he's straight hood, yo

Yesterday, I was sitting outside with Dougie, talking on the phone, when all of the sudden he thought it appropriate to charge a man walking on the sidewalk, jump up on the fence separating him from the target of his barking attack, and hop up and down. This happens sometimes, I guess when there's something about the person that he doesn't like, but I don't condone this behavior at all. As a matter of a fact, when he acts like that, I scream at him and clap my hands and demand that he "GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!" and he always quickly complies with my orders.

So last night he started with the charging, and I started with the screaming. Usually the person he is harassing will throw his or her arms up and make a bee line across the street whilst yelling something along the lines of "You betta get yo' dog," or "HELP!" But not this particular man. This man reached into his coat pocket, presumably grabbing his gat because I live in a neighborhood where it would be expected that many people pack, and screamed right back and Dougie. I was actually really pissed. Like, what the fuck man? You're gonna shoot my dog? And his screaming at Dougie only further aggravated Dougie who continued to bark and ignored my orders. And the man just stood there with his hand in his pocket, bellowing at my dog. So finally I was like "Dude, don't encourage him," and the guy walked off, and Dougie finally got back on the porch, wagging his tail and totally oblivious to the fact that he just almost got a cap in his ass.

Dougie. Almost getting shot in NE DC. Because he's hood like that.

ode to pop-pop

Lately I've been pretty emotional about things. I don't know what it is. I'm certainly not unhappy. My 2007 Action Plan is working out marvelously, and my horoscope keeps telling me that great things are going to happen soon in my career and love life. But things like a discussion about walking a ten-minute mile will make me irrationally pissed off* and reading this this 93-year-old man's blog post about his grandfather makes my heart totally break in a thousand pieces. Perhaps it's because it's the middle of the month, or perhaps all this exercise and organic food is making me a bitch/crybaby. I'm not sure.

*Special note to she on the other side of that discussion: I Googled it the next day. Irrational, I know. But seriously, you should start training for the Olympics because there is actually an event called racewalking and they walk 6-minute miles. Also, I love you.

Anyway, that blog made me start thinking about my own grandfather, Pop-Pop. And how he would sit in their old boxy Cadillac in the Marshalls parking lot while my grandmother, Mom-Mom, would spend five hours inside, carefully selecting ankle-length prairie skirts that she would ultimately never wear and sandals that she would complain irritated her hammer toes* until she retired them three years later. Sometimes he would sleep, sometimes he would read the paper, sometimes he would just listen to Frank Sinatra and probably reminisce about when my Mom-Mom was a hot young blonde with Angelina Jolie lips and Hollywood dreams, before the kids and the mortgage and the alcoholism.

*Not even sure what hammer toes are and not sure I want to know.

I'm sure those five hours were always incredibly boring. I'm sure he would much rather have been fishing, or watching the 9-inch black-and-white television in their kitchen, or playing with his grandkids. But he never complained. Not even once. And she shopped a lot. He did it to keep her happy, even if it meant sacrificing his own happiness, because she was his wife and he was her husband.

I think he spent their entire marriage keeping her happy at the expense of his own happiness. And I don't know if I could really say he was a better man for doing it. I really would rather him have been happy himself. But maybe he was. Maybe just seeing her happy made his world.

I'm sure that Mom-Mom would have never have made him sit the car again if it meant that he didn't have to leave her on May 6, 1994. In her last few years, everybody could see that she really missed him and didn't really know what to do with herself without him. When she left us ten years after Pop-Pop, I knew she was ready to find her husband, who was probably somewhere in the afterlife, sitting in a boxy Cadillac listening to Frank Sinatra, quietly waiting for her to finish what she was doing so he could take her home.

another douchebag story

When I was 17, my "boyfriend" (notice the quotation marks, please) waited for me to leave the room and asked Missmo for her phone number and suggested they hang out sometime sans me. Of course, Missmo immediately alerted me to the fact that I was dealing with a douchebag and that was the end of that. Because that, my friends, is a line that is never to be crossed. Lord hath mercy on he who crosseth that line.

It's not crossed very often, save for the few poor slobs who seriously think that there is a real possibility that Missmo and I are closeted lesbians, or worse, girls who kiss girls for attention, and have the audacity to seriously suggest a threesome. In the ten years that we've been friends, however, we've learned to shake that off. I mean, she's a good looking girl, and some like to say that I am as well. As they say, hate the game, not the player.

Recently, though, that line was crossed again by a guy down home with whom I made out like a year ago. We ran into him again at Benny's over Christmas vacation, and as is always the case, we threw a little afterparty at Missmo's place with a few of our friends. We invited him along for old time's sake, for him to promptly pass out sitting up in Missmo's chair, baseball cap and sneakers on and everything. Figuring that this was a good sign that he was too intoxicated to drive home, we left him to sleep it off, and when everybody else left, we went to bed and slept it off ourselves.

Now, anybody who is or knows a girl knows that girls have no problem sleeping in the same bed together. I even know some heterosexual men who have no problem sleeping in the same bed together, but I won't go there. I don't see really what the big deal is. When we woke up in the morning, the dude was gone, but he wasted no time sending us a text message (to Missmo's phone because mine was dead) that went like this:

"Hey - were you guys sleeping in the same bed last night? I should have jumped in between you guys."

Wha?

Not yet sure of the level of creepiness this text achieved, I responded sarcastically:

"Naw, then you would have interrupted our spooning and we would have been unhappy."

To which he responded:

"I wouldn't have interrupted! I luv spooning! Especially with two girls who are bringing sexy back!"

To which there was absolutely no response. "Luv?" "Sexy back?" For real?????? I wrote him off as a tool, and that was that.

Christmas vacation ended, and I went home. Missmo saw him out a couple weeks later, and being the polite and cordial girl that she is, said hello. We figured there was no harm in being friendly, so she would chat him up when she saw him out and we thought nothing of it.

That is, until one day, she received this text message:

"Anybody up for a mustache ride?"

Wha??? Is this even for real???? WHO SAYS THAT????

Needless to say, that was the line, he totally crossed it, and she hasn't seen or heard from him since. However, the text did land him a spot in the elite group of men that I will blog about, those who are such douches that I have no shame blathering their business to the internet.
So there you go. Another douchebag story. About a guy who once asked my best friend if she was up for a "mustache ride."

we're adults. when did that happen?

Yesterday I learned that my first boyfriend, who is actually the only real boyfriend I ever had, is expecting a baby. I met him when I was 19, and we were together for two tumultuous years until I went away to college and opened a new chapter. Then, my first year of law school, we got back together, but ulimtately did not work out at all so that was the end of that. We went through a lot together in those early years, and the lessons that I have learned from my relationship with him are lessons that I will keep with me for the rest of my life.

We're not in touch or anything anymore, so I heard the news through the grapevine (a very old, very tangled grapevine at that). When I mentioned it to my roommate, she responded "Well, he's old enough."

Holy shit. We're old enough to be parents. And pretty soon, he will be.

It got me thinking about how my life turned out and how his life turned out and how very different he is from me and how very different I am from 19-year-old or 21-year-old or even 23-year-old Amy. A lot has changed since then.

A baby so does not fit into my life right now. I can't even begin to imagine how I could possibly find a place for a baby right now. I can't hardy fathom starting a family right now. But down in ol' Fort Myers, my ex-boyfriend is becoming a father. He's starting his family. Six years ago, we were sure that WE were going to have a family. It just blows my mind.

I wish I could get a hold of him so I could wish him the best for him and his new little family.

But maybe some things are better left alone.

missing

I miss electric touches. Where he puts his hand on my arm and it tingles and I ask "Do you feel that electricity?" and he just smiles because he knows that of course I know he feels it.

I miss secrets. The most intimate words in a hushed voice in the night while his heart pumps against my ear.

I miss comfortable safety. Bury my head in his chest with one arm around my shoulders and knowing that there is no safer place in the world than right here.

I miss heartache. Having something so sweet, so pure, so real, that it my heart aches if I think about it too much.

I miss surrender. Giving my entire being to him to do what he will and wanting him to do anything, everything.

But in the meantime, I've found me. So I guess that's enough.

from beach bunny to snow bunny

This week I saw snow for the third time in a decade. (I love saying "I saw snow for the [x] time in a decade.") It's such a novelty to me that you can catch me at the bus stop taking pictures of the brown, nasty slush with my camera phone and sending it to my mom and Missmo back home, as though it were magic super slush that contains diamonds and makes you skinny. I had two half snow days, which were so much better than hurricane days because there isn't really any danger during a snow day – you just chill in front of the fire and get to watch Oprah. The past three mornings, I've had to wear the snow boots that my mom gave me for Christmas, which has made me regret being annoyed that I had to drag them all the way from Florida to DC. Every day, I e-mail Missmo about the temperature (usually around 20) and the current weather conditions and she always responds with the temp in SW Florida (usually something around 78) and reminds me that she can and does go to the beach.

This sure ain't Kansas anymore.

This weekend I will try my hand at snowboarding. I have to purchase snowboarding gear because, of course, I own none, and I'm really nervous that I'm going to get the wrong shit because I don't know anything about winter sports and all the cool experienced snowboarders will laugh at me. Kinda like when it first started getting a little chilly here and I never wore a coat because I didn't know any better because I hadn't had to wear a coat in 13 years. That kind of thing.

I'm really excited, though, because I've been wanting to try snowboarding ever since I went up to Deep Creek Lake, MD in January. I keep fantasizing about how I'll be a natural, and all of the sudden I'll come down the mountain with my IPod in my ears in my functional yet stylish snowboarder outfit, in perfect snowboard chick form, and then do like this cool stop and all the snow will shoot up and there will be a crowd at the bottom of the hill and everyone will look at me like "Ohmygod, she's soooooo good," and I'll be like "What?" But in real life, I'll probably spend most of my time on my ass the first day, and there's a good chance that the second day I will wipe out bad and suffer a minor concussion.

saturday night blogging

Some completely random facts about me:
1. I was captain of my JV cheerleading squad in high school.
2. Shortly into football season, I was kicked off my JV cheerleading squad.
3. When I was about 5 or 6, I was convinced that my father was David Lee Roth.
4. Sometimes the sound of a banjo and fiddle makes my heart swell up in my chest.
5. My very first crush was Luke Skywalker.
6. Tom Sawyer was my second crush ever.
7. I didn't learn how to drive until I was 18.
8. One of the things at the top of my list of things to do is to swim with dolphins.
9. Skydiving used to also be something on my list, but in the past five years, I have developed a height phobia.
10. When I was 11, I made my little friends go with me to the Vietnam War Memorial in Manchester, Connecticut and tie yellow ribbons to the trees in support of the troops during Desert Storm.
11. I once knocked over the Christmas tree which caused half of my great-grandmother's antique glass ornaments to break, and I blamed the dog. (Not Dougie - this was way before him.)
12. Jordan Knight was my favorite New Kid on the Block.
13. I have met ?love from the Roots.
14. Until I was 19, I was convinced that it was my destiny to move to New York and marry a mobster.
15. When we were 17, a boy ran Missmo and me off the road and tried to kill us and totally terrified us.
16. In 1986, my mother and I drove all the way from Connecticut to Florida and listened to Bon Jovi and U2 the whole time.
17. I almost went to FSU. Because Tallahassee seemed like more of a party school.
18. When I got the solo in the school play in 5th grade, all the 6th grade girls were such bitches to me that I ended up telling the teacher I didn't want to do it.
19. I broke my very first car by doing 140 or something ridiculous across Alligator Alley. And it was a Mercury.
20. When I first moved to Florida in 1993, I lived on a sail boat on the city dock.