Friday Fondue

In case you've been living under a rock, the weather 'round these parts has gone batshit. Texas is closing it's schools, people are snowed in up in Chicago and down here our pipes are bursting and our water fountains freezing. I can't remember it being this cold in Tucson and I've lived here for about 18 years. So, I've been keeping things indoors the last few days. My main activities include cooking just so the stove puts out some heat in the kitchen, ironing because my hands get really cold and making passes at my dryer. I've never been a bigger wuss in my life. My Tucsonan flesh isn't made for these temperatures!

Anyway, naturally with all this indoor time comes links!

I want to throw this over some tights for all my errand running, this, because uuuuhhh LOOK AT IT, and this because I'm bloody OBSESSED with it.
Sinead O'Connor opens up about her struggle with motherhood in a heartbreaking honesty that few have the courage to let others in on.
A gorgeous couch I'm in furniture lust with.
Fuck Yeah Bukowski, for those of us with a penchant for drunken wordsmiths.
Watched this about three times this week and I think it is going to have to go on my favorites list.
Scandinavian Design Center has been sending me into a spiral of "yes please"! Check these out!
Thinking about taking a few inches off the mane after seeing these photos over at Liebemarlene Vintage.
Oh wait! More clothes! Look! Look!
Two songs I've had on repeat for the last 24 hours. Old, but a couple of my favorites. In my next life I'm walking down the aisle to "Play With Fire". Seriously.
I've been looking for different TV consoles. This one is my favorite!
Gavin McInnes (founder of Vice Magazine) is a hipster turned dad and the results are quite hilarious. Check out "How To Fight" and "How To Work Out From Home".
I've been meaning to pick up this book for awhile, hopefully this weekend.


And that's all folks! I'll be spending the weekend trying to stay warm, staving of cabin fever and hopefully getting down on some delicious food. Stay classy Tucson.

30 Day Challenge- 3/30

3/30- Pandas Have To Eat Too.

I love playing pretend. It's probably one of the reasons I want a daughter in the future. I'd be a master chef at faux-cupcakes for tea parties with stuffed animal guests. Today Jack woke up from his nap (ka-ching!) and decided he wanted "sketti" so I fixed him up a plate and, and after looking at Panda on the cold, hard floor, decided to set him up with a snack too.


4/30- Bird Friends
This came atop a gift I received a few weeks ago. I loved the bird too much to toss it with the paper so I situated him in my (fake) poppies. Yes, that book you see does indeed say "fetish" on it. It's the other side of Dita Von Teese's book "Burlesque and the Art of the Teese". I love burlesque, so I keep it out so I can have instant eye candy when I need it.


5/30- There That Wild Thing Is!
I stumbled upon a friend while looking for Jack's drum. Life with children means often finding characters where you'd least expect them.

The money makers

Since I've started on my newest 30 Day Dare, I decided I'd usher it in by sharing my favorite pictures I've taken the last couple years.











Aaaand that's that for now!

30 Day Dare- Month 2- A Picture is worth a thousand posts

The vegan challenge went off without a hitch and I'm happy to say that I'll be maintaining a vegetarian/as-vegan-as-I-can lifestyle. I didn't anticipate a simple idea derived out of writers block to change me the way it has thus far. I'm still not really done with the vegan challenge. I want to post all my favorite recipes, do a cooking show type thing with Colleen (my vegan guidance counselor) and do a review of my favorite vegan products. So I haven't given the vegan challenge a proper "farewell" because, well, I'm not quite ready to just yet.
Now! Since it's the start of a new month, it is the start of a new challenge. At first I was going to do 30 days of running or 30 days of sexercise, but what I decided on was 30 days of pictures. I've wanted to get better at taking them so I figured "why not now?!" This also correlated with a city review I've been meaning to do for awhile (my favorite spots in Tucson, restaurants, music venues, clothing stores, etc).

So without further adieu-

Day 1-2 (got a bit of late start after realizing last night around 11 p.m. that it was the 1st of the month)

My morning-



AND! Since my morning would be absolutely unstartable (like that word? I just made it up.) Here's the music that made my heart swell large enough to swallow the day-

Hi, my brain has short circuited.

It seems like when I become really productive with one thing, ten other just as important things go unchecked. I need to check up on those other things. I have much to update and write about, but right now I need to finish a couple projects and tie some loose ends. So, instead of a post, here are my favorite posts I've written thus far.

Let's do the time warp!

*Jack gets sick, I question my motherly instincts.
* Jack turns one, my heart breaks into a million pieces...and then we have cake!
*The Virgin Suicides strikes a chord.
* Vodka after bedtime.
*I <3 Pixies.
* My thoughts on breastfeeding.
* The moment I knew he was MY son (if I had any doubts after the whole carrying him in my body for 9 months and general DNA match).
*Fun with gynecology! Now with more embarrassing moments action!
* "Babies" tricks me into thinking what I want most of all is a womb full of fetus.
* My thoughts on abortion.
* Somebody has a moment of 90's nostalgia...
*Pre-play date jitters.
* Jack dances to Lady Gaga (NOT MY DOING!) and I get a hernia from laughing.
*On losing my religion.
* My friend Tyler graduates college, I feel like a proud mama (despite him being two years older than me).
*Fighting a losing battle...with naps.
* Welcome to Arizona, here's some sunscreen and a water bottle.
*Love in a time of melancholy.
* And finally...what it's like to be happy.

Read at your own risk! I have some laundry calling my name...

Mama Police

Let's get one thing out of the way- I have a potty mouth. No! I have the mouth of a pirate ship that's been lost at sea for three years, battling scurvy and entertaining loose women. Before Jack I never gave a thought as to who I was potentially offending (old ladies on the bus, my English teacher) and I just let the f-bombs and s-storms come flying when and where I felt fit.

"It makes you sound uneducated."
"Whatever. I have the highest GPA in the damn English class. So that notion can go fuck itself."

Fast forward a few years and now I have Jack. When Jack was an infant I figured he was too mesmerized by his own hands to notice the "son of a motherfuck"s I was tossing around when it came to breastfeeding, sleep deprivation, healing c-section sites and general Arizona summer weather. Surely he didn't notice the in-depth expletives I served up my malcontents on the road. No, my son would never understand "donkey dildo shit eater" from "Ohhhh, loooook at the duckies!!"

Until he did.

After Jack dropped his very own f-bomb the other day while mimicking me, I slammed the brakes.

"Uuuuuhhhh nooooo! Okay, listen. Mama has a bad, bad potty mouth! And she needs to STOP! No bad words okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay."

And we moved on to more pressing matters like apple juice refills and guitar playing.

But, habits don't just end at the snap of a finger. And by dinner I had "an accident".

"*pop off oil landing on my skin from the skillet* Oooowww fuck!"

And then I see this curly head of hair peek around the corner, with an expression I can only describe as "unimpressed Martha Stewart", points at me with disgust and says-

"NO BAD WORDS MAMA!!"
"Ohh, oh yes, I'm sorry dude. You're right! No bad words! I'm sorry."
"That's okay."

And so it has begun. The reform of my rebel tongue. It's just kinda f*@ked up that a 2 year old had to point it out.

Classy Amanda, reeeeeal classy.

The thing about being happy...

Last Saturday after taking in the Sean Lennon concert, after the band left the stage, after the vodka cranberries had evaporated from the glass and into my bloodstream, I started walking towards 4th Avenue in search of more. More music, more alcohol OR sobriety. There is no in between with me. I must either find my head on a friends couch or in my car, free of the poison under my skin, making my way back home.

There is no in between.

I tucked my hands into the pockets of my black pea coat and listened to my boot heels click and echo on the pavement of an underpass I had passed under countless times in my life. By now comfortable enough in it among the vagabond street bands and the faces that blur past. I recognized one that night. He went to high school with me. A friend of a friend and then a friend of mine. We had made jokes occasionally, shared music and small talk. Our eyes met and the recognition took place awkwardly. We continued walking a few paces until the air of familiarity pulled our shoulders around and made us feel it was okay to make conversation.

"Oh my god! Hey!!"
"Hey! I thought that was you but you looked too happy to be Amanda."
"(giggling) You two are drunk aren't you?"
"Yeah, we live right up the street so why not? What are you up to?"
"Just heading to Che's. Sean Lennon just got done playing Congress. His band is out mingling on the patio right now, you should go catch 'em before they leave."
"Yeah, maybe we will! Have fun!"
"You too!"

And we continued on our paths. Only this time his words hung around my head.

"....you looked too happy to be Amanda."

At first I smiled to myself thinking "god, I must have really been a sad sack in high school". But he's been a friend of mine on Facebook for a couple years now. He'd seen me since high school, even on the superficial level of social networking.

Was I happy? I hadn't really asked myself that before. I just assumed I was when I was and I wasn't when I wasn't. I hadn't thought of it as an entity that could envelope ones disposition enough to be able to call it out in the dark of the night.

There is no in between.

The last six or seven years of my life have been, for lack of a better analogy, a roller coaster. Parent's divorce (after 15 years of constant fighting), recovering cutter (I had poor coping skills when it came to depression), end of a significant relationship, graduating high school, new job, new relationship, unplanned pregnancy...adulthood before 20. I hadn't thought about happiness as a thing that possessed me. I rolled on with life, hopping from one stone to the next, trying to keep my balance, avoiding the fall. I never thought twice about what my face conveyed. Whether my anger pushed people away, whether my hurt drew them in, whether my smile played an active role in my life.

The thing about being in your own world, trying to navigate it as best you can, is that sometimes you forget about the ones floating around you and what they see.

I handed my i.d. to the doorman at Che's and settled into a booth in the back. I ordered a Pepsi, there was no need for anymore alcohol. There was no need to fake it. I smiled and embraced my friends words instead of trying to understand them, analyze them.

It's nice when somebody compliments your outfit, your haircut, your family. But when somebody points out something you didn't think you were carrying with you, that's something different. Invigorating. Validating even. Free of ego and twice as rewarding.


Since last week I've carried those words with me. I found them when I was laying in the bath a day or two ago. When I rolled around the ground with Jack at the park, blowing bubbles in his hair. When I cooked. When I laughed or had something to share.

"...you looked too happy to be Amanda."

I guess I've changed. For once I'm happy about that.