sometimes i really want to live alone for a while because i feel like then i would be forced to confront my demons on a regular basis. i don't just mean in the morning mirror when i say to myself "jesus christ, woman, how many bags of Doritos did it take to lose those fabulous cheekbones you had?!?!" or late at night when i'm about to fall asleep and realize, as i do each time i try to sleep alone, that at any second i could be viciously attacked by a zombie vampire with a shark fin. what i mean is, to really examine who i am and why i am this way and start to make the small changes that could lead to unlocking the giant, rusty shackles that i have dragged around for twenty-seven years. then i also think that maybe living alone isn't really all that big of a deal, and really the only thing that would be that exciting would be the fact that i could take my laptop onto the toilet with me, and no one would ever have to know.
Archive for sometimes…
dig deep
sometimes i think my life is like a pint of ben and jerry’s. well, not just any pint.
once i got a really wicked sweet tooth and bought a pint of ben and jerry’s cinnamon buns ice cream. this was unusual because i am not generally the sort to purchase ice creams not of the fruity sorbet variety. occasionally i will get vanilla, and if i ever do get a chocolate craving, usually while pms-ing, i will get rocky road or something. i almost never deviate from this, since most fad ice cream flavors tend to be disappointing (curse you baskin-robbins rainbow strawberry pop rocks sorbet!).
anyway, i bought the cinnamon buns ice cream at the 7-11 by joe’s old place right when we first started dating. it was late at night and we were watching a movie with the AC blasting, as this was right in the middle of last summer’s heat wave. i started in on the pint, completely forgoing the formality of a serving dish. you will note the early level of comfort i felt with joe. upon my first bite, i knew something was wrong. the ice cream wasn’t creamy at all, but rather icy, emitting a slight crunching noise as a dug in. i took this to mean it had been over-frozen, and surely beneath this glacial crust i would find a world of perfectly frozen, silken cream, with a caramel swirl and tiny balls of sweet, spiced dough dispersed throughout. i dug and dug with my plastic spoon until the slushy sound of spoon meeting frost became almost deafening, but still i had encountered not one single precious bun. my mind was racing. what could this mean? had they mislabeled the ice cream? was it so ancient that the buns had disintegrated into sad, sticky pools of cinnamon? was joe sitting on the other side of the bed discretely watching in horror as i tore into the pint with increasing urgency?
at this point i was no longer placing spoonfuls into my mouth, having abandoned all hope that the icy texture would ever give way. still, i plowed along, pushing the ice cream with the back of my spoon, with no idea why, really. it was then that i discovered my first cinnamon bun, then another, then another, until i saw that they all lay entombed at the bottom of the frigid pint. i had my answer. clearly, the entire thing had at some point melted, sending the suspended pastry nuggets careening to the bottom, and had then been re-frozen, causing the ice cream to become unnaturally hard.
this is how i think of my own existence sometimes. there was so much potential in the beginning, then at some point i lost all control, seemingly losing all things good, which in turn caused me to become hardened and doubtful. for several years now, i feel like i have been trudging along, digging through the refuse, finding ribbons of sweetness, but still searching for something substantial, something that would give me meaning and indicate somehow that it wasn’t all for nothing.
the analogy is imperfect, for in reality, at the end of my ben and jerry’s journey, i was grossed out by the realization that the ice cream had once been a melty mess, refused, of course, to eat the disgusting wads of dough at the bottom, complained about it to a completely understanding and compassionate joe, and even considered angrily marching back into 7-11 to demand a refund or replacement. unfortunately, in the case of life, there are no refunds, and i am hoping that when and if i find what i’ve been looking for, it will be awesome and delicious, as opposed to a sticky mess. some days, i think my time for “cinnamon buns” will never come, that i will never figure out what career i’m supposed to have, make any money, or live up to my fading potential.
then, i think maybe that’s not what the point is at all. maybe the point is amassing in one’s life a certain number of people who you would not be ashamed to sit in front of and lay waste to an entire pint of ice cream, cursing all the while, just to find one stupid fucking cinnamon bun that might not even be that great in the end. these people will be there to listen, love you through it all, and maybe even walk you back to 7-11 with the receipt, should you be so inclined.
must… resist… titling this post… “dick in a box”…
sometimes i look at my life and realize that it has spun so far out of my control that not even traditional tools of self-punishment (i.e. eating my feelings, cutting, pushing away those who love me) can bring it back into my control. in these times, i begin to doubt every last small spark of good i see in myself, every time i have been able to look in the mirror, on the page, or at my fat little brown hands and think “hey, amanda, not too shabby!”
then something good will finally happen, i’ll have a good night, or i will just get the most brilliant idea ever. for example:
i have been thinking of what could be a clever solution to contain joe’s and my ever-growing collection of sex toys. quite frankly, the overflowing vans shoe box next to his bed just isn’t doing it for me anymore. um, and can you say, “wtf, why is my dildo covered in cat hair?!?!” NOT CUTE. thank god you can boil silicone. ANYWAYS, tonight as i was perusing the internets while i probably should have been… oh wait, i have no purpose in life… whatever, i’m a genius, check it out!
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the most amazing dildo box EVER!
yes, friends, i am a true visionary. you can thank me for this idea later. i would like to thank the dear folks at tantus for creating my new pink bff “the charmer,” to everyone over at the container store for making a ten-inch high, oddly industrial/bondage-looking (except for the white, but i would decorate it, wouldn’t you?) stemware storage case that to a creative mind, such as my own, is SO OBVIOUSLY A COCK BOX, and finally, i give thanks to long, pointless, lonely nights of self-loathing, which so often turn to ones of self-discovery. provided one is sober. which i am. just fyi. also, to any of you questioning whether ten inches high and 3.25 square inches wide is large enough to contain your dildos, well, you’re a bigger man than me, i say. or, like, technically deeper and wider, i guess. um… yikes.
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.
i want candy
sometimes i worry that most of what i do besides writing revolves around the desire to consume. when i see something i want, i want it and have to have it and sometimes never even use it. i will covet things and then when i get them, hold them near and dear, saving them for “special occasions,” sometimes so long that they become useless to me. i have, like, 60 lipglosses that i never use because i like them too much, and now some of them have gone off and smell like wax.
when i was little, i collected sanrio school supplies. i wasn’t into hello kitty, but this brown bear with a green background whose name i don’t remember. he had no mouth. i collected all of these things, a pencil box, pencils, pens, erasers, and never used them. i would bring them to school, lay them out carefully on my desk and stare at them lovingly. then once a week or so i would wash them because they got dirty from the lead of the pencils i did use. i loved those things so much and never used them. now i don’t even know where they are.
the same goes for sex toys. i love going to sex shops and, when i had money, loved buying sex toys. i have a couple of dildos that i NEVER use. this is partly because of my aforementioned anatomical situation, but also because i am just too lazy. still, whenever i see them i want more and more. they come in so many fun, yummy colors and sizes! at pride i got this free vibrator that is also a flashlight keychain. nice! impractical! i will probably never use that either, except as a flashlight.
but i do use my vibrator(s) sometimes. i have gotten so into the habit of making the sign of the cross before bed that the other day i accidentally made it with the same hand as i was holding the vibe in as i walked to bed from my closet.
great, now everyone knows where i keep my sex toys…. and that i am secretly somewhat god-fearing.
oh well.
barrel of laughs
sometimes i get tired of people always saying i’m funny. it’s not that i am ungrateful for the appreciation of others, the sentiment, or this wonderful, useless gift god has chosen to bestow upon me… it’s just that i wish there was something else special about me anyone could say.
i would give six or seven of my teeth to be thin and beautiful, and that’s a fact. of course, then i would technically less beautiful and unable to eat, but i suppose i could settle for just being painfully thin. hurray!
oh well, i guess i am just a big old barrel of laughs. that is, if the barrel totally has splinters, and is filled with salty, bitter tears.
slumber in the city
sometimes i miss the simple suburban life of san gabriel, the little suburb i grew up in (aka about fifteen minutes from the urb-sub-urb where i now live. l.a. is funny that way). san gabriel often felt like a prison. granted, the bars were swaying palm trees and the shackles were the boundless love of my family, but that’s not the point, i felt trapped when i lived there. the great thing about it was, though, that you could actually take a nap there in the daytime, or at all during the weekend. in the city (at least where i have lived, echo park and east l.a.) there are 800 cars passing by every 53 seconds, the busses sound like airplanes landing, and there is a roving pack of very vocal dogs at every street corner. now, i happen to be notorious for not napping when i am supposed to, but i really wanted a nap today. i wanted to taste that sweet cocktail of sunlight and pillow. but it was not to be, for my neighbors were having a party… apparently their birthdays are each weekend of every month, and while i do enjoy reggeaton, it does not lull one into slumber as you might imagine.
oh well. i worked a twelve hour shift yesterday, went to a gay bar, witnessed one of the scariest lesbian brawls ever, went to work this morning, ate filet mignon for dinner, and now i am headed out to a gay bar. my life is becoming very routine. this is if routine includes being manhandled by drunk lesbians and waking up with lots of bruises. which it does, right?
ah, the life of a playgirl.
sometimes i think being single is the best thing ever. being single means you get to spend inordinate amounts of time drinking and talking loudly with people you barely know to the point of losing your voice, sitting at home plucking errant face hairs, and not sharing deep sexual intimacy with another person.
well, off to fix my third cocktail of the morning and rush order this.
