A Triumphant Return?

I dunno what it is, but I kinda feel like Mander might be up for more musing some time soon. Stay posted.

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blargh

OK, so this blog has had no action for a while now, and it doesn't look like that's really going to change. So I'm officially putting this baby on sabbatical. The reason is--I don't feel like it anymore. Maybe I will post to it again later. Relocating to England has been difficult. If you want to hear about it, and you know my email, contact me and we can Skype about it. Otherwise, you'll have to check the "Amanda is ____________" box on facebook to stalk me.

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Things I've Done Since Coming to York (in chronological order)

1. Spent a week not knowing anyone, hanging out 24/7 with a flatmate that didn't know anyone.
2. Yelled at said flatmate for not pretending to be my bf when some scally got "up in my grill," as the kids say (or as they said five years ago).
3. A few minutes--and beers--later, yelled at same flatmate for being chivalrous and pretending to be my bf, telling him, "You're my houseMATE. MATE as in FRIENDS, not PARTNERS." This story is secondhand--I have no recollection of actually doing this.
4. Went to a beach party organized by the University, went to a kid's house for afterparty drinking, got angry for no reason, and lectured four kids I'd just met about the Holocaust.
5. Got told about this episode two days later. I have no recollection of discussing the Holocaust.
6. Went to Halloween party, wearing my nightgown (my flatmates--all of them--told me that if I wear my pyjamas and let my hair down, I look like the girl from The Ring), and some scary facepaint.
7. Made out with a tall Italian guy who was also wearing facepaint, for half an hour, on a stairwell above a party, on full display.
8. Had awkward next morning with Italian guy, and failed to exchange numbers.

All-in-all, a highly productive month.

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I promise to be happy and have a better attitude.

After spending the last week--Fresher's Week--drinking at the University's behest, I think this place is alright.

To be continued...

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No More Talking to Married Men in Bars

This story is an account of something that happened to me. Nothing really happened, but the incident was on my mind for a long time. I think that it stuck with me because of what I felt when it happened. Here it is. If it’s boring, I’m sorry.

Recently I visited friend Lian. She and I worked together for a short time, when I was a full-timer and she was only part-time. She had a second job, and she was going to school full-time, getting an MA in only one year. I admired her discipline and energy in getting so much done. Also, I related to her on a personal level, as she also lived with a boyfriend that she talked about a lot.

Of course, things change. Lian wasn’t getting enough hours at work, so she had to leave. Also, things with her boyfriend went sour, and later I learned that he had been controlling, suffocating, and tried to destroy her self-esteem. Also, he was irresponsible about career and money stuff, which alarmed her whenever she thought about the future. These concerns were definitely something I could relate to. Anyway, she found a new guy, one that was successful and responsible, and treated her well. She also moved up to the North Side, where there was more fun to be had. The other day, I went up to her neck of the woods, looking forward to some good Vietnamese food. Sometimes a girl just needs some pho.

After a very satisfying, very soupy dinner, Lian suggested we get a drink at a bar near her house. Now, if I have any English readers paying attention, you should know that in America, “getting a drink,” can mean getting drunk, but it can also mean getting a single drink. We Yanks like to live it up, but there’s a Puritan strain that cuts through our society, and we have to go to work earlier, and finish later, than y’all. Since I wanted to keep talking to her about stuff, I opted for the emptier, quieter-looking bar. She said to me playfully, “Now, Amanda, I need to you stop me fro having more than one drink. If I have more than one, I’ll get drunk and start trying to kiss other boys. Matt wouldn’t like that.”
“Where is Matt?”

“Out-of-town for a wedding.”

“Oh.” I heard what she said but I didn’t process it very much. I didn’t really believe that any adult person would get that drunk after one drink. Even if she were drunk, couldn’t she just tell herself in the beginning not to grab ass?

She ordered a vodka tonic and I had an amoretto sour. My cocktail had no alcohol in it; hers was almost all vodka. She drank it down really quickly—the effect was instant, and almost electric. Suddenly, she started beaming a lot, and scrunching her eyes and nose up in a cute fashion. “Are there any cute boys here? I want to hug somebody!” She said before she collapsed into giggles. I got another drink. I got her a glass of water.

At first I was incredulous, but after a moment I realized that Lian really was out of it and she was vulnerable. Or was she? The moment this dawned on me, a group of yuppies sat down next to us. One guy in particular seemed interested in Lian, and sat down closest to her. In turn, Lian started talking to him and flirting, because he was the one closest to her. I engaged in conversation with the both of them, trying to keep an eye on them, but for my part, I spotted a guy in the group that was pretty hot, in rugged way—he could have been in his forties, but he was well-built, and had a strong face. To get his attention I started talking loudly to Lian and her dude—we’ll call him “Dave”—and dropping phrases like “oral fixation” as a joke. After Lian started getting really touchy-feely with Dave—and I started to get nervous—I joked to my dude, my interlocutor, “I can’t take this girl anywhere—she’s not safe!” He said, “Well, I am safe,” and he showed me his iPhone, which had a picture of a baby on it. “I’m married and I have a two-month-old daughter, so I’m not going to try anything." Seeing this, I backed off the flirting thing. Instead, I started giving him shit, trying to be sarcastic as possible and cutting him down to size. I kept calling him “Baby daddy” and “Patter Familias” to dig into him for being old. (I realize now that that is just another form of flirting)

I started feeling comfortable talking to the guy—even though his real name is the same as my father’s. I kept on drinking, ordering cocktails on Lian’s tab, unfortunately, since I had recently had my credit card stolen, and was using one of those fucking ATM cards that you can’t use to start tabs at bars. I also remember having a rapidly-growing sense of entitlement, as I started grabbing my interlocutor’s drinks and taking generous swigs. A few times I got up to go to the bathroom, and I felt my interlocutor’s hand brush against me. “Stop that!” I’d say belligerently, batting his hand away. He’d laugh and pretend to cower in fear. Later, after I’d had a few, I became slap-happy—I do that when I’m drinking and talking to boys. When I hit him, though, he caught my arm in his hands and held it in some kind of wrestling and/or martial arts hold—and then he started bending my arm back the wrong way. “Ow!” I squealed, “Stop! It hurts.” He let go “You need to start working out,” he said, and he had proved his point. He was stronger than me. I was the vulnerable one here. This guy was a little dangerous. This excited a part of me—or at least, a part of me recognized that fact that if he weren’t married with a two-month-old daughter, I would be excited.

Even as I was having this strange interaction with Mr. Married Guy, I was trying to keep my friend, Lian, on the straight-and-narrow, with regards to her boyfriend. Throughout the night, I changed seats to put myself between her and Dave, but I’d get sick of Dave’s inanity and Lian’s drunken silliness that I’d end up next to the Interlocutor again. Lian kept text-messaging her boyfriend, to no avail, and she’d lean over and say things like, “No one thinks I’m pretty!”

“Shut up. Lots of people think you’re pretty. I think you’re pretty.”

“But none of the booooys think I’m pretty! And no one wants to kiss me! I want to kiss somebody!”

“You can kiss me.”

“Eww! Amanda, you’re a girl.” For some reason I thought her making out with me wouldn’t be “real” cheating, while her making out with a dude would be. Yeah, I don’t really know why I thought that. Alas, my powers of persuasion must have been on suspension that night, because Lian did not make out with me. She kept cuddling and acting ridiculous with Dave, and I groaned about this to my interlocutor. “She’s not supposed to be doing this! I’m responsible. She put me in charge—“

“Wait, she put you in charge of what she does? How can you take that seriously?”

“Well…” I didn’t have a great reply at the time. If someone asked me that question now, I’d say that Lian can do whatever the hell she wants, but the fact was, she was drunk out of her mind, which means that not only could she cheat on her boyfriend, but she could end up dead in a ditch somewhere.

Just then, I felt something on my neck. My interlocutor, Mr. Pater Familias, was kissing me below my ear. I froze. “What are you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“You’re married!”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I kissed you on the—I haven’t gotten that personal. You shouldn’t be surprised.”

“What about your wife?”

“What about her? I love her.”

“Does she go around kissing strange men in bars?”

“Actually, she does.”

“fll..bt..spp.” I just sputtered. I rested my elbows on my knees, and my chin on my hands, thinking. I felt him kiss my neck again and I shuddered—I’m very sensitivie there—and I heard his voice say, “You’re a smart girl, life’s complicated.” I guess life’s too “complicated” for successful monogamy. I sat there, stuck in time and space, trying to evaluate my situation. This man was smart, or at least knew how to act interested in the pseudo-intellectual bullshit that I spit out when I’m talking to new people. He was also physically aggressive in some ways, which, I’m embarrassed to admit, was arousing (yeah, I’m a terrible feminist). There was a huge part of me that was exited by this whole situation, precisely because it would be wrong. But how much farther would this go? Would he go from kissing my neck to kissing my lips? Did he just want to make out with a woman half his age in a bar? Did he want to have sex with me? Where would we do that? In his car? In a hotel room? In his house, with his wife in another room? Did he do this often? Did he lead a double-life? Was he one of those crazy serial killers that hid his double life by killing off his dates and dumping them in a quarry or something?

“Amanda! I wanna go home with Dave!”

I snapped out of my reverie. “What? You want to what? Ok, fine, we’re out of here.” I quickly threw on my jacket, got her jacket, grabbed our purses, and got us out of that godforsaken bar. There would be no making out with married men tonight, and no going home with serial killers.

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Parlez-Vous Français?

For the Francophiles among ye, I have a very basic question...

Why the fuck doesn't the French language differentiate between the simple present tense and the present progressive?

Isn't there a difference between the statement "I work," meaning, "Yes, I am nominally employed," and "I am working," meaning, "Leave me alone kid, I'm busy?" Is this how they get away with a 35-hour work week?

Just asking.

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Bette Davis is my Girl

A few days ago I posted about Victoria's Secret and its disturbing fascination with oversexualized youth. I also just recently saw Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, and Bette Davis' character, Baby Jane Hudson, puts a wholly different grotesque slant on the youth fetish. Witness:



For a sec there I thought it was Britney.

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