t you?
M: Only to guys I don’t want to fuck

Guy # 1 leaves and I sit there about 2 minutes before his friend comes up.

G2: I heard you just blew off my friend
M: I don’t know your friend.
G2: Well, if it makes you feel any better I make more than twice what he does
M: That’s nice
G2: You want to come with me?
M: Are you guys serious?
G2: The three of us could go if that would be better for you.

I didn’t realize it was an auction.

I’m convinced this is the type of behavior that comes to people who never had a parent. These are the kids who were chauffeured around town, whisked in an out of private schools when they set fires in the halls, and received their trust funds at 16. Some of them raised themselves well, but the majority of them are grown men with no sense of responsibility. Surrounded with lawyers and connections, their life is about having a good time without any cares. $500 tab, who turn is it? Wrecked your M-3? I know a buddy who can get you a new one by the end of the day. Drugs? No problem, they’ll be here within the hour. Women? No problem, we know plenty of girls who will sleep with you for your money.

I left late on Sunday night from my friend’s house. He was tucked in bed next to a beautiful woman he hardly knows. I popped my head in his bedroom. “Night D. I’ll see you next time,” I said quietly. His hollow eyes looked up at me. “By Crazy A, I love you.”

Driving home I thought about his eyes. Waking up to a different stranger every weekend and partying with the boys has drained him. His biggest problem now is finding a woman who loves him, and not his money. I can’t imagine living there again and watching all the lost souls try to forget. Take this, drink that, party more. Forget about your failed marriage, your empty life, and your lifeless existence. Work out, buy that car, and invest in this. Don’t look inside where you’ve destroyed your body, heart and mind.

It was a good weekend for me, but I’m so glad to be home. I love my friends who ride bikes, drive crappy cars, and talk about Funyons. Houston can keep their fast passed life, I’m happy to be in Austin were things are slower and the people are more down to earth.

Make a baby and save America!

I just hung up the phone with my sister,Meme. Yes, the conservative one. Bad idea. It was a rambling conversation about the bias liberal media, how great Bush is, how the US should not have to abide by the UN, and how Kerry had no plan. Is this person honestly related to me?

At what point does the whole nature versus nurture argument come into play? I felt sick to my stomach. She tells me that the Republicans are not made up of rich bastards trying to profit off of other Americans. Meme wants you to know that Democrats created that idea so you wouldn’t like the red team. This idea is brought to you from the woman who has more money than Jebus and read Dr. Laura books.

Regardless of the intricacies of our debate, I was shocked to hear her perspective. Polar opposite doesn’t do the situation justice. Ideas like, “Kerry didn’t want war, now he does want war” spewed from her lips. Rush L. is a figurehead in my family, and Meme was propagating on his behalf.

I’m adopted. Every now and again I remember this fact, and it always feels like a breath of fresh air. I always feet like an outsider around my family. I grew up creating my own liberal ideas, while the other children swallowed spoons full of conservative ideology without blinking an eye. I played the piano and wrote, while they played sports. How does one develop their political convictions?

I’ve heard over and over that your political affiliation is more likely to be an inheritated trait, rather than a learned behavior. Certainly exceptions exist. However, in my case it appears to have genetically worked as prescribed. I am an odd ball in a room full of rednecks and moral superiors. I can’t wait for Christmas.

On the other hand, I don’t have to worry about things my sisters fret over. I’m not going to be my mom anymore than they will end up being like my birthmother. I don’t worry about mental instabilities passed down from my father’s side of the family. For me, it’s a free for all and I’m perfectly content with it. I feel grateful that I don’t share their DNA. I feel lucky that I alone define myself. It is a gift most people don’t receive genetically, and one that I don’t take for granted.

I’m frustrated I can’t change her mind. I’m angry that people can’t see another viewpoint, when I try so hard to look at every angle. I do feel cheated and robbed over the election, but we have to keep trying to stay open minded. It’s either that, or everyone who is not a republican needs to start making babies to save America.

More Bizarre Balloon References and Insights As To Why I Am A Nut

I laid in bed the other morning staring at the light peering in through the blinds. I was wondering where I went wrong. More precisely, wondering what the hell was wrong with me. Why is it that I desperately long for things that others can simply pass up with a slight wave of the hand? I wanted that connection, that feeling of slipping into another’s soul, just one last time. I needed to ingrain a memoir in my mind to read over and over again until I saw him again.

I stumbled around the airport like a vagrant wishing I could pass out underneath one of the endless rows of chairs. I didn’t want to stay in San Diego and I didn’t want to go home. I wanted out of my skin, my so-called home, and my trivial little life.

I woke up this morning feeling slightly more like myself. I was able to wink at myself in the rearview mirror on my way to work. I traded in my needs and insecurities for the insight of understanding another human’s condition. I reminded myself that I am where I need to be right now and kept walking.

And then I read this. I cried like a child who watched her balloon fly away because she accidentally let go of the string. I’m sitting here wondering if my hand was clenched too tightly, or if I was aloof in my task. I’m wondering if anything in this world is ever ours to keep, or if I’m fool to not realize it all belongs to us under predestined circumstances.

Do you remember how easily things come at first? I love the beauty of learning another’s body, while you study their mind.

I’m struggling with a situation with so little information. How do you understand that it’s not you, when someone tells you it’s not? Why can’t it be simple and easy? Why do I feel like I have to ask to be loved, and then ashamed for asking? Why can’t I be content with what I have?
I wish I was the balloon some days. A simple free floating object that drifts over this world with the clarity of distance and reminds people that we can love things that go their own way.

Great. Am I going to start pretending I’m a balloon now?


**As a side note, I could not be happier for Jen. If you don’t read Miss Hot Pants daily, you’re missing out**