The Many Loves of Amalah, Part One

After reading all your lovely comments about dickweed ex-boyfriends and Lauren’s charming little story of young love gone haywire, it's obvious I have many, many more days’ worth of entries about my History Of Lurve With The Boys to share with y'all.

So today? Lurve, first-grade style. Heartbreak, Betrayal and Cabbage Patch Kid Lunchboxes.

Flashback (Wayne's World style) to the first day of first grade. I am riding the big school bus. I am gazing lovingly at my yellow Cabbage Patch Kids lunchbox. Oh, how I love it so. I also love my new socks with the pink lace around the ankles. I love my new pack of colored pencils. I love myself.

Suddenly? There’s this BOY sitting next to me. He just got on the bus and then boom. Sitting next to me in all his boydom.

Hi, he says. I’m Matthew. He sticks out his hand. I do not take it. He’s kind of big. Stocky. A bruiser. I am tiny and wee and probably would have snapped in two had this kid sat on me.

Undeterred, he asks me my name. I tell him. And with that, he fell in love.

He was in the first grade too. In my class. Somehow? We were considered boyfriend and girlfriend by our very first recess. He wrote me notes and proudly left MATTHEW LOVES AMY doodles out in plain sight.

I generally ignored him. I had been pretty popular with the boys in nursery school and just took it for granted that boys “liked” me in “that way” or whatever. They were useful when you wanted to play house and needed a Daddy. Also: cooties and mud and such.

(I was also technically in a pretty serious long-term relationship with David, my next-door neighbor, who also loved me. His brother would don a black shirt with a folded tissue tucked in the collar and marry us. Then David and I would rush to see who could declare divorce first. Then we’d get married again. It was adorable.)

But then I met Jason. (No, not the current Jason. The first in a long series of other Jasons, Johns, James and Joshes that I would date. Seriously. Had a thing with the J names. But we’ll discuss them in future entries.)

This Jason was beautiful. Oh my gawd. He had curly blond hair and blue eyes and dimples. He was a child model for fuck’s sake and had the J.C. Penney back-to-school circular to prove it. All the girls loved him.

I would sometimes chase him around the playground and try to kiss him. One time I caught him and kissed his ear. He had very nice, clean ears.

I have no idea what Matthew thought about all this. I don’t think there was any kind of scandal or Earlobegate or anything. Matthew still asked to sit with me on the bus every day. Most days I let him and we argued over things, like whose house we'd live in after we got married. Other days I was off with my friend Allison Last-Name-Withheld-Because-She-Was-And-May-Still-Be-Evil building forts out of our books and bags in the back row seats.

He bought me a heart-shaped box of candy for Valentine’s Day. We held hands sometimes too.

But. Then. I got on the bus one afternoon and Matt and Allison were in the back row. I walked back to sit with them and they both stuck their legs out across the seats and told me I couldn’t sit there. I started to sit a row ahead of them. Allison said those seats were saved. I moved up a row. Matt said those were saved.

(Now, I was a smart kid but I was not a smart kid. Rather than tell them to go eat boogers or whatever my version of “fuck off” was at that age, I let the humiliation continue. I kept walking back towards the front of the bus trying to sit down. And every time one of them yelled, “That’s saved!” I got up and moved again. Dumbass. And crybaby.)

It went on like this for days. Matthew sat with Allison and I was not allowed anywhere near them. Matthew told me he didn’t like me anymore. I cried. Oh, how I cried. I cried so hard on the bus one day that a fourth grader noticed and said disapprovingly to Matthew, “You must have broken Amy’s heart.” He just shrugged in response and I cried harder.

I moped about it off the bus too. One day at recess Jason the Gorgeous Golden Child came running up to me. “Doncha wanna chase me today, Amy?” he asked, already crouched in position to bolt the minute I said yes.

But instead, I shook my head no and wandered off to sulk on a swing. Jason just stood there, dumbfounded.

Sigh. Oh, Allison Last-Name-Withheld-Because-She-Was-And-May-Still-Be-Evil. You were my very first archenemy.

And Matthew Smith. You were my very first love.

Pride Comes Before a Something Something...

Last night, as Jason and I were walking back from the gym, I mentioned that it was time for another redesign for Amalah.com. I’m worried that between the whole “Queen of Everything” theme and my somewhat (okay, very) cocky writing I’m putting some people off.

To which Jason promptly replied, “Well, yeah. I’m sure you are. I mean, I know it’s your schtick, but you do come across as pretty elitist.”

Of course I pitched a fit in response to this allegation but also secretly knew he was right. And I don’t want to put anybody off. I love every person who reads this site and I read about a bazillion sites a day that are much, much better than this one. And to prove that it is just a “schtick,” I’m going to drop it for this post (and this post only, bitches) and thoroughly embarrass myself for your amusement.

Here, in no particular order, are some of my Deep Dark Secrets of Mortification, Betrayal and Stupidness:

(Please be gentle.)

Advice @ Amalah.com

As part of my quest to remain The Queen of Everything and The Boss of You, I've decided to start giving everybody advice about how to live their lives. Behold, the first of what is sure to be an immensely popular feature here at amalah.com: The Wednesday Advice Smackdown. (I go with what works, people, shut up.)

Send all your stupid problems to amy[at]amalah.com with the subject line: "I'm a big four-eyed lame-o and I wear the same stupid sweater every day." Or just "Advice", your choice.

Disclaimer: This is in no way anywhere as good and pure and lovely as The Vine or The Crazy Lin Chao Motherly Advice Column, nor am I qualified to give any type of advice whatsoever. You should probably be advised to do the opposite of what I say, because it's all nonsense. But since I just gave you that advice, you might not want to do that either. Also, the links provided with the signature of each question are completely coincidental and in no way mean that person is actually the questionee. I also lie a lot.

11 Things I Learned While Watching The Swan

Yes. I know. I'm disappointed in myself too. I told Chris that I would not watch The Swan, mostly because I was embarrassed to let TiVo know I watched it. (TiVo's been recommending indie movies and stuff on BBC America, y'all, I finally got it to think that I'm smart! ) But then today, while watching a Simpsons rerun, that irresistable green "thumbs up" icon showed up on a commercial for The Swan.

What could I do? TiVo was literally giving me the green light to watch this garbage. It was like, "C'mon, you've earned it. I know you have a season pass to The Office and stopped watching American Idol. You deserve some trash."

So I did. And I'm glad, because I learned some Very Important Lessons.

1) I'm actually very pretty and quite happy with my looks.

2) Except that I could probably use some fat injections under my eyes.

3) Also my top lip is much smaller than my lower lip, and this is apparently a really horrible thing that I should get fixed.

4) I'm not quite so ready to have a baby now that I've seen just what it does to the skin around your belly button. Ew.

5) Doritos Rollitos may in fact be the most delicious things I have ever tasted, and not even close-ups of other women's cellulite will make me stop eating them.

6) My right boob is almost a full cup size smaller than the left one, which is still only an A-cup, and my entire chest is losing its Lolita-like appeal as the years go by. So if I get the eye-bag fat injections and the upper-lip tissue restructuring it would really make sense to just get a boob job at the same time.

7) No, no it wouldn't. Because that? Looks incredibly painful. Beyond painful. Although I imagine recovering from plastic surgery is a little worse when there's a FUCKING CAMERA being shoved in your poor, swollen and mutilated face constantly. Still. Hell no.

8) Surgery-related blood and guts and even some quick shots of boobage are okay, but ass-cracks are still too hot for prime-time TV. You either pixelate that out or make the doctor spread a little hand towel over it. Hee.

9) The blond girl in tonight's episode look(ed) a LOT like this girl I knew in high school so I got out my yearbook to look up her name. Not her. But then I Googled her and she's some sort of Pennsylvania beauty queen now. Her! A beauty queen! Talk about ducklings and swans and baby chickens and all that.

10) Even though FOX has probably produced eleventy billion hours' worth of reality television since Survivor appeared on the scene, and yet they still don't. Get. It. Stop with the vaguely foreignish female hosts who do absolutely nothing useful and stop with the McMansion settings and crazy violinning and oh my GAWD stop with the showing the SAME DAMN FOOTAGE SEVEN TIMES IN THE SAME HOUR-LONG SHOW. "Before we meet sad-chubby-blond-girl-number-four, let's have one last look at her arrival, the arrival that we just showed you 45 minutes ago when she actually arrived and then showed again at the halfway point and then one more time before the last commercial break. But it has such a good sound bite about how sad she was, so one last time, whee!"

11) The Halle Berry-narrated domestic violence PSA that ran constantly during tonight's episode? With the whole "Does he tell you he loves you when he's hitting you?" Was more depressing than anything, ever. Does FOX tell The Swan contestants it loves them too? Or will that all depend on the ratings?

"Delete Post" Cannot Be Undone. Ever!

For you lucky few who came here over the weekend and got to read a certain post that was written when a certain girl was a little...tipsy? Congrats. In 20 years? When amalah.com is the blog equivalent to The Beatles? You can say you were there to read the Long Lost Forgotten Post, because it ain't coming back. TypePad ate it. Poof! Goodbye.

And believe it or not, I didn't write that particular post in Word first, save and then cut and paste into TypePad. I know you're shocked, but as I recall...well, actually I don't recall anything about writing the post, which was kind of the point. Anyway.

My mommy reads this site and I already upset her enough with all the fucks and damns and whatnot so I can't give her the impression that her baby girl's life is all about the drinkin' ana' cussin' ana' fightin' ana' feudin'. So bye-bye post.

Although really, how sad is it that Amy gets sloshed and decides to post something and ends up writing about old ER reruns, her dinner and her purse? And also that she can't spell the word "drunk" but can spell "sanctimonious?" Well, actually...that's pretty damn funny.

Shit. Sorry about deleting it. I'll get drunk and post again real soon, promise.

The FAQs of 'Kus

One post, two sites = Score one for my lazy ass!

As I mentioned earlier, I've been working on a Frequently Asked Questions for the Haiku Smackdown site. In my head. Every morning. While I brush my teeth. No one has actually asked me all of these questions, but I'm answering them anyway, because...

Well, just because. I already posted them over at www.haikusmackdown.com, but because I love them so I'm putting them here too. So once you read them here you can go read them again at the other site! AND you can go to www.jlbrigade.com and see what clever blurby thing I write about them there! It's like reruns, only cooler.

So here it is: Everything You Wanted To Know About The Thursday Haiku Smackdown But Were Afraid To Ask Or Simply Hadn't Cared Enough To Ask.

Where the Eff I've Been

You know when you take a couple days off work and then come back and suddenly there's so much work to be done you kinda just want to curl up in a little ball under your desk and cry? Or is that only me?

Anyway. I'm almost ready to start talking about the Heartbreaking Weekend of Unbearable Suckage, but not quite yet. Maybe later today. In the meantime, I have been up to some pretty damn funny stuff if you've missed me here the past day or so.

All Amalaholics are encouraged to go check out:

The Judith Light Brigade site. If you haven't bookmarked it yet, what the hell is wrong with you? Not only is it super-functional and tells you when a seriously funny group of people update their respective journals, it has seriously funny little blurby things about the new entries. Most of which are written by me. And I crack my ass up. Shut up. I'm entitled.

Four brand new episodes of the seriously funny animated soap opera that I write with Lauren, whom I love more than nacho chips with queso. We were on a bit of a roll yesterday and man, we are freaking BRILL. YANT. As Lauren said yesterday, we don't tell each other where we're taking the story or what the hell we're making the characters do. We just "just fly-by-the-seat-of-our-proper-asses." Haaaa. So check out Parts 22, 23, 24 and 25 of The Bold & The Bloglicious saga. No idea what I'm talking about? Check the sidebar for Parts 1-21 and get all caught up with the highly-acclaimed and hugely-popular craziness. It's a good 20 minutes of good-ole-fashioned-time-wastin'.

And of course, I was rocking the Thursday Haiku Smackdown yesterday. I'll be posting at the official site later today announcing the new Grand Haiku Master(s) and maybe (if you're good) an incredibly ambitious Haiku FAQ that I've been working on in my head every morning while I brush my teeth. (I'm an author on four different weblogs, people. I'm multi-tasking all the damn time.) I would also like to take this opportunity to announce that Mindy and I are in love and getting married. Send expensive gifts.

So. Even though I haven't posted here, I have not forsaken you. Just look around...you can find Amalah everywhere. In the whispering morning breeze. On the face of every child. The smile of every puppy. And in the places I just told you about.

Amalah Makes Some Demands

To: The Universe, c/o Karma Payable Department
From: Amalah
Re: Services Rendered and Services Owed
Description of Services: Complete and Utter Royal Screwjob

Herewith, please find Amalah’s (hereafter known as “Injured Party") demands for payback from the Universe (hereafter known as “the Universe”).

1) The Universe shall not fuck with Injured Party for a minimum of six (6) months.

2) The Injured Party and her immediate friends and family shall be granted good health, clear skin, piles of money and funny blog topics about bad things that happen to OTHER PEOPLE.

2a) Injured Party shall be allowed to smoke without repercussions.
2b) Injured Party shall lose 10 pounds without giving up carbs, sugar or alcohol. Injured Party makes this demand because the weight is only there because of the medicines she takes as a result of the Universe not getting a move on item three (3) already.

3) The Universe will knock Injured Party up and shall do it soon, bitch.

3a) Morning sickness shall not be included in the knocking up process.
3b) Morning sickness shall continue to plague that one girl whom the Injured Party intensely dislikes for the remainder of her pregnancy, that fertile bitch.

4) John Stevens shall be voted off American Idol tonight for the love of all that is good and holy.

4a) Omarosa will shut the fuck up.
4b) Ambah and Bahstun Rob will quit with the lovey-dovey nonsense and screw each other over on Survivor in some spectacular fashion. A bitchslap would be nice, too.
4c) Gilmore Girls will stop upsetting the Injured Party with the crazy plot twists. The Injured Party takes this show too damn seriously and would prefer if it stayed happy and funny and fluffy. When evil schemes and meanness infiltrate Stars Hollow, it hurts the Injured Party’s stomach. Richard Gilmore and Mrs. CuteDean? Am totally looking in your direction.

5) No car problems of any kind, including a) flat tires, b) dead batteries, c) non-functioning AC on long car rides in 85 degree weather, d) big-ass scrapes on the bumper from that JACKASS in that FUCKING RANGE ROVER who BUMPS his way out of parking spaces EVERY GODDAMN DAY, e) car doors slamming back on limbs and/or appendages, or f) any type of recall from Ford which sucks so hard.

5a) Yes, all of the above have been inflicted on the Injured Party in the past few months, Universe. You suck.

6) TypePad will never crash again as soon as the Injured Party hits “Preview,” thus losing her whole damn post. Like this time. It’s never as funny when she retypes and is also more bitter and crotchety-sounding.

Of Bug Guts and Birthdays

I woke up this morning with a huge (yooge!) bee on my pillow. It made scary buzzing noises and I had to use a legal sized folder to coax it back outside. I don't kill bugs that big...not for any bug-loving-all-God's-creatures kind of crap...but because I can't kill anything that makes an audible crunching/squishing sound and leaves substantial bug guts behind. Eesh.

Today has actually been all about the bug guts, interestingly enough. My poor car was covered in them after our long drive to and from Vermont so I took it to a car wash over lunch. So a $6 car wash and some intense squeegee action later, my windshield is about 73% bug gut free. Splat, suckahs.

And I might as well BE bug guts, because I forgot my friend Andie's birthday on Thursday. Like, completely. La la la I'm all obsessed with my foot and then it's off to Vermont and then what? My best friend's birthday? The friend who is getting married in September and whose MAID of HONOR just so happens to be ME? Her birthday? She's soooo going to make me wear something salmon-colored with big puffy sleeves. Happy belated birthday, Andie. Love, Squishy Bug Guts.

(I just ate part of the paper bag that my sandwich is wrapped in. Serves my ass right.)

So today is pretty much back to normal then. Early morning bee-related drama, work, errands, Amy's special brand of idiocy and then the usual lunch-related eating paper/tainted yogurt/moldy mayonaise drama. Perhaps later this afternoon I shall fall down and injure something or get trapped in an elevator or lock myself out of my car. Or all three! It's gonna be a great day!

Plus, I do believe I took some pictures during our Vermont trip, although they're all from the very first day. Before the trip took a turn for the horrific. Actually, I think the camera was put away permanently before we even got out of Jersey. But Jersey is very scenic so maybe I took some interesting ones. Of like, industrial yards or something. So stay tuned for um...that.

On second thought, I'll do my best to fall down and injure myself in some comical fashion instead.

Back, Bitches

Well. Yes.

I'm back.

I'm back from what can unequivocally be considered the Worst Vacation Ever. Evah. But more on that later. I cannot even bear to be all rehashing it yet. Plus I have about 178 emails to get through and desperately need a nap. If only there was some way to do both at the same damn time.

In the meantime, here are just a few random thoughts in preparation for the full-blown Worst Vacation Ever Evah post:

- The best way to kick off a vacation is to get a call from your mom as you arrive at your destination that your dad is in the hospital. Because that thing? That nearly killed him before? Yeah, it's back. (He's doing better now. Kinda.)

- Speeding tickets are funny when they happen to your spouse. And foot injuries guarantee that karma will not bite you in the ass for laughing at him, at least not for this road trip.

- Only the quadruple black diamond death trails are open at Killington right now. So for somebody who can only ski the fluffy green bunny wunny trails, this was a weekend of a lot of Sitting Around On My Ass While Everybody Else Skied.

- Internet access in Killington, VT consists of 10 free hours a month and then $4.95 an hour after that. In the words of Coleen: "Where the fuck are you? In 1984?"

- Food poisoning. Lots of vomiting. Always a nice touch.

- I Love the 80s marathons on VH1 are awesome. I watched the entire decade from start to finish, but no one ever mentioned the dial-up rates of 1984.

- They advertise that horrible Philly Cheesesteak Pizza Abomination way too much, and there was a direct correlation between it and the number of times Amy ran to the bathroom to hurl.

- The Breakfast Club is now considered to be an American Movie Classic and as such is shown about 23 times a day. Neo maxi zoom dweebies.

- Your car's air conditioning always stops working on long road trips. Particularly if you just took it in for service a week before.

- But at least our car didn't catch on fire and blow up like that one car on Rt. 87 did. No, seriously. Boom!

- I need an amalah.com assistant, because it's really great to come back to 85 comments offering links to Tranny Porn.