Amanda: Failure Princess

clone

if i had a clone her name would be jeannie-marie. not because that makes any sense, mind you, but because that was my childhood fantasy name. as you can imagine "amanda-faye" did not win over many hearts on the school playground. and better yet, "amanda" is pronounced "uh-mon-duh" for those of you who didn't know. it's amanda in spanish. ay ay ay!

anyways i always wish i had a goddamn clone. mostly so i don't have to go to work or school on some days. like tomorrow, as i have just spent the last four hours with my hair in someone's fist and their other hand doing other interesting stuff.

hahaha. for real.

anyhoo, i am pissed because although i l-o-v-e the fact that i don't have to work on saturdays anymore, i hate that i can never get any week days off. two of my good friends are skateboarding in the x-games on friday and i can't even go. SO BUMMED, as are sports-loving A:FP readers, i am sure.

of course, i would have missed a hell of a saturday this weekend if i still had a weekend job. don't you just hate how people assume lesbians walk around topless, making out all the time, then spanking each other with ping-pong paddles? oh, WAIT, that totally happened at this lesbian pool party i went to this weekend. a bunch. man alive, it was a great time. after there was another party, then a GREAT hour of dyke dancing at akbar (finally!), a bunch of drama, and del taco. the perfect day.

sorry i haven't been writing. i have a bunch of posts in mind, but i can't seem to find the time. that's gonna end soon, though, i promise.

sharp, intellectual, HILARIOUS posts.

about my pussy.

i kid, i kid.

sorta.

spilt milk

if you ask me, there is definitely use crying over spilt milk. first of all, it's fucking frustrating when you have put any effort into something, even lifting and pouring a carton, and it all comes crashing down. secondly, in these modern times of high regard for health, who is to say the milk in question is not some kind of non-dairy, alternative milk such as soy or rice milk, or even almond milk! these milks are expensive as hell and i for one would not be pleased with the waste of what would essentially be about eight ounces of my hard-earned cash. and finally, there is just something really emotionally stirring about the spill itself. how poignant to be standing there, unremarkable, dumbfounded, as the rich, white rivers race across your kitchen table, arriving to the floor in the manner of which these things most often do: beyond your control, without your permission.

sexy british imports all around!

so basically there are no two people in the world i would rather have sex with than victoria and david beckham, together, bad tatoos and all. i don't care that i'm a lezzer and he has a cock. seriously, if i found out he had SIX penises, i'd take on every one of them just to bathe in the sweat of this gorgeous man and his tiny, glamourous wife with dykey hair. i just think they are so hot. i watched that coming to america special with her in it and while, honestly, i was half-watching it and half looking at new phones on the internet, i could tell she is funny and oh so charming. i want to make out with her really bad. and she is my hero because she always wears heels and isn't sorry. i was actually quite inspired by that because lately i have been shamed into wearing mostly flats and i am tired of this discrimination. i am a high femme, goddamn it. i thinnnnnk... whatever, i don't care, i want to bang the beckhams though.

gonna need to buy some new heels, as all of mine are pretty tired, so it's a good thing i am moving out of my place and saving money next month. if all goes well, my mom will think i am moving home to save some cash but i will secretly be living in silverlake with lacey, my psychic twin and drill sargent. omg, i am going to get so thin and so in tune with the universe, it won't even be funny. seriously, it won't be that funny at all, but it will probs be way more sexy.

like my new phone, the samsung SCH-u740! okay, it's not that sexy and it's no iPhone or sidekick, but verizon is lame. great service, crap phones. i like to think of its shimmering, gold exterior as a terrible misstep on a ripoff of the dolce and gabbana gold razr. haha, still, they tried, and the double hinge IS pretty cool. i have never had a phone with a querty keyboard before so i am so going to town. AND i have unlimited AIM and text. pretty exciting. wish i could IM at work like a normal spoiled person :(

i still like my job, but my boss is bumming me out a little. he is way cool normally, but sometimes he starts power-tripping and i don't know how to handle that, really. i mean, it's his company and it's very small, so it's cool he wants to be involved in every step, but the word "micromanage" comes to mind. not that i even know what that exactly means, b/c i never went to college, you know. anyways, for a non-related illustrative example:

boss: "you pressed the wrong button, this is the right one."
me: " oh okay, i'm sorry. yeah, i see, that's the green one, not the red. okay, yes."
boss: "you have to press the green button, not the red one. do you know what i'm saying?"
me: "yes, green button. sure that makes way more sense."
boss: "and, you know, when you press a button, you are basically using your finger and applying pressure to it. do you understand what that means?"
me: "uh, yeah, i definitely know how to press a button. it's the green one, i see that now."
boss: "well, let's sit here and you press the red one, that way you can see how it's different from pressing the green one."
me: *dying inside*

i can most definitely handle criticism, but i don't like when someone tells you over and over what you did wrong. i just don't really learn from that. i also don't like when they think you fucked up one way, but really you fucked up a different way. i like to OWN my mistakes. the other day i got firmly reprimanded for not listening to the saved messages and no one would listen to me when i was trying to say duh, i totes did listen to them, i just forgot to write one of them down because i am a severely depressed, heavy drinker with sleep disorder. omg, also, today he told us girls we take too many bathroom breaks. i don't know much about labor history, but i'm pretty sure even those monkeys with typewriters would not have stood for that kind of talk.

in any event, back to sex. i am insanely libidinous lately, which is honestly bizarre and disturbing considering the grief i have been experiencing. or maybe it makes all the sense in the world. i don't know much about the sexual patterns in my brain and i prefer to keep it that way. just get drunk and fuck! haha, jk. sorta. i have issues... but for now, the matter at hand: i soooo want the cone! the cone is from great britain, just like victoria and david beckham. coincidence? YES! anyway, the cone seems so ridiculous, it just might be amazing! it's expensive but my friend works at a sex shop, so i can get a discount, and i wanna try this thing! i haven't bought a sex toy in a long time, though, so maybe i want to get a few instead of blowing so much cash on the cone. aw, but i really like saying "the cone." hmmm.

end of weekend notes

just a few notes, because honestly i don't feel like writing at all. all i want to do is sleep, eat, and fuck, which is a real bummer when you have a job you have to go to, are on a diet, and don't really trust anyone enough to give it to you exactly how you want it at the moment, which fyi is lengthly and dirty.

anyways.

a) i am house/kittycat sitting for my friend in echo park. this gig is sweet b/c her apartment is nice and cool, she has a ton of dvds (i am currently watching "strangers with candy"), and her cat is super-cute when she's not attacking me in the morning.

b) i got a new phone today and upgraded my plan to have freeeee messaging to anyone anytime. AIM me! i have dropped my phone once already.

c) i got a bikini wax last saturday. bella was booked so i went with this woman irene who was very sweet and did a good job except she gave me this really skanky, skinny landing strip. i like my strip to be about two fingers' width and this is maybe one... it looks whorish... i don't really roll like that. i like to keep a nice, wholesome pussy environment. call me old-fashioned.

d) i also ate at real food daily for the first time EVER last sat. OMG, sooooo good. i almost started crying, my tofu wrap was so delish. i seriously don't really want to ever eat anything else again, but i don't have a lot of choices, as i am poor.

e) old people and technology do not mix. this combo leads to such things as camera phone pics of my ailing grandfather eating applesauce flanked by two of my half-heartedly smiling aunts. another example of this would be the time my grandma was out of town when her sister died and the camera phone was there to capture the magic of the wake for her... future enjoyment? DOH!

f) the list of people i like right now is VERY short and most of them have my same last name or would in a true matriarchy.

g) wait, i DO love my fam extra right now, EXCEPT for the fact that they are all on me to have a baby. someone made the big mistake of handing my mom a six-month-old baby at my cousin's wife's father's funeral reception the other day, and i made the mistake of asking to hold the baby, and that baby made the mistake of falling asleep so content and peaceful in my arms and now everyone thinks i must be a natural. the same thing happened a couple of months ago when i semi-babysat my mom's friend's baby and she liked me a lot for some reason. i held her close, feeling the love, then started to panic that maybe i was starting to become maternal. i have since realized that it's not that i like babies, it's that i like well-behaved ones. and sleeping ones. whew.

i) akbar is slowly but surely becoming a straight bar. look, i don't have a problem with straight people, but it's like, ALL bars are YOUR bars. do you have to take over our bars too??? it starts off innocently enough, the fags bring their hags, the hags bring their hag hags, then those hags start bringing their boyfriends because they know they will have their full attention all night. suddenly there is a shit ton of striaght people and the bar is ruined. look, ladies, i don't wanna see your middle-parted hair, sandals, and eyelet sweaters when i go out to my favorite gay bar. i feel like i have that right as an american. and i don't wanna watch you make out with your boyfriend. if i wanted that i would park at any given in n' out on the weekend. FUCK.

well, i guess that's it. i haven't felt very social this weekend. i am depressed because my poppo is sick and people dress so poorly. i mean, to way different degrees, OBVIOUSLY, but still, i am weighted down.

moneymaker

totally ditched work at buffalo kitchen once a couple of months ago to PA with amy and van on the video for rilo kiley's "moneymaker." made a hundred bux, met some porn stars, ate a catered meal.... it was sweet.

a failure, the heart

this isn't very linear. i appologize in advance. my brain, it swims. my grandpa is in the hospital with horrible pneumonia and congestive heart failure. i'm just sort of... failing as well, you know? i want to pray, as that is all i can do, but i am unsure of what to pray for.

if any one person has defined my life, that person is my grandfather, poppo. he raised me from infancy along with my mother, grandmother, and aunt, all in the same house. i don't believe i have ever loved or trusted anyone more, or know that i ever will.

well, "trust" is a funny word for me, because really i don't trust anyone. especially because i am terrified of vampires. i used to be convinced when i was a kid that it was only a matter of time before the night came where i would be awakened to find that my entire family had turned into viscious, bloodsucking vampires ready to sink their teeth into my young flesh. sometimes these fears even carried into the morning, whereupon poppo and i would be riding to school in his rickety, blue datsun pickup truck. i would stare out at the grey sky fizzing with dry autumn leaves and think, "if poppo turned into a daytime vampire right now, that would be so scary. but at least he would make me a vampire too, then me and poppo would be vampires together."

i was a strange child, but i loved my grandfather very much.

in fact, everyone has always loved him. my mom and aunts used to call him "the phantom of san gabriel" because sometimes he would rake other people's lawns as well as ours and on the eve of trash day he would go around to several of our neighbors houses and, under the cloak of twilight, drag their trash cans out to the front for them. and this was before all trash cans had wheels.

when we were little, he made all of us laugh and scream by turning his eyelids inside-out. whenever my mom got really pissed she would tell him to spank me with his belt. he would take me to his bathroom, where he kept all of his belts rolled and filed in the wooden drawer. he opened the drawer and showed them to me menacingly, but he never hit me. never once.

the scent map i made of him is original old spice deodorant, the cracked vinyl of the seats in his truck, yard work sweat, the cheap wooden cabinets of his bathroom, cepacol mouthwash, and old, yellowing hard back books.

he taught me to always have a pen. he taught me that you can make a game of the dictionary. he read me a story over and over again that taught me that art can save your life. he taught me that republicans suck. he taught me to go out of my way for others. he taught me to appreciate a good pun. he helped teach us all every fucking thing we know about love.

he has been in a home for about a year, i think, or a little more. they (i say they) had to put him there when he started wandering away from home. i rarely visit. it breaks my heart. i know it is selfish. i gave him my letter then never followed through.

the alzheimer's disease has killed his memory. he does not remember me. he does not remember how i used to say, "i love you poppo!" and he would say, "thank you!" and then i would say, "poppo, that's not the answer!!!" and then he would smile and say "i love you too."

today, in the emergency room, i leaned down and tried to choke the words out, but i don't know if he could hear me. i would have given anything for him to just say "thank you!" i would have known what he meant by that.

poppo and i with our favorite, the meyer lemon tree

nocturnal wonders and the little white knight

i really wonder when sleep will start to come easily. i swear, my whole life, almost no matter how tired i am i can never sleep at the appropriate time. in the nighttime i just feel more at ease, awake and alive. in the daytime i am like a toothless old man falling asleep in my work chair.

speaking of office chairs, i guess this is more what i had in mind when i pictured myself working my first office job. i mean, sure, i have a vivid imagination and also kind of pictured myself in a pencil skirt and a pageboy, but i didn't think the chair thing was too far-fetched. what lessons we learn, friends. i really like my new job, but i must say, i hate my chair! it is an old dining table chair with no arm rests and a ass-flattened, ripped cushion with yellowing foam filling peeking out. my back hurts so effing bad every day i am concerned i might become addicted to painkillers if i were to get my hands on any. i am already in serious danger of becoming heinously addicted to coffee. i have managed throughout my twenty-six years, despite my apparent acute sleep disorder, to remain caffeine-dependency free. this way of life is in grave danger, as this is the first job i have ever had where i am sitting on my butt in front of a computer screen all day. i swear, i could nod right off at any time, especially since i don't sleep at night. so some mornings, i have just given in and had a cup of joe. no bueno. half way in, my hands start shaking and i get so sweaty i start to worry that my teen spirit deo might not hold up like it always has before. still, it makes me feel awake. filled with feelings of severe anxiety bordering on sheer terror, but awake.

i also really wonder when i will stop being really fucking paranoid about vampires. i have to figure if i haven't met one in all my days as a luscious nocturnal nymph (ahahaha), that they must not exist. still, i find myself fearing them as a default. in fact, i am actually too scared of vampires to post a googled image of one here. i think this is what my ex meant about me being a little girl and a woman at the same time. i have huge breasts, a penchant for face-sitting, and no fear of walking through the most dangerous neighborhoods at night, but i absolutely refuse to sleep alone in the dark.

omg, speaking of walking, the other day we were driving to the bar and i saw this lady walking THE CUTEST little white dog everrrr that looked kind of like this picture except not a suffed animal and way cuter and more weird and dorky with impossibly short-ass legs. oh man, i love dogs that look kind of like a mistake. i started screaming, he was just so cute! anyways, today ajai and i were driving back from walking (shut up) around the silverlake reservoir and she was all, "hey, isn't that that cute dog?" and it SO WAS! i slowed my car down to a crawl and totally scared the shit out of his elderly woman owner. she was so unhappy and hostile-looking. geeze, lady, it's the middle of the day and two girls in a VW golf wearing yoga pants are not going to jump you. oh, i guess i would be kind of edgy too if i was walking the cutest little white dog ever. it would be kind of like being in the secret service. i totally sound insane right now. i don't even like dogs that much, but that damn dog was so damned cute...

it was pretty lucky we saw that little dog because i was getting concerned that i am starting to become like my grandmother when it comes to these things. she hates animals and comedies. i, thus-far, only hate most children and the movie "amelie," two facts which you should never blurt out unless you want everyone to look at you strangely and get all quiet. whatever, get a room softie.

hey, have you guys noticed i keep talking about my family a bunch lately? what do you think that means? do you think maybe i am ready to go back to therapy and instead of bitching about how everyone takes advantage of me, how i have irreparably fucked up my future, and how much i simply just don't want to live anymore, i am ready to delve deep into the issues of my past and childhood i have avoided all these years to get to the root of those problems?

no way.

annoying things, guilty pleasures, random kitten pic

goddamnit, it's hard being a self-employed, self-educated, semi-self-disciplined writer. i am trying to write a little every day and post here at least once a day during the week, but sometimes i just don't feel like it. to get myself motivated i sit in front of my laptop and imagine that i am a writer of yore, hammering away at the keys of a typewriter with a cigarette dangling from my lips. to get the full effect, i actually light a cig. it actually usually works, but then i am faced with the problem of trying to smoke and use my precious computer at the same time, so i half-heartedly put it out. so much for the theatrics.

for the record, i am over being smart, funny, and "a cool girl." also, someone called me "sweet" last night and i swear it took all i had not to rip off her eyebrows with my teeth. look, a-duh, it's nice to be appreciated for my personality. if i didn't want that, i wouldn't spend pretty much every waking hour perfecting my charm, but i don't need positive reinforcement from anyone who isn't going to get me paid anymore. i don't wanna hear it. i don't even like compliments unless they pertain to my clothes or hair, and that is the truth. once i tried to do an experiment in which i didn't talk at all in hopes of radiating mystery, but it lasted all of an hour. luckily, i love experiments, so i am totally going to try that one again soon. maybe this weekend.

let us note that i have apparently lost all ability to spell.

anyways, the point at hand: because of my oft-mentioned near complete lack of shame, i have very few guilty pleasures. there are, however, enough to make a short list, and who doesn't like reading about other people's closet joys?

1. beef jerky. my vegan and veg friends are probably vomming onto their keyboards right now, but it's true. it tastes so good, but how is a lady supposed to admit that she likes tearing into strips of theoretically cooked meat? gross. mmm... teriyaki...

2. conversly, there is something i love that is so girly even for me, so insanely vag-ulous, that i rarely discuss it. sarah mclachlan. seriously, sometimes you just need some sarah in your life. i don't sit around stroking my copy of "surfacing" or anything, but whenever a sarah song comes on my ipod, i hover my thumb over the skip button and look around to see if anyone is watching before breaking into a FULL ON sing-along. "sweet surrender," indeed.

3. self-diagnosis. growing up in a family in which i had to listen to my mom and aunt constantly saying tings like "i think i am going to die soon, mija" or "i'm pretty sure i have cancer," i learned early on that it is important to obsess over what horrible ailments could possibly overtake me. when i was little, i swiped my grandpa's big, red medical encyclopedia and sat in the living room for hours reading about leukemia, influenza related deaths, and the difference between boils and carbuncles. i feel that because of this rich history, i was able to ascertain that i had walking pneumonia last week. i have also recently determined that i most likely have body dysmorphic disorder, OCD, and maybe even vaginismus. what am i going to do about any of this? the answer is simple: self-medicate. jk jk.

4. breaking things. okay, so i know this is a common one, but understand that it's not really like me. i don't get that kind of pleasure people get out of smashing bottles or popping balloons. i generally prefer objects to meet their demise quietly. therefore, one way i can experience the sweet taste of distruction is when i am about to throw away a cosmetics item when it gets too old to use. i smash every single lipstick, crack and scrape at the eyeshadow and powder pans, bend the mascara wands until they snap. hahahaha. diabolical!

5. biting. a necessary undertaking, however one i find what i believe to be an usual amount of pleasure in. my poor fingernails! my poor friends! note to self: buy more chewing gum, take more lovers.

6. tabloids. seriously, i love them. i even like to read old ones i already read. how sad is that? they are seriously so entertaining and colorful. they ask hard-hitting questions like, who wore this dress better, the chick from that show i don't watch b/c i don't have cable or that chick from "grey's anatomy" which i don't watch cause i hate being bored to tears? that might not sound like a question that should be interesting or relevant to me, but it is, it is, again and again, mostly on th toilet. the best part is, sometimes i will still buy them even though that shit is basically free on the internet now, what with all the gossip blogs and video sites. still, it's so nice to have a hard copy, you know? as they say, the book is always better than the youtube.

well, that's all for now. i'm tired and i have to go to work tomorrow and also make an important phone call. i feel pretty good right now because all i really want to do is work on my writing and read a shit ton. and drink with my friends, but not too much.

lastly:

here is a picture of me with a kitten.

okay, byebye.

a toast: to habit, and rehabbing

i was getting frustrated today because i have gained so much weight that my clothes simply are not fitting properly and in my mind there really should be no reason for that, as i have been so poor i have been eating next to nothing. then i remembered that when i do eat, i basically eat jam. jam is high in carbs. okay, i don't eat plain jam, cause that is absolutely hitting rock bottom, but i have been eating a lot of toast.

my old bff alex used to get SO PISSED because i would say "i want a toast!" instead of "a piece of toast." i understood her frustration, but it's one of those things we just sort of grew up saying. sometimes my grandma, grandpa, or my mom would say stuff strangely because they are from texas and speak a lot of spanglish, and it would annoy the shit out of me, but some things, like "a toast" just slipped through the cracks and became part of my vocabulary.

it sucks as you get older and realize what a shitface you have been to your parents for things that are simply not their fault or even necessarily bad. i can specifically remember one time when i was in high school and i snarled at my mom that she was saying the word "sandwich" incorrectly because she sometimes says "sangwich." my mom and i fight like two cats in a sack and sometimes she gets way out of line with me and says fucked up things, but i remember that time she looked at me with genuine hurt and said, "i'm sorry i say that word wrong. it's really hard for me to say that." and i felt like a fucking douchebag, but i didn't let it show.

sometimes i wonder if i will end up doing things like my mom and aunts do. i am so lazy and so incapable that i have never actually made a steak, but i wonder if i tried to cook one, would i inadvertently season it the same way my family would? i just wonder...

i already make the same silly faces as my mom and tell everyone how ugly i think i am, like she does. it's so funny because it embarrasses me to no end and makes me so sad when she does that, but i do it too, all the time. it's like an out of body experience. i can hear myself saying the words and regretting them. i can hear whomever i say it to becoming uncomfortable.

where does it end? what is true? do i know how to make a piece of meat taste exactly like my grandmother makes it just because i have eaten it like that a hundred times? was i ugly before i learned to say so, to anyone who was listening?

there are some steps you can never retrace.

material

sometimes i miss my job at Buffalo Kitchen. well, i mean, i don't miss the daily exhaustion and shame, but honestly i kind of miss the frustration. it gave me something to write about. ironically, the exhaustion and shame made me come home too deflated to write anything. now, at my new job, i have the stamina to write all the time, but i don't have that great BuffKitch material. here i sit, surrounded by the things i love most: beauty products and office supplies. seriously, i fucking love office supplies. especially staplers. i don't know why, i have just always really liked staplers.