Ordinary Extraordinary

Writer's Dam. Damn.

Though I have been keeping a blog (in one form or another) since 1998, amandarin is a new project.

I began blogging because it was a way for me to add some structure and discipline to something that was previously only an occasional hobby. My goal was simply to write something, anything, every day - an attempt to sharpen my style and refine my own unique voice. The bonus of publishing it publicly was that others would be able to read my words and give me feedback. However, as blogging evolved, I found my writing becoming something I didn't like. Rather than the well-thought-out essays that I had started out composing, my blog entries became like sound bites - mere tidbits of information. There were plenty of brief anecdotes, pictures with few word captions, and links to other (more verbose) blogs, but no depth. There were none of my thoughts or feelings... just bits of fluff and inconsequence. One of my weblogs was very popular for awhile, but I took it down because I was disappointed with the quality (or lack thereof) of my own writing.

amandarin is a return to my original vision of blogging and I am excited to be launching it. For the first time in a long time, my mind is swimming with ideas for pieces that are just begging to be written. I have started to keep a list of ideas as they occur to me so that I can get back to them whenever I find myself lacking for a topic.

But...

I feel as though my inspiration is dammed up. I know the ideas are there, pounding and swirling againt each other, but only the smallest drops seem to make it over the wall that is containing them. I have been writing in bites for so long that my creativity trails off after the first few sentences. I have a handful of posts saved as drafts because they started off strongly and then stopped, leaving me bewildered as to how to finish them. Clearly, this is evidence that my return to this style writing was none too soon.

I'm hoping that this struggle will make me a stronger, more focused writer.

I'm hoping that the dam will break soon and my ideas will come tumbling forth as they used to.

I'm hoping that you all will bear with me while I sort this all out.

3" of Power

I feel sexy when I walk in high heels. The tension in my calf muscles, the subtle sway of my hips, the rhythmic click-click-click of the delicate stilettos striking the ground in time with my stride - it's impossible not to smile coyly and hold my head a little higher. There is something so powerfully feminine about walking confidently in high heeled shoes that I wish I could wear them all the time.

Today I decided to break in the black sandals that I bought a few weeks ago. Two delicate straps across the toes decorated by a leather flower and a 3" stiletto heel all held in place by a think ankle strap with a silver buckle. These shoes are divine.

When I saw them peeking at my from the bottom of the rack during the Nordstrom's shoe sale, I approached them with skepticism. Surely these beautiful shoes weren't actually my size... on a regular day it's a battle to find women's shoes in size 11 that don't look like they belong on either a softball coach or a drag queen. But during the Nordstrom's sale? Forget it - the few pairs they do have in my size are usually snapped up in the first five minutes. I picked them up and looked cautiously at the insole. Size 11! Still, I contained my excitement. Surely they would be too narrow - not only are my feet long, they're broad (oh yes, I have Flintstone feet). I slid my foot out of my sandal and let my toes slide slowly across the arch of the shoe, down towards the delicate black leather straps. I winced, expecting resistance as I pushed my toes between the straps, but there was none. I looked down in wonder, it fit perfectly. I buckled up the ankle strap and held my foot out in front of me, admiring the instant elongation of my leg and the arch in my foot. When one of the salesmen approached me to ask if I wanted to purchase the shoes, it was all I could not to dance my way to the register singing "Yes, yes, yes!"

They've been sitting in my closet since the day I bought them, tempting me. Of course I wore them around my apartment a bit to break them in, but they wanted to go outside, to click along sidewalks and across dancefloors, to show me off one step at a time. Though I didn't have any special plans (well, aside from lunch with Matt & D), today seemed like the day.

Let me tell you, these shoes have POWER. When I couldn't find a place to park for lunch, these shoes convinced a parking attendant to let me into a $15 lot for free. When the guy at the grocery store was about to steal the last grocery basket from right under my fingertips, these shoes made him stop and hand it to me with a smile. When I stopped by Boy 2's house to hang out for a bit, these shoes made him pause and say Wow, those are sexy.

I must find a way to wear these shoes with EVERYTHING.

Love Song For No One

Have you ever had a moment when you really hear the lyrics of a song for the first time? I had one this morning as I was driving to work:

Love Song For No One
John Mayer

stayin' home alone on a Friday
flat on the floor lookin' back on old love
or lack thereof
after all the crushes have faded
and all my wishful thinking was wrong
I'm jaded
I hate it

I'm tired of being alone
so hurry up and get here
I'm so tired of being alone
so hurry up and get here
get here

searching all my days just to find you
I'm not sure who I'm looking for
i'll know it
when I see you
until then I'll hide in my bedroom
staying up all night just to write
a love song
for no one

I'm tired of being alone
so hurry up and get here
I'm so tired of being alone
so hurry up and get here

I could have met in you in a sandbox
I could have passed you on a sidewalk
could I have missed my chance and watched you walk away?
all the way

I could have met in you in a sandbox
I could have passed you on a sidewalk
could I have missed my chance and watched you walk away?

I'm tired of being alone
so hurry up and get here
I'm so tired of being alone
so hurry up and get here
oh yeah

I'm tired of being alone
so hurry up and get here
I'm so tired of being alone
so hurry up and get here

you'll be so good
you'll be so good for me

Yes, exactly.

Revenge Against the Red Tags

The garbage men in my parents' town are very fastidious; they will only haul away certain items. If they think that your trashcans contain illegal items, they will leave a nasty red tag on the handle of the can and not haul it away until the items have been removed. The most illicit item on their list? Construction waste.

When I was a child, I had a rabbit (Bonnie-Bob by name, but that's a story for a different post) who lived in a luxury hutch. The cage was five feet long and almost three feet deep, it required a lot of cedar chips every week.

Cedar chips look suspiciously like construction waste to the untrained eye.

After the first week that the grabage men refused to take away our trash becuase of the "construction waste", my father called the town to explain about my rabbit and his cedar chips. The manager at the Department of Sanitation assured my father that he would explain the situation to our garbage men and that they would take away the trash with no further problems. We got periodic red tags on our trash cans until the day Bonnie-Bob's sucessor died - in a ridiculous exercise in smuggling and intrigue, my father was reduced to trying to hide the cedar chips under other trash or in sealed bags.

The red tags were a source of frustration and annoyance... until my father got his revenge. Over the course of 9 months, he managed to throw out an entire car body in the curbside trash cans without getting one red tag.

We had an old Pontiac whose enginge was good but whose body was beyond repair. After lifting the engine out, we didn't know what to do with the leftover body. With a mischevious gleam in his eye, my father got out his Sawz-All and his polaroid (for documentation purposes, of course) and went to work. He sprinkled a few pieces in amongst the trash every week and took pictures as the remains of the car got smaller and smaller until finally, the entire car had been hauled away by the garbage men.

Now whenever my father finds a red tag on his trashcans, he just laughs.

Striking it Rich

Money has been a little tight lately.

OK, that's an understatement. Money has been very tight. So tight, in fact, that I've been eating Power Bars out of my rehearsal kit and had to borrow $10 from my roommate to put enough gas in my car to get to work.

All week I have been anxiously racing to the mailbox when I get home in anticipation of finding a Giant Check (half my pay for The Ugly Event that I'm doing on Monday) and all week I was disappointed - until yesterday. I nearly fell to my knees in gratitude when I pulled the envelope from the mailbox. But, since it was 4:40 and the bank closes at 5:00, there wasn't time for a proper ceremony of thanks. Instead, I raced to the bank and skidded into the lobby just in time to deposit the check and pull out some cash.

Then, I went to Rite Aid.

Toilet paper and cat litter, toothpaste and tampons! Cotton balls! Kleenex! Shampoo! All of the things that I hadn't been able to buy for weeks were suddenly within my grasp. I may as well have been a pop star loose in Cartier for the first time - everything glittered and I wanted it ALL! I was drunk with buying power and I practically skipped down the aisles, tossing things in my basket recklessly. Two boxes of kleenex? Sure! A trashy magazine? Why not? A package of gum? Stop the insanity!

When I got home, I hoisted my booty proudly onto the kitchen table and beamed at my roommate. He just laughed and shook his head at me.

Metallic Heartbeat

I had an MRI tonight. I have suffered from hypertension for the last five years and, although hypertension runs down both sides of my family, blood pressure as stubbornly high as mine is rare in women my age. So my new doctor ordered a battery of tests. Blood panels, urinalysis, an EKG, and finally an MRI to see if I have renal artery stenosis.

It was a bizarre experience.

Aside from the normal procedure of not eating or drinking for 4 hours before the test, I had to prepare myself to make sure that I had no metal anywhere in or on my body. Interestingly, this includes not wearing deodorant as almost all commercial deodorants contain aluminum which will skew the machine's ability to take clear pictures. I only had to take out four earrings... I can't imagine what a production this would be for some people I know.

When I got to the magnetron room (wearing only a hospital gown and my shoes - stylish) the technician, Sean, briefed me about the procedure. He had excellent bedside manner - he spoke softly but clearly and conversationally and he paused often to ask if I had any questions or needed anything to be explained in more depth. Though I had asked when I made the appointment, I had not been told that my MRI would require an IV full of contrast. I'm not afraid of needles, but I'd never had an IV before so the new sensation of being able to feel every vein in the right side of my body was a bit... odd. After testing the IV with a saline stream, Sean settled me on the bed as comfortably as possible, set a panic buton in my left hand, strapped me in snugly (remaining still is very important for clear results), put earplugs in my ears and headphones over the earplugs, and covered me with ten pounds of antennas to amplify the signal. Total imobilization and almost complete sensory deprivation.

Then, he sent me into the machine.

They are not kidding when they say that the machines are small. The backs of my hands scraped against the top as I moved inside and my shoulders were just as wide as the interior; I couldn't have moved if I'd wanted to. Both ends of the machine are open (on the newer versions anyway) so Sean patted my forehead reassuringly once I was in position and pointed out that if I looked all the way up, I could see the ceiling. For the few moments that it took him to get settled in the observation room, all I could hear was the sound of my own breathing and the low metallic thrum of the machine. The ceiling wasn't particularly comforting to me, so I focused on the blue line that marked the center of the machine's interior.

For forty five minutes, I looked at that line.

The first half of the test was almost meditative. Every few minutes, Sean's voice would come through the headphones asking me to hold my breath. I would count the clicks or thuds or beeps that the machine made before I could breathe again. The rest of the time I just laid there, looking at the blue line and listening to the pulse of the machine. It was like a distant, metallic heartbeat... soothing in its rhythm and tone, but unsettling in its mechanization.

The second half of the test required the contrast to be injected in my veins. It burned all the way up to my shoulder when it was injected and I could smell it ever so faintly. I still had to hold my breath periodically, but now the machine was making louder, higher-pitched noises and vibrating more forcefully. I was relieved when Sean's voice told me that the test was finished, the pictures were clear, and that I could get out of the machine.

I was dizzy when I sat up and felt faintly sick from the contrast in my veins; Sean assured me that both of those things were normal. I thanked him for his kindness before heading back to the patient area to change my clothes.

Now, I just wait.

Kissing The Mighty Jimbo

The Mighty Jimbo hit the nail on the head: U don't have to be rich.

Debts Repayed

Solbeam wrote a wonderful letter to the Department of Education Direct Loan Payment Center.

Go. Now. Read it.

Adventures in Online Dating

Like most young, urban, internet-savvy people, I was curious about the world of online dating. I'd watched some of my friends make successful matches via a popular singles site so I decided to give it a go.

My first meeting with someone from the site taught me several valuable things:

1) Always meet in a public place.
2) Have an escape plan.
3) Waitresses can be your best friend.
4) Don't bother with anyone who won't post or email a picture.

LAGuy seemed normal enough online. He said that he was about my age, our interests were similar, we chatted prettey easily online, and he described himself has "6' medium build, sandy blonde hair and blue eyes". After a couple of nights of IMing, we decided to meet at a popular burger joint near my house for dinner.

I arrived a few minutes early and tucked myself behind a large flower arrangement, watching people come in from between the stems of lilies and freesia. Several people matching his description arrived, but none of them seemed quite right. Then a rusting, multi-colored pinto pulled into the parking lot and I knew. I just knew.

Since I'd posted a picture with my ad, there was no chance that I'd be able to slip out unnoticed. Though I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, I chided myself for being so quick to make judgements and resolved to try to have a good time as I stepped out from behind my floral camouflage.

The man who got out of the car was at least 15 years my senior, short and squat with thinning brown hair and watery gray eyes. He was wearing his finest outfit from 1973... black turtlneck tucked into black jeans, a brown leather vest and a long heavy silver chain with a crystal attached to it. As he approached, I got a whiff of patchouli, Old Spice, and musk.

It was going to be a long night.

After the perfunctory introductions, we were lead to our booth and I gratefully lost myself behind my menu for a few minutes. When the waitress arrived to take our orders, I was just about to open my mouth when LAGuy interrupted me:

We'll both have the turkey melt with fries. I'll have a Coke and she'll have a Diet Coke.

Let me pause to explain that LAGuy hadn't asked me what I wanted, we hadn't even talked about it, he just ordered for me. Though I think that he was trying to be chivalrous rather than controlling, my jaw was on the table. Once I'd scooped it up I gave the waitress (who was looking at me with one eyebrow arched) a desperate look pleading for rescue and she nodded slightly before disappearing with her order pad.

Never in my life have I gotten food so fast - out turkey melts were on the table in under 5 minutes. I wolfed that sandwich down as though I hadn't eaten in a month and then made a dramatic case for how tired I was (even though it wasn't even 8pm). LAGuy payed the check (to the penny, no tip) and we walked out to our cars. After he pulled away, I went back inside and tipped the waitress $20 for making that the shortest dinner I'd ever had to endure.

Then I met some friends at a bar and tried to drink away the lingering scent of patchouli.

48, 49 & 50

When I was younger, my father and I took periodic "Person of Adventure" trips. Sometimes we'd just take off for an afternoon, sometimes it was all weekend. We'd drive around and sing along to the radio, eat breakfast at truckstops (the only acceptable place to eat eggs with ketchup on them), and explore new places.

Given how similar my father and I are, I'm sure my mother was glad of the few quiet hours to herself.

One Friday afternoon when I was in the 5th grade, my father picked me up from school and told me that we were going on a Person of Adventure trip - all the way across the country! One of my father's life goals was to visit all 50 states and at the time he'd only been to 47. The only three left were Oregon, Washington, and Idaho so we were going to fly to Oregon that night, spend the weekend driving through those last three states, and then fly home on Sunday.

I was thrilled!

We had a wonderful weekend driving our rental car through the mountains, doing little dances on the side of the road when we crossed a state line and calling my mother in glee when we found the next pay phone. Naturally, we also ate logs of eggs and hashbrowns with ketchup. We got home late Sunday night and I was exhausted, but I dutifully went to school Monday morning where my first class was French.

Mme. Sutton always started our Monday morning class by asking everyone what they'd done over the weekend. Our answers were usually pretty standard: Je suis allé au cinéma, je suis allé au mail, j'ai fait mes devoirs.

Then, of course, she got to me:

Et qu'avez-vous fait ce week-end Amanda?
J'ai volé à Portland, ai conduit par Oregon, Washington et Idaho avec mon père et ai puis volé la nuit passée à la maison.
Amanda, there's aucune raison de se trouver. Qu'avez-vous fait ce week-end?
Non, vraiment, c'est la vérité.

She and I went back and forth for several minutes (in French, I might add) until she finally sent me to the principle's office and told me not to return to her classroom until I was willing to tell the truth.

Fortunately, the principal was a friend of my family's and was not at all surprised by my story. She simply picked up the phone and called my mother:

Hello Deborah, it's Martha. Did Roger take Amanda to Portalnd this weekend, drive through three states and then fly home last night? (pause. laughter) Yes, that's what I thought. I'll take her back to class then. Have a good day.

The principle then marched me back down the hall to Mme. Sutton's class and made her apologize to me in front of the whole class.

For that brief moment, I was a hero to 11 year-olds everywhere.