Archive for pain

spice up your life (and do some other stuff with it too)

February 8, 2008 Amanda-Faye consume, pain, this just in

goddamn it, i need to update this thing every day! today as i was driving home from working on the westside (*shudder*), i had this image of myself dying in a fiery crash because a) i think i accidentally ingested some of my face serum and obviously that was in direct correlation with my massive headache as opposed to the fact that i ate nothing all day, and i was worrying about passing out from retinol poisoning (?) at the wheel, b) my car was nearly on E and i’m pretty sure my tires are completely airless, and c) people drive like assholes on the 10 freeway. it was scary, but got even scarier when i imagined that the expensive sex toy post would be my legacy. very sad, very sad.

anyhoo, i don’t have much to talk about if you don’t count the ever-growing pit of despair i am sinking into, which most people don’t really care to discuss. i mean, i could just be projecting, but that’s the feeling i get.

so what DO you want to talk about?

how about the fact that i am turning 27 on the 26th of this month? hold on, i’m weeping and i don’t want to fuck up my keyboard.

alright, i’m back. the trouble with turning 27 is that at this point in my life, i have amassed enough friends in their early-to-mid-thirties in front of whom i am scared to say i hate getting older for fear of a verbal beatdown. look, people, it’s not that i think YOU are old, otherwise i wouldn’t hang out with you, it’s that i am getting older and older and i don’t really have much to show for it except for small nuggets of oft-neglected wisdom.

um, i don’t have any pictures to season this undoubtedly disheartening post, so i am going to fill it with images of my favorite seasonings for pretty much all savory foods.

Sea_saltlast year i was feeling pretty optimistic about turning 26. i just KNEW it was going to be a good year, and it actually really was! there were some VERY dark and humiliating moments, some “learning experiences” (aka blacking out drunk), and some very sad times, but i definitely had one of the most fun spring/summers i have ever had in my life, culminating in falling retarded-in-love for the first time.

Lemon_3that, of course, has proven to be a double-edged sword. while i enjoy, nay, adore this feeling, i also hate, hate, can honestly say hate it. it makes me feel really stupid, insecure, and afraid. it’s been a year now since sleeping with someone other than my ex (who i was with for three years and still exclusively sleeping with for two after that) finally broke the spell and made me charge forward into a life free from the promise of loveless, however comfortable and satisfying sex, and into the unnerving world of no promise of sex, possibility of terrible sex, possibility of embarrassing sex, possibility of being used for sex, possibility of having a lot of fun fucking around, and possibility that one of those nights of fuckery would lead to six beautiful months of spending time with someone whose very presence still sends me into some kind of inexplicable sensory overload. seriously, i can barely sleep next to joe because i love him so much, it makes me fucking sick. i know i am going to get hurt really bad, partly because i don’t deserve to be happy and am unlovable (duh) but also because i just don’t know that i am at a place in my life to be making healthy or wise decisions for my future.

Franksbottleshot1_3for godssake, i am almost 27, work 20 hours a week, and live with my mother! i have given up on the lofty idea that i am ever going to do anything great or important, but for the love of god, i must do SOMETHING! a while back i got an email from a woman from a well-known publishing company (however small) that loved my blog and wanted me to think about writing a book proposal, BUT the catch was this company publishes humor books, a genre in which it (according to her experience) is very difficult for a woman to break into, especially since their target audience is men aged 18-34. she wanted to know if i thought i could write a book like that. i declined in my way, which was to never email or call her back. it seemed like the right thing to do at the time, being that my experience is what it is: hyper-femme and ultra-gay, two things i wouldn’t even know how to begin to “write around.” i dunno, this happened in summer, but i just told joe about it and he got really mad at me. he said it could have at least been an experience, an opportunity. um, duh, passing up opportunities is kind of my thing. this failure thing is no front, i’ll tell ya that much.

so, in closing, i would like to say that there are several reasons for my general discomfort right now, the first being my lack of direction in life (like i said, i have a job i like right now, but i need to be working more and getting health insurance), my lack of confidence in my ability to love and be loved, and the fact that my tits are aging right off my carcass. oh woe!

Srirachathe light at the end of the tunnel is that there are things to look forward to. this weekend there’s a party i think will be pretty fun (a friend is turning 30, boo-yah! we all drink like 22 year olds, so it should be a blast), then there’s that whole first valentine’s day with a true love thing (i know vday is fake and lame, but i like to think of it as an excuse to trick joe into letting me blow him in public. romance = key), and then there is the following weekend in which we are going up to sf to stay with two of my very dear friends ashlee and danielle, hopefully hang out with one of the funniest women alive, shari call, and meet up with my two favorite portland friends, niki and vera, who is djing at hotpants. hotpants, if you will remember, is the club i went to with my friends the night before sf pride last year and totally blacked out, so in a way it will be a weekend of second chances. have the lessons 26 taught me taken hold? we shall see.

oh, um, yeah, so regarding the seasoning thing, i have always put salt and lemon on EVERYTHING. everyone gets mad at me about the salt, but lemon is good for you because it has vitamin c and no carbs. my new absolute FAV no carb treat, howevs, is frank’s red hot sauce. it’s sooo yummy. i like my hot sauce to be super-vinegar-y but not too hot and fermented tasting like tobasco. for that reason, i only use siracha in moderation. the flavor is good, but it’s SO HOT and doesn’t add enough sharpness without additional lemon. i’m kind of new to this hot sauce thing because i used to be a wimp about spicy foods, but it seems that with age, my love for spice has grown proportionately with my propensity to get really awful heartburn.

by god, i’m depressing. how do i even have any friends?

2 comments

supplement

January 23, 2008 Amanda-Faye pain, this just in

alright, let me be frank, i need to write this fast. the reason for that is that ever since i was a small child, despite being otherwise mild-mannered and compliant, i will get in these moods where everything starts to irritate me and i literally want to DESTROY EVERYTHING IN MY PATH. it could be the smallest thing! for example, right now it’s my glasses, which i have been forced to wear since i lost my last pair of contacts halfway through the trip to portland. my nose has finally had it. it feels like these things are constructed of barbed wire. i just want to rip them off, crush them, and set them ablaze. my laptop is also bothering me. the wrist rest area feels like it is actually slitting my wrists… my skin is crawling… i hate everything. ugh.

okay, not i am tuoinf without my classes on. what do you thin?

nevermind, i put them back on.

i don’t have much to say except it’s really starting to get on my nerves that just because i am in a relationship half of my friends never call me anymore or invite me places. I AM NOT IN A BORING COUPLE. yes, we spend a lot of time together, but we are also trying to spend some healthy time apart and i have many of my own interests. i am determined not to become completely and utterly boring just because i am in love. my friend amy caron always says “i like you and joe because you are a couple, but you’re not boring. you still hang out.” apparently, no one else sees it that way. it’s not like we sit around nude on a bear skin rug playing board games and popping each other’s zits. WE ARE EXCITING. on the other side of the coin, what’s so fun about being single? okay, i admit it: i had a lot of fun being single and if, for some fucked up reason, i should find myself being single again there is no doubt in my mind that i will be fierce as ever at it. i am pretty good at entertaining myself because more often than not, i make myself the entertainment. however, i am also a very lonely person naturally, who hides behind a lot of jokes and booze, and i should think that my friends would be happy that i have met someone who makes me feel like my chest is made of pop rocks and soda (in a good way). i just don’t feel like they are sometimes, and it makes me feel bad.

i need to get out of the house. i spent all day inside today watching tv and doing online work for my boss in a pink robe, which basically means that a) i have achieved my greatest dream, and b) i am going fucking insane! i need to get another part time job that gets me out of the house.

the beauty of living in san gabriel is that i never have to worry about random friends stopping by and catching me in my pjs, the night sky is huge and forgiving, and the train whistle’s lonely wail is strangely comforting. the problem is, this is way to close to home to feel nostalgic. it’s way too close to home to be where i live.

to make matters worse, i am pmsing hard. i nearly started crying when i read about lily allen’s miscarriage the other day, and i took the news of heath ledger’s death today especially hard. don’t get me wrong, both of these things suck really really bad, but i normally don’t get misty over celeb news.

i don’t know, i guess i am just looking for something to occupy my mind right now. for a while, hunting ebay for a replacement for my long-lost black jacket was doing the trick, but i have even lost interest in that.

send any ideas my way, along with a steak. i think i need more iron in my diet.

One comment

a failure, the heart

July 18, 2007 Amanda-Faye pain, the fam fam

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.

Poppoamandatreecrop_2
poppo and i with our favorite, the meyer lemon tree

One comment

bloodthirsty

July 10, 2007 Amanda-Faye pain

this is difficult for me to write. well, what i mean is it is difficult right now because it feels so relevant. normally, i can disclose, poke, and joke even the most serious affliction into submission, including the one at hand. i like talking about personal things, exposing the darkest parts of myself to even a crack of light, but it’s hard to talk about this thing because of the stigma that’s attached, because everyone thinks of it as a cry for help or attention without bothering to ask anyone who actually did/does it…

but i have to write about it right now because i have been thinking about it constantly, and obsessing. i have this theory that if you write something down it’s like giving birth to it, the aging process can begin, and it begins to die. whenever i get a song stuck in my head i don’t want, i write it down over and over and over again.

so here goes.

from high school into my early twenties, i spent the majority of my time alone tearing into my skin. it was not tres dramatique a la jenny on the L Word or anything… well, not usually. there were two ways it would go down. sometimes i would come home from a night of hanging out with my friends and feel so overwhelmingly numb. i would light a candle, put on some music, get out my little notebook, and slash the insides of my arms or legs until i could cry. other times i would start out in hysterics. one thing or another had set me off and i was crying uncontrollably. the only thing that could stop the tears was the blood, and afterwards i would sit there staring off, with mascara running down my cheeks, finally peaceful.

a lot of times i would carve words and phrases into my arms and ankles. i always thought people who burned themselves were nuts (funny), but then i got into heating up pins and the head of a lighter and searing it in. that was kind of more of an instant hit of endorphins, much less symbolic for me than the bleeding, healing, and scaring of a razor cut.

the thing is, it was never a cry for attention for me. more of a reminder that i was a real fucking person, flesh and blood, and not the monsterous nothing i felt like, every single day.

which brings us to the present. the last three years of my life, and in particular the last year or so, i have moved forward in ways i never imagined. these things come easily to most people, but i avoided them mostly because i didn’t expect to or want to live this long at all. i kind of just went through life thinking of myself as a funny little experiment, like, “what kind of crap will she make of this situation? tune in tomorrow to find out!” i don’t know what finally changed, but i guess i have felt more like a real person in the last few years than i ever have, since i was a child.

that is to say, until recently. i feel so not like myself lately, i don’t know what to do. and i all i really want to do is be distracted, but i feel like the constant distractions are what is making me crazy in the first place. yet i am scared to be alone with myself because i’m afraid of what i might do (cut) or maybe even more afraid of what i might not do (write).

i’ve not felt the urge to hurt myself in YEARS, just so that is clear. and suddenly feeling it now is terrifying to me because i remember the last time i did it and how disappointed and disgusting i felt the next day. it was about two years ago now, maybe, and i drank a bunch of whiskey (first offense) then got into a horrible argument with two of my friends about love and how i don’t believe in it. i was being nasty and they were being nasty and it was just a huge mess. i was living with my mom at the time and when i got home i went straight to the backyard. i knelt down beneath the barren lemon tree on the wet grass, sobbing and cursing whoever made me. the only thing i had was a lighter so i flicked it on and held it until the metal part turned yellow-orange, then pressed it into my forearm again and again making partial circles, like the moon, and wishing the moon could see me, too.

i woke up sick and sore and vowed never to do it again. it hadn’t worked like it used to, anyway, and i felt worse instead of better.

i just need to keep reminding myself of this. i’m reading a book right now called the IHOP papers by ali liebegott, who read an excerpt from said book at the sister spit: next generation reading at the gspot a few months ago. she was amazing. her book is hilarious and sad, and so true. the only thing is there are some cutting scenes and i didn’t know about that when i started reading it. they are very tasteful and well-written, which is essential, but still, i am finding it somewhat triggering. i don’t want to stop reading the book though, so really, that is part of why i am writing this here. to get it out, to fire a warning shot to myself.

in the interest of full disclosure, i am a recovering self-injurer, dear reader, it’s true, in more ways than one. i suppose life can’t be all lipgloss, winecoolers, and pussy. i don’t feel very confident right now, so i don’t know how to end on an inspirational note… except to say i do feel somewhat better after writing this, and thanks for reading it.

3 comments

gift

June 13, 2007 Amanda-Faye pain, rare moments of optimism, this just in

if each day is a precious gift, then most days you will find me digging through the tissue paper in the box, frantically searching for the receipt.

today was an exception.

i had a decent day at work. i have been holding out on you guys, I GOT A NEW JOB! i haven’t quit Buffalo Kitchen yet, but i have to now because the new job just told me they want me to work full time. it’s a pretty sweet gig, working out of an office in los feliz for a skincare company with cool people. 10-5, not too shabby. lord knows i’m not a morning person, but ten isn’t too bad. and i get to do stuff my crazy little brain loves like filing stuff and being anywhere near beauty products. oh man. today i pre-filed a bunch of invoices and i nearly had an orgasm. plus i have been using the product line and so far i love it. full review to come. omg, plus the pay is really good for me and i get to be at least semi-by the computer.

also, yes, i’m kind of depressed right now, but it feels kind of good and familiar. going out every night and dancing and smiling, sure, that’s great and all, but one must never forget where they come from. i come from sitting in the shower, clutching my knees against my chest beneath the rushing water, imagining that if i could just cry hard enough, the drain would take me too.

hahahahaha. um.

seriously though, i am pretty down. i had some special time alone with myself last night, but i didn’t feel like writing much. amy gave me the new tegan and sara album and i listened to it all the way home from driving her to LAX. bad move. it needs to grow on me, but some of the songs are quite good, and very sad. something about tegan and sara just gets to me. i don’t really know what it is, but it pierces me in the heart part and makes me feel all longing and shit. for what or whom, i do not know.

i haven’t been sleeping well. i still have no curtains and moon and then the sun don’t want me to sleep. been having strange, realistic dreams. the other night i dreamt i was dancing with myself and i woke up clutching one of my dresses. not one of my favorites.

oh, yeah, anyway, back to why today DIDN’T suck. i was really tired at work, obviously. i think it’s so unfair that i’m not going out but i still get no sleep. my brain didn’t really wake up until about 1:30 p.m. and by then i was in full filing swing. good times. i have never had a legit daytime job before. it’s pretty interesting. after two o’clock the day whizzes by.

after work i actually decided to suck it up and go walking around the reservoir. turns out i decided to run most of the way. as they say, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned excercising. it was pretty incredible, actually. i haven’t run that thing in so long. it felt really good to be out in the sunshine sweating it out. i was pretty shocked i could even run half an inch with how out of shape i am, but i’m thinking all the dancing i do has something to do with it. well, that and the concentrated rage.

so all in all, it was a good day. i am thinking too much and being in my head for the first time in some time, and it is painful, but i think it’s good. i am working hard and working out, which is good. i’m going out tonight sober, which can be oddly entertaining if you’re with the right people, and i will be.

thank you, Whomever, for this decent day.

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always the pridesmaid, never the pride

June 11, 2007 Amanda-Faye culture, dance!, pain, peeps, this just in

remember when i promised to write a lot? sorry. i had a crazy week/end. i also wish i had more pics besides the few from the dyke march… camera sucked those batteries right up. i’m posting those in my next post, gay pride part two. part TWO? you ask, but this one is like, a ten page essay. yeah, sorry okay, i need to write it. just read it, okay? the next part will be short.

so this weekend, los angeles gay pride weekend, brought the flavor of many different fruits (ha). one might even say a rainbow (haha). let’s see, there was love, sense of community, celebration, inevitable ill-advised make-out sessions, vodka, and just a touch of rage.

yup, that’s about it. being a lesbian is full of ups and downs like that. i’d like to think it doesn’t have to be that way, and as they say “let change begin with me.” but they also say “it takes a village” and if the whole village is drunk, horny, and hunts in the same woods every night, there is going to be a bit of a problem.

thursday

i personally don’t normally engage in such activities, but it WAS a special occasion…. um, occasion(s), as it all started on thursday at bait, where i danced a bunch then went back to a friend’s house. i apparently was chasing tequila shots with vodka on the rocks and got so hammered i don’t remember most of the night. i dunno, i guess i fell over a bunch of times because i have bruises on my arms. i don’t get embarrassed really by stuff like that because almost everyone has been “that girl” at some point or another, and i figure i only have three or four of those kinds of nights left between now and the time i turn 27, which is that much closer to 30. maybe my friends get embarrassed of me sometimes, but most of them don’t mind. i think i make it up to most of them when they have to see me like that or take care of me with the fact that i have done/would do it for any of them, by being “on” pretty much every second, drunk or sober, almost always being there to try and absorb their insecurities with my self-deprecating humor, and never telling them when they use the wrong word for something and it embarrasses me.

friday

i had a hangover that would have kept a lesser woman in bed for days, but instead i went out that night to this art show downtown because my friend tina helped start the gallery and i was looking forward to meeting up with some people. it did not go well, i had a horrible anxiety attack and was shaking and incapable of being myself. well, until later at akbar when christina aguilera’s smash hit “genie in a bottle” came on. that song just really sets me right. well, it did for a bit anyway. dancing generally does.

saturday

was the big day/night. the silverlake dyke march was actually really fun and inspiring. next year can only get better. i decided i want to be more involved in my community. and i am talking about political involvements because lord knows i don’t need any more personal ones.

the march was on sunset from the vista theatre to the eagle (gauntlet/gspot/ghole/it figures) where there were performances, drinks, laughs, and good times. i was having so much fun.

it was somewhere in between there and the huge party my friend vanessa had planned downtown that things started to go terribly awry. for several months now, i have been in the middle of nursing an completely unexpected wound to my ego. the sheer unfathomability of this situation is further complicated by the fact that i wasn’t even aware that i had an ego, and it’s a little hard to fix something when you don’t know why it’s broken or where it is even, let alone how to fix it.

anyways, this mysterious bruise has led me to behave in ways i’m not proud of at all, particularly on nights of drinking and high drama. oh my god, guys, if only i could share the juicy details of any given night out on the scene. too bad i am saving those for the book. oh, and also that i am so discrete, heehee. thing is, it’s not fun when it’s my drama. lame. it makes it very difficult for me take it all in. plus, i’m not into being an angry lady. i’m more of a funny lady. actually, even when i’m angry i’m pretty funny, but it’s not very amusing for the recipient of said anger, deserving or not. i just really need to learn how to properly express hurt and indignation so that each time i feel that way i can let it go gracefully instead of bottling all of it inside, fermenting it until it becomes a bitter, potent wine, then drinking all of that wine and stumbling around spewing venom in a miniskirt.

i won’t go into the details of the evening’s mishaps, because i want to stress that it was an amazing party. vanessa is awesome and the event she put together was really book* and i’m just really unhappy with myself for getting so drunk and letting certain things get to me. there was fantastic art, two dance rooms, a karaoke stage, dance dance revolution, craftspeople selling their wares, and um, two dollar sake bombs. but you mustn’t blame the drink, only the drinker. well, i think you can kind of blame the drink a little when it’s cheap sake, but you would be especially irate with the drinker if it’s you and you have been waiting for this event for months, were really proud of your friends for organizing it, and wished to hell you could remember most of it. i do know i had a great time dancing, was really happy to see all my friends in one place celebrating pride weekend, and was having a laugh until i did a bunch of stupid things.

conclusion

that being said, i have decided i am going to lay off the sauce for a while. after you have recouped from the fall you just had off your chair, i will tell you that no, i am not an alcho. i am also not an alcho in denial. i’m just going through a lot of shit right now and it’s obvious that i don’t need to be drinking the QUANTITY i have been lately. that has always been my litmus test for whether or not i need to slow down. i drink on a fairly regular basis, but i don’t always drink too many drinks. having blackout moments two nights in one weekend is not okay with me. if i do something dumb or sexy i want to remember it so i can replay it in my mind again and again then punish myself equally for fucking up or for enjoying myself too much, as i am wont to do.

this is perfect timing too, because normally i get hungry in the summer for creative action and i have been missing it because i am never home and rarely sober. no more, i say! i’m going to start a few new projects you will be hearing plenty about and some secret ones you will never know. oh, and i’m also going to try and stop thinking of myself as nothing more than a silhouette of what i could have been, an actor in the exercise of a lifetime, the residual wit and beautiful hair of someone who used to be going to be someone someday.

and that is all.

*”book” is the new word for cool. a girl at my work was telling me that her T9 texting always writes “book” instead of “cool” and that became an inside joke among her friends. i decided that’s the coolest thing, nay, bookest thing i ever heard and am stealing it. hurray! i have been looking for a new word for “cool” for years now.

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gossip gossip gossip/news news news

June 2, 2007 Amanda-Faye pain, this just in

okay, so here’s the thing about me: i am NOT a gossip. i never tell a story that isn’t true, and i don’t make a habit of repeating things that shouldn’t be repeated and/or are going to get me into trouble. if you tell me something is confidential, the likelihood is i will never discuss it again. until you say i can, and then i SO WILL! i love a good story. and i am super-observant and people tell me stuff all the time.

i will never know what information gets past me and don’t really care because as they say, what you don’t know won’t hurt you. but nine times out of then, when someone is being insincere, i can tell for one of two reasons. the first is i can see right through most people unless i am blitzed, and the second is, i probably already know what’s going on because someone already told me. i pay attention and remember almost everything someone says to me… unless, of course, i am blitzed.

the other thing is, i don’t really care if people are talking about me if it’s the truth. if it’s something hurtful, i only hope i never find out. i understand that sometimes people talk shit, even people who like you, and that’s how it’s going to be. the problem is, people don’t always know what is and isn’t true, i guess. i don’t lead a particularly controversial life (at least by the standards of those i choose to surround myself with) so really there is not much anyone can say about me… except some people think i’m a gossip, and that bothers me.

recently i had someone in my life who was very fond of making me feel badly about talking so much about people, going out, etc. i am really sensitive to that and try to be aware because i know when i am doing it too much. apparently someone wise once said to this person that when you talk a bunch about other people’s lives that means there is nothing going on in yours. that is the kind of statement that would make me stop and think, so i considered this person’s opinion and started thinking about my behavior. the problem was that is this person, the same person who was constantly giving me shit and making blanket statements about “hating gossip” was constantly ASKING me to tell them stories and what was going on. the whole situation has been very hurtful and has forced me to realize that as i get older, i need to be more cautious about who i allow into my inner sanctum. generally i can read a person fairly well, but in the last year or two i have been letting a few bad apples slip by. i have two theories on this: 1) maybe as people get older, they have more of their own agenda, or perhaps a more sophisticated one and therefore are more likely to use someone else or fuck them over to get what they want. this confuses someone like me because the majority of my friends i have had at least since my late teens/early twenties and just generally expect that people are still going to appproach new friendships with that kind of sincerity, 2) i often get blitzed.

so basically, i have been mulling over this for several months now. my roomate jaime has taken to saying “you’re not a gossip, you’re a news hound.” and she and amy were joking the other night about getting me a newsboy cap and a badge that says “PRESS.” hardy har. i can take a joke, or even criticism when it’s from people who really know me and care about me. i just don’t appreciate people making assumptions and statements about me based on their lack of ability and/or interest in getting to know the other parts of me.

i started to feel really badly about myself and wonder, wait, maybe she’s right, maybe all i have are stories about other people’s lives and going out and mingling… then i realized that there are layers to that, as to anything. if you were an artist, you might talk about art a lot, hairstylists talk about hair, movie buffs talk about film, etc etc. i am a writer and a storyteller. people’s actions and motivations fascinate me. i love to observe them, and i love forming the words to describe them. so i am going to tell a lot of stories. it’s like, my job. it’s something i will always have to keep in check because i am not trying to justify it, i definitely DON’T think it’s healthy to talk about people all the time. no one would like to hang out with a musician that only talked about music. i get that.

i have a ton of other stuff to talk about. i have been reading newsweek. newsweek is awesome! there is so much news in there. is it weird that one of my favorite sections of any magazine is the letters? even if i haven’t read the issue the letters are regarding, i love reading the letters. they are always either so astute or written by an absolute idiot. with their feet. i think this is because only someone with something really important to say or someone with no life at all would write a letter to a magazine. even in the age of email this rings true.

once, when i was eleven, i wrote an angry letter responding to an angry letter responding to an angry letter to seventeen magazine. i had to write it out, put a stamp on it, and send it in the mail. it did not get published. a first in what would become a string of failed attempts at expressing my outrage. such is life.

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now, moving on to UNwelcome guests…

April 25, 2007 Amanda-Faye consume, pain, this just in

at Buffalo Kitchen, we have to refer to our customers as "guests." i suppose this means we should all just start throwing words around meaninglessly with complete abandon. hey, you know the big fucking headache i had when i got home from work today? that must have been a "guest" too, right? jesus fucking christ! the idiocy of it all is killing me! today i had my 30 day review and one of the questions the manager was asked to answer on my evaluation sheet was whether or not i was "demonstrating Buffalo Kitchen culture." when i found out the answer was yes, as the glowing review before me read, i felt like i was gonna vom.

it’s not that there is any shame in working as a hostess at a shitty corporate chain restaurant in a mall… it’s just that this is not how i expected to be spending what may be the last year or two of my youth. i’m supposed to be travelling across europe being orally pleasured by twenty-two year-old boys and writing short stories in which they are actually girls with beautiful, shiny hair and they bring me little gifts like handmade paper and vintage perfume decanters filled with exotic spirits. instead i am wearing non-slip shoes from payless called safeTstep 3581, answering to attitude-y ninteen year-olds who think i’m old and weird and kind of slow, smiling so hard at complete assholes that my face hurts, and saying things like "NO, thank you for coming in. y’all come back soon!"  if this isn’t reason to contemplate ending my life more seriously than i ever have before, i don’t know what is. my only comfort is in certain co-workers who i find to be a sheer delight and the gay dudes i get to ogle all day. being a gay man must be like, just a real giggle. the eye candy alone would be enough to make me wake up each morning looking like a had a banana in my mouth… i meant sideways… not in a sex way. oh, nevermind.
Banana_splitweb

speaking of bananas, i totally bought a banana split off the ice cream truck that terrorizes my neighborhood with a loop of "it’s a small world after all" in which each refrain ends with a cartoon "doiiiiiiing" sound. normally i try to maintain at least somewhat of a facade that i’m not a complete and total fatass, but i had the WORST day at Buffalo Kitchen, the fucking ice cream truck was parked directly in front of my house when i pulled up, and then i saw some happy skinny kid running off with a huge banana split and thought, "that could be me!" i love bananas. did you guys know that? i really do. they are so creamy, yet tart at the same time. bananas are like nature’s ice cream, so what better thing to sandwich between two halves of one than ice cream? ah, sweet  redundancy. it makes for poor conversation, but fine desserts.
i didn’t even eat the damn thing. i put it in the freezer to "save it for later" then took it out a couple of hours ago and ate off the then-frozen bananas. oh my god, frozen bananas are even better than regular bananas!
i don’t know why work sucked so bad today. i mean, it is always a sheer humiliation just to put on my uniform, drive there, and enter the restaurant, but the job itself is fairly easy and sometimes even kind of fun(ny). but today sucked so so so bad. i think the worst "guests" come in at lunch during the week. this is because if you think about it, who the fuck goes out to eat in the middle of the day on a weekday? i’ll tell you who, freaks and industry types.

today "wet nap lady" came in again. "wet nap lady" (wnl) comes in with her friend "similar-looking short old J0101279011000bglady," who distracts the host just enough so wnl can race behind the host stand and grab fistfulls of wet naps before being seated. this is the funniest part. it’s not like she grabs them and runs out the door as she’s leaving. she grabs them in a frenzy, crams them in her handbag, then calmly walks to her table and orders lunch with her friend.
also, today was a day in which EVERYONE who came in wanted a booth or to sit by the window. here are a few tips: they are all booths, technically, and the window looks out onto what is basically a loading dock for the mall stores. today was also a day in which everyone insisted on walking in the exact opposite direction of where i was trying to seat them, saying essentially "no, we want to sit over here…" or made me lead them around the restaurant so they could try out different seats like it was goldilocks and the fricken three bears. look, if you don’t already know this, i am going to explain something to you right now: there is a REASON the host takes you to a certain seat. the servers have certain sections and there is a ROTATION to the seating chart. therefore, unless there is a dead rat or a shit smear on your table, you are going to sit any-damn-where i tell you to, not look at your husband and go, "is this seat okay honey? is it too close to the kitchen?" with your little nose crinkled up.
Foundationsquadstrollerwithkids

and another thing, i HATE strollers. NO, we do not have designated stroller parking. NO, i will not park it for you. i say if you are strong enough to make a baby, then squeeze one out, you should be strong enough to carry it around your damn self. this goes for the dads too. wimps. and why must everyone have so many children anyway? do you need four, FOUR screaming, freckled brats? i don’t understand this. if there is one thing i have learned from working at Buffalo Kitchen, it is that white people love to breed just as much as everyone says we mexicans do. one more stereotype, shattered! well, i guess it’s not all bad, then eh?

anyway, i am off work for the next two days. tomorrow i am going to do a bunch of important stuff like staying in my underpants all morning looking for jobs, going to get my hair done and hang out with lacey, then coming home and shaving my lady bits. this is going to be a treacherous feat because i have been getting waxed for so long and don’t really remember how to shave, but i am pretty deep in the red financially and the last thing i need on my plate of reasons not to love me is "huge, out of control bush," so here goes.

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piercings, down there

March 16, 2007 Amanda-Faye el sexo, pain

do you guys remember when having labia piercings was taboo and only for tacky people? i think that day is over. i don’t know about you, but i spent all day watching internet porn, and it appears to me that one would be hard-pressed to find a lady without a pierced va-jayjay. just sayin.

anyway i still have no money and no camera batteries. man, you guys are missing out on some great shit. i have drunk lesbians coming out of my ears right now, it rules! but i did get that restaurant hostess job, so i will be employed soon enough. one week. can’t wait. super excited.

semi-suicidal. i think my pain will be your gain though. the failure princess rides again!

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expensive perfume and the erotic bruise

January 11, 2007 Amanda-Faye pain, reviews

Big_cheried_2this christmas was good to me. i got a ginormo bottle of my official signature scent miss dior cherie and the luxury body creme. which, in case you were wondering, is better than the body lotion, according to my roomate nicole, because it has a higher concentration of the perfume oil. wow, that is like the gayest fact ever. she is even faggier than i am! the perfume isn’t ridiculously expensive for someone who makes any money, but you are not talking to that kind of person. i specifically got a credit card to buy my first bottle of it, because this shit smells amazing! i get compliments every time i wear it, mostly from men, but whatever. apparently butch lesbians do not appreciate fine fragrances. that’s cool ladies, but really, don’t i tell you when i really like how you smell of cigarettes and Dial soap? it’s nice to be noticed, just sayin’. so anyway, now that i have two bottles i am going to wear it more because it’s my signature scent and money is no object perfume goes bad. yikes, but i have so many fragrances to choose from! for a while i curbed my makeup addiction with perfume, you know, like retail methadone, but then i had another problem on my hands.

someone once told me that you aren’t supposed to spray perfume on your wrist then rub it against the other or against your neck like mom (and soap operas) always taught you. it “bruises” the fragrance. i don’t know what that means, but imagine my delight when i went to spray my miss cherie one Img_1552_1 morning last week and saw this bruise. i love briuses, always have. there is something tough and sexy about them, and trashy. this one looks like i have been up to something very naughty. i guess this all sounds kind of wrong cause that bruise also looks like i may be a battered woman, but everyone has their kinks. truth be told i have no idea how i get most of my bruises. they just appear and i can enjoy them for a while until they disappear, so quickly.

there was one time i had this bruise that took forever to go away. it was after a night of partying years ago, when i used to work at the theatre. we were hanging out there one night drinking and there was this weird old guy who was a friend of someone who wasn’t even there. i was nineteen and fairly wide-eyed, even if i didn’t know it. after a while this guy started following me around. i had always been a bit of a masochist, and i guess he heard me bragging to john and christine about how i was into pain, kid stuff, but i thought i was tough. there’s a bunch of weird shit in between, but basically he tried to molest me in the basement right in front of those other two. i just sat there as he put his hand up my thigh. i have an uncanny ability to leave my body when things get scary or interesting, allowing me to never fully experience pain or joy. it rules.

i just kind of went away from myself during the whole time. he didn’t do much other than cop a feel in the basement, but then he followed me into the bathroom. he cornered me coming out of the stall and got in my face, asking me, did i like it rough. i was mostly numb. i was standing there, watching myself, wondering what was going to hapen next, when he punched me square in the jaw, snapping me back into reality. i don’t remember much after that, reality bores me.

point is, i spent the next few weeks with a bruise and what felt like a ping pong ball on the left side of my jaw. it didn’t hurt, it just itched. it was like, itchy and i wanted to rip my skin off. i was upset because i got myself into such a stupid situation, upset because i could barely remember it even though i wasn’t even that drunk, but mostly i was upset because in that moment, i wasn’t all that scared, and that was really scary.

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