I’m ba-ack.  Which is to say, I’m laid off.  But, in a fit of awesomeness, I got an offer for a full-time writing job two days before Chateau Elan put the kibosh on me (and about 50 others), so I was going to quit at the end of this week anyway.  So, I no longer design wine labels (which is OK by me, it got a tad monotonous).  

What I DO, at least starting Feb. 2, is write about handbags and other fashion-y things, which means I’m more or less as happy as a pig in shit.  And I do this job from my house, which means that that pig is also going to be wearing sweatpants.  Or possibly a muumuu; I’ve heard other full-time bloggers extoll the virtues of the muumuu.  Where does one acquire a muumuu?

AND…(this is the real payoff here, folks)…it means I’m going to be oversharing here about my personal life once again, since I no longer have a job (and a hellish, 90-mile-round-trip commute) that sucks my soul out of my ass.  

And also, I shall reignite my college affinity for “The Price is Right” and drinking in the afternoon.  Although that part will probably have to be secret when I actually start working again.  Shhhh.

I haven’t had a thought in the past month that did not consist of “ZOMG FOOTBALL GO DAWGS” Yes, I have thoughts in all caps occasionally. Mostly about football, but sometimes about Gossip Girl, too.

I’m a firm believer that people outside of the South don’t really understand how awesome college football is. Sure, I know people at places like Ohio State and Penn State really LIKE football. It’s fun, you get to drink and wear color-coordinated outfits, and then you get to curse at the top of your lungs in public for 3 or 4 hours and no one bats an eyelash. A good time is had by all, generally, unless you act a fool and someone has to whack you over the head with a beer bottle. But that’s your own damn fault. Which is to say, don’t act a fool, or I will use my beer bottle.

Another thing that people outside of the South largely don’t understand is the need to dress for football. And I don’t mean “dress” as in “don’t get so drunk before you leave your house that you forget to put a shirt on.” I mean a dress, shoes, handbag, accessories, and jewelry (and maybe a hat, Kentucky Derby-style), all in team colors (this situation makes me feel even worse for teams like Florida). I have an untold number of dresses in red and black, plus red jewelry and a red patent leather clutch and belt.

So not only have all my thoughts been consumed by football lately, but some of them by what to WEAR to football. I’ve got an outfit, including jewelry and accessories, already chosen, and it’s a tradition that I love despite the fact that some think it’s silly.

I went and bought my scalped set of season tickets today (for $240, 30 times their face value)
and could have floated home on a cloud, I was so happy. It’s College Football Eve, people! Set out the milk and cookies for Coach Richt! Hope and pray that the freakin’ team can keep themselves out of downtown’s bars for the next 3 days!

So if some of the people at your place of business tomorrow can’t focus, cut them slack. For a lot of us, tomorrow is Christmas morning come 4 months early.

Amanda: You know you’re on a diet when food turns you on. I want a fucking grilled cheese.

Ex: Yeah that sounds super good. Holy God. Jesus, Mull.

Amanda: Grilled cheeeeese

Ex: I see now how I first got hooked on Mull. Tempted by tasty tasty sandwiches

Amanda: I tempt all the boys with my sandwiches

Ex: If that’s not hittin’ the blog I just don’t know what will

Amanda: But I did two FOTWs last night.

Ex: I know. I saw. Its my goal now. I won’t make a joke with you now unless I can just blast it out of the park. I’m not bringing the haha unless I can get it in the fucking cheap seats.

Walking to Allgood downtown tonight

Homeless man, squating in a door frame: Can you girls spare some change…man, you got some nice boobies.

Tahmia: …did that homeless guy just say something about my boobs?

Amanda: Yep, that’s what that was.

Tahmia: I told you I shouldn’t be wearing this shirt in public.

Amanda: How do you think I feel? It is my shirt.

Coming out of my room after about 15 minutes and seeing that the Olympic women’s marathon is still on…

Tahmia: God dammit, is that bitch still running?

When you stare into the Facebook, the Facebook stares also in to you.

Lifted from the comments at Gawker.

+1 if you can name the reference.

So, I totally and shamelessly stole this idea from Johnny’s blog. Instructions are at The Kilowatt Hour.

Me: I’m going to be sad when the Olympics go away.

My Ex: I’m taping all of it. Well, recording.

Me: And, as a loyal American and patriot, I want to do my part for our team. By banging Michael Phelps.

Ex: Yeah me too. Oddly enough.

Me: I assume that there is a line. If someone could tell me where I could get in it, I’d be happy to wait my turn.

Ex: Yeah, I bet he has to beat it off with his collection of medals.

Me: Good thing he has many, because that little bathing suit he wears isn’t fooling anyone.

Ex: Freaky shit with medals. That’s what he’s into.

Me: Which is why he has to keep winning them.

Ex: Yeah. I think if you fucked Michael Phelps, you win the breakup. Bottom line.

Me: Yeah I think so too. Even if it was in, like, a bar bathroom or something. I’d run out of that bathroom and take a victory lap around the bar afterwards.

Ex: Yeah. Bus station. Whatever. Gutter.

Me: Heap of trash.

Ex: Yeah. You win.

Ex-boyfriend.

Ex.

Boyfriend.

This is simple, really. Or it should be. But for some reason, for me, it’s not.

For the past year or so, I’ve found myself phasing this word out of my vocabulary, almost completely (my previous post is the only time I can remember saying it without cringing, possibly because the word ‘boyfriend’ was modified with the words ‘high school,’ thereby making the whole thing far less serious and far more distant from my present place in life).

Last week, we got new an enormous new printer in the office, and it barely worked for the first few days. I found myself saying to a coworker, “I used to date this guy that was a software engineer, and he used to say that printer software was the most complicated he had ever seen, so he was never surprised when they don’t work.” Perfectly reasonable (if a little boring) story, right?

Except I didn’t just date that guy. He was my boyfriend (cringe) for more than a year and a half, I lived with him for a year, and at one point, I thought I might marry him (note to the ladies: the only thing that can make breaking up with a dude make you feel more like the bad guy than it already does: when the dude tells you, during said breakup, that he was saving up for a ring). We had a freakin’ pet together, for fuck’s sake (except it was a cat, and in my head, cats don’t really count). And still, I can’t spit out the word “ex-boyfriend.”

And he’s not the only one that gets a hindsight demotion – they all do. Lord knows that I’m somewhat of a commitment-phobe now, but is it possible to be a retroactive commitment-phobe? Or am I somehow trying to subconsciously lessen the fact that all of those relationships got screwed up by lessening what they all meant to me in the first place?

I’m tempted to say that it’s neither of those, that the thing that makes me pause before saying ‘ex-boyfriend’ is simply that ‘boyfriend’ seems like an overly dramatic word, perhaps best used by high schoolers to describe their first loves. I’m at least partially an adult now, and do adult women really have boyfriends? Because if I ever date a boy, someone please punch me in the throat and tell me to stop, mmk?

I’ve only ever had one super-traumatic, over-the-top, terrible breakup in my life. It was my high school boyfriend, the one to which I lost my virginity, the one I took to prom. I’ve dated many guys since then, had relationships that lasted in excess of a year. Mostly I do the breaking up, though, making it slightly less dramatic for me.

But the high school boyfriend, he broke up with me a week and a half after I left for college, via AIM, a few days after I had been rushed to the hospital for the first time in my life with a blown-out knee. And then he started dating my best friend of 7 years, which was just flippin’ awesome.

I had actual, violent fantasies about the two of them. Very bloody dreams. I’ve never hated someone so completely and so without reservation in the entirety of my life. It takes a lot to make me angry, and given the opportunity, I shudder to think what I would have done to them. I’ve never experienced such rage.

Well, that was almost 5 years ago, and I’m since over it. They both apologized, separately, after (according to her) he broke up with her for HER friend (karma’s a bitch, non?) and I no longer get the spontaneous urge to stab either of them. (UPDATE: Apparently, he didn’t break up with her for her friend. They knew each other, but sadly, the story is not that good. Remember, kids: there’s always two sides to a story).

I don’t know how it started, but I’m now back in regular contact with the guy. We talk on instant messenger all the time, about stupid things. TV mostly. He has a serious girlfriend of almost 3 years, and I have an Aaron. There’s no interest in the other for either party. For some reason, after all this time and all those bad feelings, we’re friends. Without reservation and without secret hatred.

How can this BE? Doesn’t all the conventional wisdom say that we should both secretly want to fuck or kill (or both?) the other person, thus the motivation for our friendship? At least that’s what I always thought. But I don’t want to kill him OR fuck him, genuinely, and I like talking about American Gladiators with him.

We’re FUNCTIONAL. Isn’t that weird? Isn’t everyone supposed to be dysfunctional and tortured these days? Or was that just high school?