Holy hell, I just pissed off every middle-aged woman on the internet

Ok, well not all of them, but a bunch of the ones that read my Project Runway column on PurseBlog.com.

I made a rather harmless joke about Lifetime being kinda pathetic and, unbeknownst to me, THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT ACTUALLY WATCH LIFETIME.  These people also know how to use the Internet, which I found even more surprising, since I figure their average demographic over at Lifetime is, uh, roughly my mom, and she has no idea what a blog is (despite being quite an intelligent woman – in case any of you guys have followed me over here to heckle).  And anyone that knows how to use the Internet knows how to anonymously freak out over an off-the-cuff remark on a blog, because they train you in that when the phone company comes out to set up your modem.

So, now, let it be known: I am a real, professional blogger.  You’re not official until the commenters revolt against you.  If there’s anything I’ve learned from reading Gawker.com, it’s that.

Do I Stay or Do I Go Now

For those that don’t know me in the reality of things, I switched jobs about 2 months ago.  When I graduated, I got me a full-time, big-girl, real-world job (that I actually quite like – I design custom wine labels at a large winery and resort) and quit the retail job I had been at for 3 years of my college career.  I don’t miss the retail job as I thought I might (since it had begat such a large portion of my social life up to that time), and I actually enjoy having a desk and getting something accomplished every day.  With the exception of one almost cartoonish curmudgeon, I enjoy the people in my office and don’t dread my job at all.

But, just like last year around this time, I feel restless, and possibly for good.  I will stay here for at least a year, because my lease and my sense of commitment to those that hired me requires it, but beyond that, my mind has begun to wander.

What about New York?  Surely my writing and design experience would find me at least some sort of position in that massive city, and I kind of love the thought of going it alone in a cramped 5th floor walk-up apartment, even though it’s not what most would consider pleasant.  Just the thought of being a part of the milieu makes my nerves tingle and vibrate.

Or the West Coast?  California?  I’m more dubious about this option, but it still fascinates me – it’s the same as New York City in that it would mean moving to what is, for most people, a fantasy world.

But, in reality, what I want is a fantasy, in all aspects.  I want to write and create, and you can’t live a dream in a flyover state – you need a dream world in which to do it.

Am I crazy? Or crazy like a fox?

I don’t think I said anything about this on here, but I aggravated an old injury and ripped my knee out 4 weeks ago. If you’ve never done that yourself, I suggest finding a hammer and hitting yourself in the side of the knee as hard as you can. And then do it about half a dozen more times. And then you might have a vague idea as to what that feels like. And then, I had to push my knee back into joint with my bare hands while on the floor of my bathroom, which is where I had fallen. Trust me, the floor of my bathroom should NEVER be in contact with human skin. So all in all, a fabulous experience.

Well, I was supposed to go to physical therapy for all of this, but I didn’t, because I went to physical therapy for my ankle last year and it all seemed like voodoo to me (half of the appointment usually consisted of rubbing sonogram jelly on my ankle), and I didn’t notice myself progressing any more quickly than I ever had previously when I had hurt my ankle. But it’s important to note, at this point, that I am in fact NOT a doctor, I am a wine label designer, and therefore not qualified to to make such decisions.

So when I went to my follow-up for my knee today, I was surprised to hear that I would be in my brace for another 6 weeks, instead of the 2 that I had anticipated. The doctor told me that I would need a “thigh like a linebacker” to keep my kneecap in place and avoid surgery in the future.

So…probably time to start physical therapy. God dammit.

But not only did I schedule my first therapy appointment, I was so pissed at myself for my non-linebacker thigh that I went and signed up for a gym. You want linebacker thighs? I WILL SHOW YOU LINEBACKER THIGHS.

And I also signed up for my first personal training session…at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday morning. Because I am fucking RETARDED. And also because I know that I’m such a slacker that if I schedule it in the afternoon, I’ll just call and cancel it on my way home from work.

My dad and my brother both eventually snapped one day and have since been early-morning gym rats (my dad has gotten up before 5 am every weekday morning since before I was born), so maybe today was my day. It remains to be seen whether I’ll actually drag my ass out at 5:30 on Wednesday, but if it means I don’t have to have surgery or wear a knee brace for the rest of my life, then hey, and early alarm a few times a week might be worth it.

And I’m going to go to physical therapy, too, although if they get that fucking sonogram jelly out again, I’m going to kick someone in the face.

Once bitten, twice shy

Ever have a conversation with someone with which you have a past sexual conquest in common? ABOUT that past sexual conquest? I did it today for the first time, and I highly recommend it.

(For this post, I’m going to keep the names of the parties involved to myself, to protect the retardedly un-innocent).

This girl and I were, at one point not so long ago, mortal enemies. Well, I was her mortal enemy, and I just sort of took pleasure in tweaking her every now and then to piss her off. I had no complaint with her, except that she hated me. And, you know, I’m fairly awesome, so I thought that was unfair of her.

I slept with the guy first, she followed suit a few months after I was done with him (this may or may not have been the reason for the hatred – I think our dude in common did more than his share to encourage her to hate me so that we wouldn’t compare notes on him sooner). Now he’s dating another girl in our circle of friends (dude gets around) and she and I have since put aside our differences and made some tentative steps toward becoming real friends.

We were talking on the phone today, and somehow, the question of our common past came up, and I just HAD to be Awkward Amanda and ask the question that I had been dying to ask SOMEONE that has also slept with him for the past 6 months:

“Did he BITE YOU TOO???”

Ladies and gents, I cannot think of a single more uncomfortable question to ask someone with which you’re just getting over a major feud over a man. But I had to ask it. I’ve wanted to know if he does this to others since January. Homeboy was trying to take a chunk out of my chest with his teeth. On more than one occasion. I looked like someone with teeny tiny fists had repeatedly punched me. So, fuck social graces, INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW.

All she did was laugh for a minute, and then say, quietly, “Yeah…um, I think that might be HIS THING.”

To which I wanted to reply, “Where in the hell did he get the idea that it’s good sexual etiquette to just BITE THE SHIT OUT OF SOMEONE?” But I restrained myself and just laughed right along.

We talked a bit more about this particular guy and his, uh, habit, and it occurred to me during the conversation that when you talk about someone that you’ve had sex with in a purely non-emotional manner with someone that has shared the experience, after a minute or two of awkward, it’s sort of like talking about a zoo animal. Since neither of us is actively venturing into the wild with that particular specimen anymore, we’re both safely behind the glass to compare our versions of his behavior. It was actually a lot of fun, and almost sisterly. It’s rare that you get to commiserate with someone that has had the exact same experiences with the same person, and it put a smile on my face for a good hour afterwards.

Our consensus? As with most areas of his life, he might be just a taaaaad overconfident. And for fuck’s sake, warn a girl before you bite her in the boob. That’s just good manners.

Your friends are the family that you choose

A college town is a funny thing. Partly because Athens probably has more liquor stores and bars per capita than any other town in America, but mostly because of a striking lack of parental authority. Athens is a town full of people from somewhere else, and only a small minority of students are less than an hour away from their parents. In certain parts of town, it’s rare to see people that aren’t between the ages of 18 and 29 and sometimes, at a restaurant or store way out on the west side of town, away from campus, I’m still shocked at all of the children I see, as if it failed to occur to me that some people in Athens actually have sex and want to get pregnant.

But humans are largely pack animals, and over the years that we spend in this town, the lucky among us are able to form hodge-podge approximations of family. As an obvious example, Katie is my de facto sister. My mom still has her college sisters, Jude and Joan. They live in three different states but still get together once a year which, suffice it to say, is more often than many people see their real family.

Since I work in a place full of so many guys in their 20s, I have a lot of male friends, but few of them have become makeshift family members over the years. Mikey and Alex are definitely among them, but Will is the one I’ll always have a special place for in my heart.

Will started working at the store two summers ago, and he was my trainee. I think he thought I was a little nuts at first, and he was entirely right, but we quickly became close friends, buying bags of chocolate-covered pretzels and hiding in the back of the department to gossip during what we called “Appliance Associate Story Time.” He introduced me to the first Crazy Teacher, who was then simply his roommate Blake, while dressed in a crushed velvet princess costume at the annual Halloween party and would walk with me around the store while he assured me I was worth so much more when CT#2 was making me wonder if he thought I was worth anything at all. I spent a fair bit of time at his apartment beating him at Mortal Kombat on PS2 and watching crappy movies, and he was easily one of my best friends. Sometimes, it really did feel like he was my big brother.

Will had been put on academic probation from UGA twice, and the second time, they didn’t let him back in. So last summer, he made a rather quick and impulsive decision – he joined the Army. Within weeks they had shipped him out to basic training, I can’t even remember where, and he was completely cut off from contact to all of his friends. No cell phone, no facebook, nothing. So we all waited, and one day about a week before Christmas, he called and said he was coming to visit for a night. We all went and saw him but he seemed a bit different, a bit harder. I guess that’s the point of basic training, though.

Well, on Friday, I noticed I had a missed call from him on my way to work. I called him back and he said that he would be in town on Saturday night, that they had given him leave for Memorial Day but he wasn’t supposed to go more than 800 miles from his post at intelligence training in Arizona. Obviously, he was going to anyway.

So several of us went out to see him on Saturday night, and it was like having the Will I always loved back again. He was cheerful, funny, and really glad to see us all. Maybe the military hasn’t broken will after all. We sat at the Winery and watched a drunken, eight-foot bouncer try and maim a tiny Asian bartender for spraying him with a bottle of champaign, went to the Grill and tormented our server, and mostly just talked like nothing had changed and the Army hadn’t shaved Will’s head.

He might be able to come back and visit for a day around Christmas, but even if he does, he’ll still most likely be shipped out to Iraq in January. Maybe earlier, and if so, this will be the last time I see him for over a year. Still, though, when he hugged me goodbye last night, he said that if I ever needed help or anything, that he wanted me to call him. And he seemed sad, like he knew that even though he wanted me to, there was probably nothing he’d be able to do.

And people that have never experienced moments like that with people they love shouldn’t be allowed to have opinions on the war. But Will will always be my big brother, even if it’s not by blood.

Fly on the wall #1

Katie: He totally hugged me last time he saw me.  It was so awkward.

Amanda: Yeah, he does that to everyone, he’s an attention whore when it comes to women.

Katie: But I don’t KNOW HIM.  Same think happened with the other one at Mikey’s party.  One of these days I’m just going to be like “Look, I don’t know you, you people don’t have to be nice to me just because you used to fuck my roommate!”

Amanda: Seriously, do that.  He’s going to be at the movie tonight, I think.

Katie: Well we’ll just both ignore him!  Our apartment will not bend to his manly wiles!

Amanda:  Well, I already fucked him, so the jig is kind of up on that one.

Katie: Yeah, touche.

I don’t think anyone will be surprised by this.

So Katie and I were just sitting here, and Kristi Yamaguchi is wearing frilly socks on the season finale of Dancing with the Stars, and she said that when she was little, she had a pair with the ruffles around the ankles just like that.  So did I.

I also had a pair of underwear that had a bunch of ruffles on the ass, so that when I made an epic toddler-fall and all the world could see up my dress, they would get to see a cute, frilly butt instead of just a naked diaper.

Except that I found it unreasonable that the frills were on my rear, because I couldn’t see and enjoy them whilst they were on my body, so when my mom wasn’t looking, I’d take them off and turn them around backwards and put them back on.  So any time I wanted to see my ruffles, I could just pull up my dress and enjoy them, because they were on the front.  And I did so often.  And in public.  And I’d pull up my dress and show others, as well.

So.

I guess that starts early.

A number of wonderful things happened today

1. My red shooooooes came in the mail. Not just any red shoes. Stuart Weitzman red patent leather 4-inch wedges. Possibly the most gorgeous shoes known to man (well, the most gorgeous shoes known to man that cost less than $400). Are they way too tall for me to walk in? of course. Am I going to break my ankle? Almost certainly.

2. Chick-fil-a has NEW SAUCE! ZOMG! It’s like a smoky, creamy, less tart honey mustard. And I practically licked the extra out of the little sauce cup. My friendly neighborhood Chick-fil-a window guy made a very good recommendation in its favor, which makes up for the fact that he tried to not give me my Diet Coke, which is normally something that would have had me leaning halfway out of my car window and trying to stab him in the face.

3. It was Mojito Madness Monday at Casa Mia downtown, and how are Katie and I supposed to say no to something called Mojito Madness (and really, even if we are supposed to be able to, when has anyone ever known us to make that choice)? Especially when they give us fried yuca and this wonderful little sauce to dip it in. And ceviche! And empanadas and arepas and bears, oh my! The mojito drunkenness took us all the way through the Gossip Girl season finale, and besides being kind of an awesome episode, I’d rather not talk about it because of how much the thought of months without Gossip Girl makes me want to FLING MYSELF OFF OF A BUILDING. And this is a positive post.

4. Katie got a J-O-B. Which is super, because now she won’t have to turn tricks to pay her half of the cable bill. And also, it is at one of my favorite restaurants in Athens, Utage, which serves delicious sushi and really strong razztinis.

5. And this technically doesn’t count, because it wasn’t today, but the lovely Rachel and I went to Transmet and ate last night, and then we went to Barnes and Noble and bought books, and after that, we went to see some gratuitous male nudity in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was actually quite charming. It was a really fun night and I was excited to get to hang out with Rachel before she moves to Atlanta for the summer to work at Paste magazine (can you feel the jealousy coming through your computer from me?). And also, Rachel, if you read this – John is a doody head and he will see the error of his ways. Amanda says so. And if he doesn’t, I mean, he rides bikes for a living. Lame, right?

A belated ‘Happy mother’s day!’ to my beleaguered momma

As I was sitting on my bedroom floor yesterday in a wild fit of cleanliness, trying to retrieve all of my allergy-season tissues from under my bed, and I found myself thinking about my bed skirt (scintillating fodder for creative writing, I know, but stick with me on this one).

When I moved in to this apartment in August, I had to get new sheets because my bed was going to be larger than the University-provided full size I had slept on for the previous two years.  In my endless quest to cover everything I own in black-and-white patterns, I found a very pretty comforter and some black sheets to go with it.  But no bedskirt.  There was no black bedskirts to be found anywhere in Athens, and my bed sits way up off the ground, so it would have been weird looking not to have something covering that deep chasm in between my mattress and the floor (not to mention, you’d be able to see my box of condoms in their secret hiding place under my side of the bed, and that wouldn’t be a very good secret hiding place, now would it?).

So I called my mom, who was going to be coming up when the movers moved my bed in anyway, and asked her to check at the Target near their house and see if she could just grab one and bring it to me.

Well, apparently there was a worldwide shortage in black bedskirts, which are apparently made of plutonium and therefore very rare and controlled in supply, and my mom went all over the north suburbs of Atlanta for me, looking for those elusive yards of fabric, completely unbeknownst to yours truly.  No fewer than half a dozen stores, all because she could NOT have her baby moving in to an apartment without APPROPRIATE BED LINENS.  I would have gone to Target, said ’screw it,’ given up, and called my daughter and told her that she was out of luck.  But not my momma.

So don’t think that I don’t notice the little stuff, mom, because you raised me to be way more anal than that.

Two bars, two ex-boyfriends.

I’ve officially dated every single male in this town. It’s time to either move or start going through the list again.

In my quest to distract myself from physically harming my roommate last night (sorry, Katie!), I went downtown with the lovely Rachel to celebrate graduation and our general awesomeness. We were going to meet at Allgood because I left my debit card there Thursday night and I couldn’t exactly be like “Hey, mom and dad, your drunken idiot of a daughter needs to run to a bar before graduation dinner to close her tab from last night.”

In the grand tradition of Rachel, I got there before she did. While I waited, I ran into some people it’s not uncommon to run in to at that particular bar – Crazy Teacher #2’s friends (for an explanation of what Crazy Teacher #2 means, check the ‘cast of characters’ page, which is coming soon). Johnny, Will, and some third guy I didn’t know. I took a quick look around and noticed no CT#2, which made me a little uncomfortable since I thought that the car parked next to mine on the street looked like his (ahh! We have a free range Crazy Teacher that could appear at any time!). Sure enough, after talking with them for about 10 minutes, he shows up. Because my life is awkward, and God hates me, he does things like this to me.

Rachel eventually showed, so I left (debit card in tow) with her to go to The Globe to meet one of her friends that works there. I waited with her while she used the single-stall bathroom inside, and got bored before she was done, so I walked back out to see her friend. There were no spaces next to her at the bar, so I walked up behind her and said hi. She turned around, and so did the guy next to her – who happens to be the guy I lived with for a year and thought I was going to marry before I realized I was absolutely retarded and broke up with him. It was NOT a good relationship, and it ended almost exactly two years ago. I hadn’t seen him in more than a year and when face-to-face with him this time, I had a panic attack and ran out of the bar like I was shot out of a cannon.

Rachel, fresh from the bathroom, realized that I had bolted and came after me. I explained the situation, and we went to 283 Bar in hopes to avoid any more of my previous paramours (no one I know goes to 283! It’s safe!). I spent about an hour talking the most BORING law student on the face of the planet (who, in all fairness, didn’t seem particularly in to me either) before I decided that my night needed to end.

So after two ex-boyfriends and one boring but perfectly nice future lawyer in one night, I’ve decided that I’ve dated, flirted with, or been hit on by every single man between the ages of 20 and 30 in Athens, and I guess that means I have to become a lesbian, because I can’t leave this wonderful town, and I also can’t re-date any of the losers I’ve already been with.